#Ask The Alien From The Fourth Dimension | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bekkachaos · 2 years

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you showed me everything underneath the stars (put your handprint on my heart)

Just a little fic set somewhere after 4x12

G | 2.8k

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Michael paced the floor, it felt like all he could do.

Alex sat looking pale and breathing heavy. The dark tendrils were climbing his skin like rising water threatening to replace all the air around him, he knew he was drowning and all he could do was gulp for air. Kyle had the stethoscope to his chest and a hard line on his mouth. For a doctor, he didn't have the greatest poker face.

Maybe that's just because it was Alex sitting in front of him, and he was racking the darkest corners of his brain for anything that he could do to reverse the damage that had been done.

And Michael could see it in his eyes, in the way he checked the results of the blood test for the fourth time as though it would show him something new, show him that Alex hadn't crossed the line between 'we can bring him back' and 'we can make him comfortable'.

Alex already knew it, he didn't need to see the deepening furrow in Kyle's brow, hear the grinding of Michael's teeth as he took quick steps past him, back and forth, back and forth. He had known it before they had made it out of the pocket dimension. He knew enough about radiation poisoning to recognise the signs.

Finally, maybe after having spent some time arguing with himself internally, Kyle stepped up and away from the computer. He put his hands on his hips and bit down on his lip, looking away from Alex as Michael honed in on him. He stood before him with pleading eyes, swallowing the lump of fear and inevitability in his throat.

"Is Evans still... has he recovered yet?" he asked quietly, and Michael felt his stomach drop.

There would only be one reason for Kyle to ask about Max at a time like this. This wasn't something a human doctor - even one that's dabbled extensively in alien biology - could fix.

Max had been so weak after they'd defeated Clyde, it had almost drained him dry and taken everything in him to fight him off. Healing Liz, saving Rosa, that took so much out of him, and Michael felt himself grinding his teeth again because no, Max hadn't recovered, and even Michael knew how much it would take to heal Alex.

He didn't have to answer, almost like Kyle could read his mind. Kyle nodded, a slow dip of his head and a look back to Alex.

"I... you were exposed for a long time," he said finally, this time it was Alex's turn to nod.

It was a soft understanding thing, a smile playing lightly on his lips because he had known for a while that he was dying, and he knew it was going to hurt Kyle more than him if he had to say the words out loud.

He was dying. He was going to die from this.

Unless Max was back to full strength soon, Alex would die.

"You did the best you could," he said, and Kyle scoffed, shaking his head as he stepped back towards him.

"Only you could be trying to comfort me in this situation," he said. "I didn't do anything, Alex. There's nothing..."

"Hey," Alex said, reaching out and putting his clammy hand over Kyle's white knuckles. "You did, you did more than anyone should have ever asked you to."

Kyle took Alex's hand in his and held it tight a moment, dropping his eyes and failing at trying to hide the tremble of his lip as he sucked in a deep breath through his nose and coughed to get the stabbing feeling out of his throat.

"It's not enough," he said.

They stayed like that for a lingering look, plenty unsaid between them, and it didn't have to be said. They knew, without words they knew what the other would say.

I'm sorry we drifted apart when we were kids, I'm sorry that's my fault.

I'm glad we made up for it these last few years, I'm glad you're in my life, and I'm sorry I'm leaving.

Michael stood watching them and it was like he was frozen in place, neither of them said anything, but it was clear as the starry sky over the mountains outside, they were saying goodbye.

"I um, I'll go talk to the others," Kyle said, finally pulling his hands away and turning to Michael with glassy eyes. "I'll go check on Evans."

As he took a step to leave Michael stepped in front, putting a hand to his chest to stop him.

"There's got to be more mist," he said in a desperate breath. "Or Liz can make some more."

"There's none left," he sighed. "And I don't think... I'm not sure she has time to make any."

"There's got to be something else," he choked, and Kyle reached out to squeeze his arm.

He was no stranger to pleading family members, talking to him like he should be able to heal any ailment, slow down time or suspend it entirely to find a way to save the person they love.

It had never been this hard.

"Michael," they both looked to Alex, his chest rising and falling with his laboured breaths and holding a hand out for him.

Michael was starting to fall apart. His face twisted with the realisation, the pain and the tears that were already welling in his eyes. Those wild eyes still gazing frantically around like the solution, the cure, would come from the air around them.

"Go to him," Kyle said but Michael still stopped him from leaving.

"Valenti please you have to-"

"Guerin," he said. "He needs you, not me. Let me go find the others, give you a minute."

Michael took a shaky breath but walked around him and over to Alex, taking his hand in his and brushing his hair back over his brow once, and again, and then with his thumb against his cheek.

Kyle turned to watch them a minute, dropping his head and leaving them alone in the silent room.

"Hey," Alex said, blinking slowly and gazing up into Michael's tired eyes. "You are going to be okay, you hear me?"

Michael shook his head before he was leaning in to press his forehead against Alex.

"No," he croaked. "Nothing about this is okay."

"I know," Alex said, closing his eyes and leaning into the soft touch of Michael's fingers against his skin. "I was really looking forward to seeing Sanders in that tux."

Michael laughed, one loud chuckle followed by the sound of him swallowing down a sob, tears falling down his cheeks.

"I should have just let you marry me," he said. "You wanted a wedding and I should have-"

"I don't care about a wedding," Alex said. "I wanted a husband, and I don't think... I don't think a ceremony or a ring matters, you matter. You're all I've wanted since I was seventeen."

"You're not supposed to leave me when we finally get things figured out," he said.

"Michael," Alex said, his eyelids opening slowly to look at him, chest heavy from the sickness and only compounded by the broken look on Michael's face. "I'm not leaving, if there was ever a choice know I would never leave you, I've done enough of that."

"There's got to be something..." Michael said, pulling back with a defiant wrinkle in his brow. "You told me back at that portal to make it work, get us back. You knew I could."

"I had faith in you," he said with a soft smile. "If you're not going to, then I'll have enough for both of us."

God, Michael loved him. In the way you were supposed to love someone else, it was just built into him like stars are built into the sky. They've always been there, probably always will be, even when the sun drowns them out, they'll always be back again, painted across the endless dark night no matter where in the universe you stood.

There was no way he was letting this be the end for them. He had found things in him the last few years he never thought possible. He was the son of Jones, and he'd seen all the things Jones could do, the things Max could. His blood ran through his veins, and maybe that was enough, maybe he had more in him yet.

His fingers slid slowly down Alex's neck and over his collarbone until he could slip them under his shirt. Alex looked down and then back up at him from under his heavy eyelashes.

"What are you doing?" he said in a breath.

"Something I've never tried before," he said.

"You think..." he started, before biting down on his lip.

"Someone once told me that my powers were the only ones without limits," Michael said softly. "So let's see if maybe she was right."

"At least you can't make things worse," Alex said as he lifted his hand up to caress Michael's arm and take in a deep breath.

Michael looked at him with a deeply unimpressed gaze.

"You are so unhelpful," he said with a shake of his head. "And I love you, more than anything on any goddamn planet out there."

"I love you too," Alex said, fingers squeezing gently, wincing as another wave of pain and nausea washed over him. "And I believe in you."

Michael nodded and exhaled sharply, steadying his feet and looking down at his hands. Where did he start? He loved Alex, and he needed this to work. So how did he make it work?

He closed his eyes and pictured it, the black in Alex's veins and the poison flowing through them. He imagined pulling it out of him, absorbing it into his body and expelling it out and away where it couldn't do anymore damage. He imagined taking in all Alex's pain, the relief he would feel knowing he was free from the hurt and the fear.

He imagined what it would be like if Alex died, here, in his arms, and he would be damned if he let that be the way it ended.

His hand felt hot against Alex's skin, his eyes closed so tightly as he ran those thoughts over and over again in his mind. No one, nothing, was taking Alex from him. He refused to let it.

He could feel the energy coursing through him and his body shook with it, he opened his eyes to see a faint red glow under his fingers and he knew the shock came out through his mouth. He grit his teeth and let the thoughts consume him, growing stronger and more intense until he was groaning, all but yelling into the air around them and his entire hand was aglow, almost on fire.

Alex suddenly sucked in a breath, fingers getting so tight against Michael's arm that his knuckles were white. Michael's head was dizzy and he felt a jolt, like an electric shock, and he was pulling his hand away, falling back and stumbling until he was on his back on the floor.

His vision was blurry, the room was spinning. He didn't know how long he had been lying there, it could have been seconds, or minutes.

A figure appeared above him and he felt hands on his cheeks, a voice calling him back. It took a moment, but slowly Alex's face cleared above him, his eyes wide as they searched for a lucid response

"Michael!"

"I'm... I'm okay..." he said, and as his ears cleared he heard Alex scoff.

"Look at me," he said, and finally, Michael's vision returned to normal.

"Did it..." Michael said, almost wanting to stay in the moment where he didn't know either way if it worked or it didn't.

Alex pulled his shirt aside, the black veins were gone, and Michael could see a faint shimmering, alien touch painted on his skin like a night full of stars.

"I don't feel dizzy, or nauseous," he said, his smile getting wider. "I feel..."

Michael sat up quickly - immediately wishing he didn't - and took Alex's face in his hands, colliding with him for a kiss that was all lips and teeth and dragging one another together like they would never be close enough.

"What happened in-" Kyle said as he appeared in the doorway, looking down in disbelief as Alex knelt by Michael's side, a hint of the handprint showing under his shirt collar. "How..."

"Tell your girl she's got a wedding to plan," Michael said, turning to look up at him with a wider grin than he'd worn in a long while. "A big one, biggest fucking alien wedding Roswell's ever seen."

Alex laughed and shook his head, using Michael's shoulder as leverage to get to his feet.

"You're crazy," he said, completely unprepared for Kyle's body crushing into him from the side and squeezing him in a hug.

"Only for you baby," Michael said, still sitting on the floor and looking up at him with disbelief.

"How did you... I didn't think that... You've never been able to do that before, have you?" Kyle said, starting at least three sentences as he finally let Alex go and offered his hand to Michael who winced as he helped him up.

He was still dizzy, and Kyle had to catch him and guide him to the closest chair to sit down.

"Nope," Michael said, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his head. "That's a new one."

"Well sit down and let me check you out," he said, turning back to Alex. "You too."

"Yes doc," he said, sitting back down in the patient's seat and grinning over to Michael.

He had that sparkle back in his eye, his fingers reaching up to touch the iridescent mark on his skin while Kyle started to check him over again.

"It's like this weight has just... lifted," he said. "I don't think I felt this good even before I ended up in that sinkhole."

"Yeah, well you can sit still another five minutes so I can make sure," Kyle said, grumbling in tone but smiling ear to ear.

"I can't believe that worked," Michael said incredulously.

"We don't know that-"

"Look at you!" Michael said, hand gesturing to the mark.

He groaned at the quick movement, hand to his head again.

"I feel fine," Alex said, pushing Kyle back. "Maybe check on Michael."

"It's just a little..." Michael said, making a spinning movement with his hand around his head.

"Are we in a rush?" Kyle said, eyebrows high. "Seriously, two minutes ago you were dying, and you," he pointed to Michael. "You just pulled a new trick out of the alien knapsack so you can both just... take a breath!"

Alex sighed and pulled his shirt down further so Kyle could listen in.

"Well I'm in a rush," Michael said. "I've got a fiancé we just brought back from another dimension and an empty shower back home that needs some company."

Alex grinned at him and Michael gave him a wink.

