#it was about a space base with both aliens and humans in it

[mychlapci]

rapid fire cybertronian headcannons go

I like to think that while cybertronians look and act mostly humanoid they also do some not human things that make humans go "oh yeah, alien"

for example i think that every couple thousand years cybertronians shed their armor like some sort of bug or shrimp to get rid of damaged plating and their repair nanites go into overdrive to build new ones. during that period bots will nibble on metal to get material. a shed can also trigger early if a bot gets regularly roughed up or if they changed alt-modes recently. this could lead to a potencial hilarious situation where there's no fighting for like a week sometime after bots and cons arrived on earth since both groups got new alt-modes which triggered a mass shedding and noone wants to fight while they're squishy and itchy. que human friend coming into the autobot base and while talking to their bot friend a piece of the bot's armor just falls off. so of course human freaks out because they think their friend is dying while the bot is confused and going like "why are you screaming i'm just shedding. wdym humans don't do that?" or mabye the human comes in during the everyone is mostly shed phase and going "why r yall nakey" either way that thay humans learn cybertronians are space shrimp.

another headcannon i have is that just chilling in places in alt-mode is the cybertronian equivalent of a cat loaf. cybertronians also purr by idling their engine (obviously) and keep the joints in their hands from going stiff by making biscuits.

cybertronian sight is primarily their sensors (like sharks) with optics being a secondary sight organ and mostly just provide aditional information so taking out a cybertronians optics would do nothing but take out their sensors and they're blind as a bat because of their poor eyesight. i also like how in tfp everyone has unique optics

they can also speak with their mouth closed or without moving it since a voicebox is more like a speaker than vocal cords. moving their mouth just helps with adjusting volume or making sound clearer.

OOoh i am a “transformers shed” believer. For maintenance, or because of age, or because of injuries, i think it has many factors...

I don’t think they’d be squishy underneath, though I think that they have some silicone components that jiggle, but having raw wires and circuitry revealed is already a pretty vulnerable state to be in. (tbh I am also very fond of the thought of cybertronians being able to just remove their armour and parts of their plating on a whim… it’s rare for them to do it, but i think it could be very intimate. I will stop before i delve into places we cannot delve in this week ok)

I am absolutely down for the “optics are only a secondary sensory organ” thing bc honestly i believe that too. I actually imagine that whatever you notice on a bot’s head first, chevron, horns, finials, etc. etc. are actually most sensitive to all kinds of input, like EM fields, vibrations, sound and even light, and i know it’s not canon but i like to imagine that depriving a bot of their horns/chevron/antenna blinds them more than taking out both their optics possibly could. Not to mention, they probably have “eyes” on different parts of their bodies, as in, they can register visual input with their headlight, their rearview mirror and side mirrors. Their optics are actually very weak and taking out their sensors renders them incapable of most things.

Now what i had never considered was transformers doing biscuits to keep their joints flexible. That means medics would have to do extra biscuits so that their joints are at their best. I am now thinking about Drift coming back to their habsuite after a long day on the bridge and Ratchet’s just dozing off after an equally long shift in the med-bay, kneading the pillows happily. I am obsessed. Drift probably joins in bc as a swordsman, he has to keep his hands flexible as well. And them they’re purring their engines bc they’re comfy… aaaaah okay that’s adorable

#tf hc's #transformers #texty #dratchet

[earthstellar]

Brave Bang Bravern!: A Review for Transformers Fans

I've seen so much about this on my dash that I had to give it a try, and I gotta say, as someone who hasn't watched any new anime series since around 2008 at the most recent and I also hate the fucking military, this is a pretty good show.

THERE WILL BE SOME MILD SPOILERS. Nothing major. I'm not gonna spoil anything critical or mention characters that are introduced later etc. At of time of writing, only 6 episodes have been released.

Understanding Genre: The Trailer is A Lie

Now, while there is a trailer here, I want you to largely disregard it.

Why is that? Well, we need to talk about the "big two" robot show genres in Japan, which are as follows:

Real Robot -- This refers to a typically military setting or other serious setting, in which robots are handled as realistically as possible in terms of how they work and how they are applied. There tend to be less individual/sentient robots and more "suit" type mechs right along side human-made, more realistic machinery and mech designs, although that isn't entirely unique to this genre. Usually this stuff is labelled as sci-fi/action outside of Japan.

Super Robot (THIS IS THE SHIT TRANSFORMERS FANS GENERALLY WANT) --Essentially borderline seemingly magical robots with their own rules and in universe backstory for how they work, which isn't necessarily tied to realism. Usually this stuff is labelled as sci-fi/fantasy or space fantasy outside of Japan, since a lot of these tend to be space robots. They can be "driven" by pilots or just straight up sentient robots who are vibing with some human companions, although it's not exclusively that. It can be both, it can be neither, but no matter what, Super Robot shows are less about strict realism and more about really cool shit with robots that are basically their own people and exist according to their own rules.

Now, the trailer for BBBB (the acronym for the show is based on the Japanese title, which is Bang Brave Bang Bravern) is a COMPLETE FUCKING LIE.

It wants you to think this is going to be some dumbass GI Joe shit.

While there are elements of dumbass GI Joe shit, this is largely just to set up the premise for why shit is happening in the first place, and to help introduce the main threat (alien space creatures with fucking light beam lasers) as well as bring in our main characters under the premise of everyone having to work together to address this alien threat to Earth.

What we care about here amongst Transformers freaks is gay space robots, and this show delivers.

Getting Into Bravern: First Episode, Mild Plot Spoiler Summary

It wants you to think this is a Real Robot show.

The first episode sets things up as though it will be a Real Robot show.

There is a threat to Earth, a mystery space alien mechanical enemy, and nobody knows what the fuck to do. A military exercise between multiple nations using Titanostriders (which look very much like Shiro Masamune Appleseed-style mechs, human made in nature) to practice battle drills who are now instructed to swap over to real ammunition and go to fucking town.

Nobody knows how to do that.

They're skilled with the Titanostriders, sure, but it turns into a shit show. The alien mechanical enemies are using fucking space laser shit, it's a disaster---

--And then Bravern drops in from the fucking sky and it IMMEDIATELY TURNS INTO A SUPER ROBOT SHOW.

There's a "get in the robot, Shiji" moment where one of the Titanostrider operators, Isami Ao, is encouraged by Bravern to get inside of him.

He does. And immediately has no idea what the fuck is going on, Bravern is largely in control, and starts to blast his own theme song inside his cockpit as diegetic music while Isami is generally losing his shit, as one might do.

Humanity's reaction to Bravern is Real Robot genre type, where it is handled seriously by all the characters and organisations involved in universe, however Bravern is very much a Super Robot genre character who brings more of a Super Robot energy to the show at large.

The serious elements are mostly balanced by how fucking silly Bravern is, and there are some excellent moments in this show (currently only 6 episodes have been released) which make it entirely worth a watch.

Fun Things About Bravern Himself

Braven is very, very, very gay for his pilot.

Chances are, you've seen the screenshots of some of these moments on Tumblr already, but the delivery of these lines is magnificent.

Bravern sings his own theme song. It's the voice actor for Bravern doing the vocals, and the song itself is reminiscent of 1970s orchestrated big band energy mecha themes. For Transformers fans, it has a very Transformers Victory theme kind of vibe to it.

You gotta hear it, it fucking rules. The album cover shows Bravern holding a giant microphone.

Bravern is generally light hearted, doing his best to motivate his pilot while not hesitating to enter the action and try to defend humanity.

Now, why does Bravern care about humans so much? We don't know, but we'll talk about some mysteries in a later section below.

He is surprisingly insightful at times, while also fucking around and enjoying himself. (You may have seen screenshots going around Tumblr of Bravern with a loop of hot dogs strung around one of his chevron points on his forehead. This follows a scene in which he wants his pilot to take a break and associate with his peers for once, as a way to relieve stress. So they go to a bar, it turns out reception is positive and someone even brings weenies out for Bravern since he's too big to fit inside, lol.)

Generally, he's a very interesting mech, because we have so little information about him. He's fun, and clearly vibing, but he's also borderline if not outright obsessed with his pilot and has unknown origins, which has lead to some darker interpretations and audience discussion.

A lot of people have compared Bravern's energy to Rodimus, and generally I would agree with that. He has his high-energy silly moments, and his more serious personal moments (primarily with Isami, but also with Smith), and I think these aspects of his character work well to create a fun mech with the potential to be deep in a believable and effective way, with an equal capacity for being a doofus.

Bravern is obviously the number one reason to watch the show for most people, and I would say that if you're purely here for a giant gay space robot, then this is going to be a decent watch.

The Military Sucks: There Are Militaries Involved Yet Somehow This Is Still Watchable

I hate the fucking military, so at least the military here is depicted in an acceptable way (so far, at least). In episode 2, they waterboard Isami to interrogate him for information he doesn't have regarding Bravern, which is a realistically shitty and awful thing for the military to do-- They don't sugarcoat how fucked up the military is. These people very much have the capacity to harm their own staff, and they will do so if it means they might get an edge over the enemy.

At the same time, the actual characters in the military are depicted as primarily doing this shit out of a genuine personal desire to defeat these horrendously destructive space entities, which have attacked at least some of their home towns and home countries, so it's more personal rather than purely being a military directive that people are being forced to follow.

In this way, it's not really realistic, but everyone is on board for their own largely humanitarian aid type of reasons (there is a mission which is basically just locating survivors of an attack and then getting the fuck out) which makes the military context feel less oppressive and shitty.

Part of why this is more OK than other military depictions is because the military forces involved here are international (collaborating to defeat a global threat rather than kill each other's civilians) and because the military is clearly losing this war.

Because it's an international effort, this brings more diversity to the show-- There's a surprising amount of English interspersed between dialogue in Japanese here and there, and the military board consists of representatives from multiple nations, including some Germans who at first believe Bravern is some kind of secret American operation, lmao.

Bravern calls the military out on its shit, and essentially tells the military board to stop with the suspicious infighting bullshit and drop the internal tension because otherwise they'll all die to this mechanical nightmare creature threat.

They actually listen, which means this is an unrealistic portrayal of the military, lmao. I think they struck a good balance so far between showing that the military sucks and has problems, while also making sure that you're not really cheering for any given military force, but rather, you cheer for individual characters who just happen to be stuck doing this military shit as a premise for anything to be going on in the show at all.

So it's not the worst when it comes to the military shit; At least so far, it's watchable, which as someone who passionately hates the fucking military, is surprising to me.

It's less GI Joe and more "we just needed a reason for these characters to be involved in this situation".

Of course, your mileage may vary, but personally I found it easy to tune out or just skip through any military shit that got grating and I didn't miss anything important by doing so. At the very least, you can skip around and ignore a lot of this stuff and get right to the gay robot if that's all you want to do. It becomes clear pretty quickly what's going on if you skip around a bit, so no worries there.

Fun Speculation: What is Bravern?

Only 6 episodes are out at the moment, so there's tons of shit we don't know yet.

Bravern has a notable resemblance to a type of enemy in the show, called a Death-Drive.

Death-Drives are mecha who are distinct from the "minion" type enemies (which almost resemble flying saucers with laser gun arms and light shields), and have their own unique character designs and names.

Why these things are here, how they are here, why they are interested in Earth, and everything else is currently unknown.

