#what philosophical ramifications would that have in universe.

[spaghettiandart]

WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. A FNAF DAEMON AU WOULD GO INSANELY HARD.

(Rambling in tags)

[capillaryspice]

Ok so ive been seeing a lot of Harry Potter bashing lately (deservedly) and while it's at the forefront of my brain I've got a bit of a rant to go on that I haven't really ever voiced before. Like it ain't transphobia related or anything, literally just how it's a badly written series

Like listen, as a kid I read them and enjoyed them like every other 90s-born child, but JKR is, among other things, a shit writer that just does NOT think things through. I don't even fully know how to adequately explain how much her crap worldbuilding affected the way I consider the weight of everything I create in my own writing (and dnd campaigns) because I learned in my formative years how much things can affect a world by simply existing, and the Harry Potter universe is a prime example of that done horrendously wrong

This is not me tooting my own anti-bandwagon horn here, but legitimately I stopped enjoying the books waaaaaaayyyyy before there was even a whisper of the gay-dumbledore drama on the winds. Why? Because even as a very young adult I was SO fucking aggravated by the amount of shit that just. Happens. Or simply Exists. With no consequences. Everybody has the argument of "what if they just had guns?" but I'd like to present an opposite argument: the fact that SO MUCH UNIVERSE ALTERING SHIT just EXISTS in this universe that's way more powerful than guns that just really has no effect on the world at large (even the "secret wizarding world") that it was always enormously baffling to me that the main antagonist is even an issue at all.

Time turner? Hello???? Fucking time travel and get this shit over with. Liquid luck? How far does that extend? It's difficult to make, but a highschool professor can make it, so it's clearly not an unobtainable commodity for anyone relatively intelligent or wealthy. How does its existence affect the world? Is it illegal? Restricted? If so, why or why not? Does it really guarantee a success in ANYTHING? If so, why waste it on getting some fucking memories instead of, oh I dunno, using it to permanently kill ol slit-nose? Making an item that could just locate all his horcruxes? Make a magic homing-nuke for him?????

How about the creation of sentient creatures? Y'all give paintings personality, made a car that clearly has opinions, and a fucking mini-dragon just for drama. What are the ethics of that shit? Speaking of dragons, how the absolute FUCK do you keep regular people from discovering absolutely massive magical creatures?

Book one- philosophers stone. Rock that gives you immortality. Was it fought over? Are elixirs of life rare? I'd fucking assume so since it's never talked about after the first book, but also after the first book it's nEVER FUCKING TALKED ABOUT??! THIS IS AN IMMORTALITY AND GOLD CREATING SUBSTANCE, AND YOURE JUST. KEEPING IT IN A SCHOOL. OR SHIPPING IT OFF TO WHEREVER THEY KEPT IT AFTER THAT (don't remember, which is quite frankly a bad sign lmao), regardless, there's just a dude who can MAKE THEM, and no doctors have tried to get him to talk? Corrupt politicians? Monarchs?? Joe from accounting whose wife is terminally ill?? This is a KNOWN OF THING and it's just never fucking addressed beyond "oh, well the crazy bad guy wants it in this book so I guess he's the ONLY issue with the existence of this world-breaking thing, let's create a puzzle in front of it that even a few 11 year olds can solve, that'll stop him!"

How about the random Super Important Characters And Plot Points that just fucking. Appear when they're suddenly needed even if we've never heard them before (even if we absolutely should have)

I'm absolutely missing more things, I literally haven't touched the series in over a decade to remember, but these are just a FEW of the things that drive me crazy to this day. Like, obviously I know the answer to these questions are just "JKR didnt plan for where the series was going and just randomly went "oh this would be cool" and didnt think about the ramifications of any of the aforementioned cool things" to the point where even a fucking child could go "this is flawed, full of holes, and doesn't make sense"

Do y'all have anything I missed that drive u crazy about a magic thing that should have had serious ramifications existing? I can't be the only one

Anyway that's my little rant. But yeah, they should've just used a gun

[aion-rsa]

How Alias Anticipated Modern Superhero Storytelling

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J.J. Abrams’ spy drama Alias, which turns 20 this week, was a lot of things: high-octane action-adventure series, twentysomethings relationship drama, occasional National Treasure homage. It was also, surprisingly, a spiritual predecessor to today’s hyper-saturated superhero movie and TV universes: A preternaturally gifted fighter, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) inhabits comic-book-esque alter egos to infiltrate secret missions related to ancient artifacts and promised immortality, all while ensuring that her nearest and dearest don’t know how many times she’s saved the world—or which side she’s really on.

Like the series’ MacGuffin-generating Nostradamus figure Milo Rambaldi, Alias has proven to be somewhat prophetic itself about what makes for the kinds of superhero stories that land today. With some 20th-anniversary hindsight, let’s look back at what made Sydney’s story so super and what lessons Abrams’ ridiculous(ly fun) series can still impart to the current crop of superhero sagas.

The Secret Identity as Kiss of Death

The highest priority that spies and superheroes share is that they cannot get made—that is, have their identity as a larger-than-life individual linked to their “normal” selves. They must always keep their personal and professional personas separate, lest they risk losing the people who know both sides of them. Alias establishes this difficult lesson in the first half hour of the pilot, when Sydney reveals her true work (she thinks SD-6 is just a covert branch of the CIA) to doctor fiancé Danny, only for him to blab about it later and get bloodily taken out in their bathtub. It’s the first time that SD-6 treats its sweet protégée harshly, making clear the consequences of her actions should she open up to anyone else in her life. And then she defects to the CIA, which will be a death sentence for her if SD-6 ever finds out.

Yet beyond the specter of grisly assassination, what the series really digs into is Syd’s growing ethical dilemma about being a double agent where it concerns the actually good people at SD-6, primarily her longtime partner Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and sweetly awkward Q stand-in Marshall (Kevin Weisman). It would be too easy if the series were only about her getting long-game revenge on SD-6 director Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin); the real conflict comes from Sydney lying to Dixon’s face on every stakeout, knowing that he still thinks he’s working for the good guys and she can’t ruin that fantasy for him without potentially turning him into collateral damage.

Similarly, the moments in which Sydney’s two (or three) lives begin to collide have other heartbreaking consequences: While the scene in which her best friend Will (Bradley Cooper cast as the friendzoned buddy, amazing) gets kidnapped and sees Syd saving him, is one of the decade’s best laugh-out-loud moments, it also leads to Will going into the Witness Protection Program. His life ends, in a sense, because Sydney couldn’t keep everything compartmentalized. And we haven’t even gotten to the awful fate that befalls her best friend Francie (Merrin Dungey)…

What Alias Predicted: The beating heart (or arc reactor) of many a superhero story is this tension between selves—which means that the big reveal of a secret identity has to be carefully timed and deliberately presented. It’s as emotional as Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) mask getting ripped away when he saves the subway car of people in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, as big as Spider-Man: Far From Home doxxing that Peter Parker (Tom Holland) in a commentary on fake news, or as pure and simple as Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) outing himself as Iron Man in the very first installment of the MCU. You cannot unring that bell, so it better be a memorable moment.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: Rev the secret identity stakes back up! Captain America: Civil War ably took on the game-changing Marvel Comics arc of the same name by having heroes collectively unmask, and movies like Spider-Man: Far From Home are still playing out those ramifications. But mostly we see the dangerous ramifications of heroes doxxing themselves, without really digging into the strain for heroes to constantly have to lie about the things that truly matter to them.

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Campy Disguises and Clever Aliases

If you’ve watched Alias or were even vaguely aware of it, no doubt the first thing you envision is Sydney in black leather and bright red hair, a.k.a. her iconic look from the pilot. Her non-SD-6-sanctioned, under-the-radar disguise (impersonating Will’s sister) displays her ingenuity and establishes the series’ brand: attention-grabbing hair paired with increasingly ridiculous outfits, from chain mail waitress ensembles to rubber dresses. She’s played punks, rich bimbos, alluring businesswomen, escorts, and all manner of female personas upon which her marks would project their assumptions—all of which belied her true strength and cunning.

Even when future episodes riffed on the color wheel with teal, magenta, purple, and good old-fashioned blonde wigs, it was still within a clear spectrum established on that pivotal mission, when she channels a silly girl who cares more about the color of her hair than her safety, only to pin her torturer with the same chair to which she’s bound.

What Alias Predicted: I would hazard a guess that Natasha Romanoff’s first appearance in 2012’s The Avengers—a seemingly helpless redhead tied to a chair, about to be nastily interrogated—was a nod toward Sydney’s triumphant pilot mission. What’s more, despite the first ten years of the MCU leaning toward sleek costumes, later phases (like WandaVision‘s cheeky Halloween callbacks) have realized that they can embrace the bold colors and campy designs of the comic-book source material.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: Better to lean into the bold colors and campy designs of the comic-book source material than to go for more sleek and cool. WandaVision did this, albeit cheekily and using the excuse of Halloween, but the nod toward Scarlet Witch’s original outfit was well received. Because any superhero can look cool in leather, but only the standouts can rock color.

Rambaldi Artifacts, Immortality, and Clones

While replicating the romantic dramas of Felicity, Abrams was also playing with early iterations of his signature “puzzle box” narrative style: The pilot has Sydney chasing after the mysterious Mueller device, which turns out to be… a floating red ball… which bursts into water the moment she tries to remove it. That head-scratcher of a device is only one of many inventions belonging to Milo Rambaldi, a fictional Renaissance-era philosopher whose sketches and writings all pointed toward the ultimate endgame: immortality. You know, just normal spy thriller things.

The series saw Sydney and co. chasing after all manner of Rambaldi MacGuffins, from a clock to a kaleidoscope to a music box to flowers that either demonstrated proof of eternal life (by never wilting) or amped up human aggression. Through all of this, it becomes clear that Sloane helped found SD-6 in order to collect all of Rambaldi’s artifacts and capture immortality for himself—even and especially at the cost of people like his daughter, Sydney’s half-sister Nadia Santos (Mía Maestro).

Before we get more into Rambaldi’s prophecies about the sisters, we can’t forget the parallel fever dream of the series: clones! Or, rather, secret agents genetically modified to look like anyone—which means everyone is a suspect. This constant paranoia quickly got out of hand on the series, but its first reveal was perfect TV drama: There’s not an Alias fan who doesn’t remember “Francie doesn’t like coffee ice cream” and the complete devastation that followed—the knock-down, drag-out fight that destroyed Sydney’s apartment just as badly as Danny’s death, but also Sydney’s heartbreak upon realizing that her best friend was already long dead.

What Alias Predicted: The Infinity Stones themselves are less interesting than in various superheroes’ personal connections to them: Loki (Tom Hiddleston) tempted by the tesseract in Thor: Ragnarok; Star Lord (Chris Pratt) and the Guardians of the Galaxy channeling their friendship to withstand the effects of the Power Stone; Wanda Maximoff’s (Elizabeth Olsen) stages of grief as she copes with trying to keep the memory of Vision (Paul Bettany) alive even without the Mind Stone. In short: grounding the most out-there plotlines in the personal ensures they will always land.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: Ground the most bonkers of plotlines in the personal, and they’ll always land.

The Chosen One and the Passenger

This is when the Rambaldi business started getting less National Treasure levels of charming and more outright weird. Turns out the team wasn’t just recovering a treasure trove of artifacts, but also Rambaldi’s prophetic writings—including the mysterious “Page 47,” which featured a drawing of a woman known as the Chosen One… who bears quite the resemblance to Sydney herself. That would be easy enough to dismiss as a strange doppelgänger coincidence, but then comes the reveal of “Project Christmas”: When Syd discovers that she didn’t just stumble into the spy life on her own, but was actually trained as a sleeper agent from childhood, it only amplifies her fears that she has no true agency over her life.

Further Rambaldi writings center Sydney and Nadia into predestined roles as the Chosen One and the Passenger: supposed foes who are fated to clash, with one dying. Nadia getting injected with “Rambaldi fluid” in order to tap directly into the long-dead man’s consciousness (contained within another artifact known as the Sphere of Life) only earns her some nasty apocalyptic visions. But despite their genuine friendship that comes from bonding over their fucked-up childhoods, Sydney and Nadia are forced into that preordained confrontation when the latter is injected with a compound that reduces her to a mindless killing machine… all while a giant red ball is hovering over a city in Russia, because why not. Even after Nadia dies, and is brought back to life, then dies again, with her ghost haunting Sloane as he finally attains immortality, she remains a presence on the series.

There are certainly echoes to Black Widow and how it handles Natasha and adoptive sister Yelena’s (Florence Pugh) strained reconciliation after the older sister got out of the Red Room while the younger was still caught in its web. Their bickering banter about vests and poses, their differing memories of their false childhood, and their respective feelings of abandonment are what elevated Black Widow’s standalone outing—and made it even more tragic, on multiple levels, that this was the only time we would see the two of them in a movie together.

What Alias Predicted: Sister stories are gold! The Rambaldi storylines would mean nothing if they didn’t hinge on a tragically preordained confrontation, just as the MCU’s Red Room depiction seemed overdone until it was presented within the context of multiple generations’ differing experiences with its bloody legacy.

What Superhero Stories Can Still Learn: More stories about sisters! With Nat dead not long after she and Yelena had just started to bond again, it’s vital that Yelena’s future MCU appearances show her still grappling with the little time they got together.

After all, the best superhero stories are the ones that can feel just as fresh now as they did 20 years ago.

Alias is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The post How Alias Anticipated Modern Superhero Storytelling appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[farchanter]

Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang: Quantum Computation & Quantum Information

Since √ieiZ1Z2π/4e-iZ1π/4eiZ2π/4=UCZ, getting a controlled-NOT from one evolution period of time ♄π/4c together with several single qubit pulses is straightforward.

This book kicked my ass and stole my lunch money. I was sent on such a deep existential spiral that I doubted whether or not I knew mathat all, much less any computer science.

But, candidly, I think that's mostly my fault. This is a very low-level look at quantum computing— its ability to remain the flagship textbook in a field so rapidly evolving is a testment to its thoroughness. But— I realized much too late— that's not really what I wanted out of my quantum computing reading.

Quantum mechanics are the strange effects governing the behavior of matter at tiny levels— proving quantum effects in even single-celled bacteria would be a colossal leap in science. Of particularly use to quantum computing, quantum mechanics allow particles to be— functionally— two things at once. Particles can be said to spin in two contradictory directions simultaneously, photons can travel through two different paths. But, when a scientist goes to look at them, they "collapse" into a single value. Moreover, particles can have a strange relationship known as "entanglement"— changes to one particle have an immediate effect on its entangled partner over seemingly arbitrary distances, even though they are not connected by any physical means. Leveraging these two concepts— and grappling with their ramifications on physics— allow us to perform some remarkable computer feats.

I find this idea captivating, at an almost spiritual level. Using scarcely understood principles of the Universe to divine answers to once-intractable problems, wrestling with the deep philosophical question of why quantum wave functions collapse when we look at them, staring at experimental results which (at first blush) seem to break our understanding of causality— it really does feel like magic.

The problem, of course, is that I really didn't understand how it all works. How does a quantum computer do things difficult-to-impossible for a classical computer? If a particle in quantum superposition collapses as soon as looked at— becoming (functionally) either a 0 or a 1— how is that any better than a classical bit? Quantum computing explainers online are— to my eye— lacking, so I turned to the quantum textbook: Quantum Computation & Quantum Information.

The book begins with a preposterous proposition: quantum mechanics, by their nature defying a great deal of explanation anyway, are easy. What is hard is linear algebra, and our models for quantum states are built atop labyrinthine linear algebra functions. I can't really assess that statement because— as I was brutally reminded for two months now— I'm no good as linear algebra. It's hard to hold that against the book— they did warn me right up front— but it is frustrating to feel like their are deeper truths in the murky water, sliding by my fingers but always evading my grasp.

