#traverse our universe

[maraeffect]

okay so idk if any of my followers are into kink culture at all. but my fiancee and i used to be very active in it. and before we got engaged, we "collared" one another. up until a couple years ago, we both wore our collars 24/7!! but now we're in a different place and we are more comfy without them (sensory needs).

however!! i finally splurged and got myself an "eternity collar" (stainless steel, able to be worn 24/7 vs leather and Brahma web collars). so!! we're about to do an intimate little collaring ceremony in the forest 🥺💖

autumn is my favorite time of year, and autumn (my fiancee) will be seeing the leaves change for the first time this year!!!!!! we're going to have a little picnic at the park and take in all the trees. maybe do little vows 🥺🥺

i want so badly to actually marry her, but i can't bc of financial and SSI reasons. so this will hold me over in the meantime 💖💖💖

anyway i've never done a ceremony before, so this is really really important to me 🥺🥺🥺🥺 i'm so excited for it !!! it's something so special and so bright, which is a welcome change from the dark months i've had ❤️‍🩹

[umbratticalksp]

✨🌌🥰

Dreamy space scapes by Nick Fritz on Instagram

[suigenerisisadiva]

We Burn, and So Do Our Worlds

Pairing: Mark Grayson x Batsis!Reader + Batfam x Batsis!Reader

Summary: After travel through an inter-dimensional gateway, you meet the Teen Team for the first time - fresh out of combat, bruised, and still three steps ahead of everyone in the room. Your intelligence throws the team off balance, and even the GDA is forced to reconsider their stance on you, a sharp, off-world wildcard. While trust slowly builds and Mark’s quiet admiration grows louder, something else is watching.

Not LexCorp. Not a hero.

But someone way worse.

CW: My love for biceps is prevalent yet again, INSANE CANON DIVERGENCE, swearing, depictions of gore, Cecil Stedman 🤢

A/N: Chat I think i'm gonna need to write a part 4 now omfg - I hope my hatred for Eve isn't so obvious lmao, guys i'm so sorry this took so long, my sister hit the curb and two of the tires of her lexus are literally flat omfg get her off the roads.

This is a part 3 of my Between Worlds, Between Us fic!

Go read Part 1! - Part 2! - Part 3!

Taglist: @silas-222 - @guacimara - @lagataprrr - @sleepygirl-inc - @trasshy-artist - @luv-isolde - @linaisadream - @cantbecreative - @riselazarus-s - @mosseetrees

my pookies - @gothicbatgirl + @dulcet-aurora + @ilona2nerrie

(Reader goes by alias Nightingale) ⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ ⠂⠄⠄⠂☆ The flight over to headquarters wasn't as bad as you hoped. Inter-dimensional travel wasn't all that scary, considering it was you this time who jumped across the fabric of time, in the arms of your alien hero situationship, if you could even call it that, I mean, it's not like your seeing anyone else right now.

It was Mark you were more worried about when you both entered that cosmic sphincter, it genuinely looked like the entrance to the Other Mother's world in Coraline, gave you major creeps, definitely did for Mark as well, 'cuz of how tight he was holding you as you traversed through the myriad of locked gateways leading to various dimensions. Hey, not like you were complaining, your eyes, and arms were drawn to his biceps, yet again, like geez get a grip girl.

It's late at night, and you both arrived at the GDA headquarters, you observed it's location and surroundings, analysing it. Interesting, you thought, headquarters so closely mirrors the Hall of Justice, back in your world at least. It became apparent to you that there was no Justice League here, but hey, Chicago and Virginia are a whole lot cleaner than Gotham. You were curious to see what Gotham City, in all her glory, looked like in Mark's universe. Probably shittier than home, you thought, after all, Mark's universe didn't have a Batman. Damn, you forgot to tell your dad, and brothers you were fucking off to another dimension with some half alien boy you've met like twice...whatevs, they won't worry too much.

You both know there's people that recognised your presence. After Mark landed and dropped you off, your comfortable silence was broken by Mark's Team, he motioned for you to remain, so you did.

He walked out of the entrance room and towards Cecil's Monkeys (as so Nolan calls them)

It starts with Eve.

Because of course it fucking does.

“You’ve been distracted,” she says casually, inferring to the person Mark's been seeing, arms crossed as Mark stands beside her. “Late-night vanishing acts. Bruises that weren’t from fights we were in.”

Mark freezes. “Is this a Teen Team intervention?”

Rex snorts. “Only if it turns out you’ve been ghosting us for someone hot.”

You step out from the doors, at that exact moment, mask on, cape low, voice dry-

“He has. Hi.”

“She’s not from here,” Eve says flatly.

Dupli-Kate raises a brow. “Kinda hot, though.”

Rex stares for a second too long. “Yo. Are you like… Mark’s morally ambiguous Bat-thing girlfriend?”

Bat Thing? Seriously? You thought. You glance at Mark. He shrugs sheepishly.

“I didn’t say that. I heavily implied it.”

You roll your eyes.

“No. I’m the vigilante your mom told you not to talk to online.” That earned a snort from Kate.

Mark stepped in. “Guys, this is, Nightingale. She’s from… somewhere else.”

“Off-world?” Eve asked sharply, narrowing her eyes. You already disliked this bitch.

“Worse,” you muttered. “Off-dimension.”

They stared. Hard

You didn’t flinch.

Eve asked the smart questions.

“How long have you been here?” She asked

“Half an hour at most, to be honest, that's a question you should ask Invinciboy over there, he rocks up to my universe every other day.” That shut her up for a sec.

“Are you trying to get back?”

“I know the way back girl."

“Are you a threat?”

“That depends. Are you going to try and dissect me?”

“…no?”

“Then probably not.”

You finally straightened, eyes flicking across the team, calculating and precise. Your gaze caught on the scorched GDA tracker you’d yanked off one of the crates.

“This tech’s not from your world. Well, it is, but it's been sourced from mine, It’s coded in a double-encryption structure your satellites don’t even register yet. That means someone either came through the breach into my world before you did, or they’re siphoning inter-dimensional knowledge, illegally.” You emphasised that last part, the cogs in your head already turning at what kind of person has this technology. Wondering if it was the person watching you guys earlier.

You dropped the chip in Mark’s palm.

“Your problem now.”

Eve blinked. “How the hell do you know all this?”

“I built a backdoor into my dimension’s version of the Justice League’s quantum server farm when I was fourteen. This is amateur hour.”

Kate let out a low whistle.

Rex muttered under his breath, “Okay, now I wanna marry her.”

Mark didn’t even bother hiding his smirk.

“Told you she was different.”

Cecil rewinds the battle footage three times. Not because he doubts what he’s seeing- but because he’s not sure how someone so unknown could already be so dangerous and so useful.

You’re a walking anomaly. Too smart. Too fast. Too confident.

And yet, you didn’t kill. You fought like someone who’d trained in pain but chose control. You led like someone who didn’t need the spotlight. And you trusted Mark.

That last one was most suspicious of all.

The monitor flickers.

The footage from the rooftop, courtesy of a ReAniman, who observed everything, replays again. And again. And again. Slowed to half-speed. Then quarter.

A shot of your hand brushing Mark’s. The moment your smile cracked something in him. The way you moved. Fought. Laughed.

You were perfect.

Through the lens of his ReAnimen, you were just another thing to be observed. But through the distorted eyes of D.A Sinclair, you were so much more than that.

“Subject 11-06: fully integrated,” the voice mutters. “Tactical grace. Neural dexterity. High intellectual acuity. Genetic resilience.”

Behind him. a half-assembled corpse. Limbs twitching. One eye socket still wet. Jaw unhinged a horrifically disturbing distance from the maxilla.

D.A. Sinclair, face pale and glinting with obsession, scribbles notes into a cracked journal.

“She’s not from this world,” he says to no one. (Like anyone gives a shit about what this guy says after what he did to Rick bsfr)

“But she will belong to it. Or at least… her parts will.”

Hope you all enjoyed this! Likes, comments, reblogs and requests are highly appreciated! Requests are open!

Sources! -

Dividers - @omi-resources

Icon Header - @parkons

Property of suigenerisisadiva, do not repost my work pls & ty!

[ao3-rex1223]

𝓣𝔀𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓶𝓪𝓼

Pairing: Professor Leon x Fem Reader

Tags: Lactation kink, breeding kink, p in v, creampie, orgasms, Leon being dominant but also soft, Leon being a dad.

Summary: You and Leon have a six months old daughter. Winter break at the university is just starting and Leon discovers how much he likes your milk...

“More applesauce, sweetie?” You coo to your six month old daughter, Danielle. You carefully guide the little baby spoon to her mouth. She greedily opens wide for more delicious food. “Such a good eater!” you praise, nuzzling her little forehead. “Mommy is so proud of you, Dani.” You continue feeding her as you sit in the university cafeteria, glad that winter break is starting. 

“There’s my girls,” Leon purrs as he approaches. He drops a loving kiss to Dani’s head - she giggles and smiles - then kisses your lips, his mouth lingering for a moment. “Hey there, baby.”

“Hey,” you reply, your cheeks flushing as they always do when he kisses you. “How was class?”

He smirks. “Oh, you know, teaching students to think critically and use their head…it’s a tough job but someone has to do it.”

“Tell me you’re going easy on them, at least,” you reply while scooping another tiny spoonful of applesauce. Dani eagerly watches as it nears her hungry mouth. 

“I can’t. I swear, the average exam scores get lower and lower every semester.” He rubs the bridge of his nose. When you were his student, he seemed mean and unapproachable, but now you can tell he genuinely wants his students to learn, even if he is a little rough around the edges. Of course, when you were his student, you only aced his class because you let him fuck you over and over in his office. But one thing led to another and now you are the mother to his daughter.

“Aww,” you reply with a teasing expression. “No extra credit for your class this semester?” Your eyes burn with a sensual heat as you gaze at him. 

He smirks wickedly and kisses your neck. “Only for my favorite student,” he retorts with a gruff chuckle. You giggle as his warm breath tickles your skin, an adorable laugh that mirrors your little daughter. 

Your intimate moment is interrupted by a plucky, young female student clearing her throat. “Um, Professor Kennedy…Could I have a word-”

Leon cuts her off. “Ms. Jones, you may send me an email and I will answer it on my next working day, or you can visit me during office hours. What you may not do is intrude when I am out of my office while I am tending to my girlfriend and our daughter,” he reprimands gently but firmly. 

The young student blushes and nods, then quickly turns to run away. You smirk and gently smack Leon’s shoulder. “You didn’t need to be so harsh, Leon.”

Leon steals a kiss from you before he answers. “Yes, I did. I’m clearly spending time with my family. I will not be interrupted.” 

You give him one last disapproving glance before returning to feed your daughter. 

After lunch, you both head home to give your daughter a nap. You each press a featherlight kiss to her forehead, then quietly exit and close the door. Leon gives you a sultry look, lifting you into his arms and carrying you to the bedroom. He lays you on the bed and crawls over you, supporting himself with one arm and traversing your curves with the other. You reward his sensual ministrations with soft moans and whimpers, wordlessly begging for more. 

“My girl, always so needy for her professor’s cock,” Leon coos, still playfully referring to himself as merely your educator and you just his pupil, as he occasionally does during your more intimate moments. His hardening member begins pressing against your hip over your clothes, causing your cunt to stir. Creamy slick leaks into your panties, making the thin cotton fabric stick to your folds. His hand slides up underneath your shirt, leaving goosebumps in its wake. 

As he inches under your bra, he massages your swollen breast and tweaks your nipple. When he feels a few drops of milk, he freezes, his cock hardening even further. “Baby,” he purrs, roughly pulling your top off and ridding you of your bra just as fast. He attacks your neck with a wet kiss, sucking and groaning. He works his lips down; his target: your leaking breasts. His lips pepper kisses up one of your plush mounds then finally take your nipple inside his mouth. He moans appreciatively, sucking and drinking your milk - now free flowing. His hand cups your breast, squeezing gently as if to keep the flow strong. “Mmm, you taste amazing baby girl. Why is this the first time I’ve drank from your perfect tits!?” He smirks wide and returns to his feast like a man starved. Determined to bring you to euphoria with him, he slips a hand under your panties and rubs your slick folds. 

Your soft moans fill the air like music serenading him while he devours you. The combination of his mouth sucking firmly on your tits and his fingers rubbing your cunt is nearly burning you up. “Ohhhh…Leon…”

With a growl, he pulls his mouth off your tit with a pop, licking his lips as he looks into your eyes. “Hands and knees, sweetheart,” he commands gruffly and, without waiting for you, grabs your hips and flips you over, then pulls your ass in the air. It all happens so fast, you’re nearly dizzy from the transition. The erotic sound of his belt buckle being undone and his zipper sliding down drives more slick to gush from your cunt. You clutch your pillow, eagerly awaiting the feel of your lover inside you. He shoves your skirt up and pulls your panties to one side. 

