#they know his favorite exoplanets

[hugsandchaos]

A video was posted in a Facebook group that doesn’t include the Fentons. The video shows Plasmius and Phantom talking while Plasmius is holding Phantom by the back of his suit like it’s a scruff. The conversation goes as follows;

Plasmius: How many more times are you going to sneak into the planetarium?! I’ve caught you, like, 17 different times!

Phantom: I’m thinking… it’s gonna be at least 18.

Plasmius: … *tired sigh*

[astrocarbon]

What are your favorite subjects/fields in astrophysics? I like high energy astrophysics and agns right now :3

exoplanets! black holes and cosmology scare me to death! teehee

my phd program (which I'll start next year) has loads of funding available for spectroscopic analysis of exoplanets and the direct imaging of exoplanets, so i'll definitely be exploring those areas. gotta follow the money ya know. but i also want to explore astrobiology.

a year ago i would've said i'm "anti-habitability". i turned my nose up at astrobiology, just like the professor i idolized for his intelligence (he turned out to be a bit of a jerk, unsurprisingly). i thought astrobio was too theoretical, too handwavey. and a secret third thing i don't know how to convey well with words. popsci-y? mainstream? from those around me, i had adopted the notion that astrobio was the thing you said you wanted to do if you weren't smart enough to do the heavy technical work with hot jupiters or stellar interiors. it was the naive dream of kids who would end up switching out of astrophysics because they couldn't keep up.

but in my gap year, in a country where astrophysics isn't really a thing, i've found myself talking about astrobiology more and more. it helps me relate to people across a bunch of different fields because it forces discussions about how we do science in the first place. how do our prior beliefs play into how we design our experiments and proposals, and therefore determine what we are able to find?

im finding that i enjoy these discussions. astrobiology is not just a combination of astronomy and biology. at risk of being annoying, it's reconciling with the fact we are trying to find extraterrestrial life with limited resources in a society run by politicians, religion, and capitalism

[nina-x-toby-insanity]

I’ve touched on this before I think but Nina LOVES space. And Toby knows she loves it. So whenever he comes across anything space related he sends it to her. Whether it be a bracelet with planets on it to an article he came across online, he sends it all to her. Even if he doesn’t buy the object he just sends a picture to her. And when she’s rambling on and on about galaxies and exoplanets he listens to every word because he knows how important it is to her.

Likewise, I can see Toby really being interested in ocean creatures. Sharks and eels in particular. And Nina will absolutely go all out for him because of this. She will buy him every single goddamn shark related item she comes across. He has a MASSIVE collection in his room and he is a little concerned with how much she spends on this stuff. Whenever Nina goes to visit her friend Zero who lives in Florida, she brings Toby with because she knows how excited he gets whenever they’re at the beach. She also sets up tons of dates at aquariums specifically for him, and the whole time he’ll be telling her cool facts about the creatures they see.

Seriously though infodumping about this stuff is so important to both of them. They’ll have times where they just go back and forth rambling about their favorite things, and it’s one of the first activities they really connected with.

[kindlythevoid]

Edgar Allen Poe // Pinterest // When the Mind Sleeps by Mariusz Lewandowski // Dark Matter by Robert Hunter Jones // Trillium by Louise Gluck // Carina Nebula (C92) pic from NASA // Promptuarium // Introduction to Quantum Theory by Franny Choi // Miracle of Creation by Mariusz Lewandowski // Rainer Maria Rilke, from Where Silence Reigns: Selected Prose; "An Experience," // Pinterest // Carl Sagan, Symphony of Science // Nebula Sharpless 2-106 pic from NASA // Twitter User @tsaritsasimp06 // chasingdaises // The Old Astronomer to His Pupil by Sarah Williams // Pinterest // Pinterest // Galaxy Hercules A pic from NASA // Imaginary Heroes (2004) dir. Dan Harris // Spacetime Fairytale by Regina Spektor // 30 Doradus Nebula pic from NASA // Stormy End by Sunrise Avenue // Dumbbell Nebula (M27) pic from NASA

This one was titled: Finding Comfort in the Enormity of the Universe When Your Problems Feel Too Big.

Yeah, I was *thisclose* to an existential crisis (aren't we all at some point?) and was learning about the stars, and isn't there something comforting about there being this wide expanse out there? All that beauty and chaos and light and dark and it's billions and millions of light years away, so far that you measure it in light, and you can't even use yourself as a metric when measuring up against nebulae and supergiants and blackholes. And it makes you feel kinda small, and maybe a little scared, but suddenly those problems aren't so big, are they? We're just little people on a little rock next to a little star with our own little moon. We really won the lottery on chances, didn't we? And doesn't that make you want to look at the stars, take a breath, and make it to the next day?

Side note: I spent a good couple of hours scrolling through NASA's website and getting sidetracked (hence my earlier post on the moon landing in two years). Lowkey in love with NASA's website, ngl. So as an added treat, here are a few of my favorites that I came across!!

This will tell you when/where you can see the ISS! (idk if it works internationally, I just sort of focusing on where I was atm, ha ha!)

This lets you know about upcoming launches! (how I found out about Artemis!!)

This is a map that lets you see pictures of a bunch of cool stars/galaxies/exoplanets/nebulae! (This is where I grabbed all of the pretty space pictures!! There's so much more, too!!!)

This is a website that posts a fun picture of certain tech or something in the universe as well as an explanation below every day!! (I was shown this recently and I keeeeep checking.)

And, last but not least, this website tells you what picture the Hubble Telescope took on your birthday!! (Astrology signs are OUT, tell me what picture was taken the day of your birth!!)

There's also a (fictional) comic strip about the first woman on the moon! (I didn't get a chance to read it, but it's also found on a whole page dedicated to interactives and games which is absolutely where I found some of those other links)

Anyway, there's definitely more to find and would highly recommend just scrolling through their website to see what you can find!

We're gonna be okay, y'all. (っ´⌣`)ﾉ(´._.`)

[imakemywings]

A+ Library: "To Be Taught, If Fortunate" by Becky Chambers

A+ Library is my bit where I review books with asexual and aromantic characters. The most recent book I've read was To be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers.

Previous review: Every Heart a Doorway

The book description is:

At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life. A team of these explorers, Ariadne O'Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system fifteen light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. But as Ariadne shifts through both form and time, the culture back on Earth has also been transformed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the story of the wonders and dangers of her mission, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.

The character: Chikondi Daka, asexual

Final verdict: Thumbs up, a new favorite for this exercise

The Asexual Rep

Not much to say here. Chikondi is a supporting character in a cast of four. His sexuality is mentioned once by the narrator, Ariadne, and never comes up again. Chikondi never pursues a romantic relationship with the rest of the crew, nor do any of them approach him, so it's effectively a nonissue.

I will say that I liked Chikondi a lot; he's a sensitive, enthusiastic, thoughtful character who was really a joy to read about.

The Rest

This is my new favorite book from this exercise. To be Taught is a fantastic work of sci-fi that truly captures the joy of discovery and the love of learning alongside the hazards of space exploration. Chambers does a marvelous job helping you see the world through Ariadne's eyes, and Ariadne and the crew wonder at everything they see. Balancing a desire to respect these alien environments with a surpassing eagerness to learn about them, the crew of the Marion embody scientists to me: people for whom the accumulation of knowledge is its own reward.

Chambers also does deft work of explaining scientific concepts to a potentially ignorant audience; there was nothing in the book that was hard to understand once Ariadne had explained it. 

This book captures so much of the best of human curiosity, our drive to understand the environment around us, and our willingness to keep pushing ourselves to know more, to be better, to continue advancing and moving forward, while also not ignoring our potential to harm even where we don't intend to.

At the same time, the novella does great work with the tension of the situation. The crew of the Marion are close, and they all value their mission, but when pressures bear down, tensions still rise. Furthermore, the precariousness of their position frequently comes up, especially when they start to worry that all is not copacetic back on Earth. Nevertheless, they are determined to keep working and all of them feel the weight of the responsibility they bear as the ones chosen by the world to go out onto this mission. 

I also enjoyed how the book tells you just what you need to know to understand the story. For instance, it's heavily implied Ariadne and her crewmate Jack used to be in a romantic relationship, and may continue to have sexual encounters during the mission, and less heavily implied that Ariadne also has/had a sexual relationship with her crewmate Elena. ​ Yet she never gives a blow-by-blow of their relationships up to the point of the mission. Ariadne only tells us these four people are like family to her, and we see the rest unfold for ourselves. Perhaps this is only a reflection of the short length of the book, but I found it refreshing among some other books that feel the need to tell stories like a paint-by-number. I enjoyed the ambiguity; it felt both realistic and human, and gives the reader some room to interpret as they enjoy. It especially suits a first-person narration as we see here—Ariadne prioritizes telling us what she thinks is important, which isn't her romantic past or even present, but the mission. ​​

There were some truly beautiful and thoughtful quotes, and the ending of the book brings it around in such a rewarding and emotionally hard-hitting way. I enjoyed this one beginning to end, and I may even buy a hard copy for myself. 