Bravern looks like he could possibly be of the same mechanical species, although we don't know if that's true (yet). He has abilities that the other mecha don't seem to have, but how far this goes and what it might mean is not yet clear.

Bravern also seems to have knowledge of human media (he references The Abyss at one point and he likes 3D printing figures of sentai show characters lmao), and was immediately able to speak to the humans using language they would understand, so it's unclear if Bravern may have been studying Earth for some time before his arrival or why.

He is obsessed with his pilot and cares for him so much that he extends some care towards others purely based on their relation to Isami as co-workers; Why? What makes Isami special?

How does Bravern know seemingly every human language? How does his piloting system work? How similar is he to the Death-Drives-- Are organic beings critical to them in some way? If so, why are the other mechs killing so many of us? (These are big questions especially by the end of episode 6, due to some spoilers and a spoiler character who shows up later.)

We know little to nothing about a lot of the key elements of the show, including any motivations for the Death-Drives or what they are, what's up with the fucking UFO looking laser things, etc.

There's more to speculate on, but that would be getting into deeper spoiler territory so I'm gonna hold back on that for now.

Summary: It's Gay and Cool and Has Interesting Ideas

Bravern's not the sole source of gay vibes in this show, but it's fun that he is also a source of gay vibes in this show.

The designs are great, the Titanostriders remind me of Appleseed style mechanical suit designs which is nice, the Death-Drives are super interesting, Bravern is fucking fabulous but he's not too goofy to take seriously, and the military is unfortunately present but it's clear that they suck and are generally losing (and since the conflict is not between different groups of humans but rather is about human collaboration to defeat a non-human shared threat to our entire planet, this goes a long way to make the military shit tolerable).

It pretends to be a Real Robot show but has so much Super Robot show sprinkled in that you might as well consider it a little bit of both which the show balances pretty well.

I haven't watched an anime since around 2008 at the very latest, so I don't know how this might compare to any other robot animes since then and I am certainly not an anime expert by any means LOL, but this has been a fun show to watch so far.

It does have its problems, of course, but if you can get past the setup for the first episode (when it's still pretending to be a Real Robot show), from the moment Bravern arrives towards the end of that first episode, the show gains momentum and starts to get interesting very quickly.

It has some issues. But we're only 6 episodes in, so at the moment, they have plenty of time to potentially address those issues and we'll see where things go.

I'd recommend it if you want to give it a try!

I think there's enough here to appeal to the usual Transformers crowd and you might end up liking it, or at least having fun while watching it in the background.

If you end up wanting to to tap out then no worries-- I think it's worth giving it a shot and if it's not your thing, no problem.

Each episode is around 25 - 30 minutes, so while the first episode might feel like a slog to get through because fuck the military, once Bravern shows up the show actually gets started and I wouldn't blame anyone for just skipping to that point in the first episode and going from there, because there's nothing in that opening that you won't be reminded of or be able to figure out. It mostly just sets up the intro to the human characters and the collaboration training session, introduces the Titanostriders as a thing, and you can always go back and watch that part later if you want to.

All in all, pretty decent! Obviously we're Transformers people so we're here for the robots, and the robots are interesting and fun, and that's all I need to have a good time.

Hopefully this was a useful summary if you're interested or have seen Bravern stuff on your dash! :)

Thanks for reading!

BONUS: I forgot to mention this somehow, but there's a lot of overlap between Transformers and other Brave shows involving actual Transformers re-used in Japan for these shows; There's a good video about it here on YouTube which explains some of this, but if anyone's wondering, yes Bravern has a grounder alt-mode and it's pretty cool. Will we get a transforming Bravern figure??? We can hope!

There's another video here which mentions some of the Transformers elements in other Brave shows/Yuusha, which might be interesting for those of you who are unaware. :)

#maccadams #maccadam #bravern #bbbb #ba #bang brave bang bravern #long post #bravern review #transformers

[lilacargent]

At it again, from another angle this time.

‘Old’ weapons. Or at least redundant, as a species traverses into space the new technology makes an old gun or even older sword/arrow/spear and so on useless and nearly powerless. The new weapons are ‘ray this’ and ‘beam that’ ‘plasma so and so’ .

Ofcourse this makes sense, the energy based weapons are far less wasteful and lighter, easier to carry and easier to handle. No need to sharpen weapons with a plasma blade and even then, why use close quarters weapons if you have access to stun, kill or poison rays and many more.

On top of that many civilisations prefer to forget their less then stellar past and make analog weapons obsolete. When the humans joined the council many expected them to do the same. They didn’t, production stopped yes, but interested people could still partake in lessons and the old fashioned ways were shown off in museums. Training to be part of a spaceship crew still included lessons in their old weapons as an opportunity to be prepared for going to “newer” worlds.

So with that in mind i have a few little vignettes ideas and for ease’ sake its gonna be on the same ship, the Serpentine.

Important crew:

Primoz, captain -Limoyh a four armed species-

Krag, second in command (brother of Primoz)

Kit, dokter -avian, bird like, she has feathers like a swallow-

Ortez, ASR (all species resources, human resources in space) -kiltak, insectoid species, think ants but exoskeleton-

Lugea, helmsperson (does the steering) -rock like alien-

Artex, engineer/mechanic 1 -also Kiltak-

And then our humans:

Kamari, navigator -Eritrean woman- (has cat named Sidra)

Markus, weapons expert (knows how to use them and upkeep, also shields) -Swedish man-

Petrus, mechanic/engineer 2 -Italian man-

Lilly, administrator/note keeper (learns languages for fun)-english woman-

Yes i know all of this could have also been accomplished by saying they are all from America… nope this is more fun. This is under the assumption that to get into the joint academy for space faring you need to be able to speak and write English.

Obviously there are more people on the ship but these are most important

~~~~~~~~

1. Sparring

Ortez was having a good day, the serpentine had left port and was making good progress toward their next destination on w-kl-18, referred to as deltax by it’s residents, for a routine drop off.

In port on Unity (the planet where the council resides and the universal court is) they picked up the final crew members among who a ‘team’ of humans. Pre bonded humans were supposed to be less chaos inducing and easier bonded with the rest of the crew. Ortez was rather happy the captain listened to him on this matter.

The humans had been more diverse than he expected and were currently what they called ‘settling in’. He was on his way to the rooms they had.

‘Stop it please we’ve been here less than 4 hours!’ The soft voice he recognises as Lilly’s is barely audible over the loud clanging sounds. Rounding the corner Ortez sees a terrifying scene. The two human males locked together with two sticks made of metal baring teeth at each other, with a push the olive skinned man, he remembers is called Petrus, breaks the hold and goes in low swiping at the tall mans legs making Markus fall over.

Ortez is about to intervene when without a sound the dark skinned leader of the group seemingly appears without a sound behind him and runs into the fray with a similar stick.

Whacking Petrus stick away from Markus’ throat she steps inbetween “stop it. You’re scaring our ASR. We want to make a good impression remember.” The men look right at him and both put down the sticks, Markus puts his hand up in a ‘wave’ “sorry about that, Ortez it was right? We were just sparring.’ Moving further into the room he uncurls his front two claws tapping at the metal poles “sparring with this? We usually only do body to body training, this seems rather old.” Petrus speaks up to that “ah yes those are old earth weapons, we like keeping up a bit of skill with several kinds as a side activity. Don’t worry tho, we train with blunt weapons.”

Not entirely appeased the insectoid looks to the imposing woman, who seems entirely at ease even though two people had been fighting. When she caught his eyes, she smiled that terrible toothy grin “truly don’t worry, like Petrus said they are blunt and it is a way for us to let of some steam and keep in shape. But next time we’ll do it in the training rooms… right boys?” Pinning the two men with withering stares they nodded quickly.

Ortez did not know humans released steam, but he felt right now was not the moment to go into that. Saying his goodbye he skittered to inform the captain.

This was bound to be interesting.

~~~~~~~~~~~

2. “The Roman empire”

“So you are telling me that at any given moment you could be thinking about a several thousand years old society that no longer exists and it would surprise nobody?” Artex was perplexed, when he and Petrus were working on the reactor core Lilly had wandered through and mentioned this old civilisation sparking heated debate. She thought the greeks were far more interesting but Petrus had been unmoved by her arguments. The other man speaks while pushing some buttons “well yea, the empire made great strides and amazing structures, Lilly just prefers the mythos of the greek while i enjoy the focus on millitary prowess.” Shrugging he looks up “don’t you guys have something like that?” Artex stretches his legs, all 6 of them in a wave like motion “not really, when change happened the history books were changed to make it seem like it was always that way” the human makes eye contact “wait so how do you know how to play -old civilisation- as a kid? We play fought with wooden sticks, wooden swords and branches we cut to look like guns…” that horrofied the insectoid, raised with violence like it was a normal thing.

Almost like they never left their dark ages

~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. Whats in a name (bit off topic but the idea just kinda happened)

Te very first time the humans were introduced to their new crew there was a bit of a hiccup. When Kamari introduced herself they looked up a bit confused but went further down the row. After Lilly they came back around and referred to Kamari as moon. Now Kamari recognised the strange look, they had translators that only had basic human translation, which means that her name “Kamari” which comes from Arabic and is a word for moon/soft glow of the moon, is translated fully but not as name so when they speak to her it translates out of their language to English which would be moon. This is luckily easily fixed with an update, but it was something that stil spoke of how new the human race was to the cosmos.

Her cat Sidra made them laugh as that means Star so she was the moon with her star.

(Random thought about how multiple human languages could screw with translations)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Soooooo kinda had a 4th story that is pretty sad but also bad ass, but this is getting too long already

Imma write that in a new post over the coming days

Hopefully people like this, if you have prompts you’d like to see with this crew feel free to ask.

#humans are space orcs #humans in space #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are deathworlders #humans are space fae #humans are space capybaras

[marlynnofmany]

Starseed Apples

“Here you go,” I said, putting down the last box. “Uncut fabric, plumbing supplies, and three cases with a fungus biohazard label. Do I even want to know what’s in those?” I cast a curious look at my fellow human as I handed over the signing pad. She was shorter and rounder than I was, dressed in a crisp uniform of a type I didn’t recognize. Big pockets everywhere.

She signed with a wry grin. “Those are dirt.”

“Dirt?” I repeated, looking around the admittedly spotless loading dock of this particular space station. “Dirt warrants a biohazard here?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” she said, handing the pad back. “Organic mulch that could contain anything from decomposed animals to fungus to poop? With uncountable amounts of bacterial life and potential germs? We’re lucky they only focused on the mold aspect!”

“Hm, good point,” I said.

Zhee, who was busy moving boxes off the hover sled, muttered something disparaging. I expected him to complain about how gross it all was, since he was always the first to point out when humans did something to offend his bug-alien sensibilities, but it sounded like he was griping about the strict station rules this time.

The human continued. “We have to keep a clean room between the greenhouse area and everything else. Even there, most things are in pots. We’ve got a great crop from Johnny Starseed right now!”

I’d heard that name before. “Oh, was he the one who sells little potted—”

“Apple trees, yeah,” she said. “Tiny and convenient, but they make an impressive number of apples as long as you feed ‘em quality dirt.” She bent down to pat a box.

Zhee finished freeing the sled. “Reasonable business plan,” he said, sounding almost complimentary.

“The guy named himself after Johnny Appleseed,” I told Zhee. “A human from centuries ago who got famous for traveling around and setting up apple orchards on Earth. Everybody likes a guy who brings food wherever he goes. And drink — I think some of those apples were supposed to be the cider variety.”

