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sweetredbeans · 6 months ago

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i still fall for you (like suns do for skies)

My piece for @sthbigbang! It was delightful to work with such talented artists as @encodedkismet, @spiritofrainbursts and @superemeralds! Links to their gorgeous art pieces are at the end of the story! (Yes I will be finishing updating everyone's links as stuff gets posted!)

Comet: definition: a celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust and, when near the sun, a “tail” of gas and dust particles pointing away from the sun.

Star: definition: a fixed luminous point in the night sky which is a large, remote incandescent body like the sun.

...

He should have known. Dammit, he should have known, from that very first moment, that very first instant in time that he saw him, how it would end.

The way it always had to, the way it always would.

It would end the same way that it began.

I push my feet

To the edge

I look and I face my world

This lonely scene, I take it in

It's hard to say where all of it begins

And I end

Sonic was a comet. A block of ice hurtling through mostly empty space, originating from somewhere beyond the reaches of imagination and flying at unimaginable speeds towards nothing, forever.

That was how it had always been.

True, he would admit that from time to time he had some satellites–Tails, the golden fox twisting and turning like a spark across his endless skies, a shooting star that couldn’t possibly exist in the depths of space and yet he did–unique and impossible. Amy, a burst of violet and rose on the distant horizon, the creation of a new galaxy that called to him, promising a life, a future of stability and tranquility that his chaotic flight would never be able to enjoy. Knuckles, a strong, steadfast planet wandering his own universe and finding his own way in the distant parallel.

None of them could ever keep up. None of them could fully thaw his frozen heart, melt him to his icy core, race him to the edge of the universe in perfect stride, step for step, beat for beat. He was the Blue Blur, the Cerulean Phantom, running solo, free and alone, forever and ever, his only true companions the feeling of the earth beneath the soles of his feet, and the glitter of stars in the endless expanse over his head. He was part of the world, and the world was part of him, and everyone else was just a blip, a splash of color whipping by at speeds that no one else could even comprehend.

In his own orbit, he was alone. A solitary glitter of life sprinkled across an empty universe. And that's how it had always been.

And I waited for the sky to change

But, oh, it never did

And I almost dropped my head

And lost my faith

At least outsmarting GUN had been fun, a quick distraction from the monotony. That's how these things went every time: each adventure was a grand new opportunity that always fell short. Nothing could ever truly challenge his abilities. Leaping off a helicopter, skateboarding down city streets, even fighting that mech—it was all so basic that it barely left his heart pumping, barely made his blood flow through his veins. But it was all that he had, when the rest of the world very often felt so dull and lifeless.

Sonic scuffed the sole of his red shoe on the ground, listening to the way the specialized rubber scraped against the asphalt, before glancing up. The night was hidden here, among the great gray and brown-clad buildings stretching into the skies, their marching rows of rectangular fluorescent lights the only stars that were visible. Never changing, powered from dawn to dusk and round again—no twinkle to them unless Sonic tilted his head back and forth, letting the shadows and walls take one light or another from him. He was the only one who could make a change to his world.

Then I saw you from a distance

You were worlds away

Oh, but you had me from the vision

I never looked away

Again

Then. Then, there was someone there. Someone else.

Someone new.

A galaxy.

A star.

A sun.

It didn't matter that the true stars were obscured: Sonic could see them all, every one of them, here reflected in front of him in oil-dark, ink-black fur. Here was an emptiness, a lack of matter, a black hole straight into space ignoring all laws of physics and reality because he just could. And that red—streaks of blood, of life, flowing through his space, glinting ruby-bright eyes that wouldn't look at him: chaos he wanted this stellar being to look at him. Wanted to be broken apart, cracked open, the glittering inside pieces laid bare streaming behind him worth it to taste the heat of the sun. And this was his sun.

His star was saying words, but Sonic's ears didn't process them, his mind far too preoccupied. Stars didn't speak—they sang, songs so old and distant that no one living could understand the words. His star was singing too, and perhaps, possibly, if he concentrated, if he focused, maybe he could grasp a single thread of that tune, hold it tight forever in his heart, know it intimately until one day he could understand the meaning behind the melody. The truth behind the tune. The soul behind the song.

Only a flash of green, bright and distracting, so very much of this world and none other brought him out of his dream and back into the present moment, “That's the...chaos emerald!”

No...no...his dreams were nothing more than pleasant distracting fantasies. This was no sun, no star. Just a fake hedgehog, another threat to the world, to their way of life, and, of course, it was Sonic's job to stop him.

It would be so easy, of course. Too easy, always too easy. Sonic almost sighed; just another routine, another set of hoops to jump through to avoid whatever shenanigans the world was trying to draw him into, be it from GUN or Eggman or this strange new hedgehog brandishing the chaos emerald like he was someone worthy of its power.

He could be...a star was worthy of that power. A great ball of plasma containing the ability to spring new life into existence, or the ability to destroy the very fabric of reality—perhaps this hedgehog was a star, after all. Chaos, Sonic longed for a star, a fixed point to return home to on his long travels, a spot where he was always welcomed, always loved...

But no, no he was a comet, that was how it was, and he didn't know where such thoughts of being in orbit were coming from. He was free, he was alone, and yet there was somehow no way that he could ever look away and escape from this brilliant crimson glow ever again.

“Now I know what's going on! The military has mistaken me for the likes of you!” How could they have mistaken him, a dim, distant block of ice, for this radiant point of light?

His star looked at him, with eyes the color of blood, of lava, of the heartbeat of the earth itself, and Sonic willed himself not to care, not to crumble, not to prostrate himself before a god of the very universe itself.

“So...where do you think you're going with that emerald?” Nothing. No response, no liquid song voice; he needed to hear it, he needed to understand! “Say something! You fake hedgehog!”

He did. He sang, “Chaos control!”

And Sonic's heart soared.

...

He was fast.

He was as fast as Sonic—even if it was just that he was using the chaos emerald to warp, Sonic couldn't remember the last time he'd fought someone who dodged him that quickly on the first attack. Who looked back at him like that, with a smirk that knew it was superior. He could feel the energy radiating from his doppelganger now that they were fighting, a perfect resonance to his own—gravity rippling the fabric of spacetime itself, pulling him closer, tugging him into orbit around nothing less than a giant. Staring into the beauty that would rip him apart and leave him as nothing more than a streak of light across a distant sky.

Sonic felt the world get emptier when the other hedgehog vanished, leaving him alone again to once again face G.U.N.'s paltry wrath.

Shadow. The world's ultimate life form.

His star.

I still fall for you

Like suns do for skies

Cerulean

Pouring in from your eyes

“Pffft, no, what are you talking about, I'm not in love with Shadow! I mean, c'mon that's crazy, right? Cuz, I mean, we just met anyways—nobody here even ever saw him before he showed up to steal that chaos emerald the other day while pretending to be me! The fact that we keep running into each other is just coincidence: of course we'd meet on Prison Island, since he was there to steal stuff for Egghead and I was there to fix stuff and it's only natural that we'd fight and then he'd run away after I totally beat him, and I definitely didn't think about running after him to see where he was going and follow him because I never want him out of my sight again, nah that'd be crazy, right? Hahahahah yeah it totally would...just like it's crazy to think about how beautiful the stars would be reflected in his eyes...red shouldn't be the color of space; space is black, right? Red's a color out of space—but he's a star, of course he'd be a red giant. All the best stars are red giants, aren't they? Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, Antares, Arcturus...so maybe it makes sense. But, y'know I'm totally not obsessed with him or thinking about what star he'd be or anything...”

“Uhhhh...Sonic?” Tails' voice cut through Sonic's rambling and the blue hedgehog immediately stopped, his hands frozen where they had been gesturing wildly to the empty air.

“...yeah?”

The yellow fox gave a sideways glance at Amy and Knuckles, who were both staring too, mouths slightly ajar, “I, uh...I don't think anyone asked that. We just wanted to know where to go next.”

A short beat of silence before Sonic cleared his throat.

“Oh, yeah, heheheh, that makes sense,” the blue hedgehog made an expression that could be a grimace or a grin, as he ran his hand nervously through his quills before glancing up at the skies above him, “Well...space, I think. That's where...that's where they'd be. That's where Shadow belongs.”

That's where all stars belonged.

Just a hollow moon that you colorized

So powerful

I feel so small

But so alive

Like watching the Earthrise

He'd never tried to harness chaos energy before—not like this. But he knew how Shadow's energy felt when they'd clashed—he'd memorized the fluctuations, the rhythm and beat of his rival's existence resonating with his every breath. So here, in the tiny space capsule falling towards his imminent death, he closed his eyes and remembered it.

He remembered how to be a star.

And somehow it worked.

“You never cease to surprise me, blue hedgehog. I thought that capsule you were in exploded in space.” His star. His star, not even attacking him now, not lashing out at him but merely here, walking beside him. If they both reached their hands out, they could link their pinkie fingers together, an unspoken promise, a silent bond. Sonic felt his heart stutter, but kept his voice nonchalant.

“You know, what can I say...I die hard!” But he could tell the truth; he couldn't lie to his star, couldn't hesitate to tell him, “You actually saved me, you know.” The golden gem gleamed in his hand, its energy a paltry reflection of its true cousins, but still vibrant in its own right.

“It was a chaos emerald, wasn't it? But there's no way you could have activated chaos control using an emerald that's fake!”

Of course he couldn't. It was against the laws of this universe, completely out of the realm of possibility, but for his star, he would do it again and again. For his star, he would reach through the bowels of a black hole to another universe and bring back the haunted dust of a million galaxies if he only asked.

The corridor walls blurred together: somehow, they were running. Neither of them knew when they had started, but they were—they had to be, it was in their nature. They couldn't stand still, neither of them, they had to run, had to feel the world moving around them.

“So there's more to you than just looking like me. What are you anyway?”

A comet. Your comet.

But he couldn't say that. He could never tell, “What you see is what you get! Just a guy that loves adventure. I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!” It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth either.

“I see. But you know, I can't let you live.” Of course he couldn't. Suns didn't let comets live. Comets came to bask in their glow...and died in their arms.

They said that we both were too different

That all of the shine would fade away

But I wish that I never listened

'Cause you pulled me through the grey

Sonic didn't care what Tails had said; he didn't need to heed the yellow fox's warning. He'd never felt like this before. Not with anyone.

They were perfectly in sync. Golden fur glowing, liquid ruby eyes shining, power thrumming through their hearts and blood, they were both suns. Even if one was only a reflection of the other, who could tell when they were so close, so bright that it hurt to look at them. They were truly stars now, a perfect binary in orbit around each other, balanced in exquisite harmony. Every nonexistent breath of nonexistent air matched, every motion was coordinated like they'd been fighting in tandem for years, decades, centuries. Time was immaterial, because they were made of the fabric of the universe. They were never ending, a perfect dance, a perfect song flowing through Sonic's heart. Despite the severity of the situation he never wanted it to end.

They were perfect.

They were partners.

And for the first time...Sonic felt like he could see the world in color. He could see the beauty of the universe painted across the vault of heaven before him. He could see the reasons that people had for living, not just existing but living...he had seen colors before, the splashes of his friends across his oblivion of endless obsidian skies, but they had come and gone, faded before he'd even noticed them.

This was different—this was a reshaping of the very fundamental building blocks of his world. This was color in the way that the first daffodil of spring is, the ripple of a fish in a pond, the streak of a meteor, the flaming foliage of early autumn.

This was life.

I still fall for you

Like suns do for skies

Cerulean

Pouring in from your eyes

Just a hollow moon that you colorized

So powerful

I feel so small

But so alive

He saw Shadow's decision reflected in his eyes, painted across every inch of sky and stars. He could feel the pull of energy, his partner's wavelength out of sync now, his frequency decreasing.

“Shadow! Shadow!!!!”

His entire universe turned to look at him, and he felt the core of his being shake at the expression in his eyes. The resignation to an end far too early.

“I have to make them happy.”

“But...” Sonic bit back his response, What about making ME happy...he knew what the answer would be. He always knew what the answer would be.

And then there was no more time “CHAOS CONTROL”.

The energy he'd felt vibrating in his soul since the first moment he'd seen Shadow snapped, springing back on him as he left and Shadow...didn't. Separated, broken apart, the comet flung from the orbit of the star by a collision with a force that neither of them could have predicted and tossed away towards...towards...

Sonic couldn't look away. He couldn't.

I walk these streets of loneliness

A tranquil sea on all horizons

This empty scene of might-have-beens

I stare at starless skies

That call to me and I still wish

He could see it.

Their future.

Their “might-have-beens.”

(I still wish)

He could see himself alone. Forever. The world slowly falling back into gray as he watched the never-ending stars shift around an empty planet.

There were sunflowers here. A forest of them, bobbing their golden heads against cerulean skies, mimicking in their own way the world itself. Sonic was shorter than them, their stems stretching far above his head as he walked the endless forest of them, searching for something he'd lost and would never find again.

