#i really wanna build a spaceship dude

[nickbutnodick]

i CANT build a spaceship i havent yet completed my recording of all local bird species!!! fucking brain, get yourself together bro!

[sol-consort]

Can you imagine tho the aliens reactions when humans all start collectively singing the same song. Like it’s busy in the bar or something, everyone’s doing their own thing, and suddenly Bohemian Rhapsody comes on and every single human in the bar stops what they’re doing to sing along like we’re compelled by some unseen force to do it, maybe some try to pull in their non human friends and get them to join in

You know for a fact Joker and Shepard definitely sang to some stupid y2k songs while sitting on the helm together and roped EDI into joining them.

Especially the meme songs, what's better than a whole ship captain and their pilot singing along to "I LOVE IT!" By Icona pop and Joker really bringing out the vocal cords in the "I CRASHED MY CAR INTO THE BRIDGE. I WATCHED AND LET IT BURN" while in the lower engineering decks, they're not sure why Liara keeps pinging them all panicking and saying "check on joker pls" and "is element zero inflammable?" and "coordinates for the nearest bridge?"

Humans L O V E joint community behaviour. We would do so many things for the bit, walk slower if we hear a song we like in a nearby shop, sing along if it's in a bar or a concert, drum our fingers to the beat if we're in a car with a strangers, have a rhythm to our footsteps when listening to music through headphones.

There are so many different songs, so many different instruments! A vast ocean of potential with more than a 100k songs being uploaded per day based on Spotify.

Hell have you seen these videos of military marches where the soldiers have to sing along to something like "I'm a barbie girl" or "call me maybe" and not laugh as a way to build discipline?

I bet you alliance marines still use the same technique with humans, so all the alliance ships and personals have so many songs memorised back from their training days.

Captian Anderson taking the crew to after a successful mission to unwind and the bar just happened to play a tone familiar to the human ear? Of course the literal whole drunk crew of the Normandy will sing like their it's their last day alive. Some yelling, some quietly, some so offbeat but confident and others nailing the beat perfectly but don't wanna look like show offs.

Humans are so adorable omfg, they love doing things in groups and they'd join stranger humans in singing along to a song they like. Humans love playing even as adults and singing is just a form of play. So is poker, billiard and so many things.

Garrus would definitely be roped into it, give him a hard hitting song about being a winner and he's so on board with the rowdy humans tugging him along to join and commenting on how they've never heard a turian sing before.

Tali would be so shy about it but maybe if it's a nerdy song about something she loves? Some human must have wanted to fuck spaceships and wrote something about it.

Oh and parades and ceremonies too! World cup opening and closing songs! The fan cheers in matches and concerts! Humans invented being cheerleaders and each human has one inside them ready to come out the second their alien friend is hesitant about something and needs a bit of enabling from good old chaotic humans.

Dude, just imagine karaoke night with all human songs. In ME1 boring rover planet exploration, Shepard and Ashley definitely sing along to a playlist they had Kaidan install into the car and he snuck some of his favourite songs in their to join them with.

With time and cycling team members, at first, the aliens are weirded out, wtf is this some kind of cult.

But then they're like.

And it just becomes a tradition to sing along while on long car rides on planets. Sometimes, you catch Wrex humming the lyrics while on long elevator rides. Other times, Liara will have the song playing in the background while she works.

It's just so fun to introduce the aliens to how colorful life can be when you sing along, dance without knowing all the steps and being a silly little race.

On a less pop and enthusiast drunks note.

There are also the emotional songs, ones from sad movies or plays. The known songs people play in wedding slow dances or after a break up. A bunch of humans would sing it slowly, lovingly, emotions showing through the sheer importance this song ment for them.

[ternfic]

Penance

Chapter Eight: World On Fire

The party was quickly declared over, and the guests (both invited and not) were sent home. Alfred, Bruce, and Barbara had their work cut out for them, trying to get Dick to go to bed. “But I wanna help too!” he argued, following as they made their way to the Batcave.

“Dick, we know you’re worried too,” Barbara soothed, “but this isn’t a mission for a child, not even one as capable as you. You can hold your own against a bunch of supervillains, but ghosts play by a whole different set of rules.”

“Let me tell you, this guy was a real nasty piece of work,” Vitruvius continued his explanations, completely ignoring the Bat-family’s dilemma.

Metalbeard rolled his eye. “Kind of gathered as much when that clown over there said he be a ‘matey’ of his.”

“I don’t have a clue where he came from, he just appeared out of the blue one day, leading a band of circus performers. Master Builders, every one of them. But he could use magic as well.”

“So like an evil version of you?” Unikitty gasped.

“Never thought of it that way. I suppose he was. He seemed very charming and pleasant at first glance, but he was quite the actor. I wasn’t fooled- I only met him one time, but there was something very chilling about him. And I think he was actually the cause of a lot of the unrest between Master Builders and the average citizens, in recent decades.”

“And what did he stand to gain from that?” Batman asked.

“Besides what he viewed as entertainment? No idea.” He glanced at Benny next, who could only shrug.

“It’s coming back to me, but not all at once… All I can tell you at this point is that it wasn’t anything good.” He turned back to Vitruvius. “So what happened to him?”

“I can tell you that,” Batman answered. “It was the only time Business and Bad Cop ever came to Gotham. This ‘Ringmaster’ guy brought his circus into town. I didn’t go see it, dude gave me the creeps. But they came to arrest the entire troupe. It was probably the biggest disaster of a raid I’d ever heard of. A lot of people died.” Vitruvius nodded.

“The fire…”

Almost as one they turned to look at Lucy. “What?” Emmet asked.

“I…” She started to tremble. “I think I was there. I knew something seemed familiar about Gotham, the first time Bruce brought me to visit. I was little- I don’t remember much, what I can remember is just… flashes. Fire. Screaming. Wood splintering, cables snapping. Robots, everywhere. The most… furious green eyes I’d ever seen…” She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I remembered hearing about it, years ago, and I was happy enough to pin the blame on Sirius and Cary, but. I don’t think that was the case after all. I think- I think it was actually the Ringmaster that started the fire, that tried to bring the tent down to kill everyone. The audience. His own troupe. Men, women, children, all alike. It didn’t matter, so long as he got the two who dared to stand up to him.”

Dick’s arguments had died down as he listened, eyes wide and watery. “He- he really killed kids?”

Lucy nodded, as Emmet wrapped her up in a tight embrace. She gratefully leaned against him. “I’d never forgive myself if that monster did something to hurt you. So please, Dick, just… stay home. Don’t make us have to worry about you on top of worrying about saving those idiots.”

“Okay…” the boy agreed softly. Alfred took the opportunity to usher him off to bed.

“The Batwing’s not big enough to carry all of us, we’ll have to build a-”

“Spaceship??” Benny asked hopefully. Everyone but Emmet rolled their eyes at him. The construction worker just looked concerned for him.

“I think a spaceship would be a good idea. It worked pretty well last time, didn’t it?” Benny barely waited for him to finish that sentence before he’d zipped off in a flash, throwing parts together.

“So how are we going to stop him?” Lucy asked, turning to Vitruvius. “If he was such a powerful mage in life, being a dead one on Halloween night is a terrifying thing to consider.”

“I’m still working on that,” the ghost-wizard admitted. “Unfortunately, a feasible plan may hinge upon Benny’s memory, and how much of it returns by the time we get there.”

“That’s… not quite the answer I was hoping for, but I guess there’s nothing for it,” Lucy sighed, watching as Benny put his spaceship together. He looked more like he was looking for a distraction than genuinely enjoying himself.

Cary woke suddenly, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might beat its way right out of his rib cage. That hadn’t been a mere nightmare, he knew. There was no sense of Alastar trying to calm him, no panic from Keelan sharing his terror. His head was quiet, so quiet, and no amount of desperate calling to his brothers got an answer from them. That… that hadn’t been Sirius, coming back to the room earlier.

He was unable to see. He couldn’t feel a blindfold, so either it was just that dark, or something else had rendered him blind. And he was bound. No matter how much he struggled, the bindings wouldn’t budge. They had to be magic in nature. Somebody didn’t want him to escape. He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his head against his knees, letting out a shaky breath.

He’d sworn he would never fail his brothers again, and yet he’d done just that. They were gone again, and he’d done nothing to stop it. Just slept right through while they were attacked.

Slowly, Bad Cop came to realize it wasn’t as quiet as he thought. Someone was whispering. Several someones, actually, possibly even more. They were barely audible, but he could just pick out what they were saying. What they were calling him.

‘Traitor.’

‘Monster.’

‘Murderer.’

“No, I didn’t kill anyone!”

‘Ah, but you did.’ The whisper sounded so close to his ear, he startled. ‘Have you forgotten? You pulled the trigger. And you hid like the coward you are when your brother defied Lord Business, you let him get erased. Even tonight, you ignored them, when they could feel something was wrong. You didn’t even bother to try protecting them this time.’

‘You might not always be directly responsible, but you are a killer.’

Bad Cop was unable to stop the sob that escaped him. It was his fault, that his brothers were… And he knew he was next.

And Benny would never get to find out what happened to any of them.

Keelan had instinctively put up a fight the moment that… thing had taken over his body, but it was a battle he had quickly lost. Cary and Alastar were used to squabbling for dominance, but that wasn’t a skill they’d passed on to him, and really, this was barely anything like when one of his brothers was fronting instead of him. The feel of the other mind that had overridden him was so cold, so alien, he’d been caught completely off guard.

At least it hadn’t tried to go poking about in his mind, it felt like it was stretched too thin to focus on doing one more thing. He continued trying to jab at it, dislodge it, distract it, something that might help him regain control, all to no avail.

He’d screamed when it had used him to attack Sirius, struggling and clawing for control, and fought harder still when they’d run into Alastar (NOT DEAD!!), until he’d worn himself out. He was thankful that they’d managed to hide themselves for the time being; it gave him a reprieve to try to recover his own energy. But they wouldn’t be able to hide for long- whatever this thing was, it wasn’t just possessing him, but the hotel as well. Its attention was simply elsewhere for the time being.

…He could use that to his advantage. It was enough of an opening that he could piggyback on its consciousness, if not dislodge it entirely. He summoned every ounce of aggression he could manage, pressing against its mind, trying to follow where the source was. Maybe he could see its plans. It reared back in shock, and for a moment- just a brief, fleeting moment- he had freedom.

And then it clamped down on him even more forcefully than before, pushing him down until he nearly blanked out. Satisfied that he was successfully subdued, the pressure eased up just before he faded entirely.

“Not yet, little freak. I still have use for you.”

[roseverdict]

IDs for the above images: The first is a Twitter screenshot showing a quote retweet of a tweet with an image of its own. The base tweet from vittorio @.IterIntellectus, an account with a blue checkmark and an emoji that might be either ✳️ or *️⃣, reads: "my political ideology is whatever leads to this." The image Vittorio is using looks almost like a stylized digital painting of a guy in Roman armor standing in front of a well-cared-for mansion built with Greco-Roman architecture, an orange sports car parked in front of the mansion, and a sleek, fantastical spaceship soaring overhead through a partly-cloudy blue sky. The retweet, from Julie @.h0mmelette, reads: "i think the best way to describe some reactionaries is that their ideology is pictures." End first image. The second is Tumblr tags that read, "#vague roman empire + spaceship utopia + sports car really sums it up #the nostalgia for a fabricated golden past #the vision of a better future the way a child thinks about it #and conspicuous consumption in the basest most simple-minded sense." End IDs.

Ntm the fact that this looks AI-ish. Something about the car's front wheels- idk if the "wheel well" is the inner part of the spot the wheels go, the outer part, or both, but the part in the image I'm talking about is the outer part- feels lopsided/unbalanced, the far side mirror is floating, the dude's cape doesn't seem to really have any kind of cohesive design for where the gold accents go, I also wanna know how his shinguards are staying on, some of the finer details on the building have that incoherent garbled look we used to see a lot in older generated "photos" of hands and faces… it's all just the cherry on top.

also don't go in the notes right now they've been infected with shit idiot brain fungus

[implausiblyjosh]

Building a TTRPG, Part 2

Part 1

Today I want to focus on making spaceships in the Star Trek TTRPG. Last time when I was outlining the game I floated the idea of each feature being tied to Ship HP, which I think is going to stick. I'm writing it down in the Ship Mechanics doc right now, even!

Quick aside, how do y'all organize your TTRPGs when writing? I've found tackling each core part of the game as it's own doc is easier for me to wrap my head around. Also means I can organize docs when handing them out as a big folder for playtesting online. Here's how that looked for my Pokemon TTRPG, and here's how that looks now for this Star Trek TTRPG so far. Just makes it easier when I'm like "okay, I wanna make Basic Moves today", ya know?

Also, I think I'm gonna start making mechanics and ideas into proper nouns. I'll bold and capitalize them as they come up. This is mostly for me to be able to organize my thoughts better, hopefully it's not too distracting.

Anyways, there's a couple things I want to do here. I want to narrow down what Features of The Ship are and how they work. A way I like to do this type of work in fan games is to map it on the thing I'm basing it on. I'm imagining a Feature being something like the holodeck, the transporter rooms, or the engine room. These are things that give benefits to the rest of The Ship, and help you in specific ways when you're in that room.

For example, The Enterprise D would be The Ship. This is the thing that lets our characters go to different places, do their missions, and solve their problems. The Holodeck on the Enterprise D would be the Feature. This is a thing Enterprise D has, and when it's disabled it can't be used anymore.

To give Features flexibility, I want them two have two types of mechanics associated with them. First, I want them to have PbtA style Moves, and secondly I want them to have what I'm calling Abilities. Moves are active, your character is doing something to trigger them. Abilities are passive, they're just a sort of mundane thing that happens because the Feature is active.

Here's an example take from my doc, if that was all a little rambling.

The Bridge – The “brain” of the Ship. Most every position can be done from this room, communications can be given from here with ease, and the captain is usually here to give orders and command the Ship.

Fire When Ready When you attack another Ship from The Bridge, roll 2d6 + Tactical. On a 6-, someone else picks 1. On a 6-9, pick 1. On a 10+, pick 2. • Deal damage to the opposing Ship. • Select where the opposing Ship takes damage. • You do not leave yourself open for attack. • You can give yourself 1 Advantage in this battle.

Let Me Take The Lead When you Plan On The Fly from The Bridge, any character on The Ship can help with your Plan On The Fly Move.

Abilities • As long as you are on The Bridge, you can access every other Feature from this room as if you were in or near that Feature. • As long as The Bridge is active, you can communicate with anyone else on The Ship with ease.

Does this make sense? I think it makes sense. I want each Feature to have a purpose and have a benefit, and I think this is a really good way to do it! Hopefully it's not too overwhelming for players... or me, as the dude who has to come up with all of these.

Speaking of, let's list those Features out here. This isn't final, as I may add or remove from this list, but this is a solid starting point.