Zhee flicked his antennae. “Sounds like a very human thing to do,” he said drily.

“Have you tried the Starseed Reds?” the other human asked. “They’re very good.”

“No I haven’t, but I’d like to!” I said. “I’ve heard good things. I was kind of hoping to cross paths with him at some point. I wouldn’t mind a tiny apple tree in my quarters. Of course, the cat might get at it, and I’d probably have to find a grow lamp…”

She opened a boxy hip pocket, and pulled out the shiniest red apple I’d seen in a while. “Here you go.”

“Thank you!” I said, taking it eagerly. “That’s very generous!”

She waved it off. “Like I said, we’ve got a big crop. And I’ve got a different one that I’m saving for when I get off shift.” From another pocket, she produced a red apple with distinct orange stripes. “Which should be as soon as I get the supplies back to base.”

I laughed. “Is that the booze kind? I didn’t think those were real!”

“Oh yes,” she said with relish, putting it back in the pocket. “Starseed Cider Apples, no fermenting required!”

Zhee cocked his head, faceted eyes looking at both of us. “Poisonous apples?”

“Alcoholic apples,” I corrected, knowing full well that he considered that to be the same thing.

Zhee pushed the hover cart back toward the ship with a dramatic head tilt and antennae swirl. “Now that sounds like a human thing to do.”

“Well, you’re not wrong there,” I said with a smile. I thanked the other human and followed him, taking a bite of my non-alcoholic apple. It really was good.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come!

#hm new posting interface #not a fan #SURELY there's a way to do this without having to add in the paragraph breaks manually #good thing today's story is a short one #annnnnyways... #my writing #the Token Human #humans are weird #haso #hfy #eiad #humans are space orcs #writeblr #science fiction #short stories

[ms-scarletwings]

Honest truth, with every episode of this messed up show I finish rewatching I’m more are more sure that Dib is just as incompetent and short-sighted when it comes to his “mission” as Zim is. But it’s so funny to me that while Zim just makes bad plans, has awful priorities, and improvises a lot by the seat of his pants, Dib’s incompetent in the classical bumbling villain sense. Like, he’s doing the right thing, he generally has clever approaches and insights, makes full use of his resources, yet,

He’s still aesthetically and narratively such an antihero, the poor dweeb.

Observe, my magnificent Venn diagram

Only thing I didn’t want to tack on that because it bears worth of some more elaboration: Both of these two are horrible about recklessly arming their nemesis with tons of free information and striking opportunity that can only be used against them.

And Dib is worse at this, like, so… so much worse. Zim will do the classic ‘Muahahaha, now that I have you right where I want you, here’s a detailed presentation of my entire insidious plan, Batman!’ routine while at least having the class to wait until the hero is being lowered over the acid vat or tied to the train tracks. Dib, as a villain? Would start reciting that same speech while in the middle of trying to kidnap the hero, about 3 and a half steps way too early. It’s actually crazy how fast he will telegraph his next move even when he’s not in a position of having a real advantage yet.

The first time the two met and Dib stood there loudly showing himself as the most perceptive and hostile human in range? And then stood there explaining alien sleep cuffs and what he was going to do with them? And then stood there declaring war and that he’d identified Zim’s base location, swinging said cuffs around in front of the gnome brigade? Granted, he wasn’t aware of Zim’s security at the time, but the essence of that sequence was a pattern that he was more than happy to keep repeating for the next couple seasons.

Also, Zim’s brutalism, while it went to some shudder inducing places, is more expected from a genocidal maniac born from a race of colonial supremacists. It’s part of his theatrics and it’s fun for him in the same way it’s fun for his leaders to blow up innocent ice cream space-trucks and unlucky planets. Dib gets mean with their face offs in a way that’s just dripping with spite. All the time spite. Trivial, personal, petulant spite. Even more than Tak and her grudge, which, should be a lot more surprising to me. But it’s really not.

What it did do instead was remind me of a very interesting quote I once heard, from a Cracked video about online gaming behavior, of all places,

#invader zim #dib membrane #iz #iz dib #iz analysis #my memes #adorkable jerkass #Only real thing separating their brands of idiocy is Zim’s blissful denial lmao #he infodumps about his plans like me rambling about my dnd campaigns lmfao #dib slander #scarlet talks about things

[braveandsnipe]

BoonBoonger Information

Most of this info comes from TV Asahi's website. I did my best with translations.

edit: i fixed boonblack's name. sorry i can't read

Cast

Red– Haruhi Uichi

Blue– Yuki Hayama (prev. Okamoto)

Pink– Miu Suzuki

Black– Ryu Saito

Orange– Satoru Souma

while none of these actors have been in a previous toku series, 3/5 of them have been in productions concerning the story of "cinderella".

suzuki also guest starred in a drama which starred rin takanashi (shinken pink) and had ukyo matsumoto (kamen rider snipe) as a support character. this is relevent because i watched this drama, and enjoyed it a lot

Characters

BoonRed– Taiya Handou

He is a master of development and modification. He works as a "delivery man" with the cars he builds. When he likes a person or a thing, he says, "I love it!" or "I bought it!" He has the ability to see things for what they really are, and he has a strong competitive instinct that leads him to make quick judgments. Even if there is a risk, he says, "Isn't it better to take the risk?" He is the type of person who enjoys taking risks in a positive manner. He is adept at using both rods and guns, and is good at creative fighting according to the situation.

BoonBlue– Ishirou Meita

An "informant", a master of information gathering. Usually a freelance spy. He always considers risks and makes calm decisions. He is meticulous and cynical. He fights alongside Taiya as if it were a "job he had contracted". He has excellent, dynamic vision and is good at precise movements. When he uses a gun, he is a one-hit wonder.

BoonPink– Mira Shifuto

A "driver", an expert in driving and maneuvering. She usually works part-time at various stores. Her pedal work technique is so good that both Taiya and Ishirou are amazed. She is a mood-maker and a troublemaker. After meeting Taiya, she began to show her true core strength. She fights intuitively with his unique sensibility.

BoobBlack– Jou Akuse

He is a "police man", a rookie cop who is passionate about justice. He usually patrols the town on his bicycle as a uniformed police officer. He is a serious and aggressive person. He is more hard than soft. He is confident in his physical strength. He mainly likes to use the rod mode of the Boom Boom Change Axe.

BoonOrange– Kenba Bureki

A "procurer," a master of procurement. He is a man who can be relied on to procure what he needs from anywhere. He has a gentle and soft manner. He is elusive and never shows his true feelings. He is more soft than hard. He is good at fighting by taking advantage of his opponent's movements. He mainly uses the Axe Mode of the Boom Boom Change Axe.

Friends of Boonboomger

Boondeals Boondrio (?) – Also known as "Boom Boom"

A car-shaped alien who fell to earth after being wounded. It resides in the garage of Taiya's secret base at his home, and usually lives in humanoid or human-sized form.

When in human form, he wears a self-made sun visor on his head. He is a first-rate mechanic, and he and Taiya, who likes to tinker with machines, get along well and consider each other to be best friends. He is also good at housework, and for some reason often makes curry.

Boonboomger's set of equipment was made with the help of Boomboom and Taiya. Taiya and his friends call themselves "Boonboomgers," meaning "Boonboom and his warriors. They monitor Boonboomger's battles from Taiya's garage and sometimes support him remotely.

Boonboom can grow to a giant size. The power is drawn out when the Boonboomger rides on it. It can combo with various Boonboomgers and fight huge enemies as a Boonboomger robot.

Voiced by Rica Matsumoto

Great Space Invasion Dairikurikidan Hashiriyan (Villians)

The unborn of the universe. They attack people in order to collect the human scream energy Gasoline ("Gyasolin").

Deco Trade ("Dekotarade") – (left), Has dreams of moving up the ranks. One of 3 idiotic site supervisors who causes trouble every time. Voiced by Junichi Sawabe (who has been in previous Toku Productions)

Itasha – (right), Has dreams of moving up the ranks. One of 3 idiotic site supervisors who causes trouble every time. Voiced by Nana Mizuki (Was in Super Hero Taisen Z)

Yaruka Yai Yai – Has dreams of moving up the ranks. One of 3 idiotic site supervisors who causes trouble every time. Sometimes becomes a car. Voiced by Sumire Moroshi.

Trailer and Music

Via @/DailyBoonBoom on Twitter

Trailer

Opening Theme

The ED is titled "Konkotsu Pon Pon" by Rica Matsumoto and there will be a dance ver for it. [src]

#super sentai #bakuage sentai boonboomger #boonboomger #we're staying at the lotus inn #boonboomger spoilers

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 43

Tw: some description of post mortem decay

Tegan once found herself in the mid-1980s. While here, she had an encounter with a rather stroppy teenaged waitress. This waitress was named "Dorothy." (Novel: The Crystal Bucephalus)

During funerals on Venus, the brain of the deceased is cut up and eaten by those attending. This was a way the deceased could live on as they would gain the deceased's memories this way. The First Doctor could take this in stride, but Barbara and Ian were a bit disturbed by it. (Novel: Venusian Lullaby)

Rassilon feared for the survival of the Time Lords so deeply that he sent biogenic molecules back in time that would force all life forms in the universe that were affected to evolve into something similar to what was the Gallifreyan standard. This is why so many species look similar. (So Time Lords don't look human...Humans look like Time Lords, just as Trions, Trakenites, etc etc do, because Rassilon interfered with their natural evolution). (Audio: Zagreus)

The Doctor's previous selves maintain awareness in their subconscious, and for a while, the Doctor would keep some of them imprisoned in their mind. For example, the Fifth Doctor was kept in chains in a pit. (Novel: Timewyrm: Revelation)

They also kept the Sixth Doctor imprisoned very deep inside the Doctor's mind for fear of the Valeyard. (Novel: Head Games)

Indeed, the Seventh Doctor started having dreams that his Eighth would lock him in a "room with no doors" after their regeneration. (Novel: The Room With No Doors)

The design for the Mondasian Cyberman was based off of a body scan of the Fifth Doctor. (Audio: Spare Parts)

By some accounts, Liz Shaw died of Agent Yellow, which is a virus that turns oxygen into sulfuric acid somehow. (Novel: Eternity Weeps)

The Fatkats are a race of giant, intelligent cats. They sometimes keep humans as pets. Rory was kidnapped by a Fatkat and given to his kid as a gift, and the kid renamed him Cuddles. The Eleventh Doctor and Amy eventually convinced the Fatkats to help them free Rory, and as a thank-you gift, he left them a life-sized stuffed Doctor doll for them to play with. (Comic: Humans Aren't Just For Christmas)

The Tenth Doctor once wrote a letter to the Brigadier, saying he felt guilty for not visiting and that he was thinking of him. When the Brigadier died, this letter was found lying on his bedside cabinet as though he had just been reading it. Thus, it is likely that the Doctor’s words were the last he ever read and that he might have even passed thinking about his old friend. (Novel: The Time Lord Letters)

When Time Lords die, their TARDISes do as well. (Audio: The Axis of Insanity)

The Axis is a place in interdimensional space that holds together and regulates all damaged timelines to prevent the contamination from spreading. Time Lords typically aren't welcome since they are responsible for most aberrant timelines, but one was sent to investigate when Jarra To took over. This Time Lord was later found by the Doctor, oozing pus and covered in roaches after being murdered by Jarra To. (Audio: The Axis of Insanity)

