#the alien isn’t just going to be a space elf either

[spiritshaydra]

Ngl one of these days I kinda wanna try making a comic about space lesbians out of spite, just because I’m sick and tired of all the gay space comics being just,,, two twinks. And there’s a severe lack of science-fiction yuri in general 😭 (I can think of like. One off the top of my head. But it’s dimensional travel yuri not space yuri)

The gays got that Bravern anime but us girls need something too!!

I’m specifically talking about a story that’s got delicate care put into it and how the characters are written, with the focus being entirely on their dynamic and not the [CENSORED FOR SAFE READING] and [REDACTED] along with [CARTOON SOUND EFFECTS] that runs rampant in most of the stories I’ve seen on AO3.

[inawickedlittletown]

Queerbaiting and Buddie

(word count: 1,900)

I keep saying that I don’t want to spend any more time on 9-1-1 meta or fic, but the events of this weekend made me open up a document where I had some unfinished meta and in light of the S4 finale airing tonight, I thought I might at least write this: 

“Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation. They do so to attract a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.” 

That is how Wikipedia defines queerbaiting. And I really feel like everyone needs to read that and then read it again and realize that what is happening on 9-1-1 with Buddie is NOT queerbaiting. 

I don’t want to go into the long history of queerbaiting because we would be here all day and anyone that wants to do some research should go and do so. There are a lot of resources out there. Use them. 

But the short of it is this: queerbaiting has a lot more to do with the way a show is promoted, with the way that anyone involved in the show talks about a queer ship, and with the show deliberately scripting scenes that hint at a relationship without any intention of following through. Expectations and wanting a queer ship to go canon and those expectations not being met do not alone equate to it being queerbaiting. 

For any of us that have been around a long time there are a lot of perfect examples and if you compare Buddie to any of them, they are very different. I’ll name a few:

Merlin/Arthur

John Watson/Sherlock

Emma Swan/Regina

Derek/Stiles

Castiel/Dean Winchester (though they did go canon...barely)

Lena/Kara

Buck and Eddie do not fit into that list. Which isn’t to say that someday they could belong there, but I just do not believe that they will even if Buddie never becomes canon. And this all lies in how Buddie as a ship has been treated both on screen and off. I’ll break it down by season. 

S2: 

Eddie is very clearly introduced as a new character, a straight Army veteran with a disabled kid and family drama. He and Buck have immediate chemistry. We can’t deny that, or deny that from that first episode there are immediate sparks. Unintended sparks, but sparks nevertheless. And it is easy to tell that no one on the production team expected that and the story reflects that. 

Yes a foundation for their friendship is formed and yet the season long story focuses on Eddie’s relationship with his estranged wife and Buck is dealing with his own growth after being left by Abby. Their friendship shines and their scenes are great but none of them suggest romance and there are actually a lot of episodes where Buck and Eddie barely interact in S2 aside from in the background or for small work related moments (this mostly happens after Shannon returns). 

S2 does give us the first acknowledgement from the powers that be aka Tim Minear that they know what the fans have seen. This is why the elf scene exists, but it exists in a space where it’s a nod to the fans and not meant to do much more than that. The other moment is during the call with the livestreamer. But S2, places them completely and without question on a strong friendship. 

S3: 

We see a lot more conflict for Buck and Eddie in this season and we see how close and important they are to each other. Those are the two main things. That can be read as friendship easily and it’s a season where both Buck and Eddie deal with their pasts and in one way or another start to get closure while their friendship remains intact. 

Yes there are some scenes that make us squint and go huh, wtf? (I’m looking at you kitchen scene), but narratively we also know that neither of these boys is ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone each other. But we can bask in how close they are as well as how Christopher fits in into all of it. 

But in S3 we are also introduced to Ana and we see the return of Abby. We also get to see that Buck and Eddie have become closer than ever and that the lawsuit only serves to highlight the importance that they both feel about having the other available to them. I’ll also quickly mention that Eddie Begins worked hard to highlight Buck’s devotion to Eddie. 

S4: 

Without considering the events of the finale (I am avoiding spoilers and know nothing about it or the speculation), we’ve seen Buck and Eddie both grow and get further closure on their past. This season has paralleled them well and their friendship has not faltered, they’re as close as ever. 

The beginning of the season was heavily focused on Buck and we saw him grow as a person and begin to work on himself in a healthy way and we’ve seen Eddie be supportive of that. 

We also have Ana to consider and her relationship with Eddie as well as the return of Taylor and yet the appearance of these women has not changed the Buck and Eddie dynamic. And I find it fascinating that Eddie beginning to date Ana, is the thing that prompted Buck to start dating. The parallels are all over the place but it is the strength of the friendship and the way they care so deeply about each other that remains whether that becomes romantic is still to be seen, but it could still go either way.  

Off-screen by the end of S2, Tim Minear had already addressed Buddie by throwing in that elf scene in a wink/nudge fashion that said “I see you” and in the scene with the girl with the livestream with the comments. During S3 he tweeted about being frustrated by the fans demanding and being hostile and thinking that that would make him more likely to do what they want (I’m paraphrasing what I remember seeing). Tim has never once said that Buddie will happen or shut the door on the ship entirely, but he did say he did not want to engage in conversation about it because he doesn’t want to get into arguments with fans. 

Oliver has always been enthusiastic about Buddie and has even said that he would be perfectly fine with it happening both a while ago and more recently in promo for S4. Conscious of queerbaiting and not wanting to give fans false hope, he has specifically said that he does not know if it will or won’t happen and that he wouldn’t speak on that as he’s not the one making that decision. His support for it happening does not mean he has any sway one way or the other. He’s said this a few times and even wrote a letter to the effect to make it clear to fans that the last thing he wants is to disappoint someone due to something he’s said. 

All in all, it just isn’t a constructive environment for anyone working on the show to interact with fans on this topic because any time that they do, they get attacked by overly enthusiastic buddie shippers that in many ways are making everything worse. 

In all of the interviews from Tim that I’ve seen, he has always been very quick to hint at what was coming up on the show in a way that at times has been misleading on purpose. The number one thing that comes to mind is early in S4 where Buck was said to get a new woman in his life. Tim absolutely made it out to seem like it was a girlfriend while knowing fully well that it was a therapist. This is an excellent example of what promoting and hinting is actually like. No one from this show has done that in regards to Buddie. 

No one has gone out of their way to hint that it may happen in a way that excites the fans. And this is one of my main reasons for knowing that Buddie is not a queerbait. At no point in the life of the show so far has anyone used Buddie in a promotional way to bring in viewers. Because THAT was the whole point of queerbaiting in the past. 

It was a way that some showrunners found to bring in a lot of viewers when they needed to up their numbers in order to show networks they were worth keeping around. Someone figured out that LGBTQ people wanted to see themselves represented so much so that they would tune in to anything that promised an LGBTQ character in some fashion. It was a tactic that worked well in the landscape of tv where there was so little LGBTQ content on mainstream media that anyone wanting it would latch onto anything. And then they just wouldn’t deliver on those relationships or characters. In 2021, that is not the world we live in any longer. 

In today’s tv landscape there is so much to watch and so much to pick from and diversity has grown, it is celebrated. Queer characters are well represented as are queer relationships and queer stories. The times are different. A while back I was listening to a podcast (Bait: a queerbaiting podcast) and something I found interesting was how the hosts both agreed that in today’s tv landscape there is no more real queerbait and that we won’t easily find anything like the ships I mentioned above. I think I agree more with this than I expected to, because I do think that it exists in some spaces, but it definitely isn’t what it used to be. This is a good thing. 

Specific to 9-1-1, this is a show that has that diversity and that isn’t afraid of tackling that diversity and giving us interesting and nuanced perspectives and stories embracing that. We have characters of color, women in positions of power, a F/F relationship, two multi-racial relationships, a disabled character, other queer characters including a M/M relationship. There is so much in this show that embraces diversity and that embraces the reality of what the world looks like. To call it queerbait is to disrespect everything else that this show is and has done and the hard storylines that have been tackled that we would not have seen on tv ten years ago. 

And I get that Buddie would be another breakthrough. It would be a novel way to tell a queer story, and it would be amazing if it were to happen. The set up is there, but it isn’t fully realized, and Buck and Eddie can still be read as just friends if we take off the shipping goggles. But it also isn’t queerbait or likely to become queerbait and people have to stop calling it that. 

What Buddie resembles is one of the many unintended slow burn ships that have frustrated viewers in many forms across fandoms and we just have to go along for the ride and maybe it will happen. Or maybe it won’t. But if we know anything about relationships on tv, it is that a lot of the fun comes from the journey, even if the destination is good too. 

[blushing-starker]

Another holiday one: Peter and Pepper going caroling together and they visit Tony in the workshop. The bots are wearing Santa hats

"Peter, darling, you know you can get him anything and he'll be over the moon, right? He loves you and it'd kill Tony to know this is causing you so much stress. We could always do a joint gift if that helps? After caroling, the night is ours and so is the mall."

God, what did he do to deserve Miss Potts? She has a solution for all the problems in the world, never hesitates to take what she wants and could probably kick his ass twenty different ways without breaking a sweat. Just last night, she'd cocked her head, put on a disappointed face and Peter was done, defeated, tore himself away from Tony's side at the lab to devour some freshly baked pie Rhodey had dropped by. They'd been working for hours, basically a hair's breadth away from a breakthrough, but Miss Potts didn't like her boys tinkering too long without eating.

Now she's holding his hand like it isn't serious, like it doesn't set Peter's heart aflame because this is Pepper Potts, kind and strong and witty and amazing, showing affection in a public place without shame or fear. And yeah, Tony would never be cold to him outside, but the man's a koala when you earn his trust. Peter has to practically pry the billionaire off from Pepper when the CEO has a meeting to conquer (he's dating a CEO, he's dating a billionaire, he's dating a CEO, he's dating a-

"Sweetheart, I see the gears turning in that head of yours, same as Tony. What is it, Peter?" The snow starts to fall a bit harder and they quicken their pace, catch up with Nat, Bucky and Bruce as they line themselves up before the next porch, ready to start caroling their hearts out. Who'd have thought they enjoyed the season this much?

The others didn't come because decorating the tower and baking dessert for 20 plus people took a team effort. Peter had wrapped an arm around Miss Potts' waist and swung them to the car before they were snatched up by Steve to help in the kitchen. They'd been pressed pretty close, Peter not wanting to risk hurting his, what, lover? Girlfriend? His lover's wife? Either way, he had curled around the tall woman, tried to not jostle her too much in case she got sick. It had been nice. Very nice, really.

The whole thing had lasted maybe thirty seconds so yeah. Technically, this is the first time they've had physical contact for a relatively long period of time. He's eighteen now, not supposed to be getting so hyped and nervous over something as simple as holding hands and going caroling along a snow covered neighborhood adorned with a thousand Christmas lights. But, but he's always been a romantic at heart and the neon glow is reflected off of shiny snowflakes that taste like something pure and special, his teammates are joyous, look decades younger, Bucky's cat Alpine has stubbornly decided to crisscross his ankles and Miss Potts ' is just really fucking pretty, ok?

"Peter?" He gets why Tony can submit so easily to the force of nature that is Pepper Potts ; is rather sure it has something to do with honest eyes and a gentle way of loving broken men.

"Um, you're very pretty, Miss Potts," way to go, Peter. It's a wonder he and Tony even got together when they share one brain cell and it's mainly dedicated to superhero work. Or to Miss Potts.

She softens, tugs at him until they wrap around each other and then kisses him. Light, barely there kisses on pale cheeks, his eyelids, the curve of a red nose, under an unhinged jaw. Nat shoves the team forward, says the next house will probably give them candy while winking at Peter, grins when he turns scarlet. Bucky grumbles, "it's not exactly Halloween," but she yanks the supersoldier away from them so there's some semblance of privacy present.

Miss Potts sighs, sets her chin on his head and Peter short circuits right there, is delighted by the fact that she's taller than him, vows to buy her as many heels and high boots as possible because this is extremely nice and being tucked under her is a dream come true.

"You're so nice, Pete. I don't think Tony's gonna last a month before he says he loves you, not with someone so considerate and amazing. Nat bet it'd take me three months, but right now? Tony would take one look at me and say three weeks. We've been outside for a while, how about we head back home? See if our ridiculous baby got away with sneaking to the lab?"

Oh. Oh, is he supposed to speak after that? Function when she just sent his world tumbling down in a second or two? He inhales slowly, presses his frost bitten lips to a long neck and shivers when Miss Potts laughs, sound as pure and lovely as the freshly fallen snow around them.

---:---------:----------:---------:-----------:---------:--------:---------:---

On the way back home (HomeHomeHomeHomeHomeHome), he catches sight of a pretzel stand and nearly slams them into the side of a building. Miss Potts does that thing where she chuckles almost silently and maybe it'll take her three weeks but Peter's ready to declare his love for her right then, absolutely smitten and aware of it. He wonders if this is what Tony felt when he fell for Miss Potts. Wonders if his boyfriend would tell him all about it soon enough.

Miss Potts strokes his cheek, smile this side of sharp and mischievous. "Does my boy want something?" It's a soft question with a soft touch with a not so soft look in eyes that could tear him apart any day of the week. His web snaps and they tumble down to the street, are saved by the fact there's three feet of snow by the building's back entrance and they weren't that high up.

Peter gets a pretzel from Miss Potts.

------:--------:--------:--------:--------:--------:--------:--------:-------:-

Their lover (loverloverloverlover) is, in fact, hiding in the lab. There's a neon glow here, too, wrapped around Tony as he reassembles holograms, sketches new designs for the spider suit, revises old architecture plans with the gaze of a hawk.

"Anthony Potts, you put down that hologram right now! You were supposed to help out and decorate; not adjust Peter's suit. Again." Tony jolts back, clicks his fingers and everything disappears from the lab table as if Jarvis had never brought several of the genius' secret files to life. He looks like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and Peter isn't gonna let him forget this for as long as they live.

There's plenty of space on the table now so he settles there, swings his legs up and down, grins up at a fidgeting Tony. "Anthony Potts is new." A cookie tray is tucked away behind a pile of papers and it's too tempting not to snack on one even if he just inhaled a pretzel.

"I can call you Peter Potts, too, you know. Don't tease him, I know you would've been here helping Tony out if we hadn't gone caroling."

It's Tony's turn to grin and Peter's turn to flush now. Two more cookies are snatched, shoved into his face. "I kind of like that. The Potts thing. It's nice."

Miss Potts crosses over to them, wraps a finger around the one curl he can never tame and pulls on it until he's leaning on her palm with the sudden urge to never leave the lab. "I'm glad you like it, Peter. Anthony here has to go clean the dining table, but we can cuddle on the couch to warm up before seeing what's already cooked. How's that sound?"

"It sounds like your husband is being punished for upgrading your boyfriend's suit and making sure he doesn't die fighting some weird alien dog." Tony huffs, steals Dum-E's Santa hat with a pout before dragging himself up the stairs to the kitchen. "I'm saving everyone's lives, but no. I gotta see Steve butcher a Christmas tradition."

"There's nothing wrong with how Steve cooks the meal."

"Tell that to my grandmother and nanny. Even Jarvis could cook better and he doesn't have any hands." Said A. I hums in a suspiciously noncommittal way as his creator starts yelling about blood being spilled if a single stain is found in his prized kitchen.

The bots all seem to sigh in relief, roll over to bump Peter's knee or shoulder as affectionately as Alpine. He patiently fixes their elf ears and hats, rubs a few bells clean from grease and motor oil because Tony probably hadn't noticed and wouldn't notice until they accidentally stained something. Don't ask him or Miss Potts how, but Tony's children could ruin a fifty thousand dollar couch with purple paint without there necessarily being a can of paint around the lab.

Miss Potts' plan of cuddling on the couch is derailed when they hear screeching and curses pertaining to five different languages coming from above. She sighs, takes Peter's hand and he already knows she'll come up with a solution. She always did.

(Maybe it was time to explain he'd already found their gifts, twin silver rings with all their initials engraved hidden in his coat pocket.)

(And then Tony starts shouting something in Italian, Steve might be reverting to an Irish accent, Alpine hops on the dining table to pounce on the chicken, Miss Potts has to yank her husband away from the oven, Bucky's hair nearly catches on fire and yeah, he'll just show them on New Year's.)

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2020 Day 10: Enemies to Lovers

It's a Match! | @suckerfordeansfreckles

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2015 Main Tags/Warnings: pining, online dating, getting together Summary: Dean has seen the guy a handful of times, mostly at Charlie’s parties or when out and about with her — it’s only been six times that Dean is aware of, actually. Not that he counted. Well. He did, maybe, count a little. But that’s only because the guy is seriously gorgeous, and also seems to seriously hate Dean. Like, frowns and dark stares and leaving the room when Dean enters it. And that is most definitely the only reason why Dean keeps track of their meetings. It has nothing to do with the fact that, for whatever stupid reason, Dean feels all fuzzy and happy and warm around this stupid, scruffy, handsome, dark-haired and blue-eyed Cas-guy. Something about him just… does things to Dean’s head.

In The Ballroom | @gii-heylittleangel

Rating: General Word Count: 2594 Main Tags/Warnings: lovers to enemies to lovers, broken relationship, getting back together, false mentions of cheating Summary: The high school dance was useless in Castiel's opinion; there was nothing to do, people were incredibly annoying, and he would be alone. But, having Charlie Bradbury as his best friend, he had no choice but to go; after all, there was a tiny chance he would get tacos after the party. Castiel did not get tacos but he got something a lot better.

Ring a Bell for the Righteous Man | @pray4jensen

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 3003 Main Tags/Warnings: Enemies to Lovers, Royalty/Fantasy AU, Soul Bond, Marriage, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dubious Consent Summary: An hour passes and the prince doesn't bed him. Dean thinks that maybe the prince doesn't have any intention of doing it at all, and if that's the case, it'll be Dean who'll face the consequences. So, thumbing a finger down the length of Cas' wings, Dean taunts, ""I thought you promised Lord Alastair that I wouldn't be able to walk, your highness."" Dean pauses. ""Are you doubting yourself, my lord?""

Addicted | @verobatto-angelxhunter

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 3671 Main Tags/Warnings: Season 4/5 canon divergent, Destiel, slow burn, Badass! Castiel, first kiss, first time, explicit sexual content, canon typical violence. Summary: Dean can't get Castiel out of his mind. Everytime the angel is in front of him, is hypnotizing. He needs to know what is going on with him. Why Castiel is so irresistible? And why he feels that empty everytime the angel isn't near him.

the light of falling stars | @procasdeanating

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 4980 Main Tags/Warnings: Alien!Cas, wing fic, inspired by a movie (enemy mine) Summary: … when Lieutenant Dean Winchester and the two ships under his command engaged in combat with a Seraph squadron. Two army ships were destroyed, while one fighter, presumably Lt. Winchester’s, made a forced landing on a nearby uninhabited class D planet after triggering the emergency protocol. The ongoing search has not produced conclusive results. Lt. Winchester is classified as missing in action…

First Impressions | @suckerfordeansfreckles

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 7254 Main Tags/Warnings: hospital AU, ftm trans Cas, top surgery, mentions of medical stuff, sharing a room Summary: When Cas wakes for the first time after his surgery, there’s sunlight tentatively streaming through the window to his right. It takes him a while of uncoordinated blinking and thinking until he realizes where he is, why he’s here. And then the giddiness comes, sudden and overwhelming, when he looks down at his chest and there is none. The reality is almost too much to grasp and his hands shake a little when he tries to raise them to touch. He's happy, and giddy, and so thankful. And then a nurse wheels in his new roommate, one very obnoxious and flirty Mr. Winchester. Cas just... cannot wait to watch all of this play out.

The Galaxy's Most Wanted | @saltnhalo

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 10160 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Space Pirates, Enemies to Lovers, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Angry Sex, Sexual Tension Summary: Dean had been the one always up to mischief, running around with his father’s broken laser pistol and constantly getting into places he shouldn’t have been. Sam, in comparison, always seemed to be the smart, studious one – until he reprogrammed the AI in their neighbours’ house to play ‘Happy Birthday’ at the loudest possible volume while keeping all the doors and windows firmly locked. It had taken two experts seven hours to undo the coding that Sam had managed to integrate into the house’s programming. So, yes. They had been exceptional even from the beginning. And when John Winchester crossed one too many people, his sons inherited his beloved ship, and took to the cosmos doing what they knew best: stealing. And they were damn good at it too. Almost unrivalled, across their own galaxy and even those neighbouring. Almost.

Love Thy Enemy | @gii-heylittleangel

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 11887 Main Tags/Warnings: revenge planning, use of guns, major characters injury Summary: After being betrayed by the Men of Letters, Dean makes the most stupid, idiotic, and best decision of his life: ask Castiel Novak, his long time enemy, for help.

The Quest for the Demon King's Heart | @cr-noble-writes

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 12500 Main Tags/Warnings: fantasy au, demon king!dean, wood elf!cas, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, minor character death, major character injury, angry sex, angst with a happy ending Summary: In a fantasy land, Dean, the Demon King, goes to a distant guild to take a break from evil, where he meets a young adventurer, Castiel, on a quest to slay the Demon King. For fun, Dean helps and protects the adventurer, and affection grows between them. Then, they arrive at the gates of his castle.

A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire | @notfunnydean

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 16660 Main Tags/Warnings: Manipulation, Emotional Manipulation, blackmailing someone into a relationship, Mentions of drug selling (not Destiel), Mentions of cheating (not Destiel), virgin!cas Summary: When Castiel meets Dean Winchester, the other man seems to be a real asshole. So it doesn’t surprise him, when Dean shows up again and this time blackmails Castiel in a horrible way. Castiel agrees to be his boyfriend, only to protect his family, but along the way he actually falls for Dean.

The Bakery | @dates-with-cas

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 41075 Main Tags/Warnings: angst with a happy ending, offscreen character death, enemies to lovers, workplace sex, semi-public sex, attempted rape/non-con, mentions of past sexual abuse, alcohol as a coping mechanism, sex as a coping mechanism, sex in a kitchen, unresolved past trauma, top!Cas, bottom!Dean Summary: Dean Winchester loves his job, and he's thrilled to have his boss' brother coming in to work over the holidays, that is until he meets Castiel Novak for himself. The man is picky, grouchy, and absolutely fucking gorgeous.

The Path Between the Stars | zaphodsgirl (AO3)

Rating: Mature Word Count: 53111 Main Tags/Warnings: AU - Labyrinth Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Minor Character Death Summary: It's been almost fifteen years since Dean met the enigmatic goblin king, Castiel. After failing to complete the labyrinth with Sam to save baby Adam, Dean is forced to make a deal to secure their freedom. Five years ago he finally gave in to the feelings he’d been keeping at bay for some time, only for Castiel to disappear from his life completely without a word. When Dean relays the story of the labyrinth to Sam's girlfriend Eileen, an opportunity presents itself for him to get some answers...and maybe have a second chance at something he hadn't dared to believe was real.

Of Twists and Turns | @kitmistry

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 75080 Main Tags/Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Pirate AU, Implied Drug Use, Minor Character Death, Amputation, Sea Monsters, Hunter Dean Summary: When naval surgeon Castiel Novak is captured by the Black Impala pirates, he has no choice but to agree to their terms: He is to serve on their ship for a whole year before they release him. That doesn’t mean he is going to like it, though. Especially when their captain is the embodiment of everything Castiel despises. Determined to earn his freedom, Castiel settles into the life of an outlaw. When the pirates’ true goal is revealed, though, he can no longer deny that things are not as black and white as he thought they were. And he can’t deny how drawn he is to Captain Winchester either.

Sovereign | @pomegranatedaffodil

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 87974 Main Tags/Warnings: Arranged Marriage, Hate to Love, Fantasy AU, Royalty AU, Virgin Castiel, Switching, Slow Burn, Minor Injuries Summary: When his brother embarks on a risky venture, Prince Dean of Pellia’s only choice is to enter into a marriage with the king of Arxelle in order to save Sam’s life as well as his own. King Castiel is severe, aloof, and no more happy about their hasty wedding than Dean. Marital bliss is the last state either of them expects to reach, but as Dean spends more time in his new home, he and Castiel slowly begin to settle into a partnership that allows them to put the needs of their kingdom before their own feelings. The longer they spend together, though, the more those feelings develop, daring them both to wonder if they might ever be husbands in more than just name.