[the-starfall]

Hi, so ive been working on a writing project for awhile now and the first chapter is soon to be ready to release (Yay) sooo id thought id post a few design things and explain world building a bit. In this post I will be detailing 1. The main setting and 2. The main race interacted with during the first chapter

Ill be honest i dont have a name for this project yet and have just been calling it “my sci fi” project in everything ive laid out so far. But everything else has names! So here is the map of the mensis star system, most importantly of its ring station/world thing that surrounds and orbits the star mensis. This giant space station was once habited by a race of prestigious fleshed based organisms called the yeltilore. (most commonly they are called either “bringers of light, soon to arrive once more” by the theocratic council of the lenier. Or by more common names, such as “precursors” “the old rotten fleshy bits we find in district 5 floating through space” or my personal favorites “those dudes who died”) they as the common names suggest *died* or “disappeared to the star to recharge their power” a long long long time ago, leaving their robot and android slaves (and their experiments) behind within the 15 districts of the metliru ring station, all of them changed, district five got hit by a small exoplanet that got trapped it metliru’s orbit, and is no longer safe for any intelligent being. And over time all of the robots made their own civilization, colony’s, and just generally gained free will, now only somewhat bound by the harsh rules of their precursors and the much harsher rules of their own governments.

Notable species include:

Lenier, once robotic servants now wirey messes that form bodies and develop complex thought, who will be detailed later

Felar (who show up later)

The horrors (who show up later)

The flesh born (who show up later)

And the rogues, bestial androids once kept as pets that now roam any and all unclaimed territory, feasting on metal and despite a lack of intelligence theyve developed a fierce pack like instinct

Now, more on lenierians

These dudes are fun, having been small robot slaves during the reign of the past, they ripped apart other such robots (and a lot of infrastructure) during their early days, adding their stolen wiring to themselves in order to look more akin to the precursors who came first. They developed a religious fervor to the guys who died, building their entire religion based government off of the idea that 1. The star mensis is the only star in existence (all windows they have aboard the ring face the star) and that the precursors simply went into the star in order to achieve godhood, and eventually they’ll come back and reward they’re devote with the same godhood. Sadly however, since the destruction of district 5 they where disconnected to any space ports unless they went all the way around, stopping any potential suicides into the star.

They live wherever is safe and function decently well as a society, decorating themselves with scavenged metals by melding them into their metal bits and just kinda existing, they have jobs, their trying to fix up their homes to not be derelict and they’re learning, like doing science and shit. Point is. Youll see a lot of these dudes especially since (at least) one of the main characters is in fact a lerian!

If you want more functional info on their design decypher my bad cursive, now have a good night

(Also, i know the science in this is flimsy at best, its much more fantasy than anything else, as a robotics nerd im sure all of my friends would be mad at my for these designs and as a science geek…i mean same, the idea of a giant ring around a sun as a world is slightly more absurd than a dyson sphere and i know that, most of the inspiration was one of my friends talking about the game stellaris and building rings around planets/stars and the idea of everything else flowed from that, ill be making more of this before the release of the actual first chapter. Which will be on AO3. Now goodnight! (P.s. please ask any world-building questions id love to answer them!)

[limeinaltime]

does N get special training from X?

N does spend a brief period of time getting extra training from R (company’s orders) and hates every second of it, and eventually vents to X about how much he hates it. The only reason he put up with it was because he was falling behind and thought that maybe R could fix whatever was holding him back, but all it did was siphon his confidence. X gets the company to pull N out of these extra lessons (and puts in a very stern word with R that maybe ends up sending their already-brittle bond into a downward spiral), but he starts hanging out with her outside of training and the down time helps him get in the right headspace to pass the qualification tests.

On the exoplanet, N starts going to X for extra training following a confrontation with R (this is more compliant to the show canon but it still sort-of applies to the AU), and their bond is able to be reforged. He stops seeing her after R exiles her from the team, but runs into her while out scavenging with Uzi.

So while N doesn’t receive special training or treatment from X (she doesn’t play favorites), he is closest to her because he actually tries to bond with X and understands that despite her struggles to emote or communicate, she does care about her students as more than just a job assigned to her. Meanwhile, X knows what it’s like to be outcasted and picked on, and sees a lot of herself in N, and admires how kind N is even after being treated like dirt for so long.

This close bond gets N called a mama’s boy a lot, but he doesn’t really care.

[imjustexistingtbh]

Hello I’m back for like the fifth time

📝 - favorite quote

🎙- can you sing ??

👾 - do you believe in aliens ? Someone asked this to the guy who led my camp’s astronomy night. He built his own telescope which I’m in awe of :O

andbjwndksna hi again kes :)))) 

📝: hmmmm if we’re going for like. inspirational, then probably “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly” from Franz Kafka

🎙: i mean, kinda? ive definitley got a decent singing voice, but i wouldn’t necessarily say it’s great at all, but yeah i guess i can sing 

👾: *starts laughing uncontrollably* oh my sweet sweet kestrel. do you know what you’ve just unleashed? (also wow! someone built their own telescope?? that’s super cool) 

YES i think aliens exist. i mean- just think of how BIG our universe is. or even just our milky way. there are BILLIONS of stars in our milky way alone. many of these stars have planetary systems. so far, we’ve detected over 500,000 exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars), and that number is only rising. also keep in mind that the methods we use to detect exoplanets favor large planets orbiting close to their stars, so we’re probably missing multiple exoplanets in every solar system we observe. right off the bat, that’s potentially billions of planets (not to mention that life could arise on moons), in our milky way alone. then you look at an image like the hubble ultra deep field image and everything gets a whole lot bigger.

every. single. dot. in this photo is an entire GALAXY. an entire galaxy, with hundreds of millions, if not more, of stars. and this is only a tiny portion of the observable universe. just thinking of EVERYTHING that’s out there, the sheer SIZE of it all, it would be crazy to think aliens don’t exist anywhere. 

that being said, i don’t necessarily believe that aliens will be tall green humanlike creatures. i think chances are, we’ll come across microbial life. and, if we do come across intelligent life, it’ll probably take the form of something we can’t even begin to imagine. 

[tothestarsandbackmoved]

OHOOO what books i’ve wanted to get into quantum research but i don’t really know where to start

Okay so here's some resources to get into quantum research:

1. Astrophysics For People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. This one offers a great overview of our current knowledge of the known universe. The language used here is great and the diversity of topics explored is a good place to get started. [explores topics from exoplanets to dark energy to galaxies]

2. A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking. [note the briefer in the title- this one is a revised edition!]. The language here is technical and it took me a couple of readings to get through, but this is probably the best resource on the list. From time dilation to black holes to string theory- this one is about cutting edge physics.

3. Black Holes and Baby Universes by Stephen Hawking. This one starts off with personal essays written by stephen hawking about his experience with ALS- and the latter half is about the current research in physics about black holes and pioneer physics.

4. The Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking. This book has 7 lectures about the origin and fate of the universe, unification of theories and time itself. [this is honestly my favorite book off the list]

Okay there's also 3 youtube channels I would suggest watching and subscribing to since their content is being constantly updated! and the creators explain all of this in easy terms and are quite engaging.

minutephysics uses a simple style of animation and has both in depth videos about quantum theory as well as videos for beginners to get started on. They upload less frequently now, but their library is worth going through.

Physics Girl is another channel run by Diana Cowern who has the most engaging and interesting videos about physics explained with equal fascination and excitement! she's done specials where she visits the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and Various trips to leading universities such as MIT where she talks to physicists working in their niche fields.

Lastly, you can visit Ted-Ed who have videos about certain concepts on their channel. Their content has a huge range, and quantum physics is one of them.

There are several key terms associated with Quantum Physics, and if you do plan on going into this, you will begin to identify them. Wikipedia is a fairly reliable source for research, although I would recommend that only once you know enough about this. Some examples are: Standard Model, Quarks, Dilations, Tachyons, any word with the prefix quantum attached to it [i'm not joking about this], entanglement, uncertainty, so on and so forth

[the links above link directly to the resources, the book pdfs and the youtube channels]

[dandaelions]

"don't fight the feeling" album thoughts

AINT NO ONE GOT TIME FOR AN INTRO LET'S GET INTO IT

don't fight the feeling -

a) the music video: what do you do when you see an asteroid careening towards earth? GET GROOVIN ON THE FLOOR THAT'S WHAT. ok so the only thing I managed to pick up story-wise is that they're heading to exoplanet (smcu ep 2 on june 11th??) lol but that's ok because everyone just looks like they're having a good time. oooh backup dancers - haven't seen those in an exo mv before. the fancy footwork person that everyone was thinking is jongin or yixing WELL IT WAS KSOO HOLY SHEET OK MAN'S GOT SOME MOVES. did they edit yixing into the last scenes lmaoooo that made me laugh a little but I guess they tried. don't know if they're raving on or off the spaceship but whatever this is too much fun to miss out on!

b) the song: KSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHHH THAT GROOVE!!! I'M NOT FIGHTING THE FEELING TRUST ME!!!

ok it's actually so hard to type because I'm just sitting here VIBING HARD!!!!!! oh my god I feel like it's been so long since I've heard a solid, feel-good dance song that hasn't been processed to hell and back. this beat is bouncier than a bounce house WOO and this tempo is FAST!! love the breakdown in the b-section with chanbaekxiu before it picks up. U GOT THAT LOVE WIT THE JUICE ok sehun I hear you! yixing is actually incorporated in here a decent amount too. OH GODDD that bridge with ksoo...I could listen to an entire album of just that (ksolo *cough*). and then baek goes CRAZAY YEAH!

paradise - oh that intro is really pretty...so nice to hear minseok again :') ok alright and then the beat drops and then I drop too because ksoo is saying "damn girl you got me" and I don't know what to do with myself...this is so flirty and fun omg. LOVE that ascending line in the pre-chorus. hmm the emphasis on funk pop and the stomp-and-clap rhythm here reminds me a little bit of "dynamite" (coincidence??). but of course, in full exo force, the last verses culminate beautifully and it's a satisfying ending. is that yixing saying "thank you"? EDIT: it’s ksoo cancel me

no matter - alright not even five seconds in and I can tell this is my favorite song on the album. the space-y effects going into that swung-out groove with those retro vibraphone-y synths YES YES YES . that slight drop with the "whoa" before the chorus hits YEAH THAT'S IT RIGHT THERE. damn that chorus is so catchy! everyone sounds really good here omg they're all in their element!! this is so much fun this is the stuff I'm talking about!! THIS IS EXO!!!