Finally, the heavenly stretch of your walls around his cock floods your senses, a cavalcade of pleasure surrounding your body. He wraps his hands around your plush hips, still holding onto some baby weight. “You’re so fucking perfect,” Leon purrs. “Think I might have to breed this pussy again. Give Danielle a little brother or sister. Whad’ya say, baby?”

Your answer is a guttural moan as he drives his cock deep into your soft pussy, grinding against your g-spot. Your milky tits rub on the blanket beneath you, your sensitive nipples sending sparks all over. 

Leon’s pace increases, thrusting into you harder and faster. He reaches around to stroke your clit, smearing your slippery essence all around your cunt. “Cum for me, my good little slut,” he commands. 

His dirty words and pressure on your clit are enough to send you over the edge. You rock your hips back hard, taking his cock deep as your walls tighten around him like a vice. You bury your face in your pillow and cry out, not wanting to be too loud and wake your daughter. Seconds later, a punched out groan leaves Leon’s throat as he cums inside you. He collapses on the bed next to you, pulling you securely in his arms while he softly strokes your hair. “God, I fucking love you so much, baby,” he coos. 

After lying together for a while, you hear Danielle’s cries through the baby monitor. Leon kisses your forehead. “You rest, sweetheart. I got it. Barely got to see my little princess at all, today.” He rises from the bed, dresses quickly, then pads down to the nursery to spend time with his precious daughter. Meanwhile, you drift off to sleep into a light nap. 

[shadesofmauve]

Mass Effect galaxy map

(For the Rhi Shepard universe)

I've been writing, if by 'writing' one means 'making a new galaxy map to use as a reference, because I'm too picky.'

I copied some symbology from Droot1986's excellent galaxy map. I also used Engorn's map as a reference, but ultimately the clusters and connections are based on the wiki. All systems within a cluster are listed, with inhabited planets in parentheses.

(...yeah, I should probably make a legend, but I only made it for my reference, so).

Features/changes

The relay in the Sol system only connects to Arcturus. This is how it's supposed to work in canon lore; Arcturus is important because it's a gateway system, while Sol is a dead end.

(Also, Sol is now in basically the right place compared to the underlying artist's impression of the milky way. Thank you NASA.)

Batarian's now have some space of their own, because lumping all batarian space into the human Systems Alliance was just BEGGING for a war. Like, WTF. Their government is flat out evil but that doesn't mean we just get to say their planets are ours now.

Combined inner and outer council space because idgaf.

There's a new, boringly named relay between Kite's Nest, Petra, and Exodus, because I needed one in chapter 14.

If a cluster had written lore about where it was in the galaxy, I tried to reflect that — so Styx Theta, Hawking Eta, and the Pangea Expanse are all close to the galactic core, Sentry Omega is on a political border, etc. Otherwise, I adjusted location to make the relay routes clearer. (Also I wanted the giant hub that is Omega to be almost opposite the Serpent Nebula and the Citadel)..

I imagine that there are actually a LOT more mapped clusters in Council Space than we see; they were just never relevant to the game. If not, the vaunted 'all relays lead to the Citadel' reaper web is just flat out wrong. Omega has more connections, and quite a few other clusters have as many. If there are more inhabited clusters in Citadel Space it also makes the veritable explosion of humanity look a little less ridiculous. (Seriously, humans have been on the galactic scene for thirty years. LOOK at how far we've gone. Council races are right to be freakin' terrified, the Sol system was like one of those plants with exploding seed pods where you bump it and POOF now they're EVERYWHERE). So let's assume the rest of the galaxy is as cluttered as Systems Alliance space, it's just not been relevant to our anthropocentric bag of dicks worldview.

Anyway. What the fuck is even up with the Attican Traverse?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[samthestrangerthingsfan]

Out of The Woods

pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

summary: You're back and now Eddie's world is upside down. Your string of good luck finally ends.

chapter warnings: slow burn, motherhood, swearing, sexual tension, fluff, 18+ content, references to drugs and alcohol.

a/n: we finally have a lil steamy flashback and an Eddie POV!! ty as always for your patience :)

chapter 4: Kickstart My Heart || series masterlist

MARCH 17, 1986

“Who the hell throws a St. Patrick’s Day party in Hawkins?” You’ve got a Coors Light six-pack in your arms, grumbling your way through the woods.

Eddie chuckled, his hand finding the way to the small of your back. “You implying our town isn’t good enough?” The sarcasm dripped from his words like honey as he helped you avert a fallen tree that laid across the path.

You couldn't see it, but you just knew he had that signature smirk of his plastered all over those perfect pink lips, and you quietly thanked the universe that you couldn’t see it in the darkness the two of you were currently traversing.

Otherwise he'd definitely catch you staring.

“I’m saying,” you try to focus, “if Rick wanted to throw a party, he didn’t need to use St. Patty’s day as an excuse, people woulda came anyways. Now we gotta deal with idiots dressed as leprechauns and pinching every—ow!”

The sting on your hip was a minor one, and Eddie’s grin made any discomfort on your face vanish.

“Gotcha.” He smirked, pinching his fingers together triumphantly.

You continued ahead of him, feeling the heat rush to your face. “Just you wait, Munson…”

He called after you, "Ooo, feeling feisty tonight aren't we, Bug?"

You stuck out you tongue and middle finger in equilibrium.

The feeling in your stomach was new. Being with Eddie was more than just your safe place lately--it felt like home. He felt like home.

You can't be around him for more than ten minutes without feeling like you wanna shove your tongue down his throat, either.

A ten minutes walk through the woods, and lights from Rick’s cabin started to show through the tree line. You knew Reefer Rick’s parties were legendary, and Eddie had never been too keen on bringing you because of it. After all, they’d been raided before, and the last thing he wanted to do was have you face-to-face with Hopper.

Though you’d gotten to know Hop pretty well on account of all the shit with your Dad, and it was something Eddie actively tried to prevent from happening again.

“Hey,” Eddie jogged to your side, putting his free arm over your shoulders. “just…stick close to me okay? If I say it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Deal?”

His tone was loving, but stern. You nodded, those big brown eyes not leaving your face for a second.

“‘Course. But it is just a party Eddie, you’re acting like we’re walking into Mordor or something.”

He kissed the crown of your head at that, the feeling warming your stomach. “C’mon Samwise, let Frodo get you a buzz, hm?”

Inside was exactly what you pictured it would be. Wasted teens and 20 year olds losing their fucking minds.

…dressed as leprechauns no less.

“Told ya.” You whispered to Eddie, earning a wink from him.

He took the beer from you, placing it on the nearest booze-covered table. You didn’t know what to do exactly, but Eddie kept you by his side. The warmth of his palm never left the small of your back as he guided you through the house.

“Yo! Rick!” He shouted over the music.

“Oh, Eddie! What’s shaking, man?”

The two men greeted one another as all men do; a vague hand gesture and something akin to a high-five.

Rick nodded his head at you, “Who’s this?”

“Shit, my bad man.” Eddie apologized before introducing you. Rick bowed politely, and you laughed, instantly understanding why he and Eddie were friends.

“Welcome to the castle, faire maiden. Try not to get in too much trouble, okay? I don’t need your boyfriend kickin’ my ass at my own party.”

Eddie looks at you, an innocent laugh bubbling between the two of you.

Maybe Rick didn’t know you two weren’t…

You need to correct him.

Right?

You should tell him Eddie isn’t your boyfriend. You’re not together like that.

You should, but you don’t.

And neither does Eddie.

“No,” you manage to get out. “no you certainly don’t.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything, but you feel his hand rub circles on your back gently.

Rick grabbed a few cups, and poured both you and Eddie what he called a 'welcome shot'. It was more of a double...possibly a triple.

Once you’d weaved your way through the crowd, a familiar laugh calls your attention. “Look! Steve’s here!” You point him out, nearly bolting from Eddie’s side. You can tell he’s three-sheets-to-the-wind, but it doesn’t stop you from sneaking up behind him and giving him a big hug.

“Who the—“ the drunken sing-song of your name that leaves his mouth has you giggling. “I didn’t know you’d be here!”

Eddie, on the other hand, is seething. Practically shaking with…Anger? Frustration?

No, no. Those feelings are something Eddie is far too familiar with. This? This is new, it’s a churning and rolling storm in his gut.

Jealousy.

He watched as you hugged Steve, as Steve hugged you. Around your waist, the waist Eddie has been glued to all night.

Get it together, Munson.

What the fuck is wrong with him? Steve is your friend, he’s Eddie’s friend. It’s a way you’ve greeted each other hundreds of times before. Yet for some reason, this time it made him want to knock Steve’s head off of his shoulders.

Maybe it's the drunken haze in Harrington's eyes, maybe it's the way your hands linger just a bit too long on his shoulders, but Eddie couldn't take it anymore.

“Hey!” Eddie shouts, and you jump. You’re out of Steve’s embrace now, but the boy’s hand still lingered on your shoulder. “Uh, what about me Harrington? No love for your favorite male companion?”

Steve chuckled, unaware of the murderous thoughts swimming through his friends mind. “Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on Munson.”

“Where’s Robin?” Your voice is barely below a full roar in order to compete with the Van Halen blasting over the stereo.

“Ah,” Steve winked. “Vickie is here. Haven’t seen the two of them in…” Your friend looked at the expensive watch on his wrist, “over an hour.”

The heat in your face nearly had you swooning. “Well…g-good for her. For both of them.”

“I forgot, can’t mention anything about sex in front of this one,” he joked, poking your cheek with the hand holding his beer. “She might get cooties.”

You swatted his hand away, “Just because I haven’t had a penis inside me, doesn’t mean I’m a prude, Harrington.”

Steve truly was kidding, he knew you well enough to know you were simply repulsed by the options at Hawkins High. Sure, you’ve had a few hook ups here and there, but sex was something…different. Maybe it was because there was never a right time, or place.

Or maybe because you’d decided it wasn’t worth losing the one person you actually want to have sex with if things got weird after.

“I’m a Senior now, Steve. It’ll happen soon enough, don’t you worry.”

“Right,” he scoffed. “Who’s gonna be worthy enough? No one here, that’s for damn sure.”

You swallowed hard enough to actually hurt.

Eddie noted the sudden shift in your demeanor, he reached for your hand, but you pulled it away quickly.

“I’m gonna go grab a drink, okay? Anyone want anything?”

Steve raised his beer, signaling he was all set.

Eddie stepped into you. His lips pressed against the shell of your ear. “Come right back, okay? We’ll be right here, Bug,”

You swear you felt your knees buckle. “Mhm, sure.”

Alcohol. I need alcohol now.

Greeting a few acquaintances, you made your way to the green-colored punch on the kitchen island. Though you were still warm from Rick's version of a shot, you definitely weren't as buzzed as you wanted to be.

“Don’t ask what’s in it.” A girl shouted as she filled her cup. “Just drink up, baby! Woo!”

She stumbled off into the crowd, leaving you to consider whether or not you should be consuming the swamp water in front of you, but then you look back to Eddie.

He’s still right where you left him, stood next to a dancing Steve, only now he’s leaning against the table with his arms crossed, smiling ear-to-ear at the red head in front of him.

Your stomach lurched, twisting itself into a knot inside your abdomen. A brick, leadened and red-hot fell into your gut as you watched her pull down her top to show off the tattoo on her chest.

“Shit…” you spin quickly, grabbing the first cup you find and scooping the booze straight from the bowl. The burn of the alcohol temporarily smothers the feeling as you chug it down.

What more do you have to do? How much more obvious do you have to be? Maybe friends really was it, and all the things you'd built up in your head over time were just...platonic.

Maybe you simply weren’t his type.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

You wipe your chin, and see Billy Hargrove leaned against the fridge. “Patty’s not exactly a girl to model yourself after.”

The girl, Patty, is now being groped by two different guys in the middle of all the dancing. “I don’t know, Billy, she looks like she’s having a great time.” You laugh.

Despite his reputation, Billy never bothered you. In fact, it was the opposite. Though it may have been a secret, he had never been anything but kind to you since the two of you got partnered up when he had to repeat biology last year.

Thanks to you, he passed with flying colors, and he’s been nice to you ever since. The two of you also got shoved into a closet last March for a round of seven-minutes-in-heaven. You made out a little, but nothing more.

Billy laughed, opening a beer and offering it to you. You took it embarrassingly quick.