The truce I eventually reached with Quantum Computation & Quantum Information was to, essentially, ignore the math. I no longer tried to understand the proofs, instead accepting them as gospel. In so doing, I got the answers I wanted to the "big" quantum questions— and I can't overstate how exciting that is. It does, however, feel like a waste to see all of this important work and flip past it. In that sense, Quantum Computation & Quantum Information very much wasn't the correct book for me. If nothing else, it makes me feel that I can't do a proper book review. Maybe I'll be able to come back to it someday.

The one critique I will give, however, is that I think computer science—as a discipline— gives really terrible examples. Every time we use "Alice and Bob" or "foo and bar" to pay obeisance to the bad examples of our past, we do a grave disservice to those attempting to learn from us. We ought to be better, and the too-abstract examples of Quantum Computation & Quantum Information obfuscated an already difficult topic.

I have another quantum textbook queued up for later this year, one targeted specifically at computer scientists looking to understand physics rather than the other way around. I'm hoping that will help me to advance my understanding yet another increment further.

[iwillgetridofyourangerforyou]

Consequences

A sequel to “Genos is the worst”

!! This post has webcomic Spoilers sprinkled throughout. !!

I started thinking about something a while back which I needed to spend some time philosophizing over before I was ready to share it. There is something I can visualize so clearly looking at the One Punch Man Universe. What it looks like is a field of vectors acting on and emanating from the ‘nouns’ in this show, especially the characters. Put together it looks a bit like a river with various rapids, inlets, and currents. Each hero, as far as I can tell, has an intended vector direction of some kind, which if followed exactly would lead them to their ‘ideal hero’ goal. However, as in life, they also have a complex array of internal and external acting vectors that skew their intended direction in some way. 

For example: Amai Mask is skewed from his path to his ideal hero by the external forces of society’s prejudice and ignorance. He also skewes his own path internally by grotesque perfectionism. Instead of becoming an icon for self-love, Amai is almost narcissistic in his shame. His trajectory is also impacted by the fact that as a result of his illusion he has almost no one around him to support him in a moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability. If it weren’t for Saitama and Genos, Amai might have been burned alive by the same crowds that adored him moments before. So at the end of the day by failing to correct, redirect, to calibrate for certain vectors which acted against his idealized self Amai experiences a significant and painful setback, hopefully only a setback. (I’m actually really worried about Amai.)

What particular forces act in favor or to the detriment of certain character’s goals are a bit subjective and so if you want to be a better predictor of what happens in this show you have to start asking yourself, how does ONE think about these characters? What does ONE think is important? And since you can never truly know the mind of someone, often even those closest, good luck with that. (but since I can be a bit crazy and obsessive I’ve been on a continuing endeavor to understand him a little better). In the end I realized I’m still chasing my tail. I’m still searching for my personal avatar/philosopher's stone. I’m still asking the same question that I’m always asking and looking for the answers in the wrong places.

But I’ll share a bit of what I picked up along the way. 

One of the most useful things I think fans can do to improve their interpretation of One Punch Man, is to abandon the expectation that the heroes (other that Saitama) with necessarily and always act the way you’ve been conditioned to believe heroes will be and instead follow the trail of cause and effect, track the consequences of the heroes’ actions. What I’m talking about isn’t a revolutionary idea, in effect weaving together a series of ‘cause and effect’ reactions is the basis to any plot. What I think makes OPM different is the author’s fidelity to the details about a character and the impact those details will make in the unfolding of the individual character’s plots. ONE seems to be idealistic and good-hearted and often shows ‘good’ winning out in the end over ‘evil’ (ONE’s sense of ‘good and evil’ is a whole different conversation). But good winning in the end isn’t usually done in a startling upset, and even when it’s a startling victory ONE seems to make clear that it wasn’t necessarily because the hero had somehow done something extraordinarily outside of their skill-sets but rather that their skills-sets were uniquely capable of handling that difficulty or that something had changed for the villain that disempowered them to some extent. 

A while back I wrote an intentionally controversial piece which was best concluded by @gofancyninjaworld​ here: (https://gofancyninjaworld.tumblr.com/post/621211638647898112/genos-is-the-worsttm ) This was never intended to fully represent my views, complete, or the end of the story. It was however a very important exercise for me personally. What I was hoping to do, partly, is to clarify for myself a number of the vectors that are or may act against Genos’ long term goals directly or indirectly. This isn’t meant to be a moral judgement on the character for certain behaviors. ONE himself seems to have a wide tolerance for some ethically ‘gray’ behaviors. BUT one thing that watching Mob Psycho 100 helped clarify for me is that those actions have inter and intra personal consequences. Those consequences aren’t always a judgement either. Mob doesn’t finish the race because his body is not strong enough yet. Reigen finds himself under scrutiny and almost losing everything because of how he treated Mob and his questionable business practices but as a consequence of Mob’s compassion he is spared a worse fate. Saitama loses all his hair as a consequence of becoming a hero. From the broad to the mundane ONE seems to be good at tracking keystone behaviors and their long term ramifications. 

Genos has one goal -effectively- and that, similarly to Amai Mask, is nothing less than perfection. It’s not just revenge, it’s not just protecting people, it’s not just being the strongest, it’s not just being validated by Saitama or being Saitama’s best disciple, he wants it all. Which has turned him into a bit of a whirl-pool. When perfection is what you seek every action is pain. Every move is contradictory to another goal. His previously discussed faults, in addition to the flow and tragedy of life, will accumulate into a storm which he will have to weather. In my view the storm has been brewing for a while and more recently in the webcomic, it seems you can taste it in the air. Genos and Amai have mirrored each other before in subtle ways, are we going to find that Genos, like Amai, finds himself vulnerable with no one on his side? Even Saitama has been distancing himself from Genos recently. Will the consequence of Genos’ pride and determination to carry the weight of the world on his own shoulders break him before he finds a way to let go?

[skelegun]

I recently rewatched Gundam Unicorn for some reason so it’s on my mind. I haven’t seen “Gundam the Narrative” so I only know a little bit about what happens in it (which from what I have heard isn’t really much) so I can’t really comment that. Spoilers ahead.

What I wanted to say though is it’s really interesting how the plot of Unicorn is built around a literal mystery box, that they say if revealed will shake society to its core, and of course at the end the big secret is publically broadcast for the world to see. What I find fascinating about it is at the end the secret is revealed to the world, and if you didn’t know that Gundam F91 and Victory Gundam existed you’d be like “woah I can’t wait to see what the ramifications on this universe is!”, but if you have seen F91/V you know there is no ramification. The Earth Federation just kinda keeps limping on for the next few decades, and Newtypes actually seem to become less common.

I don’t know if I hate it or love it. From a narrative perspective it’s terrible and unsatisfying, but in sort of “realistic” perspective it makes absolute sense to me. The best metaphor I can think of is this; It’s basically like if 30s years after the American Civil War someone discovered a secret REAL first copy of the Declaration of Indepedance and in it said “America will forever be a slave owning country, Slavery is awesome and you can’t ever outlaw slavery especially in the South”, well there was just a big ass war by the South about keeping slavery and they lost, the Union ain’t gunna suddenly flip flop just because of a rough draft. If you didn’t like slavery you would probably just shrug your shoulders and say “huh that’s weird. Good thing we didn’t end up using that version”, and the original KKK which was made up of confederate veterans and might feel a little vindicated but ultimately they considered themselves part of the Confederacy and not part of the United States.

It’s so fucking weird because Unicorn is animated to the nines, and has all this grand overblown philosophical dialogue and all these call backs and stuff, so it makes you think it is really important, but it’s not. Stardust Memory is way more important from a narrative perspective than Unicorn and Stardust Memory is just Top Gun with Gundams, aka Top Gundam.

[x22wg]

Shore Leave (part 14)

Nearly veered into angst territory here, but I think I managed to keep this trainwreck mostly on the fluff rails. Michael has to come to terms with possibly leaving everyone behind. That makes it hard to enjoy just hanging around with Tilly. Even if Tilly brought snacks.

There was a film playing, projected above the bed, but neither of them were paying much attention to it anymore. Some biopic around the time of early interstellar travel, purportedly “based on real events”. It hardly mattered.

By all accounts Burnham should have been on cloud nine, with one arm around Tilly and the other around a bowl of marshmallows. Both fluffy and way too sweet, yet somehow irresistible to her. It was hardly logical, but the universe had stopped making sense a long time ago.

For her part, Tilly was busy snuggling up to Michael's side, curling up slightly to rest her head on Michael's shoulder. The way Tilly's arm hugged her waist made Burnham extra conscious of her unfamiliar girth, but at the same time having the taller girl so close made her feel less... large.

This evening the redhead's presence wasn't enough to soothe Michael's mind, however. The meeting in the captain's office earlier that day had come with a crushing revelation. She had made her decision in a heartbeat, but the ramifications of that decision were taking a lot longer to process.

Everything was falling into place for their final, desperate attempt to thwart Control's single-minded pursuit of Discovery and the invaluable data the ship held. The time suit was almost ready. Likewise the crystal that would empower it. And therein lay the problem. According to Queen Po's most recent calculations the massive amounts of energy required to power the time crystal would be more than the crystal could bear. Burnham could use the suit to guide Discovery into the future, out of Control's grasp forever... but it would be a one-way trip.

Burnham did not hesitate for a moment. The fate of all life hang in the balance, after all. But for all her bravery she had been unable to muster the courage to tell Tilly.

On Michael's shoulder, Tilly made a happy little noise as she stirred. Reaching for the snacks she pulled out a marshmallow and let it swoop towards Michael's lips.

Lost in thought as she was, Burnham still opened her mouth on pure instinct – only to be baffled out of her brooding when Tilly snatched back the treat and popped it into her own mouth.

Brought back to reality, Michael gave the mischievous redhead a quizzical look.

A sly look appeared on Tilly's face as she chewed, but she feigned innocence when she explained herself: “Don't you appreciate the sacrifice I'm making?”

“Sacrifice?”

“Someone's gotta eat 'em,” Tilly shrugged and went for another. Smiling affectionately, she rubbed Michael's belly. “I won't be held responsible if your time suit doesn't fit!”

“Ah... about that...” Burnham paused. Faltered.

As the silence grew longer, Tilly grew more confused. “About what?”

The moment loomed large in Burnham's mind. She stared at Tilly's earnest face. She had been so happy, just cuddled up here. There was no way Burnham could break her heart by telling her. Not now.

“About that... you see...!” She did her best to try and ease herself into feigned nonchalance. “You see, I have this cruel personal trainer taking care of that.”

“Cruel are they?”

Burnham could feel herself relaxing slightly, comforted by Tilly's playing along. “Just terrible! Running me ragged. And the worst thing is, she's so cute I can't even tell her 'no'! So...” She held up a marshmallow between them. “...I think I deserve this.”

Tilly propped herself up on her free hand and watched in silence as Michael chewed defiantly. Then, with a philosophical look on her face, she rubbed Michael's stomach as she mused: “You're right. We can't have you waste away and end up rattling around in that time suit. The exoskeleton has already been cast, after all.”

In her mind Burnham cursed Tilly for presenting her with another opportunity to come clean about her plans. But she could not bring herself to ruin this perfect little moment.

“Right...” she mumbled, unable to completely keep hesitation out of her voice. “Exactly.”

The subsequent silence was made somewhat awkward by that sombre tone. Acting quickly, Burnham did her best to mitigate it by opening her mouth, with theatrical anticipation.

“Oh alright,” Tilly teased and reached over to pick up another treat. For a moment she gave the marshmallow a thoughtful look, before popping it into Michael's mouth and smirking: “I guess your 'personal trainer' is just gonna have to go extra hard on you tomorrow then, huh?”

Mouth full of fluffy sugar, Michael just gave the redhead a silent look of utter betrayal.

“What do you say...” Tilly mused, pretending to ignore her plight in favour of studying a fresh marshmallow. Turning her attention back to Michael once she was done chewing, the smile on Tilly's face was particularly impish. “...one minute on the treadmill per marshmallow?”

It wasn't as if Michael could say no to Tilly at the best of times – as evidenced by her stout midsection. And right now those sweet treats seemed the only thing able to ward off the guilt. Even if she had to spend all of tomorrow on that damn treadmill.

Tilly fed Michael gingerly, then looked away and bit her lower lip. Easing herself up slightly, she made to turn closer towards her companion. As if sensing something in Burnham's eyes, Tilly hesitated. For lack of anything better to do, the redhead gave Michael's belly a quick pat to try and defuse the awkward silence.

“Two minutes,” Tilly smiled as she went for another marshmallow, relieved to finally find something to say.

“I'm so lucky to have a maths genius like you around,” Burnham retorted and accepted the treat.

Halfway leaning over Michael, Tilly just chuckled. “Shut up or I'll make it double.”

“Surely that's too easy to calculate. At least make it the square root or something. Challenge yourself.”

Tilly clearly did her best not to roll her eyes. “Is that really your best attempt to trick me into taking it easy on you?”

“I'm trying to appeal to your pride,” Michael said playfully before biting into the next treat.

“I'm not Stamets. That won't work on me.” Reaching towards the snack bowl as she spoke, Tilly's bosom pushed against Michael's chest. She found herself surprised how little distance there was between them.

“Then... what would?” Burnham nearly gasped. The sudden shortness of breath surprised her. The redhead wasn't weighing that heavily on her, was she...?

“W-well there might be something...” Even more flustered than usual, Tilly busied herself rearranging the marshmallows in the bowl. A quick glance at Burnham's expression seemed to change her mind. “Uh... no, it's nothing. Forget I said anything.”

As if seeking comfort and stability, Tilly laid back down. Resting her head on Michael's shoulder, she found it.

“What's wrong?” Michael craned her neck to try and look Tilly in the eye. With the taller woman almost on top of her, arm around her waist, there was little she could do about it.

“Nothing.” Despite the curtness of her reply, a thoughtful pause was followed by a happy sigh. Soothed by Michael's soft, comforting presence, the redhead sounded like she was falling asleep when she muttered: “Nothing's wrong...”

Unsure of what to do Burnham put her arm around the dozing ensign. It took her a moment to realize she was gently stroking Tilly's back. She could feel the redhead relax at her touch, snuggling closer as she drifted off to sleep.

I should tell her, Burnham scolded herself, but conveniently decided she could not wake Tilly. Instead she continued her soothing caresses. It was the least she could do.

[giurochedadomani]

Three days on a drunken sin

Anthony Crowley went to a party. He doesn’t remember much of it, but waking up in a hospital bed to Ezra’s pitiful eyes is etched on his mind. After a long summer of avoidance, he saves the day and Ezra’s new job at the old Tadfield library.

TAGS: Pre-Slash, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Human!AU: University, TW: drug use, TW: overdose, TW: suicide attempt, TW: characters having an homophobic family

The blue from the police lights reflects over the Central Tadfield Library sign, old and a tad cracked, making it look as if it were about to fall down on the rests of the storefront. A couple of agents dock down on their way out, as do the handcuffed wannabe robbers they’re pushing.

Crowley kneels, picks up the book, sees again the title —bloody Hamlet— and snorts. He offers it to Ezra. 

Their hands touch when the other grabs it. Crowley’s just a tad too glad that he doesn’t drop it. 

“That was awfully nice of you”.  

Crowley feels a bit hot around the collar and suspects it might not have everything to do with the pulsing pain of the bruise on his left cheek. He deflects by glaring for good measure at the big, burly detective taking Mrs. Tracy’s statement, but he seems so enthralled as to pay them any attention.  

“Very. Very cool”. 

“Oh, shut it”, he murmures back. 

He gives Ezra a side glance. It’s aiming for a glare and falls miserably short. His stomach does a weird thing when he sees the other’s soft smile as he flips the pages of the book. He feels a little bit dumb and a whole lot ridiculous at how, ugh, mushy ‘very. Very cool’ makes him. He misses his glasses, broken in the scuffle Ezra and him had gone into with the robbers. 

Continue reading in AO3 or here. 

He wills his left knee to stop moving. He ends up getting up from the sofa just to stop the nervous taps on the floor. Ezra asks: “How did you know that I was working here?”

