2024 reads / storygraph
The Stardust Grail
fun space opera
a woman from a human settlement on another planet who spent a decade as an art thief, returning stolen artifacts to alien civilisations all across the galaxy, and is now on earth as a grad student trying to move on from the past (and visions of the future she’s plagued with)
when her old friend asks for help to find a mythical object that might save xyr species, and some new clues show up at her university, she goes on a quest across the universe with her cephalopod-like friend, an ex-soldier, a runaway medic bot, and her academic advisor
complex friendships between different alien species, no romance
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first, I just wanna say the Kon agonies are making me lose my freaking mind!!!! oh my GOD I’m devouring your writing every single time!!!
second, for my actual ask!! I was wondering how you think timkon’s proposal would be like? If you haven’t already told us, I feel like you have but I’m not sure!
thank you thank you!! i love kon and his issues. he has so many of them. (shameless plug for the kon agonies here again <3)
i love to think abt timkon proposal ideas. many possible ways it could go but i FIRMLY believe the one way it Can't go is "traditionally perfect and cliché and romantic". it has to go sideways at least a little. they're both weirdos with an insane general lifestyle. i have several ideas that i think are all really fun, but the baseline is just that there's no way it goes off without a hitch. therefore, i present:
how DO tim and kon get engaged? (one possibility!)
on a very casual chill date night in, while sharing a pizza while hanging out on the couch in their pajamas and watching star trek, they agree they want to get married. they also both agree it'll still be fun to do a proposal.
yeah each of them is now going "hehehe. i'm gonna surprise him with a nice date and i'll romance him as he deserves and then ask him to marry me and he will be swept off his feet!!!"
so. you know. now it's a race.
one weekend, kon takes tim on a lovely romantic date. by the point kon's got him sitting in his lap way up in the sky, twirling wispy clouds around them both into hearts while he points up at stars way overhead, tim is INCREDIBLY suspicious of what's coming (a proposal) and is SO mad because he was going to propose NEXT WEEKEND.
kon's sappy speech gets interrupted by toyman attacking metropolis and tim is like. oh thank god. i mean uhh... wow... FUCK toyman! i'm SO mad about this! meanwhile kon pouts the entire time he's decimating a small army of toy soldiers with real guns. tim finds this adorable.
kon almost still pops the question anyway, but his vanity stops him. his hair got a little singed by a giant firebomb and he's upset about it. he can't propose like this.
next weekend, tim takes kon on a lovely romantic date. when he goes down on one knee in front of a park fountain under a canopy of string lights (very romantic, kon deserves it), kon starts HOLLERING and pulls his ring box out like NO!!! I DID SO GOOD LAST WEEK IM PROPOSING TO YOU!!!!!
tim: NOT IF I GET THERE FIRST. CONNER KENT YOURE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE—
kon: YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!! TIMOTHY JACKSON DRAKE YOURE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND IM GONNA PUNT YOU INTO THIS FOUNTAIN IF YOU DONT LET ME PROPOSE TO YOU FIRST—
tim, yelling over him: —AND I'D BE HONORED TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH YOU—
kon tackles him.
they both fall into the fountain.
they both have to hunt for their ring boxes in the fountain.
passerby are staring.
they are in their nice fancy date clothes. on their hands and knees. crawling around in a big ol park fountain. it's cold. they're a mess. please send help
kon finds his ring box first (tim swears up and down that he cheated by ttking tim's box away every time he almost grabbed it) and tackles tim a second time, sits on him in the fountain, and grabs his face.
tim licks him. kon is, shockingly, undeterred.
"TIM," he says, and squishes tim's cheeks. "you're a STUBBORN ASSHOLE. WILL YOU MARRY ME?"
"I'M a stubborn asshole?!" tim demands. it's muffled because his cheeks are still very squished. "god, obviously yes, but you're the jackass, i planned tonight out so well and you hijacked it—"
kon kisses him. tim kisses him back.
tim's ring box mysteriously happens to brush his fingers then. very convenient, thank you, kon.
they exchange rings still sitting there in the cold water under all the lights. tim's teeth are starting to chatter.
passerby are still staring.
they don't care. they're engaged!
and that's the story of how tim drake gets mild hypothermia and kon fusses and frets over him for the rest of the weekend—uhhh I MEAN, the story of how tim and kon get engaged. yippee!!
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Today there was a spectacular space battle over Parish-by-the-Expanse, so our cultists were looking forward to some fresh meat and potential new recruits.
These two survivors in particular caught my eye, so we'll start trying to convert them ASAP.
Euclid is a genie with level 17 crafting skill, which we need to craft a new leg for Socks so she's not stuck with the peg leg anymore.
Magic Man is a Drakonori and, I'll be honest, I didn't even look at his skills or traits. His name is Magic Man, and he looks like fun to draw, so he's staying whether he likes it or not.
Laursen put his skills to good work making a new bed for Cecil, who I'm sure will appreciate the effort.
And finally, I wanted to show off the girls' new bedroom because I'm quite proud of how it turned out. You can even see Cecil's masterwork human-leather bed in the bottom left, next to Salvatore's human-leather cat tree!
