#armada incoming!

[oldschoolfrp]

With yesterday’s news from Atomic Mass Games that they are ending production of Star Wars X-Wing and Armada, it is a good time to remember 2 truths that many gamers overlook:

All games based on licensed properties require licences that cost money up front to obtain and more money over time to continue to keep active. From day one, publication of any licensed game should be expected to end during the tail end of the game’s profitability, when income dips below the cost of the license.

There’s no such thing as a ‘dead game,’ as long as you own the game and still want to play. This is especially true for miniature collections.

Licensed games are under pressure to earn money quickly before shutting down, and often have a production life much shorter than successful games based on original, generic, or historical concepts. The X-Wing games had a remarkably successful run considering the economic challenges.

The most notable exception to the rule is the Star Fleet line of games which relied on a very generous and open-ended license, apparently with no expiration date. This has been attributed to Paramount believing Star Trek was a ‘dead property’ in the 1970s. They made an agreement with author Franz Joseph which gave Franz Joseph Design the rights to everything in his Star Fleet Technical Manual. FJD was able to license those rights to Armadillo Design Bureau/Task Force Games at a relatively low cost.

Since then other rights holders have been more careful. When Grenadier made the first official Star Wars miniatures for West End Games’ line of products in the late 80s (above), it was Lucas Film Limited’s initials that appeared on every figure base, clearly reminding us who remained in charge.

As for ‘dead’ games, I still own copies of WEG’s out-of-print games and can play with Grenadier’s figures that I already collected. I also can use those figures with any other rules I choose, which is a major benefit of collecting miniatures for a favorite theme. Many of the new ‘miniature agnostic’ indie games available as PDFs or zines encourage digging out old figures and returning them to the table.

A reasonable counterpoint for gamers in the US is that there are few independent clubs here, where organized public play depends on game stores willing to set space aside for tables and priority is given to games the store can sell. I would not be surprised to see an immediate end to X-Wing events at those stores that were still hosting leagues and tournaments.

But for those willing to take ownership of their own fun, you might find some good deals on spaceships in clearance sales.

[inbabylontheywept]

Burning Bridges

“I am Kalrose, commander of the Second Armada of the Akaviri. We are on our way to a peacekeeping operation in the Pegasus cluster. Humanity is not our enemy, but it will be if you continue to detain us in your piss puddle agrarian star system. Step away from the FTL launcher and no one will die. Remain in front and we will plow through your craft. Either way you will not stop us.”

The human freighter acting as a makeshift gate in front of the launcher did not move. If anything, it centered itself more, in order to better face the Akaviri flagship head on.

Then it broadcasted back.

“Your ‘peacekeeping mission’ in the Pegasus cluster is a genocide. We will not stand back and let you commit this atrocity. We may not have the men or the ships to destroy your fleet, but we don’t need to destroy your fleet in order to keep you from reaching the battlefield. Our piss puddle’s name is ‘Zion.’ In time, you will call it ‘Home.’”

Kalrose barely had time to ponder the nature of that threat when the launcher fired up. The EM readings on his ship went mad, and in that brief fraction of a second, he realized he’d miscalculated. Gravely.

He didn’t know how many thousands of safety protocols had been bypassed, but the amount of power flowing to the gravitational core in the center of the launcher was easily nine times larger than the maximum rating. A micro singularity formed within the space lens, and cladding ripped itself off the hull before spiraling at near light speeds around the artificial black hole.

Kalrose had always imagined such a catastrophe as something like a fireball, reds and oranges, lots of shrapnel and clanging. Upon seeing it in person, he realized how foolish that was.

Red glows were for pokers left in hot coals. This was, for one brief moment, a star fueled on steel. It was never going to be orange.

It could only be white.

The accretion disk condensed further, the energy of the reactions happening near it somehow fueling the gravitational anomaly at the center. His comm system moved into a death scream as the material’s blackbody radiation moved past the x-ray spectrum, pure friction converting the material to energy more efficiently than even a fusion reactor could manage. The heat generated finally caused a full structural collapse, the spine of the station melting enough to wrap the whole barrel of the launcher around the spiraling singularity, twirling it in loops like thread around a spool. The reaction was accelerating now, even without electricity being able to fuel the gravitational collapse, the radiation pressure alone managing to hold the system in a highly fragile state of tensegrity. He recognized the feedback loop that was happening, radiation fueling gravity, gravity fueling radiation, on and on until-

There was no air for noise in space, but he could almost imagine the roar that the expanding cloud of ionized metal should have made as it blew past. There it was. The end of the loop. It had run out of matter to feed on, so without a balance to the compressive force it expanded outwards.

He was fortunate that the explosion was violent enough to atomize the particles. Even a fragment the size of a grain of sand would’ve been enough to take down his flagship. As a lone ion, it could be deflected by the same magnetic field that kept the crew safe during FTL jumps.

He stared numbly at the monitor.

One third of the Akaviri fleet, stranded in a farming system. Not even a shot fired.

He realized that the comm system’s scream had been replaced with the quiet pulse of an incoming broadcast. He accepted it without question, too lost to even be angry.

“Take your time recovering your senses. When you’re ready, just send us a message back. We’re going to need every hand we can on the harvest. There’s no one out there we can reach for help after this. It’s just...Us.”

[slimejugular]

SPOILERS FOR TF ONE. PLEASE DO NOT CLICK READ MORE IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS. ALSO TF ONE WAS GOOD.

disclaimer: i dont have good memory and for that there is likely some inaccuracy to what i claim, wrong terms, etc. also very out of order but i enjoy rambling

somewhat intentionally vague things i liked about the movie 1. the music was swell -the score as to when the main group was on the surface was cool, when they were going between diff. environments

-the ending scene with Optimus being granted the Matrix had a very fitting background score. + also was surprising fitting with the execution of Sentinel Prime that was also occurring atm

-I am not knowledgeable about music, but I assume synths were used a lot, and they were lovely........

2. The animation for high action scenes -was soooooo amazing! in particular There was a lot of creative liberty taken with how the bots would transform parts of their body to fight. Which had shone in Elita's fighting andd i am unsure beyond that. Airachnid's fighting, using her legs to spin and shred and stab aggressively was great too

also I'm biased towards like. them ripping parts off eachother i.e. the fight between Armada Megatron and Optimus is a good exemplar of this. all the greater to see that again in the fight between TF ONE MegOp in their third forms aaaaaaaaa. Seeing Optimus rip Megatron's tank cannon off, almost oxidize his metal by burning it to shit, and so on, that is WONDERFUL. I cannot recall what Megatron did though of course it involved him trying to explode Optimus' face

-not a fight scene but actiony, the Mecha gore of taut wires just wrenched apart w/ the splitting of Sentinel Prime's torso was delectable ha-ha

3. few minor details

-seeing D-16 wipe the dust off of Orion yayy

-Orion (remember from their first meeting!!!!) knows D-16 is a huge fan of Megatronus and so for him to get that sticker, for him, was very cute and loving of him. what a friend. only made it as horrible to see that sticker used to demean and punish D-16 by Sentinel Prime

-the stylization of optics is LOVELY. their repeating shape of iris is great. the different eyes across the characters = great. the fact that they spin around during high times of emotion is sooooooo -------! great. i loved seeing this in D-16, when Sentinel Prime's treachery was revealed! his optics spun very much which i inference as emotional

the eyelid for optics is not a traditional blink, like a whole eye covering shutter. it looked very unique and complex, and you could really observe the design of it in that close up shot of Elita waking up and i found it very nice

-the way post t-cog Orion Pax leaned down to be on equal height / level / eye contact with his fellow mining buddies was a good display of character. showed his genuine heartfelt intent in connecting with them, helps to trust in the incoming truth! just because he has a t-cog now does not mean he will carry himself as if he were greater than them

4. Sentinel prime was cool

-his con-man shtick and unadulterated "I want power" was refreshing and is further bettered if you take into account his status as an Autobot and previous prime. there should be eviler Autobots in the movies

-i dont understand why he has TFP inspired characters as lackeys but fun

-nod to Bayverse Sentinel Prime with his choice of weapon is good

5. Alpha Trion

It was unexpected to see him have an alt mode that was animal-like. i loved it. he is normally a character i dont think much of in terms of any continuity, so it was nice to see him shined on in that brief time

6. models

-the models for the dilapidated figures of the 13 Primes were soooo goood i am in love with them. i am a big fan of the Transformers, as strong and terrifying as they are, painted so frail and weak when left to the sands of time. the overgrowth, the missing parts of their body. the vines. the moss. Delicious !

-i appreciate that they bothered to model t-cog transformations for background characters at the end, even if they wouldn't have been on the screen that long for TF ONE ^_^ although ofc that may be because they'll be reused in the (hopeful) later movies. im going to say that last sentence a lot. their new forms are also crumbs for fans of those characters

7. that one place the main team encountered on the surface?

-so, there is that portion of the movie where they are trying to get to the coordinates of the matrix. but a Quintesson ship appears

maybe i am being delusional but the area reminded me a bit of the Sea of Rust level in CH 4 of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron so that was pleasant

8++++++.

There are tons of other things in TF ONE that I think were great!!!!! I would go on too long to mention them all. Now here is stuff I think would be better.

stuff i think would be better

-more screentime for the Decepticons would have been nice. yet i presume in the later movies in the trilogy that this will be touched on. given that we GET a trilogy

the high command did not get to do much ( i am bitter that Starscream did pretty much nothing out of this group)

-wish there was furthered display of Cybertronian culture? Say like being taken into a scene where we get to view the exterior and interior of a flying bot's home, or any other type of home. anything. see a higher-caste bot's berth? do they all sleep upright?????! fun

as well as food :] was interesting to see Alpha Trion get fed that little cube of energon, or Orion crashing into that establishment into a pile of energon. but what about if they process energon into any other form? if they drink oil? etc? awww? if they take showers????? idk

itd be funny to see D-16/Orion go to a party lol

-more environments beyond the few on the surface and more plants, animals

-i don't prefer Steve Buscemi's voice for Starscream. i mean, in the credits they had Steve Blum? but he voiced minor characters?? ....bummed they did not ask him to voice ......oh...

-the action of the scenes i praised earlier. however thinking about it again, there is slightly too much going on, too many sparks, too much blur, maybe that is just me, it is hard to parse what is going on during fight scenes sometimes. a little more clarity would be amazing. but again i still loved it and was very excited as i was viewing and didnt care too much

--------conclusion

Overall. it is a lot to expect so i understand they couldnt touch on all of this! just a far dream of themes I'll have to collect into a ball from the other outputs of the franchise. I thought it was a pretty good movie in comparison to all preexisting Transformers movies and would pick it over those any day. sorry 1986

good time i recommend seeing it

[swishysword]

Last time on Lancer, I put a team of MSMC through an asteroid dungeon. They had 8 rounds to make it through the facility and claim the command center before the defenses came back online and they were forced to retreat.

Seen here breaching along the southeastern landing pad, they moved quickly to knock out one of the generators trying to repower the facility, denying their enemy the use of the internal turrets and door controls... be ensuring they wouldn't have a chance to use them against the incoming reinforcements when they arrive.

So far they've been lucky, fighting mostly the local Coyotes piloting mechs they barely understand, but they know lurking nearby are 6 members of the Golden Plague, the infamous pirate armada. They're hoping to acquire the facility intact for their client, so they can learn what the Plague's goals are out here in the Dawnline Shore (hint: it has to do with the soon-to-be-opening blink gate and the inevitable war between HA & KTB).

[short-and-ugly]

laughing as they remember a call from zim wherein he was in agony, as blorch gets absolutely decimated in the background. there are still rat people left! guess skoodge's job was all just "ensure theres nothing there that could pose a potential threat to the incoming armada"

and he sure as hell did do that.

so dramatic! so much show! you didnt need to go that hard you short prick. those rat people were all gonna end up dead in the cannon sweep! what was the point? you just like getting your hands dirty? wanted some action?? misinterpreted your job description????

[mitchipedia]

Cory Doctorow: Flickr takes action against Creative Commons/copyleft trolls; how Cory and his long-distance romance played a modest role in founding Flickr; “Yahoo’s haunted armada of Web 2.0 ghost-ships”; the “depravity of copyleft trolls”; Marco Verch; “the passive-income brainworm – a parasitic, end-stage capitalist hustle.”

[rainbows-fanfics]

All'inzio (Chapter 25)

Summary: A  soldier-in-training, Valerie hopes to join the Valencian Army to avenge  her father’s death under the wing of General Rooke. But when she happens  to catch the attention of Commander Kane, her plans take a different  turn.

Human AU of the Armada from Pirate101, where Kane meets his Queen.

Pairing: Kane/Queen

–

Note: The title translates to “at the beginning”.

–

Kane was sitting in his personal workshop, admiring a small box held in his gloved hand. He had the top opened on its hinges to reveal the jewelry protected inside. An expensive engagement ring sat within, a beautiful diamond mounted on a decorated shank with a special engraving of his beloved’s name inside. He’d spent a long time making his decision. A petite band that would fit comfortably in Queen’s glove, that still held enough elegance to impress the nearby eyes of others. Something that could properly express the feelings he’d grown for her, over this time. 