"Stethoscope is in, but that doesn't mean I can't hear that," Kyle said without looking up.

"So... are you going to tell us how long you've been hooking up with Isobel then?" Alex asked.

"Guess you really did get probed in Mexico," Michael said and this time the exasperation on Kyle's face was real as he turned to him.

"Okay, you're clearly fine. Alex, I want to take another blood sample, but... you sound..." he didn't finish the thought, he just clapped a hand to his shoulder.

Another silent exchange between the two of them.

"So I can take him home?" Michael said, and Kyle pointed at him sternly.

"Be gentle," he said. "And let Iz drive, I'd really rather not be able to say that we all made it through this just for you to die in a fiery crash."

"Alright," Alex conceded with a shrug. "But I've been stuck in a radioactive alien dimension for over a week and my fiancé just saved my life so, I can't promise gentle."

"Okay," Kyle said as he pursed his lips and got up to leave the room.

Michael stood, slowly this time, and walked over to where Alex sat.

"You know I'm not sure I like you calling me that," he said, cupping Alex's face with his hands.

Alex reached up to hold his wrists and sighed.

"Novelty already worn off huh?" he teased, but finally, Michael's face was all serious and warm, looking at Alex like he was the centre of everything.

"I'd rather you call me your husband."

He leant in for a kiss, soft and tender. Michael was more sure of that than he had been of anything in his life.

#malex #malex fanfiction #alex manes #michael guerin #kyle valenti #this started sad and ended up happy #i honestly have no idea where this came from #bekka writes

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stupidwittlebaby · 7 months

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30 Day Non-Human Challenge, Day 20: Tell Us a Few Thoughts About What it's Like Being Your Species.

(TLDR at bottom!)

I've been thinking about how my kintypes feel lately. In themselves, and in how they relate to who I am.

My wyrm self is the clearest kintype I have. I'm not sure how other dragons feel, as I haven't particularly asked yet, but my past life memories aren't anything entirely physical. I didn't reside on a three-dimensional plane of existence. I was a dragon, as in the astral creatures some witchcraft practitioners work with. Honestly, calling myself 'dragonkin' doesn't even feel entirely fitting, but that's the closest descriptor I've got. 'Deitykin' doesn't feel entirely incorrect either, but it gives off a different vibe than I want.

But what's it like being a wyrm? Wonderful. Think about what it feels like to have a really interesting yet calm dream. That's what it was like. Though I don't have wings like the other dragons I spend time around, I know I can fly, though I swim even more. I'm white, with these sort of... feathers, blue ones, that run down along my back. Maybe I shimmer underwater. I wouldn't really know.

As for my alien and robot kintypes, as I've thought about it, I think these are more voidpunk-copinglink-choicekin types. They're my psychological kintypes, in that they relate very heavily to my autism and how I've always struggled terribly to connect with other people. I'm someone that actually enjoys seeing autistic traits portrayed in alien or robot characters in media. It visually represents how I've always felt. Now, after thinking about it for a while, I think I subconsciously took these on as actual pieces of my identity. I didn't do it on purpose, I suppose it was sort of imprinted on me, like how positive interactions with animals imprint on some therians.

So, again, what's it like being an alien or a robot? Well... What's it like being autistic? I like that I'm me. I'm different. I feel like I'm constantly trying to adjust to a culture that I'm not from, which is exhausting for the most part, but at the same time, maybe it gives me a little more confidence in trying new things, because how much harder could it be than what I do everyday anyway? I often run out of RAM, or can't use my solar panels to recharge because it's cloudy. Or something gets buggy inside and there's a lot of static. Sometimes I look at the stars and feel homesick, but I'm not sure for where. Actually, that last one probably leads back to my dragonkinity, since aliens are often theorized to be of different dimensions rather than different planets.

Finally, I've noticed I have a fourth kintype, but it's still eluding me... It might be more like a kintype I had as a kid, a therian shapeshifter of sorts, that hasn't entirely vanished. I'm still feeling it out. Kids are very close to their past lives, their walls of reality are much thinner, so if I was never "human" as a kid, always some kind of animal, that might mean something important to me. We'll see!

Wow that was a long post! Here, uh...

TLDR: Wyrm go swish, swimmy swim. Alien go, "wow, humans. I just think they're neat." Robot go, "ack, brr, beep beep. Oh, my wires are pretty." Shapeshifter go, "?? Rat?? Racoon?? Slug??? Yah."

#30 day non human challenge #otherkin #alterhuman #nonhuman #therian #therianthropy #otherkin community #dragonkin #alienkin #robotkin #catkith #shapeshifter #voidpunk #copinglink #otherlink #choicekin

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the-pigeon-queen · 2 years

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For the Obligatory OTP Asks (for Shadi and Pegasus of course!): 5, 16, and 55.

Thanks for humoring me lol

I accidentally wrote too much, and for length, I'll have to use the ol' "Read More" to hide it lol

If reading these is too not great for tumblr, I'm gonna throw them onto Ao3 too :0

5: Describe their cozy night in.

Every pillow and plushie that could physically fit on a California King sized bed.

The softest blankets money could buy.

The latest animated masterpiece to hit VHS.

Gourmet hot chocolate, popcorn, and a plethora of snacks just a ring away.

Boyfriend.

And that was it! The short but crucial list for enjoying those cold, wintery nights on the isle. When the wind beat a slurry of rain and ice against the castle windows, the essential items were collected, and Pegasus burrowed up in his room. Surrounding yourself with comforts was the best way to suffer the storm – and the whole of winter, in his opinion. Safely snuggled in his plush fortress of warmth and collectable, huggable plushies, with a mug of milky, marshmallowy sugar in hand, and his ghostly lover pressed to his side, Pegasus was wholly, and fully content.

Shadi was content too – even if he’d been goaded into watching ‘Funny Bunny’s World Tour’ for at least the fourth time since saying ‘I love you.’

16: Can they stay up all night just talking?

“…And really, that’s why I think ‘On the Run’ is a better series than ‘Off the Cuff.’ They weren’t afraid to step away from the source material and really allow Funny Bunny to develop as a character. Like, he’s obviously more than just an instigator with jokes. He’s resourceful – he’s cunning! And no other series explored why until ‘On the Run.’ It was just a more mature show. It explored themes. It explored character. It had an overarching story, which, in ‘Off the Cuff’s’ defense, tried to do, too, to little effect.”

“…That sounds like a very insightful analysis,” Shadi said, after a few moments of silence.

“It is, thank you.”

“…Though you should consider actually trying to sleep.”

“Ah, yes, right,” Pegasus sighed, and shimmied his sheets up higher, “My synopsis of the new series will continue after a good night’s sleep.”

Silence filled the room again.

For about five minutes.

“Although my favorite iteration of the character has to be from the five-part miniseries they aired back in 96’.”

Shadi took a deep breath, moved onto his side, and fixed the other man with a hard look. Pegasus, who was laying on his back, with his hands clasp atop his middle, innocently blinked up at the ceiling.

“Do you truly wish to talk, or do you just wish to procrastinate your sleep?” Shadi asked.

“Preferably, I’d do one with the other.”

“Alright,” The ghost sighed, and moved back onto his back, to likewise stare at the ceiling, “Could we at least talk about something we both know a deal about?”

“You know about Funny Bunny.”

“Not his extended catalogue of works. And I do not take notes.”

“Ok, fair.”

“…So, what do you wish to talk about?”

“…We could pick up where we left off last night.”

Shadi took a moment to let his mind wander back to the words they’d exchanged just over twenty-four hours ago, and sighed, “I believe we were discussing the existence of extraterrestrial life.”

“And we both agreed that aliens definitely do exist.”

“Correct.”

“Given the infinite number of worlds in the universe.”

“Correct.”

“And then I believe I asked if you believed in alternate dimensions.”

“And I said yes.”

“Because the Shadow Realm, as we discussed it, would be considered an alternate dimension.”

“And the room of a soul, as it exists, qualifies as an alternate dimension, as well.”

“The afterlife too.”

“But of course.”

“So,” Pegasus pressed the tips of his fingers together, and cast a look sideways at the man lying beside him, “New but related topic, Shadi: Do you believe in alternate universes?”

After a few silent moments, Shadi turned his head towards Pegasus, “What exactly is an alternate universe?”

“Well, I’m so very glad you asked. I would define it as a universe that is exactly the same as our own – with every world and spec of matter contained therewithin – except for one specific distinction that sets it apart.”

“Explain.”

“For example… In this universe, I am Maximillion Pegasus, super successful and beautiful businessman who invented Duel Monsters. But, in another, alternateuniverse, I may be Maximillion Pegasus, super successful and beautiful businessman who did not invent Duel Monsters.”

Shadi simply blinked at him.

“Or, perhaps in another, I am the Maximillion Pegasus who became a poor, starving artist. Maybe he created Duel Monsters, maybe he didn’t. In another, I could be exactly as I am now – except maybe I’m missing my right eye instead of my left.”

“…And how exactly do alternate dimensions fit into this theory?”

“Well, you see, it’s all about your relation in respect to the universe or dimension at hand. Every universe has one Maximillion Pegasus bouncing around in it. And at any given time, he could be existing in any one of those universe’s own set of dimensions.”

“Oh, I see, now. Each universe has its own separate set of dimensions. Dimensions rest atop others in one universe,” Shadi held his hands horizontally from each other, about an inch apart, then shifted them to stand vertically from each other, “Whereas alternate universes run parallel to each other, never to interact.”

“Precisely!”

“…Well, I don’t know if I believe in alternate universes,” Shadi let his hands fall by his sides, “Such a notion is a bit too fantastical to feel real.”

“Well, that’s a bit rich, coming from a man who uses a magic key to literally, physically go inside people’s minds. And become invisible. And teleport. And is a ghost.”

“…”

“My point is that you yourself are a bit too fantastical to feel real. And even that’s rich, coming from me, a man who had a magic eye that let me read people’s thoughts like the funny paper.”

Shadi was quiet for a long time, before Pegasus heard him take a deep breath.

“I guess alternate universes are a fun thought experiment,” The ghost said quietly.

There was a faint sadness in that statement, and though it was faint, it was distinct. And impossible for Pegasus to ignore. He turned onto his side, tucked his palm under his cheek, and let his eye wander over the other for a minute. He didn’t need the Millennium Eye to suspect what thoughts were whirring around in that bald head of Shadi’s, because he knew very well that they were the same kind of melancholic thoughts that troubled his own mind on some cold, sleepless nights.

One could lay and imagine scenarios where they’d done something differently; where they’d made some other choice – said something different. If they hadn’t been afraid to speak up, speak their feelings, or take a leap of faith – if hindsight had been foresight, instead.

Pegasus was sure that Shadi was imagining a universe where he hadn’t made the same mistakes he had in this one; one where Pegasus had kept both of his eyes or one where he hadn’t let Bakura’s father touch the Ring.

Pegasus knew that such trains of thought often went in circles, if not off cliffs and into the abyss – so he scooted to the side and enveloped the ghost in his arms.

“Maybe there’s a universe out there where you own a coffeeshop,” Pegasus said, seemingly out of the blue, “And I’m the mysterious hot, new stranger in town.”

It took Shadi a few seconds to respond, but when he did, it was with a bemused and surprised chuckle, “You truly believe in such a universe?”