Shot Through The Heart | @peanutbutterjelly-pie

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 156327 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe, Men of Letters, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Humor, Case Fic, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Bottom Dean Summary: As a hunter Dean finds himself more often than not relying on the help of the Men of Letters. Most of the time that's not much of a problem - if it wasn't for Castiel, the smartass bookworm with the piercing blue eyes, the messy hair and the rude attitude. He's been an annoying thorn in Dean's side since day one - and the hunter doesn't see that change anytime soon.

[milkybunbuns]

i. new beginnings → perfection masterlist → next

w/c: 3.3k

warnings: bnha spoilers ahead (season 1 episode 5 mainly)

a/n: this series will follow closely with the anime although I might be missing parts of it since it’s been a while since I watched BNHA. also i went overboard with this aishhh, though I don’t think future chapters will be so long oh and I couldn’t be original so I stole the quirk idea from one of my old fics on wattpad and added more abilities to it haha

“Aww comee onn you really can’t be sending me to UA, you know how much I like being at home with you!”, you whined at Keigo, grabbing tightly onto his arm and digging the soles of your feet into the carpet of the living room.

 The said man sighed, facepalming, “Look nuggie, I would never do anything to make you uncomfortable but you’re gonna have to interact with people if you’re going to become a popular pro hero in the future like me!!”

“But can’t you just keep home schooling and training me?”

“I would, but I have hero work to do as well at the agency and I wouldn’t have enough time to help you out”, you pouted and kept your ground in the living room. It had already been a fussy morning with Keigo chasing you everywhere to get you to put on your uniform. With a final rub of his temples he spoke up again, “I’ll let you buy anything at the grocery store tonight?”

You looked up at him and stuck a pinky out, “Pinky promise?”

“Yup!!” and before you could even respond he scooped you up, already flying out of the building and flying towards what you assumed was the direction of UA.

“Please warn me next time!”, you yelled over the wind as you held on tightly, you would use your quirk but you still didn’t have a licence and you were still learning how to fly through narrow spaces. Crashing into a building didn’t sound very appetising at the moment. It wasn’t too long before you spotted the easily recognisable glass building of UA, Keigo slowing down for a landing and allowing you to get off.

“Alright I’ll see you later nuggie!”, he waved cheerily, already getting ready to take off.

You just nervously responded with an “uh-huh”, while examining the surroundings, students bustling everywhere. Alright 1-A it was, I should probably ask someone, maybe someone who looks nice. Hmm, how about that purple-haired boy, yeah, he looks like a senior and doesn’t look too bad. You briskly walked up to the purple haired male with elf ears, “Err, hii-”

He looked up at you with shock and you could see bullets of sweat dripping off his forehead, “u-uh h-h-hi”, he meekly responded, looking like he was going to die any second. 

Just as you were about to ask for directions to 1-A, too cherry voices called out to the boy in front of you, “Woah, you’re socialising Tamaki! Great job!”, a blonde boy with blue eyes strolled up to his friend, grinning brightly and giving him two thumbs up.”

“Hey Mirio! Wait up!!”, you turned around, immediately spotting a light blue haired girl rushing towards her friends waving happily. She must’ve noticed you standing there awkwardly and quickly came to your rescue, “Hi!! I’m Nejire and that’s Tamaki and Mirio! You must be a first year here!”, she smiled at you gently, pointing to the respective people as she introduced you to them.

“Nice to meet you Nejire-senpai, I’m L/n Y/n. Also do you know where 1-A is, I’m kinda lost”, you had enrolled as L/n Y/n instead of Takami Y/n as to not reveal the last name of Hawks since it was meant to be kept secret for some reason he didn’t tell you about.

“Speak no more, we’ll guide you there since we’re the big 3 after all!”

“Huh, what’s the big 3?”

“Oh, it’s basically 3 students in their third years who are talented and I guess you could say that’s us. Come on Mirio and Tamaki, let’s help bring this student to her class.”

Mirio took your right side, while Nejire led on in front, pointing out different buildings and Tamaki in the back.

“I’m Mirio! Great to meet you!”, he reached a hand to shake with you which you quickly did, “Same here Mirio-senpai, I’m L/n Y/n.”

“You’ll be seeing us around the school plenty, so if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask us or any of the teaching staff, they’re always happy to help! Well, I guess I can’t really say the same about Mr. Aizawa..”

“Oh, isn’t Mr. Aizawa, Eraserhead?”

“Yeah, he is and as a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure he’s going to be your teacher this year.”

“That’s uhh wonderful, he sounds like a great guy!”, you replied awkwardly trying to sound cheery.

“Don’t worry too much, you’ll do fine”, he patted you on the back reassuringly and at the same moment, Nejire announced that you had arrived at 1A.

“Thank you Nejire, Mirio and Tamaki-senpai”, you bowed to them, before they sought you off, heading for their own classes. Pushing the door open, the room was already bustling with students and you scanned your eyes over the room finding a seat between a spiky red hair boy and a green haired girl who looked a bit like a frog. Honestly, the random desk at the back seemed wonderful at first, but you remembered how Keigo had encouraged you to sit around more social people and they seemed social enough. It was probably the least you could do after he went through all the convincing with Nezu and some other things to get you to UA without having to take any tests.

You were really relieved when neither of them didn’t bother to talk to you, or notice you maybe, and continued on chatting to their friends. It seemed like you were just on time, the bell ringing and yet not any sight of any teacher. Frowning slightly, you were about to get up and go to the staff room which Nejire had pointed out earlier to search for Aizawa-sensei.

 Luckily, he arrived in some sort of yellow sleeping bag which slightly resembled a cocoon, announcing in a sorta lazy and flat tone, “Go somewhere else if you want to play at being friends. This is the hero course.”

The room quickly quieted down and became silent as everyone averted their attention to Aizawa, “It took 8 seconds before you quieted down. You kids aren’t rational enough. I’m your homeroom teacher Shota Aizawa. Nice to meet you. This is sudden, but put this on”, he presented a UA PE uniform out of thin air, or maybe he had it hidden inside his sleeping bag that whole time? “And meet me at the field after.”

Without any hesitation, everyone got up and grabbed their PE uniform from the desk which had their names on the packaging, likely to have been pre-ordered and filed out of the classroom towards the lockers. You grabbed yours, grimacing as a blond spiky haired boy shoved past you, resisting the temptation to yell at him and give him a piece of your mind. Like what, how can someone be so rude!

Upon arrival at the locker rooms, you didn’t really try to socialise with anyone, nor did they, I mean, your locker was in the back corner so they probably wouldn’t notice you anyways which was fine to you. To draw the least attention towards yourself, you waited until all the other girls had headed out happily chatting among themselves, then followed closely behind them and out onto the field where pretty much everyone was already assembled. 

“We’ll be having a quirk assessment test”, well there came the flat recognisable tone of Aizawa, he would definitely be an interesting teacher, that’s all you could say for him. Everyone either goraned or shrieked in horrification at this announcement, quirk assessment on the first day? Well damn, okay, thought first day would be a bit more chill. Kinda ironic for someone who seems like he can’t be bothered to do much himself.

“But what about the entrance ceremony or orientation?”, some girl piped up, yup definitely a bubbly one, she should be pretty easy to make friends with.

Okay at this point Aizawa was just getting a bit too blunt, “If you’re going to become a hero you don’t have time for such leisurely events. UA’s selling points is that it’s ways aren’t traditional, which is the same as how the teachers teach.” You watched him carefully as he skimmed over the class, landing on the rude blond spiky kid from earlier, “Bakugo, you finished top of the practical test, didn’t you? What was your furthest throw in middle school?” So Bakugo is his name, I’ll just stay away from him.

The said boy looked up cockily, a shit eating grin on his face, “67 meters.”

“Okay, then try throw this ball, but you can use your quirk.”

“Sure”, he grabbed the ball, leaning back on one foot in the circle and yelling “DIE!” as the ball flew off. It wasn’t took long before a beep came from a device that Aizawa was holding, showing 705.2 meters.

“Know your maximum first, that’s the most rational way to forming the foundations of a hero”, he seriously seemed to have something with things being done rationally...

A chorus of woah’s were heard throughout the class, well that sure did blow up that Bakugo’s ego. His ego must’ve been too big for his own good.

“This is going to be fun!”, an alien looking girl exclaimed punching her fist in the air.

Followed by a black haired boy excitedly looking on, “So we get to use our quirks as much as we want!”

And yet again, the mood came crashing down as Aizawa spoke up again, “It looks fun, huh? You have three years to become a hero, you think it’ll be all fun and games? Sure, then whoever comes last in the 8 tests will be expelled. Welcome to UA’s hero course!”, earning another screech form the class including yourself. Alright Y/n, you are NOT wasting this change Keigo gave you and you better do well in this!

“Let’s begin shall we? Starting with the 50m dash.”

The first two up were blue haired boy and the frog looking girl who sat next to you in class and before you could even blink, the blue haired boy was already off, speeding past the finish line. His quirk must’ve something to do with speed, so don’t panic Y/n, there’s only so much you can do with speed, you encouraged yourself determinedly looking on. And maybe you were a bit tooo busy encouraging yourself when you noticed the same bubbly brown haired girl patted you on the back.

“Hey, it’s your turn. Also, I’m Ochaco Uraraka, nice to meet you!”

“Thanks Ochaco-san, I’m L/n Y/n. We can continue to chat after these tests, sorry”, you apologetically looked at her before rushing towards the starting line. Beside you, was a white and red haired male with a red scar over his left eye. Okay that’s edgy, time to focus! You activated your quirk allowing wings to grow on your back through the use of light energy which was absorbed through two horns on your head.

Ready

Set

Go!

You flapped your wings as fast as you could making it in 4 seconds which wasn’t too much faster than the guy behind you gliding along with ice. Your brain quickly put together what his quirk was, white represents ice and red must represent fire. Wonder why he didn’t use his fire like the explosions of that Bakugo boy, it would’ve been much faster than skating.

Then came the grip test which you absolutely flunked, only coming in at 43kg which was pretty much the lowest in the class. Well what can some damn light energy do to help increase your grip? All it’ll do is burn your hands off.

After came the standing long jump with you passed with breeze, just flying to clear the sandbox and with the repeated side steps you simply used pure speed to get through it. And at last, came the ball throw the one which you were most excited for since you had a great plan to get a good score. When it came up to your turn you grabbed the ball tightly throwing it up in the air gently right above you, then activating your quirk and encasing it in a bright bubble made of light energy, then sent it off, controlling the bubble to keep going forwards without leaving the circle at all. You concentrated hard, thinking about the ball in your mind and it got more difficult to control until you couldn’t visualise it’s location anymore and let it drop. A beep was heard as Aizawa presented you with his device, showing 1638 meters.

Satisfied with your work, you smiled a bit and got back to your place.

“Midoriya, your turn”, the green haired boy nervously walked forwards, grabbing onto the ball and throwing it. You almost scoffed, if you didn’t feel the teeniest bad for the poor boy who had seemed so confused. Something was surely off about him, how did someone who can barely even use or control their quirk get into UA... He was given another chance, getting almost the same as Bakugo, except his hand turned a weird purple colour. That must be one powerful quirk for one weak body, you grimaced at his injury.

“Ow, that’s gotta hurt, Aizawa-sensei sure is harsh”, Ochaco frowned at the scene in front.

“I mean yeah he is, but not gonna lie, if I was in Aizawa’s spot I’d seriously be wondering how he got in, though he does have some potential with a quirk as powerful as his.”

“I’m sure he’ll get better, hopefully he’s not last, I’m really hoping that Mineta kid gets expelled, I already don’t really like him just by the looks of him.”

“Either it’s a crush or just you dislike Mineta, but then again, you shouldn’t be judging a book by its cover.”

“Eh what make sure you think that!”, she panicked cheeks flushed, “Its just that Mineta guy really seems like a perv.”

“Well, in that case, I guess it’s kinda his own fault, first impressions are key.”

“That’s true I guess.”

The two of you were snapped out of your conversation when Aizawa’s voice rang through the field, pulling up a projection, or was it a hologram? Anyways, you quickly skimmed through the board, searching for your name and you were glad to see you had landed a decent spot, coming in 3rd, just behind the Todoroki kid. And in last came Midoriya, ow, that’s seriously gotta be a huge blow to his self esteem.

“No ones actually gonna get expelled, it was just a rational deception to get you all to go beyond.”

“It was clear it was a rational deception”, Momo who you had seen on the top of the board piped up unhelpfully.

“Ughhh well that’s just greaaat”, you groaned into your hands “and now we appear to have a smartie genius know it all in our class as well”, you muttered annoyed as Ochaco sweat dropped patting your back slowly.

“L/n, you should not be so disrespectful to your classmates!”, Iida reprimanded, chopping his arms up and down.

“Okay thank you thank you.”

Finally school had been dismissed and you stood outside the gates of UA, impatiently tapping your feet as you waited for Keigo to come pick you up as other students made their own way home. It had been 10 minutes already and the bird brain still hadn’t picked you up! Welll, he didn’t really ever specify that he would come pick you up, you just kinda assumed? Frowning, you activated your quirk, not give one hec about the no quirk in public rule since walking home would take forever and you didn’t have that kind of time smh. Flapping your wings and stretching your arms, you prepared to take off and far into the sky where the police wouldn’t be able to see you flying around.

“What are you doing using your quirk in public without a licence?”, a loud voice boomed, stopping you in your tracks.

“Oh hi Endeavour-san!”, you smiled a bit, continuing to ignore his words and continue what you were going to do. You were really great at being annoying and ignoring people, just a trait you picked up from Hawks I guess.

Endeavour deadpanned, “You’re not allowed to be using your quirk and I know you don’t have a licence, so you need to go and take public transport or walk like everyone else.” He was completely ignored as you started floating a bit, “Well, I’ll be off then! Have a wonderful evening Endeavour-san and Todoroki-san.”

You flew off, but before you could get anywhere, Endeavour was already pulling you down by your foot, I mean, considering how strong he is, it succeeded. “Okay then Mr.Smartie, how am I meant to get home now without my quirk huh? I have no clue how public transport works”, you sneered at him, huffing and crossing your arms unimpressed.

“Go walk home.”

“But it takes a long time.”

“Then go figure out the public transport time schedules.”

At this point, you were sick and tired of him and Todoroki looked pretty annoyed as well, so you decided to do everyone a favour. You grabbed Todoroki by the wrist running off and dragging him while waving back at Endeavour, “I promise I’ll return him in one piece! You don’t need to worry!!”

Endeavour was about to chase after you, but you were already gone and out of sight, whatever, he had to return to his patrol anyways. It could also be good training for Shoto to deal with the annoying villains, not saying you were a villain, but you sure did fit that annoying standard.

“Your welcome”, you yawned lazily, staring up at the sky while walking. Todoroki was still confused but if being with you let him get away from being with his father he was more than glad too. Plus, he could use this chance to find any weaknesses about you, you seemed quite strong and could be someone to look out for in the UA sports festival.

“How did you talk to my father like that? Most people would’ve never had the guts to do it.”

“Wellll, for one, I’m not most people and I know him pretty well, I’ve talked to him a lot of times on his patrols. There’s almost nothing scary about him, he’s just a big fire guy walking around with an angry voice, but it’s not like he can harm any of us, he’s a hero.”

Todoroki felt his blood boil at what you had said, Endeavour was no hero, driving his mother to the end of her wits, training him harshly from a young age, some hero. But the rational part of his brain won over the emotional part, explaining that you were an outsider and had no clue as to their personal lives. Todoroki was intrigued with your quirk, he wanted to learn more about what it could do, all he knew so far was that you had the ability to create wings, bubbles made of light energy and not very much else. Considering you were the sister of Hawks (Endeavour had told him, I guess that’s something that Endeavour is useful for), he honestly expected more, but you could be holding back. He considered asking you more about your quirk but that would probably make you put walls up around yourself and see him as a threat. It was probably just best to wait and see your full potential.

You noticed it had become silent and nobody had anything to say, enveloping both of you in an awkward silence. Well, you were pretty sure you were the only one feeling awkward. You made up some lame excuse and sent Todoorki off on his way, glad to be out off the awkward silence. UA wasn’t that bad, you supposed.

next

[fyrapartnersearch]

Looking for some sci-fi shenanigans!

Obligatory long post ahead warning: this post is quite long and I know it may be intimidating to some readers but please don’t let it put you off if you’d still like to rp with me :)

Hello ladies, gents and fellow rpers. After having a writing blast and seeing how I’ve got room for some more partners I’ve decided to come back in search of some partners who are interested in what I’m looking for.I’ve got a good ten or so odd years of rping experience under my belt but any potential partners do not necessarily have to have the same experience, they simply need to fit under these three things:

-third person only with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.

- at least one small (no less than seven lines) paragraph per post as well as being willing to write more if the situation calls for it. Please do not contact me intending to give me only small paragraphs with each response as the above is simply the bare minimum I’ll accept if there’s not much going on in the rp that warrants a full paragraph.

-no one liners, one worders, script talk, poorly written sentences or just laziness in general.

This isn’t terribly much to ask for as picky as it sounds.

An important thing I shall mention is that NSFW (i don’t fade to black nor do I care when the smut happens. Just please don’t leave me once the smut has happened like lots of people seem to unfortunately do) and dark themes are a thing that occur in all my rp’s so I require you to at least be eighteen before you reach out to me. I will not accept anyone younger than 18 since I myself am in my early twenties. Underaged characters are also a no go as well. Please know that I’m in the eastern Australian time zone but almost any time zone Is compatible for me as I am awake at very odd hours. Another important thing I shall add is that you must be able to post at least once or more a day and if I don’t get any response after two weeks then I shall simply move on (only exception is if you notify me beforehand as to why you may not be able to post for a while. I’m not that vicious).

I only rp as male characters, as it’s simply my preference, I do MxM or FxM pairings. I will not double and I do not play multiple characters. I don’t do sub/dom dynamics when it comes to any aspect of the relationship. My characters are also non human (they’re aliens since this is a sci-fi rp after all) but what species your character is doesn’t matter to me at all as long as it’s not some god modded Mary Sue. Please remember that alien simply means a creature not from earth. Aliens can have fur, scales, feathers, etc, depending on where they come from. An alien with fur or scalies is not a furry or a scalie and please do not refer to them as such as it’s rude to label someone’s character as something they’re not. I will not write with someone who will insist that the theory of chimpanzees and humans unable to crossbreed should apply to hybrid characters regardless of whether they’re alien/alien or human/alien. This is fiction, not reality. Please also do not control my characters or dictate their actions. My characters are also premade and only have descriptions, I don’t do face claims or pics. I also do not care if you make a character up on the spot.

Please remember that this is a sci-fi rp and that I will not accept requests to do fandoms or any genre that doesn’t fit within the category of sci-fi. i will not accept a character that has no place in a sci-fi rp either like a dragon,harpy,demon, elf or some other fantasy creature.

All aboard the galactica!:

The galactica was a first class explorer ship led by only the greatest of military leaders and alliance figures. Many cadets dreamed of the day that they would one day either get to work onboard the ship whilst many more longed for the day that they’d be chosen as it’s next captain. To be the leader at the helm of the ship was considered the greatest honour and duty one could ever have befall them. Not everyone is content with having the responsibility of an entire fleet on their shoulders nor are the first few days, months or even years of being captain easy. To top it off, not everyone always agreed with the captains choice of their chosen protégé. As a wise man once said, one must be a follower before they could become a leader. When disaster strikes, will the remaining crew members be able to accept their new dynamic, or will it all fall to chaos?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the character chosen to be the next captain of the galactica, you can either play as my character’s rival or a friend who has turned a bit cold from jealousy. I’m also open to you being the one who was chosen to be the next captain.)

Precious one:

It was supposed to be a simple job with a end goal that would benefit just about everyone: escort the snobbish prince/princess of lektora to their new home on their betrotheds home world and return home to malgor to have a secret celebration with the other knights, guards and castle staff about how they’d be free to live in peace once more whilst the king and queen were too busy praising themselves for all they’d accomplished in life. Sadly, not everyone seems to be happy about the two main planets of power coming together as one and an unknown party has sought to stop it. What was once a simple journey to and from one place has become a quest that will cause views and hearts to change with each passing day and moment as two people fight to survive and figure out what went wrong before it’s too late.

(Important point of notice: I do not mind who plays what. Just let me know who you’d like to be :))

Academy days:

*the galaxy alliance and military defence force academy was one of the most respected training academies in the known galaxies. Men, women, aliens, humans and all of those who were in between went there to study, train and, one day if they passed the mentally, emotionally and physically gruelling years of tests, fly and be put in their own squadron. There were approximately six spots to fill on any team and the cadet who suited that spot the most would be given the title of pilot, squad leader, second in command, engineer, gunner and navigator. Each team was similar but unique in what they did. Not everyone gets along though and rivalries grow high during that delicate time between graduating and being put on a team. What happens when the top student and the lonesome outcast with a temper clashes?*

(Important point of notice: I’m also open to this being a story about new recruits on a space ship who still have a fair few things to learn before they can consider themselves official crew members.)

First day on the job:

Everyone at the space academy remembers graduation day. The day where they became recognised as the very things they strived to be whether it’s a pilot, an engineer, mechanic, a simple Jack of all trades or even a commander if they worked hard enough. Everyone also remembers the few days after the big Moment as well. Days where one is expected to take to whatever rank they’ve had bestowed upon them almost immediately and the responsibilities that came with it as if they’d been born to do it from day one. Some things are easier said than done though, especially when trouble finds ways to manifest in forms that many would not suspect to be of any cause for concern.

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the newly graduated commander of a small crew. You are free to play as either a crew member of any rank or even a trouble making character like a criminal or something similar that gives my character a run for their money. Possibilities are endless)

Runaway royalty:

The life of a Royal was simple yet complex at the same time. They were weighed on hand and foot and never had to lift a finger to do anything provided there was a maid or servant nearby willing to do whatever task it was the royal had for them. They were expected to grow into decent, respectable leaders who could ruler a planet fairly without struggle. For many royals, they were content to follow this regularly repeating path of “destiny” that their ancestors had set them on. All but one it seems. What happens when a sheltered prince/princess takes their chance on the world beyond the walls of their castle for a chance to see the universe itself?

(Important point of notice: you will be playing the prince/princess. I’ll be playing the non Royal character they run into.)

Worlds apart:

War. War was a terrible thing that brought nations to their knees and saw many people lose their lives and freedom. Many people and aliens liked to think that all the major wars were over and done with, that they’d never have to relive the horrors that once fell upon them. To put it simply: if no one hears about bad happenings, then it’s not their problem that needs to be taken care of nor does it exist. Sadly, it does not seem to be the case for everyone. A stranger from a planet so far away that many do not believe it to exist turns up on the doorstep of an alien who is forced to realise that war could very well be just around the corner once more.

Forced:

“there’s no such thing as a bad person. Only bad choices.” Is a saying that is older than time itself. For many who are forced into a position where they have no other choice but to put their morals aside and do as they’re told, this is all too true. A space farer is captured by criminals and forced to choose between death or working as the criminals captain’s personal assistant. That means every order has to be obeyed and every rule must be followed or consequences will be dealt by force. As time passes and life go ons, the captured spacer starts to see his predicament in a different light.

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the captured spacer. You will be playing the captain.)

Forbidden romance:

aliens and humans are forbidden from associating with one another in any way that isn’t political. Whilst the two races have put aside enough of their differences to coexist in their own little pockets of space, not everyone is accepting of the idea that the two different species could live together as one, let alone ever simply just coexist peacefully together without insisting that alien planets and human planets are to be kept seperate. To trespass on the strictly human or alien occupied planets is a crime that few dare to commit. What starts out as a simple act of one sided rebellion and show of courage turns into an unanticipated adventure.

(Important point of notice, I shall be playing the alien. I’m open to this also being an alien X alien pairing.)

The hunter and the hunted:

bounty hunting was one of the few illegal professions in the galaxy that made any trouble you got into for participating in the act of killing or kidnapping someone for worth it depending on who it was you’d been given the task of tracking down. Many bounties were more profitable alive of course since it cut back on many of the legal troubles one could face if caught with a dead body. A galaxy renowned bounty hunter has been tasked with taking down one of the roughest and most wanted criminals known to man and alien with the orders to return them dead or alive. Will they succeed or fail like many before them have?

