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blurredblu · 10 months

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My opinion on IDW being canon to Sonic

I watched a video by GamesCage on the topic, who I've been watching a long while on YT before subscribing to him recently on Twitch, and it reminded me of my own thoughts on the matter as well!

But first some preemptive notes because I am entering Sonic discoursespace:

This is just some guy's opinion about a little blue dude! That's it! If you hate it or me personally because of it, I refer you to this image:

I won't ever go into using insulting or uncivil language. But because this is an opinion essay and I got opinions up the wazoo, I'm also not trying to word things in some neutral, disinterested way to appeal to all audiences here

That being said, game-story-wise, we don't fuck with meta-era shit here. I Do Not See It

I'm all for chats and discussions about the topic, agreement or disagreement alike in response to this essay—things just ought to stay civil and respectful. Think of WWSD (What Would Sonic Do?) and the image above

Sonic's morality and what IDW misunderstands of it

Though I respect what the IDW team does (I fondly remember following Evan Stanley's Ghosts of the Future on Deviantart back in the day), I don't prefer their characterisation of Sonic, and that alone is enough to have me a little chagrined as to IDW's integration into the games' canon. I think it's because, ultimately, it detracts from what makes Sonic's character—specifically his morality—unique and appealing to me. Though he isn't nearly as anti-hero in nature as characters like Shadow, Sonic still has moral tendencies that are atypical for characters that occupy the hero role as he's been avowed to have in the games, e.g. being labelled Team Hero with Tails and Knuckles multiple times

To give some sense of signposting, here are the headings of this essay:

Sonic distinctive moral thinking - The games' simple, reactive Sonic - IDW's merciful, principles-first Sonic: on freedom and oppression - Sonic's self-centred in a way, though, right? The mascot problem - "What's your idea then, genius?" – the reader reading this - Why keep things static - Examples of peak Sonic Conclusion

Sonic's distinctive moral thinking

To contextualise my judgement of Sonic as distinctive in his moral thinking, I think there is a tendency in Western media to give heroic characters very merciful streaks. Think Superman or Batman—codes of never killing or always offering mercy, often with backstory or informed moral reasoning behind it. While these streaks are understandable, they appear often and thus don't ring as special or particularly unique to me. Sonic has always been interesting to me because he explicitly does not entertain such clear moral principles. His attitudes embodied in his SA2 theme "It Doesn't Matter," Sonic Unleashed, or the Storybook Series (Black Knight being my favourite), show that he just does what he thinks is right and shows no qualms using considerable force (lethal in the case of Black Knight) if he has to against those he thinks are doing wrong—even against people who he would be friends with, like Merlina. He does not barter or reason; he takes action, moves before he thinks, and follows his heart

The games' simple, reactive Sonic

From my interpretation of Sonic regarding mercy, examples from the games show how he isn't interested in rehabilitating or looking for threats to neutralise like some Miguel O'Hedgehog. These tendencies become most apparent when his friends are involved. A standout example is when Amy protects E-102 Gamma from Sonic, convincing Sonic that he isn't like the other badniks. Another, more indirect example is Gemerl, where Sonic fights and subdues him from causing more harm but Tails is the one who reprograms and rehabilitates Gemerl, who lives happily with Cream and Vanilla with his more peaceful disposition. Sonic doesn't go out of his way to help Gemerl post-defeat, but he doesn't doubt or attack him further after his integration either

At heart, I find Sonic to be a reactive, not proactive, hero. He won't go out of his way to check if the day needs saving—he's not a dutiful guardian doing patrol like Knuckles or a principled fighter for an organisation like Shadow—but if Sonic sees someone in need, he won't just pass them by. And I find Sonic's moral judgements to be simple, instinctual, and self-centred in the most literal sense. They come from his bias towards his friends' judgement and what he believes to be right, regardless of how others may judge his actions. I've only mentioned some examples, but they highlight to me that Sonic is neither healer nor hunter. His main priority isn't rehabilitating or reasoning with his foes—he will do what he feels he needs to do, even if that means destroying something or someone for good. But, as Amy for E-102 and Tails and Cream for Gemerl show, he won't go out of his way to make sure threats are dealt with through violence if his friends vouch for them.

IDW's merciful, principles-first Sonic: on freedom and oppression

In IDW, the topic of him showing so much mercy and espousing freedom as an ideal he thinks everyone, even his enemies, deserves makes him much more merciful and deliberate in his mercy than I like him to be. I want to discuss this by briefly expanding on oppression and freedom, a topic that comes up in Surge and Sonic's fight and Surge angrily questions why Sonic wouldn't just end her. Sonic essentially answers it's because he values freedom for all, including his enemies', because he can exercise his freedom to stop them. It's representative of why I think some fans take issue with Sonic's characterisation because it warps how much Sonic might believably value freedom versus oppression on two flops: on philosophical concepts and characterisation.

IDW's concept flop, to me, shows a fundamental misunderstanding on the nature of oppression and freedom, assuming some inherent ranking of freedom above oppression. The two are different things: freedom is a kind of instrument, a means of doing things, a concept that has no content in and of itself. In other words, you have the freedom to do X; having freedom is only meaningful insofar as it enables to do what you want. Oppression, however, is not an instrument in the same way; it makes far less sense to say 'you have the oppression to do X' or 'you are oppressed to do X' like you could for 'freedom' and 'free'. Freedom, precisely because it is an instrument, enables far more flexibility—both good, evil, and neutral acts can arise from it. Oppression is a state of being with an inherently negative core, predicated on suffering and the oppressed being harmed.

Quick and messy take from me on this: freedom for all and oppression for some is worse(!) than freedom for some and oppression for none. But here's something that has a source, leading to the characterisation flop: according to Sonic Adventure's DX Director's Cut manual, the only thing Sonic hates is oppression (for, presumably, anyone). Honestly, you don't even need a game manual to tell you that. I think IDW writers make the mistake of assuming the inverse to be true of Sonic as well: that the thing he loves most is freedom (for, presumably, anyone).

Oppression being the only thing Sonic hates does not mean freedom is the only thing Sonic loves.

It may be notoriously slippery to insist on consistency in the Sonic franchise (or maybe franchises, plural), but this philosophical gloss on freedom and oppression starts to explain why IDW's characterisation strikes me as inherently contradictory to Sonic's preexisting values. Namely, it shows how IDW commits a false equivalence between the two and assigns it to Sonic. Sure, Sonic likes freedom, but that's different to showing mercy and second chances. IDW ends up conflating the two. As a result, IDW has Sonic care more about the principle of freedom than about the feelings and suffering he knows he or his loved ones have gone through. Put another way, it makes little to no sense why Sonic would prioritise freedom for all, even his enemies, when he has been shown to much more consistently put the most weight on what his friends feel and what he himself thinks. IDW does little to no detectable work establishing why Sonic would have such priorities either

Also, not a real argument—just taking things to the extreme in a throwaway thought—but could you imagine Sonic in the beginning of Unleashed actually considering Eggman's pleas saying he's changed and telling Eggman he...values his freedom? Like. c'mon

Sonic's self-centred in a way, though, right?

How about that self-centred angle, though? Sonic's way of thinking is highly independent—he will do what he thinks is right, first and foremost. It would be easy to claim that IDW's characterisation is just a mindset Sonic just holds in the comics, and that alone passes muster; his brand of ethical egoism admittedly does a lot as writerly cover to justify nigh anything about him. Looks like a hedgehog, smells like a hedgehog; chances are it's our hedgehog, right?

I disagree. One: if IDW is considered canon and yet is just so different to what's appealing about Sonic in the games, then the decision to make IDW Sonic canon, to be frank, kinda sucks. That ain't my Sonic—that's some Marvelised-DC version of him trying to moralise that I don't find compelling, distinctive, or endearing.

Two: even if you try to adopt the angle that upholding freedom for all would just be what Sonic believes to be right, it would still be the same as saying Sonic cares more about philosophical ideals than what he sees right in front of him. He's famously poked fun at Knuckles for being gullible before—why is Sonic himself showing that same gullibility and benefit of the doubt towards hostile enemies or those who have notably wrought so much damage to the lives of those he loves?