It cost a great sum that was no trouble to him. He rarely bought anything at his own leisure, instead directing his finances to paying the bills or covering the cost of materials for his projects. He made this purchase the same morning he decided his Queen was ready. He’d been keeping it away from her eyes since, hidden in a secure drawer that only he could unlock. Not until he was absolutely certain. 

He shut the box and placed it carefully on his desk. He’d been sitting in here all morning, contemplating. Trying to think of an appropriate time to ask for her hand in marriage. It was a difficult feat, with her leaving for the library early in the morning and remaining there for most of the day. He was curious as to what drew her there, and visited her one time. He found her reading one of his biographies and decided not to pry. He wasn’t sure why she was reading them. He was tempted to ask…if he didn’t have other things on his mind. 

‘I wonder where she is right now.’ He thought. She left again, without a note this time. He already checked the library and couldn’t find her. He assumed she was somewhere in Cadiz or even King Casimir’s castle. He favored this time of reflection for himself, anyway. 

A beeping sound suddenly drew him from his thoughts. The communicator on his wrist was alerting him of an incoming call. He brought his gaze away from the ring box and pressed a button to accept the intermission. Deacon’s voice sounded through the static. 

“Kane?” 

The call was muffled. He was somewhere the connection couldn’t quite reach that well. Likely in the ocean, on a ship as he usually was. He leaned in closely to ensure his voice came through.

“Deacon? What is it?” 

There was silence, beyond the sound of static. More shuffling noises came in this absence. Kane was about to end the call, too busy to be trifled with at that moment. But his son’s voice stopped him before he could.

“Are you alone right now?”

A look of interest crossed the Commander’s blue eyes. 

—-

Deacon adjusted the binoculars in his hands as the wind picked up around him. His gaze was focused on the Tortellini family’s island. He'd been in the middle of delivering a payment on a personal boat when he stumbled upon an unfamiliar vessel tied to the secluded dock. He used his to make haste visits to the family. The Tortellinis received regular compensation in exchange for keeping Gazpaccio prisoner. He was the one to usually give such payment on behalf of the Armada. He figured it was appropriate timing, with their annual party and all. 

What he did not expect was to find the dock already in use. There was a singular man in a similar bauta mask standing and waiting out there, a black cloak completely obscuring his figure. He was more concerned with the missing company. Deacon witnessed two figures leaving the boat earlier. He must’ve arrived the same time they did. One of them belonged to his older brother, Phule, and the other to…someone else. He could not tell who it was, but he had his…suspicions. 

Phule was known to sneak off to this island every now-and-then. Deacon didn't care. He seldom caused any trouble there. This visitor of his, however, was to be of note. And if it was who he thought it was, then he felt Kane should know. It was his job to inform him of such things. 

“Someone is on the Tortellini’s island. And I have a suspicion it is Queen.” He stated factually. 

A few seconds passed before the Supreme Commander responded flatly. “I have no time for jokes.” 

“I’m serious.” He reaffirmed. He was distracted, trying not to lose sight of the cloaked man. “There's no one else that knows this location. But someone is here. And I think it’s her.” 

“On what grounds are you making this assumption?” 

Kane snapped. He couldn't blame him for doing so. Deacon didn’t feel right, doing this. He promised Queen he would not tell of her curiosity with Gazpaccio. But he warned her not to do anything further. And it was too late to offer second chances. She must’ve fallen for one of Phule’s antics if he led her here. He wasn’t surprised he was behind this. He always was, when it came to troubles with the family.

His gut sank when he found two others joining the masked man. The colorful jester was running alongside the same figure from before. They boarded their boat and left in a hurry. Before they sailed off, Deacon caught sight of the woman lowering her mask. His binoculars revealed what he presumed. He held his breath. He wondered how to spill this to his superior and decided to take it slow. 

He pocketed the tool. There was no use for them anymore. “She came to me and Rooke asking about Gazpaccio not too long ago. We kept quiet, but I assume she’s been asking you as well..?” 

“...”

“Phule led her here. That's how she found it.” He heard the silence prolong. He grew anxious waiting for a response. Silence from his father was never a good thing. “...I’m sorry, Kane."

“Are you certain it’s her?”

"Have you seen her anywhere else today?”

“..No. I haven’t.” Some movement came from his end, accompanied by the faint sound of a sigh. “I assume you’re there to pay the Tortellinis. Get that done with.” 

“Are you alright?”

The call ended with no further exchanges. Deacon stared at his communicator before moving with the wind to approach the dock. His fingers felt numb as he knotted the rope and took his usual trail onto the island. He was worried about Kane - knowing he trusted this woman, to be with her this long and do as much as he’s done for her…the emissary didn’t feel pleasant being the one to bring this news. It always seemed like he had nothing good to report to him nowadays.  

‘We'll see what happens’, he regrettably thought to himself, greeting the family in the Italian language. 

—-

“Robert? That’s your name?” 

Queen sounded smug with this newfound information. They’d been sailing on calm waters for a bit now. But she still had plenty on her mind from her encounter with Gazpaccio. He decided to put her curiosities to rest, just so he wouldn’t have to keep hearing her voice over and over again.

“Enjoy it while you can, because the moment we’re back, you can’t use it anymore.” 

She blinked at him curiously. “Why not?” 

“My name was changed when I became a jester.” He rested his head on his knuckles. “I'm not allowed to use my old name, or anyone else, for that matter.” 

“I don’t understand…why would you not be allowed to use your own name ?” 

“I assume it has something to do with me being Kane's mistake.” He spat out spitefully. “He’d rather not think of the times with Gazpaccio. And he was the one to name me. It's his way of not thinking about him, or the old times.” 

"That's ridiculous. You? His mistake? That can’t-” 

“Perhaps you should learn something about him.” He interrupted in a dark tone. He was tired of pretending. She already learned the truth - why not some more? “My father told me countless times that I was a mistake. I was never meant to be here. I was just some screw-up when he didn’t know any better. Everything about me - from my discolored eyes to my personalities…I am not perfect. And that’s what he hates most about me.” 

Queen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But he couldn’t possibly hate you!” 

“You don’t know anything about him, do you?” The ends of his lips twitched. “He’s a perfectionist who hates anything that’s flawed. And me? I’m as imperfect as it gets. That’s why I look and act the way I do.” 

She dropped her mask to frown at his words. She couldn’t think of any way to console him. She had a hard time believing Phule. Was he being honest? She clenched her hands tightly as she struggled to understand this information. He noticed her silence and leaned in closer. 

“Do you want to know the truth? Everything he’s not telling you? It’s a lot more than you think.”  

It felt like she had a knot in her throat and she couldn’t speak. He took her lack of an answer to carry on.

“Think about it. Why has he put so much work into changing you? To give you these lessons on how to act, how to think..? He’s doing to you what he’s done to my family. Molding you to his perfection. It doesn’t matter what you were like before - he wanted change. Maybe that’s why he kept you around.” 

“That can’t be true.” She defended. “He wanted me to fit in here. To teach me how to act around royalty. I’m not like the others-” 

“--You were impressionable. A woman he had every power over and can take advantage of. He’s normally not the gentleman he’s been to you. He’s killed more people than you and I can imagine. He’s heartless and ruthless…he imprisoned his own father! Tell me, do you think any normal man would do that?”

Her lips parted as she thought of a rebuttal. She came to nothing. He continued on. 

“He wouldn’t love anything that’s imperfect. That’s why he doesn’t love me, and why he doesn’t love a lot of things. If you asked him what he thought of this world, he’d want to get rid of it. And he’d have no issues getting rid of you, too.” 

Queen found herself choking. A tear involuntarily rolled down her cheek. Hearing of these things about Kane…the man she’s grown to love, who has done so much for her even though he didn’t have to…she couldn’t believe it. How could she? She’d known this perfect man, such a gentleman who cared for her and gave her everything she could’ve asked for…who held her tightly during the night, touching her in ways other men haven't and calling her his queen and even his muse…her heart ached thinking otherwise. 

She wiped her eyes. “Why do you hate him..? Why must you say these things about Kane?” 

He looked to deeply reflect on something. “He changed when he came back from that war. He used to care about me. But he hasn’t embraced me since I was a child. Not once has he said he loved me since then. He spent the rest of my life holding me to these ideal expectations  - and my brothers had to deal with it, too. He always told me I was his mistake. And I believe him.” 

She remembered Gazpaccio saying something similar - that Kane changed when he returned home. It caused issues between them, and it must’ve affected him and Robert as well. Queen comfortingly placed her hand on his shoulder and he shrugged it off immediately. He turned away and motioned to the bastion they were approaching.  

“We’re here. And remember what I said, if you want to understand who he really is.”

—--

The sun was setting in the sky. Phule left when they were on land, as did their chauffeur. Queen brought it upon herself to return to Kane’s mansion. She wanted to speak with him. To see him. She refused to believe Phule's words until she had a good reason to. Maybe his relationship with his eldest son was troubled…but it couldn’t be as bad as he described. Why would Kane call him a ‘mistake’ ? His birth might’ve been unplanned, but that sounded like a terrible thing to tell your own son… 

She went up the stairs quietly and peeked into their room. He wasn’t in there, much to her relief. She changed into one of her usual bright dresses, along with her father's pearl necklace. She glanced in a nearby mirror and her lips fell. She thought of Phule's words - someone completely different than who she used to be. But she liked this, didn’t she? She felt good, and that’s what mattered. She shook off her concerns and left the room to begin searching for her partner. 

She had little success. The last place she could check was his workshop. She hadn’t placed a foot in there, as she was not allowed to follow him in. He worked on confidential projects in here - things she could not see. She was hesitant to approach the door. It took a lot of bravery to knock on it. She held her hands together and shifted her feet as she waited.

There were sounds of footsteps from the other side, accompanied by a lock unlatching. But there was no voice and the door did not open. 

She took this opportunity to slowly push it forward. She was met with the sight of a figure facing the wall with something in his hand, standing in front of a window. He was watching the sun lower into the horizon. She recognized the back of Kane’s coat and shut the door. Her heart leapt seeing him. Phule’s words cleared from her mind. She was just so happy to be in his presence again. She cleared her throat to alert him she was here. 

He lifted his head, vaguely turning in her direction. “Where have you been?”

It was an appropriate question. He was sure she knew she didn’t leave a note.

She thought of a lie on the spot. “--I left for the library again. I forgot to tell you. I’m sorry if you worried about me.” 

He hummed lightly. He knew this was not true, but said nothing. 

He returned to his work without a word. She stood where she was before stepping forward. Kane walked off to search the inside of a nearby cabinet. He collected a handful of gears and returned to the desk, where Queen waited for him. He didn't so much as glance at her as he worked. It wasn't unusual for him to be quiet, but that was seldom in her presence. They've spent so much time speaking with each other that she thought he would at least acknowledge her. 

She didn’t know what bothered her more. His sudden silence, or what she’d done today. She remembered what Gazpaccio asked for and chewed on her lip, wondering how to say it without sounding suspicious.

"I wanted to apologize for being so nosy lately. With your father, I mean. I'm sure he loves and cares about you, wherever he is."

He hummed again. This one sounded almost aggressive. Her heart began to swell anxiously. 

“You must love him too, right? And if you could, you’d give him another chance? To patch things up between you two? For whatever may have happened, I mean..” 

She was doing a terrible job trying to be discreet. Even Kane knew this. He started to feel a pain in his chest the longer she avoided telling the truth. She was lying about this situation - something he hoped not to happen. He expected her to be upfront about what she did, and ask for his forgiveness. The deceit hurt him the most. He wasn't sure where to begin.

“And how would you know all of this?” He finally asked, giving her the opportune chance to spill everything. She dodged the question. 

“I just assume you two have, er, problems you can sort out if you see him again. I read books that say-” 

He suddenly slammed down the mechanism in his hands. He may have broke it with how harsh he was. She jumped at the loud noise. He was tired listening to her excuses. He felt a strange coldness after his brief talk with Deacon, and this conversation was just making the pain worse.

“I know where you went today. I don’t appreciate the dishonesty.” He spat out in irritation. “I was hoping you’d be truthful with me.” 

She blinked in surprise. “What do you mean..?” 

“Deacon told me where you were. You were seeing my father behind my back. You got Phule to help you. You two left this morning when I couldn’t find you. And I checked the library.” 

Her heart beat rapidly as she thought of what to say. She was caught. That much was obvious. She didn’t think he’d be as enraged as he was - noticing the coldness in his eyes. It would’ve been hard to tell if he hadn’t raised his voice. She rarely ever heard it - and it wasn't a pleasant feeling when she did. She licked her lips and frowned, praying that this wouldn’t end in argument. She didn’t want to have one like this. Not so soon in their relationship… 

“I wanted to meet him. And since you weren’t going to tell me anything about him, I went to see him myself.” 

“-I asked you not to.” He rubbed his temple. “You left knowing I didn’t want you to see him.” 