runaway - ok I was really curious about the lyrics of this song because it didn't get approved for broadcast by the censor board, but I looked them up and?? I didn't see anything crazy? maybe the original meanings in korean are 👀 but ngl I was slightly disappointed lol

EDIT: IT WAS PARADISE THAT DIDN’T GET APPROVED THAT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE

hmm ok interesting intro - a darker tone than the other songs. I don't think the chorus is doing it for me tbh. but I'd like to acknowledge OH SEHUN!! PLEASE AND THANK YOU! I also do think that chanyeol should've been the focus of this song a little bit more, I think his voice fits better with this style of song as compared to the vocal textures of the other members (but that's just me). there are some really nice harmonies going on here that are fun to listen to.

just as usual - ok please tell me I'm not the only one who got biebs "love yourself" vibes from the intro...this actually ended up being a lot lighter and upbeat than what I was expecting. gosh it's just SO NICE to hear everyone deliver those vocals :') an easy-listening song that's going straight on my "chill exo" playlist!

overall - sometimes all you really need is five songs to make a point. and the point here is that despite all the turmoil over the past nine years and especially since their last album release, what you have here is a top-notch group who are top-notch because of what they can do and what they can deliver. NOTHING will erase that. and I'm so proud to be sitting here as a fan this morning thinking about where exo has come from, where they are now, and where they will go next. and in the meantime, I'm gonna jam to this mini :)

[not-majestic-bluenicorn]

Crescent || Chapter 1

Fandom(s): ATEEZ

AU: Treasure Hunters

Genre: Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Relationship: Everyone x Everyone, Established Hongjoong x Yunho

Language: English

Status: Ongoing

Chapter WC: 2,913 words

Warnings:  Character Death, Stabbing, Fighting, Blood, Aliens, War, Funerals, Kidnapping, Attempted Kidnapping, Mentions of Child Abuse / Child Work, Explosions, Murder Attempt, more will be added.

Chapter Warnings: Character Death, Stabbing, Fighting, Blood, Aliens, War, Funerals.

Summary: 

After the death of his oldest brother, heir to the crown, prince Hongjoong embarks on a journey to find the mythical Treasure of the Seven Galaxies. Wanting the treasure to finance the war against the people who killed his brother, prince Hongjoong will travel across space with the help of old friends and new, facing enemies he never expected. Together Hongjoong and his new crew will have to decide what they are truly fighting for: what is your treasure?

AO3

<< Teasers | Masterlist | Next Chapter >>

Taejoong held the hilt tightly as he lifted his foot and kicked the soldier away, retrieving his sword. He had lost his helmet some time ago during the fight, and his face was covered in dirt, sweat and blood. The fight had been going for hours, but dusk would soon come and the enemies would fall back to cover themselves from the cold that enveloped the Sierra desert, the biggest in the Bazara exoplanet. 

The Elgen had done an excellent job at choosing the site of attack, and Taejoong had to congratulate them for their strategy. Their thick, scaly skin provided them protection against the harsh weather, they could easily withstand the sandstorms and fight throughout the day. Their only disadvantage was the cold of the night. However, without a satellite to provide natural light in the darkness and the time they needed for recovery, the humans had been unable to perform a surprise attack at night, when the Elgen were at their weakest point.

Bazara was considerably small for a planet, and mostly consisted of deserts, but under its surface it was bustling with coveted resources. The planet was under the rulership of the Kim Empire, the biggest human made empire in that galaxy and the neighboring ones, which certainly made it the target of other empires and species. This invasion had already been going on for two weeks, but it was not slowing down.

Another soldier lunged forward and Taejoong retreated, earning himself time to activate his shield. He deflected the opponent’s sword by pushing it away and brought his long sword forward, piercing the arm of the Elgen soldier. Taejoong pressed a button on the hilt and electrocuted the enemy, who fell to the ground unconscious. He kept up his guard as he approached the soldier and leaned down to check on his vital signs; he was unconscious but alive, which meant they could take him back to camp and try to obtain information from him.

Taejoong wasn’t fond of taking prisoners, but he was less fond of stabbing someone unconscious or leaving them there to die. As he took a look around, he noticed that the rest of Elgen had already retreated, and all that was left was to gather those who were still standing and take the wounded back to camp. His sword shrunk into a dagger and his shield became once again just a gauntlet. When he crouched to pick up the fallen Elgen, he noticed a familiar coat of arms and smiled.

“Right in time!” Taejoong exclaimed, sitting up the Elgen and passing their arm over his shoulders. “Tell the others to start gathering our injured and dead, we need to send them back to their home planets and reward them for their service. Night is falling soon so we need to be quick before the sandstorms start and make it impossible to see anything.”

With great effort, he stood up and brought the unconscious soldier with him. Taejoong continued voicing his orders as he turned around and started his way back to camp; maybe if they were fast enough they could change their location to cover the terrain they had just recovered from the Elgen. As he walked away, he felt pain through his back and chest, which spread quickly to the rest of his body. He fell to his knees, and when he looked down, he managed to catch the sword piercing his chest as it pulled back.

—

“We were too careless!” Yunho screamed as his sword locked with another and he pushed forward to deflect it, retreating once he had succeeded. 

“What are you talking about! Don’t you like surprises?” Hongjoong mocked, way too excited for his own good.

He stabbed an Elgen soldier clearly in the stomach before kicking them back. He pivoted on his right leg as his sword became a throwing dagger, attached to his arm firmly by a chain, and threw it towards an enemy that was running to them. The dagger sank onto the Elgen’s shoulder and Hongjoong pressed the button to electrocute them, quickly sending them to the ground. He felt Yunho’s back press against his and he smiled, of course he could count on his right hand to keep him safe.

“You’re so boring, dear Lieutenant general, relax a little.” Hongjoong smiled as he retrieved his dagger, turning it into a short-sword.

Yunho huffed. It was so easy for Hongjoong to say that because he wasn’t the one taking care of his own back. Yunho couldn’t complain though, Hongjoong was vicious in battle, second only to his older brother, almost invincible. And that little part of him that was vulnerable to defeat was what Yunho protected. He wouldn’t be able to let Hongjoong get out of his sight if he tried, anyway, so might as well protect him.

The Elgen were tall but thin, and because of their reforced skin the Empire had fortified their weapons in order to make them more effective. Soon enough, Hongjoong’s troop had finished off the battle, and won. They had been inspecting some caves for a new base when the Elgen attacked them. The attack had been unexpected, an ambush, but they had been able to defend themselves and emerge victorious.

“Round up and count the injured!” The lieutenant in charge of the troop ordered and he was answered by a chorus of ‘yes sir!’. “Sir,” Lieutenant Hwang saluted Hongjoong and then Yunho, who saluted back.

“Lieutenant,” Hongjoong acknowledged him with a nod. “Do you think there will be enough men to guard this spot so the Elgen can’t claim it again?”

“It is still difficult to say sir, I’ll inform you once the headcount is done.” The lieutenant explained. “The battle was quite brutal however, and we need to get the injured back to the main camp. We might need to call for reinforcements.” 

“Alright, keep me informed.” Hongjoong nodded, but before the man walked away, he stopped him. “Good job on leading your troop through the ambush Lieutenant Hwang, I expected no less.” 

The lieutenant saluted before going back to check on his soldiers, and Hongjoong allowed himself to relax for a second. Yunho chuckled next to him, wiping off sweat from his forehead. Hongjoong pushed him softly and shook his head; he looked around to make sure no one was close enough to them before he began talking. Yunho looked at him with a soft smile on his face and listened.

“I know you already know, because he’s your prince-”

“Not more than you are.” Yunho interrupted briefly, causing Hongjoong to blush profusely.

“Not the point!” The General said through gritted teeth. “My brother’s birthday is next week and I am so excited for it! I insisted aunt Mira until she taught me how to cook his favorite dishes.” Hongjoong explained, obviously too excited.

Everyone knew that Hongjoong looked up to his brother. Taejoong was his role model and Hongjoong’s favorite person besides Yunho; he had been planning his brother’s birthday celebration for almost a month, and he talked so much about it it was almost certain his brother knew already. It was difficult to dissuade him of talking about it, though, since it brightened his expression so much.

“You? Cooking? It should be considered treason, you’ll probably poison your brother.” Yunho chuckled, earning himself a punch and a death glare from Hongjoong. Yunho was not deterred by this though, as he grabbed Hongjoong’s arm and pulled him closer, pecking him slightly on the lips.

“Don’t do that! We’re in public.” Hongjoong almost yelled, pushing Yunho away. “And my cooking is not that awful.” He crossed his arms. “Is it?”

“Of course not!” Yunho smiled, looking apologetic. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel insecure.” Hongjoong shook his head.

“Do you think he’ll like his gift?” Hongjoong bit his lip, eyes trained on the floor.

“I’m sure he’ll love it.”

—

Taejoong held his hands to his chest, pressuring the wound, dropping the Elgen soldier as he tried to keep the blood from pouring out, but it was impossible. He fell on his side, and looked up when a dirty boot pushed him so he was lying on his back. Pain flooded his body as he felt sand and dirt press into his back injury, and groaned and winced in pain.

His sight became blurry from the mix of tears and agony, and when he looked up, he couldn’t quite make the face of the person that stood before him. He knew just by the colors that it was one of his own though. The soldier stabbed the fallen Elgen multiple times before looking back at Taejoong, who had begun to shake uncontrollably.