The trouble is that IDW builds no meaningful narrative foundations on top of which to stake this claim on Sonic's mindset when the games exist. Like, I don't even privilege the games just because they've been around first and for longer (even though, hey, that is true)—he's just cooler in them. Sonic is no philosopher; he's repeatedly shown it's genuinely not that deep when it comes to his moral thinking in the games. All it is is that he has a good heart. As a result, it comes off as a considerable mischaracterisation to show his enemies mercy mostly in the name of freedom or hope for their change (i.e. lofty ideals) compared to something actionable he can do (i.e. kick their ass and break their tech so they don't hurt anyone he cares about again).

The mascot problem

GamesCage mentions a worthwhile point which he calls the mascot problem. Sonic, as a mascot for Sega, has certain narrative lines he cannot cross or change for good. Like with Mario, there is a clear status quo to maintain; for one, Eggman cannot ever truly be vanquished. However, unlike Mario (with the one exception of Super Mario Galaxy), Sonic routinely has narratives that he and his friends undergo. There has to be this delicate balance that Sonic Team, IDW, and anyone writing for Sonic must contend with as a result. You have to write stories—events and plot where characters grow and change and are affected—but maintain the status quo where many fundamental things cannot change

In other words: how do you explain that Sonic never gets rid of Eggman or his other enemies because he, as a company mascot, cannot ever do so?

IDW does this one way by assigning Sonic an inadvertent little philosopher's cap, which I've already opined is a mischaracterisation. It also just generates another kind of untenable narrative problem that's even harder to reconcile: how do you justify that Sonic, hero with a heart of gold, just lets his enemies keep on going for freedom's sake? Arguably, all that does is dress up the mascot problem but with worse consequences—it makes Sonic less likable. It casts him as someone who essentially ends up condoning his enemies' actions, which has already led readers to question his judgement and whether they would even want to root for a character like that when you have an alternative and contradicting blueprint that the games have already provided for him. Like, my boy embodies direct action and IDW turns it into direct-ish-but-hey-do-what-you-want-who-am-I-to-judge action. Dress it up however you want; it's a nerf on who he is

"What's your idea then, genius?" – the reader reading this

In my eyes, what could work for the mascot problem is falling back on the static nature of the characters that have already been long established. The basic formula is there: Eggman is tricksy, proactive, and two steps ahead, but Sonic is always good-hearted enough, reactive enough, and fast enough to catch up by the end.

Elaborating on that formula, you have enough of Sonic's existing characteristics to justify why bad things keep happening despite his presence. He's not like Iron Man, who takes it upon himself to leverage his resources and power to look out for the world when no one's really asked him to. Again, Sonic is a reactive hero; he's not a ruthless hunter and he likes his peace and quiet as well as his adventure. He'll do what he can to fight what's right in front of him but may miss the bigger picture or potential traps by going in too fast. That happened in the beginning of Sonic Unleashed and it made sense. Even in Black Knight, you had him try to whale on King Arthur armed with just a decreasing number of chilli dogs. In an extended or episodic storytelling format, this allows other characters to shine—Tails's powers of analysis, Amy's ability to connect with others emotionally, Knuckles' sense of duty—by contributing to plans and helping Sonic because he has persistent, character-defining flaws. Highlighting his non-proactive and chill nature allows for arcs with more breathing room, too, where the characters aren't going up against some world-ending force or they all hang out. On that front, I'd say IDW has done well giving other characters that spotlight

Briefly touching upon Eggman's characterisation and how that might address the mascot problem, his tried-and-true tendencies should be relied upon, too. He is incredibly intelligent but also a massive narcissist—it makes sense that he has his own sense of short-sightedness where he prioritises and secures his own well-being above all else and underestimates the importance or wrath of godly and natural entities he frequently exploits and disrespects. Because of how strong and distinctive Eggman's brand of narcissism and villainy is, it is honestly fitting that he will never change; that alone explains how often he will cause trouble and will never fully succeed. And that also justifies why Sonic will always be the one to fight him. Both have their imperfections and flaws and that has them in a deadlock.

Why keep things static?

Now, this might bring up the question of static-ness. It might seem like an odd solution to mascot problem to just lean into it. Surely, there has to be greater justification or some potential for change for things to stay interesting, appealing, and compelling for Sonic and his stories.

In response, here's my hot take: ya don't need any of that.

Here's a longer version of my hot take: in any given narrative, Sonic is at his best when he does not grow or change. Sonic is already peak. Others may flounder and oscillate, but he remains steadfast with his heart of gold. He is a pillar of strength. He is static. Think of him in the Sonic Adventure games, characters and humans' reactions to him in Sonic X, the knights of the round table's reactions to him in Black Knight, Chip himself remarking that Sonic has such a good heart that not even the powers of a fucking dark primordial god infecting and transforming him can change who he is on the inside in Unleashed. When unstoppable forces come about, lo and behold, he is the immovable object they meet!

Sonic always stays on the move—that's how you can justify all the amazing, different, wild stories he'll go through, because he is an adventurer at heart. You don't need to humanise a character and subject them to point-A-to-point-B arcs to make them enduring, beloved characters. Just because that's a common format for characters and stories and comics to take nowadays doesn't mean that it's a good fit for Sonic. He's never been one to do something just because everyone else is doing it anyway. I, no joke, think Sonic should be treated like a mythical folklore figure, never-changing and transforming the lives of those he meets before breezing on by—and what figures are more enduring in our consciousness than those of mythology?

And, to refer to IDW, there isn't any need to wax philosophical on top of that. Like I've repeatedly said so far, Sonic is no philosopher (and saying this as someone who did philosophy for undergrad, thank fuck for that). Leave the philosophising and podcast soundbites and video essays to the fans—in fact, I'd even wager the simplicity of Sonic's premise and character, or, hell, even the dissatisfaction that can come from that, is why his fandom even thrives (but that's definitely a separate topic).

Examples of peak Sonic

I forget which interview this was, but Sonic's characterisation was inspired off of Bill Clinton (aged like milk I know; this was before his scandal with Lewinsky), from the idea that actions speak louder than words for him. Obviously, Sonic does get in his quips with his friends and enemies alike, but he's not supposed to be Marvel superhero about it and isn't actually a massive braggart. Even the first episode of Sonic X shows his confidence and demeanour so well—he doesn't need to moralise or talk your ear off for you to know he'll fuck you up. And that's just so much cooler than what IDW accomplishes with their version of Sonic

Like, consider my beloved Murder of StH, which the IDW team had a considerable hand in! Sonic—while recognising that the train is more advanced than other badniks, exhibiting personhood and consciousness—still has the sole objective of destroying the train. Everyone shines and, granted, the format has it so that Sonic doesn't really appear till the end, but he's characterised pitch-perfectly there, instilling so much hope and forward momentum not only in his gameplay but in the heart of the player. Honestly, his late contribution arguably echoes Sonic X, where he often disappears or does his own thing, too

Even in a game or storytelling format where he should be front and centre, you could even explore some big themes with Sonic precisely because of his mental and emotional fortitude! The Storybook Series are so stellar in this regard—you got Sonic helping out Shahra, domestic abuse victim, on dealing with sadness, and him helping Merlina with existentialism and death of all the fucking things. And he doesn't flap his lips about it; he shows it through his actions. He's the protagonist but not in a traditional sense—he's the support and passing through and being unfathomably fuckin cool about it. Any lessons he ends up teaching you is not because he's out to teach you—it's because he's just living his own way and, wouldn't you know it, you just happened to be around for the ride

Conclusion

I'm not excited about IDW Sonic being considered canon because he comes off as an overeager philosopher's take on him when game Sonic is fuckin goated with the sauce. Though the story ideas and arcs in IDW seem cool, Sonic is the heart of the series, and if he's off, then the whole thing ends up a little wonky for my tastes.