(Important point of notice: I shall be playing the criminal. You shall be playing the bounty hunter.)

Space criminals and the law:

humans and aliens have been living amongst each other side by side ever since humanity dared to venture beyond the Milky Way and made first contact with aliens. With the solar system no longer being man’s only playground other planets were quickly colonised under the new alliance between extraterrestrials and Homo sapiens. Whether you were an alien, human or a hybrid did not matter in the known galaxies. All that mattered was who you were. Not everyone took to the integration very well (there were numerous protests on both sides) but most people were willing to share in the hopes of peace. Not everyone had good intentions though……

Trouble in the alien kingdom:

the planet of (insert generic planet name here) was one of prosperity, hardship and wealth. The kingdom of (insert generic kingdom name here) was ruled by a king and a queen whose heir was betrothed to a rival planet in the hopes that a political marriage would prevent another war from happening. Only problem was that no one could see the rival planets true plans….all but one. Unfortunately no ones going to listen to a deranged commoner who probably may not even be telling the truth. What’s one to do when no one will listen?

Exile:

The wind howled as thunder crashed and shrieked all around the abandoned cargo ship. Rain pelted the metal hull, turning the ground into a cold, treacherously slippery and muddy shallow river. The ship itself had crashed into the planet countless centuries ago and was slowly being reclaimed by the environment. Plants grew from cracks in the floor as moss and vines decorated the walls. A figure sat miserably hunched in what was once the cockpit of the ship, their only shelter from the raging elements outside but not from the storm that raged inside of them. The figure leapt to their feet as the sounds of footsteps in the mud drew closer and they held their breath. Who would dare to venture out here on such a miserable night?

War of the worlds:

humans and aliens were never meant to coexist peacefully with one another. There was too much fear, Too much misinformation and too much bias on both sides for such a thing to have ever been successful. It was the humans fault that the war had started. They were the ones who’d shot down the alien ship that had been packed with specially chosen diplomats that represented each alien race known to the galaxies they dwelled in that had been on their way to earth to negotiate a truce and a plan for peace. They hadn’t even hesitated to shoot the ship full of aliens yet they’d been surprised when war had been declared on the spot. Two races. Two worlds so different yet the same fighting one another for what was either a mistake or intentional murder.

Rehab:

The UGWP alliance (unite the galaxies for the protection of all worlds and for peace alliance) portrayed themselves as calm, charismatic and kind men and women who held only the thoughts of a life together with all species living happily together. They advertised campaigns for inter species jobs, provided information to the public about human/alien interactions and encouraged diversity amongst planets. Their rehabilitation program for troublesome fellows was considered to be a god send to try and cut down on the amount of space related crimes. No one ever questioned what went on beyond the closed doors to the facility, if they did, the UGWP would have their darkest secrets revealed. Something they strove to keep under wraps. When the arrival of a particularly wild prisoner occurs, the threat of their first failure and first escaped prisoner is lurking around the corner.

(Important point of notice: in this rp idea I’d be playing said prisoner, I don’t mind if you choose to be one as well.)

Academy days:

the galaxy alliance and military defence force academy was one of the most respected training academies in the known galaxies. Men, women, aliens, humans and all of those who were in between went there to study, train and, one day if they passed the mentally, emotionally and physically gruelling years of tests, fly and be put in their own squadron. There were approximately six spots to fill on any team and the cadet who suited that spot the most would be given the title of pilot, squad leader, second in command, engineer, gunner and navigator. Each team was similar but unique in what they did. Not everyone gets along though and rivalries grow high during that delicate time between graduating and being put on a team. What happens when the top student and the lonesome outcast with a temper clashes?

Captured:

Space criminals have been around ever since advanced technology allowed others to travel and live in space as if they were living anywhere else. They’re often cunning, tricky to catch and more often than not are clever at disguising themselves whenever those wanted posters come up. It takes skill to be on the wrong side of space law and true talent to get away with it. The galaxy’s current most wanted man has finally been captured by an alliance captain and his crew. Will he beg for mercy? Will he be given a trial before being thrown into a cell to rot or will he be given a chance to turn himself around with some hard labour?

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the criminal for this one. You will be the alliance captain)

Enslaved:

imagine living the life of one of the most successful people on the run that could exist. Galaxies trembled at your name. You and your crew swam in wealth and the going was good. Mutiny, sadly and sometimes not sadly, exists on its own accord. One man reflected on this as he was forced to his feet. A collar attached to a chain and electromagnetic handcuffs prevented his escape as he stood for all those who cared to glance as they walked by in the market to see. No one wants to have their only life’s purpose to be to serve another……only sometimes people don’t get that choice.

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the slave/servant. You’ll be the master/mistress.)

Betrothed:

for as long as there has been civilisation and leaders, there has been arranged marriages. Arranged marriages, or betrothals as they were more often called, consisted of pairing two people together and making them get married in order to secure ties to another land or another planet. Political marriages benefited everyone but the married pair it always seemed. After all, you couldn’t possibly be happy being married to a complete and utter stranger? How does one who is betrothed build a life of love and prosperity when the one who bears the rings of their union is not the one who also bears their heart?

(Important point of notice: this can go two ways, either our characters are betrothed to each other or one character is betrothed. The idea has endless possibilities)

Invasion:

march 18th in the year of 6079 was the day that the aliens invaded earth. They’d been planning the take over for some time as they came prepared and easily took out Earth’s defence forces. No one knows exactly why the extraterrestrial beings from the outer worlds came to the humble blue and green planet the humans had existed on for millions of years nor did they seem to have any true intentions known other than conquering the planet and taking it for their own. This has led to the belief that all aliens must be the cruel monsters the humans stories have made them out to be. What happens when the actions of one alien puts that to the test?

(Important point of notice: I’m open to having this idea turned around and having the humans invade an alien world to take over.)

The chosen:

The galaxy alliance had chosen its newest crew to serve and protect the known galaxies. Five young cadets who’d graduated at the top of their classes and would hopefully mark the start of a new generation of spacers and heroes. The leader of the new crew has yet to be decided and tensions are high because of this. Can differences be put aside and acceptance shown? Or will nothing but chaos ensue?

The Walking wounded:

when one worked as a galaxy defence force member, they were on the frontline of everything. Every battle. Every loss. Every victory. Every struggle that the force went through they had to be there and follow the rules. You could not kill an unarmed person regardless of whether they were hostile or not. You could not turn down a plea for help even when there was reasons to suspect something was amiss. In simple terms: you simply couldn’t do anything that would make your morals be questioned. What happens when even the captain says to leave all those rules and everything you were taught by the door when faced with someone who seems to be the exception to the rule. What’s the right thing to do not by them but the entire galaxy?

Stowaway:

the galaxies were once a place of freedom and exploration. A place where you had no limits as to where you wanted to go. Now thanks to new laws, permits are required to access certain systems, quadrants and galaxies. Problem is, this permit is unobtainable by the average civilian so many have taken to learning the art of boarding another’s ship and hoping for the best. Discovery is more or less a matter of life and death. What happens when someone is unfortunate enough to be discovered?

Monster:

aliens. Aliens were terrifying beasts that were the monster in every bedtime story the humans told their children to keep them home at night. Many mothers wept when their sons and daughters applied to the space military in order to keep the extra terrestrial scum away from the galaxies they’d claimed as their own. When a human ship crashes on an alien world so far away from human civilisation it may as well not exist to the aliens and a crew member is found lost and alone by a wandering alien, will their fate be decided by a monster? Or a benevolent being?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the alien in this scenario. I’m also open to the characters situations being swapped around so it’s the alien who crashes.)

On the run:

even on the most modern of planets, life on the lamb can be difficult. There’s authorities to avoid and even more rules to break in the game of survival. No one takes pity on those who have done wrong to the point that they have their face in the paper. Even if it’s not your fault will anyone give you shelter from the harsh cold winds of reality and a biased opinion. What happens when someone does take a chance on a poor wayfaring stranger? Will the wrong doer be turned in or given a new lease on life?

Disgraced:

when one entered the royal guard they took upon themselves an oath that bound them by blood and courage to the dedication of the protection of their king, queen and the kingdoms heirs. They were sworn to protect them from any harm whilst at the same time not allowed to use their position or power to hurt anyone else. When one breaks that oath, they are sent away in disgrace and branded as a traitor who must swear to never return. Life on the run changes people, sometimes for the better…..or for worse.

Space pirates and nobles:

space was a vast starry and endless sea that many voyaged across for the purpose of research, leisure or finding ones destiny. Like any real ocean, it was filled with dangers. The most feared of all was space pirates. Bands of blood thirsty cut throats and scandalous troublemakers whose sole pleasure in life was to steal, kill and take others prisoner against their will. Only pirates dare to do what other criminals would not. When a merchant ship is robbed by pirates what fate will befall the nobles onboard?

Healing wounds, growing love:

winter on the planet of malgor is one that is feared for its extreme weather. Snowstorms could appear out of nowhere and many a traveller had frozen to death whilst trying to make their way from one village to another. It was also a time where people were at their most vulnerable, relying on the winter harvest to feed every mouth that had been born and raised in the kingdom meant no mercy was spared for poor wayfaring strangers. When a kind soul finds a wounded outcast and decides to bring them home, they discover a threat that’s lurking just beyond the borders of their place of protection.

The knight and the heir:

royals could be spoilt. There was no denying that. A life of good food, wealth, the knowledge that they’d be pampered and weighed on hand and foot by servants was more than enough to turn even the most well mannered child into an insufferable brat. The knights tasked with the protection of the future royals knew this all too well. What happens when one particularly gruff, no nonsense knight refuses to bow to the whim of their future ruler and shows them what it means to be a true leader?

The last of a dying breed:

long ago, in a time when nobles, governments and space Pirates ruled the starry seas of space, there was a terrifying race of aliens that were considered to be the most dangerous creatures to have ever lived. When the great wars started up again due to rising tensions, the humans destroyed the planet these aliens lived on to ensure the battlefield was even. The aliens were furious at the death of an entire race and very quickly turned each and every human occupied planet into a warzone littered with their bases and encampments. Only in very small pockets of the universe does this war not exist. What happens when the last member of the species shows up on a small backwater planet?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the alien who is the last of their kind, you are free to play as a human or the story can be made to suite a scenario where you are also an alien.)

Harden my heart:

once upon a time, there was two friends who were the best of friends that anyone could have ever seen. Two people who had each other’s backs through thick and thin. Two people who supported each other endlessly even if their morals weren’t entirely inline with each other’s. Two friends who swore to never leave each other’s sides. Alas with the time of great growing came changes, the two friends bond had severed and they’d gone their separate ways in life. What happens when they run into each other many years later?

(This idea is one open to brainstorming, anything is possible.)

captain on deck!:

captains weren’t meant to fall in love with their subordinates. They were supposed to be well refined leaders who only mingled with those of a similar status. They represented the people they worked for after all, therefore they had an image that had to be strictly maintained towards the public in order to not be disgraced in any form. Behind closed doors however…..feelings were allowed to be a little more free. Secret lovers were frowned upon but one could take the risk if they were careful. After all, the captains word was law.

yes sir!:

order.serve.fight.lead.mourn.sleep.eat.rethink your life choices and repeat. Such was the ways of a military lifestyle on a world where war seemed to be a permanent occurrence and the leaders of every world trying their best to outspite one another with their relentless attacks that it made one think of how they could improve the boring daily routine they endured each and every day. In the army, you have to be tough if you want to be a leader. You had to be charismatic, strong, cold, incapable of doing anything that would sway you to possibly turn the other cheek and let your comrades be hurt. However, even the most stoic and battle hardened leaders can get lonely despite the fact that attachments to ones comrades outside of anything but friendship are forbidden by an unspoken law.

I need you:

space is a cruel mistress to even those who are experienced with charting her waters. Space, although beautiful, is often the grave of many brave explorers, soldiers and other space faring strangers. When a stranger comes to scavenge parts from a newly crashed ship in the hopes of finding something useful, they come across a familiar face. Old feelings stir and clash with one another when the crash’s survivor awakens and finds out who their rescuer is.

Sooooo….. about those pairings. What has two stars next to it is what I’m going to play if we choose the scenario:

1: enemies to lovers or rivals.

2: **captured criminal** x prison guard or other prisoner.

3: two soldiers from seperate sides falling in love.

4: **academies bad boy/outcast** x top student

5: **low ranking ship crew member/second in command/captured space criminal** x captain.

6: **commoner/rogue/knight/street rat** x prince/princess/king/queen

7: **slave/servant** x master

8: army superior x **lower ranking soldier**

9: married person X unmarried person

10: stowaway x captain

11: nurse x **injured soldier**

12: human x **alien**

13: bully x **victim**

14: old lovers/friends finding each other again.

PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH ME IF:

1: YOU GHOST AT THE DROP OF A HAT.

2: YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO PUT EFFORT IN TO MEET MY REQUIREMENTS.

I’m open to discussing and potentially mixing these ideas up till we get something that we both like. If you want to learn more about a certain idea tell me the name and I shall expand on it.

The only platforms I rp on are discord,telegram and google hangouts. I will not rp on any other platform other than the ones listed. If you do not have any of those then unfortunately we cannot rp. When you reach out to me requesting for an rp via one of the below platforms In the opening message tell me what idea you liked, why you liked it, give me a little introduction about you and you must put 123 somewhere in your message so that I know you’ve read all of my post, don’t just put “hi wanna rp”. Make it interesting.

My contacts

Discord: crankypurplespacecat#6187

My telegram: Tiberionwars

My hangouts: lleo52560@gmail.com

I look forwards to meeting potential partners.

[progressivestupidity]

IZ week 2020

so i wasn’t gonna do this because I didn’t think the prompts were very good for writing to, but I remembered the last day’s prompt was “role swap” so I decided to do something small and quick for it. this is all 7 days in one post. the first and last ones are drabbles and one of them is an au idea

@invader-zim-week​ here u go!!!

Day 1. Angst or Fluff 

Zim’s denial skills are god tier, but even they have their limits.

Drabble. I think this is the turning point for my eventual found family au

“When are you going to get it through your thick head that the Tallests aren’t coming?” Dib flings his arms out wide in his exasperation

“They’re just…!” Zim fumbles a bit, clenching and unclenching his fists. “The Armada is a million light years away! It takes time to travel that far, obviously. It took me six of your months to get here from Conventia and the Massive is further away from here now than that. They’ll come! You’ll see! And then you’ll be sorry!” Zim’s face is drawn tight. He’s tense all over, shoulders drawn up to his jaw, antennae pressed flat to his head, and normally Dib prides himself on reading Zim like an open book, but he’s too far gone in his own annoyance to see the warning signs.

It’s because he doesn’t see these red flags that Dib proceeds to stick his own foot in his mouth with his next words. “Maybe if you weren’t such an idiot and opened your eyes, you’d see the truth—that they dumped you here to get rid of you.”

“YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT?” Zim explodes, planting his tiny hands in Dib’s chest and shoving. The boy lands painfully on his ass. “I’m not stupid, Dib.” His name is spat like an insult. “I know they don’t care about me! Why do you think I try so hard?”

Dib gapes at Zim, looking up at him for once, stunned into silence. “I.” He swallows. “You know?”

“Of course, I know.” Zim’s voice is a low hiss and his eyes are narrowed to slits. “You don’t get banished and then just get over it. You don’t get put on trial to defend your life, forced to relive your worse mistakes, and get sentenced to death, only to be saved by freak miracle, and never acknowledge it happened.” Zim takes a deep breath and crosses his arms over his chest. Dib supposes he means for it to look intimidating, but it looks more like he’s holding himself together. “I’ve always known.”

“Why do you try so hard then? If you’ve always known there was no point?” Dib has to ask, has to know, has to hear the words from Zim’s own mouth.

Zim purses his lips and turns away. “There was always a point.” He falls silent for a moment, one antenna twitching up a bit in thought. “I just… I thought if I was just a little better, if I accomplished something important for once, that… I don’t know, that maybe I’d.” He pauses and grits his teeth. “Maybe if I actually managed to take over this filthy planet I’d be worth something for once.”

Day 2. Be Gay Do Crime (LGBTQA+ headcannons)

Dib is bi/pan/demi-ro, Gaz is lesbian, Zim is ace/demi-ro

Headcanons.

Dib seems like the kind of guy that would both take whatever kind of relationship he could get, but also appreciate it. Dib isn’t afraid to work for what he wants and isn’t afraid of things that are “not normal” so I see him being the type to not care about the gender of whoever he eventually decides to date. However, because Dib’s been burned in the past, he would need a deep and sincere emotional relationship to see someone as a potential romantic partner.

Gaz is just a big lesbian. Girls, man.

Zim is ace all the way baby!!! He’s just not interested, and sure, part of that is me projecting, but it just feels right for Zim to just… not care. He has no interest and doesn’t care for sexual attraction regardless of whether or not Irkens do/can/will have sex or not. On the other hand, Zim has expressed a softer side before and I can see him being able to maybe eventually develop romantic feelings for someone if he actually manages to get close enough to them for those kinds of feelings to even emerge. It would take a lot of time and a deep, meaningful friendship, but Zim has shown he’s capable of love. He just has to let himself feel it.

  Day 3. Fandom Appreciation

Found family fuck yeah

Headcanons.

I’m still in the process of thinking about how I wanna go about my found family au so here’s just some initial ideas

After ETF, Zim self isolates for a bit. The florpus hole was his Last Ditch Effort plan and had it succeeded, he knew he would have been destroyed too. He was okay with it. He had made peace with it. However, it failed, and now he’s forced to reflect on said failure

The Massive doesn’t escape the florpus. They’re gone, completely. If they the ship does manage to get out, it’s not in one piece

I initially couldn’t decide if The Trial should come Before ETF or After but I think im gonna say before so the Massive doesn’t have to come back lmao

Before too long, Zim jumps back into the planning/scheming swing of things, but his ideas are never more than petty crimes and being a huge annoyance

Dib gets really annoyed with him and they have a big argument

Zim finally admits to knowing of his own Defectiveness

Dib reluctantly feels bad for him and backs off a bit to let Zim have his space

Zim, however, sees this as a betrayal and redoubles his efforts to get his attention

Somewhere along the way, Skoodge comes back and Zim backs off of Dib a bit, having someone else to focus attention on

Dib eventually begins to offer Zim his hand in friendship (phrased as a truce at first) and they finally make steps towards getting along

They realize they actually really like being friends

Zim eventually realizes that he’s made a life for himself, outside of the Empire

Eventually Zim, Skoodge, GIR, Minimoose, Dib, and Gaz form their own little family and explore space and hunt cryptids

(I love cryptid hunter and space exploration aus holy shit)

Day 4. If IZ had a different setting/time period

Cyberpunk??? Sure

Potential idea maybe.

Cyberpunk dystopian future

Aliens and humans intermingle, both on and off Earth

The Irken Empire has gotten bigger

Technology is advanced and cybernetics are widely known/produced

Idk man I don’t know a lot about cyberpunk, maybe this should be more for the aesthetic

Day 5. Aesthetic

Big shrug man idk

Headcanons, thoughts.

I’m a big fan of fashion Zim, and whenever I get the chance I give him clothes that are both cute and comfortable

Galaxy print leggings are a personal favorite of mine to give him

One time I wrote a little ficlet/oneshot where he wore a skirt. I should publish that some day

Uhhhhhh okay so. Dib has veeeeeery big early 2000s emo/punk vibes tbh

Scene kid GIR always makes me laugh

Gaz could pull off pastel goth like no one’s business

I’ve been here long enough to witness emo/scene hair wig Zim and his eventual fall lmfao

Pretty much everyone that redesigned them back in the day gave Zim emo kid hair that fall perfectly over one eye it was WILD

 Day 6. What if IZ was a different Genre?

Uhhhh does “fantasy instead of scifi” count?

Potential idea maybe. (oops it ended up being a fantasy/modern magic au haha ooooops)

Instead of being an alien, I had the idea of, maybeeeeee Irkens are like. Elves maybe, or perhaps some kind of fae. (I don’t know much about fae, oops)

Okay bear with me here, this is all coming together in real time.

The Irkens (which is what I’m gonna call their clan or faction or subrace or whatever) still want to be the rulers or something over the humans/other mystical beings. This world of magic is hidden from humans and they live blissfully unaware. There are invaders all over the place, using magic and glamors to trick humans into thinking they’re also humans. Zim is one such invader and just to happens to end up in Dib’s town, whereupon he enrolls in Dib’s school, pretending to be a transfer student.

I have no idea why or how the Irkens invade or what methods they use, but since my biggest experience with elves is through DND, I’m going to say they’re functionally similar to certain DND elf races.

So anyway, Zim ends up in Dib’s class and Zim’s glamor just Doesn’t Work on Dib for whatever reason (maybe Dib passed his Wisdom saving throw while literally everyone else failed, idk) and so Dib can immediately see Zim for what he is.

Dib is still into paranormal type stuff, though in his world, he’s less about cryptids and aliens and more about the magical species/world(s) that he KNOWS exists. His big goal in his au is similar to canon in that he wants to expose it all for recognition and love from his father.

Zim, meanwhile, he just wants to prove himself, just like canon. I can’t decide how I want the Irken hierarchy to go in this au—that’s something to think about later, when I have more time—but whatever it is, Zim is either a) not very good at it, b) not suited for it, c) ridiculed for not fitting in to it, or d) a combination of any or all of these things. (or secret option e) he rejects it but has no where else to go. On the other hand, it maybe be none of these things.)

GIR is here too though he’s probably not a robot. Maybe he’s another kind of magical being, or, hell, maybe he’s just Zim’s little brother. I’d be okay with that.

Gaz can also see through glamors but she just doesn’t care. Tak shows up at some point to get revenge, and Skoodge also shows up at some point to stay with Zim and be his friend.

Zim is bad at blending in at first, but he eventually Does get better, since he’s not totally isolated from other Irkens here and he also doesn’t Look like an alien.

(I’m thinkin’ elves in this au look Mostly human but with a few differences. Since I’m biased and this is MY fantasy world, damnit, elves are just. Really Pretty. Ethereal and elegant and graceful (for the most part—there are always exceptions) and they’re also great at magic. Maybe Zim isn’t all that great at magic, I dunno. I’ll figure something out.)

This ended up being less of a genre change and more of a whole ass au, lol oops

Day 7. Role swap

Chanting: human zim au human zim au human zim au human zi

Drabble. This is for an ongoing species swap au that i’ve had in development for the last few years. i haven’t posted anything for it yet, but I’ve thought about it a lot

Dib freezes as Zim points the plastic water gun at his head. Zim’s eyes are narrowed, lips pursed, and he adjusts his grip almost nervously. Behind him, Gir is holding a bucket full of water balloons and a pair of neon green star shaped sunglasses. It’d be cute if Dib wasn’t aware of how painful Earth water is to his Irken skin.

Zim finally lowers his gun slightly. “I want some answers, alien.” He looks Dib over with critical eyes. “Who are you really, and why are you here?” He reaches back and Gir hands him a water balloon with a big smile. “And you better tell the truth or I’ll bust this over your big head.”

Dib grimaces and watches the balloon. “My name Dib, and I’m a scientist. I’m an Irken, from Irk, and I’m here to learn more about life on this planet.” He holds his hands up, hoping to placate the human gesture for surrender. “I’m not here to harm you or anyone else, promise.”

Zim huffs. “Yeah right. I bet you just came here to laugh at the locals.” He puts on a mocking voice and waves the gun and balloon as he speaks. “‘Stupid, stinking humans. They can’t even travel beyond their own moon, yet. What morons. I bet they descended from pigs with how horrible and stupid they are.’” He jams the gun against Dib’s chest. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Dib bites his lower lip and looks away. He can’t deny he hasn’t thought something similar since arriving on Earth, but Zim didn’t have to be so crude and blunt about it.

The two are at a standoff for almost a minute before Zim blows out a long sigh and steps back. He turns to put the balloon back in the bucket, gives Gir a pat on the head, and shoots Dib one last glare. “Stay away from me, Dib. I have enough problems to deal with without having to worry about whether or not it’s safe for my brother to go to school or if I need to watch my back while walking my dog.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Dib says, a little put out.

