#let people be space stations

[sf-bl]

Art-a-Day Day 16:

CCEO AU.

Just after getting Rhys out of Old Haven with his head tangled in a space station.

Taking the very best/worst decision. Jack inside Rhys, Rhys inside Helios. 200% as good as they imagined it'd feel to have the physical/digital pressed right up against their senses. Got a little exploratory. It's better when there's someone in there to feel it with you; don't think about why.

(Immediately followed by Rhys passing out in a cold desert covered in sand and regret.)

[Putting these here to bring the AU all into one tag: https://sf-bl.tumblr.com/tagged/cyber%20ceos mostly Rhack, totally out-of-sequence]

[bacchuschucklefuck]

space sweepers but they're delivery people and are at no point on screen through the entire movie

[maeamian]

Becoming deeply radicalized against the idea of crewed Mars missions, y'know how the Rovers keep sending back better and better data what if instead of that we made an even bigger one and devoted nearly 90% of its capacity to holding a guy in a bubble on top of it instead of sending back useful data, but wait! They'll eliminate like a half hour of latency and also almost certainly contaminate the landing site and possibly the entire planet, so it's not all downside.

[m0e-ru]

lets think of everyone who had persona blogs and obliterated them off the face of the earth instead of just archiving and keep them in our thoughts tonight. everyone else who directly caused them into doing that go and fucking behave

[blitzythefanvergentpitsterthings]

[comic-sans-chan]

Honestly kind of shocked by how few (if any??) hate crime garashir fics there are. Like just random people trying to kill Julian after his augment secret gets out and Garak having to covertly (or not so covertly) fuck up people's shit. DS9 is a way-station/tourist trap, so there are weird people coming in all the time and any one of them could hear about Julian and have Strong Opinions that they feel the need to express. Actually shocked the show didn't play with this more, either. Julian really got off almost entirely scot-free, and fics are always like, "And everyone loved him anyway," like??? There are definitely people who did not love him anyway.

[theskoomacat]

M*uthwashing was good, the only things i didn't enjoy lie in the area of writing (but so do some things i enjoyed the most!) - but I expected more from it? kinda?

[sga-owns-my-soul]

i am begging people to learn public transit etiquette please for the love of god

[seagullcharmer]

star trek as a series really is just. so good. yeah i've enjoyed some of the new stuff, too (strange new worlds really has the same feel as the early stuff!) but man. the original series was already groundbreaking. the next generation just layered on top of it. i'm working my way through ds9 now and it opens on such a heavy-hitting episode (wow!! trauma!!!!) (also picard is such a beloved character to many and sisko HATES him so politely it's incredible) (like he is certainly justified! but wow!!) and of course voyager was the one i actually watched first + all the way through first (i've since watched all of tng) but yeah. i really do think tng is probably the best one to start with if you haven't watched star trek before. and of course each one is a product of its time and so some of it is campy or not how we see the world today but. it's sooo good. so good.

[sf-bl]

Wonder how that got in there! Intimacy takes many forms, and one of them is trekking through your boyfriend's nitrogen-inerted server room to flick bits of exploded technician out of his brain. 💙💙💙

(RIP to @infinitybits87's incinerated graphics card for inspiring this line of thought.)

[fingertipsmp3]

Looking at the rota app thinking well. Tomorrow is going to be fascinating

[ironunderstands]

Honestly I think the reason why I’m not a fan of this theory is not because it couldn’t be true but because it would be incredibly unsatisfying, as narratively, we already accomplished everything we would want to within Penacony.

Sure, maybe I wouldn’t hate a “but was it all even real anyways?” as that could be interesting, but a re-do of the plot in a manner similar to 2.2 would SUUUCKKKK and here’s why

The Astral Express has no reason to stay in Penacony

We got our answer to, “Why does life slumber?” and we learned of and said goodbye to the three trailblazers/Nameless, as well as fulfilled there wishes by taking a share of the stock in Penacony, and having a stake in its reconstruction, meaning we can help prevent it from returning to a similar state as its former self. Moreover, we kinda always leave places with problems, I mean it was either Dan Heng or Himeko who said that trailblazers get worlds back on their feet, then leave the rest to them, something which we did on both Jarilo-VI and the Luofu.