To be clear, I don't have issues with different iterations of Sonic as some blanket rule—if the writers do the work to establish why and in what ways Sonic in a particular story is different, then that's just plain fun. Movie Sonic, Sonic Prime, and Sonic Boom are all examples of that. But, above all, the kind of Sonic I adore (and there are in fact many kinds) is the one who you meet and your life is irrevocably changed for the better as he hangs out for a while but never for long. In pivotal moments in the comics, IDW Sonic misses the mark on that for me

Though Sonic Team are making clear moves to integrate all the iterations of Sonic as canon regardless. I do wonder if that, as a move in itself, is the meta-narrative equivalent of Sonic Team changing game-mechanic tacks every game after '06 and Unleashed—a well-intentioned but misguided way to try to appease everyone which I've always thought is the most anti-Sonic thing you can do, but that's just the mascot problem in corporate as opposed to story form.

I was fine with Sonic Twitter just saying 'Everything is canon' as a non-starter – I'll just see how they do what they're intending to do and if I don't like it, then I always got an AO3 account handy

#sonic the hedgehog #meta #opinion

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waveridden · 10 months

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i've long held a fascination with blaseball gamma 1 (the test circuit that was revealed on the website after it had finished running) because there's a whole lot about it that doesn't add up. if you compare the rosters in the last available gamelogs for teams to the rosters on the websites they don't match up - and i don't just mean "oh the static charges" i mean there are new players and reverbs that have happened that aren't recorded. it is a weird, messy circuit that we didn't get to see, and i care for it quite dearly.

(personally i've long held the theory that there was a third season of this circuit that we didn't get to see that led to additional weather and another round of charges. this is beside the point but i think if they ever do another IAB y'all should help me flood the question box asking about this. i want to know.)

one thing you Can see when looking at gamma 1 teams is that several of them have four pitchers. this is, obviously, not how blaseball works; teams should have five pitchers. some of them were charged, and we know some of these from feed messages. some of them are just missing.

i found some of them tonight.

i've been working on recreating the election results from gamma 1, season 1, and through that i've found three pitchers that i'm not sure people know about. i don't have their stats info, i don't have their performance records. but i found three players who were missing. those players are:

pedro greatlakes, miami dale

jamaal hardison, baltimore crabs

manuela byron, new york millennials

there are, per my best count, three teams with pitchers that are still missing from the record (firefighters, sunbeams, lift) and because of the quality of pitcher feed events i'm not sure they'll ever be found. and maybe this is actually old news and i'm out of touch. and maybe (definitely) i'm a bit of a sap. but i wanted to publish those names. because blaseball is over and gone, and this was a dead circuit in a dead world in a dead game. but there are still new things to find.

#waveridden.txt #i need a blaseball tag #honorable mention to sloth palladium of the lovers who i Think was recorded elsewhere idt i found them but they also only exist in the form #of one election feed message.#also for anyone who is curious how i did this:#my personal project a while back was reconstructing the gamma 1 season 1 elections from a combination of feedeck and the datablase. this wa #one of those elections where teams could pick one stat and every relevant player got a boost in that stat but due to a bug (?) if teams #picked baserunning/defense then the Entire Roster got that boost. which means that feed messages exist for every player on that roster #which includes the missing pitchers!#ETA the exception to the above is pedro greatlakes who i found bc they won a blood type blessing but afaik nobody else knew that lol #also per sibrcord a couple people might've known some of these but afaik they weren't. like. Known #whatever. let me have this

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lady-eris · 10 months

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this one is a angst one :,D

how about gamma 1 & 2(separately) x dying/dead reader?

I love this ask : )

Tw: Death, angst, hinted Suicide in Gamma 2? (Like in the movie)

Gamma 1 (Dying reader-Poisoned?)

Sirens blared as he quickly rushed towards one of the rooms, the smell of smoke was evident as many of the workers here ran the opposite direction as he had. "What's the situation?" Gamma 1 asked on his coms, however he was convinced whatever it was he could handle it. He frowned at the fact, the only response was Static.

His boots slid to a stop an irritating noise following soon after. Red coloured smoke? it leaked out the room the explosion had come from. He opened the door carefully, stepping inside shutting it. Scanning the area, he picked up a life signal which had been faint.

"what happened over here- Lemon shark?!" He asked finally spotting you laying against the wall. You looked like a mess, blood dripping from your nose and mouth. Your clothes had been the opposite of clean and straighten. Wrinkled like a pugs face, and covered with chemical burns that, had managed to eat away at your clothes and began to burn your skin. The edge of your eyes had black like veins protruding from them.

"It hurts" You cried in poor agony, coughing up blood. Gamma 1 quickly shushed you, a look of pure terror on his face.

"I'm scared, You won't leave right?" You asked with a pleading tone. Gamma 1 stiffened under your grip. "No, I'll stay with you My lemon shark" Gamma 1 replied, kissing your forehead.

Gamma 2 (Dead reader-Cell fight)

He was the hero, a classic like in the comics. Powerful, heroic, loyal. like all hero's he had a love interest, that had been you. You were his calm to his storm. however like most heroes, there's always some suffering they would have to endure. and you were his suffering.

your body laid in his arms, Your head swung back. Eyes wide, unblinking. Gamma 2 screams of anguish could be heard for miles and miles. Even with the fight of Cell Max in the background, everyone could hear Gamma 2 despair as he wepted, pleading and begging for them to wake up. However no one heard his calls. His abnormally bright clothes had began to be stained with scarlet. Proof that he had been unable to save the very person he swore to protect.

His voice soon grew quiet, as he swore he'd kill the thing that had destroyed you. He'd kill Cell Max, and join you in the afterlife. He laid your body a fair distance away from the fight, hesitantly he got up placing a flower in your hand and kissing your cold lips.

He flew up in the sky, a look of wrath on his face. That thing had destroyed you, so in return he would destroy it.

#dragon ball x reader #gamma 1 x reader #gamma 2 x reader

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alumbianchronicler · 7 months

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EctoberHaunt 2023 - Oct 4

Science - Aliens

[Ao3]

Warnings: Cosmic/eldritch scope/imagery

Crossover: n/a

Summary:

After several years of preparation and planning, Phantom set out toward the stars.

He trusted his Council to rule in his stead, should anything go wrong in his absence, but he needed to get away for a while and find solace in the vast expanse of space.