She recoiled at his words. Did he imply she had to obey HIS word? That line wasn’t going to be crossed. She’d been ordered around by men her whole life, and she thought him different. She wasn’t going to let that happen now. 

“You can’t control me! I’m not some puppet you can give orders to and expect I’ll fulfill your every-” 

“-I trusted you.” He interrupted. "I asked you not to see him because I believed you’d respect that. And you didn’t.” 

She grew quiet at this fact. Now she felt completely cold inside. Kane was right, wasn’t he? He asked her not to pry, but she took it too far. She neglected to put herself in his position, imagining if he had gone out doing something she asked him not to....she felt guilty and had to swallow her pride. He turned away and inhaled deeply. He was getting frustrated. He crossed his arms indignantly.  

“Why do you have to know everything ?” He asked. “This whole time I’ve known you, Valerie, you’ve done nothing but push matters you shouldn’t. You didn’t learn your lesson the first time - why did I expect that now..?” He ended with a forced chuckle. 

She felt hurt by his words. But she had to understand  - she hurt him first. “…I’m sorry, Kane. I didn't mean anything by it. I didn’t know how personal this was to you.” 

“You have a good idea now, don’t you?” He retorted. 

Her confidence returned. She had the courage to snap back. “What’s the deal with you and your father, anyway? You can’t even talk about him! What else did you expect me to do? I don’t understand!” 

“Of course you don’t." He dropped his arms to his sides. “That’s exactly why I didn’t want you to know anything about him. He’s worthless to me. It shouldn’t matter to you, either.” 

"But he's your dad! He looked so sad when I saw him...He regrets what he did to you. But you won't give him the chance to tell you. Maybe if you just talked to him-"

"I want NOTHING to do with that man!" He yelled, taking a couple steps towards her. "I don't want you anywhere near him. He's nothing more to me now. How hard is it for you to understand!?” 

They were inches away from each other. The tension grew by the second. She matched his anger - narrowing her eyes as she screamed right back at him. “You locked away your own FATHER. How can you do something like that?  Something so heartless and cruel....he's been neglected; he's starving! ” 

His eyes remained firmly on hers. “He treated me as nothing more but a machine - like I was a soldier, so that’s what I became. What he wanted.” He clenched his gloved fists. “He never told me he loved me while I made all of those machines for him. Painted those portraits. Worked to his every demand. The only time that man cared about me was when he exploited me!” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, like you and Robert?”

His expression changed entirely - one of disbelief at her audacity. The anger was too much to express. She carried on.

“You’re becoming exactly what you claim to hate..! Except what you’ve done to Gazpaccio is worse. He could fix his mistakes and become a better person. But he can’t because you keep him locked in a ball and chain!” 

Her breath became heavy as her heart pounded in her ears. Kane looked furious with her, as she did with him. She felt nothing in this moment - except the numbness in her body and the heat in her throat. She didn’t think twice about her words. She couldn't possibly determine the emotional turmoil until they left her lips: 

“Maybe you are just as heartless as they described…you don’t care about anyone but yourself! Gazpaccio may be willing to change, but it's clear that you aren't! You're a selfish asshole!”

His look of anger was momentarily replaced with hurt. It was the first time she’d ever seen him that way. Her expression vanished as her mouth fell agape, realizing what she just said. She went to correct herself, but he sharply turned away before she could. He angrily stomped over to the door and turned back once. His voice was quiet, compared to the screaming they shared seconds ago. 

"I don't think I can forgive you." 

Everything was numb again, except this time it hurt. Her throat was warm as the tears threatened to spill from her eyes. No.This was....nothing, right ? "Kane, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"-Maybe you should have thought before doing anything." He took a step into the open doorway, adding to the coldness enveloping her body. "I haven't done anything like this to you. I wasn't selfish about that, was I? But all the trouble you went through...I just can't understand why." 

It was inevitable. The tears were falling from her eyes. She wiped them away hoping they would dry, but more fell out instead. She made a mistake and didn't think about the consequences. What is he going to do now? Leave her because he has a reason not to trust her anymore? That thought made Queen sick to her stomach. She sniffled in an attempt to breathe.

"I'm sorry..."

He gave her one last look before leaving the room entirely. He went at such a quick pace, she had only a moment to react. She desperately ran after, only to find his figure retreating down the hall. He was walking so fast that she wouldn’t have the chance to catch up with him. All she could do was desperately call out as he left her in the middle of his workshop.

—-

There was no sight of him for the rest of the night. He wasn’t there for dinner or when Queen later came into their room. She observed the chess game that hadn’t been cleaned yet. She leaned down and gathered the pieces, returning them to the box and setting the table back wordlessly. She shook thinking how his hands were the last to touch most of these...After she beat him at chess for the first time. She looked at the misplaced chairs and remembered what they did here. She bowed her head in guilt.

Her chest ached. She felt nothing.

She changed before climbing into the empty bed. She turned off the lights, hoping Kane would return in the middle of the night. To show forgiveness for her terrible actions - assuring that he wasn’t truly mad, and they were inseparable. To warm her from this ever-growing chill. But he never returned to his rightful spot, even when the sun began to rise in the sky. Queen was left to stare at the vacant space and bawl her eyes out in the morning, realizing how hopeless her thoughts had been.

‘Had he slept with another woman?’ Was her default thought. ‘I was terrible to him…Why would he want to be around me, if he can’t trust me?’

She spent the rest of the morning in bed, eventually preparing for the day that awaited her. 

[proustianlesbian]

did you know the first black person in space was an african-cuban man named arnaldo tamayo méndez ? a little post on him and his achievements for black history month since space exploration is my special interest and i think he should be more known !

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez was born on the 29th of January 1942 in Guantánamo, into a humble Afro-Cuban family. He began to work from a very young age, becoming the only breadwinner for his family at the age of 13, while studying at the same time. He worked as a shoeshiner, a carpenter's assistant and a newspaper seller. Arnaldo Tamayo said :"Since childhood, I dreamed of flying, of being a military pilot."

During the dictatorship of General Fulgencio Batista, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez participated in several student demonstrations in protest against the dictator who had turned Cuba into a United-States dominated country and whose economy and political sectors were plagued by the mafia. Cuba's economic sectors were largely in the hands of American multinationals. To ensure control of Cuba, the United States supported a corrupt ruling class linked to the mafia.

Tobacco and sugar, the main sources of income, were in the hands of monopolists, mainly American. Cuban workers were starving and did not have a single piece of land to cultivate. They had borrow money from loan sharks. There were no schools or teachers for the majority of Cuba's 6 million people.

After the start of the Cuban Revolution, in 1953, Arnaldo Tamayo entered in January 1959 the "Rebel Army" Technical Institute and after that the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, F.A.R., in spanish)

He became a fighter pilot and trained to become a MiG-15 fighter pilot in the Soviet Union at just 19 years old. MiG-15 were produced in the U.S.S.R. and several communist block countries used them during conflicts but also for training.

In April 1961, two events happened a few days apart :

On the 12th April, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space

Between the 17th and 19th, C.I.A. and U.S.-backed Cuban exiles attempted a military invasion of Cuba which was successfully stopped by the Cuban army.

Arnaldo Tamayo took part in the combats against the C.I.A. mercenaries who had invaded Cuba. But a week before that victory, the news of Gagarin's successful flight into the cosmos greatly inspired him. So he was happy when he was later sent in the USSR to study in the Military Aviation School.

On the 24th July 1961, Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, arrived in La Havana for a visit after his flight. In part of his speech, Yuri Gagarin said a sentence that stuck with Arnaldo Tamayo : "The day will come when a son of the Cuban people will also travel to the cosmos."

After his training in the Soviet Union (April 1961-May 1962), he came back to Cuba. In October 1962, during the Cuban missiles crisis, Tamayo carried out several reconnaissance missions (around 20) in the Cuban sky with the aim to intercept enemy aircraft. As the two powers come to an agreement, the Americans promise Moscow that they will not attack Cuba. So it is now possible for Arnaldo Tamayo to continue his studies. He applies to the Antonio Maceo Grajales Higher School of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, from which he successfully graduates in 1971. During his service in the Cuban Air Force, Arnaldo Tamayo makes countless flights and achieved the rank of first class pilot (Class I) and later become an instructor pilot. In 1975, he was chief of staff of the Santa Clara Aviation Brigade and is promoted in 1976 to lieutenant colonel.

Meanwhile, in 1966, the Intercosmos program (Интеркосмос) was created. It was a Soviet space cooperation program, carried out under the auspices of the USSR Academy of Sciences, among the countries of the socialist bloc, aimed at promoting international cooperation in space for peaceful purposes. The countries participating in this program had all adopted a socialist regime but some pro-Soviet non-aligned countries were included over the years. The program resulted in the development of 26 scientific satellites and the participation in space missions of around fifteen nationals of the co-opted countries.

In the 1970s, the Intercosmos program starts training cosmonauts to send them in space, first in 1978 with the Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first neither Soviet nor American cosmonaut. Cuba then sends Arnaldo Tamayo and his colleague José Armando López Falcón to the USSR to prepare for a space flight.

The applicants had to be experienced pilots with an accident-free record and speak Russian. 600 pilots registered but the number decreased in the as the weeks went by during the tests. Tamayo Méndez and López Falcón traveled to the City of Stars, near Moscow, to train as cosmonauts.

They were paired with Yuri Romanenko (Ю́рий Романе́нко) and Yevgeny Khrunov (Евге́ний Хруно́в) who both went to space once before that. Tamayo and Romanenko were chosen as the main crew while López and Khrunov were their backup crew. They started training in September 1979.

Yuri Romanenko saw Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez as jovial and has said of him : "In Tamayo, the best traits of Cubans are concentrated : the ability to work and perseverance. Plus cordiality, kindness and good humor. And believe me, they are qualities very important for cosmonauts." Arnaldo Tamayo described Yuri Romanenko as part of his family.

After a year, in September 1980, they were ready for their space flight : the "Soyuz 38" mission during which they would stay in Salyut 6, the soviet orbital space station, for several days, to carry out experiments. Finally, on the 18th September 1980, at 22:11 in Moscow and 15:11 in Cuba, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez and Yuri Romanenko took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome (Kazakh SSR). Tamayo was traveling as a research cosmonaut while Romanenko was the commander of the spacecraft.

They were met at the Station by Leonid Popov (Леони́д Попо́в) and Valery Ryumin (Вале́рий Рю́мин), on board from April to October 1980, in light blue on the first picture. Romanenko and Tamayo's stay lasted 7 days and 20 hours, a week they used for their scientific researches.

They studied different brain areas to further understand its electrical activity Another experiment was observing changes of skeletal muscle structure, as well as another on blood circulation, which sought to determine the impact weightlessness has on the human circulatory system. The other researches studied how cell division, immune system, concentrations of antibodies and other proteins and minerals were affected after prolonged exposure to a weightless environment. They also studied the growth of a crystal of sucrose in weightlessness.

They used calibrators developed by the Cuban National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Entertainment. When the researches were completed, Soyuz 38 separated from Salyut-6 on the 25th October. The next day at 15:54, the rescue team welcomed the cosmonauts in Kazakhstan.

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, by being the first Latin American, first Afro-descendant and first Spanish speaker in space made history. Fidel Castro said that he "represented Cuba, Latin America, Africa and the Third World in the cosmos". Tamayo, with Romanenko was decorated by Raúl Castro with the first honorary medal of Hero of the Republic of Cuba and the Playa Girón Order. In Moscow, he received the Order of Lenin and was named Hero of the Soviet Union. His colleague had been awarded with these titles as well.

After the space flight, knowing of the sad death of Yuri Gagarin in a plane crash in 1968, Fidel prohibited the Cuban cosmonaut from flying or carrying out training flights in combat aircraft. Despite his love for flying and longing for the cosmos, Tamayo followed the orders.

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez is now more known as a public and military leader than as a cosmonaut or a pilot. He became a general, a deputy of the National Assembly of People's Power of the republic and heads the foreign relations directorate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. He is still close with his colleagues, Soviet and others, especially his partner, the one he considers his "star brother" Yuri Romanenko, despite the distance and even after the fall of the U.S.S.R.. Today, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez also heads the Cuba-Russia Friendship Association.

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez expressed it this way: "My luck is similar to that of all the hungry people of my generation, for whom the revolution opened the paths of life. But there is a particularity, I was very lucky, they sent me to study in the Union Soviet, to a military pilot academy, and then... to the City of Stars, where cosmonauts live and study ."

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez emphasizes that the relations between Cuba and the U.S.S.R. have deep important historical roots. The work of thousands of Soviet specialists allowed the small revolutionary island to greatly raise the level of its scientific and technical development. The participation of their engineers and agricultural specialists was a considerable contribution to the industrial development of Cuba. Thousands of Cuban students graduated from higher education centers in the USSR, receiving high-quality professional preparation, like Arnaldo Tamayo did.