“You’re the last person I’d expect to see here. Who’d you come with, Einstein?”

You rolled your eyes at his old affectionate nickname for you. “Eddie. He’s over there with Steve and the…busty red head.”

As you turn to point him out, your arm hits something—someone. Eddie is there, right behind you.

So close in fact, you can feel the heat of his body against yours.

He’s not looking at you though, his gaze is locked on Billy, and it’s the very definition of if-looks-could-kill.

“Hargrove.” He says flatly.

Billy nods his head up once. “Munson. Don’t mind us. Just having a drink with my adorable little lab partner here.” He taps his beer bottle against yours.

You look up at Eddie, but he still isn’t looking at you. His gaze isn’t leaving Billy’s and Billy isn’t exactly known for backing down.

Eddie was at that same party last year. When you and Billy had emerged from the closet, he looked like he was gonna be sick. Drank himself into a black hole, but you took care of him all night.

“Well then—“ you say suddenly, hoping to ease the tension. “thank you for the beer. See you around, Bill.” You grab Eddie’s hand, and he laces his fingers with yours.

“Anytime, Einstein. You’ve got my number.”

You're sure at that moment, you heard Eddie growl.

The two of you are headed out of the kitchen, back to Steve and the rest of the party, when Eddie starts pulling you instead.

He’s moving quickly through the house, down two hallways, and into the first door that isn’t already shut.

“Eddie what the hell?!” You shout as he shut the door behind him.

“Why were you talking to Billy fucking Hargrove?”

You blink at him, not sure why he’s asking you this. Your beer finds its way to the counter. “He’s one of the few people here I actually know?” It comes out as a question. “He was over by the booze, and he offered me a beer, so I took it.”

“He’s an asshole.”

The glass bottle in your hand bangs against the counter as you put it down. “To you. He’s nice to me, Eddie. The bravado shit is just a show for everyone else.”

Eddie scoffed, “Yeah, I'm sure being nice is all he has in mind.”

Your head shakes involuntarily. “Where the fuck is this coming from? I walked away from you for two minutes and you had a red head and a big pair of tits in you face. You didn’t seem too worried about me then.”

You cross your arms, shielding yourself from what you know is coming. "Why am I here, Eddie? Why bring me here if you just planned on getting laid by the first girl you see?"

He looked disgusted, "I brought you here because I want you here--because everything is better with you around. Why are you worries about some chick with big tits? She was showing me a tattoo she got--" Eddie stopped—sighing. "Forget it, I don't want to talk about her."

Eddie's posture changed, his shoulders relaxed, and he moved closer to you.

“And for the record, I always worry about you.” He whispers.

You don’t speak--simply look into his eyes. The usual soft chocolate-brown color is barely visible. His blown out gaze rakes over your features, stopping at your lips briefly.

His palms run down your arms, making them uncross. “You’re all I fucking think about.”

The thrumming of your heart deafened you, but your best friend wasn’t budging.

“Eddie…”

His hands found your waist. Eddie leaned towards you, pressing his forehead to yours. “Tell me to stop, Bug.”

His nose moved along your cheek as he exposed your neck to his view. He kissed the base of your ear, leaving trails of hot breath and soft pecks along your jaw.

“Don’t,” you moan. “Don’t stop.”

A growl erupted from Eddie as he scooped you up, placing you on the counter.

“You have no idea,” he whispered, kissing the side of your neck. “No fucking idea what you do to me.”

Your breathing was hot and heavy and quick. The soft moans spilling from your lips spurred Eddie on.

“Feels like I’m dreaming, honey.“ He whispered against your lips, and you could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Can…can I touch you?”

You were nodding before he finished the question. "Everywhere...touch me everywhere."

His mouth moved with your own, and Eddie couldn't get enough of you. His hands roamed, never satisfied with the amount of skin he was touching. "You're so fucking beautiful." He growled.

His warm grip slid down your body, past your waist, to grab handfuls of your ass. He pushed you against him firmly, and you felt how hard he was beneath his jeans.

“Eddie I—“

Bang, Bang, Bang!

The pounding on the door made you jump.

“Hey! Some people need to take a leak! Fuck somewhere else!”

The two of you looked at each other, breathy laughs falling in the space between.

“Shit.” He breathed. “C’mon, let’s get outta here.”

Eddie couldn't see straight--couldn't breathe. The world was collapsing around him and it’s a damn miracle he got home in one piece.

Your voice replayed over and over in his head, though somehow the silence in the trailer he’d taken over from Wayne was deafening.

“Leave, Eddie. There’s nothing left here for you.”

It had been so long, he had almost forgotten.

How his world lost all color when you left. How time started moving in slow motion and fast-forward all at once. The day you left for college was the last time anyone saw him for nearly a year after.

The months that followed were filled with getting high and drinking and not leaving the trailer. He would occasionally go to the Hideout, but only on weekdays, when he knew it would be dead. That stopped after a few visits, it reminded him too much of you.

He couldn’t find a job, let alone keep one. Wayne begged him to return your calls, to go visit you and make whatever was wrong right again. Poor old man had no idea that Eddie couldn’t—he wouldn’t.

He’d finally reconnected with Steve 4 or 5 years ago, and they’d been rocks for each other since. Life as full-fledged adults was pretty fucking tricky, but he and Robin really did make it a whole lot easier. Steve got Eddie a job at Tom's Auto—they do the work for all of his Dad’s clients. The pay wasn’t half bad and Eddie’s been there ever since.

In the beginning, Steve would ask Eddie if he heard from you, hopeful that if anyone would know anything, it would be him. "She's better off." It's all Eddie could muster.

Until tonight, he was sure you were never coming back, and he hoped to whatever God was listening that you were safe and happy. After all, it's been seven years and you’d never been back to Hawkins. Not even when your Dad died, not that Eddie expected you too. To be honest, Eddie wasn’t exactly sad to see the son of a bitch go.

He’d snuck into the funeral—if you could call it that—and waited in the back. Eddie looked over a slew of Plant workers and locals, trying to pick you out of the crowd, but you weren’t there, he was stupid for even hoping you’d be. He didn’t exactly have a plan if you were there, just hoping to catch a glimpse of you, he supposed.

Eddie stumbled to his freezer and pulled out the chilled bottle of Vodka, taking several large swigs.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” his forehead pressed against the cool metal of the refrigerator.

How the fuck was he going to do this?

Eddie had no idea you were in Hawkins, but by the looks of it you’d been back for a while. Had you been avoiding him?

She wouldn’t waste her time. He thought.

Where were you working? Did you come back to sell the house? Did someone come back with you?

He couldn’t stomach that last one.

Eddie put the vodka back, slamming the freezer door shut. “God fucking dammit!” He cursed, rubbing his palms over his eyes.

Everything he did was to protect you, to let you have the life he knew you deserved and the future he knew you we're capable of. Even now, he wanted to make sure you were safe, secure...

but that wasn’t his job anymore. It hadn't been for nearly a decade.

Eddie couldn’t disrupt the life you’ve created for yourself, even if some how it lead you back to this hell hole.

So he’ll follow your lead. You want to be invisible? He’ll do his damn best, he won’t be the reason for any more of your heartache.

He swears it.

"And then, Mommy, I...was...flying!" Maggie emphasized with her arms stretched out in the back seat.

"Wow, Mags! That is such a cool dream!"

You turned onto Main Street, and made a bee-line for Duke's Donuts. Friday morning's were equally as special as Friday nights to Maggie because she got to have her favorite glazed donut breakfast.

It was a $1.50 black coffee/donut combo, and you were fine with that.

"Now remember, Mags," you shut her door, and continued the conversation once you're back in the car. Maggie munches her donut gratefully. "Mommy has a job interview today, so I might be a few minutes late--"

Panic floods your veins as you turn the key, and your car doesn't start.

Not only does it not start, it doesn't do anything.

"Shit, shit, shit. No!" You try again in a desperate attempt, but nothing happens. "Fuck!"

"Mommy?" Maggie asked worrily.

You sighed, "I'm sorry, sunshine. Mommy is a little frustrated right now, just...stay here, gimme one second."

"Okay, Mama."

You lift the hood, and check all the standard bits you know how to check. Oil is good, timing belt seems fine...

Thankfully, the counter lady at Duke's was kind enough to let you use their phone to call Steve.

"I got a tow truck coming for it, okay? I'll come grab you and Maggie."

"Steve...you have work, it's fine. We can ride in the tow."

He chuckled through the receiver, "I think you're forgetting I work at a place with my last name on the building, I can skip a day."

He got as laugh out of you, "Well alrighty then, both you and Mags get to play hooky."

"I'll see you soon, okay? 10 minutes max."

Maggie was bummed about missing school, they were having an assembly on fire safety today and she was so upset she wouldn't get to show off how she already knows how to 'Stop, Drop, and Roll.'

But knowing she gets to spend the day with Uncle Steeb definitely made it more bearable.

"Look Maggie-moo, I think he's for us." You pointed at the bright blue tow truck that read Tom's Autobody.

Steve was right behind him.

"Uncle Steeb!" Maggie shouted, jumping into his arms.

"Mags! What did you do to Mom's car, hmm?" He joked, hugging her tightly.

"It wasn't me!" She laughed, "Mama said its a pizza junk."

Steve threw his head back and laughed.

"And was I wrong? Look at it, Steve. It is a...pizza junk."

Maggie watched as the car got loaded onto the truck bed.

"You know, we have plenty of company cars. I could always--"

"No, Steve. I appreciate it, but no. No more hand outs." You said firmly.

Your friend sighed, "It's not a hand out. It's a hand up, ya know, like...like I'm lifting you up? Don't laugh at me, I'm offering to give you a head start, you can't get ahead if you're always behind."

You hugged him tightly, "I know, but I've done it alone this long, we'll be okay."

He knew better than to argue.

Your car set off to the repair shop, and you got into Steve's car to follow. "All set, Mags?"

"Yup!"

Steve put the car in reverse, "Oh but don't be surprise if the bill for the work is paid when you get there."

"God dammit, Harrington."

"Yeah, yeah, love you too. Don't worry, I got one of my best guys working on it just for you."

You rolled your eyes, "Can't wait."

[theresattrpgforthat]

Do you have recommendations for working class sci fi/space opera games?

I've been enjoying reading through Traveller and Orbital Blues and reading books like The Expanse about just regular people making ends meet IN SPAAAACE. So I'm curious if you know of any other games matching that regular people doing regular things but also exciting things threaten the status quo.

THEME: Working Class Sci-Fi

Hello, I hope you find something in here that suits your fancy!

Comet Express, by Dice Doctor Games.

Inter-galactic delivery is perilous

Dangerous people need dangerous goods transported to dangerous places.

This is where Comet Express gets in. The safety of our delivery crew is secondary to the successful delivery of your precious cargo.

Why would anyone in their sane mind do this job? Three reasons. One Money. Two Thrill. And Three, who said you were sane?

Comet Express is all about just trying to get your job done and go home - alive. You're all part of a trading company that values its cargo over its crew, with a successful job being determined with the condition your cargo is in by the end of the job.

What's interesting to me is that I don't see anything on the page that says that you can fail. Your roll determines whether or not you avoid risk; but from what I can see, you can do well, do poorly, or somewhere in between. It's typically assumed that at least some of your cargo makes it to your final destination.

What's also interesting is that your character dying is no excuse to get the job done. Character creation is meant to be quick and simple, so if you die, just roll a few d6 and you'll have a new grunt to move the payload.

I think that perhaps the biggest weakness of Comet Express is the lack of roll-tables for the GM. There's a few in this brochure-sized game, but most of the outcomes are rather vague, and still require a lot of improv. If you're a GM that likes to come up with everything on your own, this won't be an issue, but a new GM might struggle.

Pressure: Industrial Science Fiction, by Osprey Publishing.

A science fiction roleplaying game of bringing law and order to the dark and dangerous corners of the universe.

Pressure: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying is a rules-light, story-focused game of facing the darkness at the heart of humanity’s fragile and claustrophobic existence – both on Earth and among the stars. An entirely standalone title, Pressure also develops and expands upon the mechanics and setting introduced in the Those Dark Places roleplaying game.

As highly skilled agents of Special Operations Squads, players are tasked with cleaning up after the Corporations – investigating links to organized crime, neutralizing rogue weapons research, negotiating with rebel leaders on orbital stations, and hunting down whatever that black-budget excavation team ‘awoke’ out in the Procyon Sector…

The universe is a dangerous and hostile place; the Hypercities and the Deep Black alike hide powerful foes. But you have the tools, the training, and the resources to face these dangers… you hope.