One time after stumbling on alien invaders, the Eighth Doctor and Charley used their acting skills to save the day. Charley became Lady Charleyostiantayshius, a Gallifreyan observer, and the Doctor became a transcriber from the High Council, who is pretty much Lady Charleyostiantayshius's excitable if a bit bumbling companion. They both wear the proper Gallifreyan regalia, and Charley was so good at her act that the Doctor thought she made a better Gallifreyan than he did. The Doctor convinces the captain of the alien fleet that there is a plague and gives him large quantities of the "vaccine," which is actually just straight up alcohol, so the captain gets wasted. (Audio: Living Legend)

The Doctor's memory of his first two incarnations is hazy, to say the least. (Audio: Cold Fusion)

Patience regenerated into a female form only after meeting the Fifth Doctor. The description of their prior incarnation is ambiguous in that regard. (Audio: Cold Fusion, Novel: Cold Fusion)

Peri was infected with a virus that copied all of her DNA and turned anyone she touched into a clone of herself. This included the Fifth Doctor, who started at first by repeating what Peri said and then became her. Based on the classic Big Finish noises that accompanied this, the change is graphically painful (Audio: Mission of the Viyrans)

First 1 Prev 42 Next 44

#doctor who #dw #dr who #classic who #new who #big finish #big finish doctor who #big finish audios #dw eu #doctor who eu #doctor who expanded universe #eighth doctor #fifth doctor #tegan jovanka #sixth doctor #seventh doctor #ace mcshane #eleventh doctor #amy pond #rory williams #first doctor #second doctor #barbara wright #ian chesterton #charley pollard #the valeyard #liz shaw #brigadier alistair gordon lethbridge stewart #brigadier lethbridge stewart #peri brown

[inbarfink]

So here is a thing that I noticed going over the sort of weird expressions that Zim uses in canon. When Zim doesn’t know the human term for something, he will make up some bizarre word combination of his own… but he will hardly ever substitute an Irken term for it. You know, when he first comes to Earth, he doesn’t call Human children ‘smeets’, he calls them ‘worm-babies’. He doesn’t assume the Earth is controlled by a Tallest, he just calls President Man ‘the Earth Leader’. 

And that… makes sense, Irk is a spacefaring empire which clearly had contact with other alien civilizations for a very long time. Zim would have some frame of reference to know that, for example, Vortians don’t call their children ‘Smeets’ and therefore he has no reason to assume the distant alien planet he just landed on would use that term either. I mean, yeah, Zim is often irrational - but that’s one point where he is surprisingly reasonable…. Well, until he needs to think up what he assumes the proper inconspicuous earth term would likely be and comes up with the most ludicrous option available.

And sometimes, and especially later on in the series, it’s clear that he does know what the Correct Earth Term is but is just looking for an excuse to insult humanity again by using a derogatory term he made up. 

And, like, you know… yeah, it is actually kinda obvious why he wouldn’t use the Irken term in that context. He thinks Irkens are inherently superior to humanity. Calling human children ‘Smeets’ would be comparing them to Irken children which would be a compliment to the ‘filthy humans’ that he would not be able to stomach. And like, I know a lot of ‘Alien Among Us’ stories get a lot of their comedy from, y’know, cultural differences and assumptions clashing. But I would argue that while IZ does that sometimes, a lot of Invader Zim’s comedy is actually based on Zim’s immediately assuming Earth Culture has to be as alien to Irken Culture as possible, when they are actually not so different. 

But also I want to take a moment to address the one time where Zim does seemingly uses an Irken term for a human, and that’s when he address the McMeaties clerk guy as ‘Burger Lord’ in ‘Germs’4

Which is probably related to the Irken title for a high-ranking frycook being ‘Frylord’.

But that actually makes sense both in the sense of, like... this term is in use on Foodcourtia, and Foodcourtia, although clearly a part of the Irken Empire, is frequented by many different alien species. So due to the planet's importance as a galactic center for fast food, the term ‘Frylord’ and its derivatives have spread beyond the Irken Empire. Or maybe it was an alien term to begin with and it spread into Foodcourtia through its non-Irken customers. Whatever it is, Zim would at least have a reason to think this might be a universal term and not an Irken-specific thing.

And also, this is a rare occasion where Zim is kinda, like, trying to genuinely get on the good graces of a human and is treating human technology (SPACE MEAT) with an unusual amount of respect - and he just doesn’t really have the mental focus to start condescending to him right now. So kinda reflexively using an unusually respectful Irken term for a mere Human Fast Food Worker makes sense considering his emotional state. He’s probably too germ-panicked to remember he’s not supposed to remember his time in Foodcourtia as well. 

Like, yes, I am aware I am probably looking too deeply into the continuity of this one line. “Germs” and “The Frycook of What Came From All That Space” are so far apart in the timeline that the actual writers probably weren’t thinking about this, right? I just think it’s Cool that one can fit this little ‘Burger Lord’ detail so neatly and so consistently into the lore and with Zim’s characterization.

#invader zim #iz #iz analysis #zim #zim iz #iz zim #invader zim iz #invader zim zim #zim invader zim #irken #iz irken #irken empire #invaderzim #irken language

[armouredgoblin]

In regards to my previous post about Fem Custodes

I have a few points to make If I made you mad. That's not my problem. I still hold the opinion that they should not be a thing due to 30+ years of lore stating that they have always been men. I have heard a few arguments.

"Its always been political"

Well yes but actually no. Internally it has its own set of politics depending on which faction you look at. You can have politics that are separate to the real world. A good example of that outside of the Warhammer Universe is Helldivers.

Helldivers developers Arrowhead decided that they would not put anything that would represent the real world beyond the fact that humans exist. They rejected putting things such as rainbow capes and country based capes because it would take away from the actual internal lore and would cause division in the community.

The people that want these things tend forced into the media/lore to be the people who wont actually play it because they never wanted it in the first place.

"Its just a small change what's the harm?"

Its a step. One small step towards creating female space marines. If you can make custodes gene seeds work in woman; then you can make the space marine ones work in them too because who cares any more?.

Its an active attempt at slowly moving the Warhammer universe and turning it into the grey sludge that only appeals to the "Modern Audience" filled with the political messages that only goes one way.

I wanted to enjoy the lore as an experience separate to my own existence. I want to use this as an escape of this work but I am seeing it slowly being infiltrated and ruining the immersion.

"There isn't enough representation in Warhammer40k"

Who the fuck wants to be represented in the universe that is basically one constant war. Were the standard imperial guardsmen (of which contain both genders) eat what is called "corpse starch".

To be fair in the spotlight there is mostly the Space Marines which is an all male team of genetically altered super humans (the Custodes are further up that chain and are seen as even more powerful than the average Space Marine). Space Marines are barely recognisable as humans due to the effect of the gene seed.

However if people actually looked they would find there is plenty of representation within Warhammer40k. There are many factions outside of the Space Marines that have both female and males on the frontlines of this eternal war.

Factions: Eldar (Male and Female) Dark Eldar (Male and female) Imperial Guardsmen (As mentioned before) Sisters of Battle (All female) Sisters of Silence (All female) Not sure about them: Tau: I know they take from many species and I am not so sure what they have on the male and female ratio.

Errm: Tyranids: Alien bug species, fuck knows what they have. Chaos: They will defiantly have both, Slannesh will torture fuck you all.

Speaking of Slannesh While often referred as male, he actually can be both and neither.

"GW can do what they wish with their IP"

Yes. There is not much to argue with there. They could even pull a Disney Star Wars and state that everything from the next codex is now the true canon and everything before it no longer exists. In my opinion this would be stupid.

"Warhammer40k is for everyone"

Is it tho? You seem to be ready to throw out many people who don't immediately agree with you.

No media in any form is for everyone. People have a preference and can not like things.

Using myself as an example. I don't like sports games. Therefore I don't play them as it's not for me. I am not demanding sports games change the entire premise and add things to attract me to the game.

In short if you don't like it, don't force yourself into it. If you are interested. Experience it before making decisions. and especially before you decide that you can change the entire hobby to fit you.

Make your own thing.

Chances are there will be an audience however small or large it may be.

For those of you on the frontlines of the Gatekeeping Hold the line.

#politics #warhammer 40k #adeptus custodes #female custodes #media #invasive species #gatekeepers

[ckret2]

Chapter 15 of Bill's a human prisoner and everybody's grumpy about it, featuring: NIGHTMARES NIGHTMARES NIGHTMARES NIGHTM

Remember these? We're getting 'em both in one chapter. Plus: FORD! Also: a little bit of human gore, a lot of bizarre alien gore.

This is a shorter chapter, but it's the first one with a direct glimpse into Bill's backstory and home dimension. I hope you enjoy! And are deeply horrified!

####

"You have to stop spouting this nonsense." A golden line slithered around him, weaving back and forth, her furious eye focused on him as she paced. "Nobody comes to your services for deranged muttering about points of light in darkness. They don't want to hear about things that are above-but-not-north of us! What does that mean, above-but-not-north?"

"It means what it says, Mom." Above him—above, but not north, in an endless void outside the plane of the world—countless stars twinkled in an unending dark. "That's where the third dimension is. And that's what it looks like! I don't know how else to explain it to someone who hasn't seen it!"

"Then why explain it at all? They don't want to hear it! It's a surprise you aren't already losing congregants. I know you can tell you're losing their interest."

He could tell. Sullenly, he said, "Maybe we just—just need smarter congregants. If they weren't too stupid to understand—"

"People are stupid, sweetie. That's why they follow you. You don't want the smart ones anyway, or they'd be smart enough to see through all the lies you make up about the third dimension—"

"I'm not making it up!"

"Every week you talk about impossible places that can't exist! Either you're lying or insane—which is it?"

How could he answer that? He looked up into space, as if the distant stars only he saw could help him.

"Oh, don't do that, I hate when your eye goes white like that. It might impress your worshipers but it doesn't work on your mother, young triangle." She paced around him faster, coiling tighter, surrounding him on all sides in gold, her eye peering straight into his. "I don't care whether you're a liar or a lunatic—you're still my golden child, and everyone else will see that too as long as you tell them what we say. Nobody wants to hear that the third dimension is a dark, empty void! Tell them it's full of color and life! Tell them it's filled with the spirits of departed shapes, or messengers, divine guides, muses—"

"But it isn't! I don't care what they want it to be, it's not true! I'm trying to make them understand!" He had to make them understand, he needed somebody to understand. He thought he'd go insane if he was the only one who could see how empty and awful space was.

"I've listened to your gibberish about points of light and up-not-north for months and I don't understand it, so how can anyone else—"

"You're not trying to understand!" Space and all its vast emptiness was oh, so close, so achingly close. Pressing against everyone's bodies, breathing over their organs, lighting up those tight-coiled fibers beneath everyone's skin, shining on the bloody bones and thin muscles. "Either you're not listening or you're stupid!" How couldn't anyone else see space?

"How dare you—!"

How could they be close enough to touch it and still deny what it was?

Why was he the only freak who could bend up into it?

Her sharp tail cracked like a whip behind his base. "I'll teach you to talk back to me like that!"

His mind was feverish with anger, pulsing and roiling behind his eye—and for a moment, he wasn't afraid of anything.