And the final frontier holds wonders strange and beautiful, hidden within the obscuring dust of a dark nebula.

~~~

After several years of preparation and planning, Phantom set out toward the stars.

He trusted his Council to rule in his stead, should anything go wrong within the Infinite Realms in his absence, and if it came down to an emergency, he knew Clockwork could find him if his Mentor really needed to.

But he needed to get away, for a little while, at least.

As the humans he had been close to aged and died, leaving him immortal and alone, his tie to the Earth diminished, leaving his need to Protect aching. It was soothed for some time by turning his attention to the Infinite Realms themselves, but after a century of his rule, there was hardly the sort of conflicts which had necessitated his interference in the early days.

Restless and aching, he found solace in another Obsession, and turned his attention to space.

After discussing the matter with the Council of Ancients, it was decided that he would spend a decade among the cosmos, discovering what he could of the vast expanse of darkness and light, before returning to his throne. A bare blip of time in the grand scheme of immortality and the universe, but long enough to soothe his Core and help develop some of his more cosmic-oriented powers.

The depths of space hummed with the background radiation of the birth of the universe, occasionally interspersed by the roar of a star’s death or the ringing trill of a star’s birth. Sometimes, he could feel the blip of a gravitational wave, or the shivering numbness of passing through a gamma-ray.

After a year of drifting through a particular empty region, memorizing the locations of galaxies and nebulae, of pulsars and black holes, Phantom decided he wanted a closer look at one of the nebulae.

Choosing his target, a Dark Nebula which obscured any attempts to look into its depths, he parted the veil to the Infinite Realms and traveled, seeking out a corresponding location that would bring him out in the heart of the vast cloud of dust.

A nebula such as this was an old structure, full of the remains of generations of stars, evidenced by the presence of heavier elements and relatively complex molecules. From within it, the distant reaches of space appeared dark, obscured by the nebula’s bulk, though much like an Earthbound, water-based cloud, the nebula itself was much less dense from within than it seemed from a distance.

A few young stars glimmered inside the nebula, either surrounded by glowing disc-shaped accretions or a relatively clear ring of planetary space.

Near the center of the nebula, a super-massive, dull-orange star sat like a gravid Koi, its roar far deeper than that of the ringing, hotter, younger stars sitting toward the edges of the nebula.

Phantom floated aimlessly, observing the supermassive star. Fascinated as he was with it, he didn’t register a crackling static of radio-waves against his senses until flickers of light appeared in the corners of his vision. He spun, and the background pressure of radiation humming against his senses burst again into a crackle of radio-wave static. Something was there, within the nebula, calling to him.

Again, flickers of light flashed at him, mostly violet with occasional blinks of cyan and bright red, as radio-waves chittered at him in lower frequencies, nearly undetectable even with his ghostly senses.

A large shape was moving slowly through the nebula.

It was nearly the length of a blue whale, shaped like an exponential cone, the wide end at the front flaring out into a full circular structure almost like a sail. Overlapping plates of a glass-like material covered its body in a spiral beginning at the pointed tail and working frontward, and the distant starlight reflected from a violet-magenta liquid coating it. Within its translucent body, he could see shifting metallic shapes, organs perhaps.

He could feel a flow of energy coming from it, like when he had learned to hold a lodestone on Earth and feel the planet’s magnetic field acting upon it.

This… was an alien. Some sort of… nebula whale?

He flew closer to the organism, enraptured. Pulling on his powers, he gathered a small charge of icy power, glowing cyan in the darkness of space.

The flow of the creature’s magnetic field’s changed in response, becoming stronger as it moved so that he was positioned along one side of it, revealing a line of dark spots along its mid-point. Sensory organs, perhaps.

It continued moving slowly on its way, but as he flew alongside it, the radio-wave static and flashes of light (hydrogen spectra, he realized, recalling long hours spent poring over spectrum analysis of distant galaxies and stars) Ultraviolet, blue, blue-green, red. Its… skin was a layer of liquid hydrogen, and the light he was seeing was it using that hydrogen to produce different emission spectrum frequencies.

Did it mean something? Was it… some sort of speech? That and the radio-waves and the electromagnetic probing. Was this thing… sapient?

Breathless with more than just a lack of need for breathing and no atmosphere, he raised both hands. He had learned how to change the color of his ectoplasm not long after graduating high school, and…

One hand red. One hand just a bit more green than cyan. Green light. Red light. Green light.

For a few moments, the creature simply continued flying, then… a green flicker. A red flicker. A green flicker.

It was… well, he couldn’t say for certain it was sentient, let alone sapient. Perhaps it simply mimicked whatever lights hit it, instead of actually recognizing the attempt to communicate, but…

A purple light. Long. A shift up to a brief blink of red.

He didn’t know what it meant, but focusing his ectoplasm, he echoed it. Long purple. Short red.

Apparently it was as excited as he was, because its liquid skin erupted in an aurora of flickers, coinciding with a rush of staticky radio-waves, and he thought that if he focused, he could nearly make out repeating patterns within the waves.

This was… so much cooler than anything he had expected to find out here, and he was going to have to tell everyone and…

Unable to contain his exuberance, he flew in a series of loops, finishing by circling the creature, who seemed to track his movements with flickers of light following him along its skin.

A much stronger radio-wave static suddenly hit him, causing him to abruptly halt in his flight, flipping over backward to look for the source.

There was another one.

But this one…

This one dwarfed the largest of buildings he had ever seen on Earth. Dwarfed the pyramids of Giza. Dwarfed some mountains even, massive in its glittering, flickering bulk, the glass-like plates under its hydrogen skin creaking under its own mass and gravity. A massive cloud of dust surrounded it, collected by its personal gravity and sparkling like innumerable tiny fish around it.

Oh.

The first one was a baby. Or at least… was much, much younger than this glorious behemoth.

He watched it, noting the flickers of light along the flank facing the smaller one next to him, the elder having oriented itself so that its magnetic field was alongside them.

The young one, beside him, flashed back a sequence of lights.

The behemoth responded, with a rumbling undercurrent of radio-waves, and continued on.

With a quiet trill of static, the one next to him flew off, as well, turning away with a shift of its internal mass, its front sail catching a faint stellar wind and sweeping it off.

For several weeks, Phantom stayed within the nebula, observing the creatures. He saw several others, recognizing what he guessed was a greeting light sequence, and an acknowledging response, eventually picking up a few other flickered meanings.

They would share flickers of light and radio-waves, and continue on their way within the vast dust cloud.

Once, he witnessed a medium-sized one, nearly the size of a sky-scraper, gain speed until it appeared nearly comet-like with the turbulence of the dust it pulled along in its wake, before finally turning, folding back the silicate plates of its sail, and flying down toward the supermassive red star.

His Core thrumming in anxiety, he watched as the creature slingshot itself near and past the star, a glittering trail of… something left in its wake, falling into the upper atmosphere.

Was this… some sort of ritual?

Or… A star like that, cool enough to be relatively calm, would have an upper atmosphere dense in the dust particles that he suspected these beings fed on. A perfect nursery.

It had been laying eggs.

Or… spores.

Seeds?

Anyway… the star itself was their nursery. Quite likely, the newly-formed young would be pushed out of its atmosphere by the pressure of the stellar winds once they were large enough, sent off to find their way in the vast, dust-rich nebula beyond.

It wasn’t until he was nearly ready to leave the nebula and move on that he once again saw the behemoth.

It was flying directly away from the supermassive nursery star, though it had slowed down and seemed to have shrunk some. The plates of its silica shell seemed almost uncomfortably pulled inward by its own gravity as the massive cloud of captured dust still swirled around it like schools of minnows.

Phantom flew nearer, charging ectoplasm in his hands. He flickered Greeting. Worry. Question?

The creature rumbled at him in their staticky manner, and flickered a faint greeting back. Silence, then a series of flickers he had never seen. Three different shades of purple, with the last flicker fading away slowly.

He watched the fading flicker for a long moment, puzzling over its meaning.