Standard Features:

Bridge

Shuttlebay/Cargobay

Transporter

Warp Core/Engine Room

Sickbay

Barracks/Quarters

Mess Hall/Lounge

Optional Features:

Holodeck

Alternate FTL

Stellar Cartography

Arboretum

Replicator Center

Theater

Cybernetics

Hydroponics

Battle Bridge

Emergency Separations

For now, adding to the Features is what I'm gonna work on. I might also add other ideas down as they come up, like that "Plan On The Fly" Move referenced above, or the "Tactical" stat that I bring up for the "Red Alert" Move. But that's what I want to start with, how The Ship in my Star Trek TTRPG will work.

Something else I want to note is that The Ship doesn't really have stats (outside of HP, sorta). I think the way it's used in Star Trek is way more as a tool and not as a character, so I want The Ship to work in such a way where it's basically just augmenting the things the player characters can do. Hitting something with a laser is a measure of a character's skills as opposed to The Ship stats, you know?

Anyways, that's all for now. Gonna keep poking at this idea and see if I can get some ideas down for every Feature so far. Talk to you next time!

[ecto-american]

The Other Side

Phic Phight Oneshot for Kiinotasha and KC: (AU) Born a halfa and raised in the Ghost Zone by his mother, Danny struggles with his human identity when a permanent man made portal appears in the Ghost Zone.

On AO3 and FFN

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

Danny never questioned his life until that man made portal spawned. He never forgot when he first saw it six years ago while playing with Youngblood.

Naturally, they were playing aliens and spacemen, Danny's favorite. Earlier in the play session, they had found it, and it was deemed part of their spaceship. It was just a metal outline, an octagon. Thick enough that they could sit, and they pretended that the limited space was the entrance. Obviously on the left side was space, and the right side was their ship. Eventually their moms called them home, and during dinner when asked about his day, he told his mom about it.

She frowned, and she asked him for more details. Having played on it all day, he described it perfectly. His mom paled, and she forbid him from going there again, but she didn't expand on why.

He saw no reason to be afraid. It was just a metal shape. There were far more dangerous places in the Ghost Zone. So the next day, he told Youngblood about his mom's weird reaction. His mom had reacted the same, but didn't say why. His dad explained that it was dangerous, but not what about it was dangerous. Danny didn't have a dad, but he was sure that if he did, he probably would have said the same thing. But neither child could get it. What was dangerous about a shape?

So they just played with it again the next day, and they lied to their moms about what they did.

Two years later, another ghost had join to make them a trio. Her name was Box Lunch, and she was honestly a lot of fun. But she was still a girl, and they didn't tell her about their secret fun location until they were sure she didn't have cooties. When they showed her, she instantly knew what it was.

"That's a ghost portal!" she exclaimed. Youngblood and Danny thought she was stupid. Ghost portals didn't stay anywhere permanently. They opened and closed at random, when the human world and Ghost Zone would temporarily merge and allow for a rip to tear. But it always mended back together quickly.

"No it's not," Youngblood scowled. Box Lunch made a face at him.

"Yeah-huh!" she insisted. "My mommy and daddy get into the human world all the time! She said some people there have been trying to make a permanent portal to here!"

"Nu-uh!" Youngblood argued. "My dad said that humans wouldn't do that, they're more afraid of us than we are of them!"

"Yeah-huh!" Box Lunch said more forcefully. "My parents were human once, they said that people constantly wanna hunt us in the human world! And that they're coming here!"

"If they're afraid of us, then why come here?" Youngblood challenged.

"What else would it be?" Box Lunch asked, crossing her arms.

"It's a weirdo ghost's lair!"

And as they bickered back and forth, Danny had remained quiet. He didn't know how to feel about any of this. His friends often forgot that Danny wasn't just a ghost. He was also human.

Not that he was a ghost who was once human, that died. He was both, and he always had been. Born that way, according to his mom, because his dad was human. Danny didn't know too much about him, and he never really thought to ask.

He knew that his name was Jack, and how he looked like. His mom had hung a photo of him in his room so that he'd know; blue eyes, black hair, with a square jaw and in a distinctive orange jumpsuit. The orange suit always reminded him of the blue one his mom wore underneath a lab coat. She said he looked just like his dad when he was in his human form, and he could absolutely see it. Though as a ghost he had white hair that he seemingly inherited from nobody, with his mom's light blue skin and yellow-green eyes. As a ghost, he matched with a black jumpsuit, though as a human, he preferred regular clothes.

Most ghosts had learned of Danny's true nature early on as the news slowly spread when he was born. They loved him and accepted him as one of them. He could go out into the Zone as a human, but it always felt weird. So he was always a ghost.

That night, as he got tucked in for bed, he decided to bring the metallic object up again.

"Box Lunch said that the big metal shape is a permanent ghost portal," he blurted out. His mom stared at him with wide yellow eyes, and so he knew that Box Lunch was actually right. "Is it?"

She sighed, sitting on the edge of his bed.

"I believe so," she confirmed. Danny sat up.

"Is that why you don't want me going near it?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. Danny cocked his head curiously.

"But if I'm also human, wouldn't they be okay with me?" he wondered. His mom paused for a long, long time. "I'm also one of them."

"I don't know, honey," she admitted. He could tell that she did know. She kissed his forehead. "I'll talk to you about it when you're a little bit older, okay?"

"Promise?"

"I promise. Now good night, sweetie."

It was four more years before it really became relevant again. He had essentially forgotten about the unoperational portal as homeschooling, other friends, and general undead life had continued on for him and his mom.

Youngblood didn't age, since he was once human and died, and so as Danny got older, they hung out less. While Box Lunch, a born ghost, grew, he became distant from her too for unrelated reasons. Danny wasn't alone, however. For a while, he hung out with other ghosts who had died young before he met his best friend. He was a bit older than him when he had died, sixteen to his fourteen, but Johnny 13 (and his shadow) and him had almost instantly become friends and hung out nearly every day. Often his girlfriend joined them too. His mom also allowed him to keep a newly dead dog that had followed him home, that alternated from a puppy to a large hulking beast of a monster dog. Danny named him Cujo.

Ghost Writer provided lessons in the arts on Tuesdays and Thursdays for him and a few other younger ghosts, which did include Johnny and Kitty. On the other days, his mom homeschooled him in her passion: the sciences. His favorite memories were of him and his mother in her lab, doing home experiments and building a wide variety of things.

She indulged in whatever nonsense he wanted to build, which included but wasn't limited to: rock cannon, small spaceships, figuring out how they could grow potatoes on the moon like the man in the martian book did, using ecto energy to cook poptarts.

Often her friend, Technus, but better known to Danny as Uncle Nico, came by to do more of the tech-based stuff. Danny believed that Uncle Nico could do anything with technology. He was one of the ghosts that often went through the natural portals, and whenever he came back, he had something for Danny. Typically game consoles and games, but sometimes fun little useless knick knacks that Danny treasured deeply. He fixed those game consoles many times, and also showed him how to download and install cheats and mods to make them more fun.

And after a morning full of science or the arts, Danny would eat lunch then rush off to play with his friends, Cujo always on his heels.

Looking back, he never did much as a human. He had to resort to his human side to rest, or would default to it if he fell asleep. It felt weird being in human form amongst ghosts, and so he was just always a ghost. He never thought much about it, and nobody ever asked him to be a human around them. It was just how things were.

On the day he'd never forget, it was just him and Johnny. His girlfriend had opted not to come. Danny couldn't remember the original topic, but it made him remember the portal. As soon as he told Johnny about it, the two idly scratching Cujo as the dog slept in between them in puppy form, the ghost's eyes lit up excitedly.

"Dude! We have to check it out!" Johnny insisted.

"I dunno," Danny hesitated. "My mom said that I should stay away."

"Come on, it'll be sick! I've always wanted to go back to the human world," Johnny begged. "And you've never even been there, despite being half-human!"

Danny paused. Well, when you put it like that...

"Okay!" he agreed. He floated up from his seat a bit so he could untangle his legs to stand. Cujo immediately got up from his spot laying near them, tail wagging excitedly. "Let's go! I think I still know where it is!"

It had changed since he last saw it. It now had huge yellow and black doors in place of the previous blank space, and it seemed somehow bigger than he remembered it years ago. But it was unmistakably the man made portal.

Even now, he didn't get what would be too scary about it that his mom would encourage him to stay far away. It was just a door.

"This is so fucking cool," Johnny whispered as he touched the door. "Imagine...no more trying to hunt down a portal. We can just come and go as we please...seeing our lost loved ones...seeing my mom again…It's been so long...I dunno if she'd even remember me..."

Danny didn't say anything, but he did begin to think and truly wonder for the first time what his dad was like. His mom never talked about him, and he never really asked. He and his mom were happy, and he also had Uncle Nico. Was his dad kind? Did he also like science? Why wasn't he here? Did his dad even know about him?

"Do you think we can open it?" Danny asked. Cujo licked his fingers, and Danny scratched his head. Johnny glanced over his shoulder at him.

"I dunno," he admitted. His hand turned into a fist and he knocked on the door. "It seems really solid. I don't think we can just break it or something."

"Hm. Lemme see," Danny mused. He came closer, and he put his hand on the door. It was cold, and Johnny was right; it was metallic, just like the outer edge he used to play on, and it would not break easily. His finger traced the middle line of the two doors. "Hm. Maybe we can pry the door open."

"The humans made this," Johnny spoke. Danny stared at him. No shit. "No, no, I mean. Maybe you should do something to it as a human." Danny thought on this, and he shrugged. Couldn't hurt.

His transformation rings came and went, leaving him in his human state. He was just in a t-shirt and jeans today, and he stayed floating near the portal.

His hand had barely touched the portal when it opened for him.

Danny gasped in shock, jerking his hand back as it opened. Johnny had also jumped, going backwards a bit, and Cujo's fur went up as he barked. It fully opened, and he couldn't see anything but the green ooze. This wasn't anything like Uncle Nico had mentioned natural portals being like. They normally acted like a window you could see through. But it was an unnatural portal made by man.

"Maybe this isn't such a-" Johnny began, but Danny had already stepped through.

There was a weird in between area that shined bright blue that he never heard Uncle Nico describe. But in this in between, he could see exactly what the ghost had mentioned. He knew he was still in the Zone, but he could look out the portal into the human world like a window.

A man in an orange jumpsuit, with black hair that was graying, was sitting in a room that reminded him very much of his mom's lab. He was staring at the portal in confusion, likely because it had randomly opened, and Danny instantly knew who it was. He had no idea if his dad could see him, but he found himself rushing backwards, and back into the Zone.

The second he returned, he became a ghost again, and he silently began to fly away as he tried to process. Johnny asked no questions, only following, Cujo following them both.

That night, at dinner, he finally asked.

"What was dad like?"

His mom stared at him for a moment.

"Well, he was very sweet," she said slowly. "Very bubbly personality. Always went out of his way to help his friends." She smiled softly as she talked about him. "Adored fudge."

"Did he like science?" Danny wondered. His mom gave a short laugh.

"Oh boy he adored it. Not the best at it, but he had a lot of enthusiasm," he replied. "We used to do experiments together all the time."

Danny stared down at his food as he thought. He looked up to her, and he could tell that she already knew what he was going to ask.

"How come I never met him?" he wondered. She sighed.

"...He doesn't like ghosts," she replied. "Aspiring ghost hunter when I met him, actually. I was alive then. Had the same ambitions." At his shocked look, she laughed again. "I know, ironic. We had dated for about two years officially. But then...I died. It was winter, and I was driving late at night during a snowstorm. My car slid off the road, and into a river. And I died from my injuries. I found that I could disguise myself as human, and I was in denial. So I just...continued on."

"...Why?" he asked. His mom shrugged in defeat.

"I guess I just didn't want to admit that it was over. I hadn't done everything I wanted to do yet. I was still in college, and I felt like my life had been forcibly finished before it had even truly started," she admitted. "Jack had proposed, but I had declined. I was too afraid to tell him. He began pursuing ghost hunting more seriously as a profession and building weapons and portals. I found out I was having you, and he was so excited to be a dad. I began getting scared. I didn't know how long I could continue the lie. I didn't know how it all would affect you. Then the police found my car and body, and I knew I couldn't avoid the inevitable any longer. So I left. I had no clue how to face him, or even how safe you might be if we talked. Especially after you were born, and I realized that you were half ghost."

The more she talked, she more somber she became. By the end, she was sniffling a little. Guilt began to wash over him.

"Have you ever talked to him again? Like after I was born?" he wondered. She shook her head no. "How come you've never taken me to the human world?"

"I had considered it. But it's too dangerous," she explained. "Humans aren't like ghosts. If they knew that you were also ghost...you wouldn't wanna find out what happens."

"...Do you regret any of it?" Do you regret me?

She smiled softly despite the conversation.

"You were the best thing to ever happen to me," she told him. "I may have been very anxious about being alone, and how you may turn out despite it all. But you were born healthy and perfect in every way. You're absolutely the light of my afterlife."

Danny smiled back, feeling some reassurance. His mom stood up, leaning over to peck his forehead before picking up her plate. He heard Cujo scramble out from under the table, ears up in excitement.

"I think I'll finish this later," she told him. "I'm not too hungry tonight." She glanced down at the dog. "This isn't for you."

Cujo whined, following her as she put her plate in the microwave. Danny nodded, sparing a small smile to Cujo and ushering for him to come over. He slipped him a piece of chicken as his mom left.

Later that night, Danny couldn't sleep. He was too busy sorting out his rushing thoughts. He was of course still him. Nothing really changed, but there was this new growing emptiness. Danny was still Danny, but there was a whole other side to him that knew nothing about. It began to eat at him more and more. Who was this human side besides just human Danny who lived in the Ghost Zone? He didn't know.

He now wished that his mom had taken him to the human world before so that he could know. She did say that there was a risk in the humans knowing he was also a ghost, which he didn't get. The ghosts accepted him as one of their own, so why wouldn't the humans? He didn't get humans at all. And he needed to know more about them. He was one of them.

By breakfast, his mind was made up.

After an unusually boring lesson with Ghost Writer together, Danny immediately went to Johnny once their small class of sorts were dismissed.

"I have to go back." Danny couldn't breath for a moment. "I have to see what it's like. Like you said, I'm also human, and I've never been there. All my unlife, I've been a ghost, here, in the Ghost Zone. My dad's in the human world. And I need to know what it's like to be human. What it means. So I can maybe meet him one day."

Johnny nodded.

"I think I get it," he said slowly. "I'll come with you. Keep you company. I think I could pass for human pretty well, even if I have to say that I have some kind of sickly disease that keeps me pale."

Danny grinned.

"Thanks," he replied. "Come on."

It took no time at all to find the portal. Danny stared up at it, his breath once more stolen as he tried to think of a reason why he shouldn't go through it.

Nothing came to mind.

"It's okay if you don't wanna," Johnny said. Danny shook his head no.

"I have to do this," he replied. "I need to do this."

Johnny patted his back, and that was all the subconscious encouragement Danny needed to turn human and press his hand to the door. Once more, it opened. The fact that he's even able to open it made him know that this was something he was meant to do. He once again stepped through with Johnny right behind him.