“Of course! The cosmos is infinite. The possibilities are literally limitless. I’d order a coffee every day, sit in the corner by the window, and work on my art. You’d grow curious of me. I’d compliment your eyes. You’d compliment my drawing. ‘Every thought of being a model?’ I’d ask. You’d brush it off and play it cool – but I would know that you liked the compliment – and me.”

Pegasus felt Shadi laugh, then felt a hand trail its fingers through his hair.

“You think me that easy to charm?” Shadi asked, the laugh still not quite gone from his voice.

“I’m just that charming.”

Shadi quieted, and after a minute, he hummed, “If these alternate universes exist, I’d like to imagine that we found our happiness in each of them.”

Pegasus nuzzled his face into the other’s side, before settling into the cuddle, “I know I found it in this one. I’m thankful to be one of the Maximillion Pegasus’s that gets to be with you.”

Pegasus felt a smile when Shadi pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“And I am thankful to be a Shadi that gets to love you. Goodnight, Pegasus.”

“Goodnight, dear.”

A peaceful silence once again filled the room, as the minutes ticked away and the night drew on.

Of all the possible universes that existed, out there, beyond the reaches of his comprehension, Shadi still found himself content with the one he existed in now. Even with all the missteps and mistakes he’d made along the way, he’d still managed to find himself in a warm bed, next to the person he loved – and that was more than he’d ever imagined himself having. He was grateful.

And he was tired. Shadi closed his eyes, took a long, deep breath, and readied his mind for sleep.

“…Funny Bunny ‘On the Run’ really does owe part of its success to ‘Mischief and Mayhem,’ it’s predecessor. They really set up the story beats for Funny Bunny’s past, and since it was canceled after its third season, ‘On the Run’ was able to pick up and capitalize on those choices.”

Shadi sighed, smiled, and patted Pegasus on the head, “That’s nice, Max. Goodnight.”

55: Do they like watching clouds or star gazing?

Pegasus leaned back on the blanket he’d spread out atop the grass, put his arms behind his head, and set his eye up on the fluffy clouds floating above him. The painting on the easel dried nearby, sped on by the warm sunlight and gentle breeze. It sat, ignored, it’s canvas only half-filled with a recreation of the beautiful scenery surrounding him. It would probably remain half-filled.

It was exceptionally hard to concentrate out here.

He’d come out here, to the lake house, for a small vacation – a little getaway, to get his mind away from work. Battle City had proven great for business. And while he and his shareholders, employees and board members were all loving the numbers, he wasn’t loving the added stress. Everyone already wanted the next, big thing – new cards, new mechanics – he just wanted to enjoy success without the suffocating pressure of achieving future success. This impromptu vacation was supposed to give him a break – a blissful piece of peace.

But coming out here hadn’t exactly put his mind at ease.

In fact, he found that just being out here, between the rolling hills and fields of flowers, was trudging up a lot of memories.

The sky was blue – a beautiful, brilliant blue. The clouds drifted slowly by, enormous, fluffy things. Every now and then one would cast its shadow down on him, and Pegasus would shiver, before warm sunlight would return to the little hill he laid upon. It was all very picturesque. It was the sort of place you put on postcards. Or canvas board.

He didn’t heart Shadi approach, but when the blanket down beside him into the lush grass, he didn’t startle. Pegasus smiled, and cast it up at the ghost that had come to rest beside him.

“Did you have a nice walk?” Pegasus asked.

“I did. The water is very clear. I saw a few fish. I was reminded of the time I drowned here, in your mind. All things considered; it was still a nice walk.”

A wide, flat smile stretched across Pegasus’s face, as he turned it back to the sky.

“I suppose this place is bringing up a lot of memories for the both of us,” Pegasus said quietly.

He could feel Shadi’s sharp, blue eyes upon him, though Pegasus did not turn his attention from the sky. In lieu of answering Shadi’s unasked question, Pegasus sighed.

“Don’t suppose you have a remedy for melancholia?”

Shadi looked up at the sky, “Well.”

“One that doesn’t involve direct manipulation of the fabric of the mind?”

“Then no.”

Pegasus tsked and after a moment, he pointed up towards the sky, “That one looks like a brontosaurus tearing the leaves off a willow tree.”

Shadi followed his gesture, and hummed.

“The one beside it resembles a cat,” the ghost observed.

A serene sort of silence fell over the hills. It was a quiet filled with the rustle of leaves and grass, the buzzing of bees, and the chirping of birds. The clouds drifted steadily onwards, colliding and combining with one another to create an ever-shifting display of vague shapes. Pegasus spotted the cat, watched it slowly become a giraffe with six legs and two necks, then lost sight of it when it bumped into the side of sailboat surrounded by sea foam.

“You know, I’m actually not the best at seeing shapes in the clouds,” Pegasus said.

“I find that odd. You are very imaginative.”

“That’s my problem! I see too many things. Before I can decide what it is I see in them, they’ve gone and changed again. It’s truly a curse.”

“We all have our weaknesses.”

Pegasus chuckled quietly, and let his eye drift closed. A few quiet minutes creeped by, before he opened his eye and sat it on that familiar sky again.

“Cecelia and I used to lay out here for hours, just watching the clouds go by. She claimed it was a good way to clear her head. For me, I found that it did the opposite. I would lay here, overthink the shapes, overthink my art, my choices, my life… That’s why I only watched the clouds when I was with her. She distracted me from all that. And then I could relax.”

After a few minutes of silence, Pegasus heard the ghost speak, “I’m very sorry, Max.”

“Don’t be, my dear Shadi-boy. They aren’t bad memories. Not even sad ones. Not really,” Pegasus turned his head and blinked up at his ghost, “They’re just memories. Memories that I don’t allow myself to reflect on that often. So, it’s just…” Pegasus trailed off.

“…A bit difficult to think upon them,” Shadi said softly.

“Yes.”

After another quiet minute, Shadi looked down at Pegasus, and titled his head, “Would you like some space, Pegasus?”

“No, that’s alright,” Pegasus’s gaze slowly slipped off of the clouds, “In fact, I wouldn’t mind having someone lying beside me…”

Shadi stared at him.

“Maybe… Cuddling me, a little bit,” Pegasus idly patted the blanket next to him.

Shadi continued to stare.

“…I’m sure that it would help the melancholia,” Pegasus added.

Shadi sighed, but he was smiling before he was down on his back beside Pegasus.

The day slipped away, floating by Pegasus as softly and silently as the clouds had passed above him. Pegasus was very good at relaxing, when his mind was properly distracted. His glass of juice was traded in for a glass of wine before nightfall, and his personal sketchbook was cashed in for a remote for the flatscreen. From underneath a plush blanket, he flipped through the channels, and cursed himself for not remembering to have someone hook up whatever it was that had all his favorite shows and movies saved on it.

Relaxation was only a hop-skip-and-a-jump away from boredom, and relaxation had to be done just right to spare him from dreaded dullness. And something was off. Pegasus cast a look about the living room, and sighed heavily. Where ever had his ghost gone to?

Shadi was found outside, sitting atop the wooden picnic table that’d probably gone unused for over half a decade, staring up at the night sky.

“Uh-oh.”

A soft, cool breeze greeted Pegasus when he cracked the sliding glass door open to the porch. He didn’t flip on the lights, as to not disturb the star-gazing ghost outside. It wasn’t like he needed a light; the light of full moon was bright enough to illuminate the furniture, the banister, and the open field beyond it. Over the lake it shone and set the water sparkling.

Shadi turned to see Pegasus standing in the doorway, haloed by the light of the room behind him.

“Star-gazing, are we?” Pegasus asked.

“I was in the act.”

“You always get existential on me when you look at the stars for longer than a minute. And you’ve been out here for at least thirty,” Pegasus’s mildly suspicious voice floated over to the ghost, “Should I be worried?”

“No. I am merely watching the stars.”

“And not getting all melancholic on me?”

“…No.”

Pegasus smirked, and slowly walked onto the porch with the creak of the wood beneath his feet, “So, you’re not even the tiniest, littlest bit forlorn?”

Shadi’s dim eyes seemed to glow in the darkness that filled the porch, and his white robes looked transparent in the moonlight – it would’ve been spooky if he hadn’t raised his hand to wiggle it vaguely in the air and answer, “I may be about fifteen percent forlorn.”

“Would some company get that down to a nice, even ten percent?”

“It could make it as low as eight.”

Pegasus rolled his eye and smiled again, before shoving off from the door frame and joining the other on the porch.

“You’re speaking in percentages. You’ve been sitting in on too many of my business meetings.”

Shadi shrugged, “I’ve not much else to do, for the time being. Things are in balance, after the matter with the Ishtars.”

“So, then what seems to be the cause of the forlorn-ness, my spectral sweetie-pie?”

Shadi blew a laugh out of his nose, rolled his eyes, and shook his head – all signs that Pegasus’s words had found their mark.

“Nothing particular,” Shadi answered, “I was mostly stargazing – pondering the universe and my purpose within it; the same thing I assume everyone does when staring into the void.”

Pegasus hummed as he walked up to the table, and took a look up at the sky above them. Just like the sky that hung above Duelist Kingdom, the blanket of stars twinkled, unmarred by light pollution, this far out from civilization.

“I do not necessarily get existential when looking at the stars. Rather, I find myself drawn to them when I am occupied with such thoughts,” Shadi said, as he raised his head towards the sky again, “When you have walked the earth for as long as I have, you grow used to the fact that the world changes. Not so much used to the changes themselves, but used to their constant charge. The stars however; the constellations never change. Ever the same they set above me, no matter where or when I may find myself.”

Pegasus watched the other watch the stars for a few moments, before shoving himself up onto the table to sit with him.

Pegasus leaned up against Shadi’s side, “And you find that comforting?”

Shadi’s dim, blue eyes searched the stars above for a minute, before he lowered his head to gaze upon Pegasus’s face with the same sort of reverie.

“I do. Though, I find more comfort in you than I do in eternity,” Shadi answered.

Pegasus raised a hand and brushed his thumb across Shadi’s cheek. He couldn’t help but think that it, like the others, were little fragments of the stars themselves, carefully captured on Shadi’s face.

“Thank you. I’d like to think I am more comforting than the cold, dark expanse of space,” Pegasus grinned. “Oh, shush,” Shadi grabbed his hand, and held it tightly, as the night drifted on.

#yugioh #ygo #shadi #shadi shin #maximillion pegasus #fanfic #ask game

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howhow326 · 1 year

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Omg guys it's my first oc who has never existed outside of my head before: Hunter Bluecoin

I wonder how he got here?

Oh well, I guess I'll just be on my merry- wait a minute, my 9 year old self is behind me and holding a knife to my spine because I promised to post his backstory into writing!!! Ok then.

IRL BACKSTORY

Me and twin brother used to do RP games for all of the shows we watched togather before we knew what RP was lol. During these very early formative years (when I was like 7) I slowly began forming a character who was an amalgamation of all of the different self inserts I used in the RP. However, I first gave a name (kind of, it was still me) to this character during a Winx Club RP; Bloom was at a ball dancing with her new ice boyfriend/husband (don't ask, also it was me, also I don't even like Bloom it was my brother's suggestion lol) when the Ice-iums suddenly attack. Then when Bloom jumps to the obvious conclusion, I pull the dumb plot twist that Hunter/Howard (he had my name at this point) was from a different magic ice planet: Sticeterraria (Ice - uh - terria, the St is silent. To this day, I still don't know why I imagined the spelling like that). And from that moment forward, the path of me accidentally creating my first oc was set... [oh um, the reason why my oc is an Finn recolor is because I first thought of a visual apperance of him by thinking of finn with black hair and going "yep, that's me!"]