“Who… are you?” He managed to sputter out, coughing blood. The man laughed but didn’t reply. “Who sent you… why?” 

How was no one seeing him bleed out? Surely, someone must have noticed when he had stopped given orders, when he had stopped guiding them. And yet he couldn’t hear anyone coming to help him. Taejoong was going to die by the hands of his own soldier, and he couldn’t find a reason why.

“Hongjoong…” He whispered, because even then he could only think of his youngest brother, fighting his own battles somewhere in that deserted planet. What if he was in danger too? “I’m s-sorry…” His breathing stopped.

“Help! General Kim has been attacked! Somebody help!” 

—

“I promise you he will like your gift!” Yunho insisted, trying to hide his smile. “You’re literally his favorite person in the Empire, no- in the universe.”

“I’d say Livia is pretty high up there too.” Hongjoong mumbled, making Yunho laugh.

“Princess Livia is Prince Taejoong’s wife though.” Yunho said with a smile. “It’ll be fine.”

As Hongjoong was about to retort, a slider parked outside of the cave they were in and a hurried soldier ran towards them. Her face was livid as she made her way up to Hongjoong, but there was no hesitation in her voice when she gave them the news.

“Sir,” she saluted. Her shoulders were strained with tension. “General Kim Taejoong has passed away in combat.”

Hongjoong’s face became pale, and a second later he was running towards the slider. Yunho followed him in a hurry and stopped him right before he mounted, holding him in place. Hongjoong battled in his arms and threw a punch at his face, which Yunho barely avoided. He held him down nonetheless and boarded the slider first.

“I’ll drive, before you kill yourself on the way.” Yunho explained.

Hongjoong boarded behind him and held tight. Sliders like this one were made for messengers, one person who needed to deliver a message quickly, and it really wasn’t supposed to hold both Yunho and Hongjoong on it. However, Hongjoong wasn’t about to be left behind, and Yunho wasn’t going to let him drive it, so he would hold on for dear life until they had made it with his brother.

Yunho started up the engine and they bolted out of there. Through their communication network, he asked for the coordinates and in just a few minutes they had already arrived. When Hongjoong let go of him, Yunho felt the sting of the cuts that his nails had left behind from holding so tightly. Hongjoong didn’t wait for him to turn off the engine and jumped off the slider, running towards the mass of people.

“Let me through!” He yelled, and the soldiers in front of him parted, letting him see.

The army nurses had already loaded the body on a stretcher and were taking it to the medical slider. No one saw it coming when Hongjoong threw himself at them, trying to stop them from taking his brother away. Yunho ran towards him and pulled him away, shielding him with his body, but it was too late, Hongjoong had already seen it all.

He became violent, hitting Yunho and demanding him to move. But Yunho didn’t budge. Instead, he took Hongjoong away from the masses so they wouldn’t see him in that state. When they were finally alone, away from the prying eyes, Hongjoong broke down in his arms. He cursed Yunho out, demanding to return his brother, to let him go see him. And through it all, Yunho just held him.

—

Hongjoong stood next to his middle brother Yijoong and his father, the Emperor, on the front row at the palace's ballroom. The space had been adapted to hold the funeral, and as far as Hongjoong remembered, this was the second time he got to see it like this. His memories of the first time weren't too clear. He had been too young when the Empress, his mother, had passed away as a victim of illness. And now he stood there, waiting for his older brother to be brought to the front.

His eyes were fixed on the thrones as the soldiers carried the coffin on their shoulders. Hongjoong couldn't really hear anything besides the noise in his head. He was vaguely conscious of a few people crying, but the royal family was somewhat small and most of their family friends were in the military. Everyone expected them to just remain serious and wait.

Yunho had embraced him all throughout the previous day while the preparations for the ceremony were carried, but it wasn't enough and Hongjoong wished he could be there by his side. As it was, though, Yunho was probably standing a few rows behind him. The only good thing was that, at least, he had cried enough in the previous 24 hours that he didn't have a tear left to cry in the ceremony. Yijoong and his father were stoic as well, and Hongjoong couldn't help but think they certainly made an exemplary family of soldiers.

The emperor was the first to give his farewell speech. Hongjoong couldn't help but look away when the words died in his father's throat, as he looked over at the coffin for a long minute, just contemplating it. His father had lost his wife and a son. Yijoong and him had lost their mother and now a brother, how could they not break apart even just a moment? And still, the speech ended with no tears.

As Yijoong went to the front to speak about their eldest brother, Hongjoong put his hand inside his coat and pulled out a compass. It was a round black box the size of his palm, engraved with his initials. Taejoong had given it to him as a birthday gift when he had completed his studies in navigation, as it was one of Hongjoong's passions. The outside was simple, but the inside was beautifully designed and the golden needle never failed to show him the way. He wished it would also show him the way to bring his brother back.

When Yijoong was done speaking, it was Hongjoong's turn to stand up and walk to the front. As he stood up behind the stand, he looked at Yunho, whose eyes were fixed on him with intensity, body tense. Hongjoong guessed that the younger wanted to run out of his place and hug him, to protect him from the pain of loss. Yunho was silly like that, ready to throw away everything for him. Hongjoong nodded, and after Yunho nodded back, he fixed his eyes on the coffin and began talking.

"Everyone knows this already, but my brother was the most amazing person in my eyes, in my life." Hongjoong's voice was firm as he spoke. "He encouraged me and guided me to become the person I am today, and I would never be here without him.

"He was loved by everyone who got to meet him personally, and admired by many more who never got a chance to speak to him." As he felt his voice falter, he stopped for a moment and breathed deeply. "He was the strongest swordsman and soldier in the Empire, yet he had the kindest heart and always strove for peace and negotiation, only raising his weapon when it was to defend his people, and still never aiming to kill.

"Everyone will remember him as an amazing leader and General, but that is not everything about him." Hongjoong smiled slightly. "My brother was the kindest person I have ever known, always discussing new ways of improving the empire. But he was also an amazing brother, taking care of me and Yijoong, looking for his family and friends.

"He made all of our lives better, and he would have been an amazing emperor." This time, Hongjoong looked at the front, looking for comfort in Yunho's expression. "He lived with kindness and died being kind, as the enemy whose life he had chosen to spare, as he often did, stabbed him in the back." Hongjoong sighed. "And still, I'm sure he wouldn't have hesitated to do it again even knowing the outcome.

"I'll miss him, but I hope that wherever he is, he'll continue to guide us through the legacy he left to us." Hongjoong spared one last glance at his brother before getting off of the stand and walking back to his family.

The rest of the ceremony went by but Hongjoong paid almost no attention to it. If his brother was anywhere, it was not in that expensive ceremony to honor him. So Hongjoong held the compass tight to his heart and mourned in silence, hoping that wherever he was, his brother was still looking at him.

[exo-xexo]

Hello @sakurasangcl I am your secret santa. Please let me know if you would like more, I didn't want to make it too long for the first part! Thank you @exolssecretsanta for this opportunity!

The Red Suns changed shifts to look over the world below them, black stars littered the horizon and the wind whispered through the sector quietly. A sector of pristine stone, sparkling under the harsh light above. The buildings that rose from the natural leersia virginica into gorgeous opal constructions that were planted all along the sector. People dressed in blinding white robes to compliment the sting of opals in their possession. Baekhyun smiled as he looked around the sector, he called home. Auris, the home of light wielders, the home of the Light Guardian.

“Oh Guardian~” A teasing voice destroyed the silence around him, Baekhyun spun around from his previous distraction.

“Ah Miss Julia! How many times have I told you not to call me that, it’s embarrassing,” Baekhyun whined softly as he pouted. The laugh that followed sent shivers down Baekhyun’s spine. One of his favorite sounds is her laughter.

“Why should I not? Are you not the Light Guardian? Are you not the Sixth Prince of Exoplanet?” She rolled her eyes.

“Well I’m sorry to have bothered you stranger. I was looking for the Prince of Auris,” She crossed her arms in front of her as she stared down her friend.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Baekhyun shrugged his shoulder and used his ability of light to show an illusion of another’s face.

“That doesn’t work on me, not as well as it does on your brothers, I’m sure,” Julia walked to the edge of their border to stand next to Baekhyun. This is his second favorite view, the first being Miss Julia herself of course.

“I see the grass is becoming more vibrant, is Lavar due for another eruption soon?” Julia asked curiously.

“Indeed, Chanyeol is sending his troops to the surrounding borders while taking himself and his best wielders to try and disrupt the main flow,” Baekhyun sighed softly.

“You’re worried?” Julia asked as she leaned her head against his shoulder.

“We’re always worried. There are so many factors that could go wrong. However, Chanyeol know his sector the best out of us. Just as if a lightning storm went rogue, Chanyeol would run to tell us as fast as Jongdae can manipulate his vocal range,” Baekhyun chuckled and leaned his head against hers.

“You know your brothers better than all of us, I suppose that was the point of The War,” Baekhyun nodded at her mention of history.

“Are you concerned they’ll come for us?” As soon as the question left her mouth, his eyes turned white and the living symbols on his robe turned into gray.

“Let them try, we beat them the first time. With 12 of us, there’s no way they can defeat us…”

 

 

“People of Exoplanet, it has been exactly 2 months since that last time the six guardians were seen. As we keep our promise to stay transparent with you, we once again ask that you be transparent with us. Anyone who has any information about the six missing guardians must report it immediately-“ The picture in the screen faded to black as Julia set down her remote. Now longer interested in being on the device. She stood up quietly and walked over to her mantle. An image stood before her.

Six missing guardians.