Arnaldo Tamayo said that Yuri Gagarin, as a spiritual teacher, had a huge influence on him. "He was and will continue to be my idol. In the difficult moments of life, those that happen to everyone, I remember Gagarin's smile known throughout the world. And the discomfort recedes" Even if there hasn't been any other Cuban or Latin-American cosmonaut, Tamayo Méndez inspired plenty of people with his incredible trajectory of life, like Yuri Gagarin did in his time.

Look at their beautiful smiles !!

After him, several Black astronauts went to space, such as Guion Bluford (in 1983) or Mae Jemison (1992), leading the way for many more.

The 97th cosmonaut, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, has his name written in the History of World Cosmonautics as the first Cuban, first Latin American and the first Afro-descendant person who saw our planet from the Cosmos, representing his homeland and People with glory and honor.

[headingalaxys-spicy]

Could I request a yandere? Alpha Russia with a feisty and bratty omega? Like I need to know what that would look like 💀 ignore this if you dont wanna though 😇

Hello! I love doing asks when I’m not busy as heck at work. I enjoy the escapism. 🌟 Hope you enjoy this and have a great Saturday or Sunday ☀️🌙

Hahahah in order for Ivan to deal with a super bratty Omega. He is all about dominance to the highest degree with little room for disobedience to be. That or occasionally he can be masochistic, had too much vodka, or he lost a bet to Alpha! Ruler Spain. This time Spain has chosen something that gets under Ivan’s skin immensely: having to date someone with the qualities he despises …. Demanding, disobedient, and bossy.

Antonio lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag before exhaling a cloud of smoke that reaches Ivans imposing nose. Antonio grabs a picture from his suit pants pocket and hands him a picture of you a medium sized omega that had a thing for Sanrio’s Kuromi, Choco Cat, and Badtz Maru. Just judging from the characters you aesthetically idolized he knew you were a self proclaimed ‘princess’ or ‘baddie’ or whatever that deserved respect and special privileges. His eyes rolled to the back of his head in disbelief.

“This is joke, da?”

“No, mi amigo. You got to do it. She’ll be at the Armada mall later today with her group of hive minded omegas that linger on her every word. So go get her and you have to date her for at least a month. Then I’ll bring back those trading deal negotiations and give you two ports where my authorities will turn a blind eye to.” He dangles your picture right in front of his agitated violet eyes.

With a labored sigh Ivan takes it and grabs his black military coat. He heads out into the overcast afternoon and gets into his Chauffeur.

“Where to sir?”

“The Armada mall, please.”

***********

It didn’t take long for the Russian and his height to find the adorable decked out in black lace and devil like bunny ears Omega leading her little pack. As he approached their group he could hear her endlessly babbling about her latest buys: 10-ft plushies straight from the Sanrio store.

‘She looks like she matches the definition of ‘brat’ and her tone sounds like chalk on a black board. Spain better be ready to hand over a free bottle of vodka and I might also ask him for confidential documents he may have on France and Prussia.’

Ivan takes in a deep breath and prepares himself for a rough few weeks.

‘At least charming them will be easy.’

With his formidable figure. He stood at 6’5, He had husky ears that stood high in attention, and with a white and gray brushtail that was an impressive 3 feet when pointed out from his back. It didn’t take long for them to notice the Alpha pheromones mixed in with his “Ciel de Gum” cologne The thick notes of spicy cinnamon and the woody scent of the Russian woods in early winter demanded the attention of the bratty omega and her entourage.

You allowed your eyes to wander up to the incoming distraction. You raised your eyebrow interest and thought to yourself how you could possibly-

“If you think you can control me, nyet. Small brat. But, I will treat you well if you can at least control some of your unsavory tendencies.”

A smirk graced your cute but devious face. You could at least try your hand at toying with him, even though Antonio told you that sort of thing wasn’t advised. Maybe you could at least get some decent pampering for a few weeks could be nice even if you did have to give yourself to him from time to time. Not bad and you did have a fun life to get back to since your new promotion would allow you to travel, write, and even have free time.

“Alright then Master Braginski~” You coo at him in a witchy way and do a cute curtsey. You were going to do your best to push all of his buttons.

Ivan pulls out a 24-Karat gold collar that has an amethyst adorning the front of it for you to wear.

“Well you’re going to need to keep this on at all times and I have the appropriate attire that you will be wearing that I want you to be in.”

Suddenly there were a few different Beta’s dressed in gray or black maid’s uniforms surrounding you and your group of Omega’s.

“It’s time for your sycophants to leave you. You have a learning curve to get over.”

Shaking all four disbanded quickly. They knew better than to get in the way of an Alpha and his probably larger entourage that was likely nearby.

“Pushy. Looks like I really am dealing with someone who really has a stick up their ass.” You say smugly while crossing your arms.

“Dammit Antonio.” Ivan pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. After a few moments of trying to calm his nerves he simply snaps his fingers and the Beta’s who are stronger than they looked grabbed you tightly by the ears.

“What the hell put me down! I’m your supposed lover or whatever!”

“Yes, but I own you. Lover = Object in this scenario. Since you're an Omega. Also your appearance is not to my liking. You need to be groomed properly if I’m going to be seen out in public with you.”

You were soon dragged off to Ivan’s immaculate townhouse that he had within the city. You were impressed but not amused with the situation that you were currently in. You wanted to realtor back in anger but Ivan showed you real quick in the car that he doesn't tolerate bullshit. He had bitten the side of your neck harshly after you had fought him while he tried to put the collar on you. Quite a bit of blood came dribbling from your neck and flesh had been damaged in the process. It would take you up until the end of this whole month-long ordeal for it to heal. You were going to have to swallow your pride, anger, and humiliation in order to survive but, not just that. You were going to figure him out and learn what makes him tick and then take him down.

“Sunflower, your angry face is cute but you're still bleeding and getting your blood on the marble floors. It will look like a murder scene in here.” He scolds lightly but does give you the stern look that demands that you listen or else the consequences will be worse than what happened in the car.

You roll your eyes but head over to him anyways.

“Sit , flower I need to disinfect the bite, da?” He had the medical alcohol out along with cotton balls and bandages. You sit in front of his giant figure and you allow his nimble but thick hands to help clean your bite mark wound. He purposefully will be a little rough and apply too much rubbing alcohol onto your wounds just to make sure it hurts.

You sucked in a really sharp breath and he cleaned the last hole that was leaking out blood and applied the long cotton bandage that would wrap around the nape of your neck.

“Asshole.” You hiss out.

Ivan pressed down hard on one of the bite mark openings.

“Ah!” You slink away only to be tripped by his tree trunk like leg. You let out a frightened squeak and you tumbled towards the floor. Just 5 cm before your face collided with the hard marble floor Ivan had caught you by the waist.

“Your resistance will make your time here difficult. You might want to drop your ‘baddie’ persona or whatever. Now come, time to get you cleaned up for dinner.” And with that statement he marches you to the tub room while you still have a scowl permanently etched onto your face.

[bronzewool]

Scar by China Mieville is the second book in the New Crobuzon trilogy, set in the fictional steampunk world of Bas-Lag, and while Scar is a direct sequel to Perdido Street Station, we follow a brand new set of characters.

Bellis Coldwine is trying to get as far away from New Crobuzon as possible after the events of the first book and has been granted safe passage on a slave trader ship in exchange for being the crew’s interpreter. Before she can reach her destination, however, they are attacked by pirates and taken prisoner on the Floating City of Armada. Curiously, Bellis and the rest of the crew are made citizens of the moving city and assigned jobs allocated to their respective fields. Bellis is now the city librarian, given a fair wage, free reign to go whatever she wants, and has her own accommodation. Everyone is treated equally on Armada, including the newly freed slaves, with the only condition being that they can never leave.

Not wanting to spend the rest of her life in exile, Bellis teams up with Silas Fennec, another passenger on the ship who needs to get back to New Crobuzon to warn the city of an incoming invasion. Together they conspire a means of getting a message to a New Crobuzon military vessel while getting dragged into a conspiracy involving the final destination of Armada.

Bellis is the opposite of the previous book’s protagonist, Issac Dan der Grimnebulin. Whereas Isaac was loud and friendly, but had a tendency to make himself the centre of the room and talk over his companions, Bellis would gladly sit quietly in a room and let people run their mouths off in order to gather as much intelligence out of them as possible, all the while internally judging them with her dry sense of humour.

Tanner is the other main character of the book and a Remade, a person who has had his body altered against his will as a form of punishment. His body has been grafted with useless octopus-like tentacles and over the course of the book he grows to like his new form as it makes him a better worker at the docks and he willingly volunteers to go under the knife again to have his body properly adapted to the sea.

Perdido Street Station goes into great detail about the corrupt government of New Crozubon and its use of the Remade as a form of artistic irony towards criminals and the crimes they committed, but Scar puts a Remade front and centre as one of the main protagonists. Unlike Yagharek from the first book, we never learn what Tanner did that got him Remade or sold off to a slave ship, because it ultimately doesn’t matter. Whatever twisted form of ironic retribution was supposedly done to him cannot be defended by basic human decency. The process of Remade cannot be undone and we see many characters whose lives are forever ruined for the sake of this twisted art form. A girl with her eternal organs replaced with a primitive engine that will kill her if the furnace ever goes out. A man with bird wings surgically sewn onto his back that are left to rot, and who can only find work in a freakshow as he’s slowly dying from the decay. Tanner, despite his criminal status, is a brave and kind man whose experience on the Armada is greatly contrasted with Bellis as Tanner already had everything taken from him and was given a second chance at a normal life with the Armadians. They do not judge him or sneer at him for his appearance and instead accept him as an equal. If anything, Tanner’s unique appearance makes him an invaluable asset and his loyalty to Armada gives him a voice that Bellis lacks.

The narrative does a beautiful job of making you sympathize with Bellis’s position as a captive onboard the Armada, while also acknowledging it is hard to feel too bad for her when Tanner and his friends were going to be sold into slavery and she has still kept some of her autonomy even if it does mean she can never see her family and friends again. You are routing for her to escape as this is not an environment she will ever come to see as home, but you also don’t want Tanner to get sucked into her schemes when he now has something to protect. Their eventual conflict is beautifully tragic in how it didn’t need to go down the way it ultimately did.

There’s also an ongoing motif with scars in the book, physically, emotionally and psychologically. Armada is searching for a literal scar left on the world by magic and their relentless pursuit of it ends up scarring many people along the way. One of the ruling powers of Armada are The Lovers, two physically scarred individuals who inflict wounds on each other as a demonstration of their twisted love and devotion. And poor Bellis and Tanner have been used by so many political powers outside of their control that leave them scarred by their experiences on the Armada and come out of it with two very different mindsets.

As one character beautifully puts it, “Scars are not injuries…a scar is a healing. After an injury a scar is what makes you whole.” Scars are not wounds but evidence that a wound has been healed. Yes, they are ugly and painful reminders, but they are evidence you survived that pain, It’s in your past, and more importantly, they will help shape your future if you take the lesson with you.

[scotianostra]

Sir David Graham 6th of Fintry lost his head at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh on February 17th 1593.

Scottish Catholic and supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots, during her lifetime. He formed part of a group of people who hoped to re-establish Catholicism in Scotland with the help of foreign armies. In 1576, he was only permitted to travel outside the country if David Lindsay and Thomas Fothringham of Powrie, “stood surety that he would do "nothing prejudicial in the realm during his absence” and “would not return without express licence.” However, during his travels, he did consort with supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots - including the Archbishop of St Andrews, James Bethune – earning himself the title “the obstinate Papist young Fintrie…” from William Bowes, English ambassador to Scotland.

Between 1581 and 1585 Graham created an “album amicorum,” literally a book of friends, to record meetings with acquaintances whilst travelling in Europe. As the 1580s progressed, plans were formed for the King of Spain to invade England and Scotland, with the aim of re-establishing the Catholic faith. It was written that

“After the defeat of the Spanish Armada in the summer of 1588, a fresh plan was devised for a Spanish landing in Scotland…The leader of this conspiracy…was Huntly, and Graham of Fintry was one of the Spaniards’ principal contacts in Scotland.”

For his part in the plot, Graham was banished to the continent, however he did not obey this order and continued his rebellion. This led to Graham’s family seat, Mains Castle, being taken by the Constable of Dundee in 1589. Graham recovered the castle in 1590, but continued to conspire against the king, producing anti-Protestant propaganda, leading to the loss of his “movable property” and “all of the income” from his estates in 1591. Although the king gave Graham the opportunity to leave Scotland at this point, Graham declined. “De vostre majestie tres humble et tres obesant serviteur”  (meaning Your very humble and obedient servant)  and a signature… historians Mudie & Walker write

“ An inquisition, accompanied by torture, showed that the blanks were to be filled up…to the effect that their signitories "should raise a power of horsemen and meet the Spanish armies at their landing…and convey them to England by all the forces they could procure upon the King of Spain’s charges.”

One of the signatories, David Foster, was an alias of David Graham. Graham was arrested, tried and beheaded, his  "album amicorum,“ survives to give some insight into a young Scottish Catholic’s travels around the Continent during those times.  It sold at auction in 2017 for £7,750.