Anathema had told him. She had done so subtly at first and with increasingly elaborate threats then to coax him to make amends with Ezra through the whole summer.

(Crowley can’t remember anything but the blinding lights of the ambulance, a cacophony of shouts from his parents and Ezra’s pitiful eyes before waking up on the hospital bed.  

“Well, you really shouldn’t be here. I mean, given how many other people you have to fraternize with—”) 

“I didn’t. I happened to be in the neighbourhood”. It has happened a couple of times before. That is, Crowley going so far as to reach the neighbouring park before bolting on the whole idea. Showing up just as the gang decided to strike the library hasn’t been about pure chance, though. 

“My spidey senses just tingled”. 

“Ah”. Ezra’s soft smile fades down a bit. Crowley feels an inexplicable pang of guilt. “Well. I’m glad about your spider senses. I really don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t show up, my dear. I suppose that I got myself into a very tight spot”.  

Mrs. Tracy laughs. She then shoves a hand over her mouth, appalled. She looks apologetically at the detective, who very chivariously tells her that there’s nothing to apologize for. 

Crowley fixates on how much that makes him gag so he won’t pay attention at how his mind won’t stop echoing ‘my dear’. 

“It’s spidey, not spider. You know it’s spidey”, he chides him. It doesn’t have any real bite to it, though. He glances again at Ezra and spots that little self satisfied smile that he sports after being annoying on purpose. His heart clenches suddenly at the immensity of the feeling of how much he has missed it. 

“Does pretending to be from two centuries ago still help you around here?”, he asks, as nonchalant as he can manage. He rests his back on the counter.  

“I’ll have you know that Mrs. Tracy appreciates my tastes, as démodé as you may find them”. Ezra replies, petulantly. He purses his lips and adds: “And modernizing doesn’t necessary have to equal obscure comic book knowledge, you know?” 

Crowley scoffs. Thinks I’ll give you obscure. 

Ezra ignores him: “I’ve been keeping myself up to date as of late, if you must know. I—”, he hesitates. Crowley takes on his set shoulders, that proud grin. He thinks about how utterly adorable he looks as he doubles down on his resolve and— 

A phone rings. An 8 bit version of something classical. That’s— Beethoven? 

Crowley fishes the thing out of the floor, vibrating half hidden among books. It looks like an old Blackberry or something equally egregious. He flips it in his hand, spots the cracked screen and… he sees the screen saver, a bad selfie of Ezra kissing some guy’s cheek. 

(“Someone like me? How exactly is someone like me? No, describe it. Do you honestly think that I deserve to get treated—”. 

“I worry about you”. 

“And now you sound like them. I only asked— At the very least have the guts to tell me that you think that this is a punishment—”. 

“You’re putting words in my mouth that I haven’t said”.

“That’s the problem! You never say anything. So long for that being on your side shit when you won’t stand up when I need someone to do it”)

Crowley doesn’t even move when Ezra, beet red, grabs the phone out of his hand and answers. 

“Hi, I— Yes. Yes. Both of us. I was about to call you to tell you about it, in fact”, he nods to nothing. “Well, Police has been interrogating us up until now. How have you heard about it, anyway? In the—?”, a whisper of something and then: “The what!? Yes, yes, I swear to— Look, given the circumstances it’s something that I’m able to promise, yes”. 

Crowley just— stays there. With the image of the screen saver seared into his mind. The guy’s tall, dark haired, good looking, all draped in finery. Ezra’s honest to Someone giggling. Crowley feels as if someone has just dropped a bucket of cold water over his shoulders. As if someone has just punched all air out of his lungs. 

“I— yes, the moment I get home”, continues Ezra. He lowers his voice: “Yes, me too”. 

He ends the call. 

One of the agents asks something to Mrs. Tracy and then helps her to close the storefront, hiding the broken glass under the metal sheet. After the creaks stop, Ezra tries a joke, pinpointing the phone: “I figured at some point of another I would have to let go of telegrams”. 

The guy is probably refined and shit. He can picture him, a veritable dandy, dressed like a sir and philosophizing about morality while analyzing literary classics. Most likely, his vices limit themselves to cigarettes and the occasional brandy glass at parties.  Surely, his police records are stainless. 

He’s truly glad for Ezra. 

Brimming with joy. 

He pinpoints the old mobile: “You’ve nailed down the century, angel. Now all that is left to nail down is the decade”. He puts so much effort into not sounding as hollow as he feels, that he expends a few seconds without realizing exactly what has he called the other and only does so when Ezra looks away. 

Crowley’s stomach sinks to the floor and then lower, a truly stupid, over sensitive move on his part—  

“He’s a— well, a friend”. 

(“You haven’t been able to admit that we’re friends. Not once”

Ezra looks away. He ducks his head. His voice wavers when he says—)

Crowley buries the memory quickly and mercilessly. He was a manipulative asshole that day. Ezra’s not the one to blame for Crowley’s devotion, nor his very private daydreams —so obviously out of touch with reality, given what he is, what tears them apart— about what a friendship might develop into.   

“You don’t owe me any explanation”. 

He tries to swallow the bile down his throat.  

“Crowley, I—”. 

The point is— he didn’t even know that Ezra might, in this world and life, be interested. That there was any potential to explore. That Ezra, well, is interested in guys. A part of him cannot stop ruminating about how it’s his fault. That he’s somehow lacking— he’s always lacking. That he was, well, truly pathetic to even secretly entertain the possibility.  

He stands up and recollocates his jeans, trying not to wince when his bruised hands grab the rough fabric. “I’m going home”.   

Ezra’s face falls. He looks away, frowning a little, pouting, his lower lip trembling slightly. Crowley’s convinced that if Ezra were looking up, his eyes would beautifully shine with unshed tears. He feels as if he has just committed genocide, or kicked an overgrown, blonde puppy with eyes as blue as the sky. He gives in, refrains the urge to sigh and asks: “Do you want a lift?” 

Ezra does a double take. Then, he smiles. And it’s like grabbing a soft blanket and getting near the fireplace on a rainy day and corny shit like that. 

Crowley feels a frustration almost as deep as the warmth in his chest. 

Soon they find themselves in Crowley’s car, with him following Ezra’s directions across town and being just a tad too glad that he doesn’t have to explain why does he know where they are going. 

Wait, no. Come back! He just means— Anathema’s new flame lives next door, okay? He’s not a creep.

“So you basically stole a bunch of books”. 

“I didn’t steal anything. I acquired them. With hard work”. 

“You’ve just told me that you went into a— well, a sort of manhunt of prophecy books, coercing their previous owners into giving them to you almost for free”. 

“Coerce, now that’s a strong word. Suggest, if anything. Let it slide— Could you please go slower, my dear!”.

“Manipulated, more likely. Deceived”. 

Ezra shots him a glare, baffled.

“It’s hardly my fault if they didn’t do the proper research before our negotiations!”

“I don’t know if that would stand in a courtroom”. 

“Well, if you’re just going to ponder the legal ramifications of my job I might just ask you to drop me here and go the rest of the way back on foot”. 

“Now, there’s no need for rush decisions”. 

“Well, you’re the one rushing!”

Crowley smirks, takes a turn left a little to quickly to make it perfectly legal and tries hard not to laugh at how Ezra squirms. “I’m just— admiring the skill where it’s due”, he says, after a moment of silence. “It must have been very difficult to get the opportunity to negotiate with those antique dealers. To prepare a convincing speech that fit every occasion”.  

“If that’s sarcasm, I swear, my dear—”

“Oh, gosh, no. I’ve seen you in action. I don’t doubt for a moment that you can be pretty persuasive”.

(“So, what am I supposed to tell them? ‘Oh, no, I’m sorry, but I won’t make it, you guys, I’ve plans of spending all night long curing the boredom of this blondie, you see’. Wait a minute, I’m so definitely texting them that”.  

“Crowley! You’re making me look like a wanton thing”. 

“Are you blond? Check. Did you convince me that spending the night here was way more interesting than putting up with Bee and their friends? Also check. Did you do so because you’re bored as hell? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a triple check! I fail to see how am I misrepresenting the truth here”. 

“You know that they won’t think that! If you send them that they will assume that— They will think that we—”

Crowley has the smartphone in a hand, a glass of wine in the other. That, next to Ezra’s white jumper, will prove itself to be an accident in the making in mere seconds. An accident that Ezra will have only to vaguely battle his eyelashes to to get Crowley try his hardest to solve. 

“Now, what will they exactly think?” 

“Give me the mobile, Crowley!”)

Crowley smile falters. He drops the banter: “Doing something quite as reckless as inviting potential robbers of those books into your bookshop, now, I wouldn’t have pinpointed you as someone who’d do that”. 

He sees out of the corner of his eye how Ezra ducks his head and looks out of the window. “I was supposed to get help”. 

Ah, yes. Crowley remembers the girl of the library, the one who has played Ezra’s partner in crime before snitching on him to the gang. The one Ezra hadn't imagined betraying him because he wouldn’t be capable of doing something like that to someone else, so why would her do it to him. He changes gears, keeps his eyes on the road and answers, as if in an afterthought: “Next time you plan on turning yourself and your books into bait, maybe— well, if you need a backup, a proper backup, just ask me”. 

He feels more than sees Ezra’s eyes snapping back at him, and that’s more than anything out of the flush that creeps over his neck. He feels his palms sweaty, his heart beating wildly. He preemptively puts up his shields, thinks a myriad of variants of ‘I only say it so you don’t make a fool out of yourself’ and is only halfway dissapointed when Ezra changes tracks to ask: “How did you find out about the strike?” 

Crowley opens his mouth, thinks about explaining how Lucius had told him in no uncertain terms to follow the gang if he wanted to keep the job. He thinks about what Ezra would tell him if he mentioned the Inferno gardening shop and its shady backroom deals altogether. He shuts his mouth. 

Ezra, who can read him back to back, doesn’t even need him to put it into words. He jumps to the worse conclusion, though: “Did he... order it?” 

Wait, what?

“No. He— I heard them talk about you, okay? He—”, Crowley sighs, “Okay, he told me to follow them. That’s when I heard them talking about this library, this old and weird ass librarian, and the blondie, fussy young man who helped her and, well. I pieced things together and then...” 

“And you decided to come to my rescue”.  

Crowley risks a quick look over. Ezra looks… kind of amused. He doesn’t know what to make out of it. His gut reaction is to tone down the statement: it’s not as if he suddenly has turned into some sort of knight in shining armour. Or that he deserves to be praised like one.

In the end, he doesn’t say anything, mainly because a hand chooses that exact momento to gently squeeze his arm, and that stops altogether his train of thought. 

“You can stop wherever you can. It’s over there”, Ezra explains, pinpointing the same large block of buildings in front of which he dropped Anathema a couple of weeks before. Crowley parks, not too far away. He hopes that Ezra will invite him over. Maybe make a big show of how irresponsible is to let a drive drive that late, perhaps chide at his reckless ignorance of road manners. Something that lets him a teeny, tiny opportunity not to have to say goodbye. 

“Well, thank you for—” 

He rolls his eyes. 

“Ezra”. 

“But I’m grateful for what you’ve done! It was... nice seeing you again”. 

It’s the wild, blind hope in his chest what makes him take a deep breath, braze himself for the impact and say: “You know, Hamlet. There’s ah— They’re doing Hamlet. The guys in— Shit, well, I mean”, he backpedals. Starts again, trying to say it so it makes sense. Subject, verb, complements. Come on, you can do it! “The new community theatre downtown? Some friends of mine are doing Hamlet there. They’re not— Oscar worthy, or anything, but they’re also not rubbish. And there’s a bar near, they make some pretty mean pizzas. Italian authentic recipe, all artsy. We could—”. 

“I can’t”. 

Crowley clasps his mouth shut. 

“Right”. 

He blinks a few times, keeps his eyes away, tries to will the sharp sting away. 

“Crowley, I’m not ashamed of you. I just— I can’t, okay?” 

Ezra squeezes his hand for a moment. 

Crowley won’t cry. 

“Okay, angel”, he manages. 

Ezra grabs his bag and gets out of the car. He doesn’t manage to move until he sees him disappear through the entrance hall. 

It doesn’t happen that night. Nor the morning after. He’s got to wait up until the afternoon shift at the Inferno for Bee to call him to the back room and hand him the shop’s phone. It’s humid in the backroom, it clings to his clothes. It almost chokes him when he hears a sweet, deep voice tell him: “You’ve got guts to show up, that I have to admit it. I’ve seen you worse for wear, though. Is that how you pay your shots now, scuffles?”

(“My brother is—”

“An idiot? A petty bastard who didn’t outgrow the bully phase?”) 

“I wouldn’t stick around if I were you, our parents don’t take to too gently to your kind. Neither do I, if we’re being honest. If you want to ruin your life, that’s your problem. But the last thing we need is you dragging Ezra down with you. Specially, after what he did to get you back to school”. 

Ba-dum-thud. His heart skips a beat. 

“I’m going to take your little chat from last night as an aberration to the rule, but needless to say, I don’t want you to go near him ever again. Or else, there will be consequences. And you know for experience that I do follow up my words”. A pause. “Do we have an arrangement?” 

Ire cloughs his throat. He’s got the phone in a death grip. 

“I’m going to take that as a yes. Have a nice day, Crawley”.

He hangs up. 

Crowley waits one tone, two tones, before his body reacts and he stomps the phone on the receiver wishing that it was not a phone, but a certain someone’s face. Bee refrains mid-sentence to tell him how he’s going to have to pay it if he breaks.  

He paces back to the front of the shop, feeling disgusted with himself, and only partially because after being at the back room he’s pooling in sweat. His mind is lost to the present, racing through images of him burning with rage at the hospital, screaming at Ezra to fuck off, to images of him burning with rage at the police station, being questioned, to images of him burning with rage at the director’s office, being told with a stern voice and pitiful eyes that even if Crowley will not be expelled for the incident, if he continued down this road, it’d probably cost him way more than his academic possibilities and he knows that . He knows there’s a missing piece in there, somewhere, though he cannot for the love of Someone pinpoint where is it. There’s the familiar weight of guilt in his stomach and a question which echoes through his brain.

What the fuck did he do?

[liquidstar]

soulmate aus are cute as long as you dont think about the concept too long (and youre not supposed to, theyre really not intended to be more than something saccharine to indulge in and thats good!) but i Cannot Stop Myself from thinking about the ramifications something like this would have on the world. every single person exists solely as an “other half” to another person, almost like they dont really live for themselves and everyone is an inherently incomplete being, that must impact everyone’s self-perception so much and that’s not even to speak of the philosophical implications of it. not to mention... society would have to be ordered differently based on this structure, wouldnt it? i dont mean surface-level stuff like dating apps where you post your soulmark or counselling for people without one, but i mean.... everything! everything would be structured so differently because the concept of a soulmate being real would effect so much of the world. i cant tell you exactly how because im not expert on alternate history theories, but i can still imagine that society would function very differently and be about 100x more hyperfocused on romance than it already is. 

this isnt some kind of criticism of soulmate aus! like i said theyre cute and saccharine and youre supposed to take them at face value, but sometimes i just cant stop my thoughts from wondering about how a “real” alternate universe with soulmates would function. and i think its INTERESTING because even though the concept is mostly used to write romance, if used correctly it could also be used to write a dystonian narrative. maybe one that highlights the issues with society's fixation on living a specific pre-determined heteronormative cookie-cutter lifestyle and the way people who dont fit into it are either shunned or forced into a life of misery, as well as a critique on the culture surrounding romance and the implication that youre incomplete without a partner (especially if youre a women, because a man has to complete you while you devote your being to him). just those concepts at their extremes. i dont know! im just sharing random thoughts, because i think the concept could be a lot more than what most people expect from it!

[vulcan-highblood]

Not According To Plan 3/5

Fandom: Supergirl (2015)/Legion of Superheroes

Summary: (Post Season 3 Ep.18 “Shelter From the Storm”) Querl and Imra return to the 31st Century. It’s not at all what they expected.