A shape, a figure, a shadow darting through the green stems ahead of him—he was following them, always following, but he could never catch up, never quite make out their form any more than an obscure shade.

At his feet, a perfect flower, plucked from its stem. Golden symmetrical harmony in every petal. The minute he touched it, it crumbled to dust at his fingertips, blowing away on the wind.

His voice called after it, but only once; he felt blood well in his throat at the raspy croak, cracked and broken from hours, days, years of calling the exact same thing, and never once receiving an answer.

(I still wish)

He could see them standing apart, facing each other. They didn't know each other any more, but somehow the battlefield was familiar, the players the same for another round. The tables reset, the game restarted, another chance in another life.

“It'll be a date to die for.”

“Hey! That's my line!”

He could see an invasion, a devastation on the scale that none had ever imagined—even he couldn't stand against it, falling to his knees in the face of oblivion, but somehow, at the end, there was Shadow. There was the star, the sun, his golden glow shining out against a blood-red sky, and taking the power he had been too weak to use before to end the war before it even began.

Shadow, his star, saved them all, taming the power that had once burned him out and turning it against his very creators, all for the sake of their world. Sonic stared up at him with awe and adoration, but Shadow never looked at him.

Not even once.

(I still wish)

He could see a shattered universe, a disaster created by his own audacity and hubris. His friends and enemies mere shells of their former selves, taunting him with possibilities and “might have beens” as he worked, piecing them back together even as the broken remains of the world drew farther apart, fading and flickering towards oblivion. He risked losing it all, losing everything—not just his true friends but these new versions as well.

But Shadow was there, watching over him: guiding his footsteps, and, at the very end, catching him when he fell.

Shadow saved him. Shadow always saved him.

(I still wish)

But best of all, he could see them dancing, like this, forever. The space above the planet becoming their domain, their place to stand and watch over the world below. They would count the stars together, naming them one by one and hanging them into their constellations, holding each one close until the day they went out, disappearing with a whisper or a nova bright enough to light up the entire night sky, leaving a mark on the skin of space that could be seen for millions of years.

A super nova.

He could see them in the city, the rain covering up the stars, the buildings, everything except the two of them, walking, hand in hand through the never-ending gray, but never being lost because together they were always found. Heart to heart and hand in hand, orbiting each other perfectly and perpetually, the comet caught in the star's gravity and kept safe, the perfect distance away to admire the fire but not be burned by it.

Geosynchronous.

He could see them in the flowers in the spring. Tulips, each as red as Shadow's eyes, bobbing their heads under the sun and the stars, time meaningless to them as they walked among the crimson fields, the smell of damp earth invigorating to every sense.

Metamorphic.

He could see them fighting, teeth bared, ears pinned, snarling and growling and hating each other or the world or both, until fur was dusty and fangs were stained with blood, but at the end of the day they would embrace, fire and ice, and return to a home that they shared and watch the world pass them by.

Together.

Like watching the Earthrise

Sonic didn't know how he'd found himself back on the ARK after the battle with the Final Hazard. He couldn't remember walking the hallways back to the viewing area—he couldn't imagine looking away from Shadow's grave for one singular moment. He...he hadn't, right? He hadn't looked away...he couldn't look away, he might miss the spark, the distant moment when Shadow reignited and came back, a phoenix from the ashes...his Sayonara couldn't be the end.

“Sonic.” Tails' voice nearly made him jump out of his skin, but he didn't look back; he couldn't look away.

“Yeah?”

“We have to go. Eggman's ship is getting ready and...”

Sonic cut him off, “Tails?”

“Yeah?”

“Comets...what are comets?”

“Comets? Uh...they're big balls of ice and rock that usually start way out in the far reaches of the solar system, and for some reason get flung in towards the sun. When they get close, at the near end of their parabolic pathway, the solar wind heats them up so they start forming tails of dust and gas as they basically burn up...”

Tails kept going, continuing his commentary about the wonders of the universe, but Sonic didn't hear, didn't process any more of the words, because there was only one thought that was echoing thunderously through his mind.

“Sh-shadow...Shadow was the comet.”

“What?” Tails stopped chattering, his tone concerned.

“Shadow was the comet.” Sonic's voice was hollow, as he stared out at the enormous blue and green ball that slowly rotated into the view of the window, “And I...I was always the sun.”

It was always going to end like this.

Like watching the Earthrise

Art Links!

#sonic the hedgehog big bang 2024

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thydungeongal · 5 months ago

Note

you mentioned OSR modules? read any particularly good ones?

As of late I've been enjoying @cavegirlpoems's Gardens of Ynn and Stygian Libraries! The former recently had a Kickstarter for a new print edition and I recently got my hands on the PDFs for both, and I really enjoy them! They are both depthcrawls, a type of randomized pointcrawl with an almost procedural generation approach to them, so each sojourn into the two will feel completely different each time! I posted about Ynn here briefly:

I also like Necrotic Gnomes' two first-level modules for Old School Essentials, The Incandescent Grottoes and The Hole in the Oak, which (my players don't read this) ||actually combine into an interconnected dungeon with a whole lot of cool stuff to explore!|| Me and my group aren't that deep into them yet, but there have been some really fun instances of actually getting to experience the underworld as a space inhabited by weird lil guys who don't always want to fight (my party ended up making friends with the kobolds foraging moss on the first level of the dungeon and everyone agreed that the kobolds are sweet lil guys).

What else. Oh yeah, Barkeep on the Borderlands looks like a fun bar crawl adventure, sadly I'm not quite sure if I can safely plug it into my open table campaign given its event-based nature.

I also recently checked out The Bloom for Liminal Horror, a cool OSRish modern fantasy module inspired by, among other things, Last of Us, Alan Wake, and Twin Peaks! It's been nominated for an Ennie and I think it has a shot! :)

#thydungeongal answers

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theresattrpgforthat · 6 months ago

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hi! my sister wants to be able to play with me and my brother, but she has trouble reading and writing, do you have any ttrpgs that dont require a lot of reading or writing?? (like, character sheets dont take ages or whtvr)

THEME: Little Reading or Writing Required.

Hello friend, so for folks who aren’t great with reading or writing, I think the best approach is to use systems that provide you with small amounts of information that you can keep in your head, or games that provide you with a lot of visual cues. I’m going to include some systems that seem pretty rules-lite (because they allow you to create a character pretty easily) but I’m also looking for games that give you visual or tactile aids to help you remember what’s going on in the story or with your character.

The Best Job on Earth, by Hilander.

Welcome New Employee! Please fill out your personal info! Note that supevisors are not beholden to know your name, and may refer to you by the 4-digit hiring code helpfully displayed on the front and rear of your uniform!

Players will take on the role of unpaid interns working for SolTech Industries, a perfectly ethical research consortium funding a Better Tomorrow! Of course, when these experiments get out of hand, our fine interns are deployed to clean up.

The Best Job on Earth is not a very long read for the GM, and probably an even shorter read for players. Your character sheet can fit on 1/3 of a piece of paper, with three stats and a little bit of space for the items you get from a d20 roll table. This game isn’t necessarily a one-shot: your interns can spent earned XP in order to get a promotion, which involves increasing personal scores and getting an extra Luck point, which basically is a resource you can use for a free re-roll. This game is great for fans of horror, paranormal science, and the crushing weight of unpaid internships.

Mausritter, by Losing Games.

Take up the sword and don the whiskers of a brave mouse adventurer in Mausritter, a rules-light fantasy adventure roleplaying game. Mausritter is built on the chassis of Into the Odd, with new rules for setting, character generation, magical artifacts, and mouse-scale adventures.

Mausritter has very concise character sheets, with only 3 stats to keep track of and a card-based inventory system. If you buy the physical version, or if you decide to do some printing, you can use these cards to put in/on your inventory slots, as visual reminders of what you are currently carrying and how much room you have left. The book is 25 pages, but character creation is one, maybe 2 at the most - and most of your creation process just involves rolling on tables! Make your mouse in minutes and you’re ready to play.

Flyover Country, by Headstone Hills.

Fields of wheat and corn ripple in the wind, hungry eyes peering out between the stalks. Billboards along the road advertise strange and dangerous attractions. Smiles are too wide, manners too polite, secrets buried too deep. The neon light of a diner glows in the distance, but you may never reach its doors. An empty highway stretches out to the horizon before wrapping back in on and around itself, twisted on into the forever horizon. This is Flyover Country.

Flyover Country uses a tarot deck as a resource and oracle as you play the game. Character creation is simple and quick - although I recommend the GM do a bit of reading and prep beforehand. Each character gains a score (or pool) of points for three aspects: Body, Mind and Wyrd. Every time they use their ability, they draw a number of tarot cards equal to their score. The player can then choose which card they want to use to represent their outcome. Characters that are injured will reduce the score of a relevant trait by 1.

One way to make this game a bit simpler is giving each of the players a card with their character’s Ghost and Haunting already written on it. This is a combination of your character’s dark secret and the strange ability that will manifest inside them once they make that secret known. When I played this with my characters, we used poker chips as tokens to represent our ability Scores, and players would hand in tokens whenever they had to reduce their scores. I think the tarot cards make for an exciting mechanic, although the game’s success certainly depends on how well the game master can interpret the outcomes of cards being drawn.

This House Will Outlive Us, by pludmale.

Residents change, but the house remains. Everyone is changed by the house, and the house, in turn, is changed by its visitors.

In this game players take turns building the story of a house. The narrative is guided by flipping a coin onto different areas of the game board. The game is played in 3 stages: determining the type of house, picking out character roles and playing out the history and future of the house itself.

This House Will Outlive Us uses a map of the house, a number of cards with prompts, and a coin that you flip in order to tell its story. Each card has to be read to figure out what happens next, but the amount of information you’re expected to retain and communicate is very small, and because the game is so collaborative, you could potentially have one person do the bulk of the reading while the table shares the role of providing answers to the prompts.

This is a game that also doesn’t really require anyone to write anything down, as it’s meant to be played in a single session, and the changes from era to era should be pretty easy to remember - although you could also assign someone to be a note-taker if you like.

Horse Girl Infinity, by Jordanfish.

The majesty of someone's passionate vague horse fantasy. Inspired and empowered by the grace and might granted from the union of girl and horse, hero and pony, pilot and mecha.

The combination perfect for horse-lovers and mech aficionados, Horse Girl Infinity is high-action but relatively simple to play. You are presented with a grid of strengths, three of which your horse is specifically good at. The amount of dice you roll is dependant on how close the skill you are using is close to one of your strengths. Some especially difficult challenges may require a group roll, where everyone has to roll their dice and contribute Victory Points dependant on your success.

Your characters’ advancement is built around their goals, which takes a mechanical effect. Your Dream is something about yourself that you want; when you act in accordance with it, you gain Determination or XP. Determination can be spent to give you an extra dice on a roll, while XP can be spent on a separate grid that gives you a new narrative advantage. I think the spatial organization of information may make it easier to find and keep track of, and you can use tokens like poker chips or coins to help you keep track of your Determination and your XP.

If you want a slightly different genre, you can also check out Demon Blade Ultimate, which is more aligned with Shonen-style anime.

Crescent Moon, by Ema Acosta.

Go on a strange journey into the patchwork world of the daydream in Crescent Moon ☾, a feelings-delving role-playing game of brave children and bold adventures.

Rules for crafting your own whimsical tale full of breathtaking landscapes and unlikely friends await inside. Delve in to uncover stories of daring deeds and fantastical creatures—of calm afternoon naps and of promises whispered under starlight.

I don’t own Crescent Moon, so I can’t say for certain that this is super non-reader friendly, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say it is, because the character sheets remind me very much of Mausritter character sheets.

The most obvious connection is the hand-drawn inventory: you draw the objects you carry, as well as items and conditions that may affect you. Because you use cards to represent what your character is currently carrying, I think this element has the potential to reduce the amount of reading and writing the player has to do. The GM on the other hand, likely has a little more work to do in terms of planning an adventure - although I don’t think the work a GM does in this game is as much as say, a D&D DM.

#indie ttrpgs #tabletop games #game recommendations #dnd #asks #indie ttrpg #light reading

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torchship-rpg · 2 years ago

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Torchship Dev Diary 6 - Local Space

In keeping with the alternating lore/rules dev diaries, this one is going to be lore-heavy, though we’ll touch on mechanics here and there. It’s about the world of Torchship, and specifically the

Local Space

Torchship is set in and around the former territory of the Aquillian Empire, a vast and ancient imperial power whose defeat by upstart humans and their allies sets the stage for the campaign. This area and its immediate neighbours are known simply as ‘local space’, which can be thought of kinda the way the Alpha Quadrant works in Star Trek. It’s the local political scene, and one that has been heavily shaken up.

Before we get into it, we should talk about some of the material factors that shaped the galaxy as it is today. FTL travel in this setting is roughly the same as the speeds that vessels in TOS managed, except we’re actually holding you to it; you do not have the ability to cross the galaxy as the plot demands, which shapes the kinds of adventures you have.