Pics are of the unfortunate Graham and pages from the book including his coat of arms.

[kamaandhallie]

The Dark Lord and the Savior: Chapter 3

Wander Over Yonder x Star Wars x Dune crossover fanfic

Chapter 3: The Rock and the Hard Place

“WHAT?!?” Hater yelled from within the Skullship.

The Skullship rested in the middle of space in front of a blazing star, giving an imposing look to whoever looked at it from the front. Inside it, Hater was in the control room along with an army of Watchdogs behind him, standing in front of the giant screen, and front of it was Commander Peepers with his back facing the screen. Hater was furious after receiving some shocking news from Peepers.

“What do you mean Vader’s now on the Galactic Villain Leaderboard?!” Hater asked furiously.

“Not just that, sir, but he’s also went up the ranks very high very quickly.” Peepers said as he pressed a button on the remote he held which made the screen present the Leaderboard.

On it, they could see amongst the villains in the ranks was Vader, who just moved from third place to second place as more planets kept appearing on his planet count, now he was just behind Sourdough the Evil Sandwich. On the other hand, Hater’s planets disappeared with every planet Vader gains along with other villains, and Hater’s position just dropped from ninth place to tenth place.

“It doesn’t seem long before Vader claims the number one spot.” Peepers continued.

“Grrrggghh! That jerk keeps stealing all the planets I’ve rightfully conquered! This isn’t fair! How is he conquering all these planets so fast?!”

“Well, sir, it seems that Star Destroyer ship that we saw him with wasn’t the only one. Our scouts have discovered that Vader apparently has an entire armada with him.” Peepers explained as he pressed a button on the remote, and the screen now showed a recording of hundreds of Star Destroyers flying through space.

“And they’re all led by this gigantic Super Star Destroyer.” Peepers continued as the camera on the screen now shifted towards a different-looking Star Destroyer.

This Star Destroyer was far larger than the one's Hater and Peepers came across, as it was at least twenty times larger than a regular Star Destroyer was. If a regular Star Destroyer already made Dominator’s ship look like small fry, then the Super one made all the others look like baby fish swimming around their mother. It was safe to assume that a Super Star Destroyer could easily destroy a planet simply by driving into, no need for weapons of any kind. It was pretty terrifying to look at.

“It seems he’s really preparing for a full-scale invasion of this galaxy, sir,” Peepers said.

“He’s cheating!” Hater yelled. “He has a hundred ships helping him invade planets! That’s why he can do it so fast! We only have our one ship! It’s so not fair!”

“Sir, following basic conquering rules isn’t exactly cheating,” Peepers said, tired of his boss’s antics.

“Shut up, Peepers! I know that!” Hater retorted pathetically, only causing Peepers to sigh in frustration. Suddenly, the screen went static, and Peepers realized what it meant. “Wait…sir! There’s a transmission incoming!”

“What? A transmission? From who?” Hater asked before the screen cleared up and his question was answered.

The screen cleared up, now showing a smug-looking middle-aged man in an olive grey uniform and cap with a pin of blue and red squares above his left breast. It was one of Vader’s imperial officers.

“Lord Hater.” The officer said.

“Who the flarp are you?” Hater asked in a tone suggesting confrontation.

“I am Admiral Dramar, commander of Lord Vader’s naval fleet in this system.” He answered.

“What?! Then where’s Vader?! I ruined his invasion and blasted him out of space! Does he still not think I’m a worthy enemy?!” Hater kept yelling.

“You think that just because of the little stunt you pulled on Goolopia, Lord Vader’s going to give you the time of day? Well, sorry to disappoint you, Lord Hater, but Lord Vader has decided he has more important things to set his mind on than you. So from now on, you’ll be dealing with me.” Dramar said, still having that smug look on him.

“‘More important things’?! What could be more important than me?! The guy who beat him?!” Hater continued his petty shouting, which was beginning to frustrate Peepers and everyone else unfortunate enough to be listening to him.

“There’s another foreign invading threat. One that could be a nuisance or threat to our conquest.” Dramar answered, though it oddly seemed like he was answering to himself than to Hater, judging by the way he looked off into the distance for a second.

“Another invading threat? Who?” Peepers asked this time.

“Never mind that! That doesn’t concern you! All you need to know is that Vader’s not dealing with any of you and that I shall be the one you’re going to deal with from now on.”

“Oh, I see what’s going on here, Peepers. Vader does know that I’m a much better bad guy than him, and now he’s too scared to face me himself! Well, you can tell Vader that I didn’t want to speak to him anyway. Also, I found out he works for someone else which makes him totally lame.” Hater said, first to Peepers then to Dramar. Hater’s last statement seemed to offend Peepers.

“Sir, he singlehandedly defeated the entire Goolopian army and managed to face off against your lightning powers. I don’t think he’s someone who’d be scared so easily,” Peepers said.

“Listen to your obviously more intelligent subordinate, Lord Hater. He knows what he’s talking about. And also, I have one more thing to say.” The Admiral said.

“And what’s that?” Hater asked.

“I have been tasked with hunting down anything and anyone that might pose a threat towards our invasion of this galaxy. We’ve already got a rebellion problem in our own galaxy, we don’t need another one in yours. And unfortunately for you, you technically count as one.” Dramar explained.

“I do?”

“Yes. This transmission is spread out to cover the entire system, and since you received our transmission, that means you are not too far out of reach, Lord Hater. So it shouldn’t be too long before I find you and hunt you down.”

“Uh oh…”

“See you in a bit, Lord Hater. I’d watch my back if I were you.” Dramar chuckled as he ended the transmission and the screen turned black.

“Gropdarn it, Peepers! First Vader steals my planets, now he’s sending his minions to hunt me down!” Hater angrily evaluated his situation. Hater then picked up Peepers and shook him violently. “What’re we gonna do now, Peepers?!”

“Don’t worry, sir. There might still be a chance to defeat Admiral Dramar. Look!” Peepers said as he picked up the remote and turned on the screen again, showing the Villain Leaderboard.

“According to the list of planets conquered by Darth Vader, his fleet hasn’t yet conquered every planet in this system! If we can manage to conquer all the rest of those planets before Dramar finds us, we should be able to get an upper hand on him! We’ll let him track us down, and we’ll lure him into a trap using all the planets we conquered, and once he’s defeated, we’ll be able to take over this entire system!” Peepers explained.

Hater gasped in excitement. “Peepers, you’re right! If we can conquer this system quick enough and beat Admiral Dramar at his own game, I will finally get Vader to notice me!”

“And take over this whole system, sir?” Peepers asked.

“Huh? Oh yeah, and take over this system.” Hater quickly added. “Soon, we’ll knock Vader completely off the Villainboard, and I’ll prove to him that I am…the greatest in the galaxy!” Hater proclaimed as lightning flashed around him.

Later on, Hater and Peepers managed to conquer several of the remaining planets in the system in a surprisingly quick time. Five planets may not be a lot, but Peepers felt that it should be enough to prepare a fighting chance against Admiral Dramar. On the other end of the system, Dramar has successfully tracked down the Skullship from the recent invasion activity happening to the planets within the system, and he watches the vastness of space with a determined grin through the window from within the command bridge of his Star Destroyer.

Hater and Peepers were on a roll, conquering many planets in a short period, and now they were close to conquering half the system, as Dramar and Vader have already taken control of the other half. So far, there has been no sign of Dramar and his Star Destroyer fleet, which means he’s still trying to pinpoint their exact location, and that was good news for Hater and Peepers as that means they’re quicker than Dramar was and they’ll be able to conquer half of the system and get the upper hand on the admiral in no time. Though they still had to keep their eyes (or in Peepers’ case, eye) open, as there’s no telling when Dramar will pop up, and just how many forces he’ll bring with him to take Hater down. But for now, they enjoyed their triumphant moment of conquering.

“Yeah, Peepers! We are kicking Dramar’s butt right now!” Hater proclaimed victoriously with his fists pumping in the air.

“Not yet, sir. But once we lure Dramar and his forces into our territories and take him down, all of his planets in this system will be totally defenseless, and this entire system will be ours! There’s just one more unconquered planet in this system to take care of, the outer planet on the outer edge of this system!” Peepers said.

“Well, what are we waiting for?! Let’s conquer that planet already!” Hater declared as the Skullship’s jets roared with flames and the ship sped through the void of space.

The Skullship headed towards the outer planet of the system. It was a fairly isolated world, small in size, and not that advanced. It was mostly brown in color, and half of the planet’s surface was covered by marketplaces and small hut houses, all of them wooden-based, and the marketplace was covered with tarps and fabrics of all kinds to form roofs and shelter for the market; while the other half of the planet was covered in a forest. It’s not a planet that had many weapons or means to defend itself, so conquering it should be a total breeze for Hater and Peepers…or so they thought.

As the Skullship approached the planet, Hater and Peepers suddenly stopped it dead in its tracks when they noticed something strange above the planet. Hovering above the small brown planet was an unbelievably gigantic tube-shaped spaceship, so large it could practically not only fit the entire planet inside it but could fit an entire system’s worth of planets. The spaceship seemed to be around the size of Vader’s Super Star Destroyer, if not slightly larger, and it certainly could fit at least a dozen of regular Star Destroyers inside it.

“What is that?! Has Vader taken over a planet before me again?!” Hater asked Peepers with anger.

“I don’t think so, sir. That doesn’t look like one of Vader’s ships.” Peepers said, observing the gigantic ship closely from the window of the Skullship. Peepers gasped when an idea clicked in his head (or eye). “Sir! Remember that Dramar said there was another foreign invading threat? What if this is it?”

“Grop, I hope not. I already have to deal with Vader ruining everything, I don’t need another villain trying to complicate things too. But if it is, then I can use this chance to show these newcomers the power of…Lord Hater! And that we are not to be messed with! Because this galaxy is mine to conquer, and mine alone!” Hater declared, seething with power and confidence. “So let’s go down there and show these tourists who’s boss!”

“Wait, sir! Not yet. I think we should observe what’s going on with these guys first, gather information on them, see what they’re doing and what they’re like.” Peepers said, stopping Hater from giving the command to attack.

“Ugh! But Peepers, that’s so boring! I wanna go down there and be all like…raaagghhh! Scary bad guy stuff! Lightning powers on them! And show them what a real bad guy’s capable of!” Hater whined.

“Don’t worry, you will, sir. But I think we first need to know what it is we’re up against.”

Hater seemed to be struggling holding back more complaints he wanted to say, but eventually agreed. “Fine, we’ll do that first,” Hater said with crossed arms, his tone filled with disappointment.

The Skullship then descended quietly to the planet, landing on the forest side of the world, hiding from the sight of the humongous tube-shaped spaceship. As soon as the spaceship landed on a hill in the middle of the forest, Hater and Peepers ran out the mouth of the Skullship, wearing trench coats and sunglasses to go undercover with the crowd of the planet. As Hater and Peepers approached the marketplace and town, they could see three large spaceships in the middle of the marketplace, so large they were practically crushing it. They could see the crowd of aliens with big black eyes, some with short or tall and slim bodies, and a lot of them wearing brown robes, all gathering around the three gigantic spaceships, but they also saw several of them running away from them. As Hater and Peepers approached closer, they could see beyond the crowd an army of robed armored masked warriors with dark blue-on-blue eyes, wielding pistols of many shapes and sizes, and they were storming through the marketplace, ruining many stores and attacking those that protested and went against them. The only one of the warriors who weren’t masked and hooded, who seemed to be their commander, didn’t attack anyone but instead spent the entire time preaching some sort of propaganda for their true leader.

“The messages of Muad’Dib shall enter your hearts! Muad’Dib is the way! He shall deliver all from evil and wrongdoing! All the heretics who oppose him and his message shall be met with death and destruction!” the commander declared loudly for all to hear as his troops continued messing the place up and harassing frightened citizens.

Behind the commander, in the center of the marketplace, they could see a large group of warriors planting banners, the banners were green and black with a red hawk insignia, so that confirmed once and for all these guys weren’t on Vader’s side. Another group was raising a statue, and once the statue was placed properly, they could see the figure it represented. The statue was of a bearded wavy-haired man, wearing the same armor and cape that the warriors did, and he had an arm raised high with a knife in its grasp. This was, without a doubt, their leader, Muad’Dib. Below the statue, on the column it was placed on, was written Paul Muad’Dib, the Mahdi, Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe.

“Sir, it looks like we’re right! This could be the threat Admiral Dramar was talking about! They look pretty similar to Vader and his henchmen, but these are clearly not the same guys. It seems our worries are true, sir. There’s another major invading threat besides Vader trying to conquer the galaxy.” Peepers whispered to Hater as they hid behind one of the stands of the market.

Hater groaned in frustration at first upon hearing how much competition he was gonna have. “‘Emperor of the Known Universe’?! He can’t be emperor of the universe! I’m supposed to be the one who’ll rule over the universe! He doesn’t even look like someone who can conquer the universe! He looks like some…hero! This isn’t fair!” Hater whined again, which Peepers was not enjoying listening to for one second.