Read it on AO3!

Chapter 3:  The Revelation

As the cruiser landed outside Legion HQ, everyone was relieved to spot their friends - fellow legionnaires - rushing out to greet them in the docking bay. Querl hung back a little, still a little shaky and not feeling especially confident at the moment. He was glad to be home, of course, but as bad as the home he’d left had been, he couldn’t help feeling cheated that this was what he’d come back to. 

“Come on, Brainy, let’s go!” Chameleon urged, pausing to glance back at him before jogging down the walkway and exiting the craft. 

Resisting the urge to sigh, Querl followed the Durlan out of the cruiser. It took him an entire three seconds to realize something was wrong - far longer than it should have, but he was distracted and in distress, so he wasn’t going to be too hard on himself over it. He slowed to a halt when he realized the smiles and cheerful greetings that had been flying between the other legionnaires had all ceased entirely. 

“What?” he asked, looking around cautiously. “Is something amiss?”

Ultra Boy, apparently taking charge of the situation, took two large steps forward. “Brainy?” he said, voice hesitant, as though he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or distressed. 

“...yes?” Querl replied cautiously. He looked around, noting that while some Legionnaires were watching him with very odd looks, others’ expressions appeared downright hostile. It was an unexpected reaction, to be sure. It didn’t seem to bode well for the state of things here in the future. “Has something happened?”

Cautiously folding his arms over his chest, Ultra Boy looked him over with narrowed eyes. “Where did you come from?” he asked, glancing between Querl and the rest of the Legionnaires, who had fully disembarked, leaving Querl alone in the center of attention in the middle of the boarding walkway. 

“We went back to the twenty-first century with Mon-El to cure a plague that was killing billions of people in our time,” Querl explained quickly. “We succeeded in preventing the plague from ever reaching this time, and so we returned to this century. However, it seems that all is not well, despite the success of our mission…?” he raised an eyebrow, hoping to prompt a bit more detailed information from the Legionnaires, who were beginning to whisper to one another, still tossing curious glances his way.  

Ultra Boy slowly unfolded his arms. “Things are… not great,” he said. “They haven't been for about five years now.”

Sprock, that was right around the time the Blight had begun to spread in earnest. Could the two have been connected, somehow? Had the Blight prevented whatever this was? Querl was hardly one to make the mistake of likening correlation to causation, but it was suspicious nonetheless. He resisted the temptation to contemplate the matter further, instead focusing on the explanation. “ What started five years ago?”

“That’s… a long story,” Jo Nah said, grimacing slightly. “Care to come inside?”

Querl nodded, gesturing for him to lead the way, which Jo did, turning and heading into Legion HQ, pausing to tap in a string of numbers into a keypad at the doors, which whooshed open with a hydraulic hiss. So not all technology had become obsolete, it seemed. That was something of a relief. Still, the fact that there had been no voice or facial recognition system in place was alarming. Querl still didn’t know the extent to which the virus had affected AI systems, but if something as basic as voice or visual systems were compromised…  Well. He’d know how worried he should be once Ultra Boy explained what had happened, in detail.

~~*~~

Once they had settled into a conference room with Jo, Tinya, and Luornu, Querl quickly became aware of the looks the three legionnaires kept tossing his way. It was disconcerting, especially since Imra was frowning at him now, too. Of course she knew what had happened, to some extent. After all, she was Titanian. The fact that she knew what they were about to say and she was frowning made Querl even more nervous. Turning to the three who had led their ragtag band of time travelers to the conference room, he leaned forward.  “Please explain what has happened,” he urged. “All of my calculations indicated this was the correct time to return to, and yet, I confess that I have absolutely no idea what events could have transpired to create the situation in which we find ourselves.” That wasn’t precisely true - after all, he had a very good suspicion. 

“It came out of nowhere, really,” Tinya began, hesitantly. “There was this organization, they called themselves The Dark Circle. They’ve been around for years, actually-”

“Yes, as far as I was aware they were merely a philosophical movement that rejects the advances of technology and calls for a return to one’s baser instincts and emotions,” Querl said, recognizing the name. They hadn’t been a particularly powerful organization in this time. Not the time with which he was most familiar, anyway. Considering the terror of the Blight sweeping the universe, it was of little surprise that a return to raw emotions like ‘fear’ or ‘anger’ was not exactly a popular philosophy. 

Tinya nodded to acknowledge the truth of Querl’s statement. “That’s correct. However, about five years ago, one of their senior members went… rogue.” 

Querl’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, an unintended reaction, though not altogether inappropriate considering the unexpected nature of this information. “Rogue how?”

“They released a public statement, claiming that technology was the foundation of all the evils in our universe,” Jo said, taking over for Tinya. “And they started actively attacking factories and scientific institutions.” He gave Querl an apologetic look. “One of the first places they hit was the Time Institute, actually.”

Querl winced. “That is… unfortunate,” he said. He couldn’t exactly call the people there friends, and he was fairly confident such sentiment would be reciprocated. Nonetheless, he knew how frustrating it could be to lose valuable research notes and materials, which would have doubtless occurred if the Time Institute was attacked by a terrorist organization. 

“Yeah,” Jo agreed, “Especially since the prototype you left there was destroyed in the attack.”

Querl frowned. Prototype? What prototype? His confusion must have shown on his face, because Luornu spoke up.

“You’d started working on a personal time-travel device,” Luorno jumped in to clarify. “You called it the time bubble . It was too dangerous to work on it here, you said you needed a space that had the right safety protocols.”

Fighting to maintain a neutral expression, Querl considered that. Even if that had been the reason he’d given the Legion, it didn’t make sense to him. True, he’d had far more advanced laboratories and materials at the Time Institute, but the protocol and scrutiny the projects were placed under weren’t worth the slightly reduced chance of catastrophic failure. Time travel was complex, yes, but not any more inherently dangerous than most of his other technical pursuits. Why would his alternate past self have been working at the Time Institute again? Especially since he’d left on such… poor terms. There was nothing for it, he would just accept that his alternate past self had a good reason to do so. He trusted his own genius, even if he lacked sufficient information to fully understand his reasoning.  “So the Dark Circle began attacking,” Querl said, nodding carefully. “And then?”

“Well, we were trying to find out who the leader was, who was in the inner circle, what their motives were,” Tinya continued. “It took us the better part of a year, but we finally got a promising lead. We sent a team out to capture their leader. But…” She swallowed, suddenly unable to meet Querl’s gaze.

Even more disconcerting, Querl realized that all three of the Legionnaires giving them their debrief were pointedly avoiding eye contact with him. “Something happened to me,” Querl said. “Something bad?”

“You were separated from the rest of the team,” Ultra Boy said. “We’re still not sure how, but in the confusion, the leader got you alone. She… she hurt you.”

“We got you out of there,” Tinya said quickly, “but it was… bad. She was trying to kill you. She nearly succeeded. The recovery was long and painful.” 

They still hadn’t met his gaze. There was something they weren’t saying. “What aren’t you telling me?” Querl demanded.

“Brainy,” Imra laid a hand on his arm, a look of concern crossing her features. “I don’t think it’s a good idea…”

“I have a right to know!” Querl snapped. “More than that, in order to adequately assess the situation, I need to know!” 

The three exchanged glances. Finally, Tinya turned to Querl, her eyes filled with a deep sadness. “The leader of the Dark Circle… She was your mother, Brainy. Brainiac Four.”

Querl felt himself stiffen involuntarily. What? Impossible. His mother was… sick, yes. She was not a good person. But to lead fanatics in a crusade against technology when she was, herself, a product of technology, every bit as much as any other Coluan alive? It didn’t make sense. And to use her crimes to lure him to her? What reason could she have to do such a thing? If she’d called , he would have come, she didn’t have to deceive him like that. But it didn’t end there, because she’d had a specific purpose in mind when she’d lured him to her. She’d tried to murder him. Murder her own son. 

Querl didn’t feel like he had adequate emotional capacity to fully consider the ramifications of that at the moment, so he balled up whatever he was feeling, crushing his emotions into a ball and forcing them down until they were barely even present in his mind. “I see,” he said, wishing there was a less awkward way to say what he was about to say. “But that doesn’t explain the lack of COMPUTO, or why we were told that all forms of AI are under attack.”

“It does, sort of,” Luornu said. “You recovered, in time. But in the time it took to bring you back, the Dark Circle had everything they needed to unleashed its latest attack.” 

Querl frowned. “You didn’t capture Brainiac Four?”

“We did,” Jo quickly assured him. “But what we didn’t know is that she had already groomed her successor.”

They were still avoiding eye contact. “Who?”

“Pirn Dox,” Luorno said softly. “Your cousin? He, uh. He took the name Brainiac Six.”

Querl frowned, taking the news remarkably well, or so he thought, considering that he felt as though all of existence was crashing down on him. “But Pirn only has tenth level intellect,” he protested, as though this was an appropriate response to the news that two of his family members had apparently taken it upon themselves to utterly wreck the universe. His response was taken far better than he’d expected. In fact, Tinya and Luornu both laughed outright, and Jo had to smother a snicker behind a fist and a forced cough.

“Sorry,” Tinya said, “It’s just… that’s exactly what you said when you heard it the first time, too.”

“For someone who’s so set on changing the perceptions of your family name, you’re very… particular… about who is allowed to take up the Brainiac mantle,” Jo noted.

“Brainiacs have twelfth level intellect,” Querl protested. “It is a title that is handed down through my clan to those who meet the criteria. Pirn does not meet the criteria. It is therefore unacceptable for him to use that name.” He didn’t quite know why it bothered him so much - after all, his mother had clearly done enough to ruin his family’s name in this time, what did it really matter that his cousin had also taken steps to further tarnish the Brainiac reputation? But it wasn’t right, Pirn had never felt the ostracization that came with a Brainiac title, it was disingenuous to only use that title when it was useful. Querl had been wrestling with the prejudices associated with such a title for most of his life. It wasn’t fair. He knew it was rather childish to be so bothered by such a trite detail, but…

“Well, unacceptable or not, he used it when he announced an imminent detonation of a viral payload in the Coluan mainframe,” Jo said, a bit waspishly. “He gave credit for the design to the original Brainiac, said he was finally carrying out his ancestor’s greatest wish ... but the actual upload was his doing.” He swallowed hard. “We still aren’t sure how much of him is Pirn, and how much might be… well, the original Brainiac.”

“I don't understand,” Querl said, “It’s true my people have ancestral memory, we can be aligned with previous ancestors, but…” He’d never heard of a total overwrite before. The very idea was horrifying in the extreme. “I don’t understand,” he said again, reeling from the information that had just been handed to him. “Colu was the initial target?”

“They… they weren’t right, Brainy. They wanted to see suffering. They wanted to see death, and they wanted that death to come to Artificial Intelligence and technology,” Tinya’s expression was much softer than Jo’s, her voice hard but not cutting. “I don’t know why, if it was a suppressed self-hatred that caused Brainiac Four to lash out, or if she was so broken that she didn’t see anything wrong with what they were doing. All we know is that she was imprisoned and Brainiac Six - as he calls himself - is some terrible fusion of Pirn Dox and the first Brainiac.”

“We also know they want to destroy all other AIs, but you know what Colu is like… it's so isolated. It wasn’t until Brainiac Six-”

“Pirn,” Querl muttered.

With a dirty look, Tinya picked up where Jo had left off. “It wasn't until Dox released the footage of his attack that we knew, and by then… a number of ships far beyond Coluan space were already drifting, paralyzed.” 

Querl nodded slowly. “The virus jumped from the planet to nearby systems.”

Tinya nodded, but it was Luornu who spoke. “By the time you woke up, it had already reached planetside here on Earth, too.” 

Querl nodded. “And then?”

“You immediately began researching a way to defeat your... ancestor possessed cousin?” She shrugged, obviously not willing to work at a more concise description. “We thought going back in time a few years might be enough, but you determined that the virus still had a high likelihood of being used by another member of the Dark Circle, even if we were able to apprehend both Brainiac Four and Brainiac Six-”

“Pirn Dox,” Querl interjected, ignoring the irritated look Jo shot his way. There were rules about who got to be a Brainiac, and Querl would never accept a self-declared Brainiac. 

Luornu sighed heavily. “Even if we could catch Brainiac Four and Pirn, it was highly likely that there were other members of the Dark Circle who had access to the code, and it was difficult to identify with certainty when the code was developed, as we still don’t actually know if it was your mother, your ancestor, or Pirn who created it.”

“That follows,” Querl said, trying not to think too hard about the possibility of his mother wandering from planet-to-planet, designing a killer code that would destroy all known life on his homeworld. If he thought about it too much he would just get sick again, and he didn’t have time for that. “Obviously I would need to identify an individual who would be able to contend with Pirn - or my ancestor, as the case may be - without falling victim to the virus. A tech genius who is not, like myself, made of technology, but rather someone who is comfortable with tech to the extent that they would pose a serious threat to my cousin. Or ancestor. Whoever is currently inhabiting the body.”

“Yes!” Tinya agreed, “that was precisely the conclusion you came to, and you found someone in the twenty-first century that you thought would be an ideal recruit for this fight.”

Querl nodded slowly. “Something went wrong,” he surmised. It wasn’t hard to tell - after all, if he had succeeded, this would not be the current timeline.

“You plotted a course using the legion cruiser,” Luornu said. “Mon-El, Imra, Rokk, Reep, and Salu were going with you. But…”

“Something went wrong,” Querl said again, noting the uncomfortable looks once more passing between the three seated before them. “What was it?”

“You were so careful,” Tinya said softly. “But we think… there must have been a sleeper code embedded in your system. From when your mother attacked you.”

His chest tightened as realization trickled through him. “The virus.”

Jo nodded. “We got a call when you were less than an hour from the disruption. You… It happened so fast. No one knew what was wrong, except… you.”

Querl knew what had happened immediately. “I wrote down the exact coordinates we needed and plotted the route manually. In case the cruiser systems failed.”

“No one knew what had happened, at first. The cruiser was dead in space, and when they came to the bridge, the walls were covered in blood.” Luornu swallowed hard. “Your blood. You didn’t have any physical writing utensils, everything was electronic. Everyone was being so careful, but you must have worried it was too great a risk…”

“I cut my finger and used my own blood to write the necessary coordinates on the walls of the bridge so whoever found it would be able to manually navigate to the time we needed,” Querl said. He wasn’t asking. He knew himself, he knew exactly what he would have done were he in that situation. 

“They couldn’t risk keeping you on the cruiser in case your virus did infect it,” Jo said quietly. “They called us. It was awful. We had no time, not after seeing… that.”

Querl nodded. “You jettisoned me into the nearest star, as I requested.”

Tinya’s eyes widened. “How did you-”

Trying his best not to take his frustration out on an innocent party, Querl sighed heavily. “Because I know myself. After taking the time to carefully lay out the coordinates, the last piece of necessary information I wrote would be my request for last rites to be foregone in favor of expedience.”

“You’re right,” Jo said. He leaned back in his chair, still unable to meet Querl’s eyes as he finished the story. “After they. Uh. Discarded your body, they followed the coordinates to the disruption.That’s the last thing we heard from them. Until, four years later, here you are.”

“Here we are,” Querl echoed.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man: Life Story #4 Thoughts

*graons*

Positives out of the way.

Bagley’s art+Bagley’s rendition of Morlun+the armoured looks of some of Tony’s squad.

Okay now onto the negatives.

I think I might’ve figured out what the REAL premise of Life Story is.

‘What if Spider-Man didn’t have the illusion of change and therefore everything was terrible so readers will now just accept the illusion of change forever’.

Seriously that makes the most sense at this point.

The illusion of change isn’t there and so everyone ages and everything falls to shit.

Spider-Man gets divorced, his child dies, his brother dies, etc.

But if that wasn’t the point then Zdarsky continues to make Life Story a total clown show.