The speedy exploration rockets of Star Patrol have a sustained speed of just one light year per day, which is still ridiculous, but means it takes about a week to get between stars. That means to get from one side of the galaxy to the other would take almost three hundred years. This helps to constrain the action; in the majority of cases, every system is a self-contained little adventure, and you can’t rocket off between systems casually or call for help that’ll arrive instantly.

But to make interstellar travel, warfare, and politics still make sense with speeds like that, we’ve added a bit of a twist. At great expense, powers can build themselves a sort of interstellar railroad called a beacon network, which consists of giant stations positioned light-years apart forming bridges of space between them. An FTL-capable rocket which gets on the beacon network has its speed hugely multiplied; making what would be months or even years-long trips take mere weeks.

The beacon network is hugely important to the galaxy, which is why humanity blowing a lot of it up in the big war two decades ago has caused a lot of issues. The IUR is slowly bringing the network back online again, and most of your campaigns are about being explorers at the very edge of the network, pressing on into unknown space or reclaiming the border stations the Aquillians abandoned for cost centuries ago.

Yeager-1 approaches a reactivated Aquillian beacon at the end of a branch of the network. Beyond this point is unknown space.

The Exploration Taboo

For being mostly an empty void, space in Torchship is dense with Strange Things. One of the conceits of the setting is that the weekly adventures of the Enterprise are not exceptional; every single ship in Star Patrol deals with this bullshit every time they pull into a new system. Star Patrol has manuals for what to do when you fall back in time to 1967, encounter beings claiming to be ancient Earth gods, or run into giant space microorganisms, because it just happens so often.

In fact, it happens so often that space empires gradually lose the stomach for adventure, or else get wiped out by superpowered godlike beings they upset. This is called the Exploration Taboo, and while it varies in strength over the centuries, it’s the reason why there’s so much unknown space despite thousands of years of alien empires knocking about. After your third neighbour is assimilated by a hive mind they stumbled over, even sending probes or looking too closely by telescope starts to feel too dangerous to risk.

As a result, instead of blob-like borders encompassing stars in neat and simple fashion, alien powers form vast spindly spiderwebs of explored stars linked by the beacon network, surrounded by the dark unknown. Borders are simply where these webs brush up against each other by chance, and as a result the various powers tend to be entangled by overlapping networks, separated by dozens or hundreds of light years that may as well be impassable walls for all the dangers lurking inside.

Humanity, being new to the place, doesn’t have an exploration taboo yet, which is why you’re going to be the ones to venture off the network and discover all the wonders and horrors of the galaxy. By doing so, other powers have also been forced out of their caution to do something similar, at least for now.

The Major Players

Besides the Star Union, we have a few pre-defined major players in the galaxy. Nothing is stopping you from making your own, but these are some of the ones we prepped for you. Each of these powers has a number of associated Identities you can use in character creation, so you can absolutely play defectors, ambassadors, or liaisons from them.

The Aquillian Remnants & Breakaways

Aquillians are the local smug space elves and, thirty years ago, the Aquillian Empire was the dominant (though declining) power of local space, whose enormous beacon network spanned a thousand light years. Local Space is very much defined by them, and the rivalries they formed with other powers. They had twelve developed worlds and hundreds of minor colonists, tributaries, and vassals; local space was until recently unipolar and the compass pointed unwaveringly in their direction.

The Aquillian Empire also sucked. They systematically conquered newcomers to FTL travel, exiled people off their worlds, genetically engineered their own population into meek compliance, and wiped out rivals with biological weapons. Whatever else happens now, the galaxy is better for its collapse.

In its place has arisen hundreds of micro-states; some of these are various conquered aliens finally achieving independence, but most are Aquillian-dominated. The IUR classifies these are remnants (states which want to rebuild the Empire in some way) and breakaways (states which don’t, and incidentally are usually friendly to the Union). These two groups act as essentially the default groups to reach for if you just need some folks to be up to something, with the remnants hostile and the breakaways somewhere on a spectrum between neutral and desperately appeasing toward the Union.

The biggest Remnant is the Divine Empire, which controls the Aquillian homeworld and has the best claim to the throne; they’re the result of formerly-somewhat-fringe sect of people who worship past Emperors as a patheon gaining power and their Empress is constantly looking to undermine the IUR and get her Empire back. The DMZ between them and the IUR is the perfect place for some covert espionage action.

The biggest Breakaway is the First Aquillian Republic, which is on the cusp of joining the Union outright, making them perfect allies for early in your campaigns. Because all the historical republics and revolutionary movements of Aquillian history got memory-holed, and because Solar Patrol used to jam up Aquillian communication channels with the 2120s movie adaptation of Les Misérables, they consciously model themselves on a sort of alien pastiche of the French Revolution; presumably the studio had the costumes lying around. They’re rife with interesting problems to build episodes around, like their fear of genetic engineering which is keeping them out of the Union, their discrimination against the Enforcer caste of the former empire, and their unstable political system.

Though much reduced from the height of Imperial power, the Divine Empire has access to many ancient and terrible tools.

The Zinovian Sphere

Properly the Universal Republic, the Zinovian Sphere was once a close ally of the Star Union before there was an absolutely catastrophic falling out. See, four hundred years ago, the Zinovians rose up against the Aquillian colonists occupying their homeworld, and lost. Exiled from their own planet and forcefully settled on a handful of marginally-survivable high-gravity worlds, the revolutionaries managed to rebuild their society into a powerhouse, albeit at enormous cost.

When humanity started fighting the Aquillian Empire, they eagerly allied with us, sharing their technology in exchange for the promise we’d help them take their homeworld back. But when the Aquillians sued for peace a hundred light years short of their former home, a war-weary humanity signed the treaty. As you can imagine, the Zinovians didn’t take it well.

The Zinovians are fun because they’re actually eight factions in a trenchcoat, meaning that any episode dealing with them will undoubtedly be complicated by the fact they're working at cross-purposes to each other. The Zinovian government has eight ministries which have at this point each become a minor power of their own, rivals with one another but united by their desire to get their homeworld back and make the Aquillians pay. When one Ministry reaches out to the Union to try and patch things up, another is there to sabotage them.

Defectors and spies and propaganda campaigns go both ways between them and the Union, so they make perfect fodder for Cold War style stories and wheels-within-wheels, all packaged in the tragedy of a falling-out that humanity is very much not blameless in.

Zinovian rockets are heavily armoured, heavily armed, and all business.

The CNFT

The Contractually Networked Free Territories are an offshoot of the Aquillian Empire which managed to secure a lot of wealth and power by exploiting how much the galaxy sucks. While most powers in the setting are states run by and for a single species, the CNFT is a multi-species project who have historically taken in refugees and asylum-seekers from the many conflicts sparking in the wake of the decaying Empire… and promptly exploiting their labour. As long as the flow of newcomers kept up, the capitalist system of the CNFT would continue to grow.

Well, the arrival of the Star Union to the scene has quite suddenly rearranged the priority destination for a lot of desperate people, and the CNFT is feeling it. To keep their quarterly growth targets, its corporations engage in all sorts of nefarious and/or stupid schemes in the fringes of its space, schemes which Star Patrollers might stumble upon. Of course, you have to be careful defusing this situation, because when their corporations get bullied by the meanie communists, the CNFT have a tendency to send their extremely well funded and extremely terrifying military out to settle matters in their favour.

Because they’re a multi-species nation, the CNFT has a lot of interesting diversity, from the descendants of Zinovian refugees playing up the highly marketable Warrior Race angle to the original Aquillian species before all the genetic modification to the labour robots they buy in bulk. They’re also uniquely easy to bribe, for obvious reasons, which can make them a clutch, if somewhat mercenary, ally in the right circumstances.

A powerful, and expensive, CNFT Missile Cruiser.

The Voxyte Cooperative

You know those episodes where Kirk beams down to a planet to find some cavemen worshipping a computer? The Voxyte are what happens when Kirk never shows up and those cavemen build a technological civilization at the computer’s instructions. Now a local power, the Voxyte don’t worship their computers anymore, but they still do turn over everything from organising their politics to arranging relationships to them, their entire lives dictated by algorithms.

The Voxyte are allies of the IUR, albeit allies who are as horrified by our chaotic, unorderly, and hurt-prone society as we are of the lack of privacy and choice in theirs. It’s a situation that leads to a lot of awkwardness and misunderstanding which can create interesting diplomatic problems to work through, complicated by the whims of their AI overlords. What happens when, say, a Voxyte comes up to one of your crew and announces the computer has decided they’re perfectly compatible and thus married now? What happens when a Voxyte defects their society for yours? What happens when one of your crew defects your society for theirs?

The other thing that’s fun about the Voxyte is they’re one tech level ahead, with 7d6 tools and incredible resources that could really help the IUR, which means you’re incentivized to either suck up to them or exploit their naive innocence. They’ve been a pariah state for centuries, and they’re so glad to just have a friend out in the stars that, unfortunately, you might just walk all over them.

Friends!

The Argentotrons

Fifteen hundred years ago, a previous incarnation of the Aquillian Empire was counterbalanced with the Argent Empire, an even larger and older power which had long constrained their ambitions. After years of conflict and tense peace, the Aquillians engineered a biological weapon which took lethal advantage of a quirk in Argent biology; within two centuries, they were all dead.

In those two centuries, though, the Argent were forced to increasingly automate their society to make up for their failing health and declining numbers, and did such a good job of it that, despite probably being extinct, their empire is still there. The Argentotrons are the robotic ships, stations, and servants which continue to follow ancient directives, still churning out vehicles for the coming war and mining whole systems dry despite slowly decaying to nothing.

You can’t really negotiate with the Argentotrons; they aren’t actually sentient, or at least they don’t seem to be. But that does mean there’s an entire empire’s worth of refining and mining just sitting in storehouses or being shipped to dead worlds, unimaginable material wealth which could go a huge way toward shoring up the Union’s position and stabilising local space.

All you have to do is avoid the killbots and get their first.

A silent protector of the tomb stars.

The Nariene Environmental Protectorate

When humanity first ran into the Nariene, they’d uplifted a species to act as a fresh petroleum market, and to kidnap the psychics among their population for experimentation. This was a pretty good introduction to the Protectorate, supposedly a sort of climate safeguarding organisation for the Nariene equivalent of the UN, and in reality the fascist organisation that took over their space program and is spreading rapidly to the stars. For a long time they were kept in check by the proximity to the Aquillian Empire, which prevented them from expanding too far lest they be detected, but no such restrictions exist now.

The Nariene are a dark mirror of the IUR, a similarly young and dynamic political body expanding rapidly in the power vacuum of the dead Empire, desperate for resources. In the Nariene’s case, it’s because their homeworld is dying, choked by unchecked industry and a runaway carbon cycle, worsened by the conquests needed to hold it at bay. They’ve got incredible stealth technology from centuries of tiptoing around the sleeping giants and have built up a shipbuilding industry which is growing out of control; in a few years, they might eclipse the IUR, unless they collapse or somebody stops them.

The Nariene EP are great villains, pure and simple; everything about them is designed to make for excellent rivals to grapple with over the course of a campaign. They’ve got no exploration taboo either, and a branch of explorers similar to Star Patrol. When you run into them, you know they’re up to no good, but they also know they’re not yet in a position to beat the IUR in a straight fight so they have to be sneaky about it, dancing around the technicalities of the treaty between the two powers. As explorers, you probably aren’t well equipped to fight them either, but whatever they’re up to, they have to be stopped. When you do beat them, their cloaking devices and small-scale teleports means they’re slippery enough for their commanders to always wiggle away, shaking their fists. I’ll get you next time, Star Patrol!

Of course, it’s not hopeless. The Protectorate’s ongoing power depends on the by-in of a population it doesn’t fully control, many of whom genuinely do want to try and fix their homeworld instead of just continuing to feed the factories and line the pockets of their rich backers. There are idealists in their ranks to appeal to and resistance groups you can ally with; maybe you can help put a stop to this and explore the stars together.

Others

Local space is a big place, and I can’t even cover everyone here. There’s vast runner fleets like the Cyphillon, plant-people with no homeworld living aboard greenhouse-like ships. There’s chlorine-breathing species working for multiple powers on toxic worlds, silicon-based life, and sentient robot species. There’s the enigmatic Watchers, if they really exist, parallel dimensions that keep brushing up against ours, and the distant threat of the Engon Assembly lurking on the far side of Voxyte space. Looming over all of it is the White Marble Civilization, the vast and seemingly omnipotent power which barely seems to notice the ants scurrying about underfoot. There’s a whole galaxy to explore.

Next time, we’ll talk more about how you do that.

#torchship #torchship ttrpg #ttrpg #dev diary #rpg

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anysin · 1 year ago

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Fic: Endless Adventure

For an anonymous requester, a Billford with a twisted honeymoon theme! Post-show AU where Bill won and Ford chose to be with him.

Endless Adventure

Bill keeps his promise about sparing the Earth. He doesn't spare anything else.