Finally, it clicked.

It was dying.

The creature… was too large to sustain itself. It was collapsing under its own weight.

As it was collapsing inward due to its own gravity, the fragile structures of its body were pulled inward. Eventually, as its center was pressed in upon by the outer layers of its body, pulled in more and more strongly by gravity’s pull, it would begin nuclear fusion.

These creatures of hydrogen and glass, singing to the void in radio-waves and flickers of light, became stars when they died.

He remained by the behemoth’s side for another month. It didn’t speak much, its body creaking and slowly shrinking as its own gravity crushed it, but he rather thought it was glad for the company.

It continued its flight heading away from the nursery star, toward the edge of the nebula and away from others of its kind, preparing for death as it slowed more and more but still kept moving forward.

Finally, its silicate shell shattered inward.

In a flash, the creature collapsed then expanded into a massive ball of blinding light, pulling the cloud of dust that it had gathered around itself into a whirling cocoon of dust, the new star slowly integrating the material into itself.

He could barely see it for the obscuring dust cocoon once he flew some distance away. A protective adaptation, he supposed, to keep others from coming too close to investigate. Keeping the smaller ones who may get caught in the new star’s gravity from becoming too curious.

In a short time by cosmic standards, it would be shining clear and bright. Just another star in the vast expanse of the void. A ghost, like so many others.

Smiling in quiet, bittersweet acceptance, he pulled open a portal to the Realms and stepped through, ready to seek out another corner of the universe.

#ECTOBERHAUNT23 #EH SCIENCE #DAY 4 #ALIENS #DANNY PHANTOM #y'all #I spent about 2 hours just figuring out how these lifeforms work #I love them #so much

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jadegretz · 3 months

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Dynamic Emerald: She-Hulk's Allure by Jade Gretz

Jennifer Walters, better known as the emerald-tinged bombshell She-Hulk, wasn't known for her fear of the dark. After all, she wrestled Abominations for breakfast. But something about the abandoned Gamma Research Facility, sprawling in the shadow of Mount Grimclaw, sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the mountain winds.

The moon, a tarnished silver dime, shed an anemic glow on the crumbling concrete towers, each window a vacant eye socket staring into the abyss. Vines, thick as pythons, snaked around rusting generators, and the air hummed with a low, electric thrum that vibrated through her bones.

Stepping through the creaking front gate, Jennifer felt a primal unease tighten around her throat. It wasn't just the desolation, the whispers of past horrors clinging to the walls like cobwebs. There was something else, a malignant presence lurking just beyond the edge of perception.

Ignoring the prickling on her skin, she transformed, green muscles rippling beneath her clothes as She-Hulk emerged. Towering over the desolate courtyard, she scanned the facility. Empty labs, shattered beakers, and flickering neon signs mocked her with their ghostly luminescence.

But then, a flicker of movement caught her eye. Deep within the facility, in a sub-level hidden beneath layers of overgrown foliage, a faint luminescence pulsed like a malevolent heartbeat. Curiosity, potent as gamma juice, surged through her. Cautiously, she ripped through a wall of twisted metal, creating a gaping maw into the unknown.

Descending into the bowels of the facility, She-Hulk felt the temperature plummet. The air crackled with static, every shadow a potential maw. The hum grew louder, a hungry chant rising from the depths. Finally, she reached a vast chamber, bathed in an eerie green glow emanating from a massive crystalline reactor humming with raw gamma energy.

But that wasn't what sent a primal scream echoing through the chamber. In the reactor's core, suspended in a shimmering green cocoon, pulsed a monstrous form. Towering twice her height, its flesh a patchwork of mutated tissue, it resemble …(see the rest of the story at deviantart.com/jadegretzAI). For more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, rogue and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support :)

#ai #aiart #digitalart #jadegretz #fantasyart #fanart #beautifulgirl #aiartwork #aiartcommunity #shehulk #hulk #marvelart #marvel

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brucenorris007 · 8 months

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New brainworm gonna think as I type again:

one good friend recently posited the question of wherefore one Bombastic Bot-that is, E-123 Omega- puts up a front. Similar to his teammates on Team Dark; Rouge with her appearance and flirting, Shadow with his standoffish attitude

To figure that out, one has to examine and tease out exactly what took place during the indefinite length of time Omega was sequestered on his own in the chamber with Shadow prior to Rouge releasing the hedgehog at the start of Sonic Heroes

It's not hard to see why Omega would end up a very angry robot. How long did he, an engineering marvel capable of destruction, learning and computation only Tails and Eggman himself could compete with, remain in an environment entirely static and unchanging? What Nth repetition of his routines and subroutines served as the catalyst for his change from Strongest Eggman Robot to Strongest Eggman Enemy?

It just hit me now, but while it seems weird to assign things like age to a machine that's essentially come out of its creation process fully formed and, at least physically, as complete as it will ever be, one should also consider that Omega is essentially an infant.

Puts a new perspective on his rage and general outlook, right? Gamma, Omega's predecessor, received significant attention from Eggman, to say nothing of praise, in the short interval before he turned against his creator and chose to save his E series brothers. Or even Shadow, who was bioengineered as a teenager from the outset to be roughly the same age as Maria (presumably), and, while obviously burdened with his own baggage prior to his canon introduction, was never ignored by his sister.

Omega-again, infant-got none of that. And newborns who are neglected of attention, as is well documented, act out, get angry, and do not form attachments easily

And given how long Omega was presumably left to that chamber, only avoiding gathering dust by his own power of patrolling the small quarters, it stands to reason the abandonment changed him irrevocably; though he clearly does show capacity for more growth, else Team Dark wouldn't still be around to this day (Shut up, SEGA)

Circling back, though, his period in isolation: what conclusions did he draw for himself once he began to change?

He possessed limited data, yet he must have established some thoughts about the outside world.

He clearly focused all the hatred in his circuitry toward Eggman; and by proxy any of his other creations.

There's art of Tails on Omega's head riiiiight. . . here! Wherein Omega casually drops that he's always assumed Tails hates him while Tails is in the middle of running a debug on him and Tails is just "What?"

Did Omega, through some convoluted process of thought, come to think that all who oppose or have opposed Eggman also hated him? In the sort of thinking someone even younger than Charmy or Cream might come up with? Did that also contribute to his hatred of Eggman?

And, while I don't always subscribe to the idea that Omega feels strongly enough about Sonic to hate him, does his dislike/friction with the one specific hedgehog stem from the fact that Sonic never fails to capture Eggman's attention? Again, this idea stems from the new perspective of Omega as an extraordinarily deadly and angry infant; also, given that the supercomputer CPU serving as his brain is at least as complex as any other character, it's likely that even if that is the case, he's buried anything that might prompt him realizing it-let alone acknowledging it-real deep

More paragraphs spawned out of this than I anticipated, but ultimately I think to answer the question we'd have to find out exactly what was running through Omega's CPU during his isolation to really know the finer details.

@generic-sonic-fan

#E-123 Omega #Bombastic Baby Bot #Bruce talks about #Sonic #thanks for the brainworm Measly

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zeldonovan · 2 years

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planned obsolescence !!!!!!!

[id: a drawing of penelope video from blaseball short circuits, a marble statue person with a broken left arm and an old tv head, drawn from the bust up in a blue palette. one of their output ports is connected to a bright pink cable, leading up and out of frame, while their screen shows three static modification symbols, one centered and two cut off. "gamma" is written vertically beside them. /end id]

#HI im sleepytired and had not the best day so :} penny ddoodle #ALTERNATIVELT TITLED ELECTRIC ANGEL 4 PGR REASONS;;; BUT THIS ONE IS ALSO COOL #blaseball #furious fists #penelope video #atlantis georgias

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jackpotsadmon · 8 months

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top five robot design from me, a robot loving guy

5. andromon from digimon . love that abomination (affectionate)

4. that little guy thing from machinarium

3. the v models from ultrakill