He is consistent in only the following regards.

a)      Events from Spider-Man history happen randomly differently from how they happened in canon even though that wasn’t how the series was advertised to us

b)      Superheroes have a more realistic impact upon the real world except not really, it’s basically as realistic as Zdarsky wants it to be because fuck world building and consistency I guess

c)       Real life history is toxically inconsistent within the context of a world of heroes where things are different

d)      The story is inconsistent even in and of itself

e)      Peter Parker is an irresponsible, dumb asshole

f)       Various elements of the story have no intersection with one another. Remember how Flash died in Vietnam and this had...nothing to do with Miles Warren cloning Gwen????

Lets kick off with two things that can be looked at as bad points of the story but arguably forgivable...arguably.

So firstly...Morlun is in this story and then dies!

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm...Wasn’t there not one but TWO massive Spider-Man event crossovers (one as recent as LAST YEAR) which firmly establish that there is in fact just one version of Morlun in the entire Multiverse? This story is royally contradicting that. Now in fairness...that was always bullshit because we have had What Ifs and other alternate universe stories before Spider-Verse clearly depicting more than one Morlun in the multiverse.

Secondly...Civil War....fucking Civil War.

I loathe and despise the original Civil War storyline from 2006. You guys have no idea how much I honestly wish that story never existed.

A big part of that is how it wrecks the verisimilitude of the Marvel universe before and after it. Civil War was unsustainable as a status quo shift long term for the Marvel Universe and it made no sense given it’s established history. It took the realism of superheroes too far and consequently forced writers and readers to wilfully ignore it after it was done so things could go back to normal. If you do a Civil War style story it needs to either be set in an AU or end your universe and that’s it. A change of pace simply cannot work without wrecking everything.

So seeing it again is gross buuuuuuuuut, given Life Story’s mission statement of taking things more realistically and being an AU itself it actually fits better in this story than in 616 Spider-Man. The same can be said of Spider-Man’s identity being unmasked although this too wrecks the idea that this is Spider-Man aging in real time. If it was about that then the ramifications of the unmasking wouldn’t stick around any more than they did in 616, because that had nothing to do with a sliding timeline or whatever.

However the idea of Civil War fitting better in Life Story because it’s more realistic is utterly destroyed when you consider that in this universe where superheroes have a more realistic impact upon the world, where the military has Tony Stark level weaponry, where intangible nuclear missiles are a thing...9/11 still happened...

...I’m going to repeat that.

In a world where there has been near Star Trek level technology since the 1960s...a handful of terrorists with conventional weapons (not even the most high tech weapons and technology available in the real world in 2001!) are able to fool airport security, hijack some planes and destroy the Twin Towers...in New York city...where ALL THE SUPERHEROES LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look...in the Marvel or DC universes 9/11 happened. You can choose to interpret the 9/11 Spider-Man issue as canon or not canon, but it is a fact Spider-Man lives in a world where the 9/11 disaster happened. He didn’t stop it, the Avengers didn’t stop it, the Fantastic Four didn’t stop it.

Even though they definitely could have. Collectively all the superheroes of New York have weapons, technology and resources which would’ve enabled them to have intelligence on the hijackings, possibly before they even happened, probably during the hijackings and definitely as the planes were incoming. And they sure as hell had the ability to avert the disaster.

Are you telling me Al Quaeda could trick or stall or fend off the Avengers! Get the fuck out of here no they couldn’t.

The reason that 9/11 still canonically happened in the Marvel universe is simple. The Marvel universe’s realism doesn’t stretch so far as contorting the real world into something unrecognizable to the world of today. The Marvel universe has always been our world but superheroes are there. Their realistic social, political, economic and philosophical impact though isn’t. It’s why Christianity is still the dominant religion in Marvel’s America even though Thor is a thing. 9/11 being such a globally changing event means that the Marvel universe needed to retain it occurring in order to continue to reflect a relatable world to the readers.

More poignantly, just how during WWII superheroes didn’t simply end the conflict by flying into Germany and killing Hitler, to have had superheroes realistically avert 9/11 as they could have would’ve been deeply insulting and disrespectful to the real life witnesses and victims of the tragedy and their loved ones.

Zdarsky didn’t have that constraint though. He could’ve imposed it on his story had he wanted but just as with so much of the real world history his grossly mishandles (a reminder everything after issue #3 is bullshit because the world should’ve been consumed in nuclear Armageddon) he cherry picks what will and won’t be affected by superheroes existing and whether their effects will be realistically and logical or if they’ll be...whatever he randomly wants.

Case in point superheroes existing means nuclear missiles are intangible now, but superheroes existing doesn’t mean airport security is any different from what it was in 2001!

*head desk*

The ONLY way 9/11 happens in this Marvel universe is if like HYDRA did it instead of Al Quaeda or if the latter had backing from super villains.

But just like with all the altered real world history Zdarsky doesn’t explain anything. He’s lazy as a world builder. Thus we’re left to presume 9/11 happened as it did in the real world even though Tony Stark has already created technology that ended the Cold War by America beating Russia’s ass.

I mean for fuck’s sake, GALACTUS has invaded Earth and New York specifically, you telling me Tony or Reed or Hank Pym or someone hasn’t created at least some sort of alarm system to alert them to incoming threats. WTF was Doctor Strange doing!

Let’s stick to Tony for the moment. So in this issue...he’s the villain. He’s been on the wrong side ever since issue #1 really. This is another case of something bad that is arguably defendable.

See back in Civil War if you were reading Spider-Man you experienced a Tale of Two Tony’s (not my turn of phrase by the way I stole that).

You didn’t need to read Spider-Man to follow the main Civil War book but if you were reading Spider-Man you did need to read the main CW book to follow the story as pivotal events happened in the latter that were then followed up upon in the former. The most famous example would be Spider-Man unmasking which was only built up to in ASM but actually depicted in Civil War #2. However another more relevant example would be how when Spidey decided to switch sides Tony attacked him in ASM and was clearly painted as outright villainous, but then the action continued into the main Civil War book where Tony was written more conflicted and sympathetic, before the action cut back to ASM where he was very much a villain. The characterization wasn’t consistent at all, and the Spider books were not alone in this. Sue Richards’ break up with Reed happened very differently in the pages of Fantastic Four than they did in Civil War.

This is relevant to Life Story because the Tony in this book is very much the Tony of ASM era Civil War, the villain on the side of the law and the fact that Zdarsky planted the seeds for this back in issue #1 is I will admit commendable. Too bad it took until issue #4 for him and Peter to interact but whatever. I also confess that seeing the polar opposite of the Iron Dad relationship gives me life at the moment.

However given how Zdarsky’s convoluted M.O. with this book seems to be to reflect a wider real time aging Marvel Universe and not just Spider-Man’s story this characterization is fundamentally broken. Because Iron Man...was totally out of character in Civil War. Even in the main series where he was written more sympathetic he was out of character and in ASM it was truly ridiculous. So Zdarsky is again being inconsistent and terrible at characterization. He’s even being awful in how the story tries to remix elements from the 2000s era Spider-Man regarding Tony (and other stuff we’ll get to).

If you are going to factor in Peter’s unmasking and Iron Man into this story shouldn’t the once friendly relationship they had or his Avengers membership play a factor? I mean Spidey being an Avenger was such a huge deal in the 2000s that when Marvel made variant covers for his 50th anniversary showcasing something from every decade of Spidey his being an Avenger was used to represent the 2000s.

Getting back to the Civil War elements though, something mind boggling is that Iron Fist is on the pro-registration side when he was very much NOT in the real Civil War event. Making this matter worse is his best friend Luke Cage being on the anti-registration side. Even without giving anyone any lines Zdarsky srews up characterization. Compounding this is Iron Man’s claims that young heroes fell in line with the registration act...what?

Let’s ignore how bowing to the government isn’t typically what teens like to do...you telling me that the opinions of most teenage heroes was to sign up with the government? Bullshit, even in the original story their views were more mixed. There is also the implication that somehow...9/11 was the thing that prompted the SHRA...hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow??????????????????????????????

Finally Tony tells Peter he could be arrested for not registering with the government that he was a hero because...his spider sense is like insider trading.

I need to explain how stupid this is.

To begin with the SHRA wasn’t enforced when Peter was running Parker Industries so he was literally not breaking the law. If a law is passed that wearing a watch is illegal you can’t go to prison because prior to that law’s passage you wore a watch.

Secondly...no....no the Spider Sense is really not like insider trading at all. Let’s presume it could warn him about dangerous business deals...that’s not insider trading at all, that’s literally Peter having better business instincts than everyone else. That’s not cheating or illegal it’s just having a natural advantage over other people.

Thirdly...Captain America is leading a resistance group....again.

This is the dumbest damn idea in the original Civil War story and for some reason even though Zdarsky wants this series to be ‘more realistic’ he replicates that stupidity.

Captain America’s plan in the original Civil War boiled down to going on the run, recruiting other superheroes, attacking the registered heroes and then....somehow this would repeal a law designed to keep heroes in check.

Let’s say that this is a more realistic world and the Registration act is totally reasonable. Putting aside how framing it as a bad thing does not then make any damn sense, Captain America’s method for fixing the problem is utterly nonsensical, especially for a guy who could be president by merely running for office. He’s Captain America for God’s sake he’d win and could repeal the law from within!

The final problem with this plotline in the issue is how it really has NOTHING to do with the other plotline, and how t weirdly hijacks the issue and becomes the main plotline when initially the book presented something else as the main thrust of the story; not the first time Zdarsky has basically superglued two plotlines together even though they have little-nothing to do with one another

That thing of course was Morlun. This opens up a whole other can of stupid we need to talk about.

So first of all Morlun shows up in 2006 not 2001, further fucking up the idea this is Spider-Man aging in real time. Morlun DID appear in a 2006 story of course, the Other, but that was his return not his debut. Why is Morlun debuting 5 years later than he should be? Because Zdarsky wants to include the most famous villain who debuted in the 2000s but actually wants to make the story about Civil War which did happen in 2006 that’s why.

Speaking of Morlun, I might be wrong here but...a fucking tree? That’s how he dies? I’m not even complaining he doesn’t come back in a clone body, I’m talking strictly about how a tree stabs him like he’s Mystique in Dark Phoenix. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m preeeetty sure he could survive that unless Life Story’s Morlun is pathetically weaker than his mainstream counterpart.*

More egregiously is Peter’s handling of Morlun. He explains Ezekiel showed up to warn him about Morlun’s coming.

In the original story these two events happened close together, Morlun appeared shortly after Ezekiel’s warning. Let’s say we let Zdarsky slide on the timeframe and even the fact that Morlun actually was looking for Ezekiel not Peter...why did Peter do nothing about this warning.

In the original story Ezekiel offers Peter a bunker to hide out in. Presumably he did the same in Life Story. But instead of taking advantage of this or warning Ben Reilly or his potentially spider empowered children Peter...ignores him?

WHY?!

Peter didn’t disbelieve Ezekiel, he just rejected his offer of sanctuary because he had responsibilities to live up to. In this story Peter has even bigger responsibilities and a family potentially at risk and he just...did nothing?

And low and behold his elderly wife and daughter have to flee for their lives whilst he dicks around in New York and his brother and son straight up DIE.

That’s 3/3 relatives named Ben who are dead because he was a selfish dickhead!

And before we dive into Peter’s character I just want to take a moment and lament how piss poorly Mary Jane has been treated this whole story.

Issue #1: She is little more than a background character

Issue #2: She is totally out of character, and just drunkenly yells unreasonably at Peter then gets unreasonably yelled at by him

Issue #3: She gets shit on by Peter, inadvertently Aunt May and is left being pregnant and giving birth to twins with a senile old health hazard for company, then gets yelled at for suggesting getting her health, then is tasked with going out alone in a dark and stormy night to potentially kill her super powered husband

Issue #4: She shows up at the end and just welcomes him back as her husband and the father of her kids no questions asked apparently

Issue #5: We continue to never get a word about how she feels about their general lives, of Peter and her reconciliation, of their children. She just waits and worries in front of the TV or runs away from Morlun. How the Hell does her daughter get more agency in this one issue than she has pretty much this whole series?

Anyway back to Peter....yeah this is not Peter Parker.

You know how Peter Parker is all about with great power there comes great responsibility....well Life Story Peter Parker totally isn’t.

He abandons his company, employees and superhero duties to an untrained, underprepared, equally old clone of himself who has to quickly learn how to pretend to be him, how to run a company and fight more experienced super villains whilst fending off a corporate takeover by the secretary of defence for the United States of America. And then he gets murdered by an indestructible (except to wood) mystic vampire that Peter neglected to mention to him.

Ben Reilly DIED directly because Peter was an idiot.

And selfish, don’t forget that. He moved his family out into the woods in a secluded area so that he wouldn’t interact with too many people and thus not feel the need to intervene. Let’s ignore how he was able to resist this urge in Spider-Girl for a moment. You are telling me Peter Parker abandoned his great responsibility by finding basically doing the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes and yelling “lalalalalala If I can’t see or hear anyone in trouble I can’t be responsible for not helping them lalalala”

FUCK OFF ZDARSKY!

This is toxically against the entire premise of the character at this point and getting older wouldn’t change that. Apparently all it took to snap him out of this funk was Ben Reilly dying and a pep talk from his friggin teenage daughter!

All in all this is another beautifully drawn shit show of an issue in a string of beautifully drawn shit show issues.

*Oh and let’s not forget that Morlun just...knows where the fuck Peter lives. That isn’t one of his powers. He needs to make contact with his target in order to track them down anywhere they go. He can’t just generally sniff them out. It doesn’t even make sense if he was tracking his kids.

Not to mention this story claims you can hurt Morlun when he’s feeding. But that’s not his weakness. Radiation is something he’s vulnerable to. If you can just kill him or the Inheritors by attacking when they are feeding then Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon wouldn’t have been as dangerous it’s not that difficult to kill them.

[theregoesjodariel]

Supergem: Writer’s Notes, Chapters 1-10

Hey gang! It’s a long time coming, but I finally got off my ass and finished the full notes for chapters 1-10 of Supergem, my big huge SU fic. I’m just about to finally get to work on the next batch of chapters, so I figured now would be a great time to look back on what I’ve done so far and provide some hopefully interesting commentary. Read on for that stuff!

Chapters 1-5

Right off the bat, chapter 1's title is a reference to the now-famous single-page retelling of Superman's origin story from All-Star Superman #1. There, "kindly couple" was used to summarize Clark Kent's crashlanding on Earth and discovery by the Kents.

Chapter 2 features what I feel would be the natural result of trying to fire bullets at a Gem: absolutely nothing. While Gems are obviously made of hard light and have been shown to be capable of being hurt by conventional means-- see Peridot getting Wile E. Coyote'd by the corrupted Gem in Beta-- I like to imagine that bullets are simply so small and so high-velocity that they'd pass through Gem bodies harmlessly. The science is probably wrong, but let me have my Rule of Cool.

Aside from sporting the amalgamated personalities of Lapis and Peridot, the two superheroes Turquoise takes the most inspiration from are Superman and Spider-Man. She shows at least some compassion for all people, even bad guys, like Superman, and she throws plenty of quips, especially when getting it handed to her, like Spidey.

As stated in the notes, I do not have a set design in mind for Turquoise, but I DID end up canonizing elements of a couple of designs I really like within the story. She sports the unique five-pointed hairstyle and orange suspenders of ahhween's design, as well as the cool cyan color scheme and water cape of cheerkitty1410's. Those two are just fantastic.

Axinite is a Gem OC of mine, a gladiatrix who fights in arenas on Homeworld, which function as the world's equivalent of recreational sports. A lot of the lore I have for her is regurgitated in the narration.

There are, of course, a couple of lines from "Stronger Than You" in chapter 4. There's the title, plus Turquoise correcting Val that the fight is one-on-two.

When I created the character, I actually completely failed to notice Val's considerable resemblance to Jasper, both in appearance (big, bulky and orange) and personality (haughty, judgmental). Naturally, when it hit me, I wrote in a nod to it in chapter 4.