Pressure has a unique game system, although pieces of it sound familiar. There's Attributes and Skills that will add modifiers to your basic dice roll, as well as a stress mechanic called Pressure, which you will have to test yourself against every time your character suffers something shocking or disturbing. Already this sounds like a much better mechanic to me than a sanity or madness degeneration!

Thematically, this definitely looks like very hard sci-fi, with trained military operatives in space being the core focus. This is a space-horror game, although what kind of horror that is feels like it's up to whatever the table is interested in.

If you want to read a full review of the game, check out what Lowell Francis has to say about it on his blog, Age of Ravens.

Transit: The Spaceship RPG, by Fiddleback Productions.

TRANSIT takes place beyond our home planet, allowing you to traverse the unlimited depths of space and explore worlds outside our own galaxy.

Your role as an Artificial Intelligence is to inhabit an interplanetary vessel, manage your resources, and direct your crew. You’ll deploy your ship’s officers into the field, hunt down criminals, engage in interstellar combat, and deliver supplies and colonists to remote settlements.

You must rely on your resources to complete missions by acting through your ship, tech, and crew. Three different AI types – Combat, Command, and Support – lend themselves to varied and interesting game play, but it’s when an AI is paired with a ship that the real diversity in character creation comes to the fore.

TRANSIT is more than just an intergalactic skirmish game. When your interests and those of your crew are aligned, things can go very well, but when you and your crew come into conflict, they turn from asset to liability. They’ll think you’re insane, but you’re just trying to survive and complete your mission. How did it come to this? What will you do next?

While skimming the reviews for this game, I came across a big fountain of praise for TRANSIT's index. I love a good index, and am often saddened when a game has a poorly organized index, or doesn't have one at all. A book that you can reference well is infinitely easier to use.

On top of this, TRANSIT feels like a really unique combination, as it's both a skirmish game and Powered by the Apocalypse. Those are two things I don't normally think would be put together! It's also got a really unique perspective, since you are playing ships, rather than the people inside them. Is your AI going to be human-like, or something completely different? Find out in TRANSIT.

Voidhunters, by Fox Tale Games.

It has been forty years since the end of the last Great War, in which the Espiri Empire consolidated victory against Salvatori forces. The war was hard-won – planets were bombarded, resources were leashed to build grand war engines and vast voidborn battleships, and though the embers are slowly burning out, the winds of rebellion are relentless in stirring dissent.

But the war is of no concern of you and your crew. You are voidhunters, freelancers tasked by government and private clients to search for treasure in the depths of space. It’s dangerous work, but it pays the bills, and it’s always interesting.

From empty war hulks drifting powerless through space, to locked-down laboratories hiding unfinished weapons, tech and viruses, to the ruins of the Asar, the ancient space-faring civilization that came before your own, every episode of Voidhunters can take you and yours somewhere new.

Voidhunters feels a little closer to science fantasy, because it describes itself as a soft sci-fi setting, with magic and mechs. It's inspired by media such as Cowboy Bebop, Rogue One, and Firefly, where danger is supposed to be constantly present, while opportunities to be a hero are still around the corner.

The game uses d20 dice pools, and characters are a collection of Abilities, Skills and Talents. Ability scores determine your target number to roll under. Attributes & Skills give you dice. Talents are special things your character (and only your character) can do.

An interesting extra detail in Voidhunters is that matching your target number is even better than rolling under; it reduces the number of threats the GM can roll at you, and allows you to set yourself up for a better chance for the next time you roll as well. Otherwise, the GM will be able to collect threat dice to make things harder to do, or even more dangerous if they feel like it.

If you want a bit of action movie pulp in your space drink, maybe consider Voidhunters.

Free Spacer, by Christoph Sapinsky.

Free Spacer is a contemporary science fiction tabletop roleplaying game. It leverages the newest space sciences, takes into account biotechnology, and brings the internet to the rim of the quadrant.

As a Free Spacer, you’re a crew member on a small starship, an outsider, and a contractor. You’ll explore new worlds, investigate dangers, negotiate contracts, operate your starship, and do science!

As the Game Master, you have a wealth of tools at your disposal to build whole worlds and manage the machinations of sector factions in the ongoing Cold War. You’ll be able to easily run conflicts, spaceflight, fabrication projects, and other challenges, while quickly generating new locations and characters.

Play to find out how the crew gets the job done, the choice they make, the rules they break, and the length will go for their Patrons.

The author of Free Spacer says his principal purpose of the game was to make it feel like science fiction, and everything I'm seeing from it looks like hard sci-fi. The setting is a deeply imperfect future; no faster-than-light communication, a sector-wide cold war, and the need to negotiate contracts for every job.

The game uses 2 different kinds of dice: d10's and d6's. d10's contribute to your chances of success, while d6's contribute to your chances of failure. All of the rolls are player-facing, with the GM contributing threats and complications, which definitely feels a little reminiscent of Star Wars FFG, down to the non-binary dice results. You can succeed, you can miss, but you can also have a little bit of both worlds, which I think has the potential for nuanced storytelling.

Space Ambulance, by Bully Pulpit Games.

Space is a huge inconvenience. It’s big, it’s dangerous, and it is between you and anywhere interesting.

Once upon a time it was so outrageously hazardous that people traveling through it were killed now and then just for being there. Of course today spaceships are safe and sensible and no one dies in old-fashioned ways like “hull depressurization” or “reactor explosion”. Today spaceships are smart - smarter than you and me - and they are carefully built with safety in mind. You are far, far more likely to be killed by falling out of bed than you are by a spaceship failure.

And yet.

Sapient beings are amazingly fragile and incompetent. We touch things we are told not to touch. We eat too much, or too little. We make poor choices about who to make friends with. We fall out of bed. Sometimes, through no fault of our friendly and safe spaceships, we get in trouble in space.

When this happens, every second counts. You need to call an ambulance - a space ambulance.

Space Ambulance is a game about the dedicated professionals of the space ambulance services. You will explore the lives and loves of the crews, both on the job and off, as they perform dramatic (and not so dramatic) rescues, fill out paperwork, and await their next thrilling (or not so thrilling) call.

Space Ambulance advertises itself as focused on the drama between the characters, so I'm guessing it might be something like Grey's Anatomy - in space! Bully Pulpit Games in general intrigues me with a lot of the concepts they put forward, so I think that whatever you pick up from them, you're in for a solidly good time.

Xenopolitan, by Willy Elektrix.

Xenopolitan is an RPG about everyday life in an alien metropolis. Live the life of an extraterrestrial person with real world problems. Play as a human or extraterrestrial entrepreneur, student, artist, social worker, politician, reporter, criminal, detective, or anything else, and experience life in this galactic future-scape.

Setting: The year is 2099. Ingress is a city with 90 million people from thousands of different species and planets. It flies in the skies above Earth and is a hub for extraterrestrials conducting business with various Earthling corporations and governments. Players are denizens of this sprawling, cosmopolitan city, and their backgrounds and goals can be as diverse as the city’s population.

Xenopolitan really does feel like an alien slice-of-life rpg. The entire book is dotted with in-world excerpts, like newspaper obituaries, reviews of various artists, and even dating profiles for NPCs!

The game uses Fudge Dice, also known as Fate Dice, if I'm not mistaken. It also uses a d10 as a Luck die, which doesn't really contribute to success or failure, but ether adds a benefit or a complication. The things you'll be rolling for appear to be rather mundane things, like figuring out how to break up with your girlfriend, or trying to pass your driver's test.

At it's core, Xenopolitan is about making it in a big, big city. Each character will have personal weaknesses and drawbacks that they'll have to work to accommodate or overcome, such as a criminal record, a responsibility to take care of someone else, an undocumented immigration status, etc. If you want to mix the speculative, goofy elements of sci-fi with the mundane, everyday struggles of modern life, you might like Xenopolitan.

Additional Cool Things...

Last Fleet, by Black Armada Games.

Arkyvr, a toolkit for Mothership that has players cast as a documentary crew.

Holdfast Station, by Lampblack and Brimstone.

Space And Stars Rec Post

Space Adventures Rec Post

Space Westerns Rec Post

Space Fantasy Rec Post

If you like what I do, you can always leave a token of appreciation at my Ko-Fi!

[kqutie]

THE PRINCESS' SEVEN MERCENARIES

CHAPTER TWO : A FATEFUL MEETING

relations. : cevans various/reader -- steve rogers/reader ; curtis everett/reader ; ari levinson/reader ; lloyd hansen/reader ; andy barber/reader ; jake jensen/reader ; ransom drysdale/reader

chpt. sum. : your stepmother wants you dead but you're able to make a swift escape with the help of the huntsman who was meant to kill you. into the woods you go in search of a new and better life!

tags. : these men don't know what they're in for; lloyd and ransom don't trust you ; andy needs a hug ; disney princess reader ; snow white and the seven dwarves au ; fairy tale au ; fluff ; domestic fluff ; a/b/o universe but it's not the central point ; disney princess reader and her seven sexy mercenaries hehe~

length. : 4.4k

← one. a swift escape | navi. | series masterlist

“Even more peculiar,” Andy whispers as the group of four step into the front door of their quaint cottage, only to immediately smell the scent of a delicious meal saturating the air. The mercenaries were unaccustomed to their home having any form of ‘lived-in’ smell, owing to their packed schedules and demanding occupations. For the majority of their days, they were so preoccupied with their current assignment that they couldn’t even bask in the feeling of having an actual home for once. Hence, the fragrant aroma in the air was a pleasant surprise. 

“Smells good,” Curtis comments as Lloyd swiftly moves to the bottom of the stairs, ready to eliminate whoever intruded on his—their home!

“Let’s get this fucker already,” Lloyd snaps under his breath and takes the lead in the search upstairs. Behind him, Curtis nods back at Steve and Andy before splitting off silently by the staircase. 

There have been many ambushes on their group, in part, due to their line of work but Steve has never been so flummoxed by an ambush attempt before. Was it even an ambush? It was difficult to keep such an alert mindset when nothing seemed overly suspicious. There wasn’t any dubious tension in the air nor was there a haunting stillness about the environment, in fact—

“What’s that smell?” Steve questions, teetering on the boundary between alert and heedless. 

“The food?” Andy provides only to be met with a negative. 

“There’s something else in the air…”

Another curious silence is shared between the two mercenaries as they traverse their living space. From memory, due to the lack of lighting, they gather that they’ve made it halfway through the living room already yet nothing has happened. Disregarding their muted steps across the wooden floors, their subdued breaths and the rustling of their clothes, there’s simply nothing but stillness and peace in the air. 

“Nothin’ up here,” Lloyd’s voice suddenly buzzes through everyone’s earpiece and breaks the, somewhat, taut atmosphere. Both good news and bad news depending on who it was directed to, and whatever the hell was actually happening, “Curt and I are heading down now,”

“Conservatory’s clear, we’re moving to the kitchen,” Ari chimes in just as Steve and Andy pick up on mute footfalls making their way to the entrance of their cooking and dining area. The trio coming in from the garden entrance refrain from drawing attention to the peculiar sight of their clean laundry hanging from the washing lines. Even though it was bizarre, it remained a largely innocuous sight. 

“I’ve never heard of an intruder who does our laundry…” Ransom had commented as Ari and Jake hummed in agreement beside him. 

“Turned off the fire,” Jake helpfully inputs, indicating that his group have now entered the kitchen space. 

“So helpful, Jake,” Ransom sarcastically comments, the roll of his eyes obvious in his tone. 

“It could have been a bomb,” their technician argues back and barely resists the urge to raise his voice. 

“A bomb that smells like stew? That’s a first,”

Before Jake and Ransom begin a petty fight, Ari silences them both with a well-placed, cold stare. Usually a gentle giant, along with Curtis, it wasn’t common for Ari’s temper to make even a slight appearance, so whenever there was a small sign of it, everyone shut their mouths and righted themselves. It was difficult considering the majority collectively shared the same second gender (alpha) with Jake and Ransom being the only Betas, but that’s why they were in such high demand. The majority’s innate dominance and survival instincts worked in their favour. And, with Jake and Ransom to balance out the group as betas who dominated in their own separate skill sets, the group’s services only proved more favourable. Combined, they were a formidable force and in high demand. It was unfortunate that their main clients were very unsavoury characters. This more recent one was their only decent client so far.  

“So that’s what that peculiar smell is,” Steve comments, his shoulders lowering in disbelief and respite as he finally spots your bundled figure curled up on their living room sofa. Everyone’s attention is drawn to their captain, his comment and loosened tone steadily releasing the tension in his group mates’ taught figures. 