Kim Junmyeon, Oh Sehun, Kim Jongin, Park Chanyeol, Kim Jongdae, and Byun Baekhyun. Their brothers have been tearing themselves a part in order to search for the missing six. The famous sparkle Auris was known for died the moment the news spread of the guardians. The remaining guardians have taken it upon themselves to watch over a sector that was left behind. Kyungsoo took over Cerauno for his elemental pair. Minseok took over for Junmyeon in order to keep their water flowing. Yifan, Luhan, and Tao took over for Chanyeol, Jongin, and Sehun. Guardian Yixing took over for Baekhyun. Yixing is doing a great job in order to make Auris feel alive again.

Julia straightened her skirt and walked inside. Rumors began circling the streets. Rumors that allowed Julia to feel scared for the first time in a long time, they were quicky dismissed. Rumors of beings that looked exactly like the missing guardians, but meaner than the ones that they’ve all come to know and love. But these beings that people have rumored to see, they can’t be the same as the twelve guardians who rose up against the Red Force in order to give the people of Exoplanet a chance to live freely. Julia has especially kept to date on the sightings of the “new” light guardian. The one who’s hair matched their signature color exactly. The who dressed so starkly against the pristine white stone. He who wears a chain across his face that grows longer down the back of his neck with each kill he commits. Julia notices a flashing light from the corner of her vision, with the Guardian of Light being gone, the duties of his work as fallen to her. She owed him an apology after all this.

During the time she spent with him, she thought he never had to do anything difficult. His older brothers usually try to shield him from it all, however now his duties have fallen to her, she understands how difficult it really was. Julia punched the code into the Portwatch, closing her eyes to feel the world shifting around her. As soon as it was over, she could hear crying down the hall. Quickly, Julia started walking to the sound. As she turned the corner, she noticed it was Zitao who seemed horribly upset. It only took her a moment to understand why. A frozen photo clearly showed Baekhyun exactly as he was descried to her. Hair as white as their opals, clothing as black as the aesthetic of Tempes, and to top it all off a chain that rested across his nose.

“This was taken not too long ago in Auris, we need to find a way stop it, and figure out why this is occurring now. The image has not been tampered with. This is him. The others must be around as well. The orders for today and everyday keep an ear open all day,” Yifan shuddered slightly, not feeling used to actually being a leader. Junmyeon and him discussed everything, making decisions alone must be really hard on him.

“Do not engage if you run into them, we have no idea what they’re capable of anymore.,” Julia rolled her eyes at the phrase of caution. Once she sees Baekhyun again, he will be getting a piece of her mind.

[squidthechaotickid]

Yo @undertale-gaming I wrote the thing!! (Hopefully this works, tumblr is being weird wt this post jfhfjkhughj) 

1294 words

Ebon belongs to @undertale-gaming, Star belongs to me

Star sat in Outertale, gazing up at the stars and trying to find the different constellations. "Orion's Belt is there… and that's the Big Dipper… and there's the-" He froze as they noticed someone moving off to the side. He stood, moving to hide. Dream had taught him that he wasn't supposed to let himself be seen by the people in AUs, as it could mess the AU up. 

He peaked over the bush he'd hidden behind. There were three skeletons, all standing too far away for Star to get a good look. He looked around, seeing another bush farther up. They sprinted almost silently forward, peaking over again. Wasn't there only supposed to be two skeletons in this AU?

His eyesockets widened as he saw the form of Nightmare and Error, sitting together and gazing at the sky, with… Who was that? They looked about Star's age, with four tentacles that faded to a teal shape at the tips. Their clothing was similar to Error's, but also had a teal fade on the sleeves. They wore gray shorts, and their legs followed the fade pattern. One eye was covered with goop.

"They almost look like…" Star gasped. "Oh my stars, are Error and Nightmare together?!" 

He watched for another moment or two, before slowly taking a few steps back. Suddenly, they tripped and fell backwards, yelling out as they hit the ground.

The three skeletons turned around to look at where the noise came from, causing Star to scramble backwards, only making more noise with his frantic movements.

"Who's this?" He turned, seeing Nightmare behind him. Must have teleported, Star thought. "Whose kid are you?" Nightmare said it in such a threatening voice that Star trembled, shouting "It doesn't matter!" Before quickly running, opening a portal and running through, falling down again before closing it. 

He gasped, sitting down to catch his breath. After getting over the initial panic, Star realized that he had just found out that Error and Nightmare had a kid! 

Wait… does that mean I have a cousin?! Star lingered on that idea. He only really had Honey as family, other than his parents. 

A cousin… he wanted to meet him, he thought. If he was going to try to find this cousin, then neither Dream nor Blue could find out about them. They'd forbid him ever meeting up. 

Star stood, brushing himself off. He'd need to be home soon, so Dream and Blue wouldn't get worried. He opened another portal, rushing through to get home in time for dinner. 

Star looked at his clock. Three in the morning, his parents would be asleep by now. He stood, opening a portal and locking his door before running through. 

He'd accidentally found Nightmare's castle while AU hopping a while ago. Perhaps this was an absolutely stupid idea, but hey, too late to turn back now. They took a deep breath before approaching, looking at an open window he'd spotted near the front. He put a hand on the rough wall, and began to quickly climb up. Peaking over the window, they leapt in, landing with a small "Oof!"

Star stood, glancing around before making his way through the castle. Hopefully he'd find something…

It had been almost three hours, and nothing. Stars, how hard was it to find a person in here? He would have to leave soon, or risk getting caught... Suddenly, he heard footsteps. Star ducked behind a corner, poking out at who it was.

It was the kid from earlier, walking through the halls sleepily. Star quietly followed, figuring he'd talk when the kid went back to his room. 

They got a glass of water, then went right back to their room, unknowingly being followed. As soon as the door was open, Star spoke up.

"Hiya!" The kid turned on their heel, eyelight locking on him. "Wha-?! Mph!" Star put a hand over his mouth. "Shhh, my Dad would kill me if he knew I was here, and ESPECIALLY if I got caught by Nightmare. I'm just here to talk to you!" 

The other kid pushed his hand away. "Don't touch me!" Star blinked. "Oh, yeah, sorry! This is probably weird, huh." He laughed nervously. 

"I'm Star, Dream and Blue's kid! You're Error and Nightmare's, right? I saw you in Outertale yesterday." The other slowly nodded. "Yeah, I am… uh, my name's Ebon? Wait, Uncle Dream has a kid? Does that mean you're my cousin?" Star grinned. "Yep! That's why I wanted to talk to you!" 

Ebon frowned slightly. This kid had broken into his home and followed him to his room, all because he wanted to talk to him? That was… a bit extreme, to say the least, but he shrugged. "Alright, come into my room, it's safer in here since you don't want to be spotted." He moved to the side, letting Star in.

"Nice room!" "Uh, thanks." Star sat on the bed, Ebon following suit. "So, you're my cousin, since my dad and your dad are twins. That's so cool, I've never had a cousin before!" Star grinned. "So, what should we talk about? Ooo, do you like space?" Ebon shrugged. "I guess? I've read a few books on it, and my dads take me to Outertale a lot."  

Star nodded. "I like studying space a lot. There are these things called exoplanets, I really love them!! My favorite would have to be Hd 189733b, it rains glass sideways there! And the winds are so fast, they could travel around the Earth in 5 and a half hours! Oo, but then there's also that ocean planet, and the one that's pink…" 

Star continued rambling about space, a lot of it going straight over Ebon's head. He seemed happy, though, so he just let him keep talking while Ebon assessed whether or not he was actually here to just talk. He didn't seem like he was here on behalf of the Star Sanses, and he definitely looked like a combination of Dream and Blue…

"...oh, and Kepler-16b revolves around two stars, so it has a double sunset!" "Sounds cool." Star beamed. "I know, right?!"

"So, Star," Ebon began. "Do you have any magic?" The skeleton frowned. "No, or at least I can't use it well. I can summon bones," he demonstrated by summoning a small one. "...and I can summon my bow to me, but other than that and making arrows, that's about it. Oh, I also can make portals, and sense people's emotions, but only blurry lines." Star looked to Ebon. "What about you? What magic do you have?" "Oh, um… I have strings and tentacles, like my dads, and I can summon Gaster Blasters." 

Star gasped. "Can I see one? Pleaseeee?" Ebon blinked, before muttering, "Sure, I guess." He summoned a small blaster, to which Star immediately began to smile at. "Oh my stars, it's adorable!" He pet it's head, causing it to make a purring sound. 

Star's eyes turned to stars, causing Ebon to giggle. "Seems like it likes you." 

Star continued to pet the blaster for another few minutes before reluctantly stopping. "I have to go, Mom and Dad will freak out if I'm not there when they get up." He stood, stretching. "Wanna talk again later? Here's my number, if you want it." He handed Ebon a piece of paper. "Oh  and one more thing, please don't tell anyone I was here, Nightmare doesn't know I exist, and I think I wanna keep it like that for now."

Ebon nodded. "Sure, I'll text you later. Bye Star!" "Bye Ebon!" With that, Star opened a portal, running through. Ebon looked at the piece of paper. This kid didn't seem like he was dangerous. Maybe he would meet up with him again.

[name-and-pronoun-validation]

I would like to try out the name Klondike with the pronouns he, she and they. I like to research exoplanets and I like to draw. Thank you so much :)

Hi Klondike!

Klondike has a cool name. I wonder how he chose it. Klondike is trying out a few different pronoun sets, so I hope I can help him out today!