But then he suddenly brightened up as an idea popped into his head. “Wait a minute, Peepers! This could be a good thing! This Emperor Paul guy doesn’t look that strong! So if I can manage to defeat not one, but two foreign invading superpowers, not only will the galaxy learn to fear me again, but all other galaxies…no, the entire universe, will know once and for all that Lord Hater is the greatest in all the universe!” Hater declared epically, yet somehow not heard by anyone nearby. “All we gotta do is try to destroy them once and for all! It’s nothing a little…rraaaaggghhh!!!...can’t fix!” Hater roared evilly with lightning around him, again somehow not attracting anyone’s attention.

“Not yet, sir! Vader and whoever this Muad’Dib guy is, obviously have a lot of forces backing them up. I don’t think they’ll make it easy for us to reach them. We have to first figure out how they function, where they strike, how they conquer, where their bases of operations are, and what their weaknesses are. If this Muad’Dib really is that big of a threat to get Vader’s attention, we should approach him carefully, sir, we don’t know how dangerous he is. But infiltrating them shouldn’t be too hard, Vader is such a big threat that he doesn’t even think you’re worth his attention!” Peepers said with enthusiasm.

“Thanks for reminding me, Peepers,” Hater said in an annoyed tone.

“No, sir, this is a good thing! If Vader doesn’t think you’re worth his attention, then he wouldn’t be paying attention to us at all! And if this Muad’Dib really is as big of a threat as he sounds, then he’d have the same attitude to you as Vader does! That means we can slip by them unnoticed and they wouldn’t even think about considering us, so when they least expect it, we strike them where it hurts and bring down both invading superpowers, and the galaxy will be ours for the taking!” Peepers continued.

“By grop, Peepers, you’re right! Yeah, let’s just make these two losers think I’m not worth their time! I can’t wait to see the look on their stupid faces when they realize that they’ve been Hated! Soon, the entire universe won’t mess with and will know the name of…Lord Hater!” Hater declared again and laughed evilly.

They then heard another announcement from the commander from beyond the crowd. “If you accept the messages and teachings of Muad’Dib, you shall be granted peace and security forever! Muad’Dib swears to bring peace and safety to this galaxy! And we shall start by eliminating every warlord and conqueror! Darth Vader, Emperor Awesome, Lord Hater, they shall all be met with death and destruction! No trace of any tyrant and invader shall be left on this galaxy!” the commander declared with a mix of pride, ambition, and fury, as he raised his fist in the air like he was doing a salute. All the inhabitants that remained and still bothered to listen stopped being afraid and started muttering in agreement with each other. Some even started cheering, as if they immediately forgot these troops just harassed their fellow citizens and ruined their market.

Hater and Peepers just stared with wide eyes after hearing that, they knew they were gonna get some new competition, but they didn’t expect their new competition to be out for their blood this much.

“I guess I spoke too soon.” Peepers muttered to himself. “Sir, maybe we should just get back to the ship and observe from a safer distance? These guys seem pretty dangerous.” Peepers whispered to his boss with a very worried tone.

“Pfft! C’mon, Peepers. These guys are probably just all talk, they won’t be too big of a problem.” Hater brushed off Peepers’ concern, although Peepers couldn’t tell if Hater was genuinely confident in being safe or if he was just trying to hide the fact he was also getting scared.

“You two there! Who are you?!” a voice shouted. They realized it was the commander’s voice, and he was looking and pointing right in their direction. Hater and Peepers realized only now that they poked their heads out the corner way too far and too long.

A dozen of the hooded soldiers now approached in their direction, surrounding the stand they were hiding at, all pointing their guns at them. Now everyone in the marketplace had their eyes fixed on them. Hater and Peepers looked around and then at each other nervously, not entirely sure what to do right now.

“Why were you hiding? Who are you two? You look strangely familiar.” The commander said as he approached them.

The two of them quickly got up on their feet, frantically thinking of what to say. Hater was the first to speak, and he put on a painfully exaggerated high-pitched voice that was not convincing in the slightest. “Oh, us? I’m, uh…Lord Schmater, and this is Peep-Peeps. We’re just here to buy some, uh…fruit!” Hater said nervously as he quickly took a piece of fruit from a nearby stand. “Yeah! We wanna buy some fruit to take back to the…place we came from!” Hater smiled awkwardly when he finishes his half-baked answer.

The commander just stared at Hater with an unamused look. Suddenly, he and a soldier beside him swung pearl-white knives upward so quickly that Hater barely noticed the knife passing in front of his face. Hater and Peepers’ sunglasses, hat, and trench coat then split in two, falling off their bodies and revealing the persons beneath.

“It’s Lord Hater!” the commander shouted, and all the inhabitants gasped.

Hater and Peepers now had dozens of pearl-white knives pointed at them, the soldiers preparing to strike at any moment. “No, no! I’m just Lord Schmater! Nothing to see here!” Hater still tried putting on the fake voice despite already being revealed.

“Muad’Dib swore to bring peace and safety to this galaxy by eliminating every warlord and evildoer in it, and you are one of them! Kill them!” the commander shouted.

“RUN!!!” Hater and Peepers yelled to each other in unison as they bolted away from the scene in the blink of an eye, knocking away two soldiers in the process.

“After them!” they heard the commander order his troops.

Hater and Peepers ran at full speed through the marketplace, but now they could see troops of hooded soldiers running after them, all with knives and guns in hand. As a couple of soldiers lunged toward them, they both made a sudden turn to a different path, leaving the two lunging soldiers to crash into whatever was in front of them. As they ran through the street, Hater attempted to block the troops’ path by grabbing some nearby carts they passed and placing them in the middle of the road, which, expectedly, did nothing, as the hooded masked blue-eyed soldiers jumped over or completely demolished any obstacle in their way. They were completely relentless. The troopers chased Hater and Peepers all around the marketplace, Hater and Peepers hid in all sorts of places from stands to baskets to avoid the oncoming soldiers, but always end up getting chased by another troop of incoming soldiers. They even quickly managed to disguise themselves in dresses, pretending to be two giggling women, and pointed the soldiers in a different direction which they followed, but they took off their disguises too quickly because one of the soldiers saw them and the chase continued.

They finally reached the forest, but the Skullship was still a length away. They could see darts flying past them, when they looked back, it turned out they were being fired from small guns held by several of the soldiers. One of the soldiers then pulled out a different-looking gun, and when he fired it, instead of firing darts like the other ones, this one fired a long, continuous, purple laser beam. The first firing was aimed at Hater and Peepers, who dodged, ducked, and jumped over the laser, as it kept moving back towards them. The second firing was then aimed above them, and they saw the soldier use the laser to slice the tall trees ahead of them, which then came crashing down, but Hater and Peepers luckily managed to be quick enough to avoid the falling trees, but the soldiers still kept pursuing. The soldiers then pulled out what appeared to be grappling hooks, some of the soldiers swung them to the trees and pulled themselves up, disappearing into the foliage, while the ones still on the ground prepared to swing them toward Hater and Peepers. They swung the grappling hooks toward them, and while Hater dodged the oncoming hooks, but still got caught as the rope was swung and wrapped around him. Luckily for Hater, before the soldier could pull Hater towards him, Peepers blasted him with his blaster which he only now pulled out.

“Peepers, why didn’t you use that before?!” Hater asked angrily.

“Sorry, sir. Didn’t think about it ‘till now.” Peepers answered as he helped free Hater from the grappling hook ropes and then continued their running.

As Hater and Peepers ran, Peepers tried to blast the soldiers behind them. The soldiers surprisingly managed to dodge most of his blasts, they were clearly great warriors, but Peepers did luckily manage to blast two of them. They then heard noises from the foliage above them, and they remembered that some of the soldiers have climbed the trees. One by one, hooded soldiers jumped down from the trees, lunging toward them, but fortunately for Hater and Peepers, this only made them easier to blast away. With every soldier that jumped down, Peepers blasted them away with his blaster, and Hater with his lightning powers, all with relative ease.

The Skullship was now in sight, and Hater and Peepers were nearly at their destination, but the soldiers were still pursuing close behind. They successfully got aboard the ship and immediately took off, but the soldiers weren’t gonna give up that easily. Several of the hooded masked soldiers swung their grappling hooks at the Skullship before it got high enough and they managed to hang on to it, and they were carried away along with it. The warriors that managed to hook onto the Skullship started scaling in, making their way to the easiest entry points, the window eyes of the ship. Hater and Peepers saw one of them make it to one of the windows, the soldier and his hook managing to grab onto the ship despite the high speed it was moving upwards. The soldier then unsheathed his knife and stabbed it into the window, the blade managing to penetrate to the other side of the glass and creating a massive crack, which made Hater and Peepers momentarily fear for their lives. Peepers had to say, while these soldiers may not always rely on advanced weaponry, they made up for it in their resilience, relentlessness, and unwillingness to give up, barely anything seemed to be enough to faze them away from their set goal, and they were ridiculously hard to get rid of. Peepers thought of an easy solution quickly, simply pressing one of the buttons on the control panel, and the windshield wipers started smacking and wiping the soldier on the window. It took a moment, but after a few wipes, the soldier was finally pushed off the window and the Skullship, falling to the ground below. Suddenly, multiple soldiers jumped onto both windows this time, which was enough to make Hater and Peepers scream and panic for a moment. But Peepers thought quickly again and pressed another button on the control panel, which made the mouth of the Skullship open up and the tongue rolls out and smack the ship’s face where all the soldiers were, and all of them that were stuck to the tongue was thrown off by said tongue, and all the soldiers fell through the air. Hater and Peepers didn’t know if any of the soldiers survived, but it wasn’t like they’d care in the first place, anyway.

Hater and Peepers celebrated victoriously at their escape, and the Watchdogs in the room all cheered for them. “We did it, sir!” Peepers exclaimed happily.

“Yeah, nobody messes with Lord Hater!” Hater mocked his nonexistent enemies, his attitude full of smugness.

Now all they needed to do was leave the planet, which they’d have to try and go around the enormous tube-shaped spaceship above them, which was so huge it was blocking half of the sky, and it was only half due to the distance the ship had between itself and the planet. Now that Hater thought about it, it explained why the planet felt so dark. But just as the Skullship was about to leave the planet’s atmosphere, they realize their troubles were only just beginning.

Above them, in space just beyond the planet’s atmosphere, the gigantic miles-long spaceship was fading away, which confused Hater and Peepers, until they saw why. As the giant elongated tube spaceship disappeared into thin air, they saw behind where the ship was, another spaceship that just emerged from hyperspace, a ship that was small fry compared to the previous one, but still big enough to destroy half the planet simply by driving into it. It was a Star Destroyer, and it was heading right for them. But they knew this wasn’t just any Star Destroyer, it was Admiral Dramar’s.

From within the command bridge of the Star Destroyer, Admiral Dramar grinned victoriously as he stared at the small brown and green planet in front of him. “Found you.” He said sinisterly.

“Oh, grop.” Hater and Peeper murmured in fear from within the Skullship. They had intended to lure Dramar to one of their planets, but he chose to show up at the worst possible moment for them.

The Skullship immediately turned back to the planet as the Star Destroyer began deploying hundreds of TIE Fighters to chase after them. Green laser blasts flew all around the Skullship as they flew at high speed toward the planet’s surface. But as the ship approached the forest floor, they found an entire platoon of hooded soldiers waiting for them, all with grappling hooks in hand. Hater, in a panic, immediately pulled the Skullship up again, but some of the soldiers’ grappling hooks managed to hook onto the Skullship, and they were all pulled along with it. The Skullship flew quickly away from the scene, but the hooded warriors were still being dragged with the ship and were now climbing the ropes. To make matters worse, in the direction the Skullship was flying, several TIE Fighters were heading right in their direction, blasting at them. This time, Hater decided to do some quick thinking of his own, as he spun the Skullship around, the soldiers on their ropes being spun along with it, and he slammed the soldiers into the oncoming TIE Fighters, and they all crashed together and fell to the ground. Hater used this opportunity to try to hide the Skullship in the forest where no one will find it before more TIE Fighters arrive.

It has been a while since the Skullship disappeared. The sky was now riddled with TIE Fighters flying around, and the forest was crawling with the hooded soldiers, all of which are looking for Hater’s ship, but so far have been unsuccessful. Somewhere in the forest, the Skullship peeked out from the heavy bushes and foliage of the forest, looking out for danger, and then ducked back into the bushes when it saw some TIE Fighters flying past the trees above.

“Oh grop, Peepers! We’re completely surrounded! What are we gonna do?! There’s nowhere to go!” Hater exclaimed in a panic.

“I’m not sure yet, sir! We’re caught between a rock and a hard place right now! One wrong move and we’ll all be destroyed!” Peepers said, just as worried as Hater was.

They peeked out the window again, and they could see the faded form of the Star Destroyer in the sky, its massive form taking up a lot of the sky. The bottom of the Star Destroyer opened up again, and they could now see an entire armada of shuttle spaceships coming out of it, descending to the planet.