INSANELY AWSOME KOOL OC BACKSTORY!!!

The result of me seriously thinking about what this guys background would look like after using him as a dimension hopping self insert, circa 2013

Howard Hunter is the second in line of the throne of the Royal Bluecoin family of the planet Sticeterraria.

Note: Sticeterraria isn't the real name of the planet he comes from, it's the name that his culture (Sticeterrarians) gave to it. Sticeterraria has other cultures on the planet that have been at either war or peace with the Sticeterrarians.

Also, Sticeterraria is like really cold because it's the fourth planet from it's sun and 90% of it's surface area is water. That last part isn't relevant to the planet being cold but I put that in there just because.

Back to Hunter: he's a master of magic despite being [insert teenage age here]. His abilities include: Ice magic, superhuman physical capabilities natural to Sticeterrarians (peak human stuff) that Hunter enhances using his magic (super strength, durability, etc), flight, intangability (because Big Chill was my favorite Ben 10 alien), and a lot more powers from spells but what's listed are his go to powers. Hunter also has a magic Trident that's a family heirloom that normally goes to the oldest child, but Hunter has it because it choose him/he stole it/he just has it (???)

More on Ice Magic: my original idea was that it's just something that all Sticeterrarians can do but then 15 year old me retconed it to being a power that only 1/3 of Sticeterrarians can do without learning magic first. The reason why Sticeterrarians can do this is because they are blessed by their patron goddess, Ice (i think it's a very creative name actually), to have protection and dominion over the cold environment they live in.

Ice is also the goddess of love because 7 year old me was tired of ice powers always going to bad guys. The justification he gave for this is that "the cold winter forces people to value and treasure their loved ones more". Because of this association, the name of Sticeterraria's capital city is Amour.

Ice is also the goddess of the Moon because I used Hunter in DC comics RP and thought it would be good contrast to Kryptonians getting charged by the Sun. Hunter get's charged by the Moon!

Ice fell in love with the sun god, Fire, but their love is forbidden and the wind god, Air, keeps them apart from not only each other but also from their only child, the sea god Water. Yes.

Ok, back to Hunter. He's kind of quirked up and goated in the sauce because he's autistic not like the other boys. He despises the warrior culture he comes from (oh yeah, Sticeterrarians are basically Vikings but with 60% less pillaging) and studies the more female aligned art of magic (Norse rules of magic being feminine. Also, Sticeterrarians are lowkey sexist but like 80% less outright hostile to women compared to Americans) despite his dad telling him no. Hunter's what you might call a rebel even!

Also, Hunter is like a straight up dark wizard that has no qualms with performing dark riturals as long as he can control their power. And he may or may not be a a fugitive for stealing his family's royal jewel that transforms into his trident depending on canon this week.

Hunter's mom is ok with it (the learning magic part, not the dark magic stuff).

Hunter's older sister (who is my other Winx Club oc) Icealina get used to it, is kind of pissed at her younger brother for causing so much trouble and not taking royalty seriously.

Also, Icealina wants to abolish the royal family and start a democracy when she comes of age because she too is quirked up and woke actually everyone should be like her and king charles needs to be stopped.

Sticeterraria have female warriors that look just like Chesire's design from Teen Titans because...

Hunter also has a magic talking Huskey that follows him on his fandom hopping adventures. Ironically, not inspired by Jake.

Hunter is cursed to melt into a puddle of water when he is near fire. There's really no reason for it and im just mentioning it here because I like this weakness better that that one time I went "Hunter is a gary stu, better nerf his magic into the ground and make him incapable of fighting despite being a trained warrior!".

Hunter is not White its more likely than you think

And that's all(ish)! Oh look, 9 year old me has vanished to his final rest within the confines of my mind. Good, now I can go d literally anything else.

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xtruss · 1 year

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A Reporter at Large: The Great Foreigner

— By Niccolo Tucci | November 14, 1947 | November 22, 1947 Issue

Albert Einstein outside his home in Princeton, New Jersey, 1951. Photograph by Ernst Haas/Getty

There is such a thing as being a foreigner, but not in the sense implied by passports. Foreigners exist, to be sure, but they may be found only in places where it would be impossible to discover a single policeman or a single immigration official—in the field of the intellect. A man who achieves anything great in any province of the mind is, inevitably, a foreigner, and cannot admit others to his province. If you are one of his own people, you will, of course, find him, because you yourself are there, but if you are not, your knowledge of him will be mostly confined to the petty intelligence of the gossip columns. Now, we all know from experience what it means, in this sense, to be refused entry, even as a temporary visitor, into this or that foreigner’s domain. We meet a great man and cannot talk to him, because, alas, we happen not to be able to get interested in the thing in which he excels. Silly though it seems, this is humiliating, for it makes us aware of our limitations. Yet that feeling is soon forgotten. There are people today, however, whose foreignness can’t be forgotten, and these are the physicists, who have done things to us that keep us wondering, to say the least. They have lessened—in fact, almost destroyed—our hopes of a quiet and happy future. It is true that they have also increased our hopes of surviving discomfort and disease, but, oh, how far away that seems, and how near seems the possibility of extermination! That is why, when my mother-in-law, who flew over from Europe a couple of weeks ago, said that she wanted me to accompany her on a visit to the home of her friend Albert Einstein, in Princeton, I was very reluctant to go.

I had seen Einstein several times in the past eight or nine years, and on the last occasion—in 1942, I believe—I had been bold enough to invite him to come out of his inaccessible territory and into that of all the unscientific people, like myself. Would he, I asked, explain, in words rather than in mathematical symbols, what he and his colleagues actually meant by the fourth dimension? And he did, so simply and so clearly that I left his house with an uncontrollable feeling of pride. Here, I, the living negation of anything even slightly numerical, had been able to understand what Einstein had said—had really said, for he had said it not only in his conversation with me but years before in his theories. Obviously, he had explained to me merely what a child would be able to grasp, but it impressed me as much more because my schoolteachers and my father, all of them less great than Einstein, had never forgone a chance to make me feel a perfect fool (and to tell me, lest I should have missed drawing the inference), even when they spoke to me about fractions or equations of the first degree. I consequently realized that Einstein belonged to the extremely rare type of foreigner who can come out of his seclusion and meet aliens on alien ground. Yet, much as I cherished the recollection of that pleasant experience, I did not think it altogether advisable to try my luck again. “This time,” I said to my mother-in-law, who is called Bice in the family, “he may easily make me feel like a fool. Besides, in 1942 Einstein’s achievements did not keep me awake at night, as they do now. If I saw him now, I would not be moved by the slightest scientific curiosity about his work. I would much rather ask him what he thinks of the responsibility of modern scientists, and so forth. It might be quite unfair to him and unpleasant for me.”

Well, mothers-in-law must have secret ways of persuasion, because a few days later I gave in, not only on seeing Einstein but also on taking along Bimba, my six-year-old daughter. “All right,” I said resignedly, “but you, Bimba, will be sorry for this. You don’t know who Einstein is. He has all the numbers; they belong to him. He will ask you how old you are.” And I must say here that Bimba, even more than myself, is the mathematical scandal of our family. She tries to count her six years on her fingers, but she forgets how high she has counted and must try again. Upon a guarantee from me that Einstein would not interview her on that delicate subject, we made peace and departed. On our way out of the apartment, we met my eight-year-old son, Vieri, who was playing ball on the sidewalk.

“Vieri,” I said, “want to come and see Einstein?”

“Einstein the great mathematician?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Naw,” he said. “I have enough arithmetic in school.”

On the train that morning, my mother-in-law and I talked a great deal about Maja, Einstein’s younger sister, one of two links Bice has with higher mathematics. But I must say that she is a weak link, because Maja is the opposite of all abstraction. She looks exactly like her brother (one would almost say that she, too, needs a haircut), but she is a Tuscan peasant, like the people who work in the fields near her small estate of Colonnata, just outside Florence. Even her frame of mind is, in spite of her cosmopolitan culture, Tuscan. Whatever in conversation does not make sense to her in plain, human terms she will quickly dismiss with a witty remark. But before becoming a Tuscan peasant, Maja was a brilliant young German student of philosophy in Paris. She interrupted her studies to take a job as governess in charge of young Bice, whose mother had just died, leaving her the only female of the family, surrounded by a number of older brothers and her father. All this happened forty years ago. Soon after her arrival in the family, Maja became Bice’s second mother and dearest friend. Even after Maja resumed her studies and got married, they remained very close, and did not lose touch with each other until shortly before the outbreak of the recent war, when Maja left Italy to join her brother in Princeton. And today Bice, accompanied by a somewhat impatient son-in-law and by a pestiferous young angel of a granddaughter, was rushing to Princeton for the great reunion.

On the way, we also talked pleasantly about America (like all Europeans who come here for the first time, Bice was eager to know about everything in the first week), we discussed the fate of the world and the wisdom of those who run it, we quarrelled over theology (Bice is fond of theologies, with a marked preference for her own, the Roman Catholic), and finally I noticed that she wasn’t listening to me any more. She frowned, she shook her head, then she smiled and nodded, staring in front of her, but not at me and not at Bimba. I knew that she was making an inventory of her sentimental luggage. All the news of the troubled years, from the death of her eldest son in the war to the latest item of family gossip, from the bombings of towns to the latest method of making a pound of sugar last a year, were being called to mind, so that everything would surely be ready for Maja. I made a sign to Bimba not to interrupt her grandmother, and Bimba sat there and stared, somewhat frightened by this woman who was looking so intently at her own life.

When we arrived in Princeton, it was quite misty, and there was a threat of rain in the Indian summer air. At the station, we took a cab and soon learned that the driver, a young student, was the son of a friend of ours in Florence. He was trying to make enough money driving a cab to finance a trip to South America. Our conversation with him was so interesting that only the sight of open country around us made us realize that we had driven all the way out of town. We drove back and stopped in front of a house on Mercer Street. I had forgotten the exact address, but this house looked like the right one. In her eagerness, Bice ran ahead of me toward the door, but the reunion could not take place, because, as we discovered when we rang the bell, it was the wrong house. Luckily for us, the cab was still there, so we drove along a little, and finally, after ringing the bells of two other families that refused, not without sorrow, to be the Einsteins, we decided upon one more house, which happened to be the right one. Miss Dukas, Einstein’s secretary, greeted us at the door; then came Margot, his delicate and silent stepdaughter, who looks so much like a Flemish painting; and Chico, the dog, who tried to snatch Bimba’s red ribbons from her pigtails.

“Bimba,” I said, “don’t get the dog excited. Remember how he ate your doll five years ago. Now, if you are not very quiet today, I am going to ask you in front of Einstein how much makes three and two—understand?”

She nodded, and whispered, “Four?”

We were asked to wait for a moment in the small anteroom that leads to the dining room. Maja was upstairs; she was being helped out of bed and into the chair in which she spends most of her day. She is recovering from a long illness, which has delayed her return to Italy, so it was only natural that this reunion should be delayed until she was ready and comfortable. And yet this addition of even a few minutes to years of separation created an effect of absurdity. One always imagines that the crossing of the last span of a trip bridging years will be something impulsive: when all the real impediments, such as continents, oceans, and passports, have been overcome, friends should run into each other’s arms as fast as they can. Still, it is never quite that way. We become so used to living at a distance that we slowly begin to live with it, too; we lean on it, we share it, in equal parts, with our faraway friends, and when it’s gone and we are again there, corporeally present, we feel lost, as if a faithful servant had abandoned us.