“An omega?” Andy affirms with slightly widened eyes, “What’s she doing here?” an omega with a high affinity for magic… Andy resumes the thought in his head, remembering Jake’s earlier analysis, and looks over at Steve, who shares his thoughts telepathically. 

Light from the kitchen drapes a warm glow over your bundled-up form as a nearby window shines moonlight across your delicate features – the only thing they’re able to see of you. Slowly, the group from the kitchen moved to stand in the archway through to the living room before splitting off to guard all exit points. No stranger was to be underestimated. With sharp eyes, they observe whatever little features they’re able to discern from their separate vantage points. Their curiosity slowly rises but with their trust in Steve, their captain, and the religious practice of their routine operations, they find it best to stay back and let those closest to you handle the upcoming confrontation.  

“What the fuck is this bitch doing in our house?” Lloyd materialises out of the darkness, his eyes and pinched expression indicating his rough intentions. The alpha doesn’t discriminate between male, female, non-binary, second gender presentation, age, social status, occupation or anything remotely indicative of an individual’s identity because he merely doesn’t care. If you’ve done anything to offend him, he’s not going to stand for it – he’ll beat you down until you’re eating dirt. 

“She’s small,” Curtis comments from behind his enraged mercenary partner. 

“I don’t care, she needs to go!” Lloyd reaches forward but his rough hands are pushed away by Andy, who effectively manipulates Lloyd back so that Steve can kneel by your head and shake you awake.  

A large hand shakes your shoulder and forces you into gradual consciousness. For a moment, you rub your eyes and grumble tiredly before your current situation finally dawns on you and a gasp escapes your lips. Suddenly alert, you sit up and lock gazes with a beautiful blue set. However, you quickly realise that this handsome, clean-shaven blonde with the ocean in his eyes wasn’t the only one present in the room. Your eyes connect with six other figures scattered about the space, who are openly observing your figure as well. 

All the attention makes a heat rise in your neck as your heart begins to race. All of them were handsome in their own way and stood a great deal taller than you, with broad shoulders, muscular arms, slim waists and thick thighs. You can’t believe men like this actually existed. Not even the knights patrolling the perimeter of the castle stacked up to the select few before you.

You finally look back at the blonde man in front of you, who has no space to say anything when you hurriedly blurt out your well-rehearsed, opening speech, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” the blonde waits for you to continue, no longer appearing to want to say anything and allowing you to finish speaking, “I just really needed a place to stay and, perhaps, some directions to the nearest village tomorrow?” behind him, his friends look towards one another, silently conversing about the situation, “I-I promise I won’t stay long…a-and as an apology, I made you dinner?” your words rang with uncertainty. Biting down on your bottom lip was evidence enough of your anxiety. No intruder with the intent to kill would look so anxious over such a demure request. 

But it could all be an act…

“Well, I suppose we can accommodate you for the night,” Steve concludes with a soft smile as Lloyd’s complaints get muffled by Curtis’ large hand. He didn’t want to alert you of their operations, so it’s best to appear like a normal group of men living together peacefully in the forest, “but I’m afraid we don’t have an extra room upstairs so you’ll have to make do with the sofa…” Steve isn’t usually one to lose focus but finds his thoughts slowly straying the longer he looks into your eyes and observes the sparkling delight shining in them. His mention of allowing you to stay only seemed to make them dazzle more. 

“Oh! It’s no trouble! Your sofa is very comfortable,” you chirp so innocently and happily that every man in the room gapes in awe of you. Lloyd is about to scoff at your aggregability but is cut off when you quickly hop onto your feet and rush into the kitchen, effectively interrupting his big, petulant display of displeasure. “It seems like you’ve all had a long day so you must be hungry, let me serve you dinner,” they watch as you pull a sheepish expression when approaching the stove, “I hope you don’t mind that I used your kitchen and your food to cook,”

If you’re telling the truth it should bode well for them. Steve nods singularly at Curtis who immediately looks into their food storage to see if there’s anything missing. When Curtis can confirm that there was produce missing, he returns Steve’s silent nod. This was a good sign, although it doesn’t fully absolve you from a poisoning attempt — it would be even more suspicious if you used your own ingredients and feigned goodwill with the excuse of not wanting to ‘steal’ from their food storage.   

“As long as we finally get to have a warm meal at home, you can cook up everything in our pantry,” Jake grins boyishly, which Steve mentally thanks him for. Trust Jake to break the ice and avoid any awkwardness with his saccharine charisma. The paramour of the group on missions is usually Ransom but that’s for missions only — for instances like this that are off-duty and could likely lead to awkward interplay, Jake has just the right charm to keep things going in a good direction. Their magi-tech genius sometimes goes so far as to take the awkwardness on for himself and draw attention away from the rest of the group – it’s come in handy multiple times but Steve doesn’t believe Jake sees this quality for what is. Ransom certainly does and takes full advantage of occasionally recruiting Jake for some of his machiavellian assignments. 

As you potter about the kitchen space, the men take up their assigned seats at the long dining table. There was enough space for everyone, even you. As the captain, Steve naturally takes up the head of the table, leaving the only remaining chair at the other end of the table. Across each other, the mercenaries meet eyes, silently conversing and trying to convey their opinions of you. They’ve been a group for so long that it’s not hard to observe everyone’s standing. Jake doesn’t seem to mind, in fact, he’s pleasantly surprised and happily accepts the circumstance. Steve, Andy, Curtis and Ari remain nonchalant about the situation, their feelings never really tipping to one side. Lloyd remains visibly irate whilst Ransom appears to have calmed down a bit, however, a disgruntled arch remains on his lips. 

Steve can tell that everyone’s exhausted. Even Lloyd. Their days are often very taxing so it’s hard to cook a warm meal when they get home. Ari and Andy are the only decent cooks among them but, by the time they make it back to the cottage, sometimes separately, they don’t have the energy to do anything else other than converse about tomorrow’s steps forward. Every night ends with getting to sleep on unsatisfied stomachs and lingering displeasures, only to wake up the following day and do it again. This is all they know and it’s hard to break the routine. Everyone’s accustomed to finally letting their guard down as soon as they get back home atop the exhaustion; they can’t find it in themselves to openly protest or question their pretty, graceful little intruder like they know they should. 

“Let me heat up the bread rolls for a bit,” you pipe up softly, turning to the group with a warm smile, “but that gives you all just enough time to wash up,” they blink in surprise before most nod and oblige. Lloyd stubbornly stays in place and when Andy arches a brow at him, a silent question, Lloyd gives a short, snappy answer. 

“She can’t be trusted. I’m staying right here. I’ll go when someone else comes back and can keep an eye on her too,” 

Andy gives an understanding nod but doesn’t move to follow everyone else to their upstairs washrooms. When you look upon the two with curious eyes and an adorable (though Lloyd would never admit it) tilt to your head, Andy offers a reassuring smile.         

“There isn’t enough space in the washroom upstairs for all of us to go at once so Lloyd and I will stay here and wait our turn,”

Accepting the explanation you return your attention to the bread rolls. Placing a damp but clean towel over the array, you open the oven and bend down to put the tray inside. Andy has the decency to avert his eyes but not Lloyd. He eyes your bent-over form with a snarl, determined not to fall for your innocent endearingness, clothed in a plain but complementary dress, covered by a cosy, cable-knit cardigan. You’re not cute or pretty or worth his attention — he isn’t a dunce and he won’t make a fool of himself over some woman.  He’s seen this show and dance before, the innocent, damsel-in-distress omega that needs help from an alpha. It’s such a cliche display, Lloyd can’t believe he hasn’t openly disparaged your antics yet. 

Andy, on the other hand, finds himself wishing for something like this to become more commonplace. It’s a blissful dream he cherishes – to be able to have a love that he can come home to after a hard day’s work and be spoiled by domestic bliss. Someone to bring flowers to, someone to work hard for, someone to look forward to seeing at the end of each and every day. Seeing you glide through the kitchen with the skirt of your dress billowing behind you makes him want to sigh in contentedness and dismay all at the same time. He knows he isn’t the only one out of their group who wishes for stability and an easy life like this. It’s impossible for them to even dream of this simple joy. But getting a small glimpse of this domestic life brings about an urge in Andy. It makes him want to push and fight to attain such candid happiness – something that feels easy and euphoric, his own paradise on earth, shared with someone special. 

“That’s your name?” you ask innocently, placing a large underplate beside the vase of flowers at the dining table before moving to retrieve a cloth for transferring the stew.

“Yeah, Lloyd Hansen,” the grump confirms. 

“Hansen?” Lloyd tenses at your piqued interest. He remains taut when you turn around with your ever-present, warm smile, carefully lifting the crockpot of stew over to the table. 

“What about it?” Lloyd snaps defensively, ignoring the warning clench of Andy’s fingers over the slope of his shoulder. 

“I just knew a very kind man named Hansen,” you sheepishly admit, hurrying to gloss over the topic at the sight of Lloyd’s inquisitive brow raise. Introducing yourself simply, you then turn your attention to Andy, who also introduces himself in return. 

“My name is Andrew, Andrew Barber, but everyone just calls me Andy,” 

Lloyd snarls when you lie about it being a pleasure to meet them but is swept away when Andy roughly pulls out of his chair. The others had begun to filter back into the dining room. It was the pair’s turn to wash up and head upstairs as they distantly heard you introduce yourself to the rest of the group behind them. 

“Let me help you with that,” Ari helpfully sets the table with you as the others take their seats once more and introduce themselves one by one. The bearded, giant of a man smiles faintly when you thank him for his assistance, finding that he rather enjoys seeing your smile and prettily beaming eyes directed at him — even if it’s just for a second or two. “I’m Ari, by the way,” You smile at how lovely his name sounds and freely tell him so. He seemed shocked at your vivacious demeanour but doesn’t comment on it, happy to indulge in your refreshing mannerisms. 

Steve was the clean-shaven blonde that sat at the head of the table; you assume he’s the big man in charge despite his much gentler appearance compared to some of the other characters sitting about the table. Curtis is the gruff-looking one who politely takes off a woollen cap to reveal his buzzed hair; you gauge that he’s the silent, observant type. Ransom is unlike the others in his fashion, dressed in a comfy, cable knit sweater; he looked approachable but there was something about him that made you second guess yourself. You don’t quite know how to feel about that. Lastly, there was Jake who grins freely and seems a little more energetic than the others around him. His good mood is contagious and helps you feel at ease.   

Everyone watches as you take out the bread rolls and go about the table, carefully placing a roll on their side plates, your smile never dropping. The rest were placed in a basket at the table within everyone’s reach. Plenty were left so you reassured them that they could grab another if they were feeling extra peckish. 

“Thank you,” Steve voices sincerely as everyone eyes the delicious meal laid out before them. One by one, they had begun serving themselves a portion of the beef stew you had thoughtfully prepared. It was all from the same pot so they plan on waiting for you to take the first bite, avoiding a sly poisoning attempt. “It’s been far too long since we’ve had a warm meal to come home to,”

“It’s really no trouble,” you smile down at your lap, taking a seat at the other end of the table, “it’s the least I can do for your kindness in letting me stay the night despite being a complete stranger,” 

Everyone observes your words and actions with great care. They have an eye for deceit; Ransom has taught them all about the common tricks he plays to earn the trust of those they need to fool on missions, however, nothing about your actions so far appear fraudulent to them. It was strange. Perhaps it’s because they’re trained to think this way that they have such lingering doubts about your innocence. 

It isn’t long until Andy and Lloyd return to the table and fill their bowls too. “Apologises for the delay,” Andy is the only one with the decency to express his regret, Lloyd simply grumbles under his breath. 

You don’t seem to catch on to their plot of watching you take the first bite and wait for any adverse side effects to occur before they can deem the food safe enough to consume themselves. Thankfully, you taste the bread roll and stew all at once, dipping a piece of the roll in the stew to taste together. That’s all they needed and finally allowed themselves to savour the bliss of having a homecooked meal after a long, hard day of work. 

Lloyd hates to admit it but he appreciates the hearty dinner. It’s an indulgence he happily dismisses his earlier wariness for, wanting to enjoy the meal to the fullest. He can get back to being bitter about the situation and you, later. Curtis manages to smile modestly at the warmth the stew fills him from within. It’s been so long since they’ve indulged in such an innocent, domestic pleasure. Perhaps you were a blessing in disguise, put there to quench their deprived existence. Andy, again is given a soothing balm to soothe one of his deepest desires – a happy home. He finds he’s unable to look up and face you, knowing that his expression will leave him and his yearning vulnerable to everyone’s criticisms. Jake and Ransom meet eyes across the table and grin at each other. As the only two betas, they have a more intimate kinship between them and both can tell that the other is incredibly satisfied with the situation. Yes, they have petty fights but they agree on a lot of things too, this tasty meal being one of those things. It didn’t start off ideal but this was a repose everyone had been craving. And they were more than eager to indulge in the moment too. 