“Oh no, it seems Admiral Dramar is pulling out all his forces down to the planet to look for us! And with Muad’Dib’s soldiers looking for us too, we’ll be doomed for sure.” Peepers said as he sat down on the floor, having lost all hope. But then an idea popped into his head, and his spirits were lifted again. “Wait a minute! Maybe not! This could be our best opportunity!”

“Why? What are you thinking, Peepers?” Hater asked. He couldn’t see how there’d be an opportunity at all in the situation they were in.

“It’ll sound pretty crazy, sir. But you’re gonna have to trust me. I know this plan will work, and we’ll be able to beat both of them!” Peepers said, absolutely confident in himself.

“And what exactly are we gonna have to do that’s so crazy? C’mon, Peepers. I can handle anything crazy.” Hater said smugly.

“You’re gonna have to do exactly what Wander does to foil your plans.”

Hater’s smile dropped immediately and his eyes went wide. “Oh, no…”

Out in the forest, hundreds of stormtroopers searched the forest, with groups of scout troopers patrolling ahead and riding on their speeder bikes, troop transport vehicles drove around preparing to unleash the stormtroopers inside the moment they find their target, they even brought with them five AT-ST Walkers for good measure. Atop one of the hover tanks, Commander Dannin watched the forest through his binoculars for any sign of Hater and his ship. A hologram transmission from the admiral then came in.

“Have you found any sign of him?” Admiral Dramar’s hologram transmission asked, his body the size of an action figure.

“Not yet, Admiral. But the planet is small, and the forest is even more so. It shouldn’t take long before Lord Hater is found.” Commander Dannin answered.

“Good, find them quickly. This planet is crawling with Emperor Muad’Dib’s Fedaykin forces, and that’ll complicate things greatly. I want you to find him first! I do not want that blue-eyed hero-wannabe of an emperor to have the pleasure of eliminating all the conquerors of this galaxy first! When I rid this galaxy of Lord Hater and all his kind, helping the Empire conquer this galaxy, my name will go down in history! Do not disappoint me, Commander!” Dramar said.

“Yes, Admiral,” Dannin answered as Dramar’s hologram faded away, and he continued looking through his binoculars.

Suddenly, out of the forest in front of the troops, Lord Hater jumped out of the foliage, plain as day, with no disguise, no weapons, not even an army behind him. What confused them most of all was that Hater was doing some stupid goofy dance. For what reason? They don’t know.

“Hey, everyone! It’s me, Lord Hater! You know me, I conquer the galaxy, ride a skull-shaped ship, and sometimes I make this face!” Hater said as he made a goofy expression.

“Sir, what is he doing?” a stormtrooper asked Dannin.

“How should I know, Lieutenant?” Dannin answered.

“Hey, check this out!” Hater shouted before he blasted one of the scout troopers off his speeder bike and got on it himself. “Betcha can’t catch me!” Hater taunted as he sped away on the bike.

“After him!” Dannin shouted, and all the troops and transports started running after Hater, the scout troopers going ahead first.

Hater sped through the forest on his bike, heading in the direction of the marketplace. Behind him, two scout troopers pursued, attempting to shoot him down using the laser blaster on their speeders, but none of their shots hit their targets. The two scouts gained on Hater, getting closer by each second, both of them extending their arms to try and grab Lord Hater. But what Dramar and his forces don’t know is that Hater has many similar equipments as they do. Out of the woods, came two Watchdogs on a speeder bike of their own, and they drove right beside the scout troopers, pulled out their blasters, and pointed them at the scouts. The scouts raised their hands in surrender, forgetting they were driving, before being blasted and they came crashing along with their speeder bikes. Hater and the Watchdogs gave each other winks (or blinks in the Watchdogs’ case) before they disappeared back into the woods.

Hater continued speeding through the woods, and the marketplace was now starting to become visible through the trees, but another obstacle crossed him. Out of the foliage, came an AT-ST Walker, blocking Hater’s path, its giant metal form was nearly as tall as the trees themselves, and all of its blasters were aimed at Hater. But Hater wasn’t afraid, because Peepers has planned for every possibility. The walker blasted at Hater, but Hater dodged every laser projectile. Unseen to the AT-ST, two Watchdogs hid in two trees on either side above the walking war machine, one of them gave the other a signal, and they cut the ropes beside them, which released two tied-up logs that swung in each other’s direction, and the AT-ST was right in the middle. The two logs slammed into the walker, crushing its ‘head’, and Hater passed underneath it and the walker fell to the ground behind Hater.

Hater stopped the speeder bike for a moment right as he was at the edge of the forest to look behind him, he could see the battalion was chasing him but was far behind. The hover tanks and the other AT-STs crushed the trees and foliage as they passed, helping clear the way for the army of stormtroopers marching behind.

“Man, you guys are so slow! Do you wanna catch me or not?” Hater taunted again, before speeding off into the marketplace.

Hater drove through the main road of the marketplace, heading towards the center, where he expects the hooded soldiers would be, and they were. Hater stopped his speeder right in front of a large group of soldiers, smiling smugly at them as he did so. Their commander came forward, not looking happy to see him at all.

“Lord Hater?!”

“Yeah, it’s me! And I bet you can’t catch me!” Hater taunted them and sped away yet again.

“Get him!”

Hater sped through the marketplace’s main road again, this time in the opposite direction of where he came, and behind him, hundreds of hooded soldiers chased after him, disregarding any obstacle or person in their way. Ahead, Hater could see Dramar’s forces heading in his direction, hundreds of stormtroopers, dozens of hover tanks, and four AT-STs marched through and crushed the marketplace, and every single citizen was running in terror from them. Hater grinned, everything was going according to Peeper’s plan, all that was left to do was to get out of there. Hater saw a small alleyway to his left and made a quick turn in there before anyone can see him. Nobody followed him after that.

On the main road of the marketplace, the two imperial battalions stopped dead in their tracks as they came face to face with each other. On one side, an army of soldiers in white armor with blasters in their hands, backed up by heavy machinery from tanks to bipedal armored transport; and on the other side, hooded masked warriors, wielding nothing but knives, small guns, and grappling hooks. The two sides stared each other down, one had their faces hidden inside masks, but the other had their eyes visible for all to see, and they were filled with rage and determination.

Out of one of the hover tanks, Commander Dannin popped out, to get a better view of their situation. His eyes met with the deep blue eyes of the Fremen commander, the only one without a mask on.

“You must be the Fedaykin of Emperor Muad’Dib’s army,” Dannin said.

“I am Sifar! Commander of Muad’Dib’s Fedaykin forces for this system!” the commander answered.

“This is not a fight you can win, Fremen. Your primitive savage weapons will not stand a chance against the forces of the Empire! Surrender peacefully, or face the consequences.”

“You are mistaken, Commander. It is you who should fear the consequences! For your master, Vader, and the blasphemous emperor he serves, shall be met with death and destruction, along with every other evildoer and heretic like them! And the religion of Muad’Dib shall prevail.”

“Enough of this. Fire at will!”

“Attack!”

The two sides began their battle. The stormtroopers tried to fire first, but the Fedaykin were quicker. The ones in the front fired their maula pistols, which took out many stormtroopers, then one of them fired a lasgun, and the laser beam took out dozens of stormtroopers. The troopers that didn’t get hit and managed to dodge the laser all tried blasting back and charging forward, but many of them were quickly taken care of by maula pistol darts or by crysknife-wielding soldiers, though some of them did manage to blast down several Fedaykin, but not enough of them. The battle quickly descended to chaos, lasers flew everywhere, hundreds of soldiers charged against each other, the surrounding marketplace was decimated, and the citizens around there all fled or hid in their houses, and the AT-STs trampled and crushed everything in their path, including market stands, Fedaykin, but occasionally even their own troops, for the market main road was a place too small for a battle to take place. The Fedaykin seemed to be gaining the upper hand in this battle, as many of the Imperial forces were being overwhelmed. The stormtroopers were all sliced, blasted, shot, and stabbed; the hover tanks were being sabotaged by Fedaykin who managed to break in; and two AT-STs were being taken apart by hand by Fedaykin that grabbed onto their exterior, one had its feet tied by a grappling hook and fell to the ground, while the last one was sliced in half by a lasgun blast.

From within the lead hover tank, Commander Dannin turned on his intercom in a panicked frenzy, as the tank was shaking from the chaos of the battle.

“Calling all TIE pilots! Head to the marketplace! We require aerial support immediately!”

In the depths of the forest, Hater and all the Watchdogs that hid in the woods all returned to the Skullship, safe and sound. Hater entered the control room where Peepers stood waiting.

“I’ve done it, Peepers!” Haters shouted triumphantly.

“They’re all fighting each other?” Peepers asked.

“Every single one of them!”

“Great! Now we can escape this planet with no one on our tail!” Peepers said as the Skullship took off from the ground, but they weren’t leaving the planet just yet. “And with both of their entire battalions focused on each other on the ground, they’ve left their ships totally defenseless!”

The Skullship first flew to the area where Dramar’s forces landed, and there lay dozens of Imperial shuttles, all completely abandoned, which made it the perfect opportunity for the Skullship to blast them and blow them all up. The ship then flew to the marketplace, where the three gigantic ships belonging to the Fedaykin forces rested, and the Skullship blew them up too.

On the ground, the two battalions stopped their fighting for a moment to see what was happening. They briefly forgot their battle out of shock, as all their transports out of the planet have now been destroyed.

The Skullship now flew up into the sky, entering space, and Peepers looked out the window at the giant craft in front of them with a determined look. “Only one more ship to take care of…Dramar’s Star Destroyer!”

From within the Star Destroyer, on the command bridge, Captain Aryss, the younger subordinate of Admiral Dramar, stood beside his commander and noticed something out the window.

“Admiral! There’s a craft heading towards us!” Captain Aryss reported.

“Lord Hater,” Dramar muttered to himself before giving out his command. “I want all our firepower concentrated on that ship!”

Inside the Skullship, Peepers gave a command of his own. “Shields activate!”

A green energy orb formed around the Skullship, and just in time too. The massive Star Destroyer fired laser blasts from multiple points of the ship’s surface towards the tinier ship of Lord Hater, but all those laser blasts bounced off the shield that was just activated. The mouth of the Skullship then opened, where a missile with Lord Hater’s face on it was launched, and it was fired right at the Star Destroyer’s shield generator, a metal ball right atop the ship’s bridge. Now that the Star Destroyer’s shield was down, the Skullship fired its attacks all over the ship, causing multiple explosions, and Dramar was losing his balance within the command bridge to the violent shaking the ship was now having.

As the Skullship neared the Star Destroyer’s command bridge, Hater jumped out of the Skullship’s mouth, electricity crackling in his gloved hands, and he crashed through the window of the command bridge. Hater and Dramar were now face to face, Dramar stood in fear of the electrical skeleton in the red and black robe before him.

“Admiral Dramar! This drama is over!” Hater shouted as he blasted Dramar with his green lightning, electrocuting and frying the imperial admiral, and Dramar then lay still on the ground, smoking and blackened.

Hater now approached the young Captain Aryss, who was now crawling on his back in fear away from Hater who was stepping closer and looking down at him.

“If you survive, tell Vader everything that just happened!” Hater told the captain with the most intimidating tone he could muster, before jumping out the window back into the Skullship’s mouth.

The Star Destroyer’s multiple small explosions all slowly turned into one giant explosion that blew up the entire massive spaceship. Every piece of the ship was destroyed, reduced to flaming metal, but miraculously, the command bridge was not destroyed too but was launched away by the explosion which mainly affected the main body of the Star Destroyer. And the command bridge, with Admiral Dramar inside it, was launched away, rolling aimlessly into the dark emptiness of space.

“Now with Admiral Dramar out of the way, this system is free for the taking!” Peepers declared victoriously.

On all the Empire-occupied planets in the system, once watched over by Dramar, Hater’s Watchdog army all landed, defeating all the remaining stormtrooper armies, destroying all their ships, and replacing all the Imperial banners with the banners of the Hater Empire. The entire system was now officially under Hater’s control. Hater laughed triumphantly while Peepers struck a victorious pose.

Back on the planet, both the Imperial army and the Fedaykin still stood in silence over the shock at what just happened. Their ships were now all destroyed, they were stranded on this small planet, and Lord Hater has just taken control of the entire system. Commander Dannin just stood in silence, not really knowing what to do now. The Fedaykin on the other hand, decided to finish what was started.

“All enemies of Muad’Dib still must die! Attack!” Sifar shouted, and the battle resumed.

Commander Dannin just sighed tiredly. “Hello? We’re going to need transport out of here.” Dannin spoke into his transceiver to anyone who might be listening. “Lord Vader isn’t going to like this.”

“Look, sir!” Peepers said, pointing to the screen. “We have just moved up the Villain Leaderboard!”

On the screen, they could see the Leaderboard. Many of Vader’s planets have now disappeared from his planet counter, though not enough to knock him off first place, and those planets were added to Hater’s counter, and Hater immediately moved from tenth place to sixth place.