"Look, a new planet!" Bill tightens his arms around Ford's waist, his eye blinking right behind Ford's head. "Give me your estimation, Sixer. How long will it take for us to finish that off?"

They float in the space together, looking down at a small blue planet down below. It resembles Earth, to an extent Ford's heart brims with nostalgia as he gazes down at it; he wonders if it's inhabitants are human-like, or something completely different. During these travels with Bill and his creatures, Ford has discovered the universe is full of incredible, wonderful things, some of them straight out of his old science fiction books, many of them beyond his imagination. He has watched so, so many of them get destroyed.

And he will watch more, and one day he will go into another universe and watch that get destroyed too, and it will keep happening until- well, time doesn't exist anymore, so it all comes down to whether there is an infinite amount of things or not. Ford shudders at the idea, but he leans against Bill, placing his hands over the small black hands clutching his waist.

"You made time meaningless, Bill," he says, just because he wants to. "But I suppose three months. It doesn't look like it will require much effort."

"Oh, that's cold, Fordsy. I love it." Bill laughs, and this time he loosens his hold on Ford, turning Ford around in his arms until they are facing each other. "And yet I can sense a smidgen of compassion from you, still. So let me ask for another estimation: how long will it take me to snuff that out for good?"

Bill takes Ford's hands, his eye turning into a mouth as he brings them up to his lips. He kisses Ford's knuckles, all six of them, and despite himself, every little kiss sends a tremor of pleasure running through Ford's body, his cheeks turning redder with each one.

"I hope forever," he says.

"Ha! You are not sure." Holding onto Ford's hand, Bill spins him away for a second and then back, yanking Ford against himself. "I have to admit though, I'm not sure if I wish for that or not. Seeing you so mournful puts a dent in my mood, but at the same time feeling pity for lesser creatures is so you, Fordsy."

Bill kisses him, almost gentle. Ford can't help himself; his arms fly upward, winding around Bill as he returns the kiss, his fingers digging into Bill's sides. He wishes he was ashamed. He wishes he wasn't happy that he chose this.

He draws back, his eyes wet, staring at Bill whose lips are parted, revealing the eye in his mouth. His lips are curved upward, and his eye is full of mirth.

"Yeah," Bill says, laughing. "I love you too!"

Ford thinks he wants Bill to shut up now, so he kisses his smiling mouth again.

#my fic #gravity falls #billford #cw: dark

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joshuasumter · 8 months ago

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My latest epic poster for Across the Netflix-Verse: Joshua Sumter Meets She-Ra and the Princesses of Power that takes homage to the Spider-Man: No Way Home poster.

SYNOPSIS: When creative and autistic Joshua Sumter teams up with orphan-turned-heroine/warrior princess Adora, Etheria will never be the same! But together, they just might save the universe. Think you know the story of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power? Well, think again because Etheria (and the Netflix-Verse) will never be the same as Joshua Sumter stars (and returns) in his latest self-insert, Isekai-turned-multiversal, retelling epic that not only flips the script on the hit animated reboot from DreamWorks and Netflix by ND Stevenson to reimagine and change the events of the show...but also spans across the wild, the wacky, the scary, the magical, the mythical, and sometimes very mature worlds and universes of the Netflix-verse, a multiverse featuring your fan-favorite Netflix shows and movies. Based on the hit animated She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series and in the tradition of Space Jam (1996), it's an Isekai-turned-multiversal, dimension-spanning epic that reimagines the narrative of the show -- with the inclusion of Joshua Sumter as an unlikely, live-action hero who finds himself on a strange, animated world and beyond that is familiar but slightly changed.

Life was carefree for creative and autistic Joshua Sumter (That would be me) of Earth (Our universe, the real world) as he was enjoying another typical yet relaxing day and cozy life eating food, reading media tie-in books and comic books, and writing fanfics. Everything was perfectly normal...that is, until he lands smack-dab into the war-torn planet that is oddly familiar but yet slightly changed. It is the planet of Etheria, the world and universe of the hit animated reboot series from Netflix and DreamWorks She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, where an ongoing, full-blown war ensues and rages on between the princess-led Rebellion that wants to maintain peace and harmony for all of Etheria and the dreaded Horde that wants to conquer the planet in the name of its leader, Hordak.

At first, Joshua believes under the impression that everything going on is all just a dream of himself being in a reinterpretation of the rebooted TV series from the 80s as a full-fledged guest star, taking the first steps of his very own Isekai adventure when he bumps into Adora, Glimmer, and Bow, hangs out with them, and unknowingly accepting the full invitation to join in on the fray as a feature of his dream (all the way from Season 1 to the Battle of Bright Moon). But Joshua's enthusiasm falls flat when he quickly gets wrapped up in some very serious stuff during that experience, letting his newly found zany antics and madcap-style wits guide his ideas and actions enough to make Joshua fully consider the oddest possibility...that this ISN'T a dream after all.

Now forced into a whole, new universe and surrounded by characters he now considers his new Etherian pals and being completely aware that he's starring in his very own self-insert retelling of the animated show while helping Adora, Glimmer, Bow, and more allies like Perfuma, Mermista, Frosta, Sea Hawk, Spinnerella, and Netossa in the fight against the Horde, Joshua decides to flip the script on the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series to make some changes around here his own way by reimaging and changing events of the show that'll help turn things around for the future of Etheria and Adora's destiny...sort of.

As Joshua continues to influence the characters with his twisted action makajalaka of awesomeness in the form of a hard-hitting baseball bat that acts as his holy-sword-like weapon, his sense of imagination, his Official Handbook-level knowledge and more while imagining his fights in the style of the Persona 4 Arena games, Adora and her friends can't help wonder about what they make of him and his bizarre, other-worldly perspective.

Along the way, Joshua later gets into numerous comedic adventures across the Netflix-Verse, a shared crossover multiverse of worlds and universes based on and inspired by your favorite Netflix shows and movies. But when things in Etheria got a little too serious and with the help of the corporeal, ethereal Emblem spirit of the previous She-Ra, Mara, along with the animated worlds of the Netflix-Verse, will Joshua be able to beat the odds by letting loose the looniness and wreaking some hilarious mayhem in the process to help his new Etherian pals Adora, Glimmer, Bow, the Princess Alliance, and the Rebellion out of a real jam by saving the world his own way from a much, bigger threat than the Horde?

Based on and inspired by the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series by ND Stevenson and featuring the worlds of your favorite Netflix shows and movies such as The Cuphead Show, Green Eggs and Ham, The Dragon Prince, Tiger & Bunny, We Can Be Heroes, Lego Elves: Secrets of Elvendale, The Sea Beast, Maya and the Three, Nimona, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, Dragon Age: Absolution and much more, be prepared for a block-busting, hard-partying, mind-blowing, world-hopping, fourth-wall-breaking, live-action/animation mayhem in this self-inserting tale that spans both our world and theirs. DISCLAIMER: In the tradition and style of Space Jam (1996) meets Epic (2013), the Kingdom Hearts series, Gwenpool, and other Isekai tropes, Across the Netflix-Verse: Joshua Sumter Meets She-Ra and the Princesses of Power basically reimagines and changes the narrative of the show (Seasons 1-5), but with the inclusion of, yours truly, Joshua Sumter, and new twists and different outcomes inspired by some of the She-Ra and the Princess of Power fan fictions than the ones in the actual show for "anyone who wants to enjoy an entirely, different story with some few changes".

The Netflix-Verse, as the name implies, is a shared multiverse of worlds and universes that are mostly based on, inspired by, and from your favorite Netflix shows and movies in the tradition of Powerpuff Girls: Super Smash-Up!, Sonic Prime, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and the Kingdom Hearts series. The main hub of the Netflix-Verse is a vast expanse of space between that resembles Netflix's home menu, composed and surrounded by posters that served as gateways to these worlds. From the wild, the wacky, the scary to the magical, the mythical, the epic and sometimes very mature, it's a dimension-spanning epic into these Netflix-based worlds.

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wanderingmind867 · 3 months ago

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My new take on Martian Manhunter pt 1:

Martian Manhunter/J'onn J'onzz and his younger brother Ma'alefa'ak were from Mars, a civilization built by and worshipful of the Roman deity of Mars. J'onn was a Manhunter, the equivalent of a police officer in martian society. He had a wife and a young daughter and all was peaceful and content for him. Ma'alefa'ak meanwhile was a recluse, shunned because he was the only Martian without telepathy. He grew bitter towards his people because of this, but it actually ended up becoming a great boon for him.

You see, the Martians have a natural enemy in the Saturnians. The Saturnians are the natural enemy of everyone in the solar system, in fact. That's because they're the chosen people of Saturn/Kronos, the evil titan who oppressed humanity back in antiquity. Although Saturn/Kronos is rotting in Tartarus, his chosen people continue to worship him and pray to him. And when he spoke to his people and told them they had to raise an army and enslave the chosen peoples of the other olympians, the saturnians answered the call.

Assembling an army, the Saturnians pillshed the Solar System.They enslaved the people of Mars (as well as the people of every planet in the solar system besides Jupiter and Neptune and Pluto), and planned to bend them to their will. Being a very militaristic but dignified society (as befitting their patron god), the martians fought back. J'onn was on the frontlines for some of it. The war was bloody, and horrifying. This is when J'onn was first pulled away from Mars.

You see, back on earth, Dr. Saul Erdel of Colorado was attempting to make contact with alien life. And by a strange twist of fate, he did. Except he didn't merely build a communication device. No, instead he built a virtual magnet for brain waves. To a telepath like J'onn, the pull of the machine was irresistible. He went from mars to earth in the blink of an eye, leaving his people and family all alone back on mars, to be enslaved by the cruel and savage saturnians.

J'onn ends up now on earth, being nursed back to health by Dr. Erdel. After a month or two of recovery, J'onn prepares to leave for Mars again. But before he gets the chance, he discovers a Saturnian plot to invade earth the same way they tried to invade mars. Using his telepathy and shapeshifting powers, J'onn manages to assemble a team of 6 earth heroes to help him repel the Saturnian invasion. After the invasion, the Justice League is born, it's members the 7 defenders of earth.

So while the demigods of earth dealt with the actual titans and saved olympus, J'onn and the League was saving the cosmos. This is my way of outright telling you: this universe is the same universe as Percy Jackson. We're never gonna have anyone comment on that, but it allows us to show a third front in the Titan War: the space front.

Anyways, J'onn gets permission from his fellow martians to go and study earth by living there for a few years. He blends in on earth society by taking the name of John Jones and hiding out with the Erdel family. Posing as a detective in Colorado, he has many adventures with his detective co-worker Diane Meade and his interdimensional sidekick Zook. For around 2-3 years, he stayed as John Jones like this, having superheroic adventures on earth both solo and with the Justice League.

But then J'onn had to deal with the Idol Head of Diabolu. This evil statue expelled toxic gas, which John Jones heroically jumped in front of to save a young child's life. But since John Jones was a human, everyone assumed he had died there that day. And J'onn was getting tired of leading this double life as a martian and as an ordinary earthman, so he willingly faked his death. Diane Meade and his friends on the force were all lead to believe he'd died. The only ones he actually told the truth to were Zook and the Erdel family.

From here, Martian Manhunter and Zook worked to destroy the Idol Head of Diabolu. For almost a year they fought the monsters released by that menacing Idol, but eventually they managed to destroy the Idol Head and clear up all their earthly loose ends. With the Idol Head that killed his human persona of "John Jones" gone, J'onn should have been able to go back to Mars. He wanted to. But fate wouldn't let him.

You see, J'onn and Zook end up getting wrapped into one final earthly adventure: they had to infiltrate and take down an international criminal organization known as Vulture. To combat Vulture, J'onn takes the secret identity of Marco Xavier, a multi-millionaire with reported ties to Vulture who died in a fatal car crash in France. From here, J'onn completely infiltrates the organization of Vulture, and eventually unmasks their ringmaster.

And here's the big twist in our story: the ringmaster of Vulture was the Marco Xavier! He faked his death in that car crash, and merely allowed J'onn to continue taking his identity so he could lure him into a trap. On that note, the trap Marco Xavier set for J'onn ends up levelling the building, and killing everyone but Martian Manhunter. Sickened and repulsed by what the past few months infiltrating Vulture has shown him, J'onn decides he needs to leave earth and finally go back to Mars.

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fandomgirl800 · 2 years ago

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Exchange

(Dhawan!master x Reader)

Doctor who/The Host crossover

Requested by: @sessa23

Warnings: Injuries, Canon typical danger, Grammatical errors

Word count: 4168

Summary: Doctor and fam arrive on a strange planet which seems perfectly normal at the first sight. But after some time the truth is revealed about local citizens and humans hiding from the outer world and 'Souls' who are taking over not just their new planet, but also their consciousness. The Doctor with the fam begin to investigate the strange, mysterious scientist who is as humans say, behind this all.

(A/n): Hello, I'm sorry that this story took so long. The request you sent me inspired me a lot, I did add some new characters and lots of twists to the story. I saw The Host many years ago so it might not be accurate, but I read many 'about it' pages, so I hope I understood it correctly.