He likes to research exoplanets, which is really cool. I know barely anything about exoplanets, so I bet Klondike could tell me a lot, cause she has probably learned a lot while researching them. I wonder if she has a favorite exoplanet. It sounds like a cool interest of hers. They also like to draw! I wonder what their favorite thing to draw is. I bet they have wonderful drawings. Klondike is an artist, and I would love to see their work some time. I wonder if they make drawings of exoplanets.

[myforeverforlife]

Chapter 4: Suhø

Right before you passed out, you felt a sudden cooling sensation on your cheek. A hand rested on your face, as refreshing as an ocean breeze, a glass of water on a warm summer day. 

Masterlist

Obsession Masterlist

Trigger warning: Mentions of drowning

It was getting extremely frustrating to keep repeating this cycle of near death, blacking out and then regaining consciousness only to be subjected to the a different set of horrors all over again. But a small flame of hope flickered into being when you realized you were alive. Still breathing, a bit worse for wear, but still determined to make it out of here.

It was dark when you came to, and you feared that you were still in the burning field. But the clean, untainted breaths of air proved that you were somewhere entirely different. 

You were lying on the floor, although this floor was now made of marble instead of being the dirty, dusty plains of the abandoned field. Looking down at your hands, you jolted upright when you realized that they were free. 

Your relief was only passing, however, as soon as you felt a slight pull at your ankles. 

Wrapped around your legs were what you could only describe as ropes of... water? 

Confused, you reached out to pull at one of them, gaping in disbelief when the water didn’t separate in your hands. The ropes trailed behind you, leading to a large tank of water. The tank spanned the entire wall, small waves of water lapping against the edges. 

You spun around, eyes catching how the water reflected against the white walls, bare expect for a few paintings hung up here and there. Under any other circumstances, you would have thought this room beautiful. 

But now wasn’t the time to be admiring your surroundings. 

A doorway was situated in the far corner of the room, a yellow light illuminating the space beyond it. You heard him before you saw him — the brisk tapping of shoes against the marbled floor as the shadow in the doorway grew larger. 

A shock of vibrant, fire-red hair came into view. The man wore a suit in the same crimson color, although his torso was completely exposed. He leaned against the doorframe, an eyebrow raising in amusement. 

“Junmyeon,” you whispered in horror. Even sweet, kind, diplomatic Junmyeon was one of these monsters in this universe. 

“No,” he said, voice just as soothing and melodic as you remembered. His soft-spoken demeanor contrasted so strongly with his intimidating appearance, it left you speechless. “Suhø,” he corrected you. “Although I’m under the impression that you know us by different names in your world.” 

He strolled over to where you sat on the floor, hands shoved lazily into the pockets of his pants. As he came closer, you could see a dark red scar beneath his left eye — something your Junmyeon didn’t have. 

Suhø stopped when he was a couple feet away, staring down at you. He studied you like you were one of the paintings hanging on the wall, trying to make sense of your character. 

“I have to apologize for my brother Chanyeøl’s temper earlier. He’s always been hot-headed, I guess you could say.” His smug smile brought you back to being stuck in the ring of flames, and a chill ran down your spine at the thought of what this man had in store for you.

“You’re the one I felt before I passed out,” you stated, voice hoarse and strained from exertion. “Your hands were cold.”

Suhø laughed airily, devoid of any real amusement. If anything, it seemed to be out of pity. “Yes, that was me. You’re quite smart. I’m sure you’ve already pieced together that these restraints are also my doing.” He nodded towards the coils of water wrapped tightly around your ankles.

“Why did you bring me here?” you shot back, determined to keep your voice even. “Your brothers were both determined to kill me, so why would you save me?” 

“Their youth makes them impulsive, more lustful for immediate results. I am more patient,” he said with a smile to himself. “And, I don’t necessarily agree with them.”

This had you reeling in surprise. Would this be your chance? Would he take pity on you and let you go without a fight?

“You show so much promise. Only the select few become Gatekeepers, the revered protectors of our worlds,” he added with a layer of sarcasm coating his words. “And you are much stronger than the other visitors we’ve had from Exoplanet, although it seems that all of you are cursed with horribly terrible judgement.”

Suhø sighed, examining his suit jacket and absentmindedly flicking off a bit of dust before turning his attention back to you. “I’m here to make you an offer, Gatekeeper. Join our ranks as a member of X-EXO, and we will ensure that no harm comes to you.”

And there it was again — the tiny shred of hope crushed right in front of your eyes. Join them? Doing so would mean turning your back on everything you had known, signing a death sentence for everyone you loved back home. The mere thought of it made your stomach turn.

Suhø smirked, your disgust apparent on your face. “I was worried you might be opposed to it.” He shrugged. “I can’t say that I don’t see why. I’m sure living as a Gatekeeper, sheltered and worshipped by all, sounds much more appealing than becoming one of us.” 

He pulled a hand out of his pocket, lifting it slowly and watching as the water from the tank began to spill out onto the floor. The water held its form, a large, misshapen puddle as it traveled across the floor to where you were sitting. Once it touched your shoes, it began to cover every inch of your body that it could touch. 

Just before the water could reach your neck, Suhø brought his hand down, the water pausing in its tracks. You were suspended in it, only a few seconds away from being entirely covered. 

“Shall I revise the deal then, if the previous one wasn’t to your liking?” He tapped one finger against his chin as he pretended to be deep in thought, his telltale sly grin giving him away. 

“You can make this easier on yourself and simply relinquish your ownership of the keys to me. A simple transaction of magic — you give me the keys, and I give you the means to return to your universe safely. You’ll have enough time to run home and tell your family that we are coming,” he added with a snicker. 

“But of course, if you refuse, I don’t know what will become of your fate here. I have three younger brothers still, each just as eager to get their hands on those keys of yours. Make the right choice.” 

Your eyes narrowed, a scowl twisting your mouth. “Fuck off. I hope you all rot in hell.”

Suhø clicked his tongue in mock disappointment, shaking his head even as he smiled. “I hoped you would be smarter than this. You leave me no choice.” 

An abrupt movement of his hands had the water rushing upwards, completely submerging you in a mass of flowing water. It was like being caught in a riptide, powerful currents of water assaulting you from all sides even as you were held in place. You couldn’t breathe, nose burning from the water being forced down your throat. 

You were drowning, trapped in this bubble with no way out. Even as you reached for the edges, tried to break out and touch air, you were only met with more water. It was like the bubble was made of rubber, pulling back whenever you pushed against it. 

Suhø watched as you tried to kick and fight your way out, an impassive expression on his face. Suddenly, with a snap, the water receded, dropping down to the floor with a splash before climbing back up the wall and into the tank. 

You lay coughing and sputtering on the floor, completely drenched. Your hair clung to your face, clothes heavy with water and weighing you down.  

Suhø looked over his shoulder, staring at the doorway. “Sehûn,” he called out. New footsteps could be heard, much more brisk and light. Sehûn came walking in, a large bow and a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. He only spared you a quick glance, his expression blank before turning his attention to his older brother. “Yes?”

“Take her with you. I don’t want you dirtying up my art gallery with whatever you have planned next.”

You couldn’t stop the goosebumps that ran over your skin as you heard this. 

Things had gone from bad to worse, and continued to do so. Whereas you had previously been outside, now you were stuck in a building with a layout that you weren’t familiarized with. Add that to your list of growing concerns.

Sehûn pulled you up by one arm. You gritted your teeth, refusing to let them have their satisfaction by showing how much pain you were in. 

“Come,” he said, a sharpness to his words even as he whispered lowly. 

“I’ve been waiting for my turn.” 

A/N: I love writing all of these, but Junmyeon’s chapter has to be my favorite so far. I’ve been trying to incorporate the settings from the MV in the music video, and X-EXO Suho definitely seems like the kind of guy to just have a mini art gallery in his home, even as his world is ending LOL

Tag list: @thalasoophilia​, @skjdln​, @trishmarieco​, @jongin-be-my-jagi​, @violentcosmicsymphony 

[sheliesshattered]

Fic meme

I was tagged by @primarybufferpanel​ -- thank you darling, this was a ton of fun to do!

This got a bit long, so I’ll put the people I’m tagging here at the top:  @claraaoswald​, @ambitious-witch​, @someillplanetreigns​, and @junoinferno​, if you feel like playing!

My AO3, my old non-updating fanfiction.net

Fandoms I’ve made fanworks for: Oh lord. I’m only going to count fanfiction that has actually been posted, but if I tried to count up every fandom that I’d started writing for and left unfinished fragments languishing on various harddrives and googledocs over the years, it’d be at least double this list. I have two pseuds on AO3, with the fics roughly organized by fandoms that I post about on this Tumblr account (sheliesshattered) and fandoms that pre-date my time on Tumblr that I don’t post about very much (glasscannon). Putting all the fandoms together in one alphabetized list:

Black Sails - 5 Doctor Who - 8 Firefly/Serenity - 1 Game of Thrones - 1 The Hobbit - 1 The Hunger Games - 1 Iron Man - 2 Law & Order: Criminal Intent - 1 Mad Max - 2 Once Upon A Time - 1 Poldark - 3 Star Wars - 3 Twilight - 7 The West Wing - 1

Number of fics: 38, including a big unfinished epic that I never moved over from ff.n, and don’t plan to unless I finish it someday.

Fics I spent more time on: I’m not even quite sure how to measure this. I’m a slow writer, and a single story can easily hold my attention for years at a time, or be something I return to when there isn’t a newer fandom temporarily consuming me. I don’t tend to keep track of how many hours I put into a fanfic, though. The unfinished epic I mentioned is probably near the top of that list, and was a huge part of my life from 2009 to 2013. Other contenders would be the All Hands series (written with PBP!), and Truth Universally Acknowledged, particularly if you include all the massive world-building that went into that one. 

