#spaceship blorbo

[thisshrimpisfryingrice]

Birdblorbo encounter

[lynxfrost13]

Praps if I’m good I’ll post not only about Frau Wasserlinse!! But also the very prestigious and totally not falling apart Vinetan Defense Freighter crew and additional operations

[tangential-hooligan]

A dandy ship for a dandy guy 💖 ☮️

[brightsuzaku]

An Ode to the Suddenly-Remembered Formative Blorbos of my Life

Or maybe it's just a long post nobody will read! A very long time ago, when I was 11 or 12, and a tiny angry misanthropic child, I read a story on either fanfiction.net or on its own website an original story about a girl and her friend, a spaceship guy named I think Libra 279.

You know stories that take you away somewhere else in an adventure? The transportative power of the written word? And how that helps you?

And also is the reason you keep looking for more science fiction with "spaceships being fully-realized major characters" for like half your life?

I cannot search for this story anymore. It had original art, either drawn by the author or submitted by another fan. It had its own web page. It was a labor of love by its author.

It existed in my earliest memories online, and woe! I bestow it upon you!

Amidst the chaos of my moving from one state to another at that age (which interrupted so many routines and I somehow dropped off reading both Animorphs AND Diadem and got into manga), I also lost track of Libra and that story, which had gone into hiatus.

The characters were beginning to see the presence of danger bigger than they were, with connections to Libra's own horrific past (which he mostly suppressed) called the Zodiac Chasers. We'd already met Leo, and Leo was an asshole, if I remember correctly.

And now I don't know if anyone else remembers this story, but it's like 90% the reason WHY I am like this now. Whoever wrote this story, I hope you're doing well, I hope you're still doing cool things, I hope you know you have shaped and changed my entire life when I was like 12.

[scribefindegil]

also normally you could not pay me to care about SFF geopolitics it's just not where my heart lies but i can EASILY be made to care about Space and/or Fantasy Materiality so thanks Ann Leckie for the hack

[screamn-robo-drawin]

Idk why shatterd glass AU memes be upon ye

Kriam is the smol and Hekaton (Medioker) is the ship

[nucleiaster]

Sketches and fun facts about the Radio Isotope characters because I want to infodump but I don't know what to say haha

[vimse]

I’d like to thank my weird and oddly specific obsession about oxygen candles for getting me through my inorganic chemistry exam

[wheelybard]

Bridge crews?

I think you mean BLORBOS ON A SPACESHIP.

[thisshrimpisfryingrice]

Wait I think I made an Star Trek oc

[tinkerbitch69]

Jokes on you, this is exactly why I love them 🥰

watching doctor who is just “wow, the doctor is a deeply flawed individual but their desire to help people is so strong that they’ll go against their own rules and destroy themselves in the process aaaaaaaaand now they’re licking parts of the spaceship okay then”

[allsassnoclass]

prompt number 24 for the kiss prompts? whatever pairing you vibe with it! -megs 💙

@igarbagecannoteven okay! wlw in space! come meet two of my ocs a few months after their actual story finishes

Arima/Jo: 'It was the closest body part to me' kiss in an odd location

Arima has been balanced precariously on a stepladder for the past hour, elbow deep in the mess of wires and metal that makes up the secondary engine. It hasn't worked right since they crashed on New Paradiso months ago, but fixing it has been low on the priority list. The ship still functions well enough without it, and there were… other concerns.

Now, though, the aftermath from New Paradiso has been mostly taken care of. The political fallout after her father's untimely death was catastrophic, especially with the lack of infrastructure he left behind. Even once they left the planet, his shadow has followed them, making entrance into intergalactic ports a hassle and limiting options for recovery and relocation for Jo's old crew. Still, after a few tense, extremely crowded months, the ship has mostly emptied of extra passengers. Arima's sparse crew are the only ones left, which means Arima can shirk her duties for a while and hide in the engine room, tinkering away while Pip coordinates restocking supplies and trading information at the port until they're inevitably run off world again.

Arima never thought she'd miss the anonymity that came with not knowing her birth parents and operating on a skeleton crew with a revolving door of passengers. A certain degree of notoriety is useful in her line of business, and she used to constantly lament to Pip about how potential business partners refused to take her seriously due to her age and lack of history behind her. She spent her earliest years trying to make a name for herself, and she only recently attained the right balance between infamy and obscurity: enough that her reputation precedes her, but not enough to be immediately recognized by the wrong people. Now, however, they've veered in the opposite direction. Word of the events at New Paradiso spread through the galaxy faster than light, leaving a wary edge to all of their interactions that is going to be an issue if she doesn't get it under control soon.