Hope you will like the story, have a nice day.

"We're here fam!" The Doctor smiled with a big grin on her face, opening the doors of the TARDIS.

"Here? Here as... Where exactly?" Yaz asked, looking out from behind the Doctor's shoulder.

"Shouldn't we be at the meadows of that famous planet you promised us?" you asked, looking out from behind the Doctor's shoulder from the other side.

"This looks like a big city from the future," Ryan said his thoughts.

"It's exactly that..." Doctor said, stepping out with a slight frown. This is not the first time that the TARDIS brought them somewhere else. But something was strange about this city.

"Not Earth..." Doc squinted her eyes as you stepped outside together with the rest of the fam.

"Then what?" Ryan asked.

"A colony planet... Those folks are humans," Doctor looked around herself in the city.

"It looks like New York, but a thousand times bigger," you smiled, "Those skyscrapers are so high..."

Doctor smiled at you. You were new with time and space traveling, and recently joined the fam when they landed on the Earth in the year 2025, saving you from Daleks which aimed at the Doctor's timeline. Since then, the Doctor has been looking after you.

"You're important for my timeline, I don't know how yet, but you could save lives, you need to go with us," Doctor said back then.

Since then you're traveling with the fam and the Doctor.

"Shall we go then?" Doctor smiled.

"Let's not get lost, this city seems big..." you quietly said. The city didn't just seem big, it was big. Lots and lots of buildings towering on eachother, vehicles - on road or flying in the air above their heads.

Neon advertisements on buildings changing every once in a while.

"Where exactly are we?" Yaz asked.

"We're at the E2.0 colony planet, following the Earth, some folks wanted to name it Air, or Earth II." Doctor started explaining.

"Air?" Graham asked, a bit amused and a bit confused.

"Yes, explains the lack of water on this planet. Earth II. wouldn't sound good enough, but they settled for an E2.0, which is almost the same but it does sound a bit better" Doctor explained.

As they walked forward to their new adventure, not knowing where they were going, exploring the city, a pair of eyes was watching them from dark alleys, where the light from the big neon ads didn't reach.

They walked to the market square with holograms and even more ads, with buildings reaching for the skies.

"Why are we here?" you asked the Doctor.

"Let's find out," Doctor said.

There was something about this city. First you thought it was only because it was the future, different planet, different people, but that was not it.

The square was filled with people in blue coats, talking with each other, looking at new models of many robots and inventions you have never seen before.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

It was already getting dark, but there were still people on the square. While the Doctor kept observing one market stand, you looked up on the ads on the building. All of them turned into one big screen and people around started to pay attention to it, looking up. Doctor and fam now paid attention to the giant screens as well.

Eyes of people around started shining in unnatural blue light.

"We offer you a better future. Join us on our masterful journey," Graham quietly read the words. It was a few seconds before the screen shined blue, showing the city, job opportunities, and happy people.

"Now what is this?" Yaz looked around at the people with shining eyes.

"Perhaps some new invention," Ryan shrugged.

"Hey guys... Look there," you pointed at the distance on the man in dirty clothes hiding behind the trash cans, "He's watching us."

Doctor turned around, "Let's ask him about this, his eyes are not glowing."

You and fam nodded and quietly left the market square, following the man.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

"Hello, I'm the Doctor, this is fam, Yaz, (Y/n), Ryan and Graham," Doctor greeted the man. He seemed scared.

"Are you alright?" you asked.

"No," the man shaked his head and looked on all sides like someone was following him, "Did they notice you?"

"Who?" Ryan asked, frowning.

The man got close to Ryan, lifting an eyebrow, "Who are you that you don't know?"

"We are just travelers, mate," Graham told, "We came from a far."

Doctor was already running around with the sonic screwdriver.

"I won't tell you my name... But they are called souls. They replace us and..." the man stopped talking, "Until there is nothing left, just them."

"Souls?" Doctor frowned, "I haven't heard about aliens like that yet..."

"We call them that," the man explained.

Quiet steps were heard in the distance.

"You're not one of them, you have to follow me, or you're in great danger. I promise I will explain more, but later," man said and turned around, leading Doctor and fam through the dark alleys of the city.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

The mysterious man kept them from the blue eyes of the souls, bringing them into the sewer system. Nothing was following them, but the man was still worried.

They made a few turns, fam not knowing where they were anymore.

"How did this began?" Doctor asked.

"There was one scientist that came from a far, like you," the man said, "He promised us a better future. Many listened to him, went over to the main building and came out of it different. It just wasn't them anymore."

"He wiped their consciousness?" Yaz asked. The man only nodded.

"They do want to get us all..." he whispered, "So we went to hide here."

"All?" Ryan questioned.

"Yes, come here," he opened the hidden doors on the side and held them. Behind those doors were sitting people near fires, some eating food from the small bags, talking to each other. Nothing like the city above their heads.

They looked up seeing the Doctor and fam entering the room. As they entered, the man closed the doors behind him.

"Sammy what is this supposed to be?" an older woman walked up to them.

"I found them in the city," he said, "They are no souls. They are safe."

"But how can we know that for sure?" some angry voice sounded from the background.

"Our eyes aren't glowing," Yaz said.

"They said they came from afar," Sammy said, protecting them.

"Like him?" the woman chuckled, "Where did they come from?"

"Earth," you said quietly. A silence fell on the hideout.

"Earth? Are you kidding me? The mother of the planets?" some woman asked curiously. People around started shaking their heads. It was obvious that they didn't trust you.

Then the Doctor stepped forward, "We can help you, but we need to speak with the scientist first."

People only laughed and Sammy turned to fam and Doctor, "There is nothing you can do Doctor. Trust me, we tried."

"We will figure out something, Doctor always does," Ryan said.

Doctor nodded, turning to the doors, "In fact, we will go stop whatever is happening right now."

"So you could tell them about this place?" the old woman stood up again, "No way!"

"If they want to go, they will go," Sammy said, turning back to them, "It's impossible for newbies to get here on their own."

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

After all, they let them go.

Doctor and fam headed out through the city towards the tallest building.

Little did they know that they were watched through the screen.

The scientist was turning around on his chair, observing all the screens around him. There was something that caught his attention... Or more like someone...

He smirked upon seeing (Y/n) near the Doctor. After all, the human was here. That special human.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

"We are watched," Doctor spoke suddenly which startled not just you, but also Yaz and Ryan, Graham was just munching on his sandwich.

"Watched by who?" Ryan asked.

"The bad guy probably... Or his minions," Yaz whispered to Ryan.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Little did they know that the Scientist heard even that, "Humor me..." he chuckled, turning around on the chair, then his smile faded for a second when the Doctor stopped and looked at the camera right on him. She knew well. Or did she? Could she figure it out in such a short time? That would be a record.

"Mr. Scientist..." one of the first created souls walked closer to the man who was observing the visitors on screens.

"Yes, Ellia?" he turned to her.

"Should we stop them?" The tone of her voice was almost robotic. Her eyes were strongly shining with blue color.

Scientist only smirked, "No, not yet. I want them to figure it out first. And I told you that you can call me Master."

Ellia collected some papers from the Master's table, "Are these the right blueprints?"

"Yes," he nodded and made a short pause, "And after this planet, after I destroy the Doctor, nothing will stand in my way. We will expand, saving your civilization. These planets are perfect."

"I believe you wanted to say: Nothing will stand in our way."

Master who was meanwhile childishly turning in the chair, turned back to her, "Oh, yes of course... Our way."

Ellia gave him a threatening look and walked out with the room, holding the papers close to her.

"Humor me..." Master chuckled again and looked back on screens.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Doctor and fam meanwhile walked inside the building. No one was sitting in the reception area.

"Doc, no one is here..." you said, looking around. This was clearly a business building.

"Exactly," Doctor nodded proudly.

"So it probably means that this is a trap," you finished the sentence.

"Exactly," Doc smiled again, walking to the elevator, "Perhaps we will get caught while inspecting this place."

Rest of the family followed the Doctor to the elevator without questions. After all, the Doctor was usually right, so you did follow them as well. Wouldn't be too smart to stay alone.

You felt sick, there was no way that this would go right.

The happy song that was playing in the elevator even made it worse.

There were many buttons plus ones and minus ones. Doctor was thinking which one to press, but then she pressed the number -32.

"The scientist will probably be at the highest level, we will save that for later," Doctor said and leaned on one of the elevator walls.

The elevator felt like it wasn't moving at all, maybe it just went too quickly.

The doors opened with a ding and revealed cubicle spaces. Walls were made from iron.

"I guess this will be some kind of scientific space..." Ryan spoke.

Doctor already exited the elevator, using the sonic screwdriver on the surrounding.

"We should be careful, right Doc? You said that someone is watching..." you whispered.

"Yes, they know we're here," Doctor nodded, walking to one cubicle. It was built around with iron and heavy doors like it was a prison.

"Then where are the guards? They should come already to arrest us," Ryan agreed with you.

"Exactly..." Doctor whispered, trying to open the doors with sonic. They easily opened and the Doctor hopped in.

"Perhaps we shouldn't be so uncautious, this could be a trap," you said, but Graham patted your shoulder. "This is the way Doc works..."

"Every time? I thought it was just one time..." you sighed, thinking about the last time when the Doctor went into a dangerous situation head first.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

"Oh yes Doctor, pull your humans into the danger," Master was thrilled to see them entering the trap he prepared. He pressed a button, calling in Ellia, giving her orders to capture the intruders.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

As the Doctor and fam entered the room, they spotted a big chair which was fused with tubes, which lead to the big water tank, with some strange glowing medusas inside it.

You got close to them as others inspected the chair, "What is this?" you whispered more for yourself, but the Doctor was near to answer your question.

"Those are the Quar's... I was on their planet a long, long time ago. Unfortunately it was destroyed by Cybermen. They were a very peaceful species..."

"But the strange glow Doctor..." Graham stepped closer, "Could this be the souls?"

Yaz observed the strange chair with tubes, while Ryan waited outside, guarding. But it was too late, you were sure that you already got yourself trapped.

"Why would they let us see this?" you frowned, standing next to the giant water tank. There was a table with many blueprints. Doctor examined them quickly, "They want to find a new home… But they are just doing what Cybermen did to them."

"How should we stop them? Well... Save them, find them a new home?" you wondered.

Doctor looked at you, "Someone had to bring them here. The scientist... He offered them this planet, so they work for him."

Suddenly something clicked, someone entered the room.

All of you turned to the entrance, seeing Sammy with a gun pointing at Ryan's head, "Destroy it Doctor... You promised us! I want my brother back!"

He was yelling, almost crying, eyeing the water tank with Quar's.

"There has to be a different solution to that. The Quar's are not the bad guys. They are just looking for a new home. They can't survive in this life form outside their atmosphere," Doctor explained.

"Listen, there are other ways," Graham tried, speaking in a calm voice, "Let my grandson go."

Sammy desperately looked over the place and jumped to the chair, pushing Yaz to the side, grabbing the tube, ripping it off the chair.

"No! Don't!" Doctor yelled, trying to warn Sammy, but it was too late. One Quar got into the tube and flew out, right into Sammy's chest.

Sammy's behavior suddenly changed and he let the gun drop. His eyes started glowing blue and then, there was no Sammy anymore.

Suddenly more of Quar's walked into the room, preventing the Doctor and fam from escaping. In their lead was Ellia.

"Follow me!" Doctor yelled and pointed her sonic at the near vent. They proceeded to climb through, out of the room.

Meanwhile the Master, who was watching it all through the security footage, was furious. They should have been captured there on spot. He planned it whole.

Quar's started following the Doctor and fam with almost the same speed.

"We have to go up!" Yaz shouted and proceeded to run past you.

Doctor was leading, but this whole place was like a maze.

"Where was the elevator?" you heard Ryan say. They turned to the right, and suddenly there was no one.

"Doctor?" you called out. Nothing, it was just quiet. Did you take the wrong turn?

There were no Quar's either. Maybe you managed to escape... One thing was certain, the Quar's were evil. Not as peaceful as the Doctor mentioned the first time. But Doctor and fam had left you behind as well...

You leaned on the wall, breathing heavily. Maybe you could explore the building more. Maybe you would be the one to save this world.

You stumbled upon doors which seemed very out of place. All of the sudden, the Quar's stepped out of the shadows, cornering you.

They lifted their hands, their eyes glowing.

You backed up against the doors, your hand was desperately reaching for the knob.

"We mean no harm," they quietly spoke. No, surely they didn't... They just wanted your consciousness. Why did so many of them follow you? There were almost six of them now, getting closer and closer.

Finally you found the knob and pushed it back, wanting to run behind, but there was just an air. You found yourself falling out of the building.

The confusion of what happened filled your mind completely. But you were in the building...in the basement. How could you fall ou-

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Room with the security footage was abandoned. Only the quiet beeping of machines could be heard and wheezing of engines in the rooms below. The chair was empty as well.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

In the bottom levels of the building, Master sat on the cold stones, outside in the cave. The building was set underground, going through many cave systems, which were used in the past to mine resources.