2. rodney copperbottom’s dad from robots

1. ratchet’s mom from eobots

#oh my gd. ratchet’s mom is peak fucking character design oh my gd #digimon #gamma’s static #andromon #machinarium #ultrakill #v1 #robots 2005 #can you tell i’m sleep deprived and too s cared to sleep

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yes-i-write-fanfiction · 1 year

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PLANET X WORLDBUILDING

-Planet X, in TFP, is a Lost Cybertronian Colony, with the Horror twist that it actively went missing. Nobody knows what happened-the feeds just turned to static, there was screaming, and the planet had disappeared.

-Planet X orbits a Neutron Star.

-The natives can see almost exclusively in the shorter end of the Electromagnetic Spectrum (Ultraviolet, X-Rays, Gamma Rays). Visible light over a certain wavelength can seriously damage their optics with enough exposure-hence why they all have retractable visors.

-There are several cities on Planet X, surrounded by vast expanses of wastelands called the Wilds. The Wilds are inhabited by monsters that skitter in the dark-all those mutated by Whatever happened to Planet X.

-Soundwave’s ability to interface with data via his tentacles is a Planet X thing too: the data-interfacing is used to communicate in the Wilds, when any kind of spoken sound could draw the monsters’ attention.

-Their Energon is yellow, as are all of their Sparks. Nobody on Planet X really knows why this is. (Normal Energon can be converted to Planet X Energon with a specific process, which is how Soundwave stays fueled on the Nemesis.)

-A few million years before the series, a disaster happened where the old Space Bridges were opened, which scatteried about a hundred Planet X natives across the Cybertronian Colonies.Soundwave is one of the ones scattered by the Space Bridge disaster. He ended up in Kaon with only his Symbionts and the formula for Planet X Energon, and is extremely bitter about seemingly being abandoned.

-Soundwave is basically a regular Planet X native-fairly intelligent, but still not that physically strong by his home’s standards. Which says a lot about how Weird (and strong) the natives of Planet X are compared to baseline Cybertronians.

-Despite living on a Death World, the Planet X native have a thriving culture. Music plays a huge role in their culture, with their variant of the Cybertronian Language sounding like a song or a rap depending on context. (The debates are a thing to behold.)Their general outlook is “Yeah, we might all die from the Monsters or out star dying-but it won’t stop the music, and we will not go gently or quietly.”

--------------

Cool world building!

#submission #not mine #transformers imagine #transformers headcanons #soundwave

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shanamahtopoeia · 4 months

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Porting from Dragon Age: Inquisition to Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2

Part 1 - Out of DAI

Tools needed: Frosty Editor Blender 2.79a for DA2, or any 2.7+ version of Blender for DAO

Install Frosty Editor, open it up, and show it where to find your installation of DAI.

Once DAI is open, use the search field to narrow it down to just the asset type you want.

To find all meshes and textures, for instance, input 'type:skinnedmeshasset OR type:rigidmeshasset OR type:textureasset' To narrow by name, use 'contains:something'. The search also recognizes AND and NOT. 'skinnedmeshasset' = models that bend/move, like armors, clothing, and bows 'rigidmeshasset' = static models, like most weapons and props 'textureasset' = textures, as you can probably guess. ;) Textures will export as PNG by default (although this can be changed), and most have alpha channels. Many also have gamma correction. You can turn off alpha and gamma for viewing, which also prevents those channels from exporting.

If you're familiar with how assets are arranged in the DAO Toolset, finding what you want may be a bit annoying.

Things exclusive to one character can be found under DA3/Actors. This is also where you'll find Charactor Creation assets like hairs, beards, and bodies. Companions' outfits will be split into legs/arms/torso/cloth, and must be exported separately. 000* = legs 00*0 = arms 0*00 = torso The flowy cloth bits are usually in a separate 'cloth' folder for some reason. Most other armors & clothing can be found in DA3/Factions, and weapons in DA3/Equipment. Some models may be found in the DLC folders instead. DLC Blue = Trespasser DLC Red = Descent DLC 1 = Jaws of Hakkon Generally, textures will be in a textures folder right next to the corresponding mesh folder, but if they aren't, you can find them by opening up your mesh in the main viewport, clicking the 'Variations' tab in the upper right, then expanding MaterialCollection/Materials. You'll then see numbered drop-down fields. For multi-part models, 0 is usually the body/skin, 1 the main mesh, 2 is accessories. Expand what you want, then TextureParameters. There'll be 3-4 fields here, for diffuse, normal, specular, and tint (sometimes there's no tint). Either use the data explorer window to follow that filepath, or simply click the 3 dots and pick 'open asset'.

Open up what you want to export, then click on 'Export' near the top left. (right-clicking on the file in explorer window doesn't usually export the right format)

Models: I'm going to assume you're using Blender, because that's what I know. ;p (if you're planning on using 3ds max or gmax, I'd like to direct you to sapphim's tutorial) If you're porting to DA2, you'll need to select the correct skeleton under Animation/Humanoid. If exporting a HF mesh, make sure to pick the HF skeleton, NOT HFD. That's for the large-skirted fancy dresses only, and I suspect it wouldn't work in DA2. If you're porting to DAO, the skeleton doesn't matter since we're going to delete it anyway. Either check the 'Blender export' option OR 'export single LOD'. The latter will only export the LOD0, and the former will make sure the submeshes are named to easily distinguish the different LOD levels (if you want to use LOD1 or lower, since LOD0 can be pretty big). I don't think the FBX version matters too much as long as it's binary (which I'm pretty sure they all are now). Mine is set to FBX 2012. The scale should default to meters, which is what we want. Textures: Simply pick your preferred format, depending on your graphics editor (I'll be using Paint.net in later parts of this tutorial). I usually export as PNG, and have the alpha channel ON and the gamma correction OFF (since DAO and DA2 are both darker than Inquisition anyway). If you plan on retexturing, you might want to leave the gamma on to make small details easier to see.

Blender 2.49b is needed for both the DA2 and DAO export scripts, so the next step is getting the DAI mesh ready for that version of Blender.

To open FBX files, you need a newer version of Blender. For DA2, you need Blender 2.79a, which can both import FBX files and save .blend files as 'legacy' to be usable in Blender 2.49b. For DAO (or for any static mesh), you can simply import the FBX with any 2.7+ version of Blender, and then export as an OBJ, since 2.49b can import OBJs. However, if your mesh has multiple parts with different textures, you'll need to delete all but one, export that, undo the deletion, delete all but a different part, export, etc, for each submesh. This is because, annoyingly, Blender's obj exporter combines all the meshes together, even if they're not selected, or have been hidden. -_-

Part 2 will cover converting models from DAI-style to DA2 and DAO in Blender, and exporting them in DA2/DAO format.

#dragon age #modding #tutorial #dai to dao #dai to da2

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lordmushroomkat · 2 years

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I'm re-watching Avengers Assemble which is a thing I do every so often.

(Normally when I've had the opportunity to talk about what makes it so great and then I feel compelled to experience it again.)

And, as with every watch, I'm always stuck on how much I love the way they write Hulk. It can be a little complicated to explain what I like about it.

Part of it is The Repression of it. I'm always fond of characters with great mental fortitude, ones who have to always be in control. Episodes like s1ep11 Hulked Out Heroes display this well. With lines like "Pretend the doorknob is an egg. Pretend everything is an egg." explaining the concept of constant control best. There's something about strong characters living in a fragile world. Superman is in a world of glass, Hulk is in a world of cardboard.

Part of it is the frequent emphasis they put on how the Hulk is more than smashing. He collects glass figurines, he has friendships with a diverse range of people, he has a soothing fountain in his room. He's a gamma expert and his body is a gamma reactor. His whole thing is regulating the energy in his body, his power comes from unleashing anger but his skill comes from maintaining control. Everything about that is compelling.

Part of it is that he's often underestimated. He's frequently assumed to be too far gone from Bruce Banner to understand complex ideas. But he's still smart in there, there's just the distracting static of the energy. But he can focus.

I think it's fundamentally that every aspect of his character feels like it's about effort. He has to put on the effort to maintain control, put in the effort to manage the energy, put in the effort to focus.