But really probably the one I’ve poured the most hours into, between research and writing, is a Doctor Who epic that hasn’t yet seen the light of day, called Home The Long Way ‘Round. Because I have such a habit of starting long stories and then not finishing them, I’m making myself get that one completely done before I post any of it to AO3, so I don’t have anything to show for it yet, but I’ve put a ton of time into it over the last five years or so. Hopefully someday I’ll actually get to share it. :)

Fics I spent less time on: Like I said, I’m a very slow writer, so any time I can turn out a story in a matter of days I’m just absolutely shocked. I wrote The Message over the course of about 24 hours, which is probably the fastest I’ve ever finished anything in my life ever, lol.

Longest fic: The All Hands series is sitting at 126,800 words, and PBP and I have more finished for it that we’re hoping to post soon-ish. The unfinished epic made it to almost 119,000 words before I ran out of steam. Truth Universally Acknowledged racked up about 54,000 words before my co-writer and I took a break from it, and probably triple that in world-building bibles and timelines, etc. On the works-in-progress side of things, Home The Long Way ‘Round is sitting at about 40,000 words currently and only about a third of the way done, and the For As Long As We Get series is at 21,000 words between what I’ve posted and what I’m still working on, and will definitely continue to grow.

Shortest story: 10 Seconds, at 208 words. Also one of the very first fanfics I ever finished and posted online.

Most hits: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by like a factor of 20 vs anything else I have on AO3. It’s the only time I’ve written for the main pairing in an active fandom (tho my purview in the co-writing was more on the secondary pairing), and that translated to a stupidly large number of hits. Fanfiction.net doesn’t count hits the same way, but the unfinished epic is sitting at about 3500 favs.

Most kudos: Setting The Stuns’ls, the first in the All Hands series -- which is SHOCKING considering that’s a tiny rowboat of a fandom, for a non-canon background pairing that has literally about 30 seconds of shared screentime, and the two romantic leads don’t so much as kiss over the course of 94,000 words (longing looks, significant hand-touches, mutual pining, definitely, but kissing, not so much).

Most bookmarks: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by a long shot.

Fic you want to rewrite or expand: I don’t tend to edit a story once it’s been posted, beyond correcting a typo or adding a missed word. Once it’s published, it’s finished and I don’t change it significantly. I do have quite a few (so, so many) unfinished stories that I would love to finish up at some point.

Total words combined: Counting only published fics, including the unfinished epic (and a companion piece for it) that lives only on ff.n, I’m currently at 376,542 words total.

Fav fic you wrote: How can you make me choose between my children like this, honestly?? Siiiigh. I’m with PBP, whatever I’m working on currently is usually my favorite. I’m having a ton of fun with For As Long As We Get, and can’t wait to publish the next part of that, hopefully sometime this month. I’m incredibly proud of All Hands, and that occupied such a specific time in my life that I’ll always think of it fondly. I’m exceptionally happy with the character voices and use of language in both Breathe Again and Upon This Rock Will I Break Myself, Until It Shows Me Your Beloved Face, and tend to feel like they don’t get enough love vs how much I love them. But my one true favorite is and will always be Home The Long Way ‘Round, and hopefully I’ll actually be able to finish it and post it someday.

Share a bit of your WIP or idea if you have anything planned: Again, how can I possibly choose just one?? Even just within the Doctor Who fandom, I currently have more than half a dozen stories actively in progress. But since I’ve talked it up so much without being able to link to it at all, and just declared it my all-time fav, I’m going to break one of my own rules and post the whole first chapter (eek!) of Home The Long Way ‘Round behind a read more:

Chapter 1: Orange Dreams

The sound of the wind is whispering in your head Can you feel it coming back? Through the warmth, through the cold, keep running ‘til we’re there. We're coming home now, we’re coming home now. —Home, Dotan

 The winds shrieked and howled around her. Clara had never been in a tornado, but she imagined it would feel like this to stand in the eye of one. She could see gusts lifting the tops off the sand dunes in shimmering ribbons, gold against the orange sky. The waves of airborne sand dissipated a few feet from her, leaving only a jagged grittiness in the air.

A woman with long blonde hair was yelling at her, her words ripped away by the wind.

“Tell me again!” Clara called back to her. “Tell me how to find home!”

“It’s just physics!” the other woman shouted, taking a step closer; they were nearly the same height. “No information can ever be lost! Start from zero, and run the math! We’ll be waiting on the other end of that equation!”

There was something Clara desperately wanted to tell this woman who looked at her with kindness behind the steel of her eyes, but in that moment, the words wouldn’t come.

“Look!” someone yelled behind Clara, and though she didn’t want to take her eyes off her, she instinctively looked up, following the line of the other person’s arm up into the gathering storm-whipped dusk. There, silhouetted against the last of the light, was the unmistakable blue boxy shape of the Doctor’s TARDIS, spinning quickly as it flew away—

Clara jerked awake, her heart hammering against her ribs, already sitting up and pulling off her sleep mask before she realised what had woken her was the sound of the TARDIS materialising in the sitting room of her flat. She took a moment to catch her breath, trying to hold onto the details of the dream. In the other room, the TARDIS’s familiar wheezing and groaning came to a stop with a soft thud, followed by the squeak of the door.

“Doctor?” Clara called, not bothering to hide the sleep nor the annoyance in her voice.

He poked his head around her bedroom doorframe, grey hair awry and his most innocent expression plastered on — which meant he knew he was waking her and felt at least marginally bad about it. “Hello, Clara. It’s Wednesday,” he said pleasantly, by way of explanation.

“Is it?” she asked, deadpan.

“Technically.”

“You do know that I have to work today, don’t you?”

“Not for another six hours. So come on, up-and-at-‘em, plenty of time to go out and save the universe and still be back in time for your morning coffee. I’ve an adventure that simply won’t keep, so come on!”

His excitement was infectious, as he must have known it would be, but Clara clung to her annoyance a little longer, mostly for show. “You have a time machine: everything can keep,” she replied, but waved him off before he could launch into a lecture on all the ways that statement was false, at least from a temporal physics standpoint. He lectured anyway, hovering outside her bedroom door as she dressed, though Clara expected it was mostly to keep himself from pacing in anticipation. She followed more than half of it, and worried a bit over how often she let him babble on about the minutiae of time travel these days.

By the time the universe had been set to rights — or at least one small blue world, home to a race of sentient seahorses, that had been facing imminent extinction in the form of a rogue exoplanet — she had nearly forgotten her unsettling, vivid dream.

--

Given the recent events on Skaro, Clara was unsurprised when bits of her experiences there began to filter into her dreams. Truthfully, she had expected to dream of it more often than she did, but in the weeks that followed, more nights than not her sleeping mind instead conjured up the strange orange landscape. She revisited that screaming sandstorm so often it became almost comforting, and before long, other dreams joined it. 

Clara was leaned against a railing on a high balcony, overlooking a large city coming alight as dusk crept on, a rusty sunset that stretched the width of the horizon bathing the world in amber. The woman with the serious eyes and long, straight blonde hair stood beside her, in the middle of a conversation, as happened so frequently in dreams.

“Alright, but what about the last stage?” Clara asked, elbows resting next to hers on the railing. “That bit depends on us actively doing something, and you know we can’t rely on my knowledge. I can’t take any of the engineering or navigation with me, so it’ll be down to him.”

“And he loves a good puzzle,” the other woman said confidently, flicking her hair over her shoulder with a twitch of her head. “He’ll want to find us. He’ll figure it out.”

“Before I die of old age? Are you sure? My mother was one of his professors at the Academy, I’ve seen his test scores. I think we need a fail-safe.”

“He did graduate,” she pointed out reasonably.

“He passed his exams with a fifty-one percent on his second attempt! No, we can’t assume he’ll have all the baseline information to even consider such a solution, much less actually accomplish the maths. We have to find some way to hide it with me,” Clara said. “Or in his TARDIS.”

The woman was silent for a long moment, her mouth set in a thoughtful line. On the distant horizon, the sun had finished its slow descent, but below them the city was coming to life, the light not so much fading as changing sources, becoming ever so slightly more golden.

“By that point in the timeline,” the blonde woman said, speaking slowly, still thinking it through, “you’ll have been exposed to his timestream and to the crack in the universe, so some of your memories will probably start leaking through. If we structure the extraction the right way, we might be able to embed a particular thought or moment into your consciousness before you go into the Schism.”

“What’d you have in mind?” Clara asked, turning her head to look at her.

“This conversation?” she suggested, laughing, her broad smile transforming her face. “No, a phrase would be cleaner, I think.”

“‘Run the math, you idiot boy’?” Clara suggested, also giggling.

“Oh yes, that’d go over well! No, if you want him to do something, call him clever. Works every time!” she laughed, leaning her shoulder into Clara’s.

“The horrid thing is that I know the temporal physics for this is part of my mother’s coursework,” Clara groaned. “If he hadn’t slept through so many of her classes, this would be a non-issue!”

“Ah, but a Doctor who was always responsible? What a boring universe that would be!”

Above them, the stars were beginning to come out, though the glare of the city obscured them. Through the haze of the dream, Clara couldn’t find any constellations she recognised. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I was the one who helped him steal that box in the first place.”

“And if he could take half a moment to remember that,” the blonde woman said seriously, “he might realise the role of his TARDIS in all of this, and start to think of the solution that way.”

“‘Run the math, you—”

“Clever.”

“—boy, and remember when you met me’?”

The other woman nodded, considering. “That could do it. Your chronodeterminate conjugation won’t work until you come into contact with at least a little regeneration energy. Assuming you choose regeneration on Trenzalore, it might start kicking in then, in plenty of time for the last stage.”

“Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me,” Clara whispered up to the distant stars, cradling her chin on her arms against the railing.

The woman mimicked her position, the golden light of the city and the silver light of the stars catching in her long pale hair. “It’s just physics,” she murmured back. “Start from zero and run the math. I’ll be waiting at the other end of that equation. We’ll all be waiting.”

--

As unsettling as they were, at least the orange-tinged dreams were better than nightmares of Daleks, of being locked in the Dalek casing, unable to convince the Doctor that it was her, it was her, she wasn’t a Dalek, she wasn’t a Dalek! Dreams of the Doctor peering at her down an eyestock, this face or the last, or any of the others buried deep in her subconscious, hearing her but not knowing her, seeing her but not saving her.

Clara grasped for that orange sky, let it carry her away in bronze sandstorms, golden cities slowly coming to life, and starlight caught in tawny hair.

--

Monday morning third period found her Year 10 students taking an essay exam while Clara doodled on a scrap piece of paper, trying to pull images and phrases out of the orange haze that had taken up residence in her slumbering hours since Skaro. There were bits that tugged at her memory, like a song she couldn’t quite place but whose tune was intensely familiar.

She’d written Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me across the top of the page, and her eyes strayed to it every few seconds. The phrase had stayed with her after she woke, and had been on the tip of her tongue ever since, as though it was a message she was meant to deliver. Below it she’d rewritten the phrase, but crossed out six words: Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me.

It was too close for comfort to the phrase that had, in retrospect, changed her life, sent her on her current course. The Maitlands’ mnemonic for their wifi password, which she’d said out loud during that first phone conversation with the Doctor, had caught his attention somehow, and it wasn’t until she jumped into his timestream that she understood. It was the last thing she’d said to him before sacrificing herself to save him. Every fragment of her scattered through his timestream had said it to him at some point as well, the words reverberating endlessly up and down his timeline.

Why her dreams would dredge it up now, and in such a strange context, Clara had no idea. They didn’t feel like random images, but more like memory-dreams, like the bits of echo lives that filtered through to her sleeping mind from time to time. It had to mean something.

Half way down the scrap paper she’d written: It’s just physics. Start from zero and run the math. Below this was the very helpful ??? and Clara idly traced over the question marks again. Physics was still a foreign language to her, despite how much the Doctor prattled on about it at times. She could bring this to him, she mused, but what was it, really? Her subconscious doing backflips in the wake of Skaro, that was all. No grand mystery to solve, no universe-altering secret code, just her. She wouldn’t bother the Doctor with this quite yet.

Besides, she was certain she could tease this apart on her own, follow the clues to their logical conclusion without his assistance. The dreams were insistent, and felt familiar, but Clara was sure she’d never dreamed of the blonde woman and the orange sky prior to Skaro. That was the next clue, then, and she jotted it down on her scrap paper. Something had changed after Skaro, something that caused her subconscious mind to dredge up these particular buried memories. 

She needed more information. Dreams about her echo lives were always stronger when she was aboard the TARDIS travelling in the Vortex, sharper and easier to remember. Maybe these orange dreams would be, too. And maybe the TARDIS itself would have some answers for her.

--

Of course, she didn’t sleep aboard the TARDIS very often, with her insistence on returning home for a week of Real Life in between their Wednesday trips. But the Doctor was never adverse to her sticking around longer than she’d planned, and in the end it didn’t take much to convince him: 

“I’ve a staff meeting at work that I’m dreading,” Clara told him on that next Wednesday, when they returned to the TARDIS after their latest outing. “So what do you say I have a little kip and then we squeeze in another adventure before you take me back to face my workday?”

She thought for a moment that the Doctor might question the change in their routine, but he seemed thrilled about the idea. When he announced that he had some tinkering with the engines he’d been putting off that should keep him occupied while she slept, Clara made an excuse to linger in the console room — “just going to finish reading this chapter, then off to bed” — until after he’d gone. Once he’d disappeared down the corridor and around a corner, she quietly set aside her book, then slipped out of her armchair and down the stairs towards the console. The rotors hummed overhead, and somehow Clara knew the TARDIS was aware of her, and was curious to see what she would do.

Carefully clearing her thoughts, she made her way over to the telepathic circuits, pushed up her sleeves, and slid her hands into the strange interface. Focus was the key, she knew, and she was nothing if not focused. She closed her eyes and held two very specific thoughts in her mind: the sand-whipped orange sky in her dreams, and the clear question, Where, please?

She hoped the please would help.

It was a long quiet moment with the circuits warmly cradling Clara’s fingers, and then something on the console beeped. Her eyes flew open and she carefully extracted her hands from the telepathic interface before pulling the monitor down to eye level.

Gallifrey the screen read in English, below an image of a startlingly red-orange planet. Immediately prior to the Time Lock.

Clara felt her heart thud painfully against her ribs as she read the brief text again. She’d been dreaming of Gallifrey? She knew she’d had an echo life on Gallifrey, but she remembered that interaction with the Doctor, and it happened indoors. She had never before dreamt of the Gallifreyan sky. Had it been buried somewhere in her subconscious with the rest of her memories of that life? Why surface now?

More confused than ever, she clicked the screen back to the desktop, unreadable Circular Gallifreyan floating idly across the display. Perhaps she should bring this up with the Doctor — it was his home world, after all. But the whole point of this had been to dream while they were in the Vortex, and if she didn’t get a move on, he’d be ready for their next adventure before she’d even managed to fall asleep. She could talk with him about it later. 

And if things worked tonight as she hoped they would, maybe she would even have a bit more information to bring to him when she did.

--

“Fire suppressant in Pod Four!” 

The frantic call was quickly overwhelmed by the sound of the requested suppressant dispensing from the ceiling. When it ended, the speaker, dressed in the dark red uniform of a technician, brushed soot and foam off his shirt. 

“It hates me, that one,” he said, nodding at the unassuming gray cylinder in the open pod in front of him. It was devoid of features, even its doors invisible now in the wake of the fire, two meters tall and one meter in diameter, just like all the other patients in the workshop. But somehow it did seem to be glowering at him.

“And it always will, stop wasting your time,” his coworker said flippantly. He was perched in front of a console on the other side of the room, deep in his own repairs. “Just get the Impossible Girl to do it, she’ll have it eating out of her hand by lunchtime.”

Their conversation occurred in the time it took Clara to enter the large oblong workshop and make her way to the far end where the two were working. “I heard that,” she said seriously, earning a guilty-looking jump from the man who had spoken most recently. She continued over to Pod Four and leaned against the outer casing, arms folded over her uniformed chest, one booted ankle crossed over the other. “What did you do now?” she demanded of the first technician.

He looked at her with wide eyes, more out of genuine fear than mock innocence, in her estimation. “I just told it—”

“You what?” she snapped, in a tone she usually reserved for misbehaving students.

He wilted a little but started again “…I told it to—”

“Told it?”

“…to give me access to the logs,” he mumbled, dropping her gaze.

“Told it to give you access to the logs?” she asked, voice harsh. “Well first off, Number Four here prefers male pronouns, respecting that might put you on better footing. And secondly, as with all TARDISes, you’ll get a lot further if you ask rather than tell.”

Behind her, the other tech scoffed. “They’re machines, we shouldn’t have to baby them like that. An access request is an access request.”

Clara turned her head to pin him with an icy glare. “Some days I cannot believe I let you work here,” she told him bluntly. “They aren’t just machines, as you very well know. Yes, there’s hardware we need to be able to work with, but that’s nothing more than a radio, at some level — only instead of radio waves, we’re using oswin waves to talk to pan-dimensional beings so large, they can’t have a physical form in this dimension. Who, with a little extra energy, can take us and an infinite amount of folded space to nearly any point in spacetime. Just think about the massive intelligences that speak to us through each of those machines!

“But more to the point,” she said, turning back to the tech still covered in soot, “you have to understand their viewpoint of the universe, and their understanding of time. A Time Lord telling a TARDIS what to do is akin to creating a fixed point in spacetime. It’s in their nature to want to avoid fixed points. Ask instead, let him find his own way ‘round to it.”

Before the beleaguered technician could reply, there came a polite knocking from the far end of the room, and Clara turned to see a soldier standing in the doorway of the workshop, looking a little out of his depth. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a message for—” he paused to glance down at the datapad in his hand, “for the Oswin. From the Lady President. Top priority.”

Clara was moving towards him before he’d finished speaking, curious and concerned, her attention focused on the message in his hands. But the dream faded out before she reached him, her mind moving on to something more abstract, more difficult to hold on to.

When she woke in her bed aboard the TARDIS, she stared at the ceiling with fond frustration. “If that was your attempt at help,” she whispered to the ship, “then I do not understand the message.”

--

It still wasn’t enough to bring to the Doctor, she decided later that day, watching him spin around the console room in the afterglow of a successful adventure, people saved, the universe bettered. So she was dreaming of Gallifrey, what of it? Many of the details in that last dream matched up with what she remembered of her interaction with the Doctor in that life. And while he occasionally enjoyed comparing memories of all the times her echoes had met him, she’d found he wasn’t especially keen on discussing the one in which she’d helped him steal the TARDIS and leave Gallifrey. Susan continued to be a point of pain for the Doctor, all these centuries later, and Clara understood him well enough to know better than to pick at that particular scab.

Still. That phrase was on a loop in her head: run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me. The emphasis on their meeting hadn’t been part of the original phrase, and now she was dreaming of the life in which they’d met face to face for the first time, from the Doctor’s perspective. Clearly they would have to discuss it at some point. 

Eventually, but not yet.