Zim scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. I know better than to believe it.” He turns and tries to smile at Gir but it comes out a little twisted and sad. “C’mon Gir. Let’s go home and get Minimoose and take him to that dog park you like so much.”

Gir gasps and lets out a cheer. “Can we go get ice cream afterwards?”

Zim gives a little laugh, smile turning a bit more genuine. “Yeah, sounds good.”

As they walk away Dib can’t help but wonder why he ever thought Zim was an Irken himself.

[nomadicism]

I read that one posts. I agree with Sol. I think it's more likely that Dreamworks crunched the numbers, figured it wouldn't be profitable and just canned the project than them cancelling it because of a very small section of the internet. p1

“p2 Mecha is just a dying genre as a whole. Even in Japan, isekai has taken it's place and there are hardly any new mechas outside of Gundam. That's in Japan! In the west, mecha is even more niche of an interest and general audiences don't gravitate towards it. I don't think that any mecha movie wouldn't do well at the box office. I'm even worried about that Gundam movie bombing at the box office.”

Hi Anon, thank you for the Ask!

Yeah, I agree with Sol too—and at risk of repeating what I’ve said in other posts about the movie thing—it’s really hard to convey just how incredibly unlikely a property like Voltron or Robotech will ever be made into a live-action movie. It really is about the numbers, as it always has been. Since the 80s, there’s this whole persistent and stupid element of the cartoon industry that continues to delude itself that promises or interest from Hollywood will ever pan out. There are so many scripts sitting in production limbo, that it’s almost criminal.

No one wants to risk money on a live-action movie based on children’s media IP that won’t bring in rated PG-13 or R dollars from adults, and no one wants to risk repeating the 80s He-Man film. The exceptions are live-action films made from children’s media IP that are fully owned by the company paying to produce the movie. I’ve got more to say about the complexities of royalties, but that’s awfully long-winded when I get into it, and I’d rather be long-winded about giant robots. (◕ᴗ◕✿)

The topic of mecha genre dying out is what really interests me here. It’s a topic that I think about a lot, as the beginnings of the mecha genre had a lot of deep cultural time-and-place stuff behind it, even if the stories were just kids and teen boys hopping into a giant robot to beat up other giant robots and monsters, in what were essentially 30 minute long toy commercials.

Isekai will come-and-go as all genres do. It’s not a new genre, but right now the types of themes driving the isekai stories being made speaks to a lot of interesting things happening in the youth of Japan’s relationship with digital gaming and role-play escapism. It’s fascinating, even though the focus of the genre as it’s done today hasn’t really grabbed me in the same way that isekai of the 80s-90s did.

Mecha isekai exists, and it’s only a matter of time before someone either remakes Vision of Escaflowne, or does a more mecha-focused isekai story similar to Magic Knight Rayearth. I doubt anyone would revisit Aura Battler Dunbine, or Super Dimension Century Orguss, but an otaku can dream.

Before we can say the mecha genre is dying, let’s briefly skim over the genre trends of the past +40 years. Every decade or era of mecha anime has a trend that reflects cultural concerns built into it, in a way that I don’t think any other genre of animation can touch (until now, with Digital/Virtual/Fantasy RPG World Isekai).

Late 60s-70s was: Super Robot smashes monsters and alien robots

Mid-70s – early 80s was: Combining Mecha Sentai Team Super Robot smashes monsters and alien robots

80s was: Real Robot + “how many sci-fi/fantasy settings can we put a robot into?” + the death-throes of Super Robot (e.g. Dairugger XV, Golion, Baldios, Godmars)

Also 80s: What the hell was Super Dimension Fortress Macross about? Cold war tensions of escalating end-the-world arms race meets an alien species whose only culture is fighting. Where songs about love, and the culture of love, are what win the day, not just transforming robots and big guns. Macross is deeper than it lets on.

Fun 80s: GoShogun happened. The first parody-satire mecha anime that still feels more serious than they intended, but is actually hilarious once you get past the dated gender roles humor (which was also kind of intentional satire).

WTF 80s: Space Runaway Ideon broke everyone’s minds.

Still not done with 80s: Gunbuster happened. The first angst-driven parody-satire mecha anime that blew everyone’s minds.

Late 80s-early 90s OVA mecha was a mix of Serious Cyberpunk-influenced Real Robot for older teens and adults + Mecha with Tits & Tentacles for Adults (see also space elf lesbians).

90s was: The Franchises Will Survive With Prettier Pilots, and Super Angst-Bot That Was Way More Influenced By Drugs And Ideon’s Ending Than Anyone Wants To Admit (aka Neon Genesis Evangelion) + “Since Gunbuster was a success, how many parodies of Super Robot and Real Robot can we do?”

Mid 90s isekai gems: Magic Knight Rayearth and Vision of Escaflowne

Late 90s: Brain-Powerd (not a typo) happened and it’s a shame no one remembers it. I’ve seen it’s influence come up in the 2000s – 2010s.

The 00s seem to be filled with a lot of re-treading of everything that came before but with different cross-genre influences and some of it really damn good but hard to remember because it all kind of blends together.

The 2010s-today: I have no idea what’s happening now b/c I can’t keep up with anything that isn’t Gundam. And why bother when there has been a flood of classic 70s-80s mecha releases—many for the first time in the US—to binge watch?

Knights of Sidonia was cool.

Since I haven’t kept up, I can’t speak to what new mecha anime is like, or why it's less popular (though I have an educated guess). It was gonna happen eventually, and I suspect that the kinds of post-nuclear and Cold War existential dread that informed mecha anime of the 60s-80s has moved on as target audiences grew up. Those lates 80s OVAs, where the stories could be more adult, reflect that growing up (and also Blade Runner’s influence).

I see the 90s as very transitional, includes reactions to the prior eras, but also reflects a lot of angst by Japanese teens and young adults caught up in the after-effects of 80s stagnation, and the constant test-studying to get into the best school to get the best job (if it exists) and figure it all out before you’re 14 so you can pick the best school to test into. Also, salary-man dad works 120 hours a week and is never home. Get in the Angst-bot Shinji.

Excluding the stand-out brands that survived their respective eras: Gundam, Macross, Braves series, Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Evangelion; there’s not much other ground that can be covered right now that would warrant a series. The franchise mecha shows are grounded in their respective niches. It’s kind of odd that there isn’t an isekai mecha franchise, b/c that’s a niche that hasn’t been owned in the way that the other niches have (unless maybe Machine Hero Wataru is still a Thing?)

It’s worth mentioning that Sport Anime has really been having a moment for almost a decade now, and that’s super interesting to compare against isekai. Isekai about dungeon slimes or whatever vs literal horse-girls racing each other like high-school track. Thanks Japan, are y’all all right over there?

A few last things:

The success of Super Robot Wars tells me that mecha genre isn’t dying. Consider the ages of players. How many of them actually grew up watching Yuusha Raideen (aka Yūsha Raideen / Raideen the Brave)? There is an SRW manga anthology series, and loads of gachapon and collector’s grade mecha figures from old mecha anime get released with regularity. Someone’s buying that all that shit.

SRW is nearly 20 years old now, and they are still making video games that do one thing really well: rotate a 40 year old cast of everyone’s favorite robots into a battle strategy game held together by a duct-tape plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The games are fun, and it’s cool to put all these mecha into the same field. It’s really great to see older shows that will never be remade have little cut scenes in a newer animation style that still feels like the originals.

There’s also the old staple that started it all: the tokusatsu genre of live-action Super Sentai shows (e.g. Power Rangers). They’ve been making the Super Sentai Series since 1975, and there’s still fun to be had watching color-coded warriors use special powers/tech to summon forth some combining mecha to do battle with rubber suit monsters from outer-space. The effects are much better these days, but it’s the same formula, year after year and people still love it.

So with respect to mecha, I think what’s died or dying, is that people are afraid to have shameless child-like fun with giant robots. The genre got too serious and too angsty (and too horny without the grown-up edge of 80s OVA Tits & Tentacles mecha). The franchises carved their niches and aren’t going anywhere, while the genre survives in video games and collectables.

A lot of that shameless fun has moved into other genres, because nothing else explains a title like: “Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girl’s In The Dungeon?” or the nearly-ecchi concept behind the sports anime “Keijo!!!!!”. But that kind of fun is less child-like and more self-deprecating or pervy-humor. Both sports and isekai anime have their serious side, but seem to be dominated by stories that don’t take themselves too seriously, or like Yuri on Ice, aren’t afraid to take a concept that no one ever saw coming, and shape it into a good story.

I eagerly await a mecha sports anime (wait, no, I think that already happened), and I’d love to see a knock-out isekai mecha anime again. I think it will happen eventually, but probably not from Toei or Sunrise. If Tatsunoko could get beyond Moe Idols In Space, then the Macross franchise already has everything it needs to do a isekai series. That would be rad.

[cozycryptidcorner]

This is a monster match for an intrepid anonymous user!

So I'm pan, but vaguely have a preference for men, but like specifically cute, non-threatening ones. I'm infp-t for mbti. I read a lot, and I love games. I have ADHD and i have trouble doing work because of it but it's also the reason I can figure out random plot twists or do well at guessing games. My friends and I joke that I have a high passive charisma, because I'm just oblivious and talk a lot. I have a lot of stuffed animals, many of them I got specifically because they're wonky in some way. I have too many books. I really like soft things, and soft people. Thank you.

You have been matched with an elf! Well, the name humans call his kind changes over the years, älva, elverfolk, álfur, and so on, but it seems that rather modern writers and historians have decided on the term ‘elf’ when talking about his kind. Doesn’t really matter to him, though, because his people have their own word for themselves, one that humans couldn’t even pronounce, much less would they dare say, even if they could. While his kind considered more advanced than yours, he will admit, it’s rather remarkable what giant leaps of technology have been made in such a short amount of time.

While his people haven’t really had much need for objects such as cell phones or computers, they do depend on a mysterious source of magic they call the Æther. Things like medicine, communication, teleportation, the works, all can be achieved by tapping into it, so you suppose the need for something like cars or vaccines aren’t a necessity for them as they are for those on this plane of reality. Your elf doesn’t really go into much detail about the mystical otherworld, though hints that most of his kind are sworn against revealing any secrets to anyone on the outside about their mystical abilities. You don’t much mind, though sometimes the thought of an untapped, seemingly eternal energy source does keep you up at night.

He is ethereally beautiful, you would never dare lie about that, and very clearly inhuman to anyone with well-seeing eyes. There is a blue tinge to his skin, where any red tones might be on a human. It’s probably because his blood has a purplish navy tinge. If it was red, he most likely would look just like any other human being, albeit with vividly green, slightly upturned eyes, and cheekbones that can cut through glass. His hair is a long, glossy blond, like spun gold, and he enjoys braiding it down in seemingly thousands of different ways. You don’t think you’ve seen him wear the same hairstyle twice, though, at the seemingly endless variants he’s done, you don’t believe you would even recognize it if he did repeat one or two.

Oh, and he’s tall, much taller than the average human. It’s very easy to pick him out in a crowd- he’s the blond standing at least a head higher than everyone else. It’s rather convenient for you because you don’t ever lose him whenever you are out in public. Maybe his blueish skin would be easy to pick out as well, but he usually glamors himself whenever he’s mingling with other humans, as to not draw too much attention. If that were the case, though, maybe he should shave a few inches off his height, also, because damn, even without the blueness, he still draws plenty of stares.

Your elf seems offended if anyone mixes him up with the fae, because the faeries and the elves are very different, thank you very much. When asked how, he usually just goes spluttering about how they don’t respect magic barriers, or how they just ‘make up’ rules about the use of magic which has absolutely nothing to do with anything factual, mind you, and besides, they have no sense of propriety, have you even heard about that white-haired slut who quite literally fucked himself into a curse? It’s their fault they’re dying off, they have no respect for anyone but themselves, etcetera, etcetera, until your elf would wear himself out.

But of course, you mean biologically, as in, what separates the two as species from each other. Which, after a long while of getting talked around in circles, you realize that there really isn’t a difference? Besides their core values and use of the Æther, it seems to you that they are basically the same, sort of like how Catholics might claim they differ significantly from the Lutherans, but seem basically the same from a far off distance. The same source of magic, able to handle it well enough like their bodies evolved to do so, just a very, very different outlook on what it should be used for. The elves, then, you gather, are a vaguely distant parental figure to the human race who only show up when things are fucked royally. In contrast, the faeries are more like that weird crack-addicted cousin who no one invites to get-togethers but still shows up anyway, taking their pranks a little too far.

Oh, and if you think he’s venomously pissed at being mistaken for a faery, don’t even think about mentioning Santa’s little helpers to him, either. He practically starts frothing at the mouth.

Elves have longer than human lifespans, yes, but they also don’t live for a thousand millennia, like modern stories might have you believe. Sure, they live for about two, maybe three hundred years, and that most certainly is much longer than a human, but your elf hasn’t been around since the dawn of time. He did live through the space race, though, and witnessed the moon landing with his own two eyes, just over yonder from where the plucky crew of the Apollo 12 landed. Maybe all those crackpot conspiracy theories about ‘aliens on the moon’ are about him? Who knows, definitely not him.

He does have his place in elven society as a sort of sentinel, or watcher, someone who keeps an eye on the human race and makes sure they don’t do anything particularly stupid. Given the fact he can just walk into places he most certainly should not be, it’s rather easy for him to do so. Though he’s not allowed to interfere unless there is immediate danger of annihilation, he just reports what he’s seen or found to a council of elders, and they decide what should be done with it. He rarely ever participates in whatever direction the council chooses, citing something about the fact that watchers might try to take advantage of such protocols. So, there will be times where he can relax at home while a bunch of other elves take care of the problem... or problems.

When he’s not being constantly vigilant against the top one percent of humanity that seems to want to ultimately doom the other ninety nine percent, he has some hobbies he likes to fall back to. At first, you weren’t sure what to make of his favorite, because pottery? An elf who can call forth a god-like amount of power from some alternate dimension made only from pure energy likes to make little clay things? But yes, actually, he does, and it’s probably because he can harness such power.

Unlike humans, the elves have always been able to snap things into existence. Oh, you need something to hold that ambrosia? Just think really hard about it, and a bowl will appear from seemingly thin air, pulled from its point in time to where you are today. Humans, though, clearly don’t have that kind of liberty, so they were forced to get creative with simple necessities that an elf wouldn’t think twice about. Pottery stems from one of those needs, using clay to create things to eat and drink out of, and your elf finds it just fascinating at the skill and engineering it takes to merely make something look… functional.

Sure, his stuff used to be crazy-lopsided and uneven, but he’s getting better at it, steadily, slowly, under the guidance of a local ceramics professor. Yes, he goes to a university class to advance his skill, isn’t it what humans do, too? He might not actually pay for it, per se, he kind of just… charmed the staff to slide him into the class, and doesn’t have any intention of actually graduating or anything, so he runs free on the campus while disguised to the teeth with a more human appearance, letting his artistic side run free.

Maybe also more of a side note, but he loves animals. Loves them. Animals have such a fundamentally innocent nature about them, yet domesticated creatures like dogs have such a love for their masters that it almost physically hurts him to think about. Even though he can’t really have a dog at the moment- his current human landlord has a very strict pet policy because of her and a few other tenants’ allergies. Though your elf seems satisfied with cutting corners elsewhere, he doesn’t feel like making some humans permanently ill just because he’d like a dog to be around.

[gra-sonas]

Thanks for prompting me with Malex, lovelies! 💚

who hogs the duvet: Alex, because he's always cold. He prefers when Michael snuggles up close to him tho, he's the much better heating blanket (plus he gives Alex neck kisses, which Alex LOVES)

who texts/rings to check how their day is going: They both text occasionally, Michael likes to send Alex pictures, Alex is a little more formal in his texts. The day he starts adding the 😘❤️ emojis to his texts, Michael feels so loved.

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts: they are both incredibly thoughtful when it comes to giving gifts. Michael's perhaps a little more creative since he likes to make gifts (though we're not talking salt dough or knitted socks here, we're talking something more elaborate like a bionic leg for Alex that allows him to walk with absolute ease and almost no chafing)

who gets up first in the morning: Alex, still. It's been ingrained into him (first by his father who liked to make his kids do drills before dawn, then it was a terrible habit the Air Force continued to inflict on him). One of Alex’s greatest pleasures in his life is the moment when he wakes up, sees how early it is, turns in Michaels warm embrace and goes back to sleep (well, it’s more like a nap, but it's amazing and relaxing nonetheless). When Michael takes too long to wake up, Alex can get very ~creative tho... 😏

who suggests new things in bed: they both do. The first time Alex properly doms Michael and makes him fly is a revelation to both of them, and they like to explore that side of their relationship further. The first time Alex asks Michael to mark him with a hand print before sex tho? They both end up in tears because having their respective emotions reflected back a thousandfold is so overwhelming, it takes them a long time to calm down. When they do, they look look at each other, stunned by the utter devotion and endless love they see, it's not really a surprise that they utter the next words in unison: "Do you want to marry me?" (It's a YES from both, obviously)

who cries at movies: Michael

who gives unprompted massages: Michael. He just knows when Alex is hurting on days he’s walked too much and needs a massage, even knows where to find the worst knots. Michael’s hands are always tender, yet firm. (Michael will never get tired of teasing Alex for falling asleep underneath his kneading hands on more than one occasion).

who fusses over the other when they’re sick: Alex is rarely sick, but when he is, Michael turns into such a mother hen/nurse, it's almost ridiculous. While it does get a bit intense at times, Alex lets him fuss.

who gets jealous easiest: they don't get jealous at other people anymore, they know that they are it for the other. They do get jealous of circumstances keeping them apart for any length of time though. After his honorable discharge from the Air Force, Alex starts to work as a freelance cyber security advisor. While it comes with the perk of being ridiculously well paid, his job also entails that Alex has to travel every now and then. They are both miserable during those times and send more text messages in a day than they'd usually send in a month.

who has the most embarrassing taste in music: they refuse to be embarrassed about any kind of music they listen to, Alex has probably a more eclectic taste tho.

who collects something unusual: do pieces of an alien space ship console count as ‘something unusual’?

who takes the longest to get ready: Alex, but only because he needs a little extra time to attach his leg in the morning.

who is the most tidy and organised: They both are. Michael's never had that many things to begin with, and the Airstream with its limited space also demanded him to keep things in order. Three years into their marriage, Michael expands the cabin ("I want it to be a home for us, but also maybe... a kid?" Alex has never loved him more than in that moment). The cabin’s still not HUGE and therefore requires for them to keep things in order. That changes the minute they have kids tho, from then on it’s chaos 24/7 until the day their triplets leave for college.

who gets most excited about the holidays: Michael. Holy Santa, the first year they spend Christmas at the cabin, Alex leaves in the morning for an appointment in Albuquerque, only to find Michael has turned into Clark Griswold when he comes home. The cabin looks like it's on fire, there are sooooo many Christmas lights. 👀 When Alex opens the door, Michael is waiting for him in the living room. A fire is roaring in the open fire place and the room is decorated with lots and lots of Christmas themed knick-knacks. Michael is wearing an honest-to-god Ugly Christmas Sweater (it depicts a little green man wearing a Santa outfit, the lettering says 'Ho ho ho, kiss me, I'm an alien') and he's holding up two beautifully embroidered stockings with their names on them. Alex hangs up his jacket and helps Michael to attach them at the mantle of the fireplace.

Bonus: On Christmas morning, Alex sneaks out of the bed and shortly after Michael wakes up to the sight of the sexiest naughty elf (the mistletoe was completely unnecessary btw, Michael just wouldn’t stop kissing Alex)

who is the big spoon/little spoon: It depends. If Alex is cold (and he often is), there's no question that Michael is the big spoon. When Alex takes Michael apart tho, it's him who'll spoon up behind Michael afterwards to keep him safe until Michael returns to earth.

who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports: Alex is extremely competitive when they are playing charades with their circle of friends. Neither of the aliens are allowed to mark their partners with a hand print before so they won't cheat via that connection, which makes Alex is even more eager to win ‘naturally’ (they often do, they are just so in tune).

Michael's pretty competitive from the sidelines of their one daughter's softball games, and there's one memorable incident where Michael disagrees with a referee at their other daughter's soccer match. Their son isn't too fond of sports, much to Michael's dismay. "Dad, Mara and Nova are your sports buddies, I'm Papa's coding buddy." Michael smiles and ruffles his son's curly hair. "I know, nugget, your Papa loves to code with you." "Daaaad, stop calling me nugget." "Alright, nugget."

who starts the most arguments: they don’t really argue anymore. They'll have minor disagreements like any couple, but a short and mature discussion will sort things out quickly, otherwise they are on the same page.

who suggests that they buy a pet: when Michael learns about Mimi's prediction, he comes home with the most adorable beagle puppy the next day.

what couple traditions they have: they are not big on commercialized traditions like Valentine's Day, they prefer to do other things. The most important rule for them is: never leave or go to bed if either of them is mad/upset about something. They’ll talk it out and won’t part/fall asleep without an ‘I love you’. Apart from texting, they also love to hide little hand written love notes for the other to find (shirt pockets, wallet, etc)

what tv shows they watch together: they don't watch that much TV tbh. They tried to watch the most obvious show together (X-Files), but it didn't really click. Upon scrolling through Netflix one day, Michael mentions that he's never seen Star Trek or Stargate, and they enjoy watching every iteration of these shows immensely. Even though Michael sometimes does get riled up about technical specifics his scientist's brain just won't allow him to let slide. “It’s sci-fi and I’ll cut them some slack, but this is ridiculous.” Alex can’t help but laugh and kiss Michael silly until he forgets what he was mad about just a minute ago.

what other couple they hang out with: When Jenna returns to Roswell, her and Kyle get together and they like to spend time with them a lot. There are also family gatherings where they see Max and Liz with their kids, and they have a standing invitation for Sunday bbqs at Isobel and Maria’s place.

how they spend time together as a couple: when they get together for good, they first go on a long road trip across the US. Michael's never really left New Mexico and it makes Alex so happy to see Michael visit places he’s only known from pictures win wide-eyed wonder. Apart from traveling, they enjoy star-gazing in the desert, making music together (Alex sings, Michael plays guitar) and once they have kids, they are the most devoted dads who just LOVE spending time with their little ones.

who made the first move: Alex, it took Michael a moment to catch up. 💕

who brings flowers home: neither, they prefer to look at the flowers growing in their garden.

who is the best cook: they are both decent cooks who can do basic stuff. When Michael builds an annex to expand the cabin, they get a bigger kitchen. When the kids are old enough to help, they enjoy cooking meals as a family. And there’s of course The Great Guerin Bakeoff each year prior to Christmas.

[boldlygowriting]

Book Review #1: Aurora Rising

Aurora Rising published in April of 2019 is the first book in the Aurora Cycle series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff is a sci-fi adventure. The second book of the series is set to be published in 2020.  Kristoff describes the book as a “Breakfast Club meets Guardians of the Galaxy YA sci-fi, action, adventure thing.”

Synopsis: The story starts with Aurora Academy Goldenboy, Tyler Jones, the day before the Draft. Since our best boy is well...best boy at this space-bound military academy, he gets first pick of his future space crew. Or he would’ve if he hadn’t gone out in space to calm his nerves and ended up rescuing a girl named Aurora who’s been cryogenically frozen for over 200 years. 

Bestboy Jones misses the Draft and ends up with whoever is left over ie. the people no one wants.  A space elf with anger management issues, a socially inept, trigger happy genius, and an alien techwiz with a physical disability who doesn’t know how to shut up--known as Kal, Zila and Finian respectively. 

Bestboy Jones also has his twin sister, Scarlet, and his best friend, Cat, who definitely doesn’t have a crush on him. (Books words, not mine, okay). Who are also especially good at their respective jobs as diplomat and pilot. 

Aurora sneaks aboard their ship during their first mission, murders and a cryptic message from the higher-ups set them up for a journey across the galaxy. The fate of Aurora and the rest of the worlds now in their quirky, all-to-capable hands. 

A lot is going on with this book and this is my first book review in this format so bear with me. 

The Pros

It’s fun. This book is really fun. Like watching Guardians of the Galaxy, you can have a good, pretty stress-free read of this book with little trouble. While reading this I found myself enjoying the adventure aspect of it, and I think they do it really well. 