Chapter 4 sees Turquoise and Val's fight spill into a mall, the very same one from Pearls' Night Out, currently my only other multi-chapter work. Rhiannon and Diane, both OCs from there, also make cameos (Rhiannon is the employee who points Turquoise in Val's direction, Diane is the journalist who interviews her on the street).

Pearl and Jasper handle city planning like military tacticians, because, well, they are military tacticians. They're also very overdramatic about it, natch.

Amazonite is a close friend of mine's gemsona, a former Crystal Gem who retired to become a seamstress after the corrupted Gems were all cured.

A couple of things involving Jasper take inspiration from the excellent Back to Beta. Pearl acts as Jasper's parole officer of sorts, rewarding her with Pearl Points for doing a good job and Jasper has an attachment to Earth music for its ability to say what cannot be said through simple speech, just like in there. Go read Back to Beta if you haven't, it's outstanding (it's also Jaspearl-- look at me go).

In one of many instances of Jodi Doing Too Much Research Into Things That Don't Matter, I actually broke out my copy of SU: Art & Origins to study its map of Beach City to determine just how nitpicky Pearl and Jasper were being.

Why do the Nephrites want to talk to Pearl? Maybe we'll find out....

Garnet "borrowed" Andy's plane to go to Empire City. That's a step up from "finding" a phone, don't you think?

I like to imagine that Bismuth has been rooting for Lapis and Peri to get together since the moment she met them. Her gaydar is just that good.

Believe it or not, I genuinely considered having Turquoise adopt a secret identity at one point during planning. I call myself out on it through Steven in chapter 5.

I knew I just couldn't do this story without Jasper since she is, in a way, the villain (or at least a villain) in Turquoise's origin story. As an abuse survivor, showing the ramifications of her and Lapis' time as Malachite as best I could was tantamount to the main storyline.

Chapters 6-10

The foreshadowing in chapter 6's identity should make Ms. Knight's identity a no-brainer for seasoned SU fans. No one spoil it if you figure it out, though!

Ronaldo is absolutely, positively, 100%, one of the guys who doesn't shower before the convention. That's so him it hurts.

The generally meta premise of chapters 6-9 were the result of me drafting them right after I got home from my city's local big convention, which I had a wonderful time at. I did my first ever cosplay (I was Pearl!) there and managed to hold decent conversations with Zach Callison, Deedee Magno Hall, Michaela Dietz, and Estelle. The layout of DelmarvaCon is even copied from the layout of that convention center.

In one of many moments of narrative intersecting with reality, I did some sleuthing and found that Paulette was, in her very brief on-screen appearance, voiced by Deedee Magno Hall, Pearl's voice actress. As said above, I met Deedee at the con I went to. You know how everyone on and off set never stops talking about how nice she is? They're not exaggerating, she's a fantastic person. Kim Tan is fully based on her, taking her name from a couple of Hall's other roles (Kim in Miss Saigon and a bit character named Lori Tan from an episode of Third Watch) and Lapis and Peridot's encounter with her is based on my own; while she didn't usher us ahead of the line to meet her, she did take pictures of my friend and I's cosplays for free when she was supposed to be charging for them. Seriously, nicest celebrity I've ever met.

Chapter 7 has Peridot riff that she can "observe 800 moving objects and compute their direction of travel," a phrase long used to describe Prowl in the Transformers franchise. It has no character significance here, I was on a Transformers kick at the time of writing.

The uncomfortable pulling sensation mentioned in chapter 7 is called an "itch," a callback to The Itch, the oneshot serving as prelude to this fic. There, "the itch" is used to refer to the deeply unsettling feeling a Gem gets when fitted with limb enhancers-- think the feeling you have or would have felt from a dentist fitting you with those awful rubber bands to help with the braces process, it's that kind of feeling. The feeling being given off by Ronaldo's control device is similar, "adding" to a Gem when nothing need be added.

The long opening narration in chapters 8 and 9 were inspired by the writing style of comic book writer Scott Snyder, who has a tendency to start, end, or intersperse his comics with long, expositional comparative musings on seemingly simple or mundane things (seriously, count the number of times one of his Batman comics opens with narration explaining the philosophical meaning behind the rocks used to make buildings in Gotham City).

The cost of Connie's sword is, as stated in the story proper, a rough estimate borne from around half an hour of research. While there are other pink stones that could've been used, I picked pezzotaite because of its extreme rarity, just to drive home how absurdly all-out Bismuth went on it.

Give Jasper a metal-style song in Season 6, Crewniverse!

I like to think Jasper and Greg would be good friends. Think about it: you've just found out your former moral enemies were not only led by, but had close relationships with, the person you spent your whole life idolizing. Who do you talk to about it? Why not the person who knew her more intimately than anyone else?

At the end of the Turquoise and Steven segment in chapter 10, the two sit down to watch Crying Breakfast Friends' extra-length season finale, in which a number of characters get new outfits. Now what could that be referencing?

The narration of Jasper's thoughts makes reference to the exiled Hessonite, antagonist of Steven Universe: Save the Light and a criminally underrated character.

I'd like to preface this point with a content warning for abuse, as I'll be discussing that a bit here.

So, as I mentioned briefly in the 1-5 notes, I'm an abuse survivor; I broke up with my abuser, who I had been with for just about 3 months, in February of this year. An acquaintance of mine has since drafted a document exhaustively detailing all of the bad shit they did for which receipts could be found, and my abuser has reacted with avoidance, victim blaming, and a refusal to apologize. I wasn't yet aware of just how in denial of her own mistakes they were when I wrote chapter 10, so I tried to write Pearl and Jasper's conversation as how I wished the conversation my abuser had with themselves would go, in a perfect world.

To get reflective for a moment, writing that has taught me, in a way I hadn't seen before, how Steven Universe's real, heartfelt redemption arcs, as fantastically-written and just generally good as they are, don't always apply in real-world scenarios. My shitty ex is not Jasper and they never will be.

[rigelwrites-blog]

Lorelai: Discussion and Review

The Cat Lady, from the basis of my personal perspective, was a brilliantly haunting, poignant experience that tactfully and cleverly explored grim, deeply philosophical concepts such as death, grief, self-harm, depression, and suicide. It adroitly cultivated its atmosphere to effectively and realistically convey the overhanging bleakness of Susan’s life while avoiding miring the narrative in unnecessary, ostentatious darkness. In many ways, it seems Lorelai has managed to emulate the harrowing realism of its predecessor, while similarly employing abstract imagery to establish and amplify the palpable emotional tone. The expression of this profound pathos and visual symbolism was augmented through variation in both the color palette between settings and the intensity or saturation of certain hues, particularly red. More specifically, I appreciated the implementation of softer, warmer tones to embellish the wistful filter overlaying Lorelai’s joyous memories with her father, which contrasted the harsher colors and shadows denoting her stark reality. Additionally, it was devastating to see Miranda’s death even though it had been unfortunately rather likely, considering that, when someone’s thoughts are as despairing and volatile as hers were, it’s exceptionally dangerous to be left alone with them.

Beyond the seemingly implied, deeper connection between The Queen of Maggots and Lorelei, I wonder if the Queen selected Lorelei in particular as the executor of her will as a result of Lorelei’s tenacity and her embodiment of a true “survivor”. In a sense, an individual with an indomitable spirit, who essentially represents the refusal to capitulate even amidst confrontation with the vilest of circumstances, would harbor the insatiable desire to protract their life and quell any lingering regrets, thereby rendering them susceptible to the tantalizing bargain offered by the Queen. Lorelei cannot expunge the compulsion to protect her sister from the maleficent hands of John and finally secure freedom for them both, and, consequently, she acquiesces to the Queen, just as the demonic woman likely anticipated she would.

Concerning the characterization of Lorelei and Zack, I personally found them to be just a bit too calm when conversing in Zack’s apartment in consideration of the traumatic, ineffably disturbing situations they recently endured and witnessed. Perhaps their somewhat relaxed and even flirtatious attitudes at this particular moment could be attributable to difficulties in processing the reality of what transpired, as well as the immediate need for the distraction and comfort of each other’s company and congenial, flippant conversation. Regardless, I still would have preferred some additional development for these characters during their quiet scene together, particularly through the presentation of their respective emotional responses to the profound stimuli of facing death and irredeemable wickedness. Further intimate moments between the two could have sufficed to augment the audience’s personal connection and understanding of these characters and the true depth of their personalities.

In a way, the chapter with Al was rather reflective of the anxiety mini-game from The Cat Lady, which externalized the precarious balance of Susan’s mental stability by demonstrating the pronounced repercussions incurred from her cumulative experiences of various stressors. For Al’s circumstance, it seems that the nature of Lorelai’s sudden influence over him serves as the sole determinant of the fragility of his resolve and represents the dangerous tenuity of the line existing between redemption and regression. Essentially, Lorelai was imbued with the ability to either inspire Al to surmount his depressive state and become a survivor like her, or, shatter his attempts at remediation and force him to submit to his pernicious tendencies, just as her stepfather and mother did. Though Lorelai is supernaturally capable in this situation and can affect both Al’s surroundings and his mind, I consider some of her whispered sentiments to be rather emulative of intrusive thoughts that, in their injuriousness and pessimistic cruelty, oft hinder the path towards sustained progress.  

In addition to their literal meaning as a method of transportation and escape, trains have also been rather metaphoric in this game, seemingly representing a more symbolic journey or liberation from the debilitating circumstances and mentalities that have entrapped both Al and Lorelai. Lorelai is impeded in the forward momentum of her life by her corrosive home environment, and, as potentially implied through the imagery of a train battering through her apartment building as it speeds along, she is a survivor who fights for her future, regardless of what she must do or destroy to progress. Conversely, it seems in Al’s negative route that he himself was an obstacle in the track towards betterment and, in his inability to move forward, he was left behind, his journey coming to an abrupt end.

In general, the quiet moments and honest discussions on the intricacies of depression in The Cat Lady were more resonant with me personally than the situations that Lorelai is subjected to. That being said, the conveyance of the harrowing events of this game and their emotional undertones was beautifully accomplished. Additionally, the lingering possibility of redemption or progression for these characters certainly contributes much appreciated instances of warmth and hope to an otherwise rather dismal, grave story.

In consideration of the dialogue and visual representation of the Queen, it seems certain interpretations of The Queen of Maggots and her symbolic significance can be discerned. Essentially, imagery appertaining to mirrors or facing one’s reflection, prevalent in the final confrontation between the two Lorelais, appears to infer that the Queen herself is a physical manifestation of the darker, pernicious, yet oft concealed inclinations that all of humanity experiences to variable degrees. In a sense, the Queen and her machinations are also rather representative of the external or environmental stressors which trigger the emergence and outward expression of these negative attributes. In the context of the game’s universe, the “thorns” of the Queen’s corruptive influence ensnare the frail, suggestible minds of her victims, translate their desperation into capitulation, and, eventually, induce dire, grim consequences. These ramifications often involve considerable anguish for the individuals trapped in the vicinity of someone else’s destruction, thus, the cycle of trauma, mental devolution, and death exists in perpetuity, thereby fulfilling the monstrous Queen’s insatiable need to consume, like a true maggot, the corpses of the pained, lost, or damned. Lorelai can perhaps be interpreted as a symbol for the transcendence of these tribulations, as it appears she ultimately overcomes both her stepfather and the Queen herself regardless of the route, though the lingering grasp of the Queen and the regression she represents restrains Lorelai and somewhat limits the extent of her personal progression in the “bad” endings.

With respect to the overall impression Lorelai imparted upon me, I suppose I feel rather ambivalent, as certain scenes and elements were beautifully portrayed while others seemed to be a bit lacking in substance and depth. There are indubitably positive attributes to be enumerated, particularly the depiction of alcoholism and the generally inspiring message underlying the narrative and its culmination. It’s certainly quite appreciated and somewhat aberrant for a game to conclude with an accurate presentation of the mundanities and natural oscillations of highs and lows which define the course of an average life. As explored thematically throughout the extent of this game, grief, devastation, and turbulence are immutable inevitabilities of human experience that necessitate solidity of the will and persistence to healthily overcome. Though the path towards self-betterment, redemption, and contentment is sinuous and occasionally regressive, the cumbrous journey is undoubtedly worth the tribulations and set-backs we endure along the way.

As I’ve already expatiated on my interpretation of Lorelai’s purpose as a representation of resilience and pertinacity in spite of horrific circumstances, I’ll instead delve into a few of the aspects and sections of the game that I consider to be a tad weak. I mentioned earlier on that certain conversations seemed somewhat out of place and irreverent in contrast to the depravity and disillusionment the characters had recently experienced. The tonal shift was quite rapid, and, consequently, these individuals were deprived of the opportunity to emotionally respond or effectively contend with the actualities and implications of their harrowing situations. Overall, it seemed there was some misappropriation of time and focus throughout the game, as certain characters such as Maria, Zoe, and the other nursing home residents were granted comparatively considerable portions of the narrative despite, ultimately, having little significance to the overarching plot or Lorelai’s personal development. In general, ancillary characters and sections are beneficially employed to showcase facets of the protagonist’s personality and facilitate their growth, or, further the conveyance and clarity of the main theme. Outside of Al, Chapter 2’s characters were essentially forgotten about and devoid of greater purpose and detailed exploration, retrospectively rendering this chapter slightly hollow and empty. I was anticipating the replication of Lorelai’s experiences with Al in future chapters where these discarded side characters would be more effectively anatomized.

Concerning Zack and Lorelai, I still somewhat maintain my aforementioned perspective on the extent of the development and depth provided for them individually and as a couple. To me, it seemed their interactions were a tad flat and shallow with respect to the subject matter discussed and the depicted intimacy of their personal, emotional connection. Zack, himself, appears to have no demonstrable or notable personality arc beyond the rather commonplace, archetypal neighbor who finally acquires the ability to articulate his love when faced with the prospect of imminent death.

I’m a bit more equivocal when analyzing Lorelai herself and, by extension, the overarching structure and flow of the narrative itself. I suppose the greatest issue I encountered when recollecting the events of the game is the limited internal elasticity and growth that Lorelai seems to experience between the beginning and end of her journey. Though her circumstances and surrounding environment are improved substantially, her inner personality, beliefs, inclinations, and desires remain rather immutable and unchallenged by her experiences with the Queen. Regardless of your choices in actions and dialogue, Lorelai is generally the same person and an uncompromising “survivor” in the end, varying only in the amount of regrets and lingering difficulties she faces. However, Lorelai can potentially express wildly variable opinions throughout her time in the afterlife on the basis of your direction, for instance, she can harbor little sympathy for the frustrated mother in the AA group and the alcoholic Al, resolutely deciding that his life is irredeemable and should be sacrificed for the sake of her own desires. Alternatively, she can help him and defy the Queen, though the significance of this choice is rather undermined considering Lorelai suffers no evident consequences from her insubordination. I suppose I would have preferred greater divergence in the endings to reflect the pronounced dissimilarity in her perspectives and submission to the Queen’s will. Even in the positive, “golden” route, I believe Lorelai’s characterization and progression would have been a bit more realistic and dimensional had she initially lacked empathy and compassion for others who cannot as easily combat or surmount their debilitating situations. Lorelai’s unwavering strength and tenacity are not ubiquitous traits, and it would have been interesting to explore her process of recognizing and accepting the innate heterogeneity of human resolve and mental stability. Perhaps she could have accomplished this through her experiences delving into the specific circumstances of her assigned “parasites” and witnessing the true fragility of the boundary between recovery and capitulation.  Conversely, the negative route would demonstrate the ramifications of austerity and the unwillingness to understand or forgive the flaws and injurious behaviors of others, instead electing to acrimoniously judge and consequently punish the people she gains influence over.

An evocative experience, nonetheless.

[the-energon-hole]

I am going to take advantage of your open inbox. May I please have TFP Megatron, Soundwave, Knock Out and Predaking with the same prideful and cunning human previously mentioned in my last requests? She seems to be untouchable and perfect, but one night she surprisingly shows a gentle and warm side when she stargazes with childlike wonder and talks to the mechs her love for the stars then softly tells how grateful and honored she is to have the mechs in her life, touching their hand lovingly.