“Yeah! That’s how it’s done!” Hater shouted happily.

But then, something happened on the Villainboard. A new contestant was added, but strangely, he was immediately positioned in first place and moved Vader to second place. They saw the picture of the new contestant, it was a bearded man with wavy hair and dark blue-colored eyes. It was Emperor Muad’Dib.

“What?! Oh, come on! That guy’s now on the Villain Leaderboard?!” Hater complained.

“It appears so, sir,” Peepers said.

Surprising still is that Vader and Muad’Dib keep constantly switching between first place and second place, as more planets keep being added to their counters every second. Both of them were conquering many planets at an alarmingly fast rate, which naturally bothered Hater and Peepers.

“I think we’re gonna have to abandon our plan of keeping our head low to defeat them, sir. After that stunt we pulled back there, these two are surely gonna shift their attention to us.” Peepers said, gesturing to Vader and Muad’Dib. “I’m sure it won’t be long before these two invading superpowers try to hunt us down.”

“Don’t worry, Peepers. Because today has proved one thing to me. That no matter how many enemies, or how big and powerful they are, with the power of…Lord Hater… !” Hater shouted but went quiet when he saw Peepers staring at him, and he groaned. “Ugh, fine. And you too I guess, Peepers…we’ll be unstoppable! And all the superpowers of the universe will then bow down to me!” Hater declared, and his evil laugh echoed throughout the Skullship.

Previous Chapter

[ken-the-fluffy-pix]

ENG I finally finished my next masterpiece on the theme of SRW GU, but already the second part. I had to spend 2 weeks on it already, due to the fulfillment of the commission. Incoming series on this work: GaoGaiGar, Mazinkaiser SKL, Grendizer, Gridman Universe, Little Witch Academy, Getter Robo Arc, Smile Precure, Shin Mazinger Zero, Gurren Lagann, Transformers: Victory, Gunbuster, Promare, Votoms, Wataru, Daimos, Fuga: Melodies of Steel, Gundam: The Witch of Mercury, Exkiser, Da-Garn, and Goldran. Also: Getter Robo Armageddon, Full Metal Panic, Ghost in the Shell, Magic Knights Rayearth, Metal Slug, Valkyrie Chronicles, Code Geass series, Evangelion series, Darling in the Franxx, Kill la Kill, Pretty Cure: Max Heart, Fresh, Hugtto, Transformers: Headmasters, Super God Masterforce, Zone, Armada, Energon, J-Decker, Might Gaine, Brand New Animal, Knights and Magic, Gundam: Ironblooded Orphans, G, SEED, Crossbone, Narrative, Dunbine, Sonic X, Captain Harlock, Arcadia of my Youth, Yamato 2199, Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel troops, Lost Universe, Slayers, Sakura Wars, Combattler V and Voltes V, Cowboy Bebop, OG Super Robot Wars, 30 and T.

I will update soon with DLC. Wiki page: https://super-robot-wars-gu-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Robot_Wars_GU2 Soundtrack playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtTi-CZLGf7DbqHyt-9siWdDL-kYzkEoX

RUS Я наконец-то дорисовал свой очередной шедевр на тему SRW GU, но уже вторая часть. Пришлось на нее уже потрать 2 недели, из-за выполнения коммишки. Входящие серии на данный работе: ГаоГайГар, Мазинкайзер SKL, Грендайзер, Вселенная Гридмэна, Академия Ведьмочек, Геттер Робо Арк, Веселые Детки-Таблетки, Шин Мазингер Зеро, Гуррен-Лаганн, Трансформеры: Победа, Ганбастер, Промар, Вотомы, Ватару, Даймос, Фуга: Мелодия Стали, Гандам: Ведьма из Меркурия, Экскайзер, Да-Гарн, и Голдран. А также: Геттер Робо Армагеддон, Стальная Тревога, Призрак в Доспехах, Рыцари Магии, Метал Слаг, Хроники Валькирии, серия Код Гиасс, Серия Евангелион, Милый во Франксе, Килл ла Килл, Хорошенькое Лекарство: Макс Сердце, Новое, Объятие, Трансформеры: Властоголовы, Войны великой силы, Зона, Армада, Энергон, Джей-Деккер, Майт Гейн, Совершенно Новый Зверь, Рыцари и Магия, Гандам: Железнокровые сироты, G, SEED, Кроссбоун, Нарратив, Дунбайн, Соник Икс, Капитан Харлок, Аркадия моей Юности, Ямато 2199, Дораемон: Нобита и железная армия, Затерянная вселенная, Рубаки, Войны Сакуры, Комбаттлер V и Вольтес V, Ковбой Бибоп, Войны Супер Роботов OG, 30 и T.

В скором я буду обновлять, добавляя DLC. Страница в Вики: https://super-robot-wars-gu-vselennaya.fandom.com/ru/wiki/Super_Robot_Wars_GU2 Плейлист с Саундтреком: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtTi-CZLGf7DbqHyt-9siWdDL-kYzkEoX

[quincyhorst]

Headcanon Potpourri: Red Matador (1)

It's been a whole month since I got into Red Matador and developed a whole phase, so you know what? I'm going to start sharing what I've written so far.

Expect this specific post to be highly focused on Mikel Pereiro, since he was the reason I got onto the team in the first place. Other characters I consider close to him are here too :')

Mikel lives nearby the spanish coast, perhaps where the 'Spanish Armada' once sailed. I was thinking of Galicia, for now. Makes sense since Pereiro is a galician surname.

Though, recently I've found out his name (Mikel) is the basque version of Miguel; so who knows.

I'm not interested too much on developing his family, but I like the idea of his father having a special interest on the nautical since young, resulting on him having many books/images that his son uses as reference. However his marine dizzyness made him getting a job related to the field impossible, hence why he had to dedicate to something else instead. Although with a frustrated dream, he still works hard everyday to provide income for the family. Mikel isn't THAT interested on the topic, but he admires his father at the distance. In fact, his crafting hobby started by him just trying to create a birthday present.

(He has a mother too; she serves lunch at a school.)

Overall, Mikel has made many few scale models in the past, his first ones being of beginner quality but they have improved over time. He's often suggested to sell his work, but he always prefers to keep them himself or give them to close ones. It's just a neat little activity that gives him peace, and turning that into something for profit makes him feel uneasy.

When he's working, he's absort on the moment, modelling, painting and assembling each little piece with care and detail. He prefers to not be interrupted, and his family respects that. But maybe not his other sorroundings... Those who interrumpt him will get a harsh scolding.

He isn't the only Galician on Red Matador however, as he's neighbours with Igor Freire. They go to the same school, play at the same team, and the two did hang out quite few times before the FFI.

...Well, most times it was Igor who just wanted to see Mikel. Given he's also an only child, he sees an older brother figure on him🥺

(Alternatively, I could also see them as from different schools, but they met during a regional tournament. Not sure.)

As RM is formed, Igor meets and bonds inmediately with Pedro Moreno. Now the two are inseparable, even after the tournament was over. They are mutually sending each other emails, photos, and as technology progresses they also start making videocalls too.

Plus, post-FFI Pedro often travels from Salamanca to meet Igor, and the two often go and visit Mikel too. He's fine with both, but having them around while trying to craft is pure hell. These two are a literal tornado of destruction, and no boat will be finished on their sight.

...And yes, Mikel had to constantly look over them during the FFI because of this reason. Putting these two by themselves in an isolated island AND their low impulse control wasn't a very good idea at all.

Another addition to this group? Joan Nadal, granted he's close to the two shorties in position and the overall formation. They treat him like a "fun uncle", although he likes to joke around with also being Igor's older brother (Since they do look similar). Sometimes Joan is the one looking over them if Mikel's busy, but there's times in which he just cannot resist joining in the fun. You'll see them cooking together all the time. Igor's unique cooking tips and Pedro's enthusiasm blend well with Joan's habit of cooking five meals a day.

Unfortunately when it comes to setting, Joan's home is at the Balearic Islands, so he's quite away from them outside of the FFI.

And as for the last MF, Carlos Arroyo... Unfortunately, he already has his own group within the RM bench group (But that alone deserves a whole other post), so he does not care about the field players. I feel like the only other midfielder he gets decently with is Mikel, but that's because both are on the same vibe (? 🐱

By the way, as an extra, but I'd also like to talk about... David Peroqui. (Or Davi, a given nickname) In my earlier ideas for RM he was meant to be more closer to Mikel/Pedro/Igor in setting and grup, but I've decided to put him with Querardo and Samuel instead. (Mainly because of Slingshot and... Well, they feel like the team jocks to me (?)) However that doesn't mind he can't bond with the midfielders. He and Joan get on well c:

Meanwhile, Igor is very intimidated by how serious the forward looks all the time, but Pedro's quick to break the ice with his jokes. Surprisingly, he doesn't act too stern with their usual goofy selves...

Its with Mikel where things are a bit more complicated. Given he's part of the Slingshot trio, a group he dislikes, the midfielder already tends to keep his distance. And this would be mutual, except that... Deep down, Davi does have some feelings of respect for Mikel (as a player, teammate, and person); although they get often mixed with resentment due to.... A very personal complex. It's hard to explain, so keep it there for now. I'll develop it somewhere else.

So in most occassions things seem cold between the two, but Davi wants to find a way to express himself properly. Maybe the other midfielders can help him on that. Emphasis on maybe.

That's all for now. Expect a separate post for the RM bench (and other) dynamics too. Keep on mind my head is still fresh with them even if its been a month; so things could be different in the future.

Bonus: Them :')

[ninjastormhawkkat]

More star crossed cheese content plz

You're my only supplier of this wonderful ship ;-;

And i can only make fan stuff for it not knowing if it will be canon or not/pos

Here are some headcanons - a few tw's here.

Teresa has a lot of scars from her time imprisoned by Navren. He really hurt her a lot physically and emotionally. The only way she remained strong was by thinking how Becky and Steven were still safe and it was all worth this.

The way Navren found out about her human mate and the location of her hybrid child. Navren new Becky was half human when he got her DNA secretly tested and discovered she was not his biological child. Lexicon has alliances in economics and diplomatic with Miss Power's planet and the planet Hexagon. Lexicon relations with Hexagon has become strained over the years due to Navren's dominion but unfortunately has increased with Miss Power's planet. Navren had emissaries (hint: spies) on each of these planets. These spies reported back to Navren about a Lexiconian child being a hero on Earth with Captain Huggy Face as her sidekick, based on descriptions they have heard of them.

When Teresa first saw Dr. Two Brain's exposed mouse brain, she thought it was kind of cute and adorable the way he looked now. This caused the mouse man to fluster a bit.

Teresa had arrived on Earth before Navren did and was trying to find Steven and Becky and Bob to warn them and everyone else about the incoming doom from the Lexiconian armada. She had found Wordgirl doing an occasional fight where all the villains decided to fight against Wordgirl at once (because that has happened a few times before) Teresa took them out one by one with no sweat. She soon encountered Dr. Two Brains when she was about to punch him in the face but soon recognized him.

Teresa: Steven?!?

Dr. Two Brains: Teresa?!?! (He was too stunned to correct her.)

Although Teresa is a bit mad about how Steven ended up fighting their own child, she does not blame him as he never knew the truth. She still harbors guilt about having to lie to him and Becky as well as stay away for so long and thinks things might have been a bit better if she was able to find a way to stay on Earth.

Even thought he is hurt by her leaving him and not telling him the full truth (Also the fact that the city's superhero was his own child!), he still doesn't hate her and still has romantic feelings for her as well as Carrie and Amazo Guy.

Carrie, Amazo Guy, and Teresa become great friends at Steven/Two Brains' expense.

Teresa has an intimidating stare that silences Calvin by a miracle.

Like her daughter. Teresa has terrible dancing skils as well as singing and art skills (I think all Lexiconians are like that but that can be debatable.) She is only able to do the Waltz successfully because of Steven holding her close and guiding her. Steven had a few feet stepped on (not critical damage but still very painful) but it was worth it for him.

Dr. Two Brains and Teresa talking about Becky's characteristics - both physical and personality wise. Teresa confirms that Becky inherited his eye color and that when she looked into her eyes the first time she was born, she knew she would inherit Steven's personality.

*Dr. Two Brains reflecting back on the times the other villains compared him to Wordgirl* "Holy cheese curds they were right."

Becky has introduced her mom to the Botsfords and they enjoy her company and love to know more and talk about Becky's bio mom. Dr. Two Brains hasn't met them because of reasons. He does get a bit jealous at Wordgirl's adoptive family he has never met and a bit peeved at the idea of Wordgirl calling another person dad. He understands why due to their history but it still makes him a bit mad.

Also funny thing here.

Carrie: So does this mean you have been getting your butt kicked by your own kid this whole time.

Dr. Two Brains: *indignant and annoyed now* Excuse me! I will let you know that I was the one who taught her how to kick my butt in battle. Thank you very much!

@melodythebunny

@drtwobrainsstuff