[mythicalcanary-literature]

FanFiction - Crossing the Stars

Hetalia (c) Hidekaz Himaruya

FTL: Faster Than Light (c) Subset Games

[CHAPTER LIST]

Author’s Note: This FanFiction is a crossover between the sci-fi strategy game ‘FTL: Faster Than Light’ by Subset Games and the manga/anime called ‘Hetalia’ by Hidekaz Himaruya. The story will follow closely to the events of the rougue-like gameplay in FTL and the human characters will be replaced with the human versions of the national personifications in ‘Hetalia’. This is a fun personal project and it requires no knowledge of either fandom to enjoy this story. I’d encourage checking the original sources out though! Use of screenshots in this FanFiction are to supplement the storytelling to help plot the course of our heroes’ journey in the universe. Whatever the outcome of the gameplay I base this story on (as each playthrough is very unique) will be translated into the plot of this story. i.e. If the spaceship gets damaged, it gets damaged in the story. If a character dies in the game, they’re dead in this fiction. (Please note that I find this kind of storytelling entertaining to play/write and I plan to do more in the future if time allows!)

Chapter 1

The Federation was struggling with the advancing Rebel fleet. One lone ship carried some vital information that could turn the tides of the war and the Federation allied Star Ship APH was going to be their champion.

At the helm was Captain Alfred Jones, a spry young American whom fit the Golden Boy persona to a tee. Sure, he wore square-rimmed glasses but he was still awesome. Don’t let his cute blue-eyed, blond haired, ripped body mislead you! He had the courage to lead his crew to the very end. He was the youngest of his crew and had a Hero Complex but his heart helped him to make some decent moral choices.  His friends might disagree and say that his Hero Complex leads to some very immoral choices, but how could he be wrong? He’s great!

Stationed at weapons was his best friend from the academy called Arthur Kirkland. He was an officer from England and was keen to aid in an international project. Arthur was rather lean in build with messy blond hair that matched his sassy personality. His piercing emerald eyes held a wisdom beyond his years. He was tasked with weaponry because of his strategic skills and fearless judgement. Unfortunately his friends and colleagues often made fun of him for his bushy eyebrows, apparent inability to cook, and his obsession with the occult.

Last but not least was the Frenchman Francis Bonnefoy, a flamboyant friend of Arthur’s and on-and-off enemy of his. Much like Alfred, don’t let his looks fool you! Francis’ long, golden hair, sea blue eyes and wispy blond beard could charm many but he was a calculated thinker. He graduated with flying colours in engineering, which is why he was manning the FTL (Faster Than Light) Drive in the engine room.

The blond trio were in their twenties, young and wise together. If they could avoid their normal bickering maybe they would survive this after all!

“This is the awesome Captain Jones speakin’! Get your butts over to the Bridge, we need to figure out where we’re goin’,” the voice on the PA system called in a chirpy American accent.

“We’re already here, dipshit,” Arthur countered as he and Francis joined him on deck. “We’ve best be quick about this, the Rebel fleet is gaining speed.” He pulled up the Beacon Map on screen and surveyed their options. “Unfortunately we have no data on the properties of each beacon towards the exit into the next sector, but hopefully we can acquire that as we go along. The faster we get to the exit the better, our mission is too important to mess around.”

Alfred was sipping some coffee. “Psh, who’s messin’? I won’t lead you dudes astray! Hero’s promise!”

Francis sighed. “Let’s avoid battles if we can, ze stress gives me wrinkles.”

“We’re in a civilian sector! How bad could it be?”

Arthur glared at him. “You’ve best be joking. This area will be littered with Rebel scouts. We need to get a move on.”

Alfred dumped his coffee cup in the rubbish bin and winked. “Fine. Back to your stations! Off to our first stop! Warp us there, Francis!”

“Aye, sir,” Francis responded as they all returned to their posts.

The S.S. APH warped to the next beacon. If they were expecting a calming tour of space they were greatly mistaken. Alfred’s voice carried over the announcement system. “Hey, y’all! We have a hostile Rebel Scout attacking a small refuelling outpost here. That’s totes uncool so we’re gonna kick their asses! Kirkland, fire up the weapons! Try out our Burst Laser II on their weapons!”

“Aye, Captain! Locked on and charging.”

The small ship was quick with a laser drone circling the S.S. APH. An alert blared. “Shields took a hit!” Alfred informed them quickly. “Just an ion blast, it’ll be back online soon, stay at your posts!”

Francis’ voice joined him on the announcement channel. “The drone knocked out our door controls!”

“That’s alright, I destroyed their weapons room,” Arthur chipped in confidently.

“Good work, Artie!” Alfred cheered. “Lock on the drones now.”

“Roger that!”

The ship shook and Alfred’s voice called out in concern. “Yo, Francis? Are you okay? The shields are back online but it says the engines got hit.”

“I’m fine, mon ami! Minor damage to ze FTL Drive, I’m working on a fix. I’m not hurt.”

Arthur switched focus from the enemy drones to the helm. He cursed as he saw that the interior scan of the enemy vessel had repaired their weapons in the time his lasers charged. Luckily, his final few attacks took out the scout and they could safely proceed. He sighed with relief. “Danger has passed, let’s pull in the loot.”

Alfred congratulated them over the announcement system. “Well done, dudes! Artie, join me in the door room. We’re not moving on until that system is running again.”

“On my way!”

Francis kept an eye on the FTL charge as his friends repaired the door functions.

Arthur hummed as he replaced some fried wires and Alfred ran the diagnostics. Oddly enough, they didn’t chat the entire time. It was nice working together. “Alright, let’s get back to our posts. Who knows how many of these automated ships are lurking?”

���Just don’t lead us into a black hole or something.”

“Hahahaha! Noted.”

Back on the Bridge, Alfred pulled up his upgrades panel. They had enough scrap to give them a new edge. He grinned as he added an extra unit of power to their reactor and instructed the Frenchman to monitor the upgrade. He also treated himself to a more slick piloting upgrade. Having auto pilot help him to dodge attacks with a fifty percent advantage was too amazing to pass up! “I’m gonna jump to the next beacon. Hold on to your asses!”

The crew warped into the aftermath of a battle. The battlefield was littered with debris from Federation ships and Rebels alike. Their allies had been sadly outnumbered but it was clear they fought valiantly and Captain Jones respected that. He began performing a more detailed scan of the wreckage when his sensors picked up an enemy ship. He gasped and switched on the comms. “To battle stations! We have a Rebel Disrupter in our vicinity!”

The orange spaceship faced the S.S. APH head-on and momentarily knocked out the shields, just in time for the orbiting drone to shoot their door systems.

“Why do they always target our doors?” Francis complained over the communications system. “It’s hardly a vital system.”

“I think it was potluck,” Arthur answered as his return fire knocked out the enemy weapons. “Got the weapons room! I’m going to knock out that drone and then alternate. I wouldn’t put it past them to begin repairs.”

“As you are, Kirkland!” Alfred chimed in as he kept an eye on the enemy movements from the helm. They made quick work of this battle and reaped the rewards. “Good job. You know the drill, Artie. Gotta get those door systems online again. Meet me there.”

“Aye, sir!”

The next beacon jump was nothing special. Beautiful, but nothing interesting. Francis stared out of his nearby airlock windows to view the dancing binary star before they warped to the next point.

“I’m gonna do a triangular-shaped loop here, dudes. I detect a merchant nearby and I wanna see what they have,” Captain Jones announced to his crew.

“Don’t let us get caught by the Rebels, Alfred!” Arthur’s voice warned him.

“They’re not close enough yet. We’ll be fine. We can’t risk running low on supplies and if we can get this hull fixed that would be great.”

“Good point. Carry on.”

The next jump led them to a destroyed space station. Alfred had reservations about this as life signs could be detected onboard. He bit his lip and weighed up the options of investigating. On the one hand, if he could recruit a new member that would be useful! Although he was well aware that doing these kind of investigations could risk damage to his current crew’s lives. After a moment of hesitation he decided not to risk his friends. They collected miscellaneous debris to repurpose for their own mission and jumped them to the next beacon.

The crew assembled on the Bridge to witness the hails of a Rock Scout. The Rockmen were a powerful race but these aliens seemed to be relatively friendly. “Hey, this is Captain Alfred F. Jones of the Federation Star Ship APH. How can we be of service today, my dudes?”

Arthur stared at his friend unhappily. “You could use proper English, idiot. Did you learn nothing from etiquette lessons when dealing with foreign entities?”

“There was nothin’ wrong with my lingo, Artie! Don’t make me pull rank.”

“Insufferable git.”

The Rockman Captain simply stared at these weird humans before gaining their attention. “We could really use some help.”

Alfred saluted. “How can we help?”

“Our FTL navigation system is shot. Can you help us to a nearby station for them to patch us up?”

“Sure thing, rock friend! I’m receiving your fuel down payment right now and I’ll key in the co-ordinates you sent.”

“Thank you. We will be one step behind you, following your jump signatures.”

Francis beamed at his Captain as their communications shut off with their neutral acquaintance. “That was very kind of you, Alfred!”

The American beamed. “If we can help anyone in distress on the way we damn well will! We’re still gonna do our planned route unless we’re forced to change direction, but those Rebel scumbags ain’t gonna take all of us down.”

Francis patted him on the back and returned to his post. Arthur shook his head. “I wish you’d let me deal with the foreign comms once in a while, Alfred, but you did well. I’m heading back to weapons. Try to get our hull fixed at the shop.”

The next jump led them to an outpost that certainly had merchants selling some wares! Arthur and Francis volunteered to be the away party as Alfred kept an eye on the advancing enemy fleet from the Bridge. Their tailing Rockmen friends also spent a bit of time gathering resources for the journey ahead.

Aware of the encroaching danger and their limited supply of scrap to trade for goods, the European representatives agreed that they should spend all of it on an Advanced FTL Navigation Augmentation that would allow them to leap to any previously visited beacon in one hop no matter the distance and the rest of the scrap was allocated to hull repairs. They promptly beamed back on deck and installed their new augment and checked with the Rockmen to make sure that they were ready to follow.

The S.S. APH jumped back the way they came and immediately leapt to the subsequent beacon. It was a tough decision because they had to completely ignore a distress call. The Rebel fleet was advancing far too quickly, they had to put as much distance between them as possible. Alfred felt terrible but his crew and the Rockmen following them depended on forward thinking. There was no helping those in distress right now.

“Rebel transport ship detected!” Captain Jones announced on the communications system. “It doesn’t seem to wanna fight but we can’t take risks. Plus we need the scrap, we’re kinda poor right now.”

“Engaging weapons, Captain!” Arthur replied, powering up the Burst Laser II to lock onto their weapons room. He was going to target the drones next as those little bastards were a pain to deal with.

“CANCEL THAT INTERACTION, KIRKLAND! ATTACK THEIR ENGINES, THEY’RE GONNA JUMP AND WARN THE FLEET!”

“Fuck, really?! Alright, locking both the lasers and missiles onto their FTL Drive!”

It was a tense moment as their weapons warmed up and as they celebrated decimating the enemy FTL Drive, a missile hit their own engines.

“ENGINES, DAMAGE REPORT!” Captain Jones cried.

“Ze bastards damaged ze FTL Drive. I’m working on a fix but my head…”

“Focus, Bonnefoy. You can heal after we destroy these idiots!” Arthur chipped in urgently. He switched the lasers to focus on the Rebel weapons room whilst keeping their Artemis missile locked on the enemy engines.

An explosion rocked the Bridge and Alfred coughed through the smoke. “Dammit, they’re breaking my controls. Kirkland, finish this now.” He gritted his teeth as he repaired the system damage. His wrist was pretty sore but nothing too dire.

“Aye, Captain!”

Fortunately, the battle was over with soon after and repairs could be finished to both the engines and the piloting systems. Jones and Bonnefoy met up in the medbay to heal their injuries before moving on. It was becoming clear how dangerous this mission was.

Back on the Bridge, Alfred instructed his crew that to get to the quest marker they needed to enter a nebula. Nebula zones were always risky as they knocked out sensors but they could also be beneficial in slowing down the enemy fleet. “We’re heading to the nebula. Be prepared for anything! Warp ahead, Bonnefoy!”

This felt like a mistake. Nebulas can be rather peaceful but today was not their day! A plasma storm was active so not only were their sensors dead but their reactor was crippled to half-capacity. The crew was in a mild panic trying to figure out what systems were down as a Rebel automated scout swooped in to cause them hell.

“GUYS, WE HAVE A PROBLEM. SEVERAL PROBLEMS,” Alfred yelled through the communications system.

“No shit!” Arthur shot back as he examined the diagnostics from his post. “Our oxygen isn’t powered, we’ll suffocate!”

“Heat up the weapons, Artie, we have company! I’ll divert power from the medbay to the oxygen room!”

“SHIELDS ARE DOWN AND THEY HAVE A DRONE!” Francis cried from the engine room. “We’re sitting ducks!”

“Divert ALL power from engines to the shields NOW!”

“Aye!”

“I’m locked on their weapons, Captain!” Arthur informed them. “The shield is holding off the drone, thank God.”

“Fire on that and then the drone. Destroy it as quickly as possible.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

Thankfully the battle was over swiftly. Shaken and worried, Alfred gave the order to drop the shields and restore power to the FTL Drive. They would drop off their Rockmen friends at the next beacon and make their way to the exit.

“Approaching the quest marker,” Captain Jones announced keeping the ship steady, ready for a break. “I’ll inform our little convoy back there.”

“Can one ship in addition to ours really be considered a convoy?” Francis responded contemplatively.

He didn’t receive an answer as the Rockmen’s ship zoomed away without warning and Alfred flipped the Red Alert siren. “AGH! IT’S A TRAP! How could they? We trusted them!” He turned on the power to all systems after they were clear of the plasma storm and glared at the Rebel Disrupter ship. How dare they! HOW. DARE. THEY.

Ignoring the possible melodrama his best friend was stewing in, Arthur had already locked their weapons on the Rebel weapons and drones with their Burst Laser II and the Artemis missile. DIRECT HIT! That’s getting business taken care of. He disabled the Artemis and focused the laser onto enemy shields. He needed no consultation on this strategy, they would not be made fools of! With the shields down and the enemies focused on repairing the damage he dealt to the drones, he fired once again at the weapons room. The Rebel scum would not get a say in this!

VICTORY! The crew celebrated briefly as they collected the remains of their enemy vessel.

“Let’s get the hell outta here,” Alfred urged, turning them towards the next beacon. “I don’t want to try my luck with another one of these guys.”

“We can make it to ze Exit Beacon in two jumps, Captain!” Francis informed him over the comms. “With ze Rebels gaining ground we shouldn’t take anymore detours.”

“Agreed, buddy! Full speed ahead!”

The Rebels were determined to control this star system! The subsequent beacon greeted them with another Rebel Rigger patrol. It stood between them and the exit. This could not be tolerated.

“I’m way ahead of you, Captain!” Arthur called over the communications. “I’ve locked on their weapons and drone rooms. I’ll target their FTL Drive afterwards, we can’t let them get away to inform the Rebel fleet of our location.”