((A/N - I tried something new with this one- more philosophical? More comparisons? Idk I think it turned out great plus or minus some being longer than the others, but I like how this one turned out its all dark and gritty but comforting!))

Megatron

-Moments of Clarity weren’t something you came across all that often in your chaotic life, you felt that there was to much on the line for you to be just standing around and doing nothing. There were always politicians to bribe, companies to undercut, and espionage activities to be done- you rarely ever found time to spend with Megatron, let alone time to just have a small moment of respite to contemplate life and it’s true meaning. Your whole world was turned upside down the day you came face to face with the Decepticon’s glorious warlord that you never really had time to turn your life rightside up and actually think about the implications of the existence of life on other planets beyond that of your small and distant solar system. You wouldn’t consider yourself religious, as you can say that you were pretty sure whatever god or deities existed long since condemned you to this life full of lies and hate, but the very notion that humans were not actually alone in the universe was a bit jarring when one actually sat down and thought about it. Which is what you were currently doing on the deck of The Nemesis while it was docked in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew can perform routine maintenance and diagnostics on all the internal working systems. It was rather cold out in the middle of these intrepid waters as you can hear the waves being knocked around by the slightly gusty winds in the atmosphere- it was much colder out here than you anticipated as you felt a shiver flow through your body to tell you that maybe you should go back inside where it’s warm and you won’t potentially catch your death, but in how many lifetimes would a small human like yourself be able to get such an amazing view of the stars and moon lighting up a perfectly pitch black sky where no light pollution fogs up the view and makes it impossible to even make out a small light in the sky- let alone trace out the constellations with your fingers just like you used to whimsically do in your younger and happier days.

-Megatron was looking for you specifically, but he found it rather curious that you were not in your shared chambers preparing for a business meeting you were supposed to be having with some of your companies production managment heads in a place called “China”. You tried to explain the world of business to him, but it all pretty much sounded the like the same thing as politics that would go on around his home planet of Cybertron. You laughed and told him it basically was as it has been proven time and again that every human has a price they are willing to take in exchange for their very souls and beings. Again, just like on Cybertron, corruption seems to run rampant around this small planet that was festering with so many of your species- he was amazed how anything got done due to how vastly overpopulated your planet seemed. You managed to fight and claw your way right to the top with him, despite all of these odds being stacked against you, and as you tell him of all the trials you have had to face to get here- well, he knows that you are a force to be reckoned with, and that you are his gateway and window into certain advantages into the human world that was even more expensive than that of what the Autobot allies could reward their alliances with. You were so bold and so cunning and rarely ever showed weakness to anyone but those that were intimately close to you it left you with an amazing window into how the reality and society around you actually functions beyond that of any kind of smudging moralistic scope that gets in the way of most people. Yet, here you were, shivering in the night air above the deck of the ship that is docked in the middle of a harsh ocean, he sees you rubbing your arms in an attempt to heat up your even dropping body temperature but yet you have never appeared to be more comfortable just staring into the night sky up at the stars that were so very different than the ones you can see from Cybertron. When he approached you there want so much a slinch or change in your demeanour as you knew no one on this ship would dare mess with you due to your higher status amongst the military ranks- you knew it was Megatron right away though, he always has this air of regality that is pretty hard to miss even when you are distracted by childhood whimsy and moments of clarity. You spoke without thinking about it, as showing weakness to Megatron hasn’t been all that hard of a task before, and as you described all of these thoughts buzzing around in your mind you barely noticed he lifted you up off of the cold deck and closer to his comfortably warm chassis. You spoke of things about how you were grateful to know that there was life existing beyond those teasing lights in the sky that has tortured man kind for eaons with its promise of exploration and untapped resources, and as you abscently storked and leaned into the chest of your Cybertronian lover did you realise that be was hanging onto every word of thanks you spoke like he was an ornament on a well decorated Christmas Tree- he was grateful for you as well, and stroked at your hair. A little as he just let your ramble on and on about any and all thoughts you had, the cold air was forgotten long ago as you both found warmth and solace in each other under the soft light of the moon.

Soundwave

-To say you lived your life in the fast lane would be so truthful that it would leave no room for there to be a reasonable doubt and you would be charged guilty for being far to overworked and stressed out. You liked it that way though, being so backed up with work that you don’t get a chance to even think about the ramifications of the knowledge that there is aliens that existed in other galaxies beyond your small and distant milky way galaxy. On one hand you knee that had to be the universal truth all along, as you knew there were viable planets out there that could support all kinds of life- though you had no idea that life would be war mongering alien robots that had a thirst for exploration and revenge. Funny, you had the same thirst, and it looks like they were the key to getting that thirst quenched as you were also a key for them to understanding how organic life functioned here so they can complete their agendas without disrupting the flow of society to much with their actions. They weren’t afraid of humanity in any sense of the word, as all these mega robots would have to do to destroy us all would be to simply step on us and toss us around as if we were just little ants on a hill that was being tormented by a boy with a magnifying glass. You were absently staring at the high definition images of the constellations you used to like to map out on those days where you would run away from the city in your youth and run to the sanctuary of the cool desert in the night to marvel at the organic beauty that was the stars and the night sky. You weren’t really paying attention to the images on the screen as your work somehow brought you to this philosophical turning point, you were more focused your misguided thoughts that you used to hold in your youth that this world was worth saving- and that you were the so called powerful savior sent to force those around you to see the error in their moralistic ways and stupid judgments. You spoke aloud a few lines of words and weaknesses that you were having to ever hoovering presents of Soundwave who saw you suddenly drop off of the espionage work you were set to do for him. He wasn’t angry, more curious than anything, as you have not before allowed your work to slip like this and you have never once shared your weaknesses and such with him like this. Not that he really cares all that much, but he was willing to listen to some of your philosophical questions about the meanings of life, and your interesting ideals of wanting to save a world that was apparently destined to burn from the very start. You and Megatron were similar in that ideology, and it was why he spared your life to begin with, you held the same hunger for power while still maintaining an air of moralistic ideology that was enviable to him.

-He and you sat for hours in this darkened consol room just shifting from picture to picture abscently looking at images of space and planets that held no real significant meaning to either of you- really, it was an excuse for you to keep rambling and for Sounwave to keep listening with baited vents as he is at the peak of curiosity of the things you had to say. You spoke of this whimsical yet harsh childhood that molded you into this person you are today, and how you were in a way grateful you didn’t have a veil placed over your eyes to blind you to the atrocities of your society, that you were raised in an environment that opened your wide eyes to how this world really functioned. You spoke about how no matter how hard you tried to change the world for the better it felt that every one good deed spawned four unnecessary evil acts from other people- it was a statistic you couldn’t prove, bit it was tiring to feel like you did something good to only have that good thing negated by some other bad thing someone was doing. He understood that all to well as in his youth he too was a wide optical scientist hellbent on making his world a better place for future generations, though the things he did fix and change did so little to fix the atrocities in the world he was finally able to see true clarity- just as you are seeing clarity now. He began to play with your hair from behind as you told him you feared war and death was the only way to fix a world full of violence and anger, to which he knew you knew the answer to that statement was yes- yes war was the only answer to gain absolute control. You leaned into his digits as you sighed in content to his company, it was nice to have someone that understood what you were coming from, and the irony isn’t lost on you that it took an alien from another world to understand your strange ideas of peace, but it was validating none the less as you were able to bask in the fact that for once in your life it felt ok to do just nothing but stare at satellite pictures of the galaxy and stars around you.

Knockout

-There was a time in your life in which none of these things would have ever been possible- a stable home surrounded by people who actually cared about what happens to you and are genuinely interested in your well-being and didn’t treat you as if you were some kind of an expandable object. You grew up to be successful, but no matter how hard you tried to forget about your twisted past your pesky subconscious seems to like to remind you that everything you experienced was extremely fucked up and has damaged you beyond any kind of repair. It was something you reflected on a lot, the question of whether you deserved what happened to you or if you were just a victim, it haunted you sometimes to think about things like this- whether or not you deserve to exist as a person, you’ve done so much fucked up shit in your time working for the scientific community. Sometimes you felt justified in sabotaging your co workers who were huge jerks who wanted nothing more than recognition for their giant brains- they don’t deserve to have medical breakthroughs and you refused to let them have it- though other times you felt like you were a bully who takes years worth of work away from those whom have dedicated so much time into curing some kind of incurable disease. A lot of people liked to tell you that you were hard to deal with because you were “overbearing” and “to in your face”, but no one can argue that you get the job done- it was what you grew up to understand that you can’t let people get in the way of what you want and that if you have to walk over them than so be it. You can’t help but sigh as you stare out the glass view on the ship as you contemplated what your life would have been like if you were just a little more complacent in your personality- you have hurt so many people who arguably did not deserve it in the same way other hurt in in the way you might not have deserved it. You’re still trying to figure that one out, and now was the perfect time to do that considering everyone else was gone from the med bay but you and Knockout, and you knew he wasn’t going to look down on you for having these kinds of philosophical questions- he has had them and asked them to you time and again, they are like open ended conversation that come up whenever you are both engaged in some kind of busy work and just wanted a small distraction.

-Knockout liked seeing your moments of weakness like this, not in a twisted way where he would take advantage of you, but because it was a reminder to him that you were a real person and not some kind of gross organic spore disease or something that deserves to be wiped out of existence- it proves that humanity can be saved with a little convincing and a little manipulating. Mostly he liked seeing your softer side as you walked around with this air of malcontent and anger all the time as if you cannot trust anyone ever, a d the first time you poured your soul out to him he understood why you behaved this way, it wasn’t an almighty riddle that need to be solved- you were treated poorly and now treat other poorly on return. He is the same way really, and while you sat in the viewpoint of the medbay just spouting out words and ideals he is happy to be the mech you can be weak with. He liked being weak with you, and with the recent loss of his dear Breakdown you have proven to be a big comfort and a wonderful companion. He gently stroked your back with his digit as he too became distracted by the view outside of the ship, Earth did have a nice view of space when it hit the rotation away from the sun- it was bittersweet for him as it reminded him of how much he actually missed home, but as you leaned into his warm touch he knew that so long as you were around he will never feel lonely again as he can still recall the engulfing and suffocating darkness he felt when Breakdown was killed by Arachnid. Weakness was something that was shared amongst only the most intimate of partners, and it filled his spark with joy to know that you felt the same way about him this way as you were pouring your soul right in front of him now- his world just got a whole lot less lonely, and though he will always miss his  Breakdown, he is relieved and excited to know that there is someone around that experiences life the same way he does.

Predaking

-Alone was a foreign word that didn’t exist in your vocabulary for very personal reasons, as loneliness tended to be the times in which you felt most vulnerable and helpless- if you existed in a large group surrounded by people physically stronger than you than it stands to reason that you have already won the room over in this bizarre power play. It was why you surround yourself with the company of the Decepticons, they were the biggest and baddest life forms in the whole galaxy- because they are strong, you in turn are strong as well. You didn’t like feeling weak, which is why you didn’t like being alone, that and the fact that in times when you are alone are the times in which the chaos and dread seep into your conscious mind from the dark place you try to bury those feelings deep down inside of you. It made you feel helpless that you had these intrusive and sad thoughts all the time- and weakness was something you wish you can just vanish from your personality all together. NOthing ever got done just sitting there crying about it! It was driving you mad that this soft and squishy side was beginning to weal up and spill out in the form of salty sticky tears that sting when they fell from your eyes. You tried to pep yourself up while the cage was still empty, but you failed as you heard Predaking hoble in on his clawed feet  that were dragging lazily on the floor probably from exhaustion from being gone on a long and stressful mission that probably didn’t end up in his favor. Despite his drowsy fatigue, he took notice right away of your gloomy demeanor and heard a small noise that sounded a lot like sniffing- it was a noise of discontent and sadness, not dissimilar to the ones he has made when he himself finds that he is close to that edge of unforeseeable darkness and anger. You have pulled him back from that ledge so many times, even when you did not realize it, you stood as a beacon of bright light for him to follow and now it would seem to him your light is dimming. He doesn’t like seeing you like this, so he approached you with good intentions as he bumped you slightly with his snout to alert you to his presents. You turned away sharply and inhaled with a sharp breath- you were hiding yourself from him. He understands not wanting to be weak, but he wants you to see him as a companion that you can run to if you ever needed it. He sort of forced himself upon you as he wrapped his whole body around your much smaller form which caused you to make a noise of surprise, but to him, a small moment of discomfort was well worth the price of a lifetime companion.

-You were nervous at first, as Predaking was never really one to initiate physical contact, but once he made himself comfortable and was settled down on relaxing you were able to breathe a sigh of relief once his bigger body was no longer in danger of potentially crushing you. You were not adverse to his physical affection, as you yourself had to hold him and stroke his frame to tell him that he must calm himself of his anger and frustration if he truly wishes to accomplish the things he needs to accomplish. You tried to always tell him positive and strong motivating things such as how emotions should play a role in your decisions, but one must be careful not to let them consume and blind you of your real goals and potential achievements. He took to your words like glue and tried to keep himself in check whenever something the Decepticons did genuinely bothered him- so it is only fair that now in this moment you speak about what is bothering you. You were quiet for a long time, and he as probably going to try and prod you for more information, but you began t open up once you got comfortable in his hold- you leaned into his chest as you began to stroke and pet at his metal around that area as a heavy sigh escaped your lips. You told him about the intrusive thoughts and persisting feelings that you try to keep on lock down, and while you looked up and out a small viewpoint in Predaking’s cage, you began to feel very vulnerable around this massive predacon who can mush you without even thinking about it. He nudged you again with his snout, to which you just placed both hands onto and abscently began to pet that area as well while you told him you hated being so open like this- it made you feel as if the weight of the world can crush you without a second thought and that there wasn’t anything you can do about it. YOU were shocked when Predaking removed his snout from your hands however, and lovingly placed it to lay atop of your head, and it was in that moment you understood what he was truly trying to say. He wanted to protect you from the world crushing you, and that it was ok to be open and warm with him as he was a true companion whom would not throw you away for simply emoting in front of him- it was nice to have someone who actually talk to, and maybe doing it more often can help you feel better as a result.

(07/07/18)

[pamphletstoinspire]

Moral Relativism and the Culture of ‘Meh’ by Bill Donaghy

The culture of “meh” is the withered fruit of moral relativism.

Perhaps you’ve seen the Walking Dead? I don’t mean the TV series, I mean the actual zombies walking past, driving cars, eating food with glowing faces hunched over a device, even ringing up our products at the register all the while plugged in, or tuned out, glazed over, not present. And as they flick through their feeds on those shiny screens, the mantra they mumble is “meh.”

“Meh” is an interesting addition to the modern lexicon. Actually it’s not interesting at all. It’s synonymous with the French word ennui (dullness) and the German word weltschmerz (world weariness). It’s boredom, blandom, what-else-is-on-dom. “Meh” is the insipid shrug of the shoulders after one has tasted everything and then waves it off like a spoiled prince. I want to propose in this article that the culture of “meh” in which we are living is the withered fruit of moral relativism.

Thanks to the “perfect storm” of a post-Enlightenment philosophy that’s uncoupled faith from reason, a post-Christian society that’s removed God from the world, and a post-analog technocracy that gives us a direct and unmediated connection to “everything” through a touchscreen rather than being touched by an encounter with reality, we’ve been set adrift into the murky fog of moral relativism. All we can see is our own hand before us. All we’re encouraged to care for is the cubicle of our own comforts. There’s no larger, harmonious plan. There’s no transcendent purpose to a human life, no ultimate destination, and certainly no solid ground of objective truth wherein we could cry out from our individual little boats “Land ho!” Land? No. In the words of singer/songwriter John Mellencamp, “… Close the deal, close the door. Forget about the colors that you knew before. It’s just beige to beige. That’s all it is these days …”

The Spiritual Poverty of Our Age

Speaker and author Chris Stefanick says “Relativism is the idea that there is no universal, absolute truth but that truth differs from person to person and culture to culture. In other words, truth is relative to what each person or culture thinks.” Now we could easily get philosophical in this article about relativism. We could trace the intellectual roots of it and refute it with equally intellectual arguments, but I’d like to talk less about the roots and more about the fruits; the actual ramifications of what moral relativism has done and is continuing to do to us as a people.