Easy to follow. The book is action-packed that’s more interested in what’s happening than explaining all of the confusing lore that some sci-fi and fantasy novels can fall into. It’s not bogged down by a lot of space jargon and takes the time to explain the parts that a reader wouldn’t immediately understand. I appreciated that it kept things simple. 

Diversity*. Kristoff assured there would be diversity race-wise and in sexual orientation. Which is true. Aurora is half-Irish and half-Asian, Zila is black, and Finian has a physical disability and is either bisexual or pansexual (I’m not exactly sure. I mean, he is an alien so like I don’t know...look, all I know is I’m bi and black, I’ll take the representation where I can get it.).

The humor*. Think about it, 7 eighteen-year-olds stuck on a spaceship together. It’d be impossible for there not to be humor and banter between them. Not all the jokes land and there’s more than enough of nudging and winking in the prose, but there are definitely some chuckle-worthy moments. They also use humor really well when it comes to breaking up tense and heavy moments even if they don’t entirely land. 

The romantic subplot. I can’t say who obviously, but they’re pretty cute together. It was cliche, but, I think that by the end it was genuinely sweet and I appreciated the way they went about it by the end. It’ll definitely be expanded on in the following books and that’s what I like the most because it really is a subplot and they’re taking their time with it like a realistic crush turn relationship.

There are some things genuinely done well in this book that made me almost enjoy it, but for every action, there’s an opposite action. Starting off the Cons is my biggest issue with this book. 

The Cons 

The characters. I’m sure you could tell by my cheeky synopsis, I’m not exactly a huge fan of all the characters. In fact, I downright hated one. (Despite calling Tyler  Bestboy all the time, no, it was not him. I just wanted to clarify that).

I could honestly break down every character and talk about why I did or didn’t like them, but I think that’s getting too far into biased opinion. However, even for the ones I did like, they were still flawed...and not in the fun way. 

The characters are a huge weak point, part of that reason is that they’re all pretty flat. Flat, in this case, doesn’t exactly mean boring. A flat character is one that stays relatively the same from the beginning of the book to the end, and all seven of the protagonists are pretty flat. Even if it’s the first book of the series, knowing there’s time to develop characters, all seven protagonists shouldn’t be relatively the same by the end. 

There’s a lot of potential in most of them, but the time for their development is often rushed by and cut off by action. There are some real, genuine moments, but they mean very little in the overall scheme of things, especially when the team that’s supposed to be a group of misfits never feels like a group of misfits. 

The team is played up as a group of outcasts (or half outcasts), but they never feel like it. Both those movies the author compared the book to have a moment where they genuinely bond. There’s no point where the squad bond as a group beyond a few shared chuckles in between intense moments.

The skirmishes and arguments between them don’t really go anywhere and no one’s feelings are genuinely hurt for longer than a few pages, so when they already work pretty well together, I barely noticed any changes in their dynamic. I hope in the future books the authors expand on the group dynamic and the characters themselves because they could be really interesting, if I’m honest. 

Most of them had a glimmer of something, but a glimmer wasn’t enough to keep me from realizing they’re just semi-archetypal shells. 

This is a side note: this book switches the POV between the seven characters, and honestly, you can’t really tell much of a difference between who’s speaking. If switching POVs is not your bag, I wouldn’t recommend this book for you.

The humor. You know, it’s not so much the humor itself that’s a problem. The humor itself s pretty juvenile, but they’re 18 years old and I have a filthy, sarcastic mind so if you can stand a million sex jokes you’ll be fine. If not then you’re probably not gonna laugh much. The problem with the humor comes in the writing. There’s a lot of ‘winking and nudging’ involved. Finian (alien/techwiz/ can’t shut up), delivers a good portion of the jokes and after he says something, either he, the narrator or another character will comment on it. 

I once read when it comes to comedy, a joke isn’t funny if you have to draw attention to it. And if this is your kind of humor it is funny, but a lot of jokes aren’t allowed to stand on their own...making them, well, not funny. 

The plot and pacing. I’m not going to write a whole lot about the plot, partially to avoid spoilers. Tthe more I think about this book, the more I realize it’s a straighforward space adventure. The plot is simple because the adventure is what matters, but the fast pace of the book, while engaging, doesn’t spend a lot of time on it. One thing happens, then the next thing happens, and so on. 

At one point, I almost got the sense that quiet moments couldn’t last too long without another plot piece falling into place or something terrible would happen. The squad never flounders long despite how often they talk about how in over their head they are and how dangerous everything is. 

That might be a whole other gripe, but oh well. 

I said it was fun and it was easy to follow, but that’s probably because everything happens so quickly you aren’t allowed to think for very long. 

The pacing and plot go hand-in-hand because one bowls over the other and you get what I call the ‘you can infere events.’ 

These are events that you can infere obviously. In this case, they acquire a lot of items without actually showing how. I’m all for getting to the good stuff, but slowing down to show some things could’ve been a chance to expand on things like worldbuilding and the characters.

The worldbuilding. We’re getting into the minor stuff now if I’m being honest, but it’s a sci-fi story so I felt I couldn’t not write about the worldbuilding, which is a little lackluster. I’m pretty sure one of the planets is a Valerian rip-off. (I know that was harsh). 

Diversity. I debated talking about this too. I don’t know anything about the authors but I know readers say they’ve been inclusive in the past. I think they were here too, and maybe I’m spoiled or asking for too much, but I have to get some things off my chest.

First, Zila. 

I went back and forth on this a lot, but she kind of suffers from Princess and the Frog syndrome. Essentially, she’s a POC or LGBTQ+ character who is put into the story, but they either a.) don’t matter too much to the story or b.) are basically invisible. 

I went back and forth on this because Zila is quiet. She doesn’t speak a lot, she’s an observer. Sometimes I forgot she was in the book. I think having her be quiet and observant works in other character’s POV because no one really understands her. In her own POV it should be a different story. 

They opened that door so I have to comment on it. The chapters in her POV are significantly shorter than every other character. If her thoughts aren’t necessary to the story, why have them in there? It felt like she was there because they needed another warm body to advance the plot. I hope in book 2 she gets more than what she got. 

Second, the representation. Period. 

Tyler, Scarlet and Cat are the three members of the squad that stick together because they have a close bond. They’re not the misfits in this group. They’re also all white and presumably heterosexual as of this book. Zila, Finian and Kal are the outcasts of the group. Having the black girl, non-heterosexual alien with a physical disability, and the space elf with anger managment issues be the weirdos that the golden trio are saddled with doesn’t exactly read well on paper (pun intended). 

Third, queerbaiting? 

Don’t get your hopes up, I didn’t add the question mark because I think this might change. I added it as a Disclaimer: I’m not the authority on all things rainbow and beyond. Very few things raise my hackles when it comes to media and represenation even though there’s a lot that probably should. 

That being said, this might jimmy some people’s johns so I thought I might as well mention it.

We’ve all heard the “why don’t you two just kiss and get it over with line,” (yes, the book uses this line) and I’m kind of over it unless it actually ends in a relationship. Just a warning there kiss between two people of the same gender, and that line was directed at them but I can assure you it’s not going anywhere, it was a one off, and it wasn’t serious. After so much BS from other books, movies and TV shows, I know that’s enough to piss some people off, and if I mentioned Zila and the representation, I had to mention this.

That was weird. So much time is spent making sure you know how attractive every single main character is. Like...a lot. I was genuinely wondering if this would end with some kind of orgy thing. No matter what POV it’s in everyone was drop dead gorgeous with killer dimples and voices like melted chocolate and luxurious push-up bras. 

Consensus:  

I found this book on the 7th floor of my university library. Why they have a random YA space romp from 2019 up there, who knows? The important question is: Do I regret picking it up? 

Well…No and yes. 

Let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t shell out the $18.99 plus tax for it. (I’m a broke college student, okay? I get anxious spending $15) 

Like I said, I had fun reading this. I laughed. It had me turning pages faster than Aurora can say “Holy cake!”However, this book isn’t clever and it doesn’t have a whole lot of heart, not all books do, but to be a space adventure with misfit characters...if you want to keep people engaged, maybe it should? 

Everything is sacrificed for the execution of this quick-paced, adventurous romp. The worldbuilding and lore, the characters, the plot, everything. All of it was obliterated for something quick and momentarily entertaining. 

If a quick, substanceless adventure is what you’re looking for (and there’s nothing wrong with that, not every book has to be a nail-biting, bloodbath), you’ll definitely find it in this book.

If you’re looking for a book that’s going to affect you and make you feel like you’re part of “the squad,” you should probably look elsewhere. 

TLDR: 

Pros:

It’s fun

Easy to follow

The humor*

The diversity*

The romantic subplot

Cons: 

The characters

The plot and pacing 

The worldbuilding 

The humor* 

The diversity*

Overall rating: 5.5/10. 

[blindestspot]

No Bastard Ever Won a War by Dying for His Country

Over the past year I've gotten a lot of asks about Jon and what I think is going on with him. During that time I've also managed to calm down about the inconsistent number of redshirts during the Wight Hunt. Yes, I remember that this was a thing that happened, along with a bunch of other dei ex machina, like Cersei's brilliant strategies for everything, Jon's repeated, increasingly dumb survivals and the whole Winterfell plot.

But calming down about them meant that I could think about Game of Thrones again in a manner that kind of naively assumes that the work is coherent . That 2+2=4, not 5, or orange, or a tiger. And this is what I think is going on with Jon and why it is so crucial to the whole work.

George R.R. Martin once said that A Song of Ice and Fire is supposed to have a bittersweet ending. Now that phrase covers a lot of ground. A bittersweet ending might be just ASOIAF's Scouring of the Shire (which at this stage is assured) and a few good guys passing into the Great Beyond (also nearly certain) – which would be a copy of Lord of the Rings.

A bittersweet ending might also be Davos, Brienne and Sam emerging alone from the rubble like the unhappy winners of a Battle Royale. A few good guys surviving would technically make the ending not a complete downer and thus "bittersweet".

However, a more nuanced look at a bittersweet ending should look beyond mere survival and destruction but at an ending that irrevocably changes the characters and how and what we think of them.

An issue that strikes readers as unrealistic about Lord of the Rings is  that a lot of its human and hobbit-y heroes move on from the events of the story into psychologically very ordinary, uncomplicated lives that they would have lead even without the events of the story. Sam, Merry, Pippin's (and to a lesser degree Faramir, Aragorn and Eowyn's) easy passing into normalcy feels vaguely hollow.

If GRRM really plans to have a realistic take on Lord of the Rings and its "bittersweet" ending (and with his complaints about Aragorn's tax policy it appears that this is a crucial element of ASOIAF), then obviously he is going to continue what he has been doing all along and create an interplay between narrative events and characterization. Take Arya, for example. In the early parts of AGoT she would have not wanted to become a Faceless Man – for obvious reasons. But Arya from a few books later, after events have matured and traumatized her, wants to become one. And that choice will again impact her characterization and that will in turn impact future events. 
It is logical that this interplay will continue right up until the end. So speculation has to take into account that these characters are dynamic and can be pushed by events into new directions. And not just "can" – but will be.

The question is not who will be alive to experience the Scoured Shire but who they will be at this point. And that change shouldn't just be cosmetic or physical, it needs to be psychological, visible, noticeable and profound. We shouldn't get an Aragorn who just walks into a kingship after a two battles, marries the cute elf girl and then doesn't have a tax plan.

And obviously, I am not talking about Gilly. I am very much talking about ASOIAF's Aragorn. I am talking about Jon.

...

Now here is a hypothetical scenario for Season 8: Jon with the help of Dany and her dragons (and, to paraphrase Roger Ebert, the usual stock characters who fight every fictional war for us, even those in space), fight the White Walkers, win, then fight Cersei, then win (the order of this is might be reversed) and then Jon's revealed to be true heir and has to rebuild Westeros.

How does any of this really change and mature Jon as a character? How does being right about everything (the White Walkers being the real threat), then leading a righteous force to victory over evil make him a realistic take on Aragorn?

It doesn't.


What Jon needs after five books and seven season of making serviceable to great, sensible, ethical, right strategic choices (with admittedly a number of great tactical errors in between) is being wrong. And not just being wrong about failing to communicate to his sworn brothers what his strategy is, not just wrong about going on that Wight Hunt, not just wrong to send Sam away, not just lightly ethically challenged for exchanging a pair of babies against one mother's will or misleading his love interest on his commitment to her political cause... but wrong in a truly profound way that the audience cannot blame on stupidity or short-sightedness.

I admit that calling it "wrong" or even "profoundly wrong" is a bit of misnomer. What I am trying to get at is the character going into a direction where the audience cannot and should not easily follow. Those actions would be too alien as might be their rationalizations. These actions should strike the audience as questionable, reprehensible, immoral, unethical, or dishonorable.

A perhaps too perfect example of such an action is Cersei firing up the Sept. It's mass murder and it's intended by her to be mass murder. If anyone in the audience found it not reprehensible and immoral, I would have some questions for these people.

But Cersei firing up the Sept was a success. Her survival was at stake - and she survived. Before her kingdom was full of powerful enemies and afterwards it wasn't. And she even snatched the Iron Throne afterwards despite having no royal Targaryen or Baratheon ancestry.

In realpolitik terms, Cersei made the "right" choice. All other choices would have lead to her death. The first rule of anything is that you cannot do anything if you're dead.

And frankly, that's a lesson Jon desperately needs to learn. His twice-tried strategy of rushing alone against an army of his enemies is idiotic. It might be honorable for a war leader to be the first person on the battlefield but it's not a winning war strategy.

It's not a nice thing to say, but it's necessary for a war time general or commander to be willing to have other people die for him and his goal. And not just for him but in front of him, literally shielding him. An army commander who isn't willing to ensure his own survival, is gambling with such terrible odds that he has already lost the war.

Cersei's strategy of killing her enemies instead of allowing herself to be killed is profoundly wrong, immoral and yet Jon needs understand that when mankind's survival are at stake an immoral action like that might be a necessary choice.

His attempt to drown in an ice lake alone is a sign that at this point he hasn't understood the necessity of being alive to lead a war at all. As George S. Patton put it: "no poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb son-of-a-bitching bastard die for his country."

Out of all our main protagonists, Jon has never been willing to play as dirty as it should be necessary for an apocalyptic fight such as his. Unlike Sansa's willingness to go along with Littlefinger's nefarious plans for her cousin in the Vale, Arya's willingness to kill potentially innocent people for the Faceless Men, Tyrion raping a prostitute and killing Shae, the torture of innocents during Dany’s Slavers’s Bay arc, Bran warging Hodor... Jon has nothing in his arc that is as dark, dishonorable or questionable as these things. Jon appears to be a character class apart, like the hero of a more classic fantasy epic.

Is this because Jon's so special that his arc is a whole different genre or is this because he hasn't leveled up in realpolitik yet?

Or is there perhaps even a third option to deal with his relative over-the-top good guy characterization?

***

You know, when it comes to stories about morality like Game of Thrones a crucial factor for their success is not just the quality of the good guys but also the quality of the villains.

And what makes a compelling villain?

IMO, they hit more than one of these characteristics:

1. They are well-rounded, fully realized characters, drawn with the same care as the heroes.

2. They are able to win against the good guys. They are not a cardboard that will be blown over once the heroes wave a magic stick or sword around.

3. Their evil deeds get an emotional reaction out of the audience. (Most audiences tend to have a vague discomfort with CGI mass carnage while reacting to a well-executed scene of high school bullying with actual empathy or even horror.)

4. Their motivations are understandable, perhaps even sympathetic. At best they are a well-intentioned extremist, utilitarianism gone wrong, rather than setting stuff on fire because their mom was mean to them once.

Now looking at this list, it becomes obvious that GOT has a problem with its current crop of villains. Any of the three that are left (Cersei, the Night King, Euron) could be the Final Boss – to use a video game term. But none of them are very compelling villains. Two of them are inhuman monsters. To call their characterization shallow would be an insult to puddles.

And Cersei, the only one with a decent characterization (and some past Mean Girls bullying sins of her own) suffers from being incredibly stupid in the books, having a prophecy running against her and stealing Aegon from Essos' story in the show. In other words, Cersei's chances of success and survival and actually making it this far in the books are as good as that of a snowflake on a hot summer's day. One suspects that she is a show-only final-ish villain, so if one looks for GRRM’s final-ish villains, they would not find Cersei.

Talking about chances of success – the Night King isn’t winning this either. Because then ASOIAF would reveal itself to be a nihilistic mess in which all the human storylines were nothing but shaggydog stories. So the Night King is  bound to melt in the summer sun along with Cersei. There is little question about it. And is Euron "was he even mentioned in the first book?" Greyjoy  really going to win the Iron Throne in the end? Is anyone taking this possibility seriously?

And what are their motivations? Ambition, being evil and being anti-human. None of them are particularly sympathetic.

In one word, GOT's current crop of villains is not particularly exciting – especially if you compare them with some of the villains that came before them. And if one of these three is the Final Boss, he or she is gonna be lame.

But a lame Final Boss is actually a great tradition in the genre. In Lord of the Rings Sauron appears to be literally two-dimensional and about as interesting as a character. (Gollum gets to be the well-written villain and he is doing very little damage to the world at large.) Voldemort in Harry Potter is completely outshone as the most despised, scary villain of the series by the one-book-wonder Dolores Umbridge who excels at committing low-key evil deeds that make every reader/viewer wince in sympathy. The Emperor in the original Star Wars trilogy is... there and then dead and has fewer fans than a one-line bounty hunter. And the same fans that endlessly shout "Han shot first", don't even appear to care that he got a complete face replacement in the Special Editions. And if there is one consistent complaint about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's that its villains tend to be boring and forgettable. Yet they're lame and forgettable to the tune of billions of box office dollars.

So a lame Final Boss for the heroes to fight... that is indeed a thing. And that might be just the thing GOT/ASOIAF is doing. This is what we have to seriously consider. We are likely to get a MCU villain... you know on the level of Ronan the Destroyer or Malekith, the Dark Elf. And you probably need to google in which movies those two turned up.

That would be a terrible let down.

Or maybe it's not actually that terrible of a thing? Because if our final boss and villain is not Cersei, the Night King, or Euron, it's a good guy gone bad. Someone who is currently fighting on the side of the living before becoming someone who needs to be fought.

It's possible that this is in the cards. After "Ozymandias", the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad, aired, GRRM wrote on his blog that "Walter White is a bigger monster than anyone in Westeros, I need to do something about that."  

The thing is that White appeared to start out as a sympathetic if flawed hero you were rooting for even as he was making meth. What made White monstrous is not doing depraved psycho shit beyond comprehension (like nailing a living, pregnant woman to a ship like Euron Greyjoy) but that he appears to evolve into this monster before the audience's eyes.

Breaking Bad tricks the audience into liking a character for much longer than he ever deserved and that becomes crystal clear in that penultimate episode. If GRRM wants a monster like White he can't use his old, repetitive trick of making a one-dimensional psychopath do depraved stuff. He has to logically progress a character we root for into a monster.

(Of course, GRRM might also not be able to pull it off, however much he wants to. It could be that he has not prepared the ground to make a main character go Walter White and thus it will always fall short of Breaking Bad's accomplishment. Sure, Greyworm or Dolorous Edd could become evil and monstrous but even GRRM should know that's not quite the same as making your main protagonist evil.

I might also be wrong on GRRM understanding what makes Walter White feel so monstrous. The first big sign that White took the road down to hell is not an act of murder or sadism but simply not helping someone who is choking to death. His monstrosity is based in a three-dimensional characterization, not in particularly outrageous acts of evil. He is monstrous because he used to be likable. If GRRM doesn't see that, he might actually think that one-dimensional psychopath Euron nailing his pregnant girlfriend to a ship is nailing the same kind of monstrosity.

He also could be talking about a plot point we now know about but that he has not published yet – like Stannis burning Shireen. So one should be careful looking for ASOIAF's Walter White.)

Interestingly enough, the trick Breaking Bad is pulling is quite old. White isn't making meth by chance, it was the worst thing his creator could think of besides him becoming an arms dealer. The twist of Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias" is actually not that White becomes bad but that he has always been bad. You'll find a similar character in Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita where his monstrosity is barely a plot twist and even Milton's Paradise Lost where it's none at all. (The trope of the protagonist being a piece of shit throughout the whole story usually goes down as "villain protagonist" and the list of stories containing one is pretty expansive.) But the plot twist of a surprise villain protagonist is such an old one that Aesop already codified it in his fable "The Farmer and the Viper" around 600 B.C. (Farmer helps harmless looking viper, then viper bites him because it's a viper. And has been a viper all along. Duh.)

Now if Dany, for example, turned into a villain then she would fall squarely into villain protagonist territory. But the fun thing is that doesn't mean that she is already one. The viper is not a villain until Aesop has it biting the farmer. If Dany decides to slaughter her future subjects by the thousands just so she can have the Iron Throne (and this is portrayed as despicable) then this will be in line with the Dany from the first season/AGoT who wanted the Dothraki to wage their type of warfare (pillaging, raping, enslaving, killing) onto thousands of her future subjects, so she could have the Iron Throne. But that doesn't mean that Dany will cross this particular moral event horizon.

Whether Dany will turn out to be a villain protagonist is not a question of foreshadowing. It's a question whether the authorial intent will will it into existence. The viper is a poisonous snake but if the author hasn't it biting the farmer, that poison doesn't matter at all.

Now Dany is a well-rounded character (same as Cersei) and might be difficult to defeat but her most likely, hypothetical, evil deed (mass carnage via dragon) is not particularly compelling and neither is ambition as her motivation. Villainous Dany is about as compelling as Cersei. Keeping Cersei for so long when there is Villainous Dany in the wings strikes me as a weak narrative choice: “Meet your new villain, same as the old villain...” The difference would be the element of surprise but that's a paltry surprise, especially since Villainous Dany was supposed to be The Big Plot Twist.

Honestly, Dany as the mass-carnage causing, ambitious type of villain is a low-hanging fruit. Call me edgy, but it's just nowhere near "Ozymandias". It's Boromir getting seduced by the Ring.

And there are not a lot of precedents for that storyline in ASOIAF. You know the story of a good guy gone beyond redemption evil. There is Theon, whose ambition, jealousy and insecurity drove him into sacking Winterfell and killing two children – but even he turned out to be not to be beyond redemption. There is Catelyn, but she goes crazy and becomes a zombie, so it's hard to compare.

But there is, of course, the most compelling, interesting and meaningful character arc of a good guy gone bad: Stannis Baratheon. But he isn’t a good precedent for a mass-carnage causing, ambitious type of villain.

***

You see, Stannis starts out as not exactly the most sympathetic character: he burns people and places of worship, he is a religious nut, he has his brother killed. But after getting defeating at the Battle of Blackwater, his arc does a 180. He gets the call from the North to save the realm, and out of all of the five Kings involved in the war of the same name, he is the only one he realizes that in order to "win the realm, you have to save the realm."

That isn't a coincidence. Stannis is also the only king who fights for a higher purpose. Joffrey, Balon, Robb, and Renly just fight for power (be it the power over all of Westeros or the power that lies in independence). Stannis is fighting not just for power but also for his religion, for his one true god; he is fighting a crusade. That out of all the kings, the king who believes that his religion will save Westeros ends up wanting to save it from a supernatural threat is not a coincidence. One thing clearly causes the other.

And once he makes this choice, Stannis, the Mannis (as he was lovingly called by his fans once upon a time) always fights the bad guys, he fights for the living. Of course, he doesn't stop being a religious nut, he doesn't stop burning people, he is inflexible in his beliefs, he still thinks he is the chosen one, he is Azor Ahai, he is the One True King, he belongs on the Iron Throne. But he is also the man who executes soldiers of his army who rape. He has good sides. But what weighs so heavily in his favor is that out of all the people in power in Westeros, he is fighting the bad guys.

And that matters – until it doesn't when Stannis strikes out to fight the Boltons. The Boltons are special because they are despicable without exceptions. Even the Freys have Robb's squire in their midst to have that one decent family member/bannerman that all of Westeros' notable houses appear to have. All but the Boltons anyway. There is not a good or decent living Bolton. They are the literal worst Westeros has to offer.

And yet, Stannis manages to cross a moral event horizon that makes everyone forget that he is doing it to fight the Worst. And that moral event horizon is not the sacking of a city, the killing of hundred of thousands. He is not extinguishing a house or a people. He manages it, doing something every single GOT character could do right now (save for little Sam.) He kills a single person.