Steve observes everyone at the table with Ari. They understand that the type of occupation they have aligns with a lifestyle that typically doesn’t have this type of scenario playing at the end of every day. This is surely something they would cherish for a long time. As time passes, they slowly realise how misplaced their judgement and wariness were. Finally, they can relieve themselves of that burden and fully enjoy the rare evening.     

Slowly regaining their strength throughout the meal, everyone settles down and begins to ease up for the night. The chatter fluctuates, sometimes it’s loud, sometimes it’s quiet but everyone goes for seconds and thirds before you can even get through half of your plate. 

“So how did you get here?” Trust Jake to ruin the mood in such a way. It’s the obvious question on everyone’s minds and was asked it in the most innocuous tone possible, only to be met by the most awkward silence to ever fall over the group as everyone turns their focus on you.  

You contemplated telling them the truth or not. These men deserved your honesty but you don’t know if it would result in further danger, your stepmother had a lot of magical artefacts nobody knew about; you can’t make careless decisions. And you weren’t about to risk yourself or these kind men’s safety so you go for something in between — a half-truth, “...I ran away”

“From what?” Ransom demands in an almost threatening tone. He’s back on the defensive, along with Lloyd, the two of them eyeing your shrinking form disparagingly. Jake, seeing the reaction of his teammates, feels immense guilt for having put you in a difficult situation and looks to the only person he trusts to placate the tension, Steve.  

“Calm down, Ran,” Steve sends him a warning glare despite his level voice. 

“No, I think he has a point and if she’s going to stay the night then I think we’re owed an explanation,” Lloyd’s eyes don’t leave you, his gaze fixed, cold and untrusting. 

“I uhh…” you begin to get nervous. You don’t want to reveal that you’re the princess but you’re feeling the pressure from all the attention atop Lloyd and Ransom’s demands. Everyone can see that you’re fighting with yourself and expect you to finally confess to something. However, rather than reveal the truth or lie further, you go for the third option, “…I-I think I should just go…” with a weak smile, you get up from the table — free to do so without protest as the mercenaries are either shocked or vehemently glaring at Lloyd and Ransom. 

Your bowl of beef stew is only half eaten and your bread roll has a few bites left in it. Nobody can meet your eyes as you hurriedly cross the dining room to the living space with your head down and take back your basket from behind the sofa you fell asleep on. You don’t bother with collecting the perishable foods you had stashed in their cool storage, thinking it a lost cause. For the final time, you look at them through the large archway connecting the living space and dining area, “I’m so sorry for the intrusion but thank you for letting me stay this long. Please enjoy the rest of the food. I umm… I baked some banana bread and made whipped cream to have with for dessert,” you’re about to turn and leave, bidding them farewell when you’re stopped by a mountain — Curtis stands in your path, blocking your escape 

“They’re being pricks so their opinions don’t matter,” his voice is much more gentle than you imagined, “you can stay,” the bearish man takes advantage of your hesitation and leads you back to your seat with a large hand on your lower back. He pulls the chair out for you and tucks it back in as you sit down again. You can’t meet anyone’s eyes, the tension in the air, still too high.

“You can stay regardless of whether you tell us your reasoning or not,” Steve voices, meeting your gaze kindly when you snap your head up in surprise. It’s obvious to all parties (except for Lloyd and Ransom) know that you don’t mean them any harm so they’re happy to let the incident pass and offer up their home. It isn’t even their permanent residence, only the one given to them by their employer on the conditions of their year contract. 

“Ransom and Lloyd are a little possessive but their rough edges aren’t very dangerous,” Ari offers, the insight on the two characters no longer seems necessary after the interactions you’ve had with them. However, it was reassuring for it to be said aloud by someone, “Just ignore them, we all do” his kind smile beneath his thick beard urges you to offer a hesitant one in return.    

Ransom eyes Andy who doesn’t acknowledge his obvious glare. As the negotiator of the group, Andy was well-equipped with the skills to weasel some admittance from you but he clearly has no interest in getting any sort of information. Andy remains a silent observer. He’s aware of Ransom’s dismay but doesn’t acknowledge him, making the man’s stare turn icy. Too righteous Ransom scoffs in his head. Everyone knows about each other’s past. Clearly, Andy was still especially soft around women, those who were gentle and kind, the homey type, omegas especially. You were the perfect image of that so there’s no hope of Ransom ever getting Andy to do anything. 

Great, just great, the pathetic, sappy asshole. Lloyd grumbles internally, he was a witness to the silent interaction between Ransom and Andy, and had arrived to the same conclusion. Their negotiator isn’t budging. The only person able to influence Andy would be Steve but you have their captain wrapped around your little finger too. Hopeless! The lot of them!  

navi. | series masterlist | three. a different morning →

a/n : how did you like the chapter? what did you think of our boys? this is my side account so i don't know how updates are going to be like but i hope you enjoy the series so far! more fluff to come soon!

taglist : @imyourbratzdoll

p.s : i have a queen in my taglist…the literal writer who inspired this series the most is on my taglist!!!!! MAMA IM FAMOUS!

[lurkingshan]

The other day in a conversation about I'll Turn Back This Time, @troubled-mind asked me about my favorite dramas that show the same couple falling in love multiple times, in different iterations.

So of course, I am now here with a list! Takes on the fantasy trope that ITBTT uses--an alternate universe and/or time travel mechanism that sets up the protagonist to fall in love with the same person, or different versions of the same person, more than once--is actually not super common in dramas, but there are a handful of shows that do something like this:

Triage 

If you ask me what is the best QL with this trope, I don't even need to think about it: Triage is the answer. I love this show, and alongside its masterful suspense plot you get to watch these two try (and fail) to get the other to fall for them over and over again. It's a great time.

Someday or One Day 

If you ask me what is the best drama with this trope, period, I have to hand it to Someday or One Day, a Taiwanese drama that is probably my favorite time travel alternate universe romance of all time. In this one you get multiple versions of the same characters falling in love with each other and traversing time and space to find each other. It's so good that a Korean production attempted to replicate its magic. An absolute must watch for people who love this trope!

Every You Every Me

Now we're getting into some with asterisks. In this show you get to watch the same two actors play multiple different pairs who fall in love with each other in different universes--kind of. I can't say more or I will spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet! It's not a perfect show by any means, but it's a lot of fun.

4 Minutes 

This show is not a great example of this trope IMO, but it sort of gets at the experience, as you see a few different versions of the lead characters and their relationship through various narrative turns. I'm keeping it vague because saying much more would be spoilerific!

The Legend of the Blue Sea

A mermaid meets a conman, has a whirlwind romance, and then deletes his memory. But oops! They were already lovers in a previous life, her mermaid powers are not working quite as planned, and she can't stop herself from finding him again anyway. It's all a bit more complicated than that, but the point is you get to watch these two find each other and fall in love several times in multiple lifetimes. And damn did I love it every time.

Until We Meet Again 

In this drama, the story is about two souls who meet again in another life after a tragic end in their first. So it kinda fits here, but their reincarnated souls go into new characters played by different actors, so the experience of watching it is a bit different. This one is less about time travel and choice as it is heavy on the red string of fate.

Extraordinary You 

In this fantasy drama, our mains are side characters in a manwha who gain sentience and start trying to change their story together while an omnipotent writer keeps shuffling them back to where they think they belong and deleting their memories of each other. It's definitely a unique twist on this trope, and you get to watch them fight to remember and fall for each other and find a way to take control of their destiny over and over again.

In addition to narratives with a fantasy construct that resets or produces multiple iterations of the core relationship, I also thought about second chance romances where you get to see both the original and the second chance love story in full, giving you the experience of watching the same two people fall in love twice. Some noteworthy dramas in this category:

Lighter and Princess

This drama centers on two tech genius types who originally fell in love in college and started a company together before something went very wrong, resulting in his incarceration. The story picks up when he gets out of prison and sets out to reclaim his legacy, and you get to live both their first and second love stories in detail. One of my absolute favorites and permanently in the rewatch rotation.

We Best Love 

This story is told in two parts, with the first focused on their original enemies to lovers romance in college, and the second their reunion after a confusing and closure-less break up. It's honestly kind of a mess but I love it so much anyway, in no small part due to the actors.

The End of the World With You 

And now for something a little darker! This one is heavy on the toxic psychosexual vibe, and all the more fascinating for it. Two former lovers meet again at the end of the world, and we see what went wrong for them in college and watch them sort through the wreckage as adults and try to make something of the time they have left.

First Love: Hatsukoi

Two high school sweethearts get separated by life circumstances, and meet again twenty years later to realize they are still not over it. I was charmed by the teen love story in this one especially.

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo

Let me end on a note of excellence and take this opportunity to again implore everyone to watch this beautiful show. Both iterations of this relationship are compelling and complicated and full of deep feeling; it's one of the most satisfying second chance romances I have seen, and after everything they've been through, it's so rewarding to see these two get the chance to fall in love again.

[quitealotofsodapop]

Can't believe we created two brand new monkies and fleshed out the stone matriarch au even more

YEP

You know how in previous posts about Nuwa and how she ties into the idea of Stone Monkeys having an established peoples and lore prior to the Fifth Pillar breaking the first time?

Well, Nuwa and Fuxi had to start somewhere.

Meet;

Jiéshí/Jieshi - the First Stone/Mountain Primate, and Flower Fruit Mountain.

Yes you read that right. He IS Flower Fruit Mountain.

When he was created; Nuwa and Fuxi had used a LOT of earthen clay to create him, hoping to circumvent the issues the other clay-born creatures were having. As a result, he grew BIG.

Jieshi would become the ancestor of almost all Stone Monkeys that came after him, save for his almost-equally huge clay-born siblings - called the "Mountain Primates" for their size and unique end-of-life ritual. Most of them intermarrying with regular non-clay born monkeys.

(Plus the "pebble eggs" Fuxi had given the previous generations of clay monkeys managed to hatch into little monkeys from sheer belief, albeit much, much smaller than their mountain-sized kin.)

One day, Nuwa began to run out of fertile clay, and became worried that she would no longer be able to create anymore creatures. What's more, the mainland was getting more and more dangerous for her creations as humans reestablished themselves at the top of the food chain.

Jieshi decided that his body would become an island in the storm for his descendants - sacrificing his massive stony body to become the very base of Flower Fruit Mountain. A volcano erupting as his final breath.

His fellow Mountain Primates followed his footsteps, his siblings becoming the other islands in the archipelago of Alolai. The last of the Mountain Primates would shape the mainland itself - becoming the ridges traversed by pilgrims to come. The Buddha was forced to imprison Sun Wukong in a mountain made from his own han, as placing him under any regular mountain held the risk of the Stone Monkey being discovered by the spirits of his ancestral kin.

Ty for reminding me of the Boiling Isles in our dms;

Jieshi may not be "alive" in a typical sense, but he is certainly not silent.

His voice is unheard by those not able to hear his "Earth Song" - the sound carried by micro tremors and the heat of the earth below rather than the wind (which makes it unheard to Six Ears meant for hearing sound carried by wind). His voice is a lullaby and guidance all in one - him seeing all the monkeys stone-or-not on his body as his grandchildren. He also doesn't wish to awaken any of the slumbering eggs left behind by those who chose to give themselves back to the earth as he did.

The tragedy of Shihua the Last Stone Matriarch still occurs, the Great Flood decimating her people and all those who lived in Alolai. The Queen had been guided by Jieshi's Earth Song to the very peak of FFM, assured by spirit of the island that her child would be safe long after she relinquished her physical form to the Earth to create her Stone Egg.

Nuwa in turn, hoping for the continued survival of her most adored creations; asked Shihua to carry the soul of her and Fuxi's child in her Egg. A certain great soul that would rock the Heavens in many millennia's time.

It is said that the islands wept lava and rain for many months after the floodwaters receded, each of the mountain spirits sub-consciously mourning their lost descendants and culture.

One day, Jieshi's spirit was jostled awake by a little stone monkey breaking open from it's mother-stone. A tiny sunbeam-yellow newborn with eyes filled with wonder of the universe... and laser beams. XD

Jieshi continues to sing his Earth Song to his smallest "grandchild" long after tiny Shihou had grown into the self-made Monkey King Sun Wukong. But he can never stop seeing his smallest descendant as the cub that rolled around on his head all those eons ago. <3

So imagine the old mountain's sheer JOY at hearing the excited, playful chirps of a new clay-born cub on his head? One who's soul sang with the same power he was once blessed with by his Earth Mother Nuwa? :3

It takes MK a long time to be able to hear the "Earth Song" Monkey King refers to, but once he begins to understand, he can't ignore how much of it is unfettered praise for him and his mentor. <3

-

So how did the Lotus Eared Macaques and the other celestial primates happen?