She could bend and flex and coil, she was the most flexible line he'd ever seen. The doctors thought he might have inherited his ability to bend up-not-north from her, some genetic predisposition to flexibility. If he could bend UP, so could she. He'd make her. He'd force her. He'd show her.

He jammed his corner into her side. She shrieked, uncoiling from around him to scrunch around her wound. "Watch your— What are you—"

"You'll see," he said, shoving her against the wall, shoving her into a corner. "You'll see if it's the last thing you do!" It was like cramming a long rope into a short box; each time he shoved, she bent and curved and bent again.

"Stop—stop, it HURTS—"

He could see it in his mind's eye: if he kept pushing and pushing eventually there'd be no more room in two dimensional space for her to fill, and then she'd be forced to bend UP, up into the third dimension, all that open free space. Then she'dsee the dark, she'd see the far points of light—

"STOP!" She howled in pain. He kept pushing. She was out of room.

She didn't bend up.

He shoved—and she splintered. Bone snapping, cartilage tearing, he could see inside her thin body as things broke and ruptured.

He didn't know what to do.

And for several long, long seconds—he couldn't remember what was happening. The world seemed to bend wrong, rippling up-but-not-north and down-but-not-south, and his head swam and his vision blurred, and he couldn't remember.

Her skin fractured and peeled off, strand after strand. He’d seen grotesque injuries and rotting bodies before—he’d been in hospitals and seen through the bandages, been in graveyards and seen into the coffins, unable not to see though the doors and walls and tombs. He’d seen the way the skin came off, the way it split into hairy filaments as it loosened from the body, bristly around injuries or sloughed off whole from the long dead. But he'd never seen dead skin curl like his mother's, loosely zig-zagging back and forth and wrapping into spirals like the centers of flowers. It filled the spaces between his fingertips, wrapped up his arms. He could shut his eye but he still saw it through his eyelid, still felt it tickling at the corners of his mouth. 

Irrationally, wildly, hysterically, watching his mother die, he wondered—when he died, when he was a corpse, when he rotted—when his body split open in half from his burst eye, as the labyrinth of his guts bloated and unwound and inverted themselves to spill in sick threads from his mouth, and his skin peeled free, layer by hairy layer, from his eyelid out—would his rotting golden skin curl like his mother's had?

He knew it would. He knew it would. He knew it would.

####

He woke to moonlight streaming through curls upon curls of golden skin dangling in his eye, choking him on rot.

He squeezed his eyes shut, batted the hair aside, and forced himself to breathe until the nausea subsided.

He hated how humans dreamt.

He decided he didn't want any more sleep tonight.

He dragged himself upright, shambled downstairs, and tried to ignore the coils of his internal organs spilling out of his head and dangling around his face.

He needed a drink.

####

Ford woke up standing over a bed and a body.

He couldn't identify the shape or size of the body under the sheets, due to how badly it was contorted and the way the dark pools of blood in the bedsheets distorted the shadows. All he could see was the head: a flash of a pale cheek turned away, and the unmistakeable Pines hair curls. The hair was matted with blood.

Ford's hands were coated in hot blood and cold blue flames. There was a nauseating metallic taste in his mouth and something thick and warm dripping down his chin.

He heard a quiet chuckle. He whipped around to face it—

And saw himself reflected in a triangular window, a gray shade. He was smiling so widely he could see moonlight glinting off his molars. His slitted eyes glowed a sickly yellow.

Ford woke up staring at the ceiling. He licked his lips; reassuringly dry. He held up his hands; clean.

He sighed.

Ford could roll over and go back to sleep. He'd gotten used to dreams like this decades ago; these days he hardly even had them. But he was already awake and irritated. He might as well pick up where he'd left his research at dinner time—do something that felt productive. He got up, fished a crumpled paper that said "Downstairs" out of his bedside stand and set it next to Stan's glasses, and crept out of the guest room to head for the vending machine.

Bill was in the kitchen.

Ford stopped in the next room, staring through the doorway. Bill was sitting in the dark, only his silhouette visible in the light through the window. He was hunched over the kitchen table, supported on his elbows, unmoving. Ford couldn't see Bill's reflection in the window. Not even his eyes.

Ford wondered what he dreamed about. Perhaps the thrill of possessing people.

He was half tempted to confront Bill—demand to know what he was up to—but, Ford told himself, there was nothing to confront Bill for. They'd given him permission to use the kitchen freely. Bill wasn't up to anything. It was well within his rights to sit silently at the table in the dark.

Ford just didn't like it.

He crept into the living room. Bill never noticed him.

####

Dipper divided the nightmares he'd been having since last summer into two categories: the Bill nightmares; and the Bipper nightmares—which were, in a way, also Bill nightmares.

The Bill nightmares were just his regular nightmares, except that Bill was also in them. For Dipper, regular nightmares were a mishmash of fears, insecurities, chaos, and random weirdness. It was natural that Bill, the most terrifying entity Dipper had ever met, occasionally guest starred in his dreams. The problem was that, since Bill actually could invade dreams and always brought chaos and random weirdness in his wake, it was that much harder for Dipper to realize he was dreaming rather than actually facing Bill—and, once he woke up, harder for him to reassure himself it really was only a dream.

(Mabel told him she had similar problems, and it wasn't even limited to nightmares. Sometimes, no matter how sweet or unthreatening her dream was—and sometimes because it was so sweet—their erratic scene-changing logic-breaking wish-making nature gave her the creeping sense that she was trapped back in Mabeland. Not often, she said. But occasionally, when Dipper couldn't sleep either, he could hear her wake herself repeating "—I wanna go back to reality—I want to go back—go back to the real world," and then meow herself back to sleep.)

On the other hand, the Bipper nightmares were like no dreams he'd ever had before.

They might start out as normal nightmares—dreaming of a near death experience, or a monster charging at him, or some humiliation too deep to endure further sleeping through—until he jolted awake. Or he'd think he'd jolted awake—in truth, he'd just woken up into another dream, so realistic he thought he was awake until he realized he was hovering over his bed, and the world looked hazy and false, and his body was still beneath the covers. Just like when Bill had ripped him free of his body.

The first time he'd had the Bipper nightmare, Dipper thought Bill had taken over him again, and that at any moment his body would open its eyes and laugh at him. When that didn't happen, he thought he'd died. He'd flown to Mabel's room, to his parents', to Waddles, to the neighbors' houses, trying desperately to get someone's attention—and when nothing worked, he returned to his still body in despair and waited there, sure that in a few hours his parents would come to get him for school and find him dead...

But then he'd woken up. For real, this time. And then he woke the rest of the house with his screaming.

He learned to cope with these nightmares, both the Bill ones and the Bipper ones. He talked about them with Mabel during the day or went to her for reassurance at night. Sometimes he called Ford, if he and Stan were in a time zone where they'd still be awake. (Ford said he'd had nightmares for years about Bill invading his dreams—and almost none of them had been real. He said that his visits from Bill were usually less chaotic than a normal dream. Bill liked his weirdness but he liked being the center of attention more; he liked to stage his dreams like a movie director, keeping a firm grip on the setting and the narrative flow, snapping from location to location and moment to moment with an artistry that natural dreams didn't have. The muddled mundanity of your average nightmare was beneath Bill.)

And Dipper learned to wait out his Bipper nightmares. Sometimes he wandered the hallways, but he found that engaging with the dream tended to prolong it; instead, if he stayed by his body and didn't do anything, eventually he'd drift back into deep sleep and wake back up. He started keeping a radio on at night—he could hear it in his sleep—and listening to the weird 3 a.m. broadcasts kept him entertained enough until he woke.

####

But since returning to Gravity Falls, Dipper had found a new way to deal with his nightmares:

Yelling at Bill about them.

Tonight, he was having his guilt-dream about his dad asking why he'd given up kickboxing; until the dream was interrupted by Bill emerging from the refrigerator to announce that Weirdmageddon was opening a second location in Piedmont and then throw a rabid skunk at Dipper's face. Dipper had woken up too angry to think straight, stomped to Bill's empty window seat, and then stomped downstairs.

He found Bill sitting in the kitchen in the dark, washing down a bag of cookies with a pack of hard cider and staring out at the night. Dipper stopped in the doorway. "You!"

Bill turned to give Dipper a bleary-eyed look. "Me?" 

"Stop messing with my dreams and stay out of my head!"

"Beg pardon?" Bill's eyelids were desynchronized as he slowly blinked. "I'm just..." He gestured vaguely around the kitchen with a mostly-empty cider can. "I am just—sitting here."

"You've been in my nightmares all year," Dipper said hotly, even as he was waking up enough to realize that Bill, down here in the kitchen, probably wasn't influencing his dreams. "So just—just..." This was stupid. "Cut it out, man."

"You've been dreaming about me? How sweet." Bill gave Dipper a mocking grin, propped his chin in his hand, propped his elbow on the table, actually missed putting his elbow on the table by at least six inches, and fell to the ground with a yelp.

Dipper stared tiredly at Bill cackling on the floor, and turned around and trudged upstairs.

Dipper found that, whenever he had nightmares about golden geometric apocalypses, it was reassuring to get an instant reminder that Bill had been nowhere near his head. Even if he thought Bill was laying on the "helpless human" act a little thick.

####

(I'm still recovering from Health Junk, so if you've got any comments, I'd deeply appreciate them now even more than I usually do. Thank you, y'all readers and commenters and friends are really keeping me going during this time of feeling like a pile of half-sentient gunk. 🙏✨)

#gravity falls #bill cipher #human bill cipher #dipper pines #gravity falls fic #my writing #my art #bill goldilocks cipher

[mlm-writer]

If I Should Become a Stranger (Smokescreen x GN!Reader)

Pairing: Smokescreen (TFP ver.) x Human!Gender Neutral!Reader Rating: General Audiences Words: 1608 POV: Second Summary: Smokescreen left you over a decade ago to rebuild Cybertron and until today, you had not heard from him since. Note: Read a Transformers novel and then it really dawned on me how beings with such a long life span must view time differently. So this fic explores that a little. Inspired by this song. Tags: angst, hurt no comfort (for smokey tbh), breakup from Smokescreen’s POV and song fic. 

Humans would argue that in war, there was nothing as precious as love. In war, one should hug one's friends more often, hold one's family tighter and kiss one's lover longer. Such was the philosophy of men; cherish what you have now you have it. It was quite befitting to a race with such short lives. Cybertronian's however…

Even in war, many acted like life would never end. There was plenty of time to fight one's friends. There was even more time to find it in you to mend things, patch up the wounds you created together. Even when friends started to lose the light in their optics, when the streets started to fill with the husks of neighbours, when tomorrow was more a wish than a promise, even then, Cybertronians were often found doing anything but cherishing the moment. 

Smokescreen was no different. Sure, he was impatient and young by comparison, but even to him, everything seemed to be able to wait, 'fore there will be a later. Hence why he had no reservations about going to Cybertron to rebuild. Hence why he could look upon his human lover with a smile as bright as the full moon on a clear night, while saying his goodbyes. "I'll see you soon," he had said while swaggering backwards into the space bridge. You had believed him as much as you had loved him back then.  

"Hey Ratchet, any messages for me?" You asked as you always did when visiting the medic at the old base. Ratchet looked down at you with those same sorry optics. He didn't need to say anything, but he always gave you the courtesy of an answer. 