And his story is also about identity. Bruce Banner and Hulk share a body, and Hulk is normally in charge, but sometimes Bruce pops in to lend a mental assist. Those identities feel separate, but they can talk to each other and they're both essential parts of the collective individual. Gamma scientist and gamma monster; two identities, one person. It's about the Duality.

I just really love the way they write the Hulk on Avengers Assemble.

#The Incredible Hulk #Avengers Assemble #kat talks about Avengers Assemble again #writing choices #narrative and character

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abbygraceasd · 11 months

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Doomsday

The Daleks advance upon us with cries of ‘exterminate!’

“Daleks!” I shout.

The aliens fall silent, taken aback.

“You’re called Daleks.” I walk towards them, “I know your name.” I take the lab coat off, “Think about it: how can I know that? A human… who knows about the Daleks. And the Time War. If you wanna know how, then keep us alive. That’s all I’m asking. Me and my friends.”

“Yeah, Dakeks. Time war. Us too.” Gabby gestures between her and Mickey.

Rajesh nods as well.

The black Dalek speaks to me, “You will be necessary.” it turns to one of the other Daleks, “Report: what is the status of the Genesis Ark?” “Status: hibernation.”

“Commence awakening.”

“The Genesis Ark must be protected above all else.”

The Dalek turns to the Genesis Ark which also emerged form the sphere. It clamps its suction arm to the side of the Ark.

Mickey continues to point his gun at them, “The Daleks, you said they were all dead.”

I shake my head, “Never mind that, what the hell’s a Genesis Ark?”

“Which one of you is least important?” “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

The Dalek repeats the question.

“No, we don’t work like that. None of us.” “Designate the least important!” Rajesh steps forward, “This is my responsibility.”

I try to hold him back, “No, don’t!”

He ignores me and stands before the Dalek dejectedly.

“I er, I represent the Torchwood Institute. Anything you need, you… come through me. Leave these two alone.”

“You will kneel.” “What?”

“Kneel.” Rajesh kneels. The surrounding Daleks direct their eye stalks onto him.

“The Daleks need information about current Earth history.”

Yeah well i can give you a certain amount of intelligence, but nothing that will compromise Home Land security…” “Speech is not necessary. We will extract brainwaves.” The three Dalkes advance upon Rajesh and position their suction arms around his head.

“Don’t… I… I’ll tell you everything you need. No. No!” He shouts out in agony before the Daleks crush his skull. Mickey makes toward him but Gabby and I hold him back.

The Daleks let Rajesh’s blackened corpse fall to the ground.

“His mind spoke of a second species invading Earht infected by the superstition of ghosts.” “You didn’t need to kill him!” I exclaim.

“Neither did we need him alive.”

“Dalek Thay, investigate outside.” “I obey.”

Dalek Thay leaves the sphere chamber.

“Establish visual contact. Lower communications barrier.”

A projection appears in the area previously occupied by the sphere, showing Dalek Thay’s point of view. He meets with two Cybermen.

The three aliens argue.

I pick up my phone, but do not talk so I don’t draw attention to myself.

They speak about an alliance before the Cybermen are shot dead.

The Cyberman adresses the Daleks through the projection screen, “Daleks, be warned: you have declared war upon the Cybermen.”

“This is not war. This is pest control.” “We have five million Cybermen. How may are you?” “Four.” “You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?!” “We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek. You are superior in only one respect.” “What is that?”

“You are better at dying. Raise communications barrier!”

The screen goes to static.

“Wait!”

The phone call disconnects.

“Rewind image by nine rells.”

The Doctor is in frame in the background.

“Identify grid seven gamma frame.” They zoom in on the Doctor, “This male registers as enemy.”

I smile.

One of them turns to me, “The female’s heartbeat has increased. Identify him.” “Alright then… if you really wanna know… that’s the Doctor.”

The Daleks roll back sharply.

“Five million Cybermen, easy. One Doctor? Now you’re scared.”

Dalek Thay enters the sphere chamber, “Cyber threat irrelelvant. Concentrate of the Genesis Ark.” The black Dalek presses its suction arm to the side of the Genesis Ark.

Gabby looks at me, “Why are we being kept alive?” I speak after a pause, “They might need me.”

Whilst the Daleks are crowded around the Genesis Ark, Mickey and Gabby show me a yellow button, “We could transport out of here, but it only carries one each. And we’re not leaving you.” “Bravest humans I know.” “Well I can’t think what the Dalkes need with us. We’re nothing to them.” Mickey says.

“Speak for yourself, I don’t think the Daleks know which one of us,” Gabby gestures between herself and me, “is which.”

“You could be… whate’er’s inside the Ark is waking up, and I’ve seen this happen before. The first time I saw a Dalek, it was broken. It was dying. But I touched it. The moment I did that… I brought it back to life.” I keep my voice low, “As the Doctor said… when you travel in time in the Tardis, you soak up all this background radiation. It’s harmless, it’s just there. But in the Time War, the Daleks evolved so they could use it as a power supply. If the Daleks have got something inside that thing that needs waking up…” “They need you.” Gabby says.

“But why would they build something they can’t open themselves?” Mickey asks.

“The technology is stolen. The Ark is not of Dalek design.”

“Then who built it?” I ask.

“The Time Lords. This is all that survives of their Home World.”

The four Daleks shuffle around the Ark.

“What’s inside?”

“The future.”

The Daleks back away from the Genesis Ark.

“Final stage of awakening.”

“Your handprint will open the Ark.” “Well tough ‘cause I won’t.” “Obey or the male and female will die.”

I immediately move to the Ark, “I can’t let them.” “Abby, don’t.”

“Place your hand upon the casket.”

“All right!” I turn to the Ark, “You’re gonna kill us anyway, so what the hell?” I turn back to the Dalek and stand right in front of it, “If you escaped the Time War, don’t you want to know what happened?”

The Dalek starts to talk, but I interrupt, “What happened to the Emperor?” “The Emperor survived.” “‘Till he met me. Because if these are gonna be my last words, then you’re gonna listen. I met the Emperor. And I took the Time Vortex and I pulled it into his head and turned him into dust. Do you get that? The God of all Daleks… and I destroyed him.” I smile at the Dalek.

“You will be exterminated!”

“Oh now, hold on, wait a minute.” “Alert, alert, you are the Doctor.”

I smile in delight.

He saunters into the room, wearing his 3D glasses.

“Sensors report he is unarmed.” “That’s me. Always.” He says lightly.

“Then you are powerless.” “Not me.” He takes his glasses off with a flourish, “Never.” He turns to me, “How are you?”

I grin at him, “Way better now that you’re here.”

“Good! Mickity-McMickey! And Gabby the Genius! Nice to see ya!” He hugs them.

“Social interaction will cease!” “How did you survive the Time War?”

“By fighting. On the front line. I was there at the Fall of Arcadia. Someday I might even come to terms with that. But you lot ran away!”

“We had to survive.”

“The last four Daleks in existence. So what’s so special about you?”

I talk in a low voice, “Doctor, they’ve got names. And Dalek’s don’t have names, do they?” “I am Dalek Thay.” “Dalek Sek.”

“Dalek Jast.” “Dalek Caan.”

“So that’s it! At last… the Cult of Skaro. I thought you were just a legend.” He speaks in delight.

“Who are they?” I ask.

He strolls around them, “A secret order. Above and beyond the Emperor himself. Their job was to imagine. Think as the enemy thinks. Even dared to have names. All to find new ways of killing.”

Mickey gestures to the Ark, “But that thing, they said it was yours. I mean, Time Lords. They built it. What does it do?”

The Doctor glances at it, “I don’t know. Never seen it before.”

“What is it? What have you done?”

“Time Lord science will restore Dalek supremacy.”

“What does that mean? What sort of Time Lord science? What do you mean?”

“They said one touch from a time traveler will wake it up.” I tell him.

“Technology using the one thing a Dalek can’t do. Touch. Sealed inside your casing. Not feeling anything… ever… from birth to death, locked inside a cold metal cage.” He whispers, “Completely alone. And that explains your voice. No wonder you scream.”

“The Doctor will open the Ark!”

He laughs contemptuously, “The Doctor will not.”

“You have no way of resisting.” “Well… you got me there. Although… there is always this.” He takes his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket.

“A sonic probe?”

“That’s ‘screwdriver’.”

“It is harmless.” “Oh yes. Harmless is just the word. That’s why I like it. Doesn’t kill, doesn’t wound, doesn’t maim. But I’ll tell you what it does do, it is very good at opening doors.” He activates the screwdriver, and immediately, the doors explode inwards. Jake, his men, and the Cybermen leap into action, firing their guns at the Daleks.

The Doctor, Gabby, and I fling ourselves to the ground, trying to avoid the gun.

“Girls, get out!”

We make our way to the door. Mickey picks up a gun and starts firing anywhere.

The Doctor manages to reach us where we stand in the doorway, out of harm's way.

“Mickey, come on!” Everyone slips through the door before it closes, sealing both the Daleks and the Cybermen inside.