He sat down next to you, looking at your injured unconscious self with pity and guilt.

He ordered them well, but did they obey his orders?

Nothing can happen to the human girl he said, he even showed them a picture of you. His plans failed greatly, but he wasn't at fault.

Master was waiting for them. He needed to talk with Ellia. This didn't go well.

He took your hand, checking your pulse. Your heart was still beating. That was some good news.

Master realized that he didn't have the Doctor nor his blueprints that Doctor managed to snatch away. Blueprints about getting Quar's safely to other planets where humans moved, and in the end even the Earth.

At least he had you...

Soon the Quar's came out of the building with some medical supplies.

"Take her into the medical wing," Master said almost carelessly, but deep down he was afraid.

On his way back into the building, he looked up, seeing the opened doors very high above his head.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Later on, when you were safely placed from the medical wing to a room near his office together with all equipment, the Master felt the urge to keep you safe. You got slightly better, but just slightly.

He ordered Quar's to guard you days and nights, visiting you every day, sometimes he was reading to you, sometimes he was telling you his plans, adventures he was a part of.

Master hoped you were listening, that you perhaps could hear him.

Doctor was no longer a problem, he had a plan. Secret one, that he wouldn't tell you about.

Doctor and her friends wouldn't look for you, since he made sure to trick them. He used a special technology, which would put them under a strong mind block. Master was thinking of making a pocket version weapon out of it. He couldn't hypnotize the Doctor, but the machine did it without the Doctor noticing.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when your hand moved.

"Doctor..." you whispered.

Master frowned, unpleased with the fact that you were probably not listening to his stories at all. Doctor didn't even had the same voice as he did.

"No darling, there is no Doctor, he's gone... He had left you here all alone with the enemies. I was the one who saved you," Master said softly.

"N-no," you flinched with pain, refusing the fact that the Doctor would leave you. Not after all the times when she said that you were important for the timeline. But in the end, everyone was.

"Carefully," Master said, fixing the pillow under your head, "Whether you believe me or not, you won't see the Doctor again."

Ellia entered the room, looking at you with shiny eyes.

"Is she ready?"

"Ready for what?" Master turned to Ellia, nervously pulling sleeves of the scientist coat. He had to stay patient. Even when it was all Ellia's fault and he was raging inside, he couldn't let it out. Not yet.

"For the exchange of course. You promised me to get new..."

"She's not for exchange," Master quickly said.

"As a leader of Quar's I-"

Master didn't let her finish, "I said she's not for exchange. You can find someone else."

Ellia gave a cold stare to the Master, "Why else do you think my people are healing her? It's not for you, but for me."

Master looked up to the ceiling, Ellia was testing his patience. But the deal was a deal.

"I can offer something else," Master said, turning back to you, "She might know where the other humans are."

Master leaned above you, you could only stare at his mesmerizing eyes.

"Who are you?" you stuttered quietly.

"I'm your Master and you will obey me," Master said more softly than usual, reaching for your temples.

In a few seconds he sighed, "I found it..." he accessed your memory to find humans which were hiding underground. Then he turned to Ellia, "I will give you coordinates, I found them. They are hiding in the sewer system. You can have any of them, just not her," Master gestured to you.

He waited until Ellia didn't leave, and then leaned back to you. He could change your mind about Doctor very easily, also quite literally.

Master also had to ensure you wouldn't run away from him. Lately he had only you in his mind. Ever since he first saw you ages ago, but lately it was strong. He didn't know why, it made him nervous. He kept meeting you on random occasions, even when the Doctor wasn't there. But you wouldn't remember him, now he had a different regeneration and he didn't want to think about the past.

On his way to his office he opened the doors which lead to the room where he had the machine which created the mind block.

Master needed to think of something that would keep you busy from leaving. Something that would make you believe that the Doctor abandoned you. After all, he would be there for you.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

After two days, he walked out from the office with a strange helmet. Whole machine, which was big as a truck, he made into a helmet.

When he went to visit you, he was very careful. You were conscious for a few days already, and he couldn't let you escape. Thankfully Quar's made sure of that.

His plans were falling apart, but for some strange reason, he didn't mind it at all.

With a knock on the doors, he entered the room, with the helmet in his hands. Master realized you were still hypnotized, so he snapped his fingers to relieve you from it.

"Hello human," he came closer to you, sitting on the chair near the bed, anxiously holding the helmet.

"What did you do with my friends?!" you backed away, almost falling from the bed.

Master sighed, this wouldn't be easy.

"They left you, I already said it... I can show you," he tried, "But it's alright. I can take you for adventures as well."

Master offered but well knew, that if you two stumbled upon the Doctor, you would betray him in the blink of an eye.

"Why do you think I would go on adventures with you?"

"Because I saved your life? Unlike the Doctor..." Master spoke.

You shaked your head, it still hurt a lot.

"Wait love, I'll get you rid of that," Master reached for your temple. For some reason, you didn't flinch back this time. There was some kind of sad calm radiating for him.

Master only smiled and got rid of your headache, "Now it should be better."

He felt like it wasn't really needed, but put the helmet on your head, just to be absolutely sure, "Now rest. When you will feel better, I want to show you the universe like your dear Doctor never showed you."

You watched him leave your room, giving you a sad glance before closing the doors behind him.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

It could be hours ever since the Master left. You could hear quiet steps in the distance outside that were echoing through the hallway getting closer and louder. Then it was quiet.

The doors leading to your room quietly opened and a familiar time lord entered.

"Doctor..." you reached for her. Your vision was blurry, but your heart hurt less.

Doctor walked inside, leaning closer to you, observing you carefully.

"I'm so sorry (Y/n)," she said and turned around to leave.

Your head started hurting again as you screamed for her to not leave you.

Just the Doctor wasn't really there... Master was leaning on the wall outside of your room waiting. Now he was sure you would go with him. You would get used to him eventually.

He waited a few more minutes and then entered your room, taking the helmet off your head.

"Human... She's gone," he said, sitting next to you on the bed, "But I'm here. Now we can travel wherever you'd like."

You gave him a worried glance. Who was he?

"We can get out of here right now..."

Master felt the urge to abandon all his plans. Ellia would take care of it, he could monitor them from afar.

Now he had a better plan. Stealing Doctor's companion that would be highly important for Doctor's future.

"Let's go, my companion," Master said, offering you a hand.

Perhaps in that moments, when Doctor and fam were trying to help the humans that were hiding in the sewers, when Master's TARDIS together with you and the technology which caused the mind block left the planet, they realized that you weren't with them anymore.

#Dhawan!master #The Master #Dhawan!master x reader #The Master x reader #Doctor who

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ironchef13 · 1 year ago

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What IF... Mirabel joined the crew of the Cerritos

Here are some Crossover Ideas with the movie Encanto and the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks

1.) Mirabel, feeling despondent because of Antonio's gift ceremony being a success, (don't get me wrong she is still happy for him but is sad because she thinks he will eventually abandon her like the rest of her family.) decides to take an evening walk through the empty village. Suddenly she is captured by Orion Pirates and taken off world, probably to be sold as a slave or something. After a few days in captivity, she is rescued by the crew of the Cerritos and that is how she also learns about Star Fleet. With some convincing from Mirabel, and the anomalous situation of Mirabel not existing in any records on Earth, Captain Freeman decides to let Mirabel join the Cerritos as an ensign under the mentorship of Dvana Tendi. Mirabel would then go on to make friends with the rest of the Cerritos crew (mainly Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler, Rutherford and so on) and go on amazing space adventures while learning to be herself. As a Plot twist I thought maybe Mirabel would be forced to return to earth to help with an unusual anomaly appearing in Columbia. The anomaly in question is a giant Golden dome that appeared in a region of Columbia that was said not be on any map. It turns out when Alma was given the Miracle created by Pedro's sacrificed it also encased the entire Encanto in a Time Bubble. so instead of the Encanto village being fifty years old, like the movie said, several centuries have passed. And when the Miracle broke, because Mirabel wasn't there to save the family, the time bubble also faded exposing Encanto to the new future age. So now a reluctant Mirabel is tasked with trying to integrate the citizens of Encanto into the new age while trying to avoid her family who haven't seen her in over a year.

2.) A few weeks after Mirabel's failed gift ceremony the Madrigals have all but abandoned her. A depressed Mirabel takes a walk in the jungle and gets abducted by Orion Pirates. She is then taken to Orion to be auctioned off as a slave but is then adopted by D'vana Tendi's parents as her and her sister's playmate. As time goes on the Tendi's grow to accept Mirabel as part of the family and train her in the ways of Orion Pirates. When D'vana tells her sisters she wants to join Star Fleet Mirabel decides to go with her. They both join and get assigned to the Cerritos as Ensigns.

that's all I got so far; I hope some of you find these ideas Inspiring.

As the Vulcans say

Live Long and Prosper, Friends

#encanto #mirabel madrigal #encanto mirabel #star trek lower decks #dvana tendi #beckett mariner #brad boimler #captain freeman #star trek #story idea #story ideas #sam rutherford #disney encanto

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macbethz · 8 months ago

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ok final thots. thank you to those who supported me liveblogging both those episodes i love doctor who so much. i also unfortunately love being a critic

all three dw episodes seem to be engaging heavily in this new folklore-ish lean that was established in wild blue yonder - the goblin stealing children, the bogeyman, the fiddle battle with the devil. im interested to see where it goes bc i think its a compelling throughline and one thing rtd lovessss is creating episodic stories that resolve into an overarching narrative. I do think DW seems to be pivoting towards its more family-centric roots, which is fine i guess. I am aware im not the target audience of doctor who but i do love her for her darker moments so ill always be a little sad

i think its kind of funny that the bbc lied in their marketing a little? like space babies was not about the first 5 second butterfly thing and the beatles were barely in the devils chord. actually really funny i literally cant be mad

ncuti is literally electrifying every time hes on camera. i believe he's the doctor 10000% and he really brings that combination of whimsy and sadness to the role that makes me want to see more of 15. ruby i find....less compelling. at least as of rn. I think the main point of interest for her is the mystery of her origin but as a character she's kind of a non-entity in the same way i found many of 13s companions. she almost reminds me of early season Clara in that she's just kinda Mystery Twee Girl but Clara ended up as one of my favorites because she became the most sick and twisted woman on planet earth over the course of 3 beautiful seasons so I have not lost hope yet.

However I do think the companion-doctor relationship is the thing the entire show runs on and I'm not, AS OF YET, super compelled by what 15 and ruby have going on. Hitting a lot of the same notes as rose/9 without the emotional follow-through and DISAGREEMENTS that really made that relationship interesting to watch. I think that's the main thing is I need to see some kind of conflict. 15 is a lot more open than any previous doctor by a LONG shot, presumably because of 14s off-screen therapy LMAO. There's a lot on the table up front in terms of backstory and personality (which i get helps set up new fans) but that also means a lot of the narrative tension created by that kind of inside information is lost. We need something else to replace it and make that dynamic interesting! For me doctor who maintains its narrative momentum through character relationships, i'm not particularly interested in just seeing Space Adventures without that kind of meat behind it idk. it makes them feel a little hollow to me

what else um. jinkx monsoon ate obviously. music is the meaning of life thank you for acknowledging this doctor who.

#warlock wartalks #MANy THOUGHTS I AM SLEEPY THO #dw spoilers

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summer-solo-day · 9 months ago

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59/?? Childhood TV Shows You Should Watch

Title: Josie and the Pussy Cats

Seasons: 2

Episodes: 32

Run Time: 30 Mins

Original Air Date: September 12, 1970 - December 23, 1972

Synopsis:

Josie and the Pussycats featured a teenage all-girl pop band that toured the world with their entourage, getting mixed up in strange adventures, spy capers, and mysteries. The group consisted of level-headed lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Josie, intelligent tambourine Valerie, and air-headed blonde drummer Melody. Other characters included their cowardly manager Alexander Cabot III, his conniving sister Alexandra, her cat Sebastian, and muscular roadie Alan.

Each episode found the Pussycats and crew en route to perform a gig or record a song in some exotic location where they became mixed up in an adventure. The Pussycats usually found themselves in possession of plans for an invention, an item of interest to the villains, a secret spy message, etc., and the villains chased them to retrieve it. Eventually, the Pussycats would ruin the villain's plans, resulting in a final chase sequence set to a Pussycats song.

Season 2:

In September 1972, a sequel spin-off series titled Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space debuted on CBS. This version of the series launched the characters into outer space. Every episode centered on the Pussycats encountering a strange new world where they would encounter and often be captured by various aliens before escaping and attempting to return to Earth. A typical ending for an episode is that they meet a wise benevolent person who reprograms the ship's course for Earth, only to have a clumsy action by Alexandra (or occasionally Melody or Alex) set the ship on the wrong trajectory again.