And he doesn't come back from that. Like a proper Ozymandias, his hubris, his pretension to predestined, prophecied greatness is followed by his inevitable decline. Killing Shireen has Stannis losing his real world fans and his in-story followers, his wife, his fight, his priestess, his army, his purpose and consequently his life. He proves very quickly that not all ends justify all means. He is the living embodiment of the Friedrich Nietzsche quotation that "those who fight monsters should take care that in the process they do not become monsters themselves."  

Stannis' final turn into villainy is actually paralleled by something another character does in ASOIAF. Except he is not a character we meet; he is a story-within-a-story; a legend, a prophecy or both. He is who Stannis thought he was: he is Azor Ahai.

And Azor Ahai absolutely does what Stannis did to turn into a villain, a monster: he murders... sacrifices an innocent to forge Lightbringer to end the Long Night. The way the story gets told makes that murder necessary, but Azor Ahai as the hero and winner of the Long Night gets to tell that story, gets to tell history his way. It's a legend and of course Azor Ahai is its hero. But remember the first person who claimed that "only death can pay for life" was a liar who wanted to make sure that "The Stallion Who Mounts the World" died in the womb. (The second was Melisandre who tends to be wrong on a lot of things and whose track record on human sacrifice is abysmal.)

So there is absolutely a chance that Nissa Nissa's death was as necessary as Shireen's. We won't get the opportunity to fact-check the legend, the ancient history. But if it's a prophecy we might see its reality.

Of course, if GOT really goes the way of making a good guy go bad, then they can do this the middling way, the mediocre way. Theon's Sack of Winterfell Redux or Catelyn's descent into madness and murder. Or by making Dany a villain protagonist who is basically just another Cersei with dragons. And despite not quite measuring up to Stannis' dark turn – ambition, grief, fear, insecurity, jealousy, vanity, or disappointment leading to mass carnage delivered onto a hundred-thousand computer-generated extras is still more interesting than the Night King Sauron with his ice dragon.

But the reality is that we don't care about the 100,000 inhabitants of King's Landing. We will cry over a single Hot Pie before ever giving a fuck about a massive number of fictional people without any characteristics. Mass carnage is easy to oppose morally because it's something we oppose in real life but emotionally there is no difference between 10 fictional people or a billion fictional people – if they are simply there to be nameless, featureless cannon fodder. The ability to cause mass carnage doesn't make you the most emotionally effective villain by default. Quite the opposite.

If Bran were to warg a dragon and set King's Landing on fire, we would get that this whole Three-Eyed Raven thing didn't work out well for his ethics and be, like, "okay". If Bran set fire to Arya, he would immediately become the most hated character ever on GOT. (And that isn't an exaggeration for effect). And any good intentions regarding defeating evil would matter as much as the fight against the Boltons did once Shireen started screaming.

I would like to add that Stannis died pretty much immediately after killing Shireen, blown over like a cardboard once Brienne showed up. But who would defeat or want to defeat a Stannis, an Azor Ahai who succeeded at ending the Long Night?

The ultimate story subversion when it comes to the classic "good vs. evil" plot is that the bad guy wins.

And wouldn't that be something if it was surprise villain protagonist? We get someone winning that we would have been okay with winning until they turned into GOT's least liked character? Wouldn't that be bittersweet? Getting who you were okay with, perhaps even wanted on the Iron Throne, who might even know which is the right tax plan and what to do with baby orcs...  except they suck now?

Now who could that true Azor Ahai possibly be?

Is there someone who has been fighting monsters longer than anyone else has? Who has been so corrupted by that fight that he has tried and sacrificed already everything he could and had to defeat them? A man on quasi-religious crusade? A man who has the sort of righteous hubris and single-minded focus on the White Walkers that makes him often deaf to good advice? Who who has already laid down his life for a chance... and even a "no-chance-at-all-now-let-me-drown-in-an-ice-lake" at defeating the Night King? Is this possibly the same guy who we think is going to be crucial to the defeat of the White Walkers?  The one who has the perfect bloodline to claim the Iron Throne in the end? The one who is shown to Melisandre when she looks for her prophecied chosen one in the fire? The one who appears to be the straight hero of the story, the Luke Skywalker, the only major character where pulling a Stannis would actually shock us?  The one who has never been "profoundly wrong"?

I am not saying, we are getting "Aegon, the Worst of His Name". I am saying that if I wanted to create a villain who subverts all expectations while fulfilling them, a villain who is truly compelling and whose turn emotionally wrecks the audience, I would not make it happen by having Daenerys or Bran roast King's Landing. I simply would choose a more likable and successful version of Stannis and have him doing something terrible, wrongfully believing it's the right thing to do.

Now theoretically this could be anyone but little Sam. And regardless of that character's identity, they would be a great, compelling villain. Practically though, the best candidate for going off that particular deep end is not some random second tier character. And it's not Daenerys "What Even Are White Walkers?" or Bran "I'm a robotic, omniscient plot device now the Three-Eyed Raven now" Stark either.

It's Jon.

***

There is an issue with this though. Stannis murdering a family member/sacrificing a child for their royal blood to win a battle was simply a continuation of Stannis' previous actions. Stannis had no issue with his wife's uncle being burned as a sacrifice to R'hllor, had his brother murdered to win a battle, and attempted to have his underage nephew (Edric Storm in the books, Gendry in the show) sacrificed for his royal blood.

Killing Shireen is Stannis taking this to its logical extreme. Everything he does is simply something he has done before. Except this time the audience isn't given an out: Shireen doesn't escape like Edric/Gendry, we care for her (unlike Alester Florent) and she isn't Stannis' opponent in battle (Renly).

What Stannis is doing, is not surprising or entirely unprecedented. It is ultimately just a darker twist on something he has done before. Which is weird because you would think that something that crosses a moral event horizon would be a real departure from his previous actions. But it's not and that is really crucial if we want to discuss Stannis 2.0.

If a good character goes bad then having them simply do something they've done before –  except this time it's just too much – makes sense. Just like the road to hell is paved with good intentions, escalating villainy should be a slippery slope of ever indefensible bad deeds.

And this is why it makes no sense to look at Jon and wonder who he is going to burn at the stake for R'hllor – because he won't.  What he would do to incur the audience's disdain needs to be something he has kind of done before. And that he has done on the show before, because it stands to reason that the show would want to keep its foreshadowing. (Hence Gendry's slightly pointless kidnapping by Melisandre in the show.)

So the the baby swap is out since it didn't happen on the show. Breaking a vow is a bit too generic and on its lonesome will not evoke any emotional reaction. And making high-handed, impulsive decisions that end up with terrible consequences has been already done with Jon making a series of high-handed, badly thought through decisions that netted the Night King a dragon and destroyed the Wall and yet netted Jon no audience disdain at all. So probably not that one either.

That leaves his relationship with Ygritte. In the books, we only see this relationship from Jon's point of view with all his justifications and inner struggles and his self-knowledge that while he lies about his allegiance to the Wildlings' cause, his feelings for Ygritte are real.

Now if one imagines that relationship from Ygritte's point of view (as she is in the books), Jon would come out of that as a supreme douchebag. He lead her on, lied to her, pretended to have feelings for her, then left her, publicly humiliated her and finally participated in a battle with her on the other side. Jon doesn't kill her but he is willing to do so by fighting her.

Now a real neutral point of view that doesn't vilify Ygritte to prop up Jon as a cool dude (as the show has done with her allying herself with cannibals and the village massacre), would be more of a wash, ethically speaking. Jon lies to Ygritte but his life is at stake and it wasn't even his own idea in the first place. There are consent issues with their relationship and Ygritte is as willing to kill Jon when she participates in that battle as it's the case the other way around.

But then Stannis wasn't that unjustified to go after Renly who was willing to fight and kill him in battle after all. Killing Renly nearly rates as self-defense. And Edric Storm got away. The question is not how horrible Jon's actions towards Ygritte were. But rather what the escalation of that sort of overall action would be like.

Now due to time constraints the only relationship where Jon could pull an escalated "Ygritte" is his relationship with Daenerys. And here I am kind of puzzled by the discourse around the idea. Because as passionately as people argue about it, they actually agree quite fundamentally: that Jon is doing it/not doing because he is the quintessential good guy.

That he either betrays his lover or the plutocratic will of his nation is disregarded as some sort of higher purpose collateral that doesn't at all reflect on his moral character.

But isn't Occam's Razor to the question of how a "good guy" manages to betray either lover or nation simply to question the "good guy" part?

But let's step back a bit. The theory that Jon is playing Dany proposes that Jon initiates this emotional manipulation because she wonders aloud about two things (while he wants her commitment on the fight against the White Walkers): 1. Her ability to achieve her overall strategic goal of winning the Iron Throne 2. What happens to her rear if she pulls all of her forces north.

Now, Jon never actually answers any of these questions (or any questions on how to get the Northern Lords to remain loyal to him and Dany) and that is a bit problematic. Because the second question of what happens in a war if you leave one side open to your enemies is an enormously important one.

What Jon appears to do, is rely on a truism about the North: that it cannot be conquered in Winter (and Winter is here.)

*beleaguered sigh*

This truism exists in our world about two countries. One is considered unconquerable in Winter, the other unconquerable in general. And while these truisms have held true for few centuries now, the reality is that attempts to conquer them have devastated both countries on more than one occasion to the sound of millions of dead inhabitants and bombing it to the bottom of the HDI.

If Jon relies on Winter to protect him and his allies from Cersei, he is an idiot. If Cersei attacks the unprotected North from the South, his ability to fight the White Walkers will be profoundly diminished even if Cersei fails at conquering the North itself. Dany is right to ask this question and he is wrong to ignore it.

And if that theory pans out and Jon took these strategic, legitimate concerns as a sign that he needs to loverboy it up instead of thinking how to protect the North from the South, then that's next level mansplaining.

But forget that point for a bit and go back to the situation in which Jon supposedly initiates it. He is recovering after the Wight Hunt and Dany swears to avenge her dragon while musing on her overall strategy of winning Westeros. And while Jon isn't in good shape, he is not in mortal danger. Not in general, not specifically by Dany. She is letting her hair down and she's pledging her support to his cause.

Jon's life is not the least on the line and the question whether Dany would or would not have pulled out of the war against the White Walkers if Jon hadn't started flirting with her in that moment is an unanswerable hypothetical. No matter how you slice or dice it, it's not certain at all (not to the audience, not to Jon) that she would have pulled out.

So Jon had three choices in this moment: not initiate a romantic relationship with Dany, initiate a romantic relationship out of genuine feeling, initiate a romantic relationship to manipulate her.

None of these choices would spell certain doom. It's not at all like the relationship with Ygritte, where not going along with it would have blown his cover and cost his life. It's also distinct from that situation insofar as he didn't choose to go undercover with the Wildlings in the first place but was commanded into the situation by his superior officer.

If Jon initiated the relationship to manipulate Dany, he chose to do this voluntarily without true necessity. It's, in fact, as necessary as Littlefinger manipulating Lysa into intrigue, murder and ill-fated marriage was. Of course, without that manipulation Littlefinger would have never advanced at court and become Master of the Coin, Lord of Harrenhall and Sweetrobin's guardian. But none of these things were necessary to grant his survival at any time.

The key difference between Jon and Littlefinger is that Jon allies himself with Dany to ensure mankind's survival instead of personal gain. But on the balance, another difference between Littlefinger and Jon's situation is that the romantic relationship wasn't necessary to ensure Dany's support. In fact, even the idea that Dany's concerns are sign of her wavering in her commitment is a minority if not fringe opinion among GOT's audience.

And that makes the idea of Jon manipulating Dany very unpalatable. The lack of necessity makes him a Littlefinger, rather than a Robb or a Ned or even the Jon who lied to Ygritte. And audiences prefer to see their heroes as honorable fools rather than manipulative, emotionally abusive jerks.

Because there is the heart of the problem. If Jon is truly manipulating Dany, he is an emotionally abusive jerk. He is profoundly wrong. He is the guy that your BFF has warned you about. "He is just using you for [something.]"

And that hits home in a way shadowbabies and Frey Pies and Qyburn doesn't. We don't know any necromancers who vivisect people. But we know the kind of jerk that Jon would be. It's not theoretical, it's something we know and because of that will not appreciate.

***

But while this absolutely checks off “make the evil deed painful to the audience” point in the “compelling villain” check list, it’s still nowhere near as ethically questionable as Stannis burning Shireen.

But Jon's Ygritte storyline doesn't end with him duping, betraying and leaving her. It ends with her getting killed. And not just killed, but killed in battle against Jon and his brothers. While Jon is not directly responsible for her death – he neither instigated nor executed the killing – he was willing to risk that his actions would kill her in that battle. The goal of a battle is to win and to use the Patton quote from above "make the other bastard die for his country." Of course, Jon acted in self-defense, Ygritte was fighting that battle against him and the NW voluntarily, fully willing, ready and able to kill him.

But then, to go back to Stannis, Stannis was also just acting in self-defense when he send the shadowbaby assassin to kill Renly. Renly had the superior force and showed himself fully willing, ready and able to kill Stannis in battle. The question whether Stannis' assassination of Renly is justified is a digression too far because that is not the point. The point is that Jon and Stannis got some person killed who was really close to them (brother, lover) and that was kind of, maybe, perhaps justified self-defense. You can argue for it in both cases.

However, as I mentioned before, Stannis' ultimate escalation of Renly's murder is killing Shireen. There is no maybe, perhaps, kind of, about the lack of justification for it. Stannis did not act in self-defense, Stannis was not provoked. The true necessity was also absent... although the proof for that is just hindsight. The sacrifice was supposed to save Stannis and his army. It did not. Thus it was never necessary. The whole thing is just wholly indefensible.

Now would an escalation of Jon's Ygritte storyline limit itself to the affair and betrayal or would it go all the way down to that self-defensive arrow that Jon wasn't directly responsible for? Except for a Stannis-like escalation that arrow could not be self-defensive, it would have to be undeserved, unjustified, unnecessary and Jon's responsibility.

The audience doesn't even have to like Dany at that point. That would be just crossing all moral event horizons, turning Jon into a villain and serving a "King Arthur Aragorn Jon  Snow is the final villain" plot twist that makes R+L=J look like child's play in comparison. It would be truly an epic twist, ending up in the plot twist pantheon next to "Bruce is a ghost" and "Soylent Green".

However, I don't think this is gonna happen. A villain protagonist on that level would have been foreshadowed much, much more, both in the books and the show. "The villain wins" is also really nihilistic and ends up on a quite bitter note with very little sweetness. Davos, Brienne and Sam emerging alone from the rubble would be a more positive and happier ending. It's also the sort of plot twist you think of five books and seven TV seasons later (too late), not when you conceive the story.

So what will happen to Jon instead if he doesn't become a villain?

There are really only two options: his characterization remains in a class of its own and he remains the only truly good guy protagonist or he takes a level in realpolitik and starts to play as dirty as necessary in whatever way. Not quite Jon, the villain but Jon the ethically challenged, Jon the Utilitarian.

(By the way, I am not saying that he has to play dirty with specific characters to qualify, just that that he has to play dirty somehow. In fact, playing dirty with certain characters might evoke a negative, emotional audience reaction that is not in proportion to the ethics violation it presents and thus the whole Utilitarianism bit might accidentally devolve into perceived villainy.)

The really fascinating bit about this is that Jon's characterization will define ASOIAF quite significantly. Jon is so crucial to the story's most fundamental conflict, that even if you discard the idea that he is The Protagonist, you would still have to agree that he is one of the most important protagonists. His characterization will contribute and lead to the resolution of that conflict. If he resolves it by playing dirty, the moral of the story will quite different than it is if he resolves it by always taking the heroic, high road.

And it's not just the moral of the story. Once the story decides to land on "Jon, the moral" or "Jon, the Utilitarian", the question whether we are consuming "Lord of the Rings with boobs" or a true deconstruction of Lord of the Rings will answer itself. And that will reflect on more than just Jon's storyline. If Jon stays heroic, Night King Sauron, our final, two-dimensional villain and other neat and flat resolutions become much more likely.

As such I would argue that the Jon’s characterization will define how good ASOIAF's famed realism truly is, what ideals it propagates, and what kind of story ASOIAF is.

I honestly can't predict how this will play out. But I remember that Ned and the Red Wedding promised a deconstruction of the genre, an acknowledgement that taking the high road constantly can be a dead end in real life. Jon not needing to be smarter than them in the end would break that promise.

[chojin-cu-chulain]

Power Rangers Dino summary

Caution this contains spoilers Synopsis: 10,000,000 years ago a powerful, and evil sorceress known as Rita Repulsa sought to destroy the Earth, and it's inhabitants with her army of evil magical creatures. But a kind, and wise wizard known as Zordon recruited the bravest, and most powerful knights of the dinosaur worshiping tribes of Atlantis, and made them his newest team of Power Rangers intergalactic knights who used magic, and technology to fight evil. Zordon's Rangers were able to defeat Rita, and her minions, and seal them away into dumpster like space prison but it was too late. The Rangers had given their lives to defeat Rita, Zordon had been banished to another dimension forever, and Rita had succeeded in destroying the dinosaurs, mystical creatures, and Atlantis. Now in modern times two NASADA astronauts accidentally release Rita, and her minions from their prison causing them to restart their mad crusade to conquer, and destroy Earth. Zordon, and his multifunctional automaton companion Alpha seek out the descendants of their previous team of Rangers, and find them in the form of five seemingly ordinary teenagers named Jason, Zack, Billy, Trini, and Kimberly. Initially reluctant the five friends take up the mantle of their ancestors to protect their town of Angel Grove, and the world from Rita's evil monsters but will their greatest challenge come from one of their own or will he be the key to fulfilling Zordon's prophecy of putting an end to Rita's evil ways. Rangers: Jason Scott Ranger form: Red Tyranno Ranger Weapon: Power Sword, later Dragon Dagger Zord: Tyrannosaurs Age: 16 Bio: A skilled martial artist, and a star athlete Jason greatest strength isn't just his physical strength but his courage, and his determination to never give up even if all hope seems lost. He is the leader of the team, and does his best to lead his team to victory against Rita's minions. Zack Taylor Ranger form: Black Mastodon Ranger Weapon: Power Axe Zord: Mastodon Age: 16 Bio: Zack is the resident cool kid of the team he is interested in music, and dance, and is a master of hip hop kido. He is freaked out by reptiles, and bugs, and has a crush on a girl named Angela. He is also initially skeptical of all the situations involving aliens, and mystical beings but ultimately his desire to do what's right wins out. Billy Cranston Ranger form: Blue Tricera Ranger Weapon: Power Lance Zord: Triceratops Age 16 Bio: Billy is the smartest member of the team. When he first meets Zordon, and Alpha he is fascinated by their advanced alien technology, and seeks to learn all he can about it. He is also busy making new inventions for the team. He is initially socially awkward and shy but eventually finds a girlfriend name Margret. Trini Kwan Ranger form: Yellow Sabertooth Tiger Ranger Weapon: Power Daggers Zord: Saberthooth Tiger Age: 16 Bio: Like Jason she is a skilled martial artist, and is intelligent like Billy because she follows her families tradition of finding balance between the mind, and body. she loves nature, and the environment. Her biggest concern is proving herself to her uncle Tao. Kimberly Hart Ranger form: Pink Ptero Ranger Weapon: Power Bow Zord: Pterodactyl Age: 16 Bio: Kimberly is the most popular girl in school, and a champion gymnast. She comes from a wealthy family but doesn't let it go to her head. she also loves fashion, and other feminine pursuits. She later dates Tommy. Tommy Oliver Ranger form: Green Dragon Ranger Weapon: Dragon Dagger Zord: Dragonzord Age: 17 Bio: An old friend of the Rangers due to being friends with Jason's cousin Kailtin, and living with Trini's uncle Tao Tommy moves to Angel Grove following an inter city martial arts tournament. Like Jason, and Trini he is a skilled martial artist. When he finds out he is destined to be the Green Ranger from Nemo he jumps at the chance unaware that it puts him under Rita's control. Once freed he uses his new powers to help his friends protect the Earth. He later starts dating Kimberly. Allies: Zordon of Eltar Age: 30,000,000(60 in Eltarian) Bio: A kind, and wise wizard from the planet Eltar he founded an ancient order of intergalactic knights called the Power Rangers who used magic, and technology to protect the universe from evil, and came to Earth long ago to recruit it's bravest warriors to be his new team of Rangers. He was banished to a time warp by Rita 10,000,000 years ago but was quickly found by Alpha. He gives the new Rangers advice on how to stop Rita's plans, and explains what happened millions of years ago but keeps some secrets from the Rangers that eventually come to light. Alpha 5 Age: 10,000,000(acts 12) Bio: Zordon's multifunctional robotic companion Alpha helps run the Command Center for Zordon while he's trapped in the time warp. When he meets the new Rangers he becomes interested in aspects of modern Earth life from Billy, and Zack. Sometimes his misunderstanding of modern Earth customs gets him into ridiculous situations. Quagmire Age:30,000,000(looks 30) Bio: An elf the Rangers first meet when trying to find the power weapons he initially mistakes them for Rita's minions but later helps them such as when Tommy was under Rita's control or when Mutitis almost destroyed the Zords. He speaks in rhymes, and has a son named Nemo, and a wife named Millenia. Nemo Age: 10,000,000(looks 10) Bio: Quagmire's son who was the keeper of the Green Dragon coin who sought to give it to Tommy unaware it would put him under Rita's control. He then tries to help his father, and the Rangers at various points. Millenia Age:30,000,000(looks 30) Bio: Quagmire's wife a good sorceress who was lost on the Island of Illusion 10,000,000 years ago trying to keep Titanus the carrierzord out of Rita's hands. Because she has been trapped on the Island of Illusion for so long the only way to free her is if one of the Rangers sacrifices their powers. She helps the Rangers find Titanus, and later tries to help the Rangers save Tommy's powers. Villains Rita Repulsa Age: 10,000,000(looks 50) Bio: An evil and powerful sorceress who destroyed the dinosaurs, Atlants, and mystical beings millions of years ago with her army of evil mystical creatures. She constantly lashes out at her minions when they botch her plans, and has a sadistic sense of humor. She particularly hates children, and will go out of her way to target them. Goldar Age: Unknown Bio: Rita's second and command, and her most powerful minion Goldar an armored griffon loves combat, and would like nothing more to crush the rangers. He also has a wife named Scorpina who returns around the time Tommy is under Rita's control Finster Age: Unknown Bio: Rita's monster maker. Considering himself the greatest artist in the universe he enjoys creating Rita's monsters from putty, and later super putty. Not as vicious and angry as Goldar or Rita but more intelligent than Squat, and Baboo. Squat, and Babboo Ages: Unknown Bio: Rita's two bumbling henchmen she has them go to Earth to carry out plans to ensure the Rangers can't defeat her monsters but often end up getting themselves in trouble, and taking the brunt of Rita's anger. Scorpina Age: Unknown Bio: Goldar's wife, and the only one of her minions who wasn't trapped in the space prison 10,000,000 years ago she later returns when Tommy is under Rita's control. Like Goldar she is one of Rita's most powerful minions, and can easily challenge the Rangers. Lord Zedd Age:10,000,000(looks 50) Bio: Once the most bravest, and powerful of Zordon's Rangers Lord Zedd was the previous Green Dragon Ranger until he turned evil, and joined Rita. He was thought destroyed but fled into the dark galaxies where he amassed so much dark magic he became a being made of dark magic himself he can enhance Rita's monster making them more powerful than ever. Thrax Age: 10,000,000(looks 10) Bio: Rita, and Zedd's son he was mischievous, and would like to break dinosaur eggs for fun which caused him to be killed by one. This drove his parents to turn evil when Zordon refused to bring him back to life. He is resurrected by his father, and pilots Cyclopsis a failed experiment by Zordon to create a zord built entirely for combat. Changes: More Zyuranger elements are added For instance Rita destroyed the dinosaurs, magical beings, and an ancient civilization when she last attacked Earth. Monsters that were good or at least neutral in Zyuranger like the Genie, and Fang are good or at least neutral here. Goldar, and Scorpina are husband, and wife Lord Zedd, and Lokar are merged into one character because Lokar's Zyuranger counterpart was the master Rita's counterpart like Zedd was Rita's master, and because I wanted to give Zedd a human looking form so he could be later Sentai villains. Rita has Bandora's backstory, and Kai is adapted as Thrax. It is revealed that Lord Zedd was the Green Ranger before Tommy Quagmire is more of a recurring ally because he reminded me of Gnome from Zyuranger The Rangers are descendants of Zordon's previous Rangers because I wanted to incorporate the idea from Sentai where the Rangers are sometimes descendants of a previous civilization Clotho is adapted as Quagmire's wife I have a character named Nemo who is original to Power Rangers but is similar to Prince Euro, and Ryuto from Zyuranger. Certain episodes are either moved around have their footage changed or are removed. For instance Day of the Dumpster has High Five's Zyuranger footage, and Ranger plot, High Five has Teamwork's Zyuranger footage, and Ranger plot, and Teamwork is removed altogether There is an original episode so that Babe Ruthless can have his own episode, and A Star is Born can have just Weaveworm. Island of Illusion is merged with Gung Ho so that it can have Island of Illusion's Ranger plot, and Gung Ho's civilian plot, and both Gung Ho, and Island of Illusion's Zyuranger footage There is a two parter to adapt Zyuranger's dinosaur eggs storyline Doomsday, and Return of An Old Friend are merged so that it can have both Doomsday, and Return of an Old Friend's Ranger plots, and civilian plots with just Doomsday's Zyuranger footage. 