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I was semi-joking last post but ....she’s so fun to draw wtffff
Following 2007 and Rise Splinter’s example, Bay Splinter absolutely watches soaps, teleseryes, telenovelas, and dramas and Venus watches some with him
Casey taught them how to make their own skates, so now the entire sewer is an impromptu skating rink
... I forgot that Leo, Donnie and Mikey’s shoes actually match (as much as they could make their custom frankenshoes match-- Mikey’s is like 98% duct tape and bandage wraps tbh; “But they’re still chucks underneath...!”) I just subconsciously went Punky Brewster on her shoewear. problem is I like both. so. nyeh.
have I settled on the size of her tesse--- hahahahhahahhahhahhha no.
in a brighter timeline, if they did a 3rd movie or just put both scrotes in and pumped out TMNT movies like they have Transformers movies I’d guess Venus, Jennika, Slash, Tokka, Rahzar, whoever were probably whatchamacallit, experimental groups to Splinter & Co.’s ....control group? subjects from different experiments with the ooze before April’s dad went whistleblower. or maybe experiments from the 15 year interval trying to recreate the first lab’s results ‘cuz Sacks would’ve had the resources to recommence pretty fast after the disaster
although to explain Venus and Jennika... since Sacks had ties to the Foot Clan, and Shredder pulled that double cross with Baxter in OotS. what I would guess is that Sacks pulled whatever weight he had left with the Foot Clan (maybe with Karai at the helm in Shredder’s absence) to use their resources for any gaps with his own and as a cover to reconvene his experiments. blah blah Karai studied under Shredder obvi and so probably thought to have the scientists report to her before they report to Sacks. Sacks was kept in the dark, not told they were more or less able to recreate the original lab results on the turtles who’d become Venus’n Jennika. “oh oops they died sacks, sux 4 u try again maybe, here’s some more animals for you.”
Venus and Jennika are taken in under the Foot once they exhibit the same potential the boys showed; Sacks just goes a little apeshit on the science, as a treat, hence Slash, and then Tokka’n Rahzar and again told they failed. Sacks fully thinks he couldn’t recreate the first lab’s results womp womp u bitch
....how would any of them break out from under the Foot? lol i dunno. uh. mmmmmaybe black market “weapons” dealing-- Venus and Jennika break out (willingly or opportunistically) during shipment to... where? nyc why thefuck not, oh look they end up in chinatown *eyebrow waggle* oh now they’ve stumbled upon a grandpa, maybe his name is Grandpa Chung in the community, I don’t know, and he adopts them surprise! is he blind and therefore just thinks they’re lost kids? blech, does he see two turtles and see an auspicious omen? ehhh hmmm..... I guuuuesssss? or is he just gonna be an example of people doing good things with no prompting because it’s the right fuckin’ thing to do, they’re obviously kids with no guardians, and goddamn we know it’s for the plot but also people are just out here being good to each other guys, it’s real, it happens.
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Benjamin Sisko is an amazing man, but it's still hilarious that so many people to fixate on him as their personal rival.
Dukat, Eddington, and Solok are the most notable three. And all three all wind up completely changing their personalities to revolve around one-upping Sisko and he winds up beating them anyway.
After Dukat destroys his career, he re-fashions himself into what is essentially the Emissary of the Pah-Wraiths. He's always been fixated on Sisko to some degree, but the final season takes it up to eleven.
Eddington becomes fed up with his career and projects his frustrations on to Sisko, re-imagining their relationship to be one where he's the noble criminal and Sisko the evil, relentless enforcer. But reality was never going to conform to his imaginings.
Solok, the Vulcan who was so obsessed with one-upping Sisko that he also developed an obsession with baseball. He drags his crew into it. He taunts Ben with it, makes things personal in a way the other two can't. In part because Solok is so incredibly petty. The other two are so grandiose in their methods, but Solok takes the petty route every time.
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The transport pod crash survivor Purple Shark is volunteering to be food by trying to squeeze between Vasso and Laursen. If he pushes any harder, I'll feed him to Salvatore (the cat).
There's nothing like being compared to a tarpit to get you in the mood, though, amirite??
Then Randy Random sent a space battle event, which would have been frustrating if this were still The Animist Alliance. Fortunately, the Children of Ecthuctu are a little less charitable and a little more hungry than my last colony.
We did rescue two people, one is a catgirl highmate named Duchess who looked interesting, and one was a man named Carello. A slave caravan came through soon after, though, and Carello's brother happened to be amongst the merchandise, so we sold Carello to them, and now they're reunited. How lovely! We kept Duchess, though. I'm going to try and convert her.
And then, FINALLY, Charlon Whitestone called to tell us where we can find a ship. We're going to research pemmican and survival meals, then head off and set up a new temporary base a few tiles closer to the ship. We'll inch our way there, no matter how long it takes!
Here is a helpful map of S-2 Media (the planet) showing the distance from Landfall (our current settlement) to the crashed ship. It's going to be quite a trek!
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