Well, Nuwa was very proud of her creations, and every so often a god would ask for a "stone-born monkey" of their own!

Such as in the case of Taiyin Xingjun/Old Yin (Supreme Goddess of the Moon in Taoist belief):

Nuwa, holding a bunch of clay: "Do you have any animals in particular you like?" Taiyin Xingjun: "Well, my favourites are rabbits... but I would like to see how one your little stone monkeys would look like when the clay is set with moon dust." Nuwa, excited: "Oh! You're right! I hadn't thought of using binding agents from beyond earth! I have to use the river clay as the base like my newer creations, so they can make little monkeys of their own - but different binders should be fine!" (*Nuwa helps Xingjun mould the clay in her hands with the collected moon dust into an egg shape. As the older goddess holds the clay egg as delicately as she would a newborn, the egg suddenly pops open - revealing a newborn silver-furred monkey with strange ears*) Nuwa: "Oh! Thats new!" Taiyin Xingjun, overwhelmed: "Oh my! Oh, I'm so sorry little one! I must have had rabbits on my mind when I rolled the clay - oh your poor ears." Baby Monkey: (*confused by all the noise - ears are elongated like a rabbit's and seem to fan out closer to the base. Tail is stumpy and fluffy.*) Nuwa: "Aww, it like flower petals! She'll have no trouble hearing the music of the stars!" Taiyin Xingjun, humming a lullaby: "She really is like a precious lotus flower..."

That baby monkey was Liánhuā/Lianhua - the first born of the Lotus Eared Macaques. Forever small in stature, her later kin would balloon in size to fit the open lunar deserts. Their large glowing not-so-rabbit-like-anymore ears acting as bioluminescent signals to reach one another across the void of space. They still retained the "stone egg" feature of their core species - Nuwa was unsure how to patch it out just yet. XD

Lianhua had been treated as the youngest daughter of the Old Yin, equal to a princess in the old Moon Goddess's eye. When the elder moon gods became quieter with age, Lianhua and her children had been there; tending to their bodies and lands. The rabbit-eared princess learned much in the way of the dao, and the secrets of the universe from her adoptive mother

Lianhua was far more aloof than Jieshi, especially when it comes to their descendants. She too, lost many of her kin when the Fifth Pillar broke; but instead of remaining still she began travelling the universe - her flight aided by solar and cosmic winds. Her body more a moving mass of galactic light and wind than the mountain Jieshi became.

The Past, Present, and Future the Lotus Ears hear are in fact Lianhua's voice - speaking to her children with her collected knowledge of the universe.

Macaque always did wonder why the Wind sometimes sounded like a strict, disappointed grandmother. XD

[motleyfam]

It was supposed to be an easy night.

“—With this serum, I shall finally free my atoms of their dimensional prison, allowing me to freely traverse the very fibers of our universe!” the mad scientist proclaims as Red Robin, who is seated in a chair across from him in the makeshift laboratory, works furiously to undo the knots binding his hands behind his back. “The laws of physics shall govern me no more!”

“Don’t you do it, Frank,” Red Robin warns as he struggles with the ropes. “You know what happened last time.”

“That’s Dr. Nexus to you!” the third-rate villain declares as he tips the neon purple liquid into his open mouth.

Tim swears. Tapping his ear to his shoulder, he activates his comms. “Anyone near the abandoned warehouse on 28th and Laremont?" he demands. "We might need some backup.”

“Seriously?” Red Hood snorts incredulously through his earpiece. Tim can hear gunfire in the background. “For Nexus? You’re off your game, kid.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a little tied up at the moment,” Tim bites back irritably. “And Frankie here is about to go into anaphylactic shock. Again.”

“DR. NEXUS!” the villain bellows, then promptly breaks into a coughing fit.

“You’re a community college drop-out, Frank! You do not have a doctorate!”

“Screw you, I’m going back! I’m just”—Frank wheezes—“taking a semester”—wheeze— “off!”

With a final tug, the ropes slip from Tim’s wrists. Jumping to his feet, he jams a hand into the eighth pocket of his utility belt, retrieving a plastic autoinjector.

Doubled over with his hands on his knees, Frank holds up a defensive hand as he approaches. “Wait, no!” He coughs a few times. “Just a little more time! I’m so”—he wheezes—“close! I can”—wheeze—“taste it!”

“You’re tasting the inside of your own airway, that’s what you’re tasting…” Tim mutters under his breath, ripping off the blue plastic cap with his teeth.

“Go to"—wheeze—"hell!”

“Pro tip,” Tim says as he swings the uncapped Epi-Pen in an arc over the villain's thigh, “try not to insult the guy who's saving your life!”

The needle plunges into Frank’s leg for the second time in as many weeks, eliciting a howl of indignation and pain.

“You know, that’s gotta be the most hypocritical thing you’ve ever said."

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim grumbles into the comms, “just send the freaking ambulance…”

[cera-writes]

can you do a story gambit where reader is a mutant or just has the power to either travel through the multiverse or see into different universes and she’s in a relationship with remy and she sees that gambit and rogue are together in every universe except theirs and reader ignores him because she thinks that they should be together so basically some angst and shes comforted by remy maybe some smut? 🤗💕

A/N: thanks for requesting this! This was such an interesting prompt and I had fun writing it! Pairing: Remy LeBeau x F!Reader Tags: nsfw, angst, comfort/hurt, sweet reassuring smut

In this Universe

You stand in the dimly lit room, your eyes fixed on the swirling portal that connects to countless alternate realities. The air around you crackles with energy, a tangible reminder of the power coursing through your veins—the power to see and traverse the multiverse. Your partner, Remy LeBeau, stands beside you, his hand resting reassuringly on your shoulder. His eyes, though masked by the shadows, betray a concern that mirrors your own inner turmoil.

"Qu'est-ce qui te tracasse, chere?" Remy's voice is soft, tinged with his usual Creole accent that still managed to wrap around your heart like a warm and inviting embrace.

You hesitate, torn between sharing your recent discovery and the fear it might shatter the fragile peace you've built together. "I... I've been seeing things, Remy. In other universes."

His grip tightens slightly, encouraging you to continue. "Go on, tell Remy."

"In every universe I've seen, you and Rogue are... together. Always." The words hang heavy in the air, laden with unspoken implications.

Remy's expression remains calm, but you can sense the undercurrent of tension. "And what does dat mean fo' us here?"

You turn to face him, searching his eyes for any hint of what he might be feeling. "It means... maybe we're not meant to be together. Maybe our story was written for someone else."

A muscle ticks in his jaw, but his voice remains steady when he speaks. "So, you think we should jus' give up because some versions of us didn't make it work?"

The question stings, not because of its sharpness, but because of its accuracy. You sigh, looking back at the portal. "I don't know what to think anymore."

Remy steps closer, tilting your chin up so you meet his gaze. "Listen to Remy, chere. Our love, it's real. It's ours. Not some borrowed fairytale from another world."

You want to believe him, to cling to the warmth of his words, but the images from those other universes keep flashing through your mind—Rogue and Gambit, laughing, fighting, loving. "What if we're just living out someone else's destiny?"

Remy shakes his head, his eyes burning with an intensity that surprises you. "No. Dis, us, it's ours to shape. Ours to fight for."

You feel a tear slip down your cheek, caught off guard by the depth of emotion in his response. "But how can we be sure?"

He brushes the tear away with his thumb, his touch gentle yet firm. "Cause I choose you, every day. And Gambit'll keep choosing you, no matter what those other worlds show."

His words resonate within you, stirring something deep and primal. "Remy..."

Before you can finish, he presses his lips to yours, a fierce declaration of intent that leaves no room for doubt. The kiss is passionate, desperate, as if he's trying to imprint himself upon you, to drown out the visions of other realities with the reality of his love.

When he pulls back, his eyes are dark with desire, his breath coming fast. "Let's make our own story, chere. One dat those other worlds will envy."

You nod, your resolve strengthening with each beat of your heart. "

"Please." You needed the distraction desperately to keep from coming apart at the seams. You needed him to ground you and make you really believe that this was your universe with him and that's all that mattered, otherwise, you don't think you could handle anymore of these visions.

"I'm right here, chere." He squeezed your hand.

Together, you turn back to the portal, hand in hand, ready to confront whatever challenges lie ahead, united in your decision to forge your own path, regardless of the echoes from parallel worlds.

You grip Remy's hand tightly as you step into the swirling portal, the sensation of being pulled apart and reassembled in a different reality washing over you like a tidal wave. The colors blur and merge, creating a kaleidoscope of visions that threaten to overwhelm your senses.

"Focus on me, chere," Remy's voice cuts through the chaos, steady and reassuring. You lock eyes with him, allowing his presence to anchor you as the world around you shifts and morphs.

Suddenly, the disorientation ceases, and you find yourselves standing in a lush, overgrown garden. The air is thick with the scent of blooming flowers, and the soft hum of insects fills the silence. You look around, recognizing this place—it's one of the alternate realities you've seen before, where Gambit and Rogue are deeply in love.

Remy seems to sense your unease. "Show Gambit what troubles you," he murmurs, leading you deeper into the garden.

As you walk, the scenery changes subtly, transforming into a scene from your visions. There, under a weeping willow, stands Gambit and Rogue, their bodies entwined in a passionate embrace. Your hands start to shake as anxiety takes over again. The sight stings, but before you can turn away, Remy pulls you close.

"Look at dem, but see us," he whispers against your ear, his breath warm and comforting. "Feel how our hearts beat as one."

You close your eyes, focusing on the solidity of Remy's body pressed against yours, the steady rhythm of his heart matching your own. When you open your eyes again, the vision of Gambit and Rogue fades, replaced by the vivid reality of Remy's intense gaze.

"I see only you," you confess, your voice barely above a whisper.

Remy smiles, a flicker of relief softening his features. "Good. Now, lemme show you why Gambit chose you."

He leads you to a secluded clearing, where the grass is soft and inviting. The sunlight filters through the leaves overhead, dappling the ground with golden light. Remy kneels, gently pulling you down with him.

"Here, in dis place dat isn't ours, we'll make it ours," he says, his hands tracing the curve of your waist. His touch sends shivers down your spine, igniting a fire within you that burns brighter than any multiverse illusion.

You reach up, tangling your fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. His lips meet yours in a searing kiss that speaks of promises and possession. The world around you melts away, leaving only the two of you, locked in a battle for dominance and surrender.

Remy's hands roam freely, exploring every inch of your body with a reverence that makes you arch into his touch. "You're beautiful," he murmurs against your skin, his voice rough with desire.

You gasp as his teeth graze your neck, marking you as his. "Remy," you breathe, your need rising like a tide.

He looks up, his eyes dark with passion. "Say it again, chere. My name," he commands, his voice a low growl.

"Remy," you repeat, more urgently this time, your body aching for more.

With a groan, he presses you back against the grass, his body covering yours. The weight of him feels perfect, grounding you in this stolen moment of reality. It almost doesn't feel real. His kisses trail down your throat, his hands mapping your curves with possessive strokes.

"You're mine," he asserts, punctuating each word with a sharp nip to your skin. "In every universe, you're mine."

The intensity of his declaration sends a thrill through you, fueling your own hunger. You wrap your legs around his waist, urging him closer. "Prove it," you challenge, your voice husky with arousal.

Remy grins, a feral spark lighting his eyes. "With pleasure, ma chere."

He shifts, aligning himself with your core, and with one powerful thrust, he shears through your barriers, claiming you completely. You cry out, a mix of pain and ecstasy ripping through you as he fills you, joining your souls in a union that transcends the multiverse.

"Y-yes... yes!" you pant, clawing at his back, desperate to feel every part of him.

Remy moves inside you, his strokes deep and relentless, each thrust a testament to his devotion. "Look at me," he demands, forcing you to meet his gaze. "See only me, darlin'."

You do, your vision blurring with tears of joy as you drown in the crimson and black of his eyes. "Always," you promise, your voice breaking with emotion.

His pace quickens, driving you both towards the precipice. "Together," he gasps, his forehead resting against yours. "Forever."

With a final, powerful surge, he pushes you over the edge, your bodies convulsing in unison as waves of pleasure crash over you. You cling to each other, bodies slick with sweat, hearts pounding in sync.

"Ours," Remy breathes, collapsing beside you, his chest heaving with exertion.