My Rating: 10/10

My Reasoning:

I LOVED this show so much growing up! I still love it. It again has Scooby-Doo vibes, but I think that's a common theme with Hanna Barbera cartoons. They had a format that worked and ran with it in as many ways as possible. Even though some of the characters are a bit one-dimensional at times, I feel like they are still relatable and likable. Even the "mean girl" Alexandra is likable to some extent. At least, in my opinion, she is. Maybe not to everyone else lol.

Also, the second season is an interesting twist on the show. So I like that they were able to continue it and keep it a bit fresh. The songs featured in the show were also good. I honestly believe that most people would enjoy this show. Especially if you like Scooby-Doo.

#tv shows #childhood tv shows #childhood shows you should watch #cartoons #childhood cartoons #childhood tv list #hanna barbera #josie and the pussycats

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cocobeanzies · 2 years ago

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Sonic Forces - THE END

A short Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction, reimagining the ending of Sonic Frontiers

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Sonic's adventure- his new frontier- is coming to an end. He fought titan after titan, uncovered a catastrophic past, buried deep in the whispers of ancestry that spirits and ancients he had met on his journeys silently bear, but now…

Now, the being that caused mass devastation, genocide, discord. The being proclaimed of infinity and nothing. The being that brought these past civilisations to their knees; it takes its form in space.

This is it. This is the end.

“Is…that it?” Sonic wondered allowed, beads of sweat rushing down his face as he carefully studied the crippled Supreme collapsed before him.

“The ancients contained the beast inside of Supreme, as a vessel. All we did was destroy that shell.” Came a voice in response- Sage. She paused to contemplate the situation for a moment, before continuing.

“I think…my data suggests our real threat is retreating to regain its true form. Not even Super Sonic will be enough to defeat it when it does. I can’t believe I overlooked this in my calculations.” She finished, hanging her head low and gripping her hands grimacingly.

The air hung silently for a moment. Eggman watched nearby, silent, defeated. Sonic watched Sage, impatiently waiting for her next say, folding his arms and furrowing his brow. Sage continued to hang her head…but something else was with her.

As Sage calculated her choices- or rather, painstakingly confronting her lack of choices- a sudden spacial energy wisped through her. The young girl gasped, feeling a strange sense of security and knowingness. It was if the very Universe had tried to catch her attention.

It was then that the idea came to her- a last resort, but maybe doable if they acted quick enough.

She turned to Eggman. “Father, I’m sorry…I think I need to leave you.” Her eyes felt human for a moment, looking sadeningly at her father, knowing her plan may mean she’ll never make it back to Earth. I’m going to take over control of Supreme’s shell and aid Super Sonic. We might have a chance if we act fast.”

“…I understand, you were designed with pristine capability, Sage… Go. Fulfil your function…” Eggman murmured back, refusing to keep eye contact with his prized creation.

Sage silently turns and flies into Supreme, disappearing into its framework and reviving its battered corpse.

“Sonic, we must hurry. We won't be any match if it regains its full strength.”

“Heh, ladies first!” Sonic replied, beaming. Despite the melancholy nature of the situation at hand, Sonic isn’t the type to think of a threat as anything more than an enemy. Nobody gets hurt when he gives it his all! At least, that’s what he believes. He may have to slow down and face reality when the time comes, but more often than not it’s fight first and ask questions later!

The two make their way into space, leaving a lonely Eggman alone with his thoughts.

“Be careful, dear daughter.”

[ 🎵 - I’m with you ]

As Sonic enters space, he notices the usual stars and Earth behind him become completely non-visible. A veil of crimson scarlet surrounds the two instead, almost like a sickly, twisted dimension had clawed itself out of the gates of hell to consume them whole. The golden hedgehog shakes his head, directing his thoughts to the moment with a mission in mind.

“He took your world, he took your lives! Are we going to let him do it all over again?”

“Mortal.”

An eerie voice consumes the surrounding space. With seemingly no direction, it’s as if this voice is telepathic, consuming Sonic and Sage’s minds as they find their bearings in this strange pocket.

“You've served your purpose. Done my bidding. The rest of you can be discarded. Now face your end!” The voice bellowed, reverb bouncing around in Sonic’s skull as he squinted and looked around frantically.

“I am the all-consuming void. What can one mote of golden light illuminate within the abyss?”

Sonic snapped. “Some tough guy speak for a coward that won’t even show its face! Come on out, our fun isn’t over!”

“Countless stars.” The voice continued, a laser shooting from seemingly nowhere at Sonic, dodging by a hair as he exclaimed in shock. “Woah!!”

“Countless worlds.” The laser shoots again. “Countless lives, all fell to me, all bought to nothing!”

A bigger laser shoots at Sonic, throwing him back against a distorted red wall of the scarlet veil. A horrifying face, somewhat resemblent of a scorched, melted skull formed behind Sonic as the impact rippled up the dusty walls.

“Sonic!” Sage yelled, making her way towards him- blue jet engines thrusting out of Supreme.

“All the teeming chaos of creation? Brought to order. To neutrality. To nothing.”

Sage aided Sonic as he shook off shock from the impact and readied himself once more. Gritting his teeth with a smirk, it was time to fight. “Alright, we’re doing this the hard way. Sage, let’s attack the walls!”

Sonic performs Homing Shot at the reddened space around them, while Sage shoots Supreme’s gun and blasts at them as hard as the mechanised titan can handle. Nothing changed.

The formerly bright scarlet seeps into a deep, blood red- the skull-like face consuming the whole backdrop, staring at the two. Judging the two. Piercing through the small, insignificant specs of light that flutter in the void.

“I saw your mind, hedgehog, as you charged through that prison.” The voice spoke, focused on Supreme. “You have fought many gods. They were mighty, but they were finite.”

A thicker, larger laser, caked in white light as many forces combine, targets Supreme like it’s a mere weak side-character. Sage blocked the beam in time, throwing them back as she steadies the titan to a halt and braces.

“But I am infinite. I am nothing.”

“Yeah yeah, quit bluffing!” Sonic retorted. “We may not be able to see you, but if the ancients could contain you, there has to be an end to you somewhere!”

Sonic and Sage continue attacking the walls, hoping to reveal a form behind the voice, or at least any kind of a weak spot. Nothing.

“You struggle as so many have done before. And you will be consumed all the same.”

The environment hushed a gastly silence, the red seeping deeper, the quiet of black feeling louder. Sonic and Sage had only a moment to contemplate the changes to their environment before heat began to form around their bodies, Sonic’s fur sticking up like a magnet was attracting him like a moth to a flame.

Suddenly, the entire void is consumed by a blinding white light of pressure, crushing the two senselessly as nothing but chromatic spurs of red and blue hint at the hedgehog and the titan. The two immediately buckle, being able to do nothing but scream in agony as the pressure grows second by second, demanding the compliance of any mortal being before being surely obliterated in the heat.

“GAHHHH!!!”

The voice continued on to itself, somewhat triumphantly, believing the fight to be over in seconds.

“When I saw your mind, your courage never wavered. Why? Arrogance? Ignorance? Stupidity? I was contained once. Once. Is that why?”

The pressure gets worse as Sonic and Sage’s screams grow louder. Supreme’s shell starts to melt, giving off a toxic scent of burnt metal wavering through the thin slice of atmosphere they are in, smoke filling the bright white as the voice goes on to finish its speech.

“My captors bent time and space, had to build a whole new reality just to contain me- They bent their souls away to fuel their engines! And you?”

Sonic winces an eye open.

While the voice can only demean Sonic with its booming words, Sonic knows he is capable of so much more than to bend over and submit in the face of an enemy. Maybe this can hold a mortal…

…But it chose the wrong emerald-powered hedgehog to thrust that mindset onto.

Sonic performs Sonic Boom, breaking free of the pressurising beams of light, causing the red, dusty walls around them to visually shatter. Space is finally revealed around them.

“You underestimate the Chaos Emeralds! You're not the only invincible one here!” Sonic remarked with a cocky smile, before turning his attention to the damaged Supreme floating lifelessly below him. “You alright, Sage?”

The titan glitches violently as Sage fails to respond. Sonic, growing worried, drops the cocky expression and flies down to the enormous teeth of Supreme, gazing inside for any semblance of life. “Sage?”

“I’m fine.” Sage finally replied. “I was able to defend against a lot of the pressure that would have damaged Supreme’s inner shell. Most of the damages you see are cosmetic.”

“Phew, good!” A relieved Sonic sighed. “Then lets end this!”

Sonic and Sage gaze up at the shatters of red from the strange pocket of space they were contained in before. The particles begin to accumulate, forming what looks to be almost like a second Moon. It’s red- pinkish, even- Floating robustly with quivers of light and smoke teeming off of its rocky surface.

“Looks like that beast has finally given us a single target! Come on Sage, let’s get it!” Sonic calls out, charging at the rocky structure confidently, beginning to attack it with Supreme rushing to aid at his side.

“Hmph. You glitter. You fly around me like a gnat.” The voice contained, coming from the rock as Sonic and Sage pummel it with all their might.

Sonic performs Wild Rush on its surface, carving out a small crater on impact. The voice grows angry, irritated by the little creatures before it, adamantly refusing to die.

“I am inevitable!” It screams.

Sonic follows up with a Stomp attack, making the creater deeper and deeper.

“I cannot be denied! You strike this incarnation with all your might? It changes nothing!”

Sage clasps Sonic in Supreme’s hands, launching him at the structure in blazing speeds, carving the crater enough that the moon-like structure breaks apart immediately with Sonic shooting through the other side like a canonball.

“Whoo!” Sonic exclaimed- however, that celebration would not be for long.

The pieces quickly spread out and created the twisted, scarlet dimension once more. This time, the walls were worse. They appear angry. Bloody. Deadly.

The walls waver with streams of blood red, the skull-like face twitching, distorting, almost screaming in any direction you look as light warps around to one central focus. Without much time to react, lasers forming the shape of an icosahedron strike down at Sonic and Sage. The two dodge, and regroup back-to-back in the centre below the lasers.

“Sonic! None of the data I’m calculating suggests we’ve even caused it any harm!” Sage cried, a bead of sweat returning to Sonic’s face as he grows frustrated at the seemingly endless efforts it’s taking to take this thing down. “Tch…”

“Alright, whatever-your-name-is… You might just be the toughest big bad I’ve gone up against yet.” Sonic admitted with a face of seriousness glistening in his eyes.

Everything started to feel redundant. The golden glow trickling off of Sonic’s fur began to grow dim, as the hedgehog punched his fist in frustration, unsure of what choices he even has from here. All began to feel lost. At any moment, it could unleash that deadly pressure all over again- and yet, this isn’t even its full form. What are they to do when it gets strong enough to rebuild itself in full? What can they do to prevent that? What can they do to protect the Earth against that?

They’ve lost.

He’s lost.

…

Like ghosts, Sonic’s friends buzzed beside him in this brief moment of standstill. From cyberspace, they reach out- praying to give Sonic the strength he needs, the strength that has led him to defeat every enemy before this one.

“Sonic, we’re with you!” Came an Amy.

“If anyone is strong enough, it's me! …Well, you too I guess.” Followed a Knuckles.

“We all know you can do this!” Included a Tails.

Sonic smiles, with a tear escaping his dulling eyes. “I don’t think I can, guys…”

Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning striking through Sonic’s chest, a fourth voice consumes his mind as a galaxy resonates in his eyes. “ Sonic. The Universe stands by you.”

The lasers stop as Supreme hovers back, Sage staring bewildered. Sonic begins to transform, with brilliant purple lights shooting from his body as orange and cyan gas from the surrounding space begins to take form in Sonic’s very fur. In a flash of light, there he was.

Burnt flaps of glove escaping his gravity as dust and illuminant sparkles consumed his body. Plated, golden stars standing stoically by his eyes. Eyes as void as a blackhole, pupils shining like an accretion disk- the embodiment of The Universe itself.

Galaxy Sonic.

“Your foe is a destructive force, causing havoc across the Universe for almost as long as existence.” The Universe spoke. “If anyone can stop it, it’s you, Sonic and Sage.”

“What?! You are not brave! You are not victorious! No matter what form either of us take, The End comes for you all!” The eerie voice shouted furiously, offended by this cosmic interference. Beginning to feel afraid, it began to hold a defensive- but there’s no use.

What can one mote of darkness do against the grand scheme of the Universe, after all?

“It’s now or never!” Galaxy Sonic announced with encouragement, his voice louder than a million giant stars humming in unison.

The galactic hedgehog performs a devastating Spin Slash all around the crimson space, escaping the clutches of The End and peering into its pocket dimension from the outside- appearing like a hyperbolic plane. In an instant, Sonic shatters it like glass.

But it doesn’t end there.

In one final Cyloop, Sonic orbits the spherical plane of shattered dust, aiming to annihilate it completely before streaking off like a shooting star, lighting up the night sky with his dazzling light.

A giant explosion takes place as Sonic returns to Sage’s side. The two look hopefully at each other- but in no time at all, the red-pink particles rapidly begin to reform once again. It won’t. Stay. Down.