“Show no mercy, Kirkland!”

“Aye, sir!”

Direct hits!

“The enemy is powering up it’s FTL Drive!” Alfred informed them urgently. “This could be bad!”

The landed hits on the enemy vessel weren’t enough to destroy the hull and the Rebels were an inch from jumping out of reach. Fortune dealt them an unexpected hand, though.

Alfred opened up the screen to receive a hail from the Rebel Rigger Captain. “Captain Jones speaking. Stop right there!”

The enemy Captain scowled but offered a metaphorical white flag. “The day is yours! Show us your honour by allowing us to leave with our lives.”

This was a very fragile situation. The enemy hull was weak but their FTL Drive was primed to jump any second. There would be no time to stop them unless they agreed to a truce. Alfred growled in frustration but knew there was no choice. “Kirkland, cease fire! We’re entering a truce.”

“What? Um, okay?” came Arthur’s puzzled response. There was probably a good reason to cease fire so he complied. He would demand answers later.

Captain Jones accepted the supplies from the Rebel Rigger and the enemy did not warp away. Phew, that was a close one. The advancing enemy fleet would not gain speed on them.

Tense, Alfred called a meeting on the Bridge. He turned to his crewmates gravely. “We’re getting real lucky with these battles, our damage has been minimal. With Rebels so close to our Exit Beacon we need to be ready for a possible interception between us and the warp point. Don’t let your guard down and we’ll decide which sector to head to next once the coast is clear.”

Arthur nodded and returned to the weapons room without any answers, but he didn’t need them. It was clear they were in trouble and Alfred made a solid judgement call. He would be ready to defend.

Francis remained by Alfred’s side as they made the final jump to the Exit Beacon.

There was an asteroid field not far from their destination. They decided to risk navigating it for some materials that would help them in the next sector. Luck truly was not on their side as asteroids violently knocked down their shields and damaged their hull!

“Fire in ze portside airlocks, Captain!” Francis cried.

“I’ll open the airlocks to extinguish it. Everyone meet me in shields! We’ll repair and move on!”

Once that crisis was averted, the crew met up to decide where to go next.

Would they jump to the Engi Controlled area, or the Zoltan Controlled area? Both were civilian sectors but carried their own unique risks.

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT SECTOR...

Chapter 1 - END

[CHAPTER LIST]

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[Cover Art] This image was drawn in HB pencil and painted in watercolour paints on the 8th August 2021. It was digitally enhanced in GIMP Image Editor on the 9th August 2021. Paper type = 130 gsm 

This chapter was written on the 8th August 2021.

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

Please do not repost, modify, resell or claim this work as your own.

(Reblogging is fine, though!)

[Mythical Canary Info]

[chmydarling]

❛ i'm glad you see it that way. he definitely didn't... if only i'd tried a common-sense approach like that. then we might just have had a pirate ship to take apart and re-build today. or, to build something even cooler with. and a castle. and a damn spaceship. that was the closest i ever got to going to space. i did kinda wanna be an astronaut. as a kid. 'cause space is pretty damn cool. but it's pretty damn scary, too. i don't know if i could survive with that janky food that astronauts gotta eat. and i don't even want to think about the toilet situation up there... ugh. ❜

❛ well, that is some sage advice right there, let me tell you. i think a wise agent of chaos once said that if they can't see you, they can't stop you. i'm that wise agent of mayhem, by the way. but even mischievous criminals gotta slow down sometime, right? so, where are you thinking for retirement? personally, i'm feeling a hotel at disneyworld. not just any hotel mind you; it's gotta to be animal kingdom. or the wilderness lodge. think about it: all the rollercoasters, pretzels and super cute but also kinda terrifying mascots you could ask for. ❜

this was so nice. being with him. holding his hand. imagining their future. a future where they could see and be and do so many things. and just be. t o g e t h e r.

❛ that is super cool. you dad sounds like he was a pretty cool dude, too. a food slash ice-cream truck. i'd buy from it. often. every day, probably. you, my friend, are a genius. this is why i love you. ❜

his eyes widen a little at that. he hadn't mean to say it. but he doesn't think that he doesn't mean it, either. there's no taking it back, he guesses. so-

❛ i would really, really love to live with you. and work with you. to be with you. if this ever ends... and also, if it doesn't. ❜

❛ honestly? i don't think i'm built for that kind of heat, either. between the two of us, i'd say we've got the tragedy quota filled. maybe we could be on the run for pulling some of those ridiculously elaborate and expensive pranks. i know criminal mischief isn't exactly something to aspire to, what with it being a criminal offence and all. but it just sounds super tempting and mysterious. like, you got your regular level of mischief. then there's shenanigans and tomfoolery... and then there's criminal mischief. ❜

as he rambles, his fingers travel absently down his inner arm to link their hands together, before brushing the outside of his thumb with his own. asking, hoping wordlessly, if this is okay. if it's not too much.

❛ tell you what. when and if this all blows over, we gotta get a place of our own. it's gotta have a workshop for you and a studio for me. it'll be the ultimate set-up. hold up. you worked a food truck? i always wanted to have an ice cream truck. that was my dream car when i was a kid. we absolutely have got to get a food truck, too. i'll busk and shift in with you on the truck. that's how we'll bring in the dough and pay for our killer pad. see? we got it all figured out. ❜

❛ man, i tried everything. with all my heart. brute force, telekinesis... but i did get my revenge eventually. i may or may not have super-glued all of his office supplies together. i got grounded for, like, a week. but i think it was worth it. ❜

[basenji18]

Massive Headcannon That I Like, Because the Writers Gave Us Nothing:

Nicholas Powers is a dude on future Eternia. He gets sent out on a mission in space, for *some* reason. His ship accidentally goes through a rift in time and space.

He lands on Preternia, just on the edge of written history, but when the planet has still been around long enough that there are artifacts which are already considered ancient, and which have stopped working. When the starman lands, they suddenly start again. Nick finds himself imbued with powers as well, like Superman from the yellow sun.

The largest ruling body on this planet, the UN Council of Eternia, the Council of Elders, traces the phenomena back to the crash site, and bring him in. They make him one of their members, counting on him to be a powerful ally. (Would love to see Nick being more slightly built and slim like his daughter, then going through a kind of permanent He-Man transformation himself.) They flatter and build him up, and tell him he has landed with exactly the right people on Eternia; lucky for him he didn't fall in with some of the others.

But Nick is distraught. His spaceship is gone, and the technology to repair it doesn't even exist in this time, and he doesn't know how to build a new one even if it did. His home is gone, his family. He's a fish out of water and time.

Enter in a young queen (I saw one fanart call her "Mal-lyssa," which I get is another "evil" name joke, but I like Melissa, I think it's cute). Queen Melissa is ruler of Zalesia, a queendom of too much size and importance for the Council to ignore, but the queen is not a member of the Council, nor do Zalesia and the Council get along very well.

For one, most of the Council is made up of traditional patriarchies. The matriarchal nature of Zalesia doesn't always sit. For another, and much more dire, the Counsel sold Zalesia out to Hordak when he was around. When he split the planet into light and dark hemispheres, they left Zalesia out to dry. What was once lush forest land turned into permanight desert.

I imagine Zalesia survived under strong leaders with solid plans in place, because imagine if suddenly the world lost sunlight. That would affect every single life. What new crops are you going to grow? What food can your population live off of in the meantime? How will it affect travel and livestock and heating and and and and...?

Rulers who could pull a people through that would have major loyalty from their followers, and an understandably major chip on their shoulder at the people who let it happen.

So no, I don't think Zalesia has a great relationship with the Council to begin with. So I don't think Melissa takes too much notice of their rules when she comforts Nick. I believe the two genuinely fall in love and marry.

Enter fucking Hiss.

I still don't get why the Council is so willing to try and pacify every single would-be world dictator they come across. If there's a prophecy that a child of the Council will overthrow him, why are any of them using protection ever? Plus, I can kinda see this as being a bylaw they didn't tell Nick about until it was too late.

"Good news! I'm gonna be a daddy!"

"You WHAT?!?"

Again, I like the idea of a matriarchy which traces offspring through the mother. After all, in all those patriarchies, there's always going to be SOME question about the legitimacy of any heirs. If a woman has a kid, you know it's hers. So from the Zalesian standpoint, I think it would be a great cultural point if no one considered that Nick had broken the treaty, because under their laws, the child was the queen's.

(I also don't like her dying in childbirth, because it's overdone, and also how you gonna tell me this man controls gods and can't save his wife? That's a Queen Amadala-level copout. There's literal magic in this world, NO OTHER MotU character dies in childbirth, seriously. Try again.

What I really want to find a way to do is have Hiss set his sites on Zalesia, and instead of believing in the Council like her husband does, Melissa goes out to the desert to find help another way, and in some fashion or another becomes Shokoti. Anyhoo.)

The Faceless One transformation really pisses me off, and makes me discount the "good" guys of MotU. Because they could have killed him. They could have killed him, or let Hiss finish him off. Instead, the Council lets Zalesia be destroyed, LEAVES THE INFANT TO DIE IN A FIRE, but they don't kill Nick. Oh no. Because then their magical artifacts might stop working again, you see. So they make him immortal, and unable to ever leave. Trapped, and used as a not quite dead, not fully alive battery.

So what I wanna see is after Price of Deceit, Lyn joins up with He-Man, in full snarky and distrustful Lyn mode, they have to run from both Hiss and Skeletor, and He-Man's people who don't know what's going on. At some point He-Man as a personality is separated from Adam, which lets that go full enemies to lovers, and even though she doesn't do it like anybody else would have, Lyn does manage to fulfill the prophecy and bring down Hiss. She and He-Man go to the future, found New Zalesia, Adam is left to rule current Eternia, and Lyn goes Terminator and sends her own father back in time.

BAM. *mic drop*

[cerastes]

SO AMONG THE 72 Arts of the Shaolin Temple, there is one named Tie Shan, or Iron Shirt, which everyone here is familiar with. You know the typical body hardening techniques of hard Chinese martial arts you usually see in Wu Xia? Like when this small and thin dude gets smashed by a giant of a man wielding a tree or a steel pipe and, against all expectations, it doesn’t do jack shit against the dude and instead the log explodes into splinters or the pipe gets bent? That’s Iron Shirt.

The guiding principle of it is to use “qi” (efficient breathing techniques and thoroughly trained muscle tightening) to harden the shit out of your body, usually one body part where you focus the absolutely totality of your attention and kickasstitude. It’s like when the sci fi ship its getting its teeth kick right through its asshole and the captain says “REDIRECT ALL ENERGY INTO SHIELDS!”, it’s basically that, but you train to actually be able to do that in the one-person crew stellar spaceship that is your body, and instead of a proton beam, you are blocking the punch thrown by the blistering white supernova of ire that is the kid at GameStop after you buy the last copy of 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand.

BASICALLY, it’s not so much a whole school in and of itself as much as a discipline you Responsibly Consider in the mastery of the overall fucked and wide scheme of Shaolin martial arts. But, as one of the 72 Arts, it gets its own full backstory because the ancient Chinese people never once fucked around in their entire lives throughout the Dynasties. Don’t believe me? Consider that Jing Ke was just an alcohol-loving scholar who just so happened to love dabbling in swordsmanship, and he spawned the fucking cusp of all anarchist legends, and well deservedly, too, but my point is, the moment the Chinese saw a dope ass technique, that shit NEEDED a backstory, else it would just fall short of the hype their real life entailed.

For real, I really wanna sit down one day and talk about how fucking crazy Chinese myths are simply because their daily lives were worthy of 45 minute long OVAs that leave wanting more: To be ancient Chinese is to live generations upon generations in “Current Events”, in shit that now shows up on history books as “And This Fucking Madhouse Was Going On Over Yonder, In Case You Pondered”. How the fuck do you make mythos attractive and relevant to The People if it fails to outdo Current, Real Events in the “Bruce Willis Shooting a Gatling Gun” meter? You don’t, which is why for every fucking blade of grass that swayed by the wind in old China, there was a specific reason, a legend, and a moral of the story as to why that shit happened, otherwise literally nobody would’ve fucking cared about the grass, the wind, or the swaying.

But today is not that day, today is the day I tell you about IRON SHIRT.

So anyway, the lore behind redirecting all of your energy into your balls so you could tank a kick to the huevos and possibly redirect damage to your opponent by breaking their foot with your mighty pain baby sacks finds its humble origins with our main man, Zhou Tong (who must not be confused with Zhou Tong, archery teacher of general Yue Fei of the Song Dynasty, two different people) in the very self-descriptive story known as... I’m not gonna tell you the title just yet because it kinda fucking spoils the story, which is something the old Chinese were fucking bad about, aight, but trust me, anyway, Zhou Tong! Zhou Tong was just taking a stroll down the road, going places as he usually did, when over yonder, he spotted, without any exaggeration or glamour, an absolute chunkster of a lad, an absolute unit, Agent Fat Fucck’s respected ancestor, a BIG BOY. This dude was MASSIVE and WELL BUILT. So Zhou Tong looks at this mother fucker real good, hits him with that Scan Lv.3, and comes to the very fair and safe conclusion that this man looked forward to humiliating him, if “very fair and safe” also encapsulated “paranoid fucking old man”. See, to be fair to Zhou Tong, he WAS a renowned master of martial arts, and if there’s anything you should know about martial arts, it’s that a great number of martial artists are always looking for that big break, that “get my name out there for those in the know”, and the shortest route to that is to beat up a renowned master. It’s why Bruce Lee always had challengers! It’s why this one time, this one dude threatened Bruce Lee’ family in order to get Bruce to fight him, which is about the single worst possible fucking idea you can get. Drinking molten glass with a dab of lemon is a better idea than picking a malicious fight with Bruce Lee, and yet, here we fucking are! And in case you’re curious, Bruce Lee demolished that dude, but anyways, the thing is, Zhou Tong was, like, 17% justified in thinking this way.

So what he did was what any other person would: He started redirecting all of his energy into his right shoulder. See, the way they were walking, they were going to walk by each other while crossing a bridge, so Zhou Tong was like “this mother fucker wishes to humiliate me by chucking me into the bridge in front of the hoes!”, so Tong, as a master of Iron Shirt, focuses like 1700 Magic Points into his right shoulder, which turns red, and then purple as it becomes harder than rock, harder than iron, harder than spending 5 minutes away from the boys, under his clothes. So, the fated moment comes, they brush shoulders, and the Big Boy gets fucking Destructo-Blasted. Big Boy was almost knocked out of the bridge just from brushing his shoulder. It was so painful that he was pouring saliva and the entire right side of his body was left numb until the next day. Zhou Tong fucking DUNKED on Big Boy and avoided being publicly humiliated in front of girls, the greatest accolade you could possibly append to any student of arts most martial.

Except.

It was a misunderstanding.

That Big Boy was none other than Wu Song, his future student. Wu Song didn’t even notice Tong, he was looking at his own feet and minding his footsteps because he didn’t wanna get his feet wet after last night’s rain.