"I'm sorry, there has been no communication for you," he spoke evenly, trying to keep the pity out of his voice. It was always like that. At first you stopped by every few days, then weekly, monthly, every few months… at some point you forgot to go altogether. You moved for work, so it was suddenly a whole journey to come visit. You got fired from that job, then you got a new job. You fell in love, got your heart broken, broke a limb, healed both and what else? It was just life - life without sentient alien robots, explosions and secret government missions. 

It almost seemed like it had all been a dream. You had almost forgotten about all the adventures of your youth, were it not for that scar on your arm you got from a brief brush with Soundwave at the satellite array. That was just the start, but somehow you made it through several threats to the planet fairly unscathed. That scar on your arm was the only big reminder you had of those days aside from the pictures stuffed in a box in your garage, somewhere on a shelf that was too high for you to reach without a chair to stand on. 

You were about to drive back from work to that garage when you caught sight of a familiar car in the parking lot. The colours were not as you remembered them, but it was strange to see a sports car like this at an office like yours. You stared at the vehicle for a long time and then sighed, before opening the driver's door to your car. However, as soon as you opened the door, the sports car you had been staring at earlier flashed its lights and started honking. You squinted your eyes and closed the door again. 

You locked your car and walked over to the other car that was making a ruckus. As soon as you approached, it quieted down and the driver’s door opened on its own. Against your best judgement, you got in. When you sat down, the seat belt wrapped itself around you and the engine revved to life. “Missed me?” A familiar voice came from the radio as the car drove out of the parking lot to God-knows-where. However, hearing that voice, you felt no fear, no worries, just a deep-seated resentment that had been dormant for many years. 

“Smokescreen,”  you greeted your ride with a tight voice. Said Autobot made a joke about how you simply could not forget him. It only angered you more. You had forgotten, mostly, until now. After that greeting, the air chilled down and not a word was exchanged, until Smokescreen pulled up at the side of an abandoned road. There used to be a factory at the end of it, but since the building had been decommissioned, no one used the road anymore; it was leading to virtually nowhere nowadays. 

The seat belt unfastened and you got out. When your shoes hit the dusty ground, the vehicle transformed into a shape that you used to know. You marvelled at his size as if it was the first time you witnessed his transformation. Cybertronians did not age, but that young face you used to know seemed more mature anyway. There was something about his gaze that got more intense, more serious. There was a slouch in his posture that was the telltale weight of responsibilities befitting an adult. 

Smokescreen whispered your name after a while of quiet staring. “Why are you here?” You inquired as a response. Hurt was evident on his face, but you thought it was a valid question. For over a decade, there was radio silence. Why would he be here if not for another danger looming over your planet? 

Smokescreen let out a scoff. “To see you of course!” He beamed in spite of everything. It was your turn to scoff as you crossed your arms. Your ex looked you over and then, very intelligently, said: “You’ve become bigger! That’s really cool! I forgot humans could do that… Want to go to the drive-in theatre today?” 

You sighed and turned to walk back to your car. It was gonna be a long walk, but you were stubborn and too prideful to tell him to drive you back. “There are no drive-in theatres in this area..” 

You barely got a few steps away when Smokescreen yelled from behind you. “I should have left you a message! I’m sorry!” You kept walking, tears prickling in your eyes. “I forgot!” He added as if it was a valid excuse. 

“Well, I forgot who you are!” You yelled over your shoulder, speeding up your walking. You heard your ex transform behind you and like a bad movie, he started driving next to you. All that was missing was pouring rain, but the sky was so clear, you could see the many constellations gradually making themselves known. 

He was driving with the door closest to you open, trying to get you to get in. “Come on! It has not been that long! I admit I have changed a little, but I’m still me, your Smokey…” You tried to block his voice out, stubbornly trudging on down the abandoned road. “I came back, because I started talking about you so much, Arcee practically shoved me into the space bridge to shut me up. It’s been like my processors always circle back to you.” He swerved and came to a halt right in front of you, forcing you to stop walking. “I told you I would see you soon…” 

You took a deep breath, ensuring that whatever you said next would be spoken in a normal, even tone. Smokescreen reverted back to bot mode, looking at you with pleading optics that could once pull your heartstrings. However, those times were long behind you. “Smokescreen,” you started like you were lecturing a child, “it has been like what? A decade and some? That may not be a long time for you, but I am human. A decade right now is about a third of my life. You made me wait a third of my life. Does that sink in with you?” 

Smokescreen seemed to shrink, pinned under your intense gaze. “I’m sorry,” he muttered eventually. His servos clenched and unclenched. You could see his processors working overtime, just to formulate a response. “I guess you’re right. Cybertron has become quite lively. I proved myself a leader. I made a lot of new friends… Maybe it is a long time…” For someone with a seemingly endless supply of RAM, he was awfully slowly putting the events of the past decade in perspective. His voice trailed off after every sentence. Eventually he just whispered one last thing. “A third…” 

You pitied him. You had enough time to mend the heart he broke many years ago. To him, however, he came back like he said, just to find what he left behind to no longer exist. Without a word he transformed into his alt mode. “I’ll take you back,” he stated. You did not resist this time and got in. 

The drive back was quiet. You did not speak. He did not speak. Only white noise filled the spaces between one heavy spark and only a slightly lighter heart. He drove you back to the parking lot where you had your car. You were about to get out when you heard his voice one last time. “For what it is worth, let me just say: I love you. You’re the best thing I ever had.” 

In spite of him being a stranger from the past, your heart ached. “Your life is long. You’ll love again. Don’t worry.” You patted the steering wheel and then got out. You did not look back and by the time you sat in your car, your car was the only one in the parking lot with the lights on.

#smokescreen #tfp smokescreen #smokescreen x reader #gender neutral reader #male reader #transformers #tfp #Transformers Prime #transformers x reader #transformers x gender neutral reader #transformers x male reader #tfp x reader #tfp x male reader #tfp x gender neutral reader #hasbro

[simon-roy]

The idea of logging on a colonized alien planet brings my mind back to the planet Lalonde from Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn books - a world that had very hard wood as its only meaningful export, and was also stuck developing its economy from agriculturalism (due to investment shortages, though).

All this is to say - Hey! What are some foundational inspirations for your sci fi verse? You gotta have some like recommendations of classic or older sci-fi for us, right? What are some of your suggestions of books and authors to read?

OK SO - My sci-fi tastes have sort of ended up in some very specific niches. Growing up, I was a Larry Niven +Jerry Pournelle man, in part because my dad amassed a huge collection of their books - then gave 90% of them away before i was old enough to read them. So one of my teenage missions was rebuilding that library, trash and all!

Stuff like Footfall, Ringworld, Gil "The Arm" Hamilton, Protector (yes i attempted to name a comic series similarly, and paid for it) "The Mote in God's Eye"... you name it, I read fuckloads of these books. And while they tend to land on a sort of human chauvinist "mankind will win based on his inherent adaptive human-ness, and the aliens will fail because of their rigid alien-ness", this shit was very foundational to me.

Their more collaborative series, The Man-Kzin Wars and War World, also loom large in my teenage mind. The Man-Kzin wars are super fun - humans meet a race of tiger-men, and go from being NWO peaceniks to roughneck cat-skinners in a generation! PEACE AND LOVE WONT DEFEAT TIGER MEN!

Similarly, war world (like lots of that 70s/80s military sci fi) was a sort of catch-all for western military nerds to play with their favorite factions - it was a planet where all the un-ruleable ethnic groups and nationalities had been deported by the authoritarian earth government, and left to rot... until a race of genetically engineered fascist super men land on the world, and start trying to rule the place. Pretty fun shit.

As I got older, I turned hard into William Gibson, and read the absolute shit out of both the Neuromancer trilogy and the Bridge trilogy, as well as his short stories. Bruce Sterling was part of that wave for me, too, and I religiously sought his old paperbacks out too. In terms of novels, "Distraction" is my favorite coherent Sterling Novel - though the short stories in the "Schismatrix" novel/collection of his remain my absolute favorite space opera pieces.

At this age, too, I found my top-top fave Sterling Stories - "Taklaman" and "Bicycle Repairman", both gritty pseudo-cyberpunk stories of the highest degree, in this collection:

This thousand-plus page collection of short stories and novellas was basically my bible for a few years - i put sticky notes on each story i loved and meant to return to, until the book was so festooned with sticky note bookmarks i abandoned the practice altogether. If you have the chance, just buy this book and chew on it for a few years.

As i got into my 20s, Charles Stross became my lode star - his books like Accelerando and Glasshouse were total game changers for me. They come with their own peculiarities, but I loved his transhuman/posthuman musings (or at least i was obsessed with his stuff for a good few years - the venn diagram of his obvious interests and my own overlapped enough that his books were great fodder for a growing sci-fi loving brain).

But since then, my main literary squeeze has been the great man, JACK VANCE. Working on Prophet, my friend @cmkosemen made a remark about how much the early issues of the series reminded him of a book series called "Planet of Adventure" or "the Tschai Cycle", by Jack Vance. The book has a beautifully simple setup - a man from an entirely undescribed spacefaring human civilization crash-lands onto a weird planet. But on that planet, he finds four separate civilizations, each who possess a population of enslaved humans, culturally and physically molded to the needs of their masters. And each book of this series covers our generic hero's interactions with each bizarre expoitative culture. I was extremely intrigued.

Soon thereafter, I found my current absolute favorite book - "THE DRAGON MASTERS". A book about an isolated medieval world... which gets visited, once every few generations, by a black pyramid starship, flown by a reptilian race known as the Greph. The greph capture humans to (surprise surprise) breed them into hyper specific slaves... who in turn become Greph-like in their thinking and demeanours. But the last time the BLACK PYRAMID landed, a bunch of angry medieval dudes stormed the thing, blew it up, and captured a bunch of greph... who became the breeding stock for a whole new human world of slave labour. By the time we meet this planet, the two rival lords of the human-populated regions have been breeding greph slave warriors, or "dragons", for generations, for combat against one another. But soon, the black pyramid will return...

I love this book I even spent a good few months during covid talking with the Vance Estate and several publishers about developing it into a graphic novel, but nobody could quite agree on how it could get made with old Simon getting a paycheque... so sadly it fell apart. There are concept drawings floating around my patreon and other corners of the internet. But one day I'll use 'em...

My other favorite books of his, to name a couple of the MANY books of his I love:

THE BLUE WORLD: A caste system of humans, descended from a crashed prison ship, live on floating settlements on an ocean planet, paying protection to a giant long-lived intelligent crustacean. But one man is tired of giving up all his crops to this tyrannical megafauna...

THE MIRACLE WORKERS: Rival lords on a planet descended to medieval tech (surprise surprise) fight using armies... and rival SORCERORS who employ the powers of suggestion to voodoo each others' warriors... but when facing non-human intelligences, these sorceror's skills fall short.

But there are heaps more, and I love most (thought not all) of the ones i've read. They're generally short, concise, and full of all sorts of bizarre bullshit.

THere are more books i've read and enjoyed in my life, of course, but these are the core ones that I think of when I think of my career as a sci-fi reader... let me know what your top recs are!