“Jake, check the stairwell. The rest of you, come on!” Mickey, Gabby, the Doctor and I run down a corridor. “I just fell, I didn’t mean it!”

“Mickey, without us, they’d have opened it by force. To do that, they’d have blown up the sun. You’ve done us a favor. Now run!”

Jackie and Rose are saved from a Cyberman by Pete. The exchange they have is sweet.

The Doctor opens the door to where the battle between the Cybermen and Daleks is taking place, peering into the lab, waiting for the right moment. He dives into the room, watched anxiously by me, wincing everytime a beam passes near him. He picks up two of the magnaclamps, using them to deflect the rays from himself. He makes back towards the door with them, dodging the beams. He trips over a Cyberman’s body.

“Come on, please.” I whisper.

He quickly gets to his feet and slips through the door to safety. I close it after him.

We open the door again and watch the Daleks open the roof.

“What’re they doing? Why’d they need to get outside?!”

“Time Lord science… What Time Lord science?” He takes his 3D glasses off, “What is it?” Dalek Sek elevates through the ceiling into the open air with the Ark.

We run back through the corridor.

“We’ve gotta see what it’s doing, we’ve gotta go back up! Come on! All of you! Top floor!” The Doctor exclaims.

“That’s forty-five floors up! Believe me, I’ve done ‘em all.” Jackie says.

Jake pops his head out of the lift, “We could always take the lift…”

We finally step out of the lift on the top floor and rush to the window, the Doctor dumping the magnaclamps down on Yvonne’s desk as he goes. As the Genesis Ark spins, Daleks shoot out of it, more and more of them. The Doctor stares in horror, “Time Lord science… it’s bigger on the inside.”

“It’s a prison ship.” I realize. “How many Daleks?” Rose asks.

“Millions.”

Pete walks away from the window, “I’m sorry, but you’ve had it. This world’s gonna crash and burn. There’s nothing we can do. We’re going home. Jacks, Rose, take these.” He tosses them the yellow buttons.

“But they’re destroying the city!” Jackie protests.

“I’d forgotten you could argue.” He loops the button around her neck himself, “It’s not just London, it’s the whole world.” He takes her face in his hands, making her look at him, “But there’s another world, just waiting for you Jacks. And it’s safe. As long as the Doctor closes the breach. Doctor?”

The Doctor turns from the window with his 3D glasses on and a big grin, “Oh, I’m ready. I’ve got the equipment right here. Thank you, Torchwood!” He dashes to a computer, “Slam it down and close off both universes.”

I frown, “But we can’t just leave. What about the Daleks? And the Cybermen…?”

The Doctor stands, “They’re part of the problem. And that makes them part of the solution. Oh yes! Well?! Isn’t anyone gonna ask? What is it with the glasses?”

I grin, “What is it with the glasses?”

“I can see! That’s what! ‘Cause we’ve got two separate worlds, but in between the two separate worlds, we've got the Void. That’s where the Daleks were hiding. And the Cyberman traveled through the Void to get here! And you lot, one world to another, via the Void! Oh, I like that. Via the Void! Look!”

He puts the glasses on my face, “I’ve been through it. Do you see?” He dodges about so I can see that he is surrounded by floating green and red particles.

“Void stuff.”

“Like background radiation!”

“That’s it. Look at the others.”

I turn to look, Jackie is the only one not surrounded by the Void stuff.

“The only one who hasn’t been through the Void, your mother. First time she’s looked normal in her life.”

I giggle.

The Doctor dashes into the clear white area, I follow after.

“The Daleks lived inside the Void. They’re bristling with it. Cybermen, all of them. I just open the Void, end of verse. The Void stuff gets sucked back inside.” “Pulling them all in!”

“Sorry… what’s… what’s the Void?” Mickey asks.

“The dead space. Some people call it ‘hell’.” Mickey loops the button around his neck, “So… you’re sending the Daleks and Cybermen to Hell.” He looks at Jake, “man, I told you he was good.”

I look at him, “But it’s… like you’ve said, we’ve all got Void stuff. Me too, ‘cause we went to that parallel world.” I flex my fingers, watching the particles float around them. I pull the glasses off, “We’re all contaminated. We’ll get pulled in.”

He stands before me, “That’s why you’ve gotta go.”

I stare at him.

“Back to Pete’s world.” He points at Pete, “Hey, we should call it that: Pete’s World.” He turns back to me, “I’m opening the Void, but only on this side. You’ll be safe on that side.”

I continue to stare at him.

Gabby speaks up, “And then you close it. For good?”

“The breach itself is soaked in Void Stuff, in the end it’ll close itself. And that’s it. Kaput.”

My eyes well up with tears, “But you stay on this side…?”

“But you’ll get pulled in.” Mickey points out.

The Doctor holds my gaze for a moment before he runs over to the magnaclamps.

I harden my face.

“That’s why… I got these. I’ll just have to hold on tight, I’ve been doing it all my life.”

I look at him, “I’m supposed to go.”

“Yeah.” “To another world, and then it gets sealed off?”

“Yeah.” He goes to another computer.

“No.” I shake my head, “I won’t.” A crash from outside shakes the building. “We haven’t got time to argue, the plans works, we go in. you too. All of us.”

“No. I’m not leaving him!” Rose looks at me, “But, I’d never see you again.”

I look at her, “You know I love you Rose, but he’s all alone. Not anymore though.” I back away from her, “He’s got me.”

I feel something loop around my neck, “What’re you…?”

Pete presses the button.

I look around, I’m in the parallel world.

I shake my head, and press the button.

The Doctor grabs me by the shoulders, stooping slightly so he can look me in the eyes, “Once the breach collapses, that’s it. You will never be able to see them again. Your family!”

My voice trembles, “I don’t wanna leave you again.”

He stares at me for a moment, before releasing his grip.

“So what can I do to help?” I hold his gaze.

He finally gives in, pointing to a computer, “Those coordinates over there, set them all at six.” I do as I’m told.

“And hurry up.” I lean over the computer, taking the button off my neck and throw it off to the side.

I look at the computer, “We've got Cybermen on the way up.” He runs over, “How many floors down?”

“Just one.”

The Doctor taps in a command on the laptop.

“Levers operational.”

The Doctor grins. “That’s more like it, bit of a smile!”

He picks up a magnaclamp and goes to me, “Hope and Glory, Mutt and Jeff, Shiver and Shake.” He hands me the magnaclamp.

We attach them to the wall next to the levers on the opposite side of the room. “Press the red button.” I do.

“When it starts, just hold on tight. Shouldn’t be too bad for us, but the Daleks and Cybermen are steeped in Void stuff. Are you ready?” We get into position by the levers.

I look out the window, “So are they.” The Daleks appear at the window.

“Let’s do it!” We push the levers upward and take hold of the magnaclamps.

The area is filled with the white light once more, but this time, there’s also the sound of a strong wind. The Daleks are sucked through the window, smashing through the glass as they are pulled into the white light and back into the Void.

We both hold onto the clamps tightly.

“The breach is open! Into the Void! Ha!”

The Doctor and I smile at each other as we are billowed by the wind. Suddenly there is a small explosion of sparks and the lever on my side moves back into the off position.

“Turn it on!”

I reach for the lever while trying to maintain my grip on the clamp, but it is just slightly too far away.

I eventually fall onto it. “I’ve gotta get it upright!” I push the lever upwards, groaning with the effort.

Once it’s upright the suction increases.

I have nothing to hold onto except the lever.

“Abby, hold on!”

The Void pulls at me.

I cry out.

He’s screaming now, “Hold on!”

I groan, my strength almost spent, the Doctor stares at me in terror, reaching out to me.

I cry out as my grip slips. I fly towards the void, but something stops me from getting sucked in.

“I’ve got you.” I hear a familiar voice whisper as the scene around me changes.

I look around at the scenery, I’m inside the tardis. I turn around to face the voice. “Rion?”

He grins at me, with tears in his eyes, “You told me about this happening. But you never said how distraught he looked when you disappeared.”

“I guess I don’t like thinking about it, even in the future.”

He looks toward the doors, “He’ll be here any moment, expecting the console room to be empty. He said you were alone when he came in, who am I to argue with the past?” He smirks, typing something into his vortex manipulator, before becoming serious, “You need to tell him that you need some time away from traveling, to heal. I know you think you’re fine, but you’re not. He’ll understand, and it’ll all work itself out.” He hugs me, “Spend some time with Juni, she misses you.” He presses a button on his vortex manipulator and disappears.

Just like he said, the doors open, I turn around. The Doctor stares at me, confused.

I smile at him, tearfully, “Hello Doctor.” He walks toward me slowly, almost like he thinks I’m not real.

I reach out and cup his face, he flinches slightly.

“You’re really here?” He asks, teary eyed.

I nod.

His hands tangle in my hair, pulling me into a passionate kiss.

I cling onto him tightly.

Leaving this shit on a cliffhanger to torture you fuckers :)

#tenth doctor x reader #doctor who x reader #autistic!reader #autistic writer #doctor who x oc #tenth doctor x oc #chrysalis story #my writing

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