Therefore, if this ends up being a dream, the ending we will reach by resolving it won’t check off any more boxes for us, as well, we already accomplished everything, so it would be more like erasing the checks and drawing them over again- a completely pointless endeavor.

The reason the 2.2 twist WORKED and was actually good is because we hadn’t completed those objectives yet, but in the second bossfight with Sunday we answered why life sleeps, and got to fulfill the wishes of the Nameless in 2.3.

Effectively, another dream would only serve as a waste of time, and unless it’s there to completely solve the hedonism in Penacony (something the Nameless aren’t that worried about because well it’s ultimately up to the people there), there’s nothing another dream would allow the story to gain.

2. Who’s gonna be the bus driver for this?

Every other character on Penacony has either moved on, or is dead and has pretty blatantly said goodbye. Like Aventurine and Boothill are gonna hunt Oswaldo, Robins presumably gonna do more charity work, Sunday’s free and that’s gonna hand consequences, Acherons gonna keep chasing the Nihility, Black Swan might be joining us on Ampherous, Ratio’s going back the guild, Topaz and Jade are gonna continue their IPC work, Firefly did her third “death” and is gonna go back to being a Stellaron Hunter.

Practically everyone has higher priorities, none of which are related to Penacony, so dragging them all back because oops it’s another dream would only delay all of their characters arcs. There’s almost nothing anyone could gain by having another arc in Penacony, both narratively and literally, so there’s no point in remaining.

Moreover, who exactly would be the perpetrator of this second dream? Even The Family seems uninterested in that, so like, would it just be endemic to Penacony like what Firefly’s story implies? How the hell would we even handle that? Why would we even care at that point? If we went to the Xianshou and they were like “hmm back already it’s only been a few days?” and everyone’s like “damn that really was a all a dream,” then what would that change? If we truly leave Penacony for good, only to find out it was all a dream or something, that wouldn’t change anything in the plot because it already affected every character which interacted with it, so it might have been reality. At best I feel this situation exists in the state it currently resides in: uncertainty. Putting little hints of “but was it really real?” is far better than pulling a 2.2 part two, which leads into my next point.

3. WHYYYY WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS

Pulling the same fucking twist twice for the sake of a “haha gotcha!1!” moment is not only stupid, it’s criminally, offensively boring and a spit in the face to everyone who actually enjoyed Penacony’s plot and is willing to move on.

It wouldn’t be fun or compelling, it would be a fucking chore. I don’t know about yall, but for whatever update they would but this in, I wouldn’t be enjoying it, I’d be like, “god I guess we gotta fix the dream again,” because we already did that and there’s nothing new to learn.

Also, hoyo knows their audience. They know we are fucking stupid, they are gonna be WAYYY more obvious about it like they were in 2.2 if they are pulling a stunt this big, and not rely on hints that are a) straight up from previous updates b) completely up to interpretation c) misinterpreted entirely (2.3 takes place in the dreamscape yall) d) probably just a writing error

4. Guys this game isn’t that well written 😭

Does it have great moments? Of course, and I think HSR has far better writing than people give it credit for but like- oh my god is it not perfect

Like the mystery that is how old Pela actually is (she’s 16 yet also went to college and played in Servals band)

Whatever the fuck the 1.5 lore retcons were

Us never sending Serval a picture of the stellaron

March getting an outfit in like 1.5 we still haven’t received

Duke inferno going from using non-gendered pronouns to he/him

Jing Yuan confronting Luocha and Jingliu WAY BACK yet we still don’t have a conclusion for that

all the racist shit they have written (WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO NAME AVENTURINES PLANET AFTER AN IRL SLUR 😭)

The fact that we can do quests at any order whenever we want at any time (hell we didn’t even have a timeline at one point)

There’s probably a million more that I haven’t pointed out, but HSR already has SO MANY CONTINUITY ERRORS that haven’t gotten and will probably never get resolved, so stuff like Aventurine standing in front of the repaired screen really shouldn’t matter (I mean we don’t even know when that actually occurred, it’s a cutscene and not only was Aven not in the same room place as everyone, he could have also not been shown in same time. Moreover it was probably just meant to be symbolic anyways, him standing by the place in which he learned so much).