#sciencefiction #science fiction #book recommendations #jack vance #larry niven #jerry pournelle #simon roy #griz grobus #charles stross #dragon masters #william gibson #bruce sterling

[earthstellar]

just thinking about how fucked it is in TFP that June is unaware that Jack escaped the attack on the base for a decent period of time

so like for at least a few days, she is fully fighting off the despair of the very real possibility that her only child has been ground into human paté by an evil space robot warlord who is actively (and thus far, mostly successfully) attempting to violently take over the planet

yeah Fowler is there but I cannot imagine the amount of government shit he was buried under the entire time

she would have to cope those few days (longer than a week? can't rewatch atm to establish any rough timeline) of just thinking "my son was the first human casualty of an impossible war against giant mechanical alien invaders"

if she believed him dead, if her hope slipped for just a moment, the mental gymnastics needed to cope, even if just to assist Fowler the best she could, would be devastating-- the hospital is gone, the town has been evacuated, has anyone else been killed? is it just Jack? what about the other kids?

it would be easy to start thinking down a dark path, and I think Fowler kept June around instead of evacuating her because not only is there no way she would go, but because he realises that she very seriously may have just lost her son. she needs distractions, support, someone at least somewhat familiar, a sense that her input is needed and will be genuinely considered in order to gain any semblance of control over a situation that just took her son away from her. either for now, or forever.

realistically, Fowler is military, and could have forced her to leave. but he didn't. there are pros and cons to that approach, but given the circumstances, it was almost certainly the right call. good guy Fowler!!

Fowler knew Jack. Fowler did his best to keep them safe on base. She doesn't blame him. He might struggle with some guilt himself, though.

There's no blame, really; What can anyone do when giants from the sky descend and touch the Earth with pointed metal claws, raking at the ground and the people on it, like pulling weeds to clear the land for purposes beyond them?

the situation in general may have been so overwhelming, and both June and Fowler are fairly stubborn, that combined with their need for proof before mourning all of the general stress may have been enough of an active focus to keep them going

but there is no way June didn't have a complete fucking breakdown over the possibility of Jack's death at some point during all this

which is why I can sort of accept Jack's dumbass move of trying to call her

given how anxious we see her on screen most of the time when it comes to the kids (and not unreasonably so), and how little we know about the Darby family history, we can assume Jack could easily imagine how distraught his mother might be

that's a lot of emotional stress to place on a teenager who almost got extremely killed not too long ago and is currently on the run

so yes, it was a bad call (literally), but one that is totally understandable. I would expect a teenager with a close and generally positive relationship with their parent to want that parent to know they aren't dead, that there's still hope, that they're ok.

it's easy to shit on Jack for making the call when he did, but realistically, he's a teenager and real serious shit is happening and there are emotions and worry and who knows, the deceptions might get him soon anyway. it's hard to stay hopeful. and his mother is really the only relation he's got, in terms of direct family, that we ever see or hear about.

he had the opportunity to risk a final call before things may have gotten even worse no matter what, regardless of anything, and he took that chance to call his mom.

I can understand that, even if it was a dipshit move given the risks. Not a great idea, but a totally understandable one.

they couldn't play up any of this on screen for obvious reasons, not just time constraints, but because this is heavy shit for a show aimed ostensibly at a majority youth demographic, and it's understandable that they didn't focus too much on the darker aspects of this whole arc

but still, it reminds me a lot of what it's like after a bad hurricane. lots of people who are missing family members, no homes to go back to, lots of confusion and injury with no communication, it sucks. the destruction of Jasper definitely has that vibe.

I'm willing to bet June, at some point, was crying in the shower of some military temporary barracks or even shitty FEMA accomodation (I hate those fucking trailers, I've had to deal with them myself) thinking "my son is dead" over and over in a moment of despair, until walking out and thinking to herself, "he's not dead until we know he's dead" (even if she increasingly struggles to hold on to hope) and putting her clothes back on--

--they might be dirty, and Fowler may have offered some spare uniforms for her to wear from whatever soldier gear they might have had peppered around-- but Jack would recognise her scrubs, so she put them back on no matter how gross they felt

and just doing whatever she could to back up Fowler when dealing with his superiors, anything she could think about or do or focus on

either to find her son, or confirm that he had died

just really grim

anyway my break's over! back to work

#tfp #june darby #maccadam #maccadams #just thinkin' #transformers prime #agent fowler #jack darby #tfp jack #long post

[communistkenobi]

people have brought up that andor has not treated its Black characters very well and like, the weird thing is that for a very long time Star Wars has not really grappled with the racial elements inherent to fascism, all the while drawing heavily from contemporary white supremacist fascist movements (Lucas stated that the rebels were inspired by the Vietcong, making the empire both an analogue of the United States and Nazi Germany, etc). and in general I think Star Wars has not really had a strong historical perspective about its own canon, presenting it almost like a history that came from nowhere - the empire rose to power because of a dissatisfaction with a declining republic and unnecessary war, sure, but like, the ideological bits that make up a fascistic empire have not really been well established, nor have they been situated in a proper historical context. I’m not saying this never happens, but in the mainline canon (ie movies and live action shows), this is not really a subject given any real thought.

and Andor seems to be explicitly trying to rectify that in some way by showing the course of history and how revolutions are started. It seems to correctly diagnose the base ideological components of the imperial machine, it explicitly deals with how history produces new forms of political thought - Cassian listens to Nemik’s manifesto right before going to Luthen and formally joining the rebellion. This is a story of a man being radicalised and that is a textually political one. It’s also a story that is impossible to divorce from the modern political climate in the real world. Tony Gilroy, the director of the show, has even mentioned that Andor is drawing from historical events like the Russian and Haitian Revolution. But where this falls a little flat is that, again, Andor is building from this haphazard history that lacks political dimension, and so like. I’m struggling to put this fully into words, but even when we see Star Wars canon framed in political terms, it doesn’t seem interested in including the racial elements of those politics. I’m not laying the blame solely at the feet of Andor because this is a wider issue in SW - this idea that fascism does not have a racial character to it, and further still, that humanity is post-racial and all racial antagonism is actually disputes between species. So you’re in this weird place where Star Wars sort of refuses to engage with race properly, doing it only in these coarse “what if aliens were racist to each other” kind of storylines, while still being narratively racist in casting and writing decisions. So again this history from nowhere appears, apparently agnostic to the racial elements of fascism while devaluing the Black characters they have in the story without that devaluation being a textual part of the story. So really you get this double whammy where racism is like, not a thing space Nazis care about but the writers creating the space Nazis are being racist.

Anyway I think that on the whole this does temper the story andor is telling, and it’s shitty because a story that seems to otherwise be fairly aware of the material it’s dealing with seems uncaring about, like, the role Black people play in modern antifascist movements in the west lol

#sw.txt #andor #andor spoilers #about 2 go get high sorry if this does not make sense #I’m sure someone has said a better version of this I need to go looking for more posts

[justfangirlstuffs]

48. 'dancing with each other' for a soft sweet thing for mob boss menaces would be so cute~ however consider a combination of 27 and 50 ovo - @clxckwork-sun-n-moon

You go out for a night of fun, only to find yourself feeling sorely out of place. Who would have thought two devils could make you feel so safe in a time of uncertainty?

@naffeclipse

Based off of the Syzygy in Dedication AU where Sun and Moon are Mob Bosses.

Wordcount: 2469

This had been a mistake. That was the first thought that crossed your mind when you entered the heart of the hidden speakeasy. One of your recent customers, a pleasant elephant animatronic by the name of Orville, had been unable to fully front his bill, so instead offered you up the password to a watering hole run by a good friend of his. He assured you that if you let them know who sent you that you'd be well taken care of. It had been a while since you'd gone out for a night of fun, and if it didn't cost you anything then why not? The place was across town over the river, so you had to take a bus to get there after closing shop a little early for the day. You wore the cleanest and least wrinkled outfit you could find.

It was like stepping into a whole other world. The speakeasy was abuzz with energy that almost felt ill-suited for nighttime when all was usually dark and quiet. The place was dimly lit by warm yellow lights with a collection of tables housing several groups of people chatting and laughing. Some sat at the bar where an animatronic was serving drinks in the showiest way possible. There was even a dance floor where couples swung to the live band playing an upbeat jazz member. The air was permeated with the mingling smells of cigarette smoke, spirits, and various perfumes.

It was a lot and you immediately felt lost at sea. Despite the numerous amount of people, human and animatronic alike, you'd never felt more alone. Just when you considered pulling an about-face and hightailing it out of there, a large group funneled in and you were forced to move farther inside the space to avoid getting trampled. Why did you think this was a good idea? You spent most of your time around animatronics that being around so much flesh and blood actually felt alien somehow. And the human patrons definitely outnumbered the animatronic ones, though it was easy to see that most people were willing to forget any existing prejudices if the promise of alcohol was involved.

Your eyes sought for a place of refuge, just a dark quiet place where you could mentally regroup. You spotted a shadowy alcove beneath a set of stairs leading to a second floor. You wound your way through the collection of bodies, pardoning yourself until the masses thinned and you could escape to the refuge of the slightly quieter shadows. Placing both hands against the wall, you took deep breaths of foreign air trying to calm your unsteady heart. You don’t know how long you stood there, trying to even out your breathing. 

However, before you were fully back on solid ground, you feel an arm slink around your waist and a hand press over your eyes. A scream was on your lips, the only thing that stopped you was that upon inhaling you caught the thick smell of a familiar brand of cigarettes mixed with a blended musk that you had breathed many times before.

“Guess who?” a low voice chuckled in your ear.

Considering who it was that had you in their clutches, you had every right to be terrified. Instead, you felt a flood of relief washing away the anxiety and soothing your frazzled nerves, like sinking into a hot bath after a long day's work. It was a devil that had you, but at least it was a devil that you knew. Still, the question had to be asked.

“What are you doing here, Moon?”

“I'll answer you on one condition, doll?” He purred, still keeping your eyes covered, the curve of your back bumping his chest.

“I'm not joining your gang,” you said flatly, pulling his hand away from your eyes. Turning your body, you looked him dead in his red optics that softly illuminated the dark space you were in. 

Moon gave a shrug of nonchalance. “Then I hope you enjoy being left in the dark.”

“At least then I know you're never far,” you remarked.

That statement seem to catch him off guard and you had a short-lived feeling of triumph. At least until his eyes shifted down towards… your hand which was still holding on to his. In that moment you were thankful for the red in his eyes already casting a rosy glow on your skin based on the heat that burned your cheeks.

“So, where's your partner?” you asked, watching as his thumb rubbed over your knuckles. His other arm was still hooked around you, not pulling you closer -yet- just keeping you held in place.

His grin turned mischievous. “I'll tell you, for a dance.”

You came dangerously close to rolling your eyes. “Does everything have to be a transaction with you two?”

“When it comes to business matters, yes.”

Business matters, huh? You really shouldn't be getting involved in any of their business. However, you'd be lying if you said you weren't just a little curious as to why they happen to be at the exact same speakeasy as you. You couldn't possibly be that (un)lucky. You glance towards the dance floor. A much slower beat had just started playing with couples gently swaying to the thrumming bass and rolling brass. The ocean of uncertainty was far less overwhelming, especially with your lifeline that just so happened to also be a shark.

“I might be a little rusty,” you warned him.

“Good thing you're an ace mechanic then,” he said simply, and began leading you out of the shadows.