Relativism has been called “the spiritual poverty of our age” by Pope Francis and “the greatest problem of our time” by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Why? Because relativism places us in utter isolation from others, placing us in our own little worlds where your truth is not my truth, and the only law is that your stuff not touch my stuff. Or in more sophisticated jargon, “So long as you’re not hindering society or harming other people with said behavior or beliefs, it’s OK.” Moral relativism is a kind of velvet anarchy wherein we all query together with Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?”

The epitome of relativistic thought could be summed up in the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey Supreme Court decision upholding the Roe vs. Wade abortion decision. Writing for the majority in Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy claimed that “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

Sounds nice and ennobling until you imagine seven billion humans actualizing the idea in everyday life. For instance, one could say, “I believe I have the right to define my own traffic laws.” But when the rubber meets the road, we all know this can’t work. The ideology crashes to the ground once it’s grounded in reality.

Here’s another example. Person A says, “I feel that killing those I disagree with is my truth, and a good for me.” Persons B through Z say, “That conflicts with our values, and we feel you should be locked up immediately.” If person A truly has the right to define his own truth, what right do people B through Z have to tell him that his desire to kill people is not justified?

Relativism is ultimately inhuman. It seeks to detach humans from the core relationships they are designed for; with God, others, and the natural world with its inherent laws. The “I” becomes the center of the universe and the ultimate arbiter of all things. But to be human is to be in relation, to give and receive, to enter into a mystery larger than ourselves. As Thomas Merton once wrote, “The fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the wind, and join in the general Dance.” This takes a leap of faith and of trust. A step outside of our comfort zones and off of our ideological couches.

Reality: The Antidote

The antidote to relativism is an encounter with reality. The prolific author G.K. Chesterton was an “expert” in this encounter. He wrote once in a letter to his fiancé:

“I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people … When we call a man ‘manly’ or a woman ‘womanly’ we touch the deepest philosophy.”

Truth is touched when we touch and allow ourselves to be touched by the “holy sacrament” of the Real. Touched by earth and sea and sky, and above all through the presence of another face. Another voice. The German philosopher Josef Pieper saw this encounter with reality as a key to transcendence for everyone.

“Anybody can ponder human deeds and happenings and thus gaze into the unfathomable depths of destiny and history; anybody can get absorbed in the contemplation of a rose or human face and thus touch the mystery of creation … Everybody, therefore, participates in the quest that has stirred the minds of the great philosophers since the beginning.”

German-Canadian neurologist and psychiatrist Dr. Karl Stern, a Jewish convert to the Catholic Faith, once wrote, “the very fact that our first encounter with matter is one of tasting it and taking it in could be used as a refutation of all dualistic philosophies” that separate soul and body. French poet and dramatist Pierre Albert-Birot wrote, “I feel that the world enters into me like the fruits I eat, indeed I feed on the world.”

To rediscover the Real, and to walk again in the way of Truth, we must untether ourselves from false philosophies like relativism and reestablish our natural relation to reality, to the wonder of being alive! Again, G.K. Chesterton wrote:

“I put that beginning of all my intellectual impulses before the authority to which I have come at the end; and I find it was there before I put it there. I find myself ratified in my realization of the miracle of being alive” (G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography).

Pope Francis saw the challenge this leap of “faith in the real” entails and the battle that would be necessary to set us free from a relativistic culture of “meh” that lives only in a virtual reality of our own design. He saw how many people “want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction” (Joy of the Gospel, 88).

Leaving the Land of the Bland

It’s within this experience of a “real presence” with another where the ideology of relativism dissipates like a cloud. To break free of the gravitational pull of our own self-interests, our own desires, and our own autonomy is the real work! Just before his election to the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI observed that modern society was “building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.” But what a sad land this dictatorship rules over! I call it the Kingdom of Boredom. The Country of Apathy. The Land of Bland. Also known as Hell.

When we finally break free of the isolating fog of relativism through becoming this gift of self we step into the clear light of day. Through empathy and attentiveness to creation and the very real human relationships around us, we begin to understand the truth about God, ourselves, and the natural world. We see the great romance of what St. John Paul the Great called the communio personarum—”the communion of persons.” And within that heart of humanity we find those universal truths that all peoples share in and have shared in from the beginning. We are made for so much more. A Culture of Life and a Civilization of Love!

[letstraveltoorion]

Why a story about Master of Orion? (Part 2)

2018-09-10

 Although I explained why I’ve decided to do a story on Master of Orion, I’ve never really explained the reasons behind that story. Reasons that are both complexes and quite nebulous in some area.

 First, I must admit this is not my first attempt at writing. For as long as I remembered, I’ve tried very hard to come up with a story. Usually, those attempts were basically my take a story I liked and spines it my way. Today, I recognized those failed attempts as trial runs for a story one day I will write. Some of these failed starts were based on Yoko Tsuno (French Graphic novels), Robotech (my favourite setting), Battletech, Jovian Chronicles, Heavy Gear and others. All of them grandiose in my mind … all of them, except maybe one, were sent to oblivion.

 To be frank, I’ve lost faith in my abilities to come up with a good story. I keep dreaming but I never come up with anything … worth writing for. That is, until a couple of years ago … sometimes in 2016, I stumble upon “the dialogue”!

 The Seed

 One particular weekend of 2016, not fully awake yet, I surprised myself imagining a conversation between two entities in regard of a third party. It went like this:

 “They’re courageous and clever … maybe we should help them a bit?”

 “No!” Responded the second being. “Leave them! They are below our considerations, not worth our energies.”

 “Really?” interjected the first being, “I notice they have mastered the primary basic of nuclear energy, and they have managed to build a starship to travel beyond their solar system…”

 “Don’t be ridiculous!” Protested the other one. “Giving enough resources, time and a good dose of luck, any animals could develop nuclear weapons and build starships! It doesn’t mean they have reached enlightenment at all…”

 At this point, I “woke up” with the realization that “I got something! I do not know what it is, but I got something!”

 This realization leads me to reflect on our perception of civilizations throughout history and how we “rank” them through their scientific and technological achievements … but then, I came to ask: What if another civilization had “other” criteria’s? How “we” will be judged by “them”? What if a civilization put more value on the philosophical concepts rather than technology? Or how good are we to make the lands fertile and bountiful? Or in a more exotic way, what if they value magic or psi powers?

 Sure, I must not be the first one to think about these concepts but, it got me thinking about how I could explore these concepts…

 This was the seed for my story.

 The Field

 Having the seed is one thing, but to explore this seed to its full potential, I needed a canvas, a sandbox, where I could explore and play with it in any way I saw fit. I chose “Master of Orion” mainly because I enjoyed the game and working a story in that setting should to be fun to do. I said “should”, as it turns out much more work than I originally thought. To be honest, Master of Orion is just a frame for my story. A strong and solid frame in where I can weave anything I want. This frame provided me with textures and flavours along with a general guide line or a starting point to depart from.

 Since that frame is quite neutral, neither good nor bad, this means for the story I’m writing that it success or failure will rest solely on my shoulders…

 Damn! This is pretty heavy.

 The Water

 Following my original reasoning, I started to gather data to assist me in my world-building process. During that time, I stumble upon two pieces of information that would shape both the type of story I will tell but also the background of the story…. The primordial “spark” if you wish.

 The first information was the myth of Orion himself. On how he would hunt and kill every creature of the Earth was stopped by a scorpion sent by the gods and also, on how both were placed in the sky as constellations … the Scorpion forever chasing Orion in the Milky Way.

 Now, I’m sure the people at Microprose probably never thought of the full implications in symbolism then when they put out their second game Master of Orion: Battle at Antares. On how this title fit perfectly with the mythology of Orion.

 The second information I stumble upon was the fact that Orion was known as Osiris by the ancient Egyptians. This in turn, let me investigate the ancient Egyptian’s myth which proves to be a bountiful as I’ve found many elements I could apply into my story.

 As you can see, this is an opportunity way too good to pass up…. Those ancient myths, or at least some part of them, could be used a background source for long past events that shaped the current universe. So, Mythology will be the water of my story; past events have dramatically affected the galaxy and those ramifications are still felt today.

 Mythology also gave me a way to study the interaction between the gods and the mortal. Why? Because: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Arthur C. Clark). Which means that if mankind has to, one day, deal with a type II or type III civilization (from the Karshev’s Scale), their achievement will look like magic to us and they will probably act like gods toward us.

 As water is required for life to grow, I will use mythological tales to infuse life in my story; especially when I have to deal with occurrences that happened thousands of years ago that are still impacting the current events of today.

 The Fertilizers

 Because a story is, like any other story, a living thing that will grow and evolve as I’m writing it, I will also require some “fertilizer” to help it grow. In this particular case, this will apply to the multitudes of books, novel, comic books and Bandes-dessinnées (French Graphic Novel) I have at my disposal. As I move forward, those books and publications that inspire me for this story will be posted into my Bibliography section of my blog. Also, by reading the description I’ll write about them, you’ll be able to see and understand what part of this specific book or story is fuelling my imagination. But here a few examples:

 RPG

Among these sources, you’ll find Role Playing Games (RPG) such as Traveller and 2300 AD, mostly for their world-building materials (very good sources of inspirations). Empire Galactique, one of the rare French RPG by François Nedelec which I love because it gave me a sense of grandeur of what could be a real Galactic Empire. Although the rules are a bit obsolete, its encyclopedia galactica gave me a sets of rules for commerce and judicial systems.

 There is also the series Numenéra and their Cypher system by Monte Cook, which include other universe like the Strange, Predations, etc. But Mostly Numenéra because it gave me a visual look of what could be the left-over of a type one or two civilizations. Without their work, my imagination would never have flared up as it did for this project.

 But before I go any further, I must also do a special mention to an almost forgotten RPG from TSR (now Wizard of the Coast); the grandfather of the sci-fi genre in the RPG industry… I named Starfrontiers! Launched on the heel of Advanced Donjons & Dragons, perhaps around the same times as Traveller, this game capitalized on the AD&D enthusiasm, this little space opera RPG, although quite cheese by today’s standards, had quite a few details right and to my surprise, can still be relevant today with only a few slight modifications. But what I retain the most from that game was their antagonist: the Sathar! The sathars were an alien race that were enigmatic, sneaky, highly advanced in cybernetic and very deadly … all the marks of a great villain.

 There is also the multitude of books of the G.U.R.P.S. by Steve Jackson Games. Due to the intensive research that went into those books, they provided me background or layout on subject I was not familiar with or, like the rest of us, got warped vision of Hollywood and TV shows.

 Also, I need to include the multitude universes published by Palladium Books. Their unique take on different subjects was enough to fire my imaginations. Going from their high fantasy world of Paladium World to their post-apocalyptic future of Rifts, and not forgetting their take on the Vietnam War, or the Robotech franchise to their Superhero or super spy genre, every one of them had something to contribute or get inspiration from.

 Lastly, I must also include the work of Games Workshop in Warhammer 40,000. Not because of their dystopia future they describe but for the simple fact it was the, maybe not the first, but the most recent example of what it would take to have an Empire on a GALACTIC scale. On that level, their take on the subject is unchallenged and unmatched.

 Books and Novels

 Other sources of inspiration come from old stories and novels, such as the work of A. E Van Vogt (more specifically the novella “The Monster [a.k.a. Resurrection]” published in 1948. There is also the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs [mostly the Barsoom series] who are still a great source of inspiration for me.

 Another writer is Edmond Hamilton who happens to be the writer of one of my childhood hero Capitaine Flam [Captain Future in English]. I didn’t make the link between both of them until a few years back. At the time my favourite story by him was “the Dead Planet”, which I read as part of an anthology. It was when I started to do my research for this current work that I came to the realization of who he was and de facto gave me a greater respect for the man and his work.

 Of course, there are many other writers whom I can name here but let just say it will be easier to simply read about them in my Bibliography section of my blog. However, I can’t end this part of my reasoning without talking about one of the most influential piece of science-fiction to me: Perry Rhodan.

 Perry Rhodan is a German science-fiction serial novel that started in 1961 and still going strong today. The brainchild of Karl-Herbert Scheer and Clark Darlton, their story started with the first venture of man to the moon and ended up pitching our hero onto a massive galactic background. Right from the beginning, the series had beam weapons, jump drives, teleportation, psychic powers, alien [both humanoid and not], positronic brain, robots, a dying galactic empire, etc. If one thing could define the series, it is the scales of things: EVERYTHING is done on an epic scale. Going from ships that vary between 800 metres and 2.5 km, to planet size arsenal and factories, to engineering on a galactic scale … everything is HUGE. Trust me, what could be a better source of inspiration if you want to do an epic space opera than the grandfather of the genre?

 Out of my French side, there are also two little-known writers that I really enjoyed and have influenced my work: Frank Dartal and P.-J. Hérault. Frank Dartal, on which I could barely find any information at all, wrote stories in the 70s and 80s that are still readable by today’s standard … which is quite an achievement if you think about it. The second, P.-J. Hérault, impressed by his profound humanity and his love for flying which he managed to infuse all of his work.

 Games

 As I mentioned earlier, two games that I plan to use as a source of inspiration and, also I might also include elements of both in my story. The first one is another computer game by Binary System and the other is Galactic Empires, the collective card game by Companion Games.

 Starflight … back in the late 80s that game was one of the best in the genre. Part action, part quest, part exploration and part business … but most important, 100 percent fun. Back then, it is quite poetic to have a ship for which you had to hire the right crew and be sent on a mission to find the cause that makes your sun going nova. As you explore the space around you, collecting minerals and clues, meeting aliens and fighting some implacable enemies, until you find the culprit and destroy it. As I said, 100% fun! However, it was in their sequel, Starflight 2, that Binary System lifted the veil on some of the questions that were left unanswered in the first game. Mainly who were the Uhlek and where they came from. This origin story game me the idea of a great antagonist, a Sauron or Galactus type of antagonist that may, one day come to threaten all life in the galaxy, if not the universe itself. Lastly, because the game was so good, I might include some of their alien races in my story. The beauty of it all is that it will mix perfectly to what I want to write and it will not contradict what was already published in Master of Orion. But don’t worry I’m still very far from that goal and I do not even know if I’ll ever reach that point … as it stands right now.

 This brings me to the second game: Galactic Empires. This game came out in the wake of Magic the Gathering card game. However, although well thought the game never really took off. However, they had some great ideas in it. Because of this, I intent to use some of them in my story. More specifically things like spatial phenomena, some space creature, a few strange planet and, of course, some alien races. Among those are the Krebiz Capitalist Alliance, the Indirigan Tribes [space nomads] and but not least, the Space Dragons.

 What? Space Dragons? Well, since there was a space dragon event in the very first Master of Orion, I thought it could be nice to reintroduce them in my story … but I intent of tweaking them to make them a bit more … galactic!

 That said, there are also numerous movies and TV shows that I could name but I need to conclude this so…

 In conclusion, the main reason why I’m doing this is to give a canvas for my creativity and a means to keep my sanity. In the last few years, I came to realize that one of the reasons I was not happy at my work was the simple fact that I had no venue for my creativity. The day-to-day work only serves to grind my mind and personality into dust. That if I didn’t do something fast I was running the risk to see my soul die! And because the feeling of being useless and powerless can kill a man as surely as a gun or cyanide would be the main motivation for this story.

I am not looking for fame or fortunes. I just want to write and tell a good story that will entertain you and make you dream a bit… If you like what I wrote and make you want to know more … then I have reached my goal.

 Nothing more, nothing less.

 Come on board, the journey is about to start and, I hope, it will be amazing.

 Alain Vollant.