Penacony’s story not being 100% perfect and making sense is normal for HSR because THE ENTIRE STORY IS LIKE THAT, and making 2.3 somehow be another dream would only cause more problems for the writing.

Personally, I think 2.3 did an excellent job at wrapping the story up, as we accomplished everything that needed to be done and all the characters moved on from what was going on there (or died).

I feel like most peoples dislike of it is more of a matter of personal taste than anything, as objectively, we accomplished what needed to be accomplished, and compared to the 3 previous high-stakes updates, a chiller one was definitely in store.

Like guys, HSR is a Space COMEDY, it’s extremely silly and has been extremely silly, so having a more lighthearted update is nothing out of the ordinary, especially since we were due one for a while, considering 1.6-2.2 were all fairly serious (I mean 2.3 still has its dark moments too regardless 😭).

Considering we still have 2 warp jumps left, I assume the next one is to the Xianzhou for a while, for reasons we aren’t privy too yet (although, I actually don’t know if warping to places we have been before costs fuel). Maybe we will revisit Belabog if that’s true, and Penacony of course to aid in reconstruction. After that, it’s off to Ampherous, which I’m incredibly excited for!

Honestly I think it’s time to move on, and I sincerely hope the game doesn’t decide to beat a dead horse

the people of penacony are still (yes, still) stuck in a dream.

disclaimer: i am not a theorist. i just want to present some very suspicious things i've found and speculate on some things because i am frankly going insane over this

firstly, did anyone else get deja vu when first starting the new trailblaze mission? march says the exact same things as she did in ena's dream when trying to get the trailblazer to get up. "wake up, wake up," and then "wake up! the sun's frying your butt!"

the trailblazer has the option to say that this sounds familiar in both quests. the similarities stop after this, but another thing i found weird was how the stellaron was only mentioned once by march and then, to my knowledge, never again. no more attention focused on the thing that helped cause all the disaster in penacony?

onto other things - in the new quest checking out, qingque says this:

that's exaclty how the 2.3 quest went as well. everything went smoothly, including the deciding of the future of penacony, which i personally thought was going to be much more difficult. after that, everyone just leaves in a silly unvoiced side quest. and we didn't get to say goodbye to firefly in the end. she didn't actually experience her third death either, did she? i thought her third and final death in the script would've been a bit more dramatic, at least.

after going to firefly's secret base and interacting with the railing, you get this dialogue. this is only available after completing the 2.3 trailblaze mission.

why would the writers want to point out that it's supposedly not an illusion?

on the radiant feldspar, you can listen to these two npcs talking about the astral express acquiring the airship. this npc should be very aware that they're in the dreamscape, being in penacony, right?

the whole thing with ena's dream was also covered up by the family, with the guests having no memories of it, so they aren't talking about still being in ena's dream. what was the reason for this dialogue, then?

this is from the ending cutscene for the 2.3 mission. we fixed that screen behind aventurine. so... why is it still broken?

yes, you could say that it's for the people who haven't completed the quest where it was fixed. but that quest, once upon a dreamville, is supposed to happen before this one, so it should be fixed anyways, right?

i personally don't think hoyo would overlook something like this and leave the cutscene inaccurate for a good portion of players and mess with the timeline unless there was a good reason. trying to hint that something's not right, maybe?

in an optional interaction on the radiant feldspar, welt says this:

...but that didn't happen. welt knows that jing yuan wasn't actually there, so why wouldn't he mention that at all? iirc, march, himeko, and the trailblazer don't mention anything amiss with this either, even though this is supposed to be a snapshot of the trailblazer's memory and it didn't actually happen. don't you think that's worth mentioning?

you also get these two pieces of dialogue:

both of which i find very suspicious. i tried to chalk it up to the trailblazer being paranoid after ena's dream, but they haven't expressed that anywhere else, and they're happy in these scenes. so... why would the writers put both of these here?