You did your best not to meet anyone's gaze, keeping your sights on Moon as he led you by the hand and you let him. No sooner than your foot crossed the threshold of the dance floor than Moon's other hand was at your waist pulling you close. The height difference between the two of you made looking up at him a little straining on the neck. So, you opted to step even closer until your bodies were nearly entwined, resting your head on his torso as the two of you swayed. You were already here swimming with the shark, may as well enjoy the water. Moon certainly didn't seem to mind the closeness as he swayed you from side to side, leading the dance.

You were only a little surprised at just how smooth of a dancer Moon was. He maneuvered the two of you around the other couples with ease, though it probably helped that quite a few of them were giving him a wide birth. You hoped it was his height and not his reputation, though you suspected it was both.

“Have you been sleeping well?? His voice was a gentle vibration against your cheek.

You sighed. “Well, enough.” A little rumble told you he wasn't satisfied by your answer, but you refused to be lectured on your sleep habits by him of all people. “Tell you what, you stop showing up to my shop with bullet holes, and I'll stop pulling all-nighters.”

He had no answer for that. Ha. Moon drew back and sent you for a slow spin before bringing you right back to him, leaving not of breath of space between the two of you.

“It's not like we try to get shot,” he said at length. He held you closer still, to where you were in danger of being on tiptoe. “But it does give us an excuse to see you.”

“That isn't funny,” you muttered. “I don't like the thought of…”

“What?” he prompted.

You didn't like the thought of them getting shot. You didn't want to think about one day they might show up with a problem you couldn't fix, or worse, they never show up at all. They'll just be gone. That thought alone opened a well of sadness that you hadn't been prepared to find. 

“Doll?”

Moon had stopped swaying you. You found yourself on the edge of the dance floor with him holding you and you clinging to him. Loosening your grip, you took a mental step back. It wasn't your business and it wasn't your place to tell them how to live their lives.

“You don't need to be hurt to see me,” you murmured. “My door is always open.” At his expression, you hurriedly amended, “During business hours, I mean. But if you just knock I'll probably answer.”

Moon snickered. “Probably?”

“Anyways, dance over, now fess up,” you pressed. “Where's the ol’ ray of sunshine?”

A second pair of hands on your waist made you jump, your back bumping against something very solid.

“Right behind you, darling.”

Yep, you didn’t even need to turn around. There was no mistaking those honey tones in your ear, or the familiar smells gently wafting off him, or those digits playfully squeezing the curve of your hips. Once more you found yourself in a very familiar position of being trapped between these two devils, yet in this unfamiliar territory, it was more a comfort than a bother.

You glowered up at Moon who looked all too pleased with himself. “That’s playing dirty.”

“I never claimed to play fair.” He glanced up at Sun. “Well?”

“I’ve softened him up for you. I believe he’s ready for discussion.”

It was such a vague statement that could have implied so many things. Of course, considering what these two did for a living, your brain drifted toward the darker scenarios.

Moon nodded before grinning down at your scowl. “Keep our little tinkerer entertained while I’m gone.”

“I intended as much,” Sun said airily.

Drifting away from you, Moon squeezed your hand softly before departing. You tried to keep track of his movements as he navigated through the room, but Sun spun you around to face him.

“Eyes on me, love. I’ve been itching for an excuse to get you on the dance floor.”

Ah, right. You were still standing on the precipice that divided those who danced and those who were content to just sit and watch. The slow song had concluded and a much more upbeat song was playing. Even so, Sun didn’t push you onto it. He could have, easily, yet he seemed to be waiting on you.

Seeing your hesitation, his voice dipped a bit lower. “Or we could always find a nice quiet corner to be alone.”

“One dance for an honest answer to one of my questions,” you conditioned. You felt a burning desire to redeem yourself and you wouldn’t be cheated a second time.

His grin lengthed. “Deal.”

That felt a little too easy, but you’d take it. Rather than letting him guide you to the dance floor. You hooked your fingers under one of his suspender straps while your other hand hooked onto his belt loop and tugged, pulling him towards you as you stepped back into the bubble of music and movement. Sun’s eyes widened a touch, and you felt a small spark of victory having surprised him. He followed you readily into the throng of dancing couples. You released his clothes in favor of taking his hands and the two of you began to swing.

It had been a while, so you weren’t the most graceful and were once more willing to let Sun take the lead. With his help, you were able to at least avoid bumping into anyone or stepping on any toes. You tried not to think too hard about it, to just relax and let the music move through you. Sun swung you around the small space with ease, as though you weighed nothing more than a feather. It was fun, and for a few wild moments, he wasn’t a crime lord, and you weren’t a mechanic. You were just two people having the time of your lives.

Towards, the end of the song, as the music swelled, Sun gave you one last twirl before catching you in a low dip. For a few seconds, you sat suspended, chest-puffing and cheeks flushed from the exertion, and certainly not from how close Sun’s face hovered in front of yours. You could feel one hand pressing up against your back, while one gripped your hand. It would take very little effort on your part or his to close the gap. However, a dull ache from an old injury pierced through the haze of exhilaration, bringing you back down to reality.

“I need a breather.” Your knee throbbed from the excessive movement. “Why don’t we find that quiet corner you mentioned?”

Sun guided you up, keeping you close as he carved a path off the dance floor and towards a table in the back, further away from the noise and chatter. Sun pulled out a chair for you and you sat down, thankful to give your leg a break. It had been a while since you overworked it like this. Just another reason why you didn’t get out much.

“Everything alright, darling?” Sun asked, taking a seat in the adjoining chair.

“Peachy,” you answered, leaning back in your chair, allowing you to stretch out the sore tendons. “Now, about my question…”

“Ah, yes.” He rested his chin on folded hands. “Fire away.”

“What sort of business are you and Moon here for?”

“I don’t feel comfortable divulging that information.”

God. Dammit. “You promised to answer honestly,” you said, frustrated, yet once more you knew you’d been had.

“And I gave you an honest answer,” Sun said with a mild shrug. “You should be asking the right questions. Like, for example; is our oh-so-generous offer still on the table? To which the answer would be-”

Without thinking, you leaned forward to cover his mouth with your hand, surprising you both. It was such a silly thing to do when you both knew your hand would do nothing to impede Sun’s capability of speech. But at least it had shut him up, if only briefly.

“I’m not doing this. Not tonight. And besides… you already have capable mechanics at your disposal.”

Sun took hold of your hand, but rather than pulling it away from his mouth, he pressed his grin to your knuckles. “Capable, yes, but none of them are worth you.”

The damnable heat was back, overtaking your face and neck, and you hated how good those words and his ‘kiss’ made you feel. He didn’t stop there, pressing his mouth to your palm, and then to the inside of your wrist, leaving ghostly tingles across your skin where his mouth touched.

His gaze caught yours and refused to let go. “You honestly think we would open ourselves up to just anyone?”

You opened your mouth, determined to say something. To steer this conversation back to something more manageable. That was when the police arrived and all hell broke loose.

#fnaf sundrop #fnaf moondrop #sun x y/n #sun x reader #moon x y/n #moon x reader #syzygy in dedication #mob boss sun and moon #sleuth jesters #justfangirlwritings #celestial tinkerer

[britcision]

Alright I’m on a Dead On Main kick but I’m also permanently in house “Danny Should Adopt Connor For Proper Clone Parenting”

So let’s combine those for crack purposes!

Timelines are fake and so are trees

Jason and Danny are both technically younger than Connor’s supposed to be, and both actually older than Connor is

There’s some fight in Gotham big enough to justify both Superman and Superboy showing up, Red Hood’s willingly working with the bats, mass hysteria

Jason Todd knows more than enough about forcing a working relationship with shitty parents enough to have Suspicions about how Man and Boy are interacting

He knew them before he died and knew it was a bad relationship then, it’s clearly no better

But it’s shooty shooty guns time so we’ll get to that later

Eventually he has to call in the bf because the JL are getting their asses kicked and Danny shows up and joins the fight

Even he can spot the tension and he and Jason exchange Big Gay Looks

But as the fight goes on, Connor’s pinned

In Big Danger, going down, Superman’s closest and doesn’t even glance twice

Just turns away

In comes Danny with the steel chair and if some flying fragments of goon nearly hit Supes, well, pure coincidence

Danny helps Connor to his feet and they get back into it, Connor gets to be in on the big plan which is Get Danny To The Middle

One ghostly wail later, that’s it that’s the fight

Everyone’s wondering what happened, how all the baddies disappeared, Danny gives Connor a pat on the shoulder

“I’m retired kid, and couldn’t have done it without you, so do me a favour and you take this win”

Danny’s gone, Connor’s confused, Jason INSTANTLY backs him up

If Bats is wondering who the unknown fighting alongside them was, well, Superman’s making his biggest constipated faces about congratulating his clone

Jason promises to explain everything if Connor comes by for coffee, Connor has no social life so post debrief they go and pick up enough for 3

Connor’s a little surprised cuz yeah, Jason’s different from when he was Robin, but way less angry and violent than Dick’s led him to believe

Jason explains it’s because of his new bf Danny, the explainer in this case

They get back to Danny in his human form, he’s all gushy and happy to meet Connor cuz whether he went to space or not Connor is technically an alien

Connor gets very quiet about his dna donors

Danny gets Instantly Suspicious and remembers that moment in the fight

Jason rats out the incidents he knows about where Superman’s been a shit

Connor insists we are Not Talking About This It’s Fine

Danny stares him in the face

“Hey wanna meet my clone? Her name’s Danielle, her creator made her try to murder me to replace me. She’s my sister and best friend and I love her dearly and You’re My Clone Now Too.”

Connor, befuddled, is instantly adopted by Dani as well because Clone Sibling, who cares about genetics

Jason tells Connor they’re always like this, but yeah, if he doesn’t wanna put up with Supes’ shit he can go his own way

He doesn’t even have to go full Red Hood style, but they’ll take care of him if he wants to break off on his own

Connor doesn’t believe Supes would ever allow this and would kill Connor the second he showed any hesitance

Danny goes Full Eldritch Horror

Jason:

“Oh hey I don’t think I formally introduced you, Connor this is my boyfriend Danny, the King of the Infinite Realms, you just watched him melt a guy who was kicking Clark’s ass. What were your concerns again?”

And that’s how Connor ends up adopted by his friend’s baby brother and his eldritch boyfriend, complete with happy family jokes

Jason and Danny both call him their baby incessantly and Connor will never admit he kinda loves it, not least for the faces Dick makes

Superman does predictably kick up a stink about Connor not living on base, Batman can’t control Jason but Jason isn’t a world ending threat

Jason smiles extremely sweetly and demonstrates exactly what a world ending threat looks like by texting Danny, who shows up again in full Eldritch Horror

And then Danny texts JAZZ and the Justice League learn the true meaning of fear from a 6’9 redhead therapist who went to the Harley Quinn school of “Sit Down And Shut Up While I Read You For Filth”

Danny pinky swears not to end the world if the JL leave Jason and Connor alone, they can even still be on call for the league and MAYBE so will Danny

If they’re extremely lucky

Constantine assures them this is The Only Way Fucking Hell Superman What Did You Do

The only hiccup in the happily ever after is Dick deciding this makes him Connor’s uncle and being insufferable about it

Danny agrees and it only makes it worse

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dead on main shipping #jason todd/danny fenton #with their adopted son connor kent #he declines being connor todd or connor fenton (although meeting jack fenton raises questions) #superboy #he needs a family dammit #his dads can be younger physically this bitch was 16 at 2 years old #they work out the math from the day he was born #danny insists on celebrating his actual age each birthday #hilarity ensues