So, I IMPLORE YOU, the reader, to hold my hand (platonically) and accompany me through a reconstruction of the events through Wu Song’s perspective:

There was a freak rain last night in a place known for how dry it is. You only have shit ass sandals, and there’s a trillion puddles of water between you and your destination. You, as a certified Immense Chunk Man, have large trotters and don’t wanna step in a puddle because then you get the common cold and then you fucking die because this is somewhere around the year 1121 CE and medicine amounted to “these pleasant aromas and needles either heal you or you fucking die”. You take extra care to not get the common cold by minding your steps, and suddenly, out of absolutely fucking nowhere, you get Destructo-Blasted while crossing a bridge, you get utterly ragdolled, you get Broly Punched through three fucking buildings and almost hole-in-one into the river, you are drooling, you can’t feel the right side of your body, and when you look up to brace yourself against your assailant, you see this older man just sort of chilling with a joyful stride, walking as if he didn’t just deliver your fucking groceries with that 200% Damage In Hyrule Castle Lower Half Of The Map Forward Smash. What the fuck?

And then some years pass, you get involved into some Pretty Important Shit, and you’re going to learn martial arts from a certified badass, and then he walks out of the bead curtain holding a lemonade, and guess who the fuck it is, it’s Mister Destructo-Blast himself. How fucking awkward was that encounter? No, really, what were their first words towards each other? “Oh, I remember you! You were the old dude that nearly ripped my arm off for no reason that one day it rained!” That’s a great ice breaker.

So, anyways, they go, train, become even stronger, and then do immensely hype shit in the classic story, Water Margin. Zhou Tong became the 51st of the 72 Earthly Fiends and Wu Song became the 14th of the 36 Heavenly Spirits in the 108 Stars Of Destiny. You should read Water Margin, it’s fucking nuts.

But anyways, that’s the lore behind the esteemed martial art of redirecting all energy to shields, Iron Shirt is pretty cool. The moral of the story is to not just fucking randomly ragdoll people because you’re a mite suspicious, but also? If you can actually randomly ragdoll people like that? You’re probably dope as hell and can get away with it, so practice Iron Shirt for political immunity, that’s all, the end.

[patchdotexe]

explorers of arvus: heading back / 3.11.21

zoom and enhonse

LAST TIME ON ARVUS taure passed out and we are now down a healer! also we met a disciple of halvkar, and surprisingly did not murder her. this is fine. we have instantly gotten distracted by our various carts. cats. our various cats

DID ANY OF US CATCH TAURE, SHE FELL OVER sieron tried to catch her and smacked charlie+thorne in the face (he rolled a nat1, f) BUT the catboy is to the rescue bc silje is the designated Not Incompetent of the group today

CONSULT THE CHILD hewwo yrel yrel: her mind is being consumed by the serpent of nightmares. :D charlie: HELLO?????//

so, dendar(?) the night serpent is imprisoned beneath arvus! she was formed from the nightmares of the first sentient being, and sometimes she eats people's nightmares. if she's exceptionally hungry, she'll force nightmares onto people for her to feed off their fear. yrel thinks taure will Probably wake up. there's a thing on arvus mentioned by the locals called a "sleeping sickness" where people will fall asleep for a few days, sometimes longer, but will wake up. its magical in cause, the people afflicted by it have horrific nightmares, and its just kinda. a thing. wowza

(i have gone back to spelling yrel's name as yrel bc i think it looks nice)

OH HEY SOMEONE POSTED A THEORY ON ONE OF MY STICKMOLUS ANIMATIONS man i should get back to stickmolus sometime. once dsmp releases its awful grip on me.

i keep getting distracted by seeing myself in the camera preview. i have a tooth gap! what the fuck its cute?? K I KNOW WE'RE SUPER BLURRY IN FRONT RN BUT PLEASE HELP ME STAY FOCUSED I SWEAR -leo

we're gonna build a sled! to put taure on. thorne: i have a good strength score. ....i say, out loud charlie: i am four feet tall. [cue argument between thorne & sieron about them both being horcs but sieron has a +0 bc strength is his dump stat] OH, OKAY, THORNE ROLLED A NAT20 TO CARRY TAURE. NICE

[discussion about what to tell everyone at camp vengenace] thorne: the last thing we need to do is a witch hunt charlie: --and we already hunted the witch! the witch has been hunted.

time to discuss strategy! we need to figure out how to head back to camp vengeance, eg if we want to follow the path we already took or if we wanna do some trailblazing. looks like we're gonna try and take the most direct path! which means we'll prolly risk tangoing with some undead but im willing to risk it TINY HUT STAIRCASE sorry i just remember it now and then

nyx: [meowing at his cats] thorne: uh... why is silje meowing? jorb: silje's food bowl is empty jorb: you look at silje's food bowl and there's a divot in the middle and the food is all on the sides emotionally, we must bully the catboy silje saw something interesting and started meowing

thorne: ill take first watch silje: ill also take first watch. charlie: [quietly] gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy (but, like, extended for 15 seconds)

silje: [takes watch] [rolls a nat1 and gets distracted by looking at his crush]

THORNE HAS LOCATED A DOG the dog does not give a shit about the tiny hut. THE DOG HAS PEED ON THE TINY HUT goodbye dog

EVERYONE IS ROLLING AT LEAST 1 NAT1 thorne: wow! that sure is a dog. thorne has drawn the worst possible dog. thorne has erased the worst possible dog. we dont speak of the worst possible dog its the dog version of honse. DONSE

sieron is now on watch! MAN we are havin trouble rolling today. at least kali's here to make sure sieron doesnt stare at a rock for 50000 years sieron sees a mouse! bottom text

charlie is now on watch! kali is havin a big ol thonk. nothing meaningful has come of this

i am perceiving some deer. sieron is not perceiving some deer. silje is perceiving some deer, but better the deer are fucked up and undead! silje has gone from "we should hunt these deer for food" to "we should hunt these deer for sport"

charlie: i do not feel like being jumped by five thousand skeletons

charlie takes first watch with sieron! WHY ARE OUR ROLLS SO TERRIBLE taure is super cursed right now. that's not very pog charlie: this place sucks. thorne: to be fair, we havent-- charlie: YOU'RE ASLEEP, SHUT UP

oh hey coolname galvanic finally partied. nice.

thorne is at watch! solar: hey, is leomund's tiny hut an orb? there's a critter digging around! AH, THE CRITTER IS UNDEAD. this could be a problem

solar: hey michael, how much does the horrific sin against god dog i drew look like this creature michael: [dice roll noises] about 50%.

michael: if anyone likes, they can make a nature check-- solar: ME MEMEMEMEME ME ME ME

its a bulette! aka a land shark. problem: they are not normally undead. this one is undead.

jorb: imagine if you could tame one of those and use it as a mount. leo: IT WOULD JUST DIG UNDERGROUND AND LEAVE YOU THERE

we are just calling it a weird dog

we're going to mail a letter to the heart of arvus. HEY, CHECK OUT THIS WEIRD DOG,

JORB FOUND ART OF A BABY BULETTE. WEIRD PUPPY!

solar: hey guys, check out this sick art of a bulette i found

silje kept a lookout for the weird dog but its just fucked off. goodbye, weird dog give it up for day 3!

man there's been like, three incinerations today in blaseball. what's up with that. I SWEAR IM MOSTLY PAYING ATTENTION its just been an eventful day in blaseball. also im wearing my garages bomber rn. jaylen is home wooOOOO the wind smells stinky. this is fine.

we're actively avoiding whatever combat michael keeps nudging at us bc we're carrying around an unconscious person and i SWEAR hes gonna throw something directly at us once he's done with our shenanigans

UHH MICHAEL ASKING FOR PASSIVE PERCEPTION LOL

huh. this place used to be inhabited? we're in the woods rn but there's some like, stone ruins? like, VERY ruins. like, not really any structures standing, but enough evidence to show there Were things. WE FOUND A STATUE charlie: i want to smash my face against the lore.

used to be a circle of standing stones, but most of em fell over or got overgrown. inside of the circle has been cleared, although v roughly-- ground's torn up statue is of fjolnir! warrior holding up a spear and shield. AH, THERE ARE CORPSES, a human got REAL fucked up here. one of the corpses is straight up impaled on fjolnir's spear. n ... not pog.

i am trying so, so hard to pay attention. but i also kinda wanna take a nap.

charlie: [stares at statue] [rolls a 4] i wonder if he had a dick.

okay so something rolled in, tore up the overgrowth inside the circle, and murdered a couple dudes. and was also super tall and human-adjacent. hrm.

oh my god why are we rolling so shit today. time to stealth away and hope we dont get casually dismembered

k: jorb's hair is so long... leo: K, PLEASE,

time for a break! i am very tired but im gonan see if i can push through a little further. nyx is petting his cat why do orangatangs look like that

first watch is thorne and sieron! have they even, like, talked thorne unhabby ): thorne's worried we were tresspassing when checking out the statue, meanwhile im thinking about that one time when sieron got bit by a groundhog

(oh my god this is from late 2018)

leomund's tiny hut, aka the anti-sea bear circle we are getting SO much mileage out of the tiny hut. SILJE HUMS A SONG WITH KALI cute........... FINALLY I HAVE ROLLED ABOVE A 14 wait no i rolled a 16 twice. anyway we are not dead

nearly at camp vengenace! boy howdy i hope camp vengeance didnt get burned down. AH FUCK TAURE IS UNCONSCIOUS SO WE CANT CAST FOR DETECT POISON kaepora nearly made us all shit ourselves but its okay he just saw some bison and thought it was cool Michael Is Consulting Several Tables

WHY DOES JORB'S CAMERA ZOOM LIKE THAT why am i hungry. i have so many questions

HEY, TALL GUY [smacks sieron]

camp vengeance looks better! like, nobody's Obviously Sick anymore, the medical tents arent overfilled, we did it! we saved the dayyyyyy time to report to ryder! taure's getting dropped off at the medical tent

man remember when charlie didnt wear pants

oh man, with taure unconscious charlie is now taking point with social interaction. wild. jk im making jorb do it bc im tired HAHA NAT 20 PERSUASION BC OF ME HELPIN SIERON man ryder is such a cock. he was totally ready to keep throwing troops at heaven's brazier to die until we managed to persuade him out of it. jorb: did we tell ryder about the vision? michael: you kinda just took a look at him and went STINKY BOY!

okay yeah anything that dies on arvus will just pop back up as undead. man, arvus sucks.

ryder: alright, dismissed. charlie: seeya, soldier boy! :D hahahahaha im gonna eat his knees.

SILJE NEEDS ENRICHMENT IN HIS ENCLOSURE

charlie: ive decided he sucks. silje: we've already arrived to that, you're late!

LMAO WE WALKED IN ON INGRID AND HER CRUSH they fuckin. nice. you go, you funky lesbian

jorb: we've got the tiny hut, we could go anywhere leo: we could go to SPACE! nyx: we could not go to space. leo: WITH A TINY HUT STAIRCASE, WE CAN,

we are 320 miles away from the spaceship that exists on arvus. nice.

michael: justin sees you-- roll a strength saving throw. leo: i cant wait to die! [rolls a 3] I AM CRUSHED BY MY DOG michael: he rolled a nat20.

BOSS ENCOUNTER: CHARLIE'S DOG (the small circle next to him is one of the medical tents.)

THORNE IS PACT OF THE GUN solar: PARRY THIS, YOU FUCKING CASUAL

sieron, to ingrid: seems like youve been doing well charlie: i punch sieron. sieron: sieron: the camp, of course.

man we have no idea if the heart of arvus is actually related to the prophecy or not. theres a Lot of stuff lining up, but not enough, and its hard to say how much of it couldve been literal?

solar & michael: [discussing exposition] me: [cracking up bc penn sent me a funny dsmp joke]

prophecies are weird.

charlie is just s she is just sitting here SILJE PLAYED CARDS REALLY GOOD AT ME nyx rolled a nat20 and took all my money

oh cool we can talk to yrel telepathically! time to hoist yrel. THIS IS SO SCUFFED thorne mentioned yrel and now we're trying to explain to ingrid that we have a magic talking snake charlie: I WANT TO GO HOME. thorne: we cant go, we have a GOD-KING to kill! "i think theyre insane, theyre talking to a snake" "ingrid, druids exist" "oh. im gonna go back to getting railed by my 7 foot tall girlfriend"

[soapsilly]

The Saviors of the Galaxy - Guardians of the Galaxy Imagine

Pairings: Guardian x Reader; Platonic!Rocket x Platonic!Reader

Summary/Request:   Soooo I wanted to ask about a guardiens of the galaxy one. The reader tries to steal something from the ship and the guardiens catch her. They kind of adopt her into their team and the reader becomes really good friends with rocket and together they built all this crazy stuff and mock peter and so on.

And remember: Requests are open!

This one really took a lot longer than the other ones I feel like but it’s been a few busy weeks for me.

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

“Shit!” The Guardians were awoken by loud cursing followed by the sounds of rattling metal. In just a matter of seconds the intruder was sourrounded by Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Peter Quill, every one of them with some type of weapon. 

“Who are you? What are you doing on our ship?”, Gamora asked firmly with her weapon aimed perfectly at the girl’s nose. 

“Who cares who she is? She shouldn’t be here!” Rocket shouted, excited to try out his newest invention.

“Wow. You’re the Saviors of the Galaxy. If I had known who’s ship I was robbing I would’ve brought my pen and paper”, the girl seemed genuinely surprised but not intimidated.

“Guardians. Were the Guardians of- nevermind. How did you not know what ship you were robbing? We’re superstars!” for the moment Peter didn’t care that the girl was trying to steal from his ship, how didn’t she know him?

“Well, do you know what spaceship Nova Prime flies privately?” she answered his question with another question. The girl wandered off, unbothered by the weapons that were still aimed at her, looking at the multitude of bits and pieces that littered the floor. 

“I mean who lives like that? This ship is a mess”, she murmured.

“Hello?! We’re still here!” Peter exclaimed, confused and a little irritated that the intruder was completely unbothered and insulting his home.

Gamora lowered her weapon, realizing that the girl didn’t care anyways. 

“Who are you and what were you looking for?” she asked her.

“My name is (Y/N) and I was trying to find something useful. Nothing in particular. Ravager ships usually have all kinds of interesting stuff on them. By the way no need for you to introduce yourselfs. I know you”, she explained.

“Here we have Gamora, of course. Then there is Drax the Destroyer, nice nipples”, she sent him a wink, “here’s Mantis, Rocket and Groot. And lastly Star-Prince”

“Lord!” Peter exclaimed. 

“Are you sure? Isn’t a prince kinda better than a lord? Why would you go for Star-Lord if you could go by Star-King even?”

Before Peter could start arguing with her more, Rocket interjected “I like that one, Quill. She’s got a point. Can we keep her?”

“Yes, I’m sensing a really positive aura from her”, Mantis agreed. 

“I am Groot”

“Indeed! She seems like a highly competent young lady”, Drax agreed.

And before Peter could argue with them, (Y/N) interrupted him “Alrighty then, we’re can I leave my stuff?”