after interacting with these building blocks near the monitoring room in the dreamscape reverie, you get this strange dialogue:

i could be wrong, but as far as i know, from my experience and another person's, this dialogue only appears after the 2.3 update.

in this video, sparkle says this:

firstly, the answer is important. this question is repeated countless times throughout penacony's quests, and answered by multiple different important characters. second, it's also repeated countless times that in penacony, it's not just about being happy. there are so many people in the beautiful dream who are miserable, who threw their lives away to get there, who are forced to work tirelessly to try and fulfill their dreams only to get no where. both of the things she claims are untrue. it feels like they're trying to hint at something or distract us.

yes, you could chalk this up to sparkle being sparkle. but i don't know why they would put this in the official video saying goodbye to penacony if it was just that.

onto some smaller things - robin says this in the new checking out mission:

...they all woke up from their dreams already, no?

also from the aforementioned video:

why would they acknowledge that the audience isn't satisfied with the ending? they did that with qingque too, and with something March said at the end of the quest: "so even if there are parts of it that aren't really realistic nor logical, we still hope that their story gets a good ending when it comes." why would they acknowledge this three different times if the story is truly over?

it's also said that the astral express will run out of fuel in two warp jumps if we don't go on more trailblaze missions. why are we going to the xianzhou then, if we need to trailblaze to get more fuel?

one last thing. personally, the conclusion feels all too perfect. despite this, virtually nothing has changed for the people of penacony. the beautiful dream isn't any more beautiful than it was before. people are still spending all their money to get to penacony, still wasting the rest of their remaining lives away in the dreamscape, still failing to achieve their dreams after giving up everything. despite one crisis being averted, it isn't going to get any better for the people of penacony. is this really such a perfect ending?

-

there are definitely hints i'm missing, but this is what i have for now. if i find anything else, i'll put it in a reblog. also, most of these are things I've noticed myself, but I did get a few from MeganeSimp on twitter.

i know a lot of people were very happy with the ending of 2.3 - and i am too! i don't necessarily want this theory to be true, but i also can't ignore the hints that hoyo is giving us. well, i could, but they've been eating away at my brain for days now. sure, these could all be meaningless, but i don't think the writers would put all of this in for it all to mean absolutely nothing. they're hinting at something.

i am also not trying to say that everything that happened in 2.3 was fake. i believe it did all happen, just while everyone (or just the trailblazer?) was unaware that they were in a deeper layer of the dreamscape and couldn't get out.

alright, that's all. thank you for taking the time to read through this, i hope it wasn't as disjointed as it feels. also, there are admittedly many holes in this theory. if you have anything you want to point out that I've missed or that debunks this, please feel free!

[hezuart]

Character rewrite: Maria Robotnik is taken to the ARK with her grandfather when she is young. Initially, there are no other children on the ARK, and most of the people there are older scientists too busy to interact with her. Half of them don't even believe her disease is real, while the other half treat her like a fragile doll. Maria, severely lacking interaction and attention, starts acting out, getting into trouble around the space station, and pushing herself to her limits when doing so. She becomes a nihilist and falls into a depression, realizing her situation is hopeless, that she may never see the Earth again. Gerald doesn't know how to console her, and tries to keep her focused on her studies. She's very smart, but feels like applying herself is a fruitless effort.

When Abraham is born, while excited to finally have a possible friend, Abraham is too young to play with for several years, so she still feels a disconnect to him. (And the parents aren't too thrilled about Maria's behavior to let her spend too much time with him unattended anyway) But when Shadow is born, as the ultimate life form with immediate intelligence and zero fragility, Maria immediately takes a liking to him, which makes Abraham jealous and lonely in the later years. Shadow is actually the voice of reason at the start, reserved, but curious. Maria's rebellious, juvenile nature inspires him as a semi-bad influence. Both he and Maria get into a lot of trouble on the ARK; Gerald leaves them be, seeing how happy and hopeful Maria is now. As the years pass, Shadow became a great inspiration to Maria. She started helping her grandfather design and build machines as well as shoes for Shadow. Maria matured as she grew up, even as her illness got worse; becoming more optimistic, kinder, and sweeter. After the stories of Earth, the time together as well as exchanged promises for a hopeful future... When Shadow witnesses his best friend die, sacrificing herself for him... it's no wonder he became who he is today.