Arima sighs and stretches out her neck, forcing her thoughts back to the mess of wires, plates, and connectors in front of her. They can't even consider taking the fast-pace business she used to prefer if she can't get the second engine back online. One issue at a time.

She sticks the wrench she'd been using back in her pocket and sets down the flashlight she needs with the ship's power cut, leaning her arms against the top of her stepladder to give them a break. She already repaired the damage to the outer engine at their last port docking, but it still didn't work during the next flight. She's been systematically going through the inner mechanics now that the main engine is off, but it's slow going, and she doubts she'll be able to find the issue before they're forced to leave again.

Pip wants her to go to an official mechanic, but Arima practically built this ship with her bare hands. She doesn't want anyone else messing with it, least of all an inner-world mechanic who is going to overcharge them or someone feeling the aftershocks of New Paradiso's upheaval who could sabotage them worse.

Arima wipes her brow, resisting the urge to rub at her eyes with the amount of grease and oil smeared on her fingertips.

She can fix the engine herself. She just needs a bit more time, maybe a nap. She hasn't been sleeping well since… everything. Pip offered to clear a space in his quarters for her the fifth time he caught her wandering the ship during sleeping hours, but she doesn't want to wake him up with her nightmares if his presence alone isn't enough to sooth her. As long as she can check that he's still alive and here, she's fine.

"Hey," a voice says, breaking her from her thoughts. She twists around to find Jo standing in the doorway, the smallest smile gracing her lips. Her blonde hair is tied up, although stray strands have escaped the tie and the whole thing seems to be a stiff breeze away from falling apart. She's wearing one of the outfits Arima scrounged up for her when they first met, complete with her brother's jacket, but everything looks well-worn and comfortable now. Jo has grown into the hand-me-down outfit the same way she grew into a spot on this ship: slowly and steadily, without Arima noticing.

Arima checks on her late at night as often as she checks on Pip, although Jo rarely features in her nightmares. She was in danger of losing them both, but Pip almost died, beaten bloody as used as leverage against her. If she had lost Jo, it would've meant watching her walk away, reunited with her old crew. That was always the main goal, so Arima had been preparing for it. She told herself that she would be able to handle the hurt.

It's a good thing she never has to find out if she was lying.

"Hey yourself," she says, repositioning herself on the ladder but not stepping down from it. She intends to return to the task, getting as much productivity out of this port stop as possible. She refuses to be distracted, not even by tall, pretty girls who know how to perform a Mallaney pinch twister with half the engine power cut.

"Pip wanted me to tell you that everyone is done restocking, but we haven't been run off yet. He's letting everyone stay out longer. I think Ji-eun and T are going to try to catch a show," Jo says, wandering further into the engine room. Normally Arima would bristle at anyone besides her or Pip being in here, but Jo almost looks right surrounded by the bleeding insides of her craft. If she can fly the ship as well as she does, surely she can be trusted to stand in her heart and not ruin everything.

"That's good," Arima says. "Maybe I can actually fix the second engine by the time they're done."

Jo's smile takes on a distinctly amused tilt.

"He also said to tell you that you need to take a break, and if you're not in the mess getting something to eat or out in the market getting sun in 15 minutes he's going to come in here and remove you himself."

"He can't do that," Arima snorts. "I'm the captain. That's not how this works and he knows it."

It's also a very amusing image. Pip is well versed in coaxing Arima to take a break when he thinks she needs it, usually with infinite patience. He once sat in the cockpit with her for over an hour holding a sandwich while he waited for her to finish making sense of a new set of maps when a part of the Nazaka-Cora system was colonized. He never, not once in his life, has tried to physically force her anywhere.

"Arima," Jo says, stepping close enough that Arima has to tilt her head to look down at her. It's a reversal to their usual height difference, and Arima likes being able to look down at her more than she thought she would. Jo's eyes are deep and dark in the shadows of the engine room, her eyelashes fanning out to frame them enticingly. The dark circles that were ever-present since the moment they met have faded slightly. A weight has lifted from her, one that hasn't returned despite the aftermath of New Paradiso. Arima wants to reach out and rub her thumb against the soft underside of her eye.

"Arima," Jo repeats. She's laughing at her, light and happy. Arima is suddenly extremely grateful that her dark complexion hides blushes.

"What?" she asks, voice as steady as she can make it.

"Come and get something to eat in the market. You can keep fixing the engine after."

Arima grimaces.

"It's probably already fixed, you just haven't tested it," Jo says, voice light and coaxing.

"No," Arima says, valiantly holding firm. "If I leave now, I'm going to spend the rest of our break planet side and this will never get done."