To fill in those extra minutes, we began to look at the furniture in the anteroom and dining room, and I noticed again what I had noticed five years ago in those same rooms: everything suggested the house of a faculty member of a German university. I could not trace this impression to any particular object. The large dining-room table in the center, with the white tablecloth on it, was not particularly German, nor was the furniture in the anteroom, but there was the same quiet atmosphere of culture that had impressed me so deeply in the houses of university professors, in Freiburg, Leipzig, and Berlin, to which my parents had taken me when I was a boy and spent my summers travelling over Europe. It is something that remains suspended in the air almost as stubbornly as the smell of tobacco; one might say that the furniture had been seasoned with serious conversation. Curiously, it is an atmosphere that can never be found in the apartment of a diplomat, even if he is the son of a professor and has inherited his father’s furniture.

We were finally called upstairs by Margot, who then disappeared into her study. Bice’s impatience was such that, not finding Maja in the first room we entered, she said disappointedly, “Not here,” and ran toward a closed door to open it, like a child playing hide-and-go-seek. This search lasted only a matter of seconds, because the house isn’t large enough for a long search. But by the time we reached Maja, Bice seemed almost to have lost hope that she would ever get there. Maja was standing near her chair waiting, quiet, dignified, almost ironical, under a cloud of white hair. She never shows any emotion, never speaks louder than a whisper, and never more than a few appropriate words—just like the Tuscan peasants, with the difference that when they whisper, they might as well be addressing a crowd across a five-acre field.

The “How well you look!” and “How unchanged you are!” were soon over, and then the Great Foreigner arrived, pipe in hand and smiling gently. He complimented Bice on looking just the same as ever, and received the same compliment with grace, then inquired about Michele, Bice’s eldest brother and her second link with higher mathematics. Uncle Michele is a gentle little man who sits in Bern, Switzerland, and looks out into the world, leaning on a white beard that descends from almost under his blue eyes to the end of his necktie. Every night for twenty years, in the company of a friend, he has looked into “The Divine Comedy,” taking time off to look into his soul with a fierce, puritanical spirit tempered by a great deal of natural goodness; he has also looked into the field of economics, trying to find mathematical formulae to solve the crisis of the world; and for a long time, in the company of Einstein, he looked into the mysteries of higher mathematics. We had just finished hearing all about Uncle Michele’s health and his many grandchildren when Bice seemed suddenly to recall an extremely urgent matter—as if, indeed, it were the very reason she had flown all the way over here from Europe. “Herr Professor,” she asked, in German (the whole conversation, in fact, was in German), “this I really meant to ask you for a long time—why hasn’t Michele made some important discovery in mathematics?”

“Aber, Frau Bice,” said Einstein, laughing, “this is a very good sign. Michele is a humanist, a universal spirit, too interested in too many things to become a monomaniac. Only a monomaniac gets what we commonly refer to as results.” And he giggled happily to himself.

Then we spoke about dreams. Bice told us two symbolic dreams she had had years ago; I told the dream that the grandfather of a friend of mine had had the day before he died; Einstein told an absurd dream of his. He seemed the only one to find the conversation interesting, which it was not. Bice was now sleepy (the emotion had been too great for her); Maja sat silent and ate her lunch, which a nurse had brought in on a tray; and I nodded to Einstein’s words, searching impatiently for a way out of dreams to the subject of the responsibility of modern scientists. But the atmosphere somehow weighed on me. The mist was getting thicker, and it had begun to rain, with that quick, fingertip drumming on the leaves, on the roof, on some pail outside, that makes you go to sleep. It was dark in the room now. The only points of light were the white of the bed, the white of the nurse’s uniform, and the white of Maja’s hair and of Einstein’s head against the window—and his laughing eyes, his voice, and the joy that sprang from him. “Damn the responsibility of modern scientists on a damp day like this,” I thought. It made me both envious and angry to see this man in front of me who laughed so heartily at the most trivial things, who listened with such concentration to our nonsense, who was so full of life while I could see no reason even for breathing in that damp, misty air. “Why is he so young,” I asked myself, “and what makes him laugh so? Is he making fun of us, or what is this?” Then I began to understand. He had just come from the other room; he was stretching his mind; he was “abroad.” All these words were only formally addressed to us; actually they were references to some demonstration he must have received, in the heart of his own secret country, that something was exactly as he had suspected it would be. Yes, it could be nothing but this: he had done fruitful work that morning. I saw it now because I recognized myself in him—not as a scientist, alas, but as a child of seven, at which age it was my hobby to make locomotives with tin cans and old shaving brushes (the smokestack with the smoke). The situation was the same. When the joy of toymaking became too great, I had to interrupt my work and run to the living room, where the grownups were boring themselves to death. And I laughed at their words without bothering to inquire what they meant; I found them interesting, new, exciting; I was praised for being such good company while in actuality I was still playing with my locomotive—I was deciding in my mind what colors I would paint it, what I would use for wheels and lanterns—and it was good to know that no one shared my secret. “You and your toys,” I thought, looking at Einstein with the envy that an ailing old man has for a young athlete.

Lunch was announced, and we went downstairs, leaving Maja alone. The smell of food consoled me for my humiliation. I began to eat. Einstein asked Bice for her impression of America, and she expressed her disappointment at the bad manners of children in this country. This led to a family argument, in which Einstein was asked to act as arbiter. Bice claimed that American children (she meant mine, of course) have no respect for the authority of their parents, or for that of such people as park attendants. To prove her point, she said that, on the day before, Vieri and his friend Herbert had laughed in the face of a park attendant when he told them not to play ball. Yes, they had obeyed him in the end, but not without making strange noises in his honor. (She didn’t know the name for this Bronx ceremony.) I conceded that this was frightful, but I reminded her that a park attendant in Europe was a sort of Commander-in-Chief of Leaves and Flowers and First Admiral of Public Fountains and of the paper boats in them. Even a smile addressed to him without proper authorization was considered daring. “When I was a boy in Italy, we never questioned anyone’s authority,” I said, “and thus we passed, with the most perfect manners, from the hands of our nurses to those of our tyrants.”

As moderator, Einstein asked me how I had managed to lose authority over my children.

“I didn’t have to work much,” I replied. “It was rather simple. I just told them, ‘Look at the kind of world in which we live. See what we, the grownups, are able to invent, from passports to radioactive clouds.’ “

Bice contended that nothing is gained by embittering the lives of children with remarks of that nature, but Einstein was in full agreement with me when I answered that less than nothing is gained—in other words, that much is lost—by lulling them into the illusion that all is as it should be in the world. “You, as a scientist,” I said to Einstein, “know that the world is round and not divided naturally by cow fences into holy, restricted fatherlands. When you were young, there was still a semblance of good in governments and institutions, but today—see where we are today.”

He became very serious, as if he were seeing where we are today, but suddenly a smile lit up in his eyes, and it quickly spread all over his face and beyond it. He laughed happily, then said, “Let me tell you what happened to me years ago, before the other war, when there were no passports. The only two countries that required them were Russia and Rumania. Now, I was in Hungary and had to go to Rumania. I didn’t know where and how to apply for a passport, but I was told that it wasn’t necessary. There was a man who had a passport of his own, and he was kind enough to let anybody use it to cross the border. I accepted the offer, but when they asked me at the frontier what my name was, I said, ‘Wait a moment,’ took out the passport from my pocket, and had a great deal of trouble trying to find out who I was. Now, to go back to your point, I agree with you that those who exercise any kind of authority, be it the authority of a father or that of a government, have a definite obligation to show that they deserve respect, but the trouble with grownups in our day is that they have lost the habit of disobedience, and they should quickly learn it again, especially when it comes to the infringement of their individual rights.” He laughed again, this time like a bad boy, then, shaking his head, said, “These grownups. Isn’t it terrible how readily they will obey?”

“Take the loyalty test for federal employees, against which so few have protested,” I said.

“That is a case in point,” he answered. “People are asked to be loyal to their jobs. But who wouldn’t be loyal to his job? Too many people, indeed. Also in Italy and in Germany they used to test people’s loyalty to their jobs, and they found a far greater loyalty to jobs than to democracy. But now tell me another thing. What do you give to your children in the way of good news about the world?”

“Plenty,” I said. “For example, I tell them about Socrates, who was killed by the greatest democracy on earth for standing at the corner drugstore and asking questions that made the politicians feel uncomfortable.”

“That’s not a cheerful story, either,” he said, “but if they were able to absorb some of the spirit of the Greeks, that would serve them a great deal later on in life. The more I read the Greeks, the more I realize that nothing like them has ever appeared in the world since.”

“You read the Greeks?” I said.

“But of course,” he replied, slightly surprised at my amazement. And so I heard, partly from him and partly from Miss Dukas, that he reads the Greeks to Maja every night for an hour or so, even if he has had a very tiring day. Empedocles, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Thucydides receive the tribute of the most advanced and abstract modern science every night, in the calm voice of this affectionate brother who keeps his sister company.

“You know,” I said, “that is great news. Young Americans, who have an idea of the pure scientist worthy of the comics, should be told that Einstein reads the Greeks. All those who relish the idiotic and dangerous myth of the scientist as a kind of Superman, free from all bonds of responsibility, should know this and draw their conclusions from it. Many people in our day go back to the Greeks out of sheer despair. So you too, Herr Professor, have gone back to the Greeks.”

He seemed a little hurt. “But I have never gone away from them,” he said. “How can an educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science.”

Lunch was over, and Einstein announced that he was going to go upstairs for his nap. Bice was assigned, for hers, a couch under a red-nosed portrait of Schopenhauer in the library-and-music room. The sun was shining again, so Bimba was told that she could go out to the garden to play, and I went for a walk around the town.

When, after an hour or so, I came back to the house, I found Bimba still in the garden. I was quite disappointed to hear that I had missed an extraordinary event. Just after I had left and just as Einstein started to go upstairs, Bimba had asked him to play the violin for her. He had not touched his instrument for almost a year, but he took it out and played Bimba a few bars from a Mozart minuet.

I saw Einstein on the porch, waving to me. I joined him there and sat down next to him while he stretched his legs on a deck chair and leaned back, one hand behind his head, the other holding his pipe in mid-air. I had a volume of the German translation of Plato by Preisendanz in my briefcase and asked his permission to read aloud a passage from “Gorgias.” He listened patiently and was very amused by Socrates’ wit. When I was through, he said, “Beautiful. But your friend Plato”—and he extended his pipe in such a way that it became Plato—”is too much of an aristocrat for my taste.”

“But you would agree,” I said, “that all the qualities that make for a democratic attitude are noble qualities?”

“I would never deny that,” he said. “Only a noble soul can attain true independence of judgment and exercise respect for other people’s rights, while any so-called nobleman prefers to conceal his vulgarity behind such cheap shields as an illustrious name and a coat of arms. But, you see, in Plato’s time and even later, in Jefferson’s time, it was still possible to reconcile democracy with a moral and intellectual aristocracy, while today democracy is based on a different principle—namely, that the other fellow is no better than I am. You will admit that this attitude doesn’t altogether facilitate emulation.”

There was a silence, and he interrupted it, almost talking to himself. “I lived for a while in Italy,” he said, “and I think that the Italians are among the most humane people in the world. When I want to find an example of a naturally noble creature, I must think of the Italian peasants, the artisans, the very simple people, while the higher you go in Italian society . . .” and as he lifted his pipe a little, it became a contemptible specimen of a class of Italians he does not admire.