“No! I won’t let you rebuild yourself again!” Sage called out in the heat of the moment, not even hesitating before heroically throwing herself and Supreme into the forming matter.

Like the fission from a nuclear bomb, the dust split apart in one final catastrophic explosion, a blinding white light signalling the true end to the proclaimed being of everything and nothing.

“Please…look after…Father…” Sage requested, before dissipating to the blast.

Sonic, realising the weight of what Sage just did, reached out his hand desperately and could only call out as his newly made friend split herself into oblivion before his very eyes.

“SAGE–!!!”

[ 🎵 - Dear Father ]

Sonic's gaze goes solemn, as the blinding light throws him towards the Earth. His galaxy form slowly melts away from his body, leaving lesions and burn marks all over his fur and skin as he struggles to maintain consciousness in his descent down.

The blast creates a wondrous display of shooting stars in the sky as Amy, Knuckles and Tails reform under it. Sonic lands nearby, tattered and badly injured- but alive, just as his friends knew he would be.

Sonic pants as he looks over to his friends who notice him in the distance, “Okay…now that’s it. I hope.” Sonic muttered with an air of relief, seeing his friends are okay, and faints as the three rush to his side.

In the distance, Eggman watches the group atop a cliff, somehow comforted by the fact that at least some of the faces he knew are alright. But Sage…

Eggman turns his attention to the shooting stars and holds his hand out.

“I’m proud of you, daughter…”

#sonic frontiers #sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sonic fanart #sonic the hedghog fanart #super sonic #sth #sonic fanfiction #sonic headcanons #literature #fan fic writing #fanfic #fanfiction #amy rose #knuckles the echidna #miles tails prower #sage #eggman

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theresattrpgforthat · 2 years ago

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THEME: System-Neutral Settings (Fantasy Edition)

Sometimes what you need, rather than a new ruleset, is a setting that makes your system sing. These are a series of system-neutral settings that you can pick up, borrow from, or use wholesale in a game of your choice!

All of these settings would work very well in fantasy or fantasy-like games.

Into the Riverlands, by Ostrichmonkey Games.

The Riverlands rests at the heart of the world. A great current of life and movement that winds and weaves its way through the mountains and valleys of the central continent. The Riverlands stretch from the south to the far north, acting as the lifeblood of continental travel and trade.

The Riverlands are a region of vibrancy and mystery. A colorful mosaic of peoples that call it home, and the strange twilight forest that surrounds it. Explore the bustling and vibrant City of Bridges, the mysterious and primeval Forest, the distant and crumbling Empire, and even further afield.

The backgrounds of The Riverlands have interesting themes, from the mercurial Trickster-Poet to the strange Forest Dweller, to the patient Marsh Apiarist. Picking up a game that is very light on rules, such as Tunnel Goons or Into the Odd, would allow you to slot in a character that fits inside the Riverlands without having to carry as much of the dungeon-delving as traditional OSR games.

Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City, by WTF Studio.

The Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City is a tabletop role-playing game book, half setting, half adventure, and half epic trip; inspired by psychedelic heavy metal, the Dying Earth genre, and classic Oregon Trail games. It leads a group of ‘heroes’ into the depths of a vast and mythic steppe filled with the detritus of time and space and fuzzy riffs.

This game is designed with a d20 game in mind but much of the setting feels very fitting for an OSR-style regardless of the dice you use. There are 200 pages of interesting locations with encounter tables and plot seeds. Some of the locations in this city include The Porcelain Citadel, The Steppe of the Lime Nomads, The Glass Bridge and The Forest of Meat. The world is weird and resists the tones of high fantasy by populating the world with insectoids, fungal colonies, strange drugs and ancient machines. If you want acid fantasy that mixes the in a bit of weird science or post-apocalypse, this is the setting for you. The designer of this setting also has a free player guide, as well as a creature generator supplement.

Into the Wyrd and Wild, by Feral Indie Studio.

Beyond the reach of roads, past the scope of mortals there is a darkened place. A shadowed tree-line where no-one dares cross and whose boundaries go undisturbed.

This is not the woods of peaceful fey and beast, but the dark and twisted children’s tale that kept you full of terror. It is a world of fear, madness, and bloodshed; ruled over by the uncaring watch of ancient trees. There is no bargaining with the primal forces that rule the uncivilized world, as you have nothing they could ever want.

The woods do not care for you. Never forget that.

Another dark fantasy setting, Into the Wyrd and Wild includes more than a list of beasts and NPCs for the characters to encounter. It includes a way to think about money in the setting, how to emphasize exhaustion, and various other rules that demonstrate the danger and violence to be found inside the Wilds. One of my favourite sections of the book is about the Court of Broken Branches, a faction built out of abandoned children, stitched up with silver stitches and led by a magical Queen. An incredibly evocative setting and a top-tier piece of work in terms of design.

Guidebook to the Viridian Maw, by Orbis Tertius Press.

This 24-page PDF of the digest-sized zine contains fodder for a wilderness sandbox campaign in the Viridian Maw: an overgrown meteor crater, mutated and reshaped by fungal influence. To get a sense of it, check out the free download for the one-page version of the setting.

Everything is system neutral & stats agnostic, though the material is written with genre assumptions leaning toward D&D/OSR games (but usable for games like Apocalypse World or Dungeon World, too).

If you want a game that sinks your players deep into a thick, dangerous forest, this is a great option for you. There are tons of great descriptions of beasts and plants that your characters can encounter, including Driftnettle, a floating kelp-like creature that prey on the unaware and asleep, and the Sporehorn elk, a symbiotic partnership between an elk and a colony of fungi. Much of the encounters you’ll find in this zine will prompt changes to characters that make them weirder, so it might be a good idea to let your players know about that before playing in this setting.

This game works for dark fantasy, but I’ve also used it as inspiration for a Changeling: the Lost game as well!

Into the Sea Woods, by Diwata Ng Manila.

The Sea-Woods is the way it has always been: just beyond the village, across a wall that bars the rest of the roots from coming forward. No one ever knew why that wall was built. Was it meant to keep the Woods out or keep the Village in? One thing's for sure, things changed when a tree stood up from its spot and punched a part of the wall until it collapsed. It then promptly walked deeper into the woods, clearing through a small path.

Never heard of a tree walking before? Ah, then you really must be new here, aren't you?

This is a small collection of micro-settings that are whimsical and evocative. This is more of a friendly forest than a scary one - great for setting a Studio-Ghibli kind of tone. There’s a bit of a formatting issue with the current version, but the ideas present in each setting give a great amount of inspiration for making locations that feel safe and yet unique for your play group. My favourite is the Cabin, a house that always has a warm cup of tea and a freshly made bed, despite having no visible caretaker. Rumour has it the Keeper only appears at night, and if she does, she’ll bet her heart on a game of poker. I've also used inspiration from this setting in a Changeling game before, to great success!

The Gardens of Ynn, by Dying Stylishly Games.

The Gardens of Ynn is a point-crawl adventure set in an ever-shifting extradimensional garden. Each expodition generates its route as it explores, resulting in new vistas being unlocked with every visit. It's a big garden full of whimsy and delight and surreal perils.

The Gardens of Ynn are a constantly re-arranging set of gardens that act as a magical maze. As a point-crawl adventure, this is a great option for a point-crawl game, but it might also be an interesting piece of inspiration for a horror game of some kind. This book begins with some basic lore about the Gardens themselves, followed by a d20 table that adds how deep you are in the Gardens to determine which area you happen upon next. Each area has a description, and many areas have additional roll tables to determine what can be found, or what kinds of encounters you might find within.

#tabletop games #game recommendations #indie ttrpgs #system-neutral #dnd

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denimbex1986 · 1 year ago

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'2023 is a fantastic year to be a Doctor Who fan. Not only is legendary Doctor Who writer and showrunner Russell T. Davies returning to the series, but we also get treated to three specials in honor of the show's 60th anniversary, starring the 10th Doctor and his beloved companion, Donna Noble, which, of course, sees the return of David Tennant and the amazing Catherine Tate in their seminal roles. This, however, is all before Ncuti Gatwa makes his debut as the 14th Doctor, to reinvent the show for a new generation. Doctor Who fans are eating phenomenally well this year.

Bridging the gap between Jodie Whitaker's run as the 13th Doctor, and Ncuti Gatwa's debut as the 14th, David Tennant, and Catherine Tate return to the series with three exciting specials. The first of which, "The Star Beast," offers a breathtaking return to the show, with an episode that takes us back to the good old days of Doctor Who. David Tennant and Catherine Tate effortlessly fall back into their roles, with Davies immersing audiences into a thrilling, action-packed, and hilarious adventure with his flawless script. It's full of satisfying character moments, impeccable production design, and a fascinating antagonist.

The special answers many long-standing questions and presents a plethora of new ones while we anxiously anticipate Ncuti Gatwa's debut. Getting us seething with excitement for the final two specials, "The Star Beast" is a magical experience for Doctor Who fans that cannot be understated.

The Golden Age of Doctor Who

After a brief catch-up on the history between the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), audiences are hurled into a lively part of London where the 14th Doctor, sporting a recognizable face from a past regeneration, immediately finds himself bumping into Donna Noble within seconds of landing on Earth. There, after a brief conversation with the Doctor continually staring at Donna in disbelief, a mysterious spaceship crash lands on the other side of London.

The Doctor quickly rushes to the ship's wreckage to find an abandoned and beaten-up spaceship, with no sign of life. Meanwhile, Donna is met by the adorable alien species known only as The Meep, in her own home. With an intergalactic war on the way, The Doctor must return The Meep back to his spaceship before London is left in a fiery ruin. However, if Donna remembers her past with the Doctor, her life may be at risk.

Based on a story from a 1980 Doctor Who comic strip written by Pat Mills and Dave Gibbs, "The Star Beast" is one of the best Doctor Who specials in years. Sure, that's not really saying much, but with an expertly crafted script, flawless performances, and immersive production design on a scale we haven't quite seen before, fans are treated to a special that seamlessly takes us back to 2008: The Golden Years of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who Reaches New Heights

Russell T. Davies presents a script full of action, shocking twists, rip-roaring humor, and important themes revolving around gender identity. Davies tackles these themes with delicacy and levity, leading to many emotional and important character moments, which are soon paralleled with some brilliant moments of humor. "The Star Beast" offers a brilliant set-up for the 14th Doctor's future, and gets us incredibly excited about the rest of the 60th anniversary specials.

"The Star Beast" boasts some of the best production design that Doctor Who has seen in years. The imaginative design of its creatures, costumes, and space-shop will have audiences fully enthralled by this exceptional Doctor Who special. Likewise, "The Star Beast" deserves much praise for its action. Full of explosions, gunfire, and extraterrestrial carnage, the combination of well-shot, well-directed action with a blood-pumping score to boot creates thrilling action scenes the likes of which Doctor Who has been missing for a while.

The Return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate

What will certainly get most fans talking, and has done ever since it was announced, is the return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate. Tennant is an absolute joy to watch on-screen. His giddy, childish, yet wise take on the character once again cements the fact that he is among the best to ever play the Doctor. Whether he's in shock, excitement, or brainstorming his next plan, David Tennant oozes with buckets of energy, enthralling audiences with his endlessly entertaining performance.

These 60th-anniversary specials aren't actually David Tennant's first time back in the role. In fact, 10 years ago, for the show's 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor," Tennant starred alongside Matt Smith and John Hurt for an awe-inspiring special like no other. However, unlike Tennant, Catherine Tate hasn't reprised her role before. After a 15-year hiatus from the franchise, Catherine Tate returns to her no-nonsense, wise-cracking, and inspiring role as Donna Noble, one of the Doctor's best-ever companions. Tate returns with her exceptional comic timing, cracking audiences up with every line of intended dialogue, and draws audiences in with her emotionally nuanced performance that delves into Donna's trauma. An aspect of her performance from the fourth season that was often overlooked.

Although the biggest praise has to be given to Tennant and Tate's return, one of the best performances of the special came from Jacqueline King as Sylvia Noble, Donna Nobles' mom. Often stealing the show, King's line delivery, and comic timing are on point, constantly leaving audiences belly laughing, and finally falling in love with her otherwise overbearing, but loving character. Additionally, making her debut in the show is Yasmin Finney, offering a confident and captivating performance as Rose, leaving audiences no choice but to fall in love with her character.

"The Star Beast" begins streaming internationally on Disney+ on November 25th, and airs at 6:30 pm on the BBC for UK viewers on the same day. If you fancy more Doctor Who goodness in the meantime, check out the short 14th Doctor prologue entitled "The Fourteenth Doctor is Here."

Our Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (Must-See).'

#Doctor Who #David Tennant #Catherine Tate #Donna Noble #60th Anniversary #The Star Beast #the Meep #Miriam Margolyes #Jacqueline King #Sylvia Noble #Russell T. Davies #Ncuti Gatwa #Pat Mills #Dave Gibbons #Yasmin Finney #Rose Noble

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