[confused-wanderer]

It would be hilarious if villains loved Nightwing and were terrified of Officer Dick Grayson.

Dick Grayson- who is used to open spaces and adrenaline- being stuck in a boring bleak office, surviving on shots of coffee and red bull with caffeine that would make Tim concerned.

The thugs soon realised that unlike most of the other cops - Dick was from Gotham.

No one fucks with Gothamites.

Villain *shooting at Dick with machine guns*

Dick *appearing from the shadows behind him*: Boo.

Villain: THIS IS A FIVE STOREY BUILDING HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET HERE

Or

Thief *throwing a counting down bomb at Dick*

Dick: *catching and tossing the bomb at a safe distance before turning round and shooting it so it explodes mid air while running after thief*

Thief: .. what the actual fuck

Dick: Gee look at all that time you had! Shame you threw it away :D

Thief:

Dick: I’m from Gotham

Thief *realising they fucked up* : Please don’t steal my bones

OR

Shooter: *sets elaborate booby traps throughout the houses in an active hostage situation*

Dick *using his training as robin and inhuman flexibility to surpass them with ease*: Ah been a while since I got to have a nice stretch thank you.

Shooter:

Dick:

Shooter:

Dick: .. Hi :)

Shooter: Are you Satan?

AND

In interrogation room

Murderer: I think I’ll take your eyes and add them to my collection

Dick *running on spite and caffeine that could give Superman a sugar rush* : Funny.. I was going to say the same thing to you

Murderer: .. what

Dick: I wouldn’t take your eyes though.. they look like the inspiration behind the whole Medusa’s “look at it and you turn to stone” thing-

Murderer: Hey! Take that back before I gut you

Dick *smile stretching wider without blinking* : oh? Or what? I know everything about you. Who says I can’t kill you and walk out with everyone being none the wiser? I know how to kill someone too..you aren’t special.

Murderer:

Murderer: I’m scared for my safety.

Because the thing is, Nightwing is who Dick really is. It’s who he can be free as, be himself as without red tapes and regulations. Where he can give as good as he gets, and he’s kind and empathetic. He gets to help the downtrodden and goes easy on most of them if they give up right away, not to mention the fact that he never causes permanent damage.

But officer Dick Grayson is a different story. He runs on sleepless nights and no self preservation. Seeing an officer with an uncanny skill set they’re scarily good at, not to mention the cheery attitude he always has scares the shit out of criminals. Cuz no way in hell is a smiling Gothamite not a deranged one. He chases crimes like a bloodhound, and isn’t afraid to make good on threats he makes to ensure they never hurt anyone again.

Bonus if the batfam doesn’t know about this.

Red hood: Shit I can’t believe we ended up in Bludhaven

Red Robin *tying up the corrupt politican* : Since this is a sensitive case, we need someone we can trust to make sure it is seen through.

Red hood: .. So we paying a visit to Officer Grayson?

Politician *screeching* : NO NO NO NO! PLEASE NOT HIM!! JUST KILL ME INSTEAD AND TAKE ALL MY MONEY I CANT DEAL WITH HIM!

Red hood: .. is he fucking serious?

Henchmen: Sir he is. And we agree. Please take our bones and kill us but don’t take us to Officer Grayson.

Red Robin: Wait what did he do?

Henchman 1: He asked boss if the hat was sentient.. and said that if it was would it make that hat the top and boss the bottom.

Henchman 2: Last time we met I tried to shoot him but suddenly my gun was blank and he raised his hand and let the ammo drop

Red Hood: Well even I could do that-

Henchman 2: They were my bullets. I had selected the colour personally.

Red robin *growing concerned*

Henchman 3: He sang a lullaby to a child when we were holding the station hostage, and replaced the people with my family members. He even sang their social security numbers!

Henchman 4: He’s the most dangerous of them all. I ain’t shitting ya when I say he’s as scary as the bat from Gotham.