A small airplane was appearing and disappearing between treetops, and gargling noisily right into our conversation.

“In the past,” said Einstein, “when man travelled by horse, he was never alone, never away from the measure of man, because”—he laughed—”well, the horse, you might say, is a human being; it belongs to man. And you could never take a horse apart, see how it works, then put it together again, while you can do this with automobiles, trains, airplanes, bicycles. Modern man is besieged by mechanics. And even more ominous than this invasion of our lives is the rise of a class of people born of the machine, so to speak—people to whom certain powers must be delegated without the moral screening of a democratic process. I mean the technicians. You can’t elect them, you can’t control them from below; their work is not of the type that may be improved by public criticism.”

“Yes,” I said, “and they are born Fascists. What can you do against them?”

“Only one thing,” he said. “Try to prevent them from becoming a closed society, as they have become in Russia.”

“This is why,” I said, “now that we have lost the company of the horse, we may get something out of the company of men such as the Greeks were.”

“It may be an antidote to conformism,” he said.

“Don’t you think that American youth is becoming more and more conformist?” I asked.

“Modern conformism,” he said, “is alarming everywhere, and naturally here it is growing worse every day, but, you see, American conformism has always existed to some extent, because American society, being based on the community itself and not on the authority of a strong central state, needs the coöperation of every individual to function well. Therefore, the individual has always considered it his duty to act as a kind of spiritual policeman for himself and his neighbor. The lack of tolerance is also connected with this, but much more with the fact that American communities were religious in their origin, and religion is by its very nature intolerant. This will also help you understand another seemingly strange contradiction. For example, you will find a far greater amount of tolerance in England than over here, where to be ‘different’ is almost a disgrace, for everyone, starting with schoolboys and up to the inhabitants of small towns. But you will find far more democracy over here than in England. That, also, is a fact.”

“Tell me, Herr Professor,” I said. “This has nothing to do with what we were discussing, but what are the chances that a chain reaction may destroy the planet?”

He looked at me with sincere sympathy, took his pipe slowly out of his mouth, stretched out his arm in my direction, and explained why his pipe (now the planet) was not likely to be blown to bits by a chain reaction. And I was so pleased by his answer that I didn’t bother to understand the reasons.

“Tell me,” I now asked, “why is it that most scientists are so cynical with regard to the issues of war and peace today? I know many physicists who worked on nuclear reactions, and I am struck by their complete indifference to what goes on outside their field. Some of them are as conspicuous for their silence as they are for their scientific achievements.”

“So much more credit for those who talk,” said he. “But, believe me, my friend, it’s not only the scientists who are cynical. Everyone is. Some people sit in heated offices and talk for years and write reports and draw their livelihood from the fact that there exist displaced persons who cannot afford to wait. Wouldn’t you call this cynicism? I know that you were going to ask me about the responsibility of the scientists. Well, it is exactly the same as that of any other man. If you think that they are more responsible because in the course of their research they found things that are dangerous, such as the atomic bomb, then also Newton is responsible, because he discovered the law of gravitation. Or the philologists who contributed to the development of languages should be considered responsible for Hitler’s speeches. And for his actions. If scientists were to refrain from investigation for fear of what bad people might do with the results, then all of us might as well refrain from living altogether.”

“In other words,” I said, “it would amount to a form of censorship on all our actions and thoughts.”

“A rather useless censorship,” he said, “for you can trust man to find other channels of evil.” Then he laughed heartily and added, “You may underestimate man’s ability to do evil.”

It was time to go. I ran upstairs to say goodbye to Maja and call Bice. “We heard you laugh a good deal,” said Maja. “You must have had a good time downstairs.”

“Indeed,” I said. “And it was a great honor to have Professor Einstein spend such a long time chatting with me.”

“Macchè onore d’Egitto,” said Maja, which means, in colloquial Italian “Honor, hell.”

Einstein went slowly back into his study. I caught a glimpse of his face; he was miles away from everybody, back in his foreign land.

As Bice, Bimba, and I were walking to the station, Bimba began to cry because she had lost the hat of a paper doll Miss Dukas had given her. She wanted to run back to look for it, but there was no time for that. To console her, Bice said, “Think, Bimba, when you grow up, you will be able to say that Einstein played the violin for you.”

“Oh, come,” said Bimba, “it isn’t true.”

“Why?” I asked. “Didn’t he play for you?”

“Call that play?” she said, making a sour face. “He had to use a stick to play it.” ♦

— Published in the Print Edition of the November 22, 1947, Issue.

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cryptid-salem · 1 year

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Salem reads the Doctor Who comic strips: Part 1

Doctor Who and the Iron Legion

Written by: Pat Mills & John Wagner

Art by: Dave Gibbons

Thoughts before I start

The Iron Legion has a very special place in my heart. Not only is it the first strip in this line (first published in Doctor Who Magazine 1,) but this was my first introduction to the Fourth Doctor.

I was 5th grade (possibly 6th) and got a trade paperback of Doctor Who Classics Omnibus, which contained this as the first story in the collection if I remember correctly.

I remember being swept off of my feet by the Fourth Doctor, how even though he looked strange against the story he was in, he fit right in. It made me feel good, given how different everything was for me at the time.

The Fourth Doctor always jumps to my mind when I think about Doctor Who and comics.

This story was also my introduction to the work of Dave Gibbons, a monument to the comic industry.

Plot Summary

In Doctor Who and the Iron Legion, we find the Fourth Doctor travelling alone throughout the universe. He lands the TARDIS on a planet much like our own that is being invaded by an army of robotic centurions from the Galactic Roman Empire. The Doctor gets involved in an altercation with the Ninth Legion that results in a tank firing a shell at the TARDIS as the Doctor takes off.

The TARDIS is thrown into a "dimensional disturbance" and lands in a victory parade for General Ironicus as he and his iron legion return from the Dimension Duct. The Doctor is apprehended almost immediately and we learn that the Emperor, Adolphus is a child. General Ironicus demands the knowledge to how the TARDIS works to help his further campaigns for the glory of the Galactic Roman Empire, when the Doctor refuses, he is thrown into the arena with the "Ectoslime."

The Doctor is sentenced to death by General Ironicus, which the Doctor handily escapes by making a joke to the Ectoslime. This infuriates General Ironicus, who sentences the Doctor to slavery aboard the Imperial Air Galley; a large zeppelin used to transport the royal family to the Temple of the Gods. Here, the Doctor meets Morris, a a cyborg slave who received his cybernetics due to his numerous escape attempts. As the royal family passes by them however, the Doctor notices something about Juno, the mother of the emperor, something that reveals a horrifying secret about the Galactic Roman Empire.

The Imperial Air Galley arrives to the Temple of the Gods, which the Doctor recognises immediately as an alien space ship. Morris and the Doctor soon after escape their chains and outrun the guards before running into Vesuvius, the oldest robot in Rome. They help Vesuvius by turning his pressure valve and relighting his flame and Vesuvius joins the Doctor as a companion. The Doctor asks Vesuvius to lead him and Morris to the Chamber of the Gods where the royal family and General Ironicus are praying to the Gods. The Doctor notices as the statues begin to move, the Doctor recognises the "gods" as members of the alien species the Malevilus.

The Doctor and their companions witness the first prisoners from another dimension being offered up in thanksgiving to the gods or the Malevilians: Babiyon, Abiss, Epok, Nekros, and Magog. The three run away from the massacre as they are noticed by the Malevilus and run into General Ironicus, who they take as a hostage as they escape. During their escape General Ironicus himself escapes, ordering some of his legion to pursue the group.

During their daring escape, the group are attacked by a group from the lron Legion, sent to kill them for desecrating the Temple of the Gods. The Doctor informs Morris to use the bact gun to fire back, killing the pursing legionaries. One of the heavily damaged soldiers fires back hitting Morris and damaging the craft the group was on. Morris dies shortly after they crash land, but the Doctor and Vesuvius find a sleeping army of Bestiarus - Beast Men, which were deactivated due to their destructive tendencies. The Doctor, against Vesuvius wishes, begins to make adjustments to their equipment to "smash the evil of Rome!"

The Doctor awakens the Beast Men and, with Vesuvius' help, makes his way to the Imperial Box. General Ironicus and Magog are meeting in the Imperial Box, ironically, about the capture of the Doctor. The Doctor's appearance enrages Magog, who kills General Ironicus, which leads to his burning body landing in the Circus Maximus, specifically onto the race track for "the savage chariot races." Magog then changes from her human form to her alien form, and begins to attack the Doctor.

The Beast Men begin their attack on the empire, starting the revolution. While the revolution starts Magog begins to attack the Doctor by attacking every cell in his body, making every cell feel pain. The Doctor quickly thinks and points a camera at Magog, broadcasting the encounter to the entire Galactic Roman Empire. During this broadcast the Doctor urges the citizens of the empire to rise up against the evil the runs the Galactic Roman Empire, which works inciting more rebellion. Magog, however gains the upper hand on the Doctor, exclaiming their glee at finally eating a Timelord, but after he tells her the secrets of the TARDIS. Once in the TARDIS the Doctor tricks Magog into accidentally sending herself into a spare dimension locked away within the TARDIS. Magog vows to return as she is sucked away, and the people destroy the Malevilus' spaceship, ending their rule. The people name Vesuvius as their new Caesar and the Doctor departs, into their next adventure...

How I felt about the story:

This story doesn't make any impressive changes to the story structure of typical Classic Doctor Who stories. It doesn't exactly challenge anything about how we view stories told with the Doctor, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Doctor Who and the Iron Legion is a fun if not a little boring in the middle. I love a good "Doctor helps overthrow an evil empire" story, but as far as this story goes it's kind of basic. A good intro for telling Who stories with the comic medium but not groundbreaking.

Dave Gibbons art is incredible. It feels like l'm looking at a 70's Who story and captures the vibe of Tom Baker's era perfectly. It's just nice to look at, even without colours (which is how I read it for this, but the first time I read it it was the coloured version.)

Should you read this?

I think if you have time to read it, and want to start getting into the Doctor Who comic strip yes. It's entirely unnecessary to however, and if you don't want to-you won't miss out on much (other than some cool art!)

Rating:

3/5

#doctor who comics #doctor who spoilers #doctor who #dave gibbons #tom baker #the fourth doctor #doctor who magazine #review #comics

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iviarellereads · 1 month

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A Wrinkle In Time, Chapter 5 - The Tesseract

In which we start getting answers.

Mrs Which says that Mr. Murry is on the other side of the darkness. Meg starts crying, loudly. Mrs Whatsit comforts her, saying they wouldn't have come this far if there was no hope. He needs help and courage, and his children may spur him to do what he can't alone. Mrs Which wants to get underway to get behind the shadow as well, but Mrs Whatsit assures them they'll be tessering in stages. But, when she asks if they understand, Meg says no.

Mrs Whatsit and Charles try a few different methods to try to explain. First is how a modern reader has likely encountered wormhole theory,(1) like folding a piece of paper to pass directly from one to the other instead of crossing the whole paper. Then, Charles Wallace says Mrs. Murry, when he kept at her while Meg was at school, told him to think about it this way: the single dimension is a line, two dimensions make a square, three make a cube. The fourth we can't really conceptualize but it's broadly considered to be the passage of time. Only, to travel, one must pass through a fifth dimension.