*******************************************************************************************

It’s been a few weeks since (Y/N) joined the Guardians. She knew exactly how to interact with every single member, as all of them have a distinctive character. But she and Rocket hit it off immediately. They bonded over their love for tinkering and building new stuff - extra points if that stuff happens to be explosive. 

“Nonono, this doesn’t belong there. That goes over here!” Rocket groaned “what do you even know?”

“I know what I’m doing! Just trust me”, the girl shunned him. 

Rocket threw his hands up and watched her with no further interruption but muttered something inaudible under his breath every now and then, which (Y/N) just kept ignoring.

After she connected a last wire, the device started glowing blue and a humming sound emitted from withing it.

Rocket turned towards the device with a surprised expression.

“Told you so..” the girl told her friend.

“So whomever we shoot with this baby will completely lose their sense of balance? No way to walk a straight line?” he inquired.

“Now listen. This thing has only enough energy for three uses, so we can not use this carelessly.” she explained.

“Wanna shoot Quill?”

“Definitely.”

*******************************************************************************************

“I don’t get it. Where are we even going?” (Y/N) asked.

“Would you be quiet? We’re trying to break into this facility and free the animals they’re doing illegal testing on, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t bust us before this mission has even begun”, Peter hissed.

“Yeah, genius and just walking up to the front door would not achieve exactly that?”

The Guardians stopped in their tracks and turned towards her.

“What do you mean?” Gamora asker the girl further.

“Well, there’s a back entrance? The security guards only come by there every twenty or so minutes because you’d have to get through a swamp to get there. Most people wouldn’t bother. The door opens via numeral code that changes every day but I got a device for that”, the girl shrugged.

“How do you even know all that?” Quill was getting irritated.

“I’ve been here before”, she explained.

They stood in silence for a few seconds until all of the Guardians started to bicker.

“What the heck Quill?” Rocket shouted.

“Okay okay okayokay OKAY!” Peter shouted, “if (Y/N) knows best why doesn’t she lead the way then?”

“Quill, don’t shout. You just told (Y/N) to be quiet as to not bust the mission”, Drax informed a lost looking Peter, with Mantis nodding eagerly.

*******************************************************************************************“I don’t know, Gamora.  Who is she? Where is she coming from? We basically know nothing about her but still we just let her stay with us. And besides... she doesn’t like me” Peter complained to his girlfriend.

“Peter, of course she likes you.  Maybe you’re just a little jealous? I mean she gets along great with everybody - especially with Rocket”

“Yeah, that’s another thing! We don’t need another Rocket! That’s madness” Peter exclaimed.

“I think she’s calming him a little bit. I think-”

Gamora was interrupted by a loud explosion sound which was followed by a ‘are you kidding me’ look from Peter.

A coughing and soot covered (Y/N) entered the room. Rocket followed her, one of his left whiskers still smoking.

“Hey Pete? We might need to get a new temperature calibrator”, (Y/N) sheepishly informs him.

“You see what I mean?!” Peter turned to Gamora and pointed at them with his two arms fully stretched out.

*******************************************************************************************To get the replacement and to stock up on groceries they had to make a pit stop on Knowhere.

When they arrived the Guardians were instantly swarmed by the people on the street. Eventhough Knowhere was not considered the most friendly of all places, the group had fans all over the Galaxy.

(Y/N) sort of just trailed behind and watched how everybody pooled around their ‘favourite’, with the children generally being drawn to Groot and Rocket - much to Rocket’s dismay.

Groot was creating and handing out little daisies, Peter was playing around with the kids and Mantis was just over all happy with the friendlyness.

Gamora, Rocket and Drax, however seemed slightly overwhelmed with the newly gained attention.

(Y/N) stood by and watched her new friends with a smile. She really liked every single one of them. They were all outcasts of some type so it really felt good to have a place where she felt like she belonged to.

While she was occupied with her thoughts a little girl tugged on her shirt.

“Excuse me? Are you also a Guardian of the Galaxy?” the girl asked with big eyes.

(Y/N) smiled at the girl and crouched down to answer, “No I’m not, but I am friends with them. Would you like me to introduce you to them? I’m sure Groot has a little flower for you”

As the two of them started to make their way over to the group of people a guy was calling over to them.

“Don’t go over there! They aren’t even worth it. Just a bunch of wannabe heroes that are actually just no good criminal scum!”

(Y/N) stopped in her tracks and told the little girl to wait for a minute. Then she turned towards the guy that was snickering and still trash talking the Guardians with his friend group.

“Oi! What the heck did you just say? That criminal scum, as you’ve just called them, saved the freaking galaxy from Ronan, which includes your sorry ass too. So if I were you I’d shut my fucking mouth before I come over there and make you shut up, jackass. Every single one of them is more of a hero than you’ll ever be”, she hollered at the group.

“And who the fuck do you think you are? You little-” the man started to get angry and marched over to her.

But before he could even finished his sentence Star-Lord himself stood next to her with his hand already placed over his gun, in case he’d need it.

“Who she thinks she is? She’s part of the Guardians of that Galaxy and she’s right you are indeed a jackass”, he told the man firmly but sent (Y/N) a reassuring wink.

The other Guardians were making their way over to them aswell.

“Yeah, we’re the Guardians and we don’t like anybody insulting our friends. And this one” - Rocket pointed to (Y/N) - “I am especially fond of, so I’d recommend you get outta here before something bad happens”

As Rocket was about to pull out his gun, Peter reminded him that they didn’t want a fight if not necessary. Rocket groaned because the dude did deserve it but put away his gun nonetheless.

The Guardians were just about to turn away when Groot decided that the guy really did deserve it and extended one of his branches and swung it at his feet, knocking him straight on his ass.

When the man regained his footing he scrambled to flee the scene, while the Guardians all just looked at Groot, who just slowly made his way back to where he was before, “I am Groot”.

“So he’s allowed to do it but I’m not?” Rocket asked.

*******************************************************************************************

Epilogue

“Sooooo I’m a Guardian of the Galaxy or what?” (Y/N) got out of the group hug and asked Peter with a suggestive grin.

[mosswolf]

i wanna talk about my ocs but also i can't write so here. Ramblings. im so sorry if the cut doesn't work

So, there’s six people on the crew of the starship Leviathan. They drift around the galaxy, scavenging from ghost ships and then selling what they find at markets and stuff when they return to civilization. It’s run like a family business, rather than a scavenging operation. Occasionally, they take passengers, or carry cargo, whatever it takes to keep the Leviathan running which can be a challenge, because it’s extremely old and beat up. It’s set in space, but not hard, scifi space, a more fantastical kind of space - there are huge, ancient creatures, and places where all the radio picks up is static, lights that try and guide you into the infinite dark. People pray to deities to bring them home again, and to protect them from bringing anything Back with them.

The Leviathan belongs, officially, to Zelda Quinn, Zel for short. She/her. She’s the captain and pilot, and she loves racing and chasing and making connections with people from all sides of space. She’s excitable and reckless and loves her crew so very, very much. She’s kind of terrified that she’s going to fail them. Her parents were important figures on some minor moon, and she was raised as their poster child, which is why she’s so desperately attached to her freedom but also feels so unequipped to handle it.

Jason Quinn, or Jay, is Zel’s younger brother. He/him. He’s technically the quartermaster on the ship, and is in charge of dealing with passengers and selling their scavenged goods. He’s friendly and kind, and thinks the punks and rebels living on the fringes of space are extremely cool, so he’s trying to run a pirate radio station, with differing success. He drinks a lot of energy drinks and it does show sometimes.

Ash is the mechanic, and the muscle. they/them. They’re often functionally a first mate, rationalising Zel’s decisions and bickering with her over how often she pulls a stunt that fucks up the ship. They’re also definitely in love with her, but in a way that they’ve convinced themselves that it’s better to just pine from afar. They genuinely love fixing things and building things, and they’re always torn up about how their role on the ship is both that of “person who fixes things” and “person who breaks people”.

Skye is the ship’s AI. they/them. They’re trying really hard to protect their crew, and are close with Ash because they’re always the first two on the scene to fix whatever the disaster of the day is. As well as the whole “gender? no THANK you” thing, and also concerns about personhood.

Ryan Thomas, he/him, is a computer guy, who lived an extremely normal life on a nowhere planet running the computer systems for some branch of some huge megacorp. He was never exceptional, but he was genuinely passionate about his work, as soulless as it was. Then, he met someone (an old friend?) who has a child with them, and slowly he started to discover that the corp he worked for was doing some truly horrific things. eventually the old friend disappeared, and he rescued their daughter, and then realised oh shit. now I have a daughter??? So he completely panicked, ran away to the nearest spaceport w/ the little girl and booked passage on the first spaceship going anywhere. It was, of course, the Leviathan, and he ended up Not Leaving. he’s definitely inclined to sheer panic, just, as a person, but he’s unexpectedly efficient in a crisis and he’s absolutely committed to taking care of Lila. He’s trying to find out what happened to their parents. He’s the computer tech aboard the ship, helping Skye.

And then, of course, Lila, she/her who’s official position on the ship is 7 Year Old. she’s quiet and thoughtful, always listening, understanding a lot more of what’s going on around her than people expect. she loves fish. she also loves stickers, and puts them on the other crew members.

so yeah,,, that’s My Dudes,,

[xxx-cat-xxx]

spacesick

Just for the record, I totally blame @awesomesockes for this. And @whumphoarder, you too. But also thanks for beta reading.

This is very crack and kind of gross. You have been warned.

______________

“So, where do you wanna go first?” Tony asks with a more than smug grin on his face. “The moon, Saturn, Alpha Centauri? The galaxy’s at our doorstep.”

Peter has to work quite a bit until he can talk. Within minutes of Tony’s brand new spaceship taking off, the earth has shrunk to a fist-sized blue ball just visible through the window next to him. “I - wow,” he manages.

“Lost for words?” Tony beams. “Rightly so. What about you, Big Green?”

“I’ve been on a spaceship before, Tony,” Bruce reminds him from where he is sitting across from Peter. “But I gotta say, it’s nice not being shot at for once. Gives you time to appreciate the view.”

“Great.” Tony claps him on the shoulder before settling down in the cockpit. “We’re about to go for a wormhole dive. Enjoy the show, boys. Anybody want popcorn?”

Twenty minutes later, Peter is sure that he’s seen so much of the universe that his brain will take at least a few years to catch up. Space is mesmerising, but it turns out it also provides the perfect opportunity for Tony to fully indulge in his speed craze. Peter has witnessed the man soaring recklessly through the skies in his suits and driving cars like a maniac, but that’s nothing compared to what he can do now with a vehicle that moves in virtually all possible directions. 

Unfortunately, this also means that the motion sickness Peter sometimes tends to get in cars is exponentially worsened. He is trying his best to enjoy, but his stomach is making that increasingly difficult. Peter doesn’t want to disappoint his mentor, so he just rests his head against the window, pretending to look outside as the ship ‘space jumps’ through yet another wormhole, feeling tired and very, very sick.

“Bruciebear? You doing okay?” Peter is ripped out of his thoughts a few minutes later when Tony addresses the scientist. “FRIDAY tells me your heart rate is elevated.”

Peter turns his head, trying to keep his stomach in place, and glances at Bruce. The scientist’s face has taken on a greenish tinge.

Bruce swallows visibly, then wipes away the sheen of sweat on his forehead. “’m not sure,” he replies.

“Feeling hulky-dulky? Dude, this is a stress-free environment - there is literally not a single human around for millions of miles,” Tony says over his shoulder.

“Not gonna hulk out,” Bruce mumbles. “But I think I need the bathroom…” 

Tony frowns. “Yeah, well, you can’t really unbuckle the seatbelts until we’ve completed the jump…”

“Then”—Bruce swallows again with visible difficulty—“then I need a plastic bag.”

“What?” Tony turns away from the console and fully takes in his friend’s hunched-over posture and ghostly pallor. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Um,” Peter pipes up, stifling a sick burp into his sleeve, “I think I need one too.”

Tony turns his head from Bruce to Peter with an incredulous look. “Well, I don’t think we have any,” he says after a beat. “This is a spaceship, not Walmart.”

Peter gulps. His mentor may be used to flying upside down all the time, but this is very far from Peter’s usual swings between buildings. He squeezes his eyes shut when the ship turns a corner inside the wormhole - or at least that’s what it feels like to Peter - and another wave of nausea washes over him. 

Bruce makes a noise extremely close to a gag that sends Tony into action. “Okay, just hold on.” The engineer dumps the leftover popcorn onto the floor and tosses an empty container to each of them. “Shit, we can’t even stop right now - we’re in the middle of a wormhole.”

Peter tries his best to keep his breathing shallow and his mouth closed, but he is already past the point of no return. The sweetish smell of popcorn wafting up from the receptacle is the final straw. Just when the ship completes the space jump with a violent lurch, he doubles over and throws up copiously into the container.

The problem is that when the ship exits the wormhole, it takes a few moments to restore the artificial gravity. Without gravity, everything starts to float, including—to Peter’s horror—his own puke. It hovers out of the popcorn container and forms a shapeless ball in the air, looking kind of like an extremely ugly soap bubble. 

“Oh my god,” Peter croaks. His insides contract again. He tries to swallow down bile, but his angry stomach sends up another wave of vomit that immediately hovers upwards to join the rest. 

“What. The actual. Fuck.” Tony’s eyes follow the floating puke bubble with an expression of horror. “Please tell me this is just another nightmare.”

Before anyone can react, gravity is suddenly restored. The puke bubble seems to freeze mid-air for a split second. Then it drops down and hits the control panel with a splatter. 

“Shit!” Tony jerks back reflexively from the controls, which makes the ship swerve. Peter’s stomach twists again and Bruce emits an audible moan. “I swear, out of all places on this spaceship -”

Tony is interrupted by the sound of retching, now coming from Bruce, who is bent over his container, throwing up into it noisily. 

“Why do you even still have physical controls?” the scientist moans when he surfaces. “Can’t you use”—he draws in a shaky breath—“holograms?”

“They’re hard to see without reading glasses, okay?” Tony defends, rather aggressively. With a look of disgust on his face, he extends his pinky finger to hit one of the buttons that is not covered in vomit. The ship finally comes to a standstill. “But that’s beside the point! Why can’t I have one. single. vacation. without stuff like this happening?”

“I am so, so sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter croaks before shoving his head back into the popcorn container to bring up a mouthful of bile. “It’s just so fast.”

“Of course it’s fast. That’s what it’s supposed to be! We can’t cross outer space on a bicycle!”

“I know, I know,” Peter moans, wiping his mouth with a shaky hand before leaning his head back against the seat. 

On the other side, Bruce lets out a groan. “I was wrong. This is so much worse than being shot at.”

Tony’s expression softens upon seeing their shared misery. He produces a bottle of water from the minibar integrated below his seat and hands it to Peter. “Well, I guess I should have taken it a bit slower the first time.” He sighs and turns back to the controls. “FRIDAY, call Thor. Tell him we need to find an intergalactic car wash.”

______________

This is part of our amazing Whump Drabble Challenge!