[twitchesandstitches]

Another Adventure... Again.

In a universe, sewn together like the Frankenstein monster from all kinds of different universes that was either destroyed or left after The Cataclysm, lived many people and creatures. Creatures and people from far and wide, from formly many different universes, all now living together in one. From the the noble transformers, to the alien gems and lizardmen, to the beastly orcs, to the strange trolls, to kryptonians, to creatures known as pokemon, to the mighty rahis, skakdis and matorans, to the mysterious eldar, to the brutish skaarjs, gnaars and aludran reptiloid, the money-happy vortixxs and zorgs, the peaceful kleers and gungans and many others.

It’s not entirely clear what caused The Cataclysm, but what is known is that the vast majority of multiple universes was destroyed or wiped out. What else happened, was that pokemon went from the ordinary once we all know and love, to be mutated into giant mutants and monsters, and similar things happened to other creatures, like how rahis suddenly got a craving for the sacred kanohi masks and went full on feral and berserk, or how lycanthropy and vampirism spread violently and turned people into monsters, with the only population of infected who retained their humanity was those of The Dark Planet. It didn’t help that demons was suddenly let loose and started to destroy everything, and that Mental and his horde started to wreaking havoc on a large scale, as well as other things. How all of this happened as well as everything else, is left up for debate and research, but eventually was the gods and goddesses able to pull the universe back together, somewhat at least, and did their best to fix what they could. A lot of the damage and such was still left over from The Cataclysm, but the universe was once more inhabitable. The only creatures who didn’t really suffer from this, was the creatures knowns digimons, who kept themselves to cyberspace and also strengthened the barrier between their world and the real world to ensure that the damage wouldn’t carry over, or at least minimize it.

This is the universe that our little adventure will begin, and it so happens that our friend, who we will be following today, hates adventures, well to bad for her, because she’s getting dragged into this one as well. She lives in a house on one of the city worlds.

Her name is Odina.

A human woman of Algonquian heritage, standing at only 4’5 feet tall, but is well build, a bit round with a bit of belly, not big, but still noticeable and a bit of a short stack, was sitting in her couch, just relaxing and playing video games. She had a bit of a punk look to her, with her choice of jeans, grey-blue shirt, high boots, earrings and dark green jacket, as well as the red frontbang she has in her short brown hair. She also wears square glasses.

Odina could be described as a bit of a grump, sullen and kind of a lovable grouch. Ironically she sees herself as having a cool, punk badass, unemotional vibe to live up to, but in reality she’s a sleepy dork who is too laidback to be fierce, and one of the people who knows this, is her friend Sariel Isda.

Odina and Sariel Isda has been friends since they were kids. Sariel Isda can be a bit hard to classify if you meet her for the first time, since she’s made of pure magic, but is actually a demoted angel who was reborn on Odina’s world to get a new start, and yet for some reason is classified as a fairy. So yeah it can get kinda confusing sometimes.

In terms of appearance had Sariel Isda a bit of each. Her lower body consisted of a short tail, kinda like those classic cartoon ghosts. Four arms with the lower pair looking like normal human hands and the upper ones more like large claws. She has six wings that was in the shape of that of an angel, but had the texture and bug-like appearance of a fairy. She sometimes has a neck and sometimes she don’t, it seems to just come and go as she feels like, so her head was just floating above her body some times. Her hair is coily, thick and massive, almost like a mane. It does straighten out whenever she’s angry or aggressive, almost making her look like the classic banshee, but it returns to it’s normal coily state when she calms down and also stops floating everywhere as well. She had seven eyes, three on each side of the face and one big one in her forehead, her upper torso and lower body were detached just like the head, and just in between those two sections was a large orb floating. Just like with the neck, sometimes these three pieces are connected and sometimes they just float. The majority of her body was either primarily blue or secondary purple, with the only exceptions being the large orb and her eyes, which were all green, with the seventh eye in her forehead being golden.

Sariel floated towards Odina and laid besides her. “What are you playing?” She asked her.

“Just Minecraft. I’m currently exploring to see the new biomes and such that has been added.” Odina said with a little smile.

“Cool, can i play too?” Sariel asked. She wanted to point out how Odina was smiling, but she felt like being sweet today. She did find it adorable and funny whenever Odina tried to act up.

“Of course, i’ll activate split screen and you take the other controller.” Odina said and prepared Sariel to join the game.

Sariel logged into the game and grabbed her controller. “I don’t remember Minecraft looking like this.” She said as she looked at how the world looked.

“Oh, that’s because i’m using the “resource pack A'therys Ascended” to give the game a different appearance. I also downloaded Galacticraft so that i at some point can build myself a rocket and either build my own space station of calmly explore other places.” Odina explained to her. Odina was more into crafting games and casual stuff, not so much for hardcore grinding and all that. Just a game where she could go about her own business like she wants to. Though she’s also a fan of platformers and racing games.

In the game they travelled through the ice spikes biome. Sariel was quite impressed with how it all looked. It had been a while since she last played.

After a bit they left the ice spikes biome and entered a regular snowy tundra biome where they encountered a village. The two girls decided to put up shop here and build a house. Sariel stod for most of the house building while Odina explored and did whatever peared into her brain.

While Sariel was building their home. She swore she saw something off in the distance. She shrugged it off and continued building, might just have been the new snow biome mob called a “stray”.

Odina, while searching, found a pillager outpost. “Hey, Sariel, look what i found.” She said. “What’s that?” She asked. “It’s a pillager outpost. It’s something they’ve added. This also means there’s a chance for the village we live in now to be raided, so we should prepare defenses.” She replied, and Sariel nodded.

Sariel began building a fort around the village, as well as making sure it was as lit up as possible to lower the chance of hostile mobs spawning inside. She saw something move in the distance again, and this time she could tell that it’s body was to thick to be a stray and it moved like a player before disappearing again. “Did you see that?” She asked, which made Odina a bit confused. “See what?” She replied. “Well, i saw something walk in the distance, but it moved like a player and it was to thick to be a stray.” Sariel explained. “We’re the only players on the server, and none of my mods adds a mob that walks like that.” Odina said back, not sure how to respond, she mostly thought that Sariel just saw things.

However, after a few seconds, when Odina had returned to the village, a flash of flight suddenly erupted from the screen. One would be able to hear Odina yell “Are you kidding me right now?!” as it went on. Soon enough, both Sariel and Odina found themselves in a snowy region. It took a bit, but eventually was Sariel able to figure out that she had been sucked into the game, if the blocky terrain was anything to go by. Odina had figured it out right away.

Sariel looked down at her body, while she stayed mostly the same, she was more “human” shaped now. The orb that used to be her belly was now a regular belly, a bit on the chubby side, and her body was no longer detachable and was connected in the same way as it would a regular human or elf. Her wings were gone too, and she now only had two arms instead of four. Besides that everything was the same.

“YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME! DID I SERIOUSLY GET DRAGGED INTO ANOTHER ONE OF THESE SO-CALLED “ADVENTURES”?!?!” Sariel heard Odina shout, and she ran towards her friend. Odina was covered in snow and clearly angry and grumpy about being roped into another adventure, honestly she just wants to relax and play her games dang it!

They looked around and  saw that all of the mobs and villagers were no longer made of blocks. The world itself was still.

After Sariel helped her up, they were approached by a mysterious figure. “I’m very sorry about this, but i needed help, and was kinda desperate.” He said. Odina looked up at the tall man, and realised that this person was none other than Herobrine himself.

“HELP YOU?! YOU’RE F!”#¤KING HEROBRINE!” She shouted, clearly scared at the current moment. “Wait, let him speak.” Said Sariel and helped cool down Odina.

“Yeah, i guess i do owe you guys an explanation. Well to begin with, i’m not evil, that’s a common misconception. Villainbane isn’t evil either. As for why you’re here, it’s because i need help. I am trapped here, and both Null and Entity_303 is on the loose. I guess you’ve heard the stories about how i tortured players? Those aren’t true, i’m one of the good guys! Whenever i appear, it’s to try and either fight of those two or to warn people, sadly this caused people to think I’M the villain. Anyway back on track, Null is the one who keeps me trapped here, and i wish to be free, but we also have to stop him, because if we don’t, this will be his game, and he might not stop with simply that either. I’ve already heard him planing to make deals with creatures such as the hell beast Red, BEN, several digimon warlords and so on. Basically he’s forming his own digital mafia that could take control over the entire Net Ocean and beyond if we don’t stop him.” Herobrine explained to them.

That was quite a bit to take in, but both Odina and Sariel got the memo across. Odina was wondering why he choose specifically them, there were other people who were playing at the moment and such. “So how do we stop him?” Asked Sariel. “I’m not to sure, but we should get some gear for you two and get started.” Herobrine said. “Mind helping me get rid of that Pillager outpost and get those iron golems to town? We might need them.” Said Odina. “Sure thing.” he replied and went off with Odina who put on her iron armor.

Sariel took Odina by the shoulders before they left. “Are you okay?” She asked her. “Just slightly annoyed that i once again have been dragged into another of these so called adventures. At least this time, i can do regular stuff while we wait, since the game mechanics are still in full function on us. So at least it’s not as bad as the other ones i’ve been roped into before, so there’s that.” Odina replied. Sariel simply nodded and watched her walk off towards the pillager outpost.

Sariel remained behind and continued to built, it was pretty much like actually playing it, but more first-personish, well more first person than it already was. While she did that, was Herobrine and Odina out and pillaging the pillager outpost, killing all of the illagers in the outposts and looting EVERYTHING, while also freeing the iron golems they had captured, which Herobrine helped bring back to the village. Herobrine was also the one to kill the captain to make sure that neither Odina or Sariel got hit by Bad Omen, since he was supernatural in the “correct way”, he was able to remove the effect from himself easily.

When they came back, did they help with the building. Villainbane also showed up shortly where she helped out, though she did not stay for long. Having the potential of facing Null was a bit to much for her. Herobrine did not blame her, he understood it clearly, and she did have a bad history regarding Null. A very bad history.

After a bit of time was the fort around the village built and so was their house, and the extra iron golems should be able to protect the village incase either an event happens or someone is able to get over or around the fort somehow. Sariel also made some snow golems to help protect. They did live in a snow biome anyway, so why not? They all three proceeded to mine for ores and materials. Odina did ask why Herobrine didn’t just abuse his powers, to which Herobrine explained if he used his powers to much, he could end up attracting Null and Entity_303 to their location before they’re even ready.

Odina was pretty happy that they could still just explore for the moment. This “adventure” so far hasn’t been to bad, since she could just explore and do regular things at the moment, instead of exploring dangerous temples or fighting giant demons or being on a time limit or anything like that. Sariel was both scared and excited, this was her first adventure. For some reason, while Odina constantly gets dragged along on adventures, even though she doesn’t want to, but it ends up happening anyway, Sariel herself for some reason never got to come on any of them, but she was always ready to make Odina some hot chocolate for when she got home.

After a few days of mining they finally got enough diamonds to make full sets for all of them. While Odina and Sariel got themselves some diamond swords, Herobrine used a little bit of his powers to create a military war pickaxe. He had his tastes. Sariel and Herobrine became pretty good friends, while there was still a bit of a bridge between him and Odina. Odina was a bit aloof.

A bit more time has passed and Sariel noticed that there was phantoms outside, but they only appear when a player haven’t slept for a long time. It was then she looked around. She found Herobrine still asleep so it wasn’t him. She looked at Odina then, and discovered that she had bags on her eyes and rushed to her. “When was the last time you were asleep?” She asked panicking. “Don’t know.” Odina simply said, not really seeming to bother. “You can’t do this to yourself!” Sariel said as she tried to take Odina away from her work, “You need to get some rest!” she continued. “There’s no need for this! Just let me continue, the sooner we complete this “quest” of ours, the faster we can come home.” Odina replied.

Sariel knew that if she continued like this, things would end bad, even after returning home. She would not let Odina overwork herself like this, she would make Odina rest, even if she had to make her! She grabbed Odina’s cheeks and gave the woman a kiss on the lips. Sariel isn’t aware of this, at all actually, but so far she was the only one that Odina would allow and was comfortable to be kissed on the lips by. Odina herself wasn’t sure why that was, she was very confused by this as well. Sariel expanded the kiss so Odina’s head entered her maw, as she worked on getting the rest of her down. Odina was shorter then Sariel, but a lot broader. Sariel swallow Odina majestic breasts, her slightly chub belly (not as chub as her own), her wide and powerful hips and finally slurped up her legs and send her down into her belly. It was a different feeling, since her belly no longer was orb shaped and was like that of an ordinary human in terms of shape and build.

Odina would protest, but stopped herself, instead just sitting down all grumpy until her eyelids closed on their own. The phantoms outside began to slowly disappear. Sariel rubbed her belly gently before going back to work. They were working on getting experience points to enchant their weapons.

A few more days pass, and Herobrine began to notice a pattern between Sariel and Odina. He walked up to Sariel, who still had Odina in her belly, and wanted to ask some questions. “How long have you two known each other?” He asked. “Oh, we’ve known each other since we were kids!” Sariel replied happily. “Are you two close?” He continued. “Very close. We’re best friends! Though sometimes i wish we were more.” “What was that last part?” “Nothing, just mumbling.” “Do you think it’s possible that Odina like-like you? You two have known each other for so many years now, like really many years, and considering her personality, it seems a bit out of character of her to just, ALLOW, you to kiss her, unless she might have a thing for you.”

Sariel began to blush from that last one, only squeaks being able to escape her. She suddenly felt a tingle inside her belly and before she knew it, Odina had eaten her from the inside, absorbed her into her own body. Odina had the power to absorb magic, either neutral or sapient. Odina was also red in the face. “We’re just friends buddy, don’t you dare throw statements like that around!” She said in an embarrassed-angry voice. Herobrine was both shocked and surprised when Odina suddenly appeared like that after having slurp-absorbed Sariel. Though afterwards he just let out a little chuckle and turned around and went back to work. Odina was about to follow him, only to get her hips stuck in the door. “Oh, !”#¤ me, why does this have to keep happening to me, even when i haven’t absorbed any magic?” She asked herself annoyed. She could feel Sariel move around in them, and she let her out and her hips immediately shrank back to normal.

They almost fell over each other when Herobrine suddenly came rushing towards them at high speed. “THEY ARE COMING THIS WAY!” He shouted, clearly referring to Entity_303 and Null. However, Herobrine could also feel something else approach them. Through cyberspace. Soon, a digital portal opened up, and a short, but curvy, woman with aquatic features stepped through. It was Ranamon.

“What are you doing here Ranamon? What does the Cobalt Stingers want this time?” asked Odina bitterly. There are many factions in this broken-crossed universe, both small and big, and one of the more well known ones were the Cobalt Stingers, basically glorified pirates, lead by the troll Vriska, who takes and do whatever they want, while claiming to be “stylish”. Herobrine stepped in though. “She’s no longer a part of the Stingers. I know about that, and i know about the group she’s now a part of. What i want to know is, what do they want here?” he asked Ranamon, who replied with “My boss wanted me to take care of Null and Entity_303. She knows the threat that those two propose. I was the only digital creature that could easily slip in, so i was send in to try and stop them. For now at least, they’re working on making the gate bigger.” “They could at least have hired the bounty hunter Reapermon, or an army of mercenary tankmons, or even the D-Brigade or The Three Muskeérs!” Said Herobrine with a face palm, they did not know just WHO they were dealing with. Ranamon took note though and send the message back to Shockwave and the others, back at the Task Force X headquarters. Task Force X could be compared to an altered version of suicide squad, except less murdery and less about the members being meat shields and more about redemption, atonement and secret missions. Shockwave was one of these people who ended up with this group, and ever since then, has he become more and more like the beloved senator he once was so many years ago, but also a bit of a troll (not literally like Vriska or Nepeta, but as in he likes to mess with people, such as giving Reyes pineapple on pizza).

They all simply nodded to this, Odina still did not trust her, and Sariel was skeptical. The only one who really trusted her, was Herobrine. Not that she blamed them, while she wasn’t the biggest criminal or influence from within the Cobalt Stingers, she still did her fair share of bad stuff and harm. Back then she had to use a robot body to upload herself into in order to interact with the real world.

“I have some spare armor you can get.” Said Herobrine and handed it to her, she thanked him and put it on right away. The diamonds of Minecraft was many times stronger than and other diamond found throughout the universe.

Soon enough, the door flew across the room, as a shadowy figure entered the room, who was black as night, dark as void, with little to no features besides a humanoid form of shadows. He was void, he was Null. The other figure was a person, he was a white-hooded figure with two bloodshot red eyes, and everything under his hood was dark, but unlike Null, you could tell he had form and shape like a person, or at least a humanoid creature. He was Entity_303.

Null began to speak with a voice that send shivers down the three girls’ and Herobrine’s spines, even Grimlock, Undyne and Shockblast would have shivered in fright if they had heard it. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Herobrine has gotten himself some friends? That’s so charming, but you know you can’t leave, this is your home, and you belong to me. I’ll let you keep them, they’re not going anywhere either, they’ll stay here too.” the shadowy figure spoke, making them all gulp in fear. Entity_303 simply laughed at their reactions, finding it enjoyable.

Herobrine readied his military war diamond pickaxe, and the others prepared their swords as well. “It seems like you need to be disciplined once more little Hero’, and so does your friends. Not that i mind. I enjoy to hear your screams and when you plead for mercy. I’ll make sure that the blood runs fresh. This might send a good mental message to your friends here.” Null said calmly, like he had nothing to fear, and that might just be true.

“Let me take care of them. You promised me i could do it next time, my Lord.” Entity_303 asked Null, who nodded in response. “Go ahead.” He said.

Entity_303 pulled out a large scythe and went on the offensive. Targeting Sariel first, but Odina just blocked it in time with a shield. “Nice block.” He said in response.

“Herobrine, a little help here?” Odina half shouted. “On my way, Entity_303 is the easier to deal with. He’s mostly using hacks, so his actual skills aren’t to high.” He replied back to her, before sinking his military war diamond pickaxe into Entity_303’s shoulder, causing him to groan and roar in pain.

Null just watched as Entity_303 fought against the others. Ranamon summoned a blast of water and hit Entity_303 with it, and send him flying out of the room and into the streets of the village. Both the snow golems and iron golems almost immediately jumped on him to attack him. “I knew those golems would be of great help.” Said Odina to herself, as she and the others ran out to continue to fight him.

Meanwhile outside of the game, another person had just entered. A massive lime-green woman with a vaguely humanoid body, her body composed of a constantly shifting amorphous mass; new features continually drift in and out of being, additional limbs are common. Overall she has a fairly solid, thick build, but she’s just slim enough to qualify as curvy instead. Black veins streak across her body, especially wherever she is about to change form. All her body is extremely soft, but not to the point of being liquid. She’s still solid, just… extremely wobbly. She’s got a lot of subtle details of marine life in general: gills, the sheen of scales, and so on, but she appears to base her form specifically on turtles and octopi in general. Her face is mostly featureless; huge, plump lips, several sets of eyes in fairly random places, and a slight swell where humans would have a nose. She does have several thick tentacles where humans would have hair. Below the waist, her body is a mass of tentacles, notably thicker than her upper body; she can grow any number of these, and her arms are a similar part of tentacles. She had pseudopods instead of fingers, with very dexterous cillae; she can grow fingers, but prefers not to. Her name was Lilisheb the Shoggirl. Odina tends to be the more practical and sensible between the two. Odina and Sariel also gets sandwiched into her body a lot.

Lilisheb was a good friend of both Odina and Sariel, and she came over to see if they wanted to hang out and play video games or something. She looked around the room and couldn’t see either Odina or Sariel anywhere. She did notice something though. The TV screen was cracked. She could see some minecraft players fighting in their blocky fighting style. Though she did think that some of the skins looked very much like Odina and Sariel, as well as Ranamon and there was also one with a Herobrine skin, who all seemed to be fighting this player with a shadowy skin in a white rob and red eyes. The robed player seemed to be a hacker of some sort, going of how he was just flying and running around.

Lilisheb went ahead and checked the controller curiously, only for a sudden bright light to invelop her as well. In panic she tried to get away, but it was to late, she to was sucked into this world as well.

Lilisheb fell through the skies and landed right on top of Entity_303, crushing him under her massive, yet soft, body. “W-what’s going on?” She asked randomly. “Welcome to another adventure that neither of us wanted.” Said Odina who looked somewhat surprised to see her. Suddenly was Lilisheb lifted up by an angry Entity_303 who both lifted and threw her away, straight towards Odina, she tried to stop herself from being crushed, but Lilisheb was to big for that. She was quick to remove herself from Odina though.

Sariel flew in and dropped kicked Entity_303 in the face. Sending him flying. “I’ve never been able to do that!” She said excited, she was pretty happy about having legs right now.

Odina took a look around. “Guys, we’ve come pretty far away from the village and our little golem army. We should be careful.” She said in a bit more worried tone. She looked around and spotted a big lake of lava and ran towards it. “It seems like his biggest skill is in his hax, we could maybe trick him into being pushed into the lava.” She stated. Herobrine soon arrived as well. “That’s a good idea! As Fart Garfunkel said “Let’s cook him up good”.” He stated with a childish smile.

Entity_303 spotted them. They were all standing in a group, Ranamon had joined them as well. He jumped towards them, his scythe standing high, ready to slice down on them as he flies towards them. He was getting near them and he readied to strike, and immediately fell into the lava on his own by accident.

The entire group began to laugh at the sight of what just happened. “Are you serious?” Asked Sariel still laughing. “After all that!” Said Odina chuckling. “FAIL!” Shouted Ranamon. “Again, in the words of Fart Garfunkel; “See what did i say? No skill!”, ha!”. They all continued to laugh, until a hand erupted out of the lava, and Entity_303 started to pull himself out. He was very angry and the others immediately shutted up with the laughing. “I’m sorry, what was that?” He said bitterly. “Nothing.” replied Lilisheb nervously.

Entity_303 charged out of the lava and started to attack again, striking out against Ranamon who was quick to grab Lilisheb and use her as a shield. She in return screamed in fear. “Calm down you’re indestructible!” Said Ranamon, as she just blocked his scythe in time. Lilisheb smacked him away with her large hands, though it barely seemed to do anything to him. Herobrine teleported to Lilisheb. “Put this on.” He said and handed her some diamond armor and a sword. Even if she didn’t really NEED the armor, she’s practically indestructible.

Ranamon was fighting with Entity_303 in a one-on-one fight, and it was here that he spotted something. He wanted to try something, using his hacks, he was able to “corrupt” the everyone, except for Ranamon who seemed to be immune, which was odd, since she should have been the easiest to effect, being made of pure data and all that. It was also here that he noticed her eyes, they were the same as his own.