*all nodding in agreement*

Red hood:

Red Robin:

Red hood: Nah that doesn’t sound like Dick

Red Robin: Agreed. Let’s go there Hood.

*villains’ sobbing intensifies*

[glow-in-the-dark-death]

Space (I see you)

Danny has a space core, in the beginning he thought he has an ice core, but it turns out that because he had been highly stressed since his death his core had been underdeveloped and only showed certain aspects to keep him healthy.

Years have passed his 14 birthday (death-day)

He was now 17 and had grown into his core which had revealed a lot about him.

For example, being the Ancient of space distorted his entire view of everything. After all space was everywhere and ever growing, expanding more and more.

Danny could feel himself in his physical halfa body,

But at the same time he was watching people on the other side of the planet: laughing, dancing, celebrating, crying, being born, dying,mourning, and going about their day.

That was only on this Earth he could see every Earth that exists.

Earth was such a small part of space.

He could feel & see entire solar systems, galaxies, nebulae.

More & more

Just continuing to expand

Never ending

As he got older he could understand more his connection to everything.

Being able to help life be born on other planets

Moving moons towards planets

Creating star nurseries

Everything at his grasp

~

This would cause him to let his mind wander away from his physical form, which just looked like he was spaced out.

His human form slipping slightly when he does: freckles gaining a glow and moving to form different constellations, his hair moving like if it were weightless, and his eyes

Don't stare too long at his eyes

After all the eyes are the window to the soul

And his hold too much

(Look away)

~

Danny casually watches a meteor shower hundreds of light years away, spaced out: Ooh pretty!

The poor goon who taught he could mug a careless teen and stared at his eyes for too long: *Twitching on the ground foaming at the mouth*

~

Danny who hasn't blinked in a few minutes: "The pretty space station with heroes in it just made a full orbit on top of us again!"

Tim next to him who's just waiting in line for a cup of coffee or 3: *panicked side eyes him* Wh-What?

~

Batman: "We have to find who's taking out all these criminal."

Danny who looks like a Wayne kid therefore getting regularly kidnapped (or at least attempted), focusing on making a good star nursery: " Shhh! I'm concentrating"

Villain & his goons dropping like flies: "Mercy!"

~

Just an Idea

[leafyeyes417]

Danny was tired. Tucker and Sam had drifted away over the duration of high school. The ghost attacks and danger had been the main factor that started the dissipation of their friendship. Jazz had left for college a while ago leaving him to deal with his parents alone. He had eventually created his own secret base and left the house permanently even if it was technically illegal at 16. No one noticed since he still went to school.

Including being a teen hero who wasn’t appreciated in Amity just was the icing on the cake. After receiving approval from clockwork and mastering his portal abilities, he closed the portal down. It wasn’t easy to do but he made sure everyone was out of the blast range when it shut down. The Fenton house was gone but it hadn’t been home for quite some time.

It was because he was so tired that he was where he was. Drifting out of Earth’s atmosphere, Danny let himself luxuriate in the feeling of space. It made his core hum pleasantly. He moved to a good spot still in Earth’s gravity and curled up and just let himself drift along in a haze. He toned down his glow and his body started to slowly fade into the space around him till he was practically invisible.

He floated in this haze for probably a week, slowly recuperating and feeling himself slowly change. There was no one to miss him for any length of time and he wasn’t worried about his human life at all. Honestly he probably would have drifted longer but something woke him up. Some guy yelling about conquering Earth or something.

Annoyed at being woken up by a fruitloop Danny allowed his form to grow with the power of space he collected and snarled out a “Oy fruitloop! I was woken up because of you! Shut up already!” and smacked him into the sun with a giant hand. Turning his ire on the army with the fruitloop he quickly sent them flying with a blast of power. It would take them many years to gather up again with how hard he sent them flying.

Huffing, he turned and glanced at the group of people left. Shrinking down he spoke and gestures wildly. “I was taking the best nap of my afterlife and was woken up by those pests. You gotta better place I can nap?”

Luckily someone was quick to let him know they had a place. He was guided to a space station soon after and was soon sleeping on the comfiest bed ever.