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

Alien Spaceship Pyramids

(Very mild Kwamibuster spoilers. Also on AO3)

-

Alix was not a happy bunny when she went back to the Louvre that evening.

“Did you see me on TV?” Jalil said immediately, jumping up in excitement. “My theory was accepted! I’m so happy!”

“Yeah, I saw it,” Alix snapped. She threw her schoolbag down on the floor and went off to go find her skates – she really had to do something fun and distracting or she would go mad.

“What did you think? Was I okay? I did get lots of followers on my history blog, so I’m glad at least that my theories are gaining traction–”

“Aliens, Jalil? Really?!” She spun round to face him. “You do know it’s possible for humans to build pyramids, right? That’s an actual thing that humans actually can do. I can do it myself, just gimme a few Lego blocks and I’ll happily show you. ‘Alien spaceships’, honestly...”

“But I have proof! The pyramids are so ancient that primitive human technology of the time can’t possibly have built structures as mathematically magnificent as that!”

“They just piled a bunch of rocks on top of each other, how hard can it be?”

“But they’re so huge, and – and – I have other proof too...”

She sighed. “Look. I didn’t care about the necromancy thing, even if it was so cringey that you got akumatized over it. I didn’t care about the Atlantis thing. I got super into the Area 51 thing, if you remember. I get that conspiracy theories are fun. But this? This is a step too far!”

“Why?”

“Because you’re acting like our own ancestors were too dumb to build a freaking pyramid!”

Jalil crossed his arms. “You sound just like dad.”

“Pfffff, dad doesn’t talk like that, he’s way less informal.”

“You know what I mean! Anyway, come on, can’t I count on my own family to support me? I support your skating thing, even though you keep getting injured from it!” He gestured towards the bandage on her knee.

“Jalil, dude. I have supported you through so much. Like that hang-gliding fad, or your weird rivalry with that Theo guy, or that bloody necromancy ritual you never shut up about. But now I’ve had it. Next you’ll be saying the moon landing was a hoax, or the earth is flat, or that vaccines are bad, or that Rena Rouge is Marinette, or... or...”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed. “Rena Rouge is Mylène, of course.”

At the end of her patience, Alix turned away and began walking off to find her skates again. “I’m disowning you.”

“Hey! You can’t do that!”

“I can and I will!” she called out over her shoulder. “Dad was right to give the pocket watch to me! And guess what? I’m gonna go find Juleka’s mum and get her to adopt me, and then I’ll get an actual cool older brother instead! Not a weirdo like you...”

“Fine!” She heard Jalil stomp his foot, like some immature little kid. “I’m not talking to you anymore.”

“Me neither!”

Good riddance – she’d had enough of him and his stupid conspiracies!

 -

 “You can’t just get my mum to adopt you,” Juleka said, rolling her eyes. Well, the one eye that was visible anyway. Who knew what the other one was doing.

“Why not?” Alix asked.

“Because you’ve already got a parent. My mum would have to marry your dad, and uh... yeah. Not happening.”

“But it’s so unfair! You get a cool big brother who’s actually supportive and nice and didn’t try to convince you that Beethoven is an alien time lord when you were only 3 years old...”

The quiet twangs of Luka’s guitar could be heard from where he was sitting out on the deck. Imagine if Jalil could play the guitar? But no, the stupid nerd had to go for drums, and it was so frustrating to have to hear that boring repetitive tapping whenever she was trying to do her homework.

Juleka’s one eye widened. “But Alix, Beethoven really IS an alien time lord.”

“Haha, very funny.” Alix turned away.

“Hey... Jalil is a grown-up, isn’t he? Surely he’ll move out soon and then you won’t have to deal with him?”

“I doubt it. He works in the museum with dad. It’ll be me who has to move out, and I’ve still got years left before I can do that. Meanwhile my brother is on TV going on about alien spaceships while yours is on TV because you guys are in a rock band.”

Couldn’t Jalil be in a rock band with her? Sure, the age difference was a lot bigger than Juleka and Luka’s was, but still! Sibling rock bands were such a cool idea. Why couldn’t Jalil ever think of something like that? “Sibling archaeology team” didn’t have quite the same ring to it, especially when said team ended up getting chased out of the park for digging up all the grass.

“It’s not like Luka isn’t annoying sometimes too,” Juleka said, seemingly trying to put on a reassuring smile. “For example he... uh... hmm... he thinks ethereal wave is better than darkwave. It’s really annoying.”

“Ah yes, arguing over music genres. Jalil thinks the Hurrian Hymns are better than the Jet Set Radio soundtrack and I want to slap him. Like no offence to the Ancient Sumerians but they could really have used more bass.”

“Well um... Luka also won’t use mascara even though I keep telling him it’ll really make his eyes pop.”

“Yeah, and Marinette and Adrien still won’t stop obsessing over him. Jalil fricking wears scarfs indoors. Like, inside when it’s warm. I don’t care about fashion and even I want to nominate him for Queer Eye.”

Juleka shrugged. “Oh, I give up. Luka is a great brother. I’m sorry.”

Alix nodded, getting up to leave. “Never mind. I guess I’ll just have to deal with him then, though I’m not gonna stop giving him the silent treatment...”

Anyway, Juleka constantly trying to make her feel better wasn’t what she needed. She needed a brick wall to vent at who would just nod along and not really care, and let her be as annoyed as she wanted in peace. She needed... ah yes... a certain emo who would certainly be in the art gallery back at the Louvre right about now...

 -

 She hadn’t even made it there yet before hearing the unwelcome voice of Nuisance #1 chasing after her down the street.

“HEY ALIX! Your brother was awesome on that show earlier! Wait come back! Stop!”

Screeching to a halt on her skates, she turned around. “What do you want, Kim?”

Kim did that weird half-dab thing he had been doing all day. “The show, Alternative Truth! How do you get on it? I wanna be on it too!”

She rolled her eyes. “For what? What stupid conspiracy are you going to go with?”

“Well don’t tell anyone but...” He looked around and then lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think your dad might be Hawk Moth.”

“God, and I thought Jalil was bad...”

Kim didn’t seem to have heard her. “So how do you get on the show? How did Jalil do it? What do I do? Do I need to make a history blog too? I follow Jalil’s one now and it’s really great but he hasn’t mentioned anything about the show yet so...”

Alix made a mental note to remember to block Jalil’s blog from every one of her accounts at some point in the near future. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Go ask him yourself.”

“Well I would, but I can’t go in the Louvre, the security guards banned me after I broke that statue that one time...”

“Oh yeah, that was great,” she said, allowing herself a grin despite how annoyed she was. “Fine, I’ll let you in through the side entrance. But only on the condition that you never speak to me about Jalil ever again.”

His face fell. “Why not?”

“Because he’s the worst brother ever and I hate him.”

“Wow, that’s kinda harsh...”

“I don’t care. Now hurry up and follow me, I’ve got a tomato to meet up with.”

She skated off and trusted he was following. He was always bragging about being able to run super fast, well surely he’d be able to keep up, right? If he couldn’t then too bad for him!

 -

 “Alright, go through there,” Alix said, pointing at the corridor that led towards her family’s quarters. “I’m going to the art gallery. And if you get kicked out or arrested by security guards then I’m absolutely throwing you under the bus and pretending I had nothing to do with this.”

“Cool. In return, I’m gonna tell Jalil what you said about him being the worst brother ever and that you hate him. See ya later!”

Kim turned and ran off before she could even process what he’d said.

Wait... he was going to actually tell Jalil that? To his face?

Alix ignored the weird pangs of guilt. Anyway, it was true! Jalil was the worst. She definitely didn’t care if someone told him so. He deserved to be insulted.

Her gut twisted painfully.

No! No guilt. She stuffed a pair of headphones on and skated off towards the art gallery.

 -

 The best thing about Nathaniel was that he just didn’t care. It probably worked both ways ��� plenty of times he’d been the one sitting here, ranting about something while doodling in that little sketchbook of his, and Alix would just skate around and listen. Now it was her turn to rant.

“Jalil is so annoying! I can’t stand it any longer! His conspiracies don’t even make any sense, he’s just doing it to be edgy and weird and I hate it!”

“Mhm.” Nath didn’t even look up from his sketchbook.

“I never even minded before, but this alien spaceship thing has gone too far. And to think he was on TV, and everyone saw it! It’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me!”

“Yeah. So embarrassing.”

“I used to wonder why dad is so harsh on him all the time, but I kinda get it now. He’s just – just so–”

She stopped just short of saying the word useless.

Was Jalil useless?

Well... he had been the one who had bought Alix her first ever pair of skates. Heck, he’d even been the one who bought the skates she was currently wearing.

Nath finally looked up. “Having second thoughts?”

Alix had been so busy venting that she hadn’t noticed the songs that were playing through her headphones, having just put the thing on shuffle and let it do what it wanted, but she suddenly noted the vaguely familiar tones of an ancient lyre.

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she looked to see that it was... oh yeah, Hurrian Hymn No. 6. That time when she’d downloaded it just to see what Jalil’s hype about it even was. It was okay, she guessed. Not her type of music, but hey, the Ancient Sumerians only had a limited availability of instruments to work with, it wasn’t her place to judge that.

She sighed and went to sit down beside Nath.

“It’s a bit weird... me and Jalil have never really fought like this before. He just does his own thing and I do my own thing. I... I’m not used to being mad at him.”

Peering over, she noticed that Nath was drawing the pyramids themselves. It reminded her of what she was annoyed about in the first place.

“I just can’t believe he literally went on TV and called the pyramids alien spaceships! Does he even hear himself? I usually stick up for him when dad is calling him out on his dumb theories, but this one just doesn’t make any sense at all...”

“So this is the first time you haven’t taken his side?” Nath asked.

She nodded. “I guess that’s why he’s mad at me too... he’s used to me sorta passively supporting him... I mean most of the time his theories aren’t any more or less zany than the stuff Alya comes up with, so it’s not usually a big deal...”

The lyre was strangely haunting. So much reverb, echoing around like the thoughts in her brain. It was enough to calm her down a bit – probably a good thing, because getting akumatized was not exactly a priority today.

Her phone buzzed. She looked at it again to see–

Ugh, a notification that Jalil had updated his blog. She’d forgotten to block him.

But even as she unlocked the screen and went to do so, she couldn’t stop herself from reading what he’d posted, at least the first few lines.

Apologies to all my dear fans and followers who watched Alternative Truth today, but I am renouncing my theory that the pyramids are the remains of ancient spaceships. I have come to realize that I was misinformed and that there is a high possibility that the Ancient Egyptians really did build them through their own power, and...

What?

“Nath!” Alix leapt to her feet. “Jalil doesn’t believe that alien spaceship theory anymore!”

Nath barely even blinked. “Okay. Cool.”

“How did this happen? There’s no way he’d just stop believing something like that, he’s always so adamant that he’s right! Unless... unless... oh no...”

Was this her fault? Her saying that she hated Jalil, that he was the worst brother ever, and Kim deciding to tell him so, did that really hurt Jalil so much that he’d renounce his own theory? Had her words affected him that much?

“Oh my god I have to go apologize to him.”

“Uh what?”

“I’ll be back later! You keep drawing, I have to go...”

Leaving Nath there confused, she skated off at top speed.

 -

 “Jalil! Jalil, there you are!”

Jalil frowned. “Alix? I thought you weren’t going to talk to me anymore?”

Too much momentum to stop in time, she skated right into him and almost knocked him over. “I’m so sorry I was mean to you okay, I mean your theory was definitely stupid and I’m glad you renounced it but please ignore whatever Kim said, I don’t think you’re the worst brother and–”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the things I said about you behind your back! Kim said he was going to tell you...”

Jalil scratched his head in thought. “That’s the kid with the Tintin hair, right? I didn’t get to talk to him at all, I saw him getting kicked out by security actually.”

“So he didn’t tell you that I said I hated you?”

“No, not at all!”

Oh...

“Well then why did you renounce your theory?” she asked. “I thought it was because I made you feel bad.”

“Something really strange happened to me actually!” Jalil said, his eyes lighting up in the way that they always did whenever he was going to go off on a conspiracy tangent. Alix mentally prepared herself for the worst. “I met a superhero who claimed to come from the future! She had the powers of time travel and said that she would prove me wrong, and so she took me through a portal back in time to thousands of years ago, and briefly showed me the Ancient Egyptians actually building the pyramids themselves. And I know it sounds too good to be true but I promise I’m not lying! This really happened to me!”

Superhero from the future? She was about to say how far-fetched that sounded, when she noticed Jalil looking at her very suspiciously.

“The superhero... looked very familiar, now that I think about it...”

“Uh... who did it look like?”

He hesitated for a few seconds before answering. “...Never mind. Just a conspiracy theory.”

“Is it one with proof this time? Because as long as it’s not as stupid as the pyramid one, I’m willing to hear it.”

He shook his head. “I’ll tell you someday, but just uh... not yet.”

“Um, okay.”

“Anyway, you were right about the pyramid theory being wrong, and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

“Cool. And I’m... I’m sorry I was really harsh about it.”

“No, it’s good that you were! I shouldn’t be giving all the credit to aliens for things that humans did. And you’re usually really nice about my theories, so if it was something that made you annoyed, then it surely had to have been bad...”

Alix smiled – it was nice to be back on her brother’s good side. “All forgiven. I’ll still stick up for you when dad’s being annoying, I promise.”

“Thanks, munchkin.” He patted her on the head. “I like it better when we’re not bickering.”

“Same.”

Something popped into her head all of a sudden.

“Oh yeah, Jalil? How did you get onto Alternative Truth in the first place?”

“Why do you want to know? Are you going to go on it?”

“What? No! Not me! Kim stans that show, he was bugging me about it earlier...”

“Oh right! Well it was like this...”

He launched into an explanation. Phew – things were back to normal. Jalil could be annoying, sure, but he still helped Alix with her homework, and covered for her whenever she was doing anything she wasn’t supposed to, and cheered for her at skating competitions, and so many other things she was grateful for. In fact, he probably kept her in line as much as she had done with him today. Of course, being so much younger, it wasn’t exactly easy to boss him around without him getting overly annoyed about it. But at least he was still there for her.

Superhero from the future, though... who on earth was that?

 -

 It was several years later when Alix kicked open the door to Jalil’s room, pocket watch in hand.

“Hey Alix, what’s u–”

“The superhero was me, wasn’t it?” she said, deadpan.

“What superhero?”

“The one who showed you the pyramids years ago.”

Jalil’s eyes widened. “Oh – the bunny? You mean that really is you?”

“Oh hell yes, it was me alright. You were being such a twerp that day, it still annoys me when I think about how I had to sit through that stupid TV show...”

“Wait you’re a miraculous holder?!”

Alix didn’t pay him any attention. “I’m going back in time to that day right now and proving you wrong. Your alien spaceship theory doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Wait wait wait you’re telling me my little sister really is a superhero???”

Alix turned back around and walked out of the room. How had it took her so long to put two and two together? Well, whatever. Time to fix mini-Alix and mini-Jalil’s friendship, and put an end to the alien spaceships once and for all.