Just for a moment, Meg finally gets it, enough that she's no longer resistant to the process. So, they tesser across another stretch… but they land in a two-dimensional world!(2) They're moved on again before any major damage can be done, but Charles is furious at the mistake until he's sure it was an accident.

They've stopped on a planet in Orion's Belt, where they have a friend and can get a look at Earth. Meg asks when they can go home, and worries about her mother, but Mrs Whatsit assures Meg that they wrinkled time as well as space, so they won't be missing at all.(3)

Calvin remarks that they can't exactly see much of the planet, and Meg finally notices that they're surrounded by thick fog. Mrs Whatsit suggests they walk to where they're going from here, it'll do everyone good. Soon they come to a cave, where Mrs Whatsit says the Happy Medium works, and oh, the children will love her.

Mrs Which comments that Mrs Whatsit is talking so much, even for one so young. Calvin asks her age, and she says she's "2,379,152,497 years, 8 months, and 3 days" old.(4)

They enter the cave, and soon see flickering light. Mrs Whatsit says they asked the Happy Medium to have a bonfire going, to help keep it warm enough for the children. When they finally meet her,(5) Mrs Whatsit asks her to show them Earth. The Happy Medium asks why they should look at something so unpleasant, but Mrs Which tells her there won't be pleasant things to look at if someone doesn't do something about the darkness.

So, the Happy Medium zooms her crystal ball in to view Earth, shrouded in the shadow. Meg asks if it's only come since they left, but no, Mrs Whatsit says it's been there a long time. They all hate it, and when Meg asks what happens next, Mrs Which says, they will continue to fight. This heartens the children, and Mrs Whatsit adds that there are people all over the cosmos helping too, and people throughout human history have been fighting as well. They start naming famous figures, starting of course with Jesus, and especially focusing on white ones.(6)

Meg asks where they're going, and Mrs Which says, to her father, on a planet that's given in to the darkness. Then, the Happy Medium bids the children watch something else, making to change the image in her crystal ball.(7)

=====

(1) L'Engle surely wasn't the only one to be writing about this stuff, but so many of the concepts that were revolutionary in the 1960s are so commonplace now, as to not necessarily need these explanations at all except for quite young readers. And, I still think it's kind of fun to see wormhole theory right alongside such deep Christianity. (2) Not literally possible in our universe, but nice try. Also, who could have seen this coming after the dimension talk? (3) Do you see what she did there? (4) Certainly, we have no concept of how long aliens might live. (5) Well, Meg has finally found a Happy Medium, though perhaps not the one everyone kept suggesting she look for. (6) Yep, that's children's lit in 1962 for you. (7) Now, that's no place to end a chapter!

#madeleine l'engle #time quintet #a wrinkle in time #meg murry #charles wallace murry #calvin o'keefe #mrs whatsit #mrs who #mrs which #the happy medium

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thekaijudude · 1 year

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The Reaprea vs the entirety of the Ultraman canon.

Btw, the Reaprea is ridiculous. None of its abilities have really been described yet, but I do have some of its feats.

First, a mere extension of the Reaprea, which was 7% to 10% of the Reaprea’s full form’s power, managed to kill Father of Ultra, the Leo Brothers, all of the first six Ultra Brothers (with the exception of Ultraseven and Ultraman Adam (OG Ultraman, to refresh your memory)), and hundreds of Intergalactic Defense Force rookies in a battle where it was fighting them all simultaneously.

Second, after the previously mentioned feat, the same extension nearly killed Ultraman King.

Third, after Noa joined King’s side in said battle, the extension was giving both of them a hard time in battle.

Fourth, the Reaprea’s full form is responsible for creating the Dark Lords.

[Side note, the Dark Lords consist of a heck of a lot of characters (most are not named or mentioned, just know the Reaprea has created between 90 and 100), but here’s the main Dark Lords: the First Empera (long story short, this is a version of Alien Empera that not only predated the version Mebius and FoU fought, but was also thousands of times more powerful), Gatanozoa, the Guar Siblings, Rayblood, and Zarkran (a hybrid/soul-fusion of every previous Dark Lord’s powers and energies, but enhanced to godlike status).]

Fifth, the Reaprea’s full form was able to stop King from reviving the Ultras it’s extension had killed with his Childhood Radiation. Btw, this was done by canceling the effects of King’s Childhood Radiation, not by stopping King from releasing it. Either way, this left King in a state similar to the one he was in throughout Geed’s series.

[Side note, King could not and did not return until after the Reaprea’s destruction, which was over 6,000 years later.]

[Last side note, the Reaprea’s full form / true form was sealed away in another dimension, but its extension wasn’t. Basically, the seal had weakened, allowing the Reaprea to not only start creating Dark Lords and extensions of itself in other dimensions, but also allowing it to use its powers to affect dimensions it’s not even currently in.]

Anyway, with all that information on the Reaprea’s feats, how far does it get in the canon Ultra Series?

iirc yr scaling was UB = 10 NG

Referring to this handy lookup table I posted:

Which is basically 100 times weaker than in canon, or 1 000 times weaker if u wanna scale them with Taro

Imma say that yr OC can defeat Noa (highball), so he's basically around 10^102 - 10^103 NG

Which only canon Noa is above him, at 10^105 NG

Other than Ultras, you're probably looking at the Absolutian Lord, Reiblood, or potentially Legend otherwise if u want to take into account the other possibilities of the whole canon, albeit we have no idea how strong they are

Or to take a step further and using this as reference:

If I wanna argue for powerscaling beyond the established canon and say that as the current "ultimate state" of ultras' existence depends on just how active they are after taking on a formless existence, potentially the Absolutian Lord, VoL, Plasma Spark, Ultra Mind, DoL etc would theoretically be stronger than Noa via this line of reasoning thanks to the Decker movie

In fact in terms of the highest postulated power (assuming my method of scaling is correct, even tho it's arbitrary at this point):

1. Dimension of Light (DoL)

Entire pantheons of Ultras have come from it, not to mention its confirmed to be still active even after 30 million years

Just for fun, if we assume the DoL is 30 million years old, his power level would be 10^9000 NG, or equivalent to a 8998-way 1 NG fusion, or literally 10^8895 times stronger than Noa

Ridiculous I know, but we need to remember that it's probably the oldest thing we know in the entire multiverse

2. Absolutian Lord

Powers the entire planet of The Kingdom, which Absolutians are very significantly stronger than your average M78 Ultra (Assumption going based off dialogue from UGF3, can't mathematically conclude until we get the official ages of the Absolutians for a fair comparison)

3. Plasma Spark Ultra

(Entire Planet of fully sized Ultra warriors)

Of course I'm assuming it isn't even as aspect of King in the first place as pointed out in the second linked post

4. Ultra Mind

While only ever granted the full Ultra powers to 9 Ultras, it still enables an entire planet of beings to access the lesser, Ultra Humanoid forms

5. Voice of Light (VoL)

We see that it grants the full access of Ultras and Kaiju to whoever scales the Warrior's Peak. And in UGF2, Fuma hinted that there's more O50 Ultras that we have not seen yet

But I think it's safe to say it isn't an entire planet's worth of successful candidates

6. Reiblood

His reionyx genes have spread across multiple universes at this point, but each reionyx aside from Rei and Belial are very weak ngl

But due to the sheer scale of his influence is not yet well understood till this day, he could potentially even be 2nd place if he could, for example, turn every single Absolutian into a Reionyx

7. Radical Destruction Bringer / Delaxion

Placed them here because they are VERY active even after taking on non-physical forms

But we just don't know yet about the intricacies of how they exactly interact with their proxies to be able to say any further beyond this

Might be on the same tier as Noa for all we know

8. Noa / King

King might potentially be placed lower than Noa as the former has not been seen forsaking his form yet (aside from Crisis Impact, since it was by circumstance rather than choice)

While for Noa, we have seen that he has the ability to switch between form and formless existences

But both have granted powers to Ultras before, but only powerups so I'll just group them together

9. Legend

Have not been observed to grant anyone powers, still exists as Cosmos and Justice as physical forms

Note that I didn't include the Eternity Core or the Victorium Core here because tbh I doubt that they're transcended, energy-based ultras since they don't really "interact" with beings, and their power seems to only be transfered via an external device without showing any form of sentience thus far (Which is why the Plasma Spark is up there if u forgot) despite the former being also at least 30 million years old

So I kinda went above and beyond "established canon" to give you a far more interesting answer, or else the answer would just be Noa, which would be short and boring lol

Thanks for the question!

#ultraman #asks

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lh-ffmp1 · 1 year

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Discovering my Storyline

Coming up with this storyline has actually been somewhat easier for me. Obviously I struggled on some ideas and realized that there's a lot more to regular objects in the world than just a thing that moves. You have to ask how it moves, why does it move like that? What inspired me to come up with this idea? That's something I have learnt throughout this whole process which has really helped me develop a solid storyline for why things are the way they are.

I've always been intrigued by space and everything around the topics of black holes, galaxies, fourth dimensions, time travel through black holes and much more. This really inspired me to link my story to these topics so I began researching movies, books and just initial research to do with how my spaceship will look, how my planet/planets will look and the character designs for the hybrid aliens that will be the so called "villains" of my story.

My base storyline involves a group of adventurers and scientists who discover a mysterious black hole that seems to act as a gateway to other galaxies. This is set in a time in the future where humans have colonised multiple star systems and as they grow their technology develops with them. As they explore the strange new worlds on the other side, they must also grapple with the dangers and ethical dilemmas of playing with forces they don’t fully understand.

These so called dangers being what will be aliens or some form of hybrids that try to take down the main characters or my story. #

First behind this I had to find ideas for the spaceship that I am aiming to create. I began thinking of the first ship I know which is the well-known Nebuchadnezzar, from the original film "The Matrix". Before starting our final major project i had recently watched this movie after a lot of positive reviews from the people around me, and this felt like a great place to start. I first began looking at parts of this ship that I could take inspiration from to add to my spacecraft, and a main thing that stood out to me was the hovers that make the Nebuchadnezzar fly. These I find are a really cool design and will definitely add these onto my ship.

Another source of inspiration has also come from the film "Interstellar" I love the idea of the whole fourth-dimension theory, a place where time doesn't exist and the three-dimensional ways of the world don't exist. These dimensions are what help the human brain comprehend how the world works around us.

I'm excited to execute this idea and see if it changes overtime.

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blairingm · 2 months

Note

For the ask game: 1,2,5,11,51,73 Mikey, 78

TMNT: Into the Night

DO A LITTLE FLIPPY

1. Where is your au/iteration set?

NYC BABYYYYY!! the city is my home so i obvi wanna keep reppin it. events still mainly take place in manhattan (probably the LES which means nothing to most people) but fun fact! i want the turtles to lowkey rep each borough

leo-manhattan

donnie-brooklyn

raph-da bronx

mikey-queens

2. Do the turtles live in the sewers?

yuuup yupyupyup. ive always really liked the sewers as a setting. something abt living under a world youre not allowed to be a part of. theyll probably have a squatters arc at some point tho

5. What is the origin of the mutagen?

Draxum who is hired as Krangs lead scientist on the mutation project. theyre both aliens from dimension x. running joke where drax gets really mad when he hears the turtles calling it some goddamned “ooze”

11. Who is the main villain?

ooh tricky one. probably the pantheons? the turtles end up going thru nemesis’ in arcs like its monster of the week. first the purple dragons, then the foot and krang, theeen the pantheons.

the pantheons consist of rat king, kitsune, big mama, and some redacted fourth that i havent come up with yet. only four and theyll represent the four heavenly gods loosely teehee

51. Was Splinter born a rat or a human?

human! he was originally born hundreds of years in the past, and bound his soul to the shredders, so that when this great evil rose again, he too would be reborn in order to defeat it. but you know. woe. rat be upon ye. AND TO BE CLEAR HE WASNT REBORN AS A RAT. he did get mutated.