He teleported himself and Ranamon further away from the others. “Interesting. I didn’t expect to see you again, my daughter.” He said, much to the shock of Ranamon. “What are you talking about? We have no connection, nor have we met before!” She said bitterly. “You don’t think so? Take a look at your eyes and than at mine. I created you, i stole a portion of the ancient legendary warrior of water, combined it with that of a weather program and my very own data. Why else do you think you’re so powerful or have it so easy hacking into anything mechanical? You have inherited that from me.” He said in a chilling, sinister and prideful voice, like a mad scientist who’s a bit to happy about his creation, and Ranamon felt a chill go down her spine. His focus was caught off when a large red claw smacked Entity_303 away. Ranamon looked up and saw two giant monster. Kuwagamon and Kabuterimon. “What are you two doing here?” She asked in surprise. “The scientist of the Task Force X, Soundwave, said you might need help, so he send us to aid you.” Kabuterimon replied. “Took him long enough to open that stupid gate honestly.” Said Kuwagamon. Ranamon looked at them both for a moment. She hoped they could keep themselves calm. Kuwagamon and Kabuterimon had a great known rivalry with each other. She just hoped they could push that aside for now. “Do you two think you can hold him for a bit? I need to make contact with Shockwave.” She asked them, both nodding in response and went after Entity_303 who was fighting Odina and the others.

While all the others were fighting Entity_303, made Ranamon contact with Shockwave. “Shockwave come in. Do you hear me?” She asked over the communicator. “Yes i can hear you. What’s the problem, besides you’re fighting a hacker-god?” Shockwave replied, keeping track of what’s going on from his screen in his lab. “Can you find any info regarding Entity_303 and me? Is it really possible that he is responsible for creating me?” She asked in a slightly worried tone. “I’ll take a look into it. For now, you just focus on trying to get rid of him and this “Null” creature.” He ordered before starting to look up information about the two of them. “Understood.” Ranamon said, before going back to help the others. She still had a bad feeling about this whole ordeal.

Odina ran towards Sariel. “Sariel, can you focus all of you arcane energy into this sword?” She said and pointed at her own blade. Sariel nodded, already knowing what she was planning. Sariel flew into Odina’s sword and it began to glow bright. Odina, now with the charged up sword with Sariel inside, charged forward, while Entity_303 was to busy fighting both Herobrine and Kuwagamon, and impaled him in the back with it.

Entity_303 let out a blood curdling scream, which only grew worse as Sariel started to release herself from the blade, her arcane energy streaming through Entity_303’s entire body. Her began to glow more and more, until he was steaming white like a white dwarf star and exploded like a supernova, sending Odina, Herobrine and all the others flying. Left from where the explosion was, sat only Sariel on the ground, exhausted and tired from what just happened.

Odina went over to her and picked her up. Odina could tell that she was out cold.

Null was still around and with Sariel in this state, she would not be safe. Odina took the opportunity and absorbed Sariel into her body, growing greatly in width and mass. Though not much taller.

Shockwave made contact with Ranamon again. “Ranamon! Null is still there! I’m afraid that you’ll need more than what you’ve got now! I’ll send some digi-orb ups to upgrade you all!” He shouted in what sounded like panic. Ranamon wasn’t sure what was going on, but she could tell that it was going to be very dangerous, and most likely deadly.

They all heard what sounded like clapping, and they looked up and saw Null walk towards them. “Well done,” he said in his calm yet threatening tone, “you managed to defeat Entity_303, at the cost of one of your own. I am very impressed. Herobrine usually is close to dying when he manages to fight him off, but this time, you all made it and only got a little bit tired. Though the question is; are you prepared for nothing?” he stated, before at blinding speed charging into Herobrine and send him flying into a nearby snowy mountain wall. He was gasping for air when he landed, Null had hit him hard, as bits of blood came out of his mouth.

Kuwagamon went on the attack, but Null easily grabbed the large insect’s arm and flung him into Kabuterimon like he was nothing.

Null ran forward, preparing to strike Odina, but Lilisheb jumped in front of her despite her great fears. Null’s fist hit her in the stomach, and for the first time in life, was Lilisheb actually bleeding. Lilisheb looked down in both confusion and horror. She had been on many adventures and had always been categorized as being indestructible, which was why she was always used as a shield even if she didn’t like it, she couldn’t break. She was a shoggoth after all. But right here and right now, she was bleeding, someone actually managed to harm her!

Odina looked in horror as well as her friend was wounded. “I-i don’t understand! Nothing should be able to harm her!” She said in horror.

Null laughed a bit and looked at Odina. “You just said the answer. “Nothing” can hurt her, and i am nothing. I am void. It was out of nothing you all came, and it’s into nothing you all will go. The people of the multiverse are builders, but look into their hearts, and you will find that they also have the power to destroy. I am that power, i am destruction, and i will destroy you. But first a little history lesson. When i say i am nothing, i am being literal. I existed before The Great Four, Azathoth, zeedmillenniummon, Primus and God, even created the omniverse. Shoggoths like Lilisheb over there can’t be hurt by anything that came after The Great Four created the omniverse and the Elder Ones, but since i came before, i am more than capable to hurt creatures such as her. For i am nothing, and nothing can hurt her. As for why i am here, The Great Four didn’t like how i kept consuming the universes they created, so they decided to imprison me here. You may not realize it, but minecraftians are among some of the most powerful creatures in the universe, being capable of lifting multiton of universes like nothing, living on planets that has black holes as their core and so on. Making them both the ultimate wardens, but also makes it so that these pocket worlds are the ones with the least amount of void in them, thus weakening me. Now then, now that i have told you all that. Should we get started?” He said, before preparing to strike again.

Lilisheb was scared and horrified. Sure, she was easily scared before, but this is very real. All the other times, deep down she knew she was indestructible, but not this time. This creature, could actually do her harm, and worse yet, none of them was safe.

Suddenly, two bright lights appeared in the sky, it was the digi-orb ups that Shockwave had send. They flew into both Kabuterimon, Kuwagamon and Ranamon. Their skin seemed to be ripped of, as they all digivolved to the next stage, and the missing skin was replaced with some new, alongside some new features. Ranamon had become a giant, kraken-like digimon called Calmaramon, while Kuwagamon had jumped over the perfect level and gone straight to ultimate, now taking the form of GranKuwagamon, Demon of the Deep Forest. Kabuterimon had done the same as Kuwagamon and went straight to ultimate, becoming HerakleKabuterimon, the Insect Kaiser.

The three digital kaijus jumped at Null, preparing to fight him with everything they got. Meanwhile could Odina feel that Sariel was regaining her strength more and more, growing inside her, causing her body and mass to increase more as well, adding a bit more power to her. Lilisheb, being a shoggoth, is already powerful, but she decided to unlock a greater portion of her power to fight Null, even though she was afraid of losing herself like Cthulhu and so many others did. Herobrine was Herobrine, so he just did what he was already doing.

From beyond the screen was Shockwave watching. He was in full blown panic and not sure what to do. No one else was able to be send in there to aid. Kuwagamon, Kabuterimon and Ranamon was the only digital lifeforms they had in the Task Force X, or at least at the moment, so sending reinforcements was out of the question. His thoughts were everywhere at once, as he watched them all fight Null, punching, smashing, stabbing, slicing, blasting, electrocuting, they threw everything at him. How could Null fight all these powerful creatures at once, and still look like he was having more fun than he was struggling? He was fighting against The Demon of the Deep Forest, the Insect Kaiser, the Legendary Warrior of Water, a powerful and ancient shoggoth, (while true Lilisheb didn’t have much combat experience or instinct, she was still powerful by any standards or meaning), a powerful human being powered by an angel and Herobrine himself, and yet he didn’t seem to slow down at all! It was than Shockwave remembered something that Null had said, and he got an idea. He went to the computer and started hacking every network and computer he could get his hands on.

HerakleKabuterimon, GranKuwagamon, Herobrine, Calmaramon, Odina, Lilisheb and Herobrine all battled Null, but even with their increased powers, they could barely do anything against him.

“It looks like your time is running ou-AARK!!!” Null suddenly shouted. The others looked in surprise as Null suddenly fell to the ground.

“What’s going on?” Asked Odina, and Herobrine looked at her with a smile.

“Calmaramon’s friend has hacked the entire network of Minecraft. He’s causing trillions of new worlds and servers to be spawned in by the second. Null’s powers are drawn from void, and every world and server lessons the amount of void that’s present, not to mention creating a sort of barrier to the void outside of Minecraft.” He replied with a hopeful smile as Null’s powers was weakening thanks to Shockwave’s actions. It wasn’t long before the entire network of Minecraft crashed in on itself, shutting it off from the outside worlds and universes.

“D-does this mean we might be able to defeat him?” Asked Lilisheb, who had begun to lose hope through the fight. The news made it return a little bit.

“Yes.” Answered Herobrine, and prepared his diamond military pickaxe.

Even though Null’s powers had decreased significantly, was he still a powerhouse of a creature.

The earth started to shake, as Null’s head suddenly shot out of his body, attached to a large void tendril. Soon many other tendrils erupted from his body, and the void and shadows flung up into the air. Null was now a whirling vortex of void, shadows and destruction. A screaming mash of tendrils, parts, objects and many other undistinquinsible things that could not be defined. All of it, twisting in and out of itself, going in all directions at once, and seeded out destruction like a horseman of the apocalypse.

Null summoned void-like creatures, that took the form of various creatures or people. Such as creepers, zombies, illagers, rahis, gnaars, skaarjs, aludran reptiloid, siths, demons and orcs, but also people such as Shockwave, Skullgreymon, Darth Vader, Megatron, Myotismon, Vriska, King Highblood, Ultron, Galactus, Thanos, The Joker, Darkseid, Doomsday, Yellow Diamond, White diamond, Cthulhu, Eliphas the Inheritor, Abaddon the Despoiler, Mugendramon and many others from all across the multiverse. There wasn’t one, he didn’t have access too. Including void clones of Odina and the others.

GranKuwagamon looked at HerakleKabuterimon and than at the others. “We’ll take care of Null’s army. The rest of you should finish him off!” He said, before flying towards Null’s army alongside his rival HerakleKabuterimon.

Odina, Lilisheb, Herobrine and Calmarimon looked up at Null’s highly unstable body. Between all the twisting and turning of no-existing mass of tendrils, parts, storms, vortexes and objects, they could see a mask with three holes in each cheek and two larger holes that seemed to be eyes, where dark yellow eyes pieced from, the mask itself was black and grey, almost as if it was infected. Thinking about it, the way the mask looked, reminded Lilisheb of some of the infected items, mostly masks, that made various creatures and people alike turn berserk right before The Cataclysm that tore the multiverse apart started, especially the rahis. Even some of the greatest and noble heroes was turned into killing machines by those things, maybe there was a connection here.

That was a thought for another day though, right now they had to fight in order to survive.

Six wings sprung from Odina’s back. Sariel was back to full power now, and was ready to help! She, along with the others, attacked Null, but kept at a distance, mainly using ranged attacks, in order to avoid being consumed by the endless vortex that was his body. He was far from defenseless though, as he used every weapon in his arsenal against them. Heat vision, laser vision, disintegration, fragmentation, poison, fear, anger, sleep, hunger, lightning, chain lightning, darkness, cyclones, gravity, illusion, confusion, magnetism, Mind Reading, molecular disruption, plantlife, plasma, Slowness, Sonics, stasis field, teleportation, vacuum, weather control, power scream and many more, he used them all!

suffice to say, after just a few minutes of fighting, where Odina and her friends already bleeding and gasping for air. This was not looking good.

Odina looked at Herobrine, he was laying on the floor, with his weapon besides him. She picked it up. She helped him up on his feet before giving it back. They all got up again and looked at Null, they could almost tell that he was gloating, as he openly showed his mask.

This was the opportunity they had unknowingly waited for, Odina just needed to give one look to the others and they knew what she wanted.

Odina took her blade, and filled all of Sariel’s energy into it before blasting it out in a beam of pure arcane energy. Lilisheb did her best to collect as much eldritch magic as she could, before following Odina’s footsteps and blasted it all towards Null’s mask. Calmaramon used one of WarGreymon X’s abilities and summoned the biggest Poseidon Force she could possibly manage before firing it at the direction of Null’s mask. Both GranKuwagamon and HerakleKabuterimon had been overrun by Null’s army despite their best effort, every time they had killed a thousand, a million more was ready to take their place, but GranKuwagamon aimed at Null and fires a barrage of explosive beams from his wings called “catastrophe”, as well as a large plast from his mouth called “dimension scissors” in the shape of its pincers. While HerakleKabuterimon fires his Giga Blaster. Lastly, Herobrine poured all of his strength and power into his diamond military war pickaxe and began to spin it around for a throw. All the beams fired hits Null’s mask, causing the entire whiling vortex that was his body to vibrate violently, and finally throws Herobrine his pickaxe with all his might and it hits Null right in the center. A loud crack can be heard, and soon the explosion disappears, and the pickaxe drops to the floor.

“You can’t destroy me. For i am, Nothing.” Null called one final time before the vortex, as well as the shadows, disappeared. Null was gone. At least it seemed so.

The army that had swarmed GranKuwagamon and HerakleKabuterimon had disappeared as well. The sky was clear once more, they all looked around. None of them could feel or sense the presence of Null anywhere.

A bright light began to appear and Odina felt herself suddenly being sucked through it, and not to soon after, she and Sariel had been separated and sat back on the couch in front of the tv-screen once more.

Odina looked down at herself, was it all a dream? No, the cuts and slashes was still there. She would have to get the blood cleaned up from her clothes after this, but for now, she just wanted so badly to relax now that this, in her opinion at least, stupid adventure was over! This had to be the one where she was the closest to dying, and properly also the most traumatising. Though she couldn’t relax yet, as the tv jerked and moved. “What now?” She asked annoyed and irritated.

Suddenly was Herobrine shot out of it and landed on the floor. He awkwardly got on his feet and looked down at himself, he almost seemed to cry, and Sariel couldn’t blame him. “I’m finally free!” He said in an overjoyed voice. Though his joy was interrupted when Ranamon was shot through the tv and hit him in the back, causing both to fall to the floor. “Sorry about that!” She said as she rose up, before realizing something. She was still in her original form, in the real world! Whenever digimons interact with the real world, after the barrier between the two worlds got thickened by a lot, it often has to be done through robots and such, to which they could upload and store their data into. There was only either a few cases or “loopholes” in which a digimon can enter the real world in their real forms. She wasn’t sure how, but apparently she had found one.

After a few seconds was it Lilishebs turn, her massive body hit all four of them when she was shot out, mushing them all under her soft body, yet big, body. She rose up quickly, looking down at herself. This so called “adventure”, had been the hardest for her out of everyone involved. There was still a few scars were blood could be seen. Odina and the others could understand if she wanted to stay hidden from the world or something for a while, because it was indeed terrifying. Sariel did her best to begin healing both Odina’s and Lilisheb’s wounds.

It was than Ranamon heard something and looked at the tv. It was pretty much jumping until it landed on it’s back, and she knew what was about to happen, she had completely forgotten about the other two! And now was both Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon, who both had returned to their normal forms like Ranamon had, erupting out of the tv, crashing right through the roof, like the kaijus they were, causing a little bit of panic to the people outside who saw them just suddenly erupt out of the building. Digimons weren’t, as stated before, commonly seen outside of their robot suits, and so it could cause a bit of panic when these semi-eldritch creatures suddenly appear in their true forms. Not to mention that the kuwagamon-specie is known for their aggressive nature and hunting habits.

Ranamon looked at the others in the room. Odina looked like she was about to explode. “Well, uh, i guess i gotta go, before people start calling the special forces on me and my friends.” She said in an awkward tone as she grabbed her phone. “Shockwave, please get us out of here and back to base. FAST!” she said in a slightly panicy tone. Soon enough, a purple train appeared, and Ranamon jumped inside, while Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon had to sit on the roof of it. Soon, the train, along with the three digimons, disappeared once again, leaving Odina and the others alone back in her half destroyed home.

“I’m so fucking happy this is over!” Odina said frustrated. “I kinda have to agree.” Said Sariel. Lilisheb simply nodded. Odina turned off the council and went to bed, while Lilisheb just laid down on the couch and began to read something random. She just grabbed a random book, which turned out to be a Donald Duck comic. Sariel went into the kitchen and prepared some coffee, and took some into Odina as well. She put Odina’s cup on the table, while she put her own on the drawer next to the bed. “That sure was something.” She said, looking at Odina who was still pretty angry. “Honestly, it was only because of you and Lilisheb that it was bearable.” Odina said out loud. “Want some Sari-pats?” asked Sariel. “Sure.” Odina answered with a little smile, as Sariel began to gently pat her. They were both exhausted and neither of them noticed that they both dozed of to sleep before long. There would be a bit of confusion the next morning though.

Meanwhile, back at the Task Force X’s headquarters, was Ranamon sitting with Shockwave. She looked rather worried. She finally rose her head and looked at Shockwave. “Is it true that Entity_303 is my father?” She asked concerned. Shockwave looked at her before talking. “Yes, that is true, but it shouldn’t matter. He wasn’t in your life up until now, and just because you have his eyes, doesn’t mean you have his soul. Your soul is your own, not his, yours. He is not close to be a family to you, even if you two share data, he is not your father!” Explained Shockwave, and he was kinda right. When it came to people she knew, Shockwave and Reyes both kinda felt like fathers to her, as they both took care of her and looked after her, even if Reyes’ dad-jokes can become quite annoying. Seriously most of the organizations founding comes from a “dad-joke jar” made specifically for him.

Ranamon looked up at Shockwave. “Thanks.” She simply said. “No problem kid.” He replied, as he watched her leave the room, most likely to either go relax after everything that happened, or to got to Harley Quinn for her therapist session. Shockwave knew though, that this would be a bit of a hard blow for her. He just hoped she could pull through.

(Twitchy thoughts!

this was an excellent read; thank you for going to the effort of writing this; it came out quite well and is an excellent, fun read!

You pretty much nailed Odina’s personality and how she generally interacts with others, and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of the mods she mentions; I’ll probably wind up using them myself, should i ever play minecraft on the PC. her relationship with Sariel is very good and has a good contrast/complement vibe.

The huge fight, the scope going on here and the somewhat existential threat is the most true thing of Crossthicc’s vibe I can think of. This is how it should be going, honestly! Big, epic fights against cosmically horrifying entities of mysterious purpose and origin

from what i’ve gathered, Null drops some sort of hint or reference but, honestly, it went over my head? sorry, I’m not good at reading into things or noticing sub-text

minor side note; given that Herobrine isn’t actually a character in minecraft, you could make the argument that there are digital worlds within video games, perhaps using the basis of the game (mechanics and/or setting) to form the foundation of the world? good way to either do Digimon or having a similar set up?

[bookishreviewsblog]

Jay Kristoff, Amy Kaufman: Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)  |Lara

From the internationally bestselling authors of THE ILLUMINAE FILES comes an epic new science fiction adventure.

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm

A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates

A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder

An alien warrior with anger management issues

A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.

Aurora Rising is the first book in Kaufman and Kristoff’s science-fiction YA trilogy called The Aurora Cycle. It's 2380 and Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley (I know, there’s a lot of Aurora’s, but don’t worry you’ll catch it all up xd) has just woke up from cryo-sleep two hundred and thirty-seven years later than she should have. Namely, she and her family were supposed to be part of the colonization program from earth to Octavia – one of the newfound planets in the Milky Way. The last thing she remembers was a fight with her dad after which followed a huge explosion after which she remembers absolutely nothing. She was saved by Tyler Jones – Aurora Academy’s star student and captain to be. Aurora serves as an intergalactic peace force between different species of the system. Terrans – as people from the Earth. Betraskans – who are another alien race people from earth came across. Sydralathi – ancient, elf-like creatures, with porcelain white skin and pointy ears whose lifespan can last up to several hundred years.

Aurora starts having visions and showing glimpses of telekinetic powers as a side effect of her long time spent in the Fold. She is taken by the Terran government and starts having suspicions about their good intentions, just in time as Tyler gets his new squad and, as well, starts seeing things aren’t as they seem.

This has been one hell of a book-surprise. I’ve really expected to be heavily disappointed after Kaufman and Kristoff’s Illuminae series, which I kind of hate, and I thought “How could I like another sci-fi series written by the same authors I didn’t like before?”. But it turned out, Aurora Rising has an entirely different story to tell. I loved everything about this book, from plot to breathtaking world-building, but characters are the ones that truly made me fall for this book.

Tyler Jonson is Aurora Academy’s most promising student who has been working his ass off for years to become an Alpha. He’s the leader everyone wants to follow: brave, firm and compassionate, with tactical knowledge that could win wars. Tyler is pretty much nothing more than a hot love interest and a leader that keeps this insane squad together, but I still like him.

Scarlett – Tyler’s badass twin sister who is positioned as Ace in their team (person who is in charge of negotiations and talking, they know a lot of languages and are usually good with people). Scarlett is a sarcastic badass, with hidden depths that not many people can see, flirty and shallow at first, but a real fighter inside.

Cat is my favorite by far from everyone in this squad. Female pilot aka Zero, the best one you could find in the Milky Way. I just can’t get over her love and complicated relationship with Tyler that is followed by blind loyalty and unremarkable determination. I really loved her and *spoiler* the crew leaving her ended me, so I really need Tyler to come back for her.

Kal is a 19-year-old Sydralathi who can’t seem to fit anywhere. I rather liked him (especially cause Aurora called him Legolas xd) until all that mates-pull-shit started going on. I don’t really see what do YA authors have against nicely developed romance without shit like destiny and love on the first sight, but okay. I don’t particularly care for either of them, especially since Aurora is probably the most annoying character the world has ever seen.

Finian and Fila are the two remaining squad members and I really can’t remember anything significant about them, probably because I didn’t like them, or care. Finian is probably there to raise crews sarcasm rate and serve as Scar’s love interest, and Fila just fixes things so that would be it.  

[clonerightsagenda]

hey, i only vaguely remember the young wizards series, could you remind me a bit what happens? i remember the main character giving some years of her life to heal a whale wizard, and tom and carl had a pet bird i think, and also the magic was pretty trippy

I reread them last about a year ago, and they’re hard to summarize because they are all over the place (in a good way) but I’ll do my best. I’ll also try to give a general summary for other people reading this post who may not have any grounding in the story.

The main character is Nita, a teen girl who stumbles across wizardry while trying to avoid bullies. She makes a friend her age who’s also a wizard (Kit) and the cast soon balloons to include their families, other wizards on earth (and not just humans), and quite a lot of aliens.  

The core concept of the series is that the Lone Power turned against the other Powers That Be and unleashed death and suffering into the world. Part of its curse is entropy, the eventual death of the universe due to loss of energy, and the role of wizards is to slow down entropy and improve the world around them however they can for as long as they can. In most of the books, the main characters find themselves facing off against the Lone Power in a variety of guises (or sometimes just negative energy in other forms that contributes to its cause).

Wizardry is presented in a really interesting way - it is tied closely to linguistics and physics, a sort of crossbreed of science and art rather than your standard magic system. Similarly, the whole series is a mesh of fantasy and science fiction, since after the second book the characters regularly visit other planets and engage with alien species. I also enjoyed that the series bucks the tradition of characters hiding the magical part of their lives from their parents, since after midway through the second book their parents are aware of them being wizards. To go along with trope subversions, the Lone Power isn’t always pure evil in later books either.

As a memory refresher speedrun, with spoilers:

The first book involves Kit and Nita finding the Book of Night With Moon in a dark Manhattan. The living evil helicopters and taxi cabs may have stuck in your memory. They sure did in mine. That’s also where Tom and Carl and their pet bird are introduced. The second book is Whale Wizards and Unexpected Feelings About Sharks. Book three involves Nita’s sister also getting wizardry and fucking shit up in space. Book four is Suddenly Ireland. There’s a possessedguy who by all rights should be a super cool concept but he just doesn’t do it at all for me for some reason. Book five is… major spoilers, the sixth should only be read in the new e-book only revised version because the old version had some outdated and not great perspectives on autism, book seven is a student exchange program with aliens (what more could you want really) complete with the Dramatic Alien Elf Prince Gill, to my distress, said sounded like Taako. In book 8 shit gets real and I love one (1) giant ant bug thing. Book 9 is on Mars. Book 10 is a science fair but for wizards. Someone gets YEETed out of the sun and the sun gets YEETed out of someone. Book 11 is not out but, based on foreshadowing, is Going To Be Rough.

That’s all p vague but if you want to chat about any of the books in more detail to jog your memory, I’m happy to.