"Okay," Jo says. Arima narrows her eyes. Jo blinks up at her, a picture of innocence, then darts forward. Arima is too tall from her place on the ladder to reach anywhere normal, so her lips press against Arima's bicep, there and gone in less than a second. Arima's face feels like it's on fire.

They haven't talked about the other kiss yet, the big one, just like they haven't talked about the fact that Jo chose to stay on the ship instead of leaving with her family. It, like the second engine, fell to the side in the midst of everything imploding around them.

"I'll come back in fifteen minutes," Jo says, taking a step back. Her cheeks might be tinged red, too, but there are too many shadows in the room to tell.

"Okay?" Arima manages to say, inhaling sharply because somehow she forgot to breathe.

"Fifteen minutes," Jo repeats. "Then we're leaving the ship. I'll help you fix the engine after, just find a pause point now."

"But--"

"Fifteen minutes," Jo sings, sauntering towards the door. "If you're not out there, I'll come get you, and I'm not nearly as patient as Pip."

She slips out of the engine room with a wink over her shoulder. Arima stares after her, wondering what just happened. After a full minute, she still has no clue.

Oh well. Arima gets her wrench out and turns to the panel she's in the middle of deconstructing. The engine needs to be repaired, whether her crew wants her to fix it or not.

Besides, she wouldn't mind if Jo comes back to drag her out.

[telesilla]

You are in a position to commission Amuray Guichon, aka The Chocolate Guy. Money, time and space are not an issue, you can ask for anything he can physically make. What do you ask for?

I realize there’s significant overlap in some of these categories; this is not rocket science. Also please feel free to describe your commissioned piece in the tags.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

AO3 down? Craving your blorbos? Why not fill in the time by making some new blorbos on a perfectly normal and functional spaceship.

[trans-snart]

Tom Paris......

[whumptober]

Anatomy of a Whumptober Prompt

We get a lot of questions about prompts, so I thought this might be a helpful post for how to break down a Whumptober prompt and get ideas.

Each day of Whumptober has 4 prompts: a theme trope, then three ideas. You can use any one, two, three, or all four in your work. Each day’s prompts loosely relate to each other but could also be taken individually. They can be interpreted as literally or figuratively as you want.

Let’s look at an example. I’m a writer, so I’m going to talk in terms of storywriting, but just remember that this challenge is open to all sorts of creative works, including art, gifsets, headcannons, crafts, or whatever else you can think of.

ICARUS

cage | “You'll say you'd never let me fall from hopes so high” | crash landing

(Fiona Apple, Never is a Promise)

So the theme is Icarus, with additional prompts of a place, a song lyric, and a situation. Taken together, you could write a story of Icarus, who was caged with his father Daedelus, flew too close to the sun on the hope of freedom, and crashed fatally to earth. But you could also look at each prompt in isolation for ideas.

Icarus:

themes of hubris

themes of freedom from captivity

winged characters

a child trying to prove themselves to a parent figure and failing

Cage:

being literally caged

feeling figuratively caged

breaking free of something (literal or figurative)

themes of imprisonment and freedom or false freedom

“You'll say you'd never let me fall from hopes so high”:

regret

promises made or broken

an accident and its aftermath

bitterness after betrayal

guilt after betrayal or accident

Crash landing:

literally falling from a height

being high (drugs, mania, medications, love, sugar) and crashing

plane/helicopter/airship/dragon/spaceship/winged creature crash

an angel falling to earth or hell

comet or meteor impact

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but just some brainstorming ideas I could come up with quickly. In a few of my fandoms, I could write about Bucky’s fall from the train and Steve’s guilt (MCU), Basch fon Ronsenburg’s fall from grace or languishing in a cage for treason (FFXII), Sephiroth summoning Meteor (FFVII), Chell being dragged back into Aperture after thinking she’s free (Portal), a dragonrider battle (ASOIAF/HoD), crashing into the Chionthar after victory (BG3), Geralt coming down after battle when the potions wear off (The Witcher). Any of these scenarios could be inspired by one or more of the four prompts for that day – my problem is always deciding which one I want to use!

“But Yenn,” you say, “what if I can’t think of anything for any parts of the prompt, or I don’t like the prompts, or they’re too much for me in some way?” No problem! We also have a list of 15 alternatives that can be substituted for any day (once per prompt). If you’re still stuck, you can always come on Discord and ask for brainstorming help. Everyone is super nice there, especially for a community of people that live to put blorbos in discomfort.

I hope this post helps give people ideas. We’re working hard to get everything together and should release the prompts in a couple of weeks! In the meantime, our 2024 playlist will be loading soon...