73. What interests does Mikey have?

skateboarding, comics, games, cooking—typical mikey stuff. but hed be REALLY into human popculture in general. probably knows everything abt the kardashians and his brothers are like why……

77. What character do you relate to the most?

leo 😷😷😷😷 no comment.

#tmntitn #my tmnt iteration #answered #🧀

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bekkachaos · 1 year

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I posted 1,792 times in 2022

That's 1,725 more posts than 2021!

318 posts created (18%)

1,474 posts reblogged (82%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@monsterrae1

@finduilasclln

@bisexualalienss

@first-kanaphan

@vintagelacerosette

I tagged 1,749 of my posts in 2022

Only 2% of my posts had no tags

#0 - 532 posts

#buddie - 346 posts

#evan buckley - 341 posts

#guess what we've been queuing daddy - 309 posts

#eddie diaz - 308 posts

#malex - 295 posts

#michael guerin - 192 posts

#alex manes - 185 posts

#roswell new mexico - 154 posts

#roswell new mexico - 124 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#spent a good thirty seconds not reading rhw the rest and trying to figure out the correlation between bats (mammal) and swords (weapon)

My Top Posts in 2022:

you showed me everything underneath the stars (put your handprint on my heart)

Just a little fic set somewhere after 4x12

G | 2.8k

Read on AO3

Michael paced the floor, it felt like all he could do.

Maybe that's just because it was Alex sitting in front of him, and he was racking the darkest corners of his brain for anything that he could do to reverse the damage that had been done.

"Is Evans still... has he recovered yet?" he asked quietly, and Michael felt his stomach drop.

There would only be one reason for Kyle to ask about Max at a time like this. This wasn't something a human doctor - even one that's dabbled extensively in alien biology - could fix.

He didn't have to answer, almost like Kyle could read his mind. Kyle nodded, a slow dip of his head and a look back to Alex.

"I... you were exposed for a long time," he said finally, this time it was Alex's turn to nod.

He was dying. He was going to die from this.

Unless Max was back to full strength soon, Alex would die.

"You did the best you could," he said, and Kyle scoffed, shaking his head as he stepped back towards him.

"Only you could be trying to comfort me in this situation," he said. "I didn't do anything, Alex. There's nothing..."

"Hey," Alex said, reaching out and putting his clammy hand over Kyle's white knuckles. "You did, you did more than anyone should have ever asked you to."

"It's not enough," he said.

They stayed like that for a lingering look, plenty unsaid between them, and it didn't have to be said. They knew, without words they knew what the other would say.

I'm sorry we drifted apart when we were kids, I'm sorry that's my fault.

I'm glad we made up for it these last few years, I'm glad you're in my life, and I'm sorry I'm leaving.

Michael stood watching them and it was like he was frozen in place, neither of them said anything, but it was clear as the starry sky over the mountains outside, they were saying goodbye.

"I um, I'll go talk to the others," Kyle said, finally pulling his hands away and turning to Michael with glassy eyes. "I'll go check on Evans."

As he took a step to leave Michael stepped in front, putting a hand to his chest to stop him.

"There's got to be more mist," he said in a desperate breath. "Or Liz can make some more."

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109 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

Of course he took Michael's name, Michael has been Alex's escape from being a Manes since they were kids, and they're finally making it official 💕

110 notes - Posted September 6, 2022

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205 notes - Posted July 23, 2022

doin' something unholy

7.4k words | E

otherwise known as Buck posts a thirst-trap TikTok and Eddie likes it a little too much.

It was one of those that started innocently enough, he was crinkling his eyes and nose, shuffling his shoulders a little with just his chest showing in the frame and giving the camera a little smile. After a few seconds the song dropped to lead into the chorus and the video transitioned to Buck under darker lighting, body illuminated and tensed, glistening with sweat.

Eddie felt a flutter in his stomach as he watched Buck smirk and swipe his tongue over his bottom lip, he was wearing his turnout pants with suspenders, flexing his arms as he slipped them out from under the straps and puffed out his chest. His turnout pants were unbuttoned, the band of his underwear sitting low and the lines of his hips disappearing below it. He lifted his arms to run his fingers through his hair, his abs tense and shimmering under the sheen of his sweat. And then the video looped back to the start.

Eddie found himself watching it loop over a few times, shaking his head because really he should be ashamed that he was watching his best friend's body with such a lustful gaze, but hey, why else would he have posted it if not for people to look?

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230 notes - Posted October 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

guys help the number of AO3 tabs open in my mobile browser is growing and I keep adding more

248 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #I don't know what that 0 tag is about #But the rest seems accurate 😅#Rae I must have been spamming you so much 😂

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evilmortys · 4 years

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c-136 wears the sweatshirts in summer too because he’s a literal moron and he just pushes the sleeves of them up his forearms. that’s literally his only accommodation in hotter weather.

#i'm kidding #rick asks wtf he's doing and he breaks the fourth wall and is just 'it's brand recognition rick'#'...what.'#'it's- the people know c-136 wears the alien or flower sweatshirt. y- you can't just fuck with that formula dawg'#'brand recognition rick. i don't expect you to know anything about that- y- you're not even- the main character in our dimension'#'y'know? who ARE you?'#DFJKDSJGKSDJGKSDH I HATE POSTING ABOUT HIM BECAUSE ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS STUPID SHIT LIKE THIS.#his forearms always have a gnarly scar from killer alien claws and chemical burns and he's just #yeah those are... i just have those a Lot. i can get rid of them but i'll do it later. yknow #he just procrastinates literally undoing grievous bodily harm at this point it's so. par for the course.#i love him #alex talks!#delete later!

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kidney9-9 · 2 years

Text

Boring Days - Kunikida Doppo

Hi hope you enjoy :) thank you for reading!

Kunikida Doppo x Reader [Fluff] Warnings: Angry Kunikida Word Count: 1.1k

It was your fourth week working at the Armed Detective Agency as an assistant, and you were completely bored. You only took the job because it offered some action in your life, and you were enamored with the idea of having life threatening fights every day and making complicated decisions for the city. It all sounded cool and fun! Something to spice up your life! Your friends were the one that mentioned it to you after the news about the Agency saving the day – after you complained to them about being stuck doing the same mundane thing every single day.

Your ability was powerful, something that would protect you from anything so there was no use in worrying about getting hurt while working here. So, in every hopeful way possible, you wanted some action in your life.

Today was even more boring than you thought it could be, and you were laying your head down on the table, blinking slowly and practically counting the seconds passing by. Kunikida was of course doing a bunch of paperwork, that was actually useless, because he already did it, but is now redoing it in blue ink. You stared at him blankly, wondering how he was able to be so happy about office work.

“Let’s do something.” You mumbled to him, and he glanced at you curiously. He already knew how much you thrilled for action, which was a bit ironic considering that these few months the Agency was in a peaceful setting.

“What?” He asked softly, looking around to see everyone else doing some sort of work, or resting like you.

“Let’s go take down a secret organization.” You offered, raising your eyebrows to him, and he instantly choked on his own spit. You grinned, liking his reaction as Ranpo leaned in from his desk, wondering what was happening. This was not boring; this was exactly what you wanted.

“Absolutely not! We do not have time for that.” He responded and you rolled your eyes at him, sitting up now.

“Let’s save the rainforest.” You offered again, grin widening as his reaction grew stronger, freaking out even more. He practically turned red in confusion and anger, and waved his hands in the air, trying to comprehend how to reply to you.

Before he could reply, you continued, “Let’s break into a space station and go fight some aliens.” Now, Kunikida stood up, breathing in heavily to prepare himself to start lecturing. Ranpo started to laugh at the quip you had going, wanting to join in.

“Let’s make pigs actually fly.” He spoke up, and now Kunikida was glancing back and forth, between you and Ranpo.

“Let’s travel into another dimension and replace our look-a-likes.” You cheered, and finally, Kunikida cracked.

He was shaking by now and face completely reddened, “You absolute idiots! You say your smartest detective in the world, but you entertain these ideas? I’m disappointed in you, Ranpo!” He pointed to him, anger still growing stronger, for you two distracting him during work.

“And you! You took the job for action, and you don’t see any action around you right now? It’s insane right now! I mean – you can’t see that we ran out of the pink highlighters here? And there are no paperclips! At all! It’s a miracle we’re still running today.” He took a deep breath before continuing.

Your eyes widened, watching how he completely fell apart over a few of your words. “If you kept going, I wouldn’t be surprised if you suggest we take down the Port Mafia! Do you know how much paperwork that would be? So, so much. At that point, you’d be too upset to think about pulling another stunt or even watching an action movie! There’s a list of things you can do right now that would help the Agency immensely and you also ruined my schedule! Now I’m three minutes off from my schedule.” His lecturing voice made you shrink back into your chair, but also excited to see this side of Kunikida.

And his idea about the Port Mafia.

“We should take them down, you’re right!” You praised him, now standing up to join him and clap loudly. Ranpo joined in on the clapping, laughing at how Kunikida was now in silent shock, staring at his desk.

You glanced over to the elevator while clapping, watching as Atsushi, Dazai, and Kyouka walked in. You grinned to them, as they walked into the room, confused. “Kunikida said we can take down the Port Mafia today!” You spoke up excitedly, watching all of their reactions.

Atsushi’s face morphed into slight confusion, deadpan, and a smidge of horror. He didn’t believe that Kunikida would say that ever, except in very certain situations, and now he wondered how in the world you managed to do such a thing. You were the newest member of the team, but it sure felt like you were one of the scariest with how you got Kunikida to say and agree to such a thing.

Dazai was amused thoroughly, and even started to clap along with you guys as Kunikida pushed his hands into his face, muttering random words of anger. “I call beating up Chuuya!” Dazai cheered, and Atsushi and Kyouka glanced to him with strange stares.

Kyouka was surprised by you, and by what you said about Kunikida. She was ready to take down the Port Mafia any day, she just didn’t expect it to be now. And she’s never seen Kunikida be ready for such violence. She glanced over to Ranpo as well, who seemed to be excited and happy about the decision.

“NO, I NEVER SAID ANY OF THAT! THAT’S IT, I’M DONE FOR THE DAY.” Kunikida screamed out, roughly grabbing his things, and shoving them into his bag. Everyone stared at him in awe, watching as he marched angrily out to the elevator. It was his first ever time leaving work early without permission. His face was dark red with anger and some embarrassment - and he mumbled something under his breath while staring at you. You gave him a small apologetic grin, but he still stormed off.

The moment he was gone, everyone swirled around to face you as you started to laugh. “Oh sorry, I just was bored and wanted something exciting to happen!” You explained, shrugging to the rest of them. Ranpo nodded in agreement, pulling out one of his candies to eat.

“Aw, next time when you do it again, make sure I’m around. I love watching Kunikida act like that! He never skips work, so that was fun!” Dazai spoke up, grinning back to you and you nodded, now sitting back down as the boredom started to come back again.

Ranpo could already see it happening again, and he leaned back in his chair, watching as you leaned over to Atsushi, murmuring, “Let’s do something.”

#kunikida doppo x reader #kunikida doppo x you #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x you #thank you for reading!

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