[superman86to99]

Superman #82 (October 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! The climax of this 19-part storyline, the entire "Death and Return of Superman" saga, and seven years of long-ass plotlines. And it only took this blog a mere six years and six months to get here! PREVIOUSLY: After Superman’s death, five different Supermen popped up to reclaim the mantle, some more convincingly than others. The front-runner, the Cyborg Superman, kinda ruled himself out of the competition when he nuked out a whole city and replaced it with a giant engine. Now the other would-be Supermen converge in that place...

The Last Son of Krypton/Eradicator finally arrives on Engine City, having set off from the Fortress of Solitude two weeks ago. We noted back then that he suddenly looked like an old man, but he's back to Superman's age now. If this storyline had gone on any longer, he would ended up Benjamin Buttoning himself into a grumpy, ultra-violent baby.

Superboy also flies in from Metropolis. It's the fourth time he makes the Metropolis-Coast City trip in a few days (not counting the time he got a ride on a missile), so he's gotta be pretty bored of it by now.

Steel, last seen getting crushed by some giant cogs, emerges from the bowels of Engine City with his armor in tatters but his body intact. Dude’s a tough nut to crack.

Supergirl and the powerless Man in Black continue making their way through Engine City. Supergirl's like "Wanna step out and let those of us with powers handle this one, chief?" but the Man in Black ain't having it. Wow, that's pretty heroic. Maybe... maybe he's actually the real Superman?! Nah, that's crazy.

And Green Lantern Hal Jordan is also there, because this whole issue takes place on top of the ashes of his old city and childhood memories and all. We see the end of his fight with Mongul from Green Lantern #46.

The Cyborg watches as the Super-People invade his fortress from his control room, but he's a glass half full kind of guy, so he's choosing to focus on the fact that he (apparently) gets to kill Superman again.

After the Eradicator joins the party and the Cyborg reveals his true identity, the Man in Black finds himself in the awkward position of having to team up with one of Superman’s worst villains (the one who wanted to turn Earth into Krypton) to fight a good guy driven crazy by space travel (and who once looked like Johnny-5). It's only after the Eradicator goes on a two-page exposition dump about how he brought Superman back to life that the Man in Black goes "alright, guess you're cool".

The Man in Black and the Eradicator follow the Cyborg to the center of Engine City, where a giant chunk of kryptonite powers the entire fortress. The combined powers of the Eradicator's Eradicator-ness and the Man in Black's punching (OK, mostly the first thing) seem to be winning -- but then, in a desperate move, the Cyborg shoots a blast of concentrated kryptonite at the Man in Black. The Eradicator, however, heroically jumps in front of the blast...

...which has the unexpected side effect of restoring the Man in Black's Superman powers, allowing him to dispatch the Cyborg with a swift "broosh". What's a "broosh"? You know, a "broosh":

After Supergirl uses her convenient clothes-shifting powers on the Man in Black's costume, it only takes one second of him in the classic red and blue tights to convince everyone that HOLY CRAP HE'S THE REAL SUPERMAN AND HE'S BACK FROM THE DEAD! (Side note: I like how Green Lantern goes "We'll mop up here! Not like I have anything better to do, what with all my friends being dead and stuff. Haha. I-I’m okay, seriously.")

It's him! It really is him. I knew it all along. Never doubted it.

Character-Watch:

The Eradicator is this issue's real MVP. His whole arc has been about slowly turning him from an emotionless robot into a sentient being through his interactions with people (Lois, Steel, even Loose Cannon and Guy Gardner), and it pays off when he jumps in front of that kryptonite blast yelling "I WON'T LET YOU DIE [AGAIN]!".

Also, when he tells Superman "We have always been linked, you and I", that's true. While their psychic connection influenced Superman negatively for a while (the Day of the Krypton Man saga), it looks like it also worked in the other direction and some of Superman's goodness rubbed off on him. By the way, it might be a stretch but the climactic shot of the kryptonite blast always reminded me of the Day of the Krypton Man's climactic shot, with Superman finally overcoming the Eradicator’s influence with Pa Kent's help.

Anyway, sorry, Superboy and Steel. The Eradicator had the best sacrifice scene in this storyline, hands down. Of course, they eventually brought him back again and turned him into a lapdog for the Cyborg and then Zod, but let's enjoy his dignified retirement while it lasts.

Plotline-Watch:

I'm not kidding when I say that this issue represents the convergence of seven freaking years of storylines. Let's recap (strap on, this is gonna be long):

John Byrne's Man of Steel #1 (1986) introduced Superman's birth matrix, the flying artificial womb that took him from Krypton to Earth. When young Clark sees the matrix for the first time he feels weak, because there's some kryptonite lodged into it. In Superman #1, a few months later, we find out that a crazy scientist stole the matrix and used it to build Metallo, so Superman decides to leave it suspended in orbit to prevent it from being used against him again. Three years later, the distraught mind of a disembodied astronaut called Hank Henshaw jumped into the matrix, and he made himself a tiny little spaceship from its technology, then sped off into deep space. Eventually, he went mad, hooked up with Mongul, and used the DNA information he got from the birth matrix to make himself a half-Kryptonian body. Hence: the Cyborg Superman. (As for that kryptonite rock, it ended up in Lex Luthor's hands... soon to be "hand".)

Also during Byrne's run, Superman briefly visited a "pocket" universe inhabited by a Silver Age-type Superboy, who died by the end of that storyline. Months later, the pocket Earth had turned into a hellhole thanks to three Kryptonian criminals. They too died by the end of that storyline... by Superman's hand. Feeling guilty over killing those killers, Superman exiled himself in space, was captured by Mongul's Warworld, and found an ancient egg-shaped relic created by his ancestors: the Eradicator. Superman brought the Eradicator back to Earth and it built him a nice Fortress of Solitude, but it also took over his mind and turned him into the emotionless Krypton Man -- who became an entity of its own after Superman overcame it. After Superman's death, the Fortress' robots rebooted the Eradicator so he could follow his “preserve Kryptonian life” directive and restore Superman back to life, but he got a little confused and thought HE was Superman. Hence: the Last Son of Krypton.

Another concept introduced by Byrne was the idea that Kryptonian DNA is too complex to be duplicated by Earth scientists, which led to the creation of Bizarro. Byrne's World of Krypton miniseries also established that Kryptonians used clones as spare parts to extend their lifetimes, and the conflict over clone rights literally tore the planet apart. So when Superman learned of a cloning facility near Metropolis called Project Cadmus, he immediately felt uneasy about it. After his death, Cadmus got hold of his body so they could create a replacement, but, again, you can't clone a Kryptonian... so they simply created an approximation of Superman's powers and features using human DNA. Hence: Superboy.

As for Steel, he's just Steel. Hence: Steel. Incidentally, if you’re wondering why his armor has been reduced to just some metal shorts by the end of the issue, here’s the answer. Pretty self-explanatory.

The only major plotline left dangling after this issue (aside from Dr. Stratos, of course) is Lex's own death/return/cloning misadventure, but the Super-Squad will deal with that in a big way pretty soon. Oh, and then there's the mess they left for Green Lantern, but that's another creative team's problem. (SHAMELESS PLUG: Follow my new Green Lantern '94 to '04 blog to see how that mess turned out.)

Believe it or not, there's even MORE stuff to talk about in this issue, so don’t miss the great Don Sparrow's section after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

In the first place I have to say that this issue is an all-time favourite of mine, probably in my top three of this era of comics we’ve been so dutifully covering.  The excitement at my local comic shop for this issue was incredible, and already being the Superman fan that I was, I felt like I was on the ground floor. [Max: I also remember the excitement when I first saw this issue in my cousin’s hands after he showed it to me the day he bought it... then didn’t let me touch it, so I read it years later.]

We start with the cover, and I got the deluxe edition, with the chromium cover.  Back when this issue came out, I had a love/hate relationship with Image comics.  I wasn’t interested in the dark & gritty characters like Spawn and the like, and generally thought the Image books favoured flash over substance and storytelling.  BUT, man, did the colouring and paper they used at Image ever look cool!  So I was a bit torn about DC using a “gimmicky” feature like this—it looked amazing, but I also felt it was leaning a little far in the direction of sizzle over steak.  But I didn’t mind that much, since this had been such a great story to this point.  Aside from the metallic 3D look of the cover, the drawing is great, too.  It was the first look at the returned Superman in the full suit, and also with the long hair present.  DC must have thought that the long hair was a gamble on some level (even though we’d seen it for months in the actual issues) because they hid it from the covers for so long. [Max: This was also the cover they used in both the Spanish and Mexican editions I have, so that’s what I went with for the top of this post. The “normal” cover looks like a historic oddity to me.]

Inside the issue, we jump in with another splash page—there are a lot of these, and it really calls back Superman #75, as most of the pages have one main image, with a few small panels laid overtop.   This one features another interpretation of the Eradicator, with short, non-spiky hair—it’s interesting to see these characters reinterpreted week to week.  This opening page also commits the unpardonable sin of demanding that we stop reading the issue until AFTER we read Green Lantern #46.  Being a naïve 13 year old when I read this issue, I of course complied with the demands of DC editorial, and read Green Lantern first, not realizing it has a near identical plot (albeit from a different point of view), right down to the “broosh” at the end, very much spoiling what is about to come in Superman #82.  I remember being pretty steamed that my first glimpse of a returned Superman didn’t come in a Superman book.  While I appreciate the coordination, I do find the caption misleading.

Also similar to Superman #75—it’s very hard for me not to talk about every panel or page, because this whole book is just gorgeous.  The badassery from the last issue continues into this one, as Superman with his tough-guy attitude and giant gun is pretty cool.  One quibble I have with this team is that when they bury Superman’s eye’s in shadow, it can have a sinister or tired look, which I don’t think is the intention.  Some panels it’s more prominent than others, but in one panel on page 6 where it makes Superman look pretty rough, and a lot less handsome.  We get more big gun Superman later when he starts taking it to Engine City in general, knowing it is connected to the Cyborg.

The Cyborg taking different shapes is done pretty effectively here, particularly when he forms himself out of what must be a lead-like metal to accuse Superman of a bunch of nutty stuff. The reveal of the Kryptonite heart of engine city is very well done, in part because of Eradicator’s bulging red eyes.  It is a bit weird to imagine a lipless robot saying “mmm, hmm” though.

We get another great full-page splash as the Eradicator goes all-out in his effort to defeat the Cyborg.  The captions here always confused me though, where it says “(The Eradicator)  was built to kill…the other (the rocket that brought Superman to Earth, which the Cyborg used to create his new body) to bear new life.  The victor would be obvious.”  But to me, it’s not obvious.  I would think that in a Superman comic, a vessel of LIFE would be the big winner over ancient weaponry, but I think the caption intends the inverse. I guess it’s saying a gun would beat a baby crib? It’s one of those passages that sounds cool, until you think about it.  Or think about it excessively, as I clearly have. [Max: To be fair, a gun WOULD beat a baby crib. It would kick that baby crib’s ass.]

Superman’s haymaker knocking off the Cyborg’s jaw is an incredible visual, and there’s a subtle set-up for the great cape visual call-back that comes later.

The entire sequence of the Eradicator taking the blast of Kryptonite is well done, in particular the panel when we see Superman through the vanishing Eradicator.  I’m a bit confused as to just how the Kryptonite suction thing works here—the Kryptonite meteor is shrinking and shrinking, but nothing is attached to it except for that one hose.  

Jurgens and Breeding do a great job of showing the physical cost of Green Lantern going toe to toe with Mongul.  It also sets up for my all-time favourite Superboy quote, one I think might be seen on this site from time to time in meme form, “Check it out! The Lantern looks so totaled it makes me want to hurl!”.  This entire saga has been worth it, to get to that line.  Just magnificent. [Max: I think Hal went evil because of that one comment.]

The glimpse of the burnt-out husk of the Eradicator is also incredibly well drawn—and painful looking—but even by the end of this story he seems a lot more recovered.

The scene of the returned-to-full-power Superman decking the Cyborg is a stand-up-and-cheer moment, and I love the detail that Superman is holding the cape for this whole scene. It’s interesting that as the Cyborg starts to get damaged in the fight, we see how little organic material there is. Metal seems to poke through the skin on his face, as if only a thin sheet were laid over the metal.  and when Superman punches right through him, there’s really no blood or anything, just a dry, cracked crater.  I had thought, up until this issue that the cybernetic parts were beside real skin and bones (as if to replace the damaged parts of Superman’s body from his fight with Doomsday), but this issue seems to posit that he’s all robot, with only a veneer of Kryptonian flesh overtop.  

The normally merciful Superman is pretty blood-thirsty here, vibrating his arm fully in the knowledge it might kill Henshaw (who helpfully reminds us, he’s survived before).  [Max: That moment kind of rubbed me the wrong way, and I think Jurgens himself felt uneasy with it too. One of the highlights of his recent “Rebirth” run was that Superman deliberately decides to jail Hank instead of killing him to at least give him a chance to be rehabilitated, which would be cool to see happen one day.] I love the little glimpse we get of the restored, and re-costumed Superman before the full reveal, and as a character moment, I love that he would think to show gratitude for the heroes who filled in when Superman was dead.

The next few pages are pure joy, as it’s such a treat to see our Superman soaring around in the sunshine, even with the new Tarzan haircut.  It’s such a show of restraint that they didn’t pack a reunion with Lois into this issue, instead allowing a different superteam to tell that story, which very much deserves its own issue.  Overall, though, I just remember feeling such a sense of joy, and relief that Superman was back, and back to full power. [Max: SPOILERS: And then some...]

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I do love this era of comics before swearing (or even censored swearing) was a thing, because they have the weirdest phrases. John Byrne would always have characters saying “blast” instead of “damn” to an absolutely ridiculous degree.  In this issue, I don’t know for sure if “crud” is a stand-in for another word, but it does strike me as downright odd for Green Lantern to use it as a noun against Mongul.  The concept of “a crud” just amuses me, though I suppose it could be meant in the same vein as “scum” or something.

Is it me, or does Jeb look like Ricardo Montalbon here? [Max: Oh crud, I forgot Jeb was in this issue! Jeb was in this issue, everyone.]

I love they don’t even give the Cyborg a moment to be cool.  Just as he’s about to reveal his true identity in a villainous speech he gets clocked by Superboy, in one of my favourite moments with the character (but not my very favourite, as we’ve seen.)  I also like the low-level burn that Henshaw assumes that Superman must already know who he is, but Superman’s like, nope.

I do like that this issue goes to great lengths to explain that Superman can’t just keep returning from the dead, even going so far as to say it would never work again.  My pet theory is that the Eradicator’s Resurrection Matrix only worked because Pa Kent’s spiritual journey in Adventures of Superman #500 really did happen. [Max: I might be misremembering, but I think the upcoming issue of Action pretty much confirms that.]

I’m glad to see him recovered, but I kinda think Eradicator spoiled the moment a little with his observation about Green Lantern.

[Max: Blast it, Sparrow! You’ve done it again!]