You turn to face him, your fingers tracing the contours of his face. "Ours," you agree, sealing your pact with a tender kiss.

As you lie there, wrapped in each other's arms, the garden around you begins to fade, the portal calling you back to your own reality. But for now, you're content to stay lost in this stolen moment, secure in the knowledge that no matter the multiverse, your love will always find its way home.

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

Forgetting

Carol Danvers x fem!reader Warnings: established relationship, long distance, fluffy times, explicit language, implied sex (let me know if I've missed anything!) Word Count: 1.2k

Summary: It's been nearly a year since you've seen your girlfriend and almost two months since you've heard from her. And you're beginning to worry that she's forgotten about you. After all, the universe is a big place.

357 days. That’s how long it had been since you’d seen your girlfriend. You tried to think of yourself like a military spouse. After all, Carol did used to be in the Air Force. And she did travel to far-away, dangerous places to protect people, with very limited communication for long periods of time. It’s just that her dangerous locations were in other galaxies instead of other countries.

You were used to her being gone or, well, as used to it as you could be. The longer her absence went on, the more used to it you got, but somehow it also became harder. When she first set off on this mission, she’d been in your galaxy, so communications had come faster and with more regularity. Less space and time for them to travel through. But the farther away she got, the longer it took her messages to get to you. You were lucky if you got one email a month.

It wasn’t personal. You knew that. She was far away. Even with the best technology S.H.I.E.L.D. could provide to a civilian, her communication with you was still slow and limited. But, god, you missed her. You missed her laugh. You missed the warmth of her next to you in bed. You missed the way she propped her leg up when she sat down, no matter what kind of chair it was. You hung on every word of her emails, going over them so often you’d memorized them.

It had been two months since Carol’s last email. It was a long time to go without communication, even for her. The irrational part of your brain was desperately worried for her. There’s no telling what kind of high-risk situations she got herself into out there. But you knew that if anyone could handle themselves against all the forces of evil in the universe, it was Carol. You also knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. would have contacted you immediately had anything happened to her.

Another part of your brain–equally irrational but much harder to talk down–worried that Carol had forgotten you. The universe that Carol traversed was huge. Infinite, even. She saw things no one else had ever seen. Met people and experienced cultures that were so different from ours on Earth that we’d never even dream them up. Who’s to say she hadn’t found somewhere–someone–more beautiful than here, with you? She saw entire worlds, the neverending canvas of space and time. How could it possibly be that, of all the things in the known universe, you were the one worth coming home to? You always worried that maybe, this time, you weren’t.

As you climbed into bed, missing, as always, the feeling of Carol’s arms wrapped around you, the rise and fall of her chest as she slept, you once again pulled up her most recent email. From 61 days ago.

Hi, baby. I hope all’s well on Earth. I’m sad I’m missing spring–you know it’s my favorite season. Are there apricots on the tree yet? Or just buds? I’d give an arm for an apricot right now. I’m farther out than normal, so you might not hear from me for a while. One of the Andromedas. 2.7 lightyears away, if you can believe it. It scares me a little to be so far away from you.

I know I’ve said it before, but it gets lonely out here. Sometimes I wish you could come with me, but I know your body wouldn’t handle space-time travel like mine does. Superhero probs. Also, it’s probably not fair for me to make you put your entire life on pause just because I miss you like crazy.

It’s so beautiful out here in a weird, quiet way. I wish you could see it. Yesterday, I passed a pulsar. A star carcass, as I like to call them. They’re these gigantic masses of spinning light that put out radio signals (which might interfere with how quickly you get this, fuck pulsars). You’ve never seen something so big. So big it’s almost hard to believe it’s really there.

Anyway. I’m rambling. I miss you so much. I always miss you, but this time feels harder for some reason. I miss the way your eyes crinkle when you smile. I miss the way your hair sticks up in the morning. I miss kissing you. I miss doing more than kissing you. I just miss you.

I’m not sure when I’ll get home, but I think about you every day, every second. Nothing in this galaxy or the next or the next compares to you. Please stay safe. Don’t be sad. Snuggle Goose for me.

I love you.

Carol

You fell asleep reading through the email, again and again, your phone going dark in your hand beside you as you drifted off. You dreamed of pulsars. You dreamed of Carol.

Hours later, you jerked awake, gasping, as you felt a hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, hey!” a voice said, calming, reassuring. “It’s just me.”

You’d know that voice anywhere. “Carol!” you squealed, grabbing her and pulling her onto the bed with you, holding her as tight as possible so she could never, ever leave you for so long again. “You’re home!”

You felt her smile against you as she buried her face in your neck, wrapping her strong arms around you. She smelled metallic, almost like gunpowder; you knew it by now–the smell of space. “Hi, baby,” she whispered, breathing you in. “I missed you so much.”

Still holding you close, Carol sat up a bit to just look at you, just take you in. She ran her hand along your cheekbone and pressed a warm kiss to your mouth. A kiss you’d been so desperate for, you thought you might die from relief. Her lips tasted like space, too, the way metal smells after rain. So uniquely her. How many other people could say they knew the taste of space?

“Are you crying?!” Carol asked, alarmed, as she brushed a few tears from under your eyelids.

You sniffed and mumbled, “I thought maybe you forgot about me.”

Carol pulled you to her chest, running her fingers through your hair, lightly grazing her fingernails against your scalp. You shivered at the sensation.

“Oh, baby,” she breathed. “I could never forget about you.”

“But there’s so much out there.”

“Mmhm,” she said, kissing your nose. “And none of it’s as beautiful as you.”

When she moved to stand up, you grasped her hands. “No, no! Stay here and snuggle!”

She laughed, grinning from ear to ear, as she pushed your hair back from your face. “I have to shower, Y/N. I smell like an asteroid.”

You leapt out of bed to stand next to her, looping your arm and hand through hers and leaning against her shoulder. You couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t get close enough. You never wanted to let her go.

“Can I join you?” you asked, blushing a little. After all, it had been nearly a year.

Carol looked at you lovingly, smiling softly, a few of her own tears building. She squeezed your hand and dragged you after her into the bathroom. “God, yes.”

[dcdreamblog]

I sent a message about the missing superhero phenomenon, focusing on I remember called Spider-Man. Nobody else believes me, as I'm sure you remember. You probably deleted it because you thought I was mad too. As I mentioned, the only places I could find something similar were an old Tarantula fan-site and some newspaper clippings from the circus. Trail went cold there. Well, I HAVE MORE PROOF NOW! I remembered a Daily Planet issue about this figure meeting Superman. SEE!! I'M not crazy, everyone else is! The article could have been pulped, I admit, but he was real! Use your historian abilities to show that history has been altered, please.

Ok my friend let's take a nice, deep breath. 1. I did NOT delete your ask as you saw when I answered it. I don't delete asks given in good faith even if they're totally misled, or if I've answered them 8000 times. I just find a new angle to attack them.

2. As you probably saw when I answered that ask, you are right in that the Marvel Comics superhero Spiderman DID appear in our universe for a brief time before returning to his home dimension

3. I can't prove history has been altered. Nobody can. Because of the Chronal Uncertainty Principle (or the "Last Tuesday Rule"). The timeline could have been radically altered in 1584, 10 seconds ago, or last Tuesday at noon and because that time alteration would have changed everything that happened afterwords it would be impossible to prove. If a Spiderman did exist in this universe and was erased via a Crisis event (unlikely due to the laws of Hypertime) then evidence of his existence would have been wiped along with him.

But to prove that you're not crazy I can give you another example of how this sort of thing happens all the goddamn time.

(A photograph of Batman and the Marvel Comics character The Hulk standing in the remains of a ruined warehouse)

The Hulk appeared on our Earth due to the machinations of a being from his Earth known as the Shaper-of-Worlds (which unlike many other unfathomably powerful cosmic entities I don't have to take guesses at or talk around the unknowns, I can just look him up on the Marvel Wiki haha!) who was losing the ability to absorb the dreams of others. Unfortunately his attempt to rectify this situation was to ally himself with the strongest "imagination" he was able to grasp across the multiverse: The Joker That went about as well as could be expected, the Joker infiltrating the Marvel Universe to steal an experimental gamma gun that that world's Bruce Banner had been working on. The Joker, being the Joker instigated Dr. Banner to transform into the Green Goliath and when he followed the Joker back to our world the Joker was able to turn him against Batman for a short time. Eventually however the problem was rectified, the Joker was captured, the Shaper-of-Worlds was healed and he returned the Hulk to his home reality. This doesn't mean that the Hulk was always present on our reality or the the Shaper-of-Worlds had some unknown ties to our dimension. Beings who are able to traverse the multiverse can usually do so as they please depending on their levels of power and beings who appear in our world often do so only for a short time for the obvious reason that this isn't where they belong and its not where they hope to stay. Dimensional anomalies are frightening I know, but they're also rare and usually contain themselves given time and the intervention of our own native marvels. Like time travel or multiversal retcons the best thing you can do for yourself is not work yourself into a frenzy about it.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Blewbird Debut: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Blewbird is weird. I mean, no duh, it's being featured on "Weird Mario Enemies," even if our blog title gets less and less fitting by the day, but I mean weirder than you'd realize by just looking at it at a glance. If you just take a quick glance at it, you might not think much of it -- just a stylized cartoon bluebird, reminiscent of The Artist Formerly Known As Twitter.

But then you look at it more closely, notice things like its black shell and brown shoes. How weirdly smooth its skin is, without even the suggestion of feathers. The fact it doesn't have wings at all. The fact these things burrow out of the ground.

Oh, and let's not forget the fact they shoot off their own beaks!

Yeah, let's not ignore the main hook of the enemy here! Blewbirds predominantly appear in the level Blewbird Roost, where they'll stand against walls and shoot out their beaks at Mario and Friends. Of course, usually their beaks end up sticking to walls across from them...

And unfurling into platforms! That's right! Blewbirds are an animal that evolved to create Platforming Challenges! Is this how they traverse all the open air in the caves they live in without wings? It's not like they can burrow everywhere!

So whatever Blewbirds are, I'm pretty sure they're not birds. Blewbirds are birds in the sense that jellyfish are fish. (A comparison I'm pretty sure I've made multiple times on the blog at this point.) But if they aren't birds, then what are they? Well, let's take another look at Blewbird without its beak...

Does it remind you of anything...?

Because it reminds me of Birdo, another character who's named after a bird for no particularly good reason whatsoever! Almost like it's all connected... But I mean, the similarities are hard to ignore -- the tube mouth optimized for shooting projectiles, the white underbelly, the weirdly smooth skin, heck, you could probably make the very bold argument that Blewbird's ponytail and Birdo's bow are connected somehow.

But wait! I'm not ending things right there, because Blewbird doesn't only have similarities to Birdo...

You see, Nintendo has connected the Birdos and Yoshis for a while now, as Mario's main Weird Dinosaur Characters, but there hasn't been an awful lot actually connecting them in-universe... until now?! For you see, I'm making the radical claim that Blewbirds are proof of a missing link species that connects the Yoshis and Birdos! Look at it! The tube mouth of Birdo. The shell and shoes of Yoshi. It's all so clear now!

Blewbirds aren't birds! They're some sort of weird dinosaur! Just like... just like... just like real birds. Hmm.

Maybe I need to rethink the point I was making with this post. Taxonomy is weird, guys.

*phone ringing*

Oh! Hold on, I need to answer that. Hello?

Hmmm... as a matter of fact, I think I am! I spent so much time talking about Yoshis and Birdos that I forgot to do this: *touches Wonder Flower to trigger Wonder Effect for the post*

During Blewbird Roost's Wonder Effect, Blewbirds will start blowing very large, very colorful bubbles! Your character can bounce on these bubbles to go *Pauline voice* ♪ High up in the sky~! ♪, but you need to be careful, since each bubble pops when you jump on it! The number of Blewbirds in the Blewbird Roost doesn't make that much of an issue, but in a Special World level where you're a Goomba who can hardly jump at all? Well... Good Luck!

That being said, this raises even more questions about Blewbird anatomy, because they blow these bubbles out of their beaks! You know, the ones they shoot off that, as far as I'm aware, aren't even part of their bodies? And in order to blow bubbles out of their beak, their mouth has been moved to the end of it! What is going on here?!

I'm not sure, but I can try to provide a relatable human analogy! Imagine if you put a Cone in your mouth, but someone nearby touched a Wonder Flower, so the Cone fused to your face and the mouth was at the end of the Cone, and you were very scared about this development so you tried to scream but only bubbles came out. We've all been there! And for the Blewbird, it's exactly like this. Hopefully now you understand!