Thought about “Humans are space orcs/space fae”. There was a line talking about how theres a human working on a ship but no-ones entirely sure if they’re meant to be there, but they didn’t want to like offend the terrifying space orc.
What if the “drifter” archetype continues into space? Like maybe we negotiated for free travel with one of our allies, but because humans come from a death world and are terrfiying, and because humans can be oblivious, we just assume we can board on any ship going anywhere, nbd?
like not as stowaways. we’re not hiding. Like those wolves and wild dogs in russia that use the railways. Are YOU going to tell a wolf they shouldn’t be riding the train?!? Thought not.
Captain Diii did not become aware of the… problem until her ship was a full half-cycle out from the resupply station. She was halfway through a standard sweep of the ship, to be sure it was all in good order, when she came across a sort of cocoon constructed of light, sturdy fabric strung up in the end of service corridor alpha. It was not blocking access to anything of even minor importance, it simply was not meant to be there. It had no use she could discern, but it had no place aboard Captain Diii’s ship.
“What is the purpose of this?” Captain Diii asked the young technician assigned to the sector.
Their mood-spots cycled to anxiety-orange as their feet shuffled in discomfort. “The human called it her ‘hammock’ and said it would be out of the way there?”
A human. On Captain Diii’s ship. Her spots flashed from fear to anger to consternation and settled on worry. This had never before happened to her. She’d only been captain for two annuals, and she operated so far from any of the major travel hubs she had hoped she would not have to deal with this.
The problem had started after the war. The terrifying human ‘marines’ had been key to repelling the Kkoin invaders, with their wild recklessness and near-indestructibility. They had put an end to the war very quickly, and the terms of alliance in exchange for this service had been seen as extremely generous. They asked for transportation, mainly, since human FTL drives still lagged behind galactic standard. It had been assumed that by this they meant transporting goods and perhaps colonists by arrangement, but the wording had been ambiguous in translation.
That did happen, but in addition humans would simply… step onto ships going where they wanted to go. And stay. Who would dare contradict a human? Any one of them could turn deadly at a moment’s notice. Their hardiness and ferocity was legend. As of yet, no way of repelling them had been 100% effective. Their comfort range was massive, so keeping a ship hot or cold did not help. Scents designed to be maximally unpleasant to the human sensory array dissuaded some, but others would simply laugh and joke about them as they boarded anyway. It seemed they could acclimate to even the most noxious of scents within a few cycles.
Some humans would uproot their entire families and head for another planet, seemingly on a whim. Other humans would then go visit these families, and go back home, or not. Some humans traveled from planet to planet and station to station to satisfy their near-endless curiosity. Some traveled because to travel and see new things gave them pleasure, and then returned to their homes seemingly refreshed.
Such a strange species.
Captain Diii had been certain she had assigned someone to guard the ship and tell any hopeful humans that there was no space for them if they tried to board. Captain Diii did not have any facilities for humans aboard her ship. She hurried to the nearest communication pod and signaled for her second in command, Taa, to join her.
Taa already had anxiety flashing on her mood spots when she arrived.
“Taa, were you not assigned to inform humans that there was no space?” Captain Diii asked.
“I did, Captain!” Taa protested. “But she answered that she did not need much and walked right past me! What could I do?”
“And where is she now?” Diii asked.
“The kitchens. She… she said she wanted to be added to the duty roster, and that she enjoyed food preparation?”
That was another thing about the humans. They almost all wanted to work on the ships they boarded. Often they threw duty schedules into disarray by simply volunteering themselves to do tasks. At least this one seemed to know to ask the officer in charge of duties.
Diii found the human in the kitchens, as expected. She was very tall and thin for her type, of the morph ‘all bones’, if Diii was remembering the mandatory human-culture lessons that had been recently been added to ships-captain certification classes. She seemed to lack the jiggling bits that were so disconcerting on some humans. She did not reek of artificial fragrances as some humans did, instead scented pleasantly of human natural musk. Her head-covering stands, ‘hair’, was a friendly violet. Diii was certain this was not a natural coloration for the species. Her loose cloth coverings were earthy browns and creams, reminiscent of a child’s camouflage.
The human turned to look at Captain Diii, and showed her white-bone teeth in the body language ‘smile’, a gesture of friendliness and pleasure. Now that she was turned, Diii could see that half of the human’s head was shaved, and an array of electronics were installed directly in her skull. It was testament to their extraordinary healing powers that augmenting themselves with inorganic parts was commonplace in human culture. The humans had the technology to make their implants invisible, but some chose to make them visible because it looked ‘bad posterior’, which was somehow a good thing and aesthetically pleasing to them?
The human’s implants lit up, showing the exact blue of happiness, as she straightened up to give the human ‘salute’–a greeting to a superior. “Captain Diii? It’s good to meet you. I’m Elizabeth, but you can call me Zizi.”
Captain Diii could not help but be somewhat charmed. She must have the latest language-translation chip, Zizi’s speech was near perfect, and that she had something that functioned nearly like mood-spots was comforting. Her chosen name, as well, was easy to pronounce and nonthreateningly low-status.
“A greeting, Zizi,” Captain Diii answered carefully. “May I inquire your purpose aboard my ship?”
“Oh, I’m just a drifter,” Zizi said. “I just love traveling, you know? I heard the moons of Sigma7 were gorgeous, so I’m working my way that-a-ways.” Zizi’s pseudo-mood spot lights switched to anticipation before cycling back to happiness. “I’ll be off your ship at the next supply depot, if I can find someone heading more that direction.”
Ah, the ‘drifter’ type. Captain Diii had heard of them. ‘ship-hoppers’. An entire sub-class of humans who wandered the galaxy simply because they did not want to do anything else. They were famously the most difficult to dissuade from boarding a ship, and most likely to board from strange ports and going strange directions. Clearly it was not Taa’s fault she had been unable to keep Zizi out, and Diii signaled brief apology toward her.
“I won’t be any trouble,” Zizi continued. “I can set my hammock up anywhere to sleep, if it’s in your way?”
“The location you have chosen is… acceptable,” Captain Diii allowed. Zizi’s hair’s constant show of friendly had her own spots heading toward that color in automatic prosocial response. It was somewhat disconcerting. “I will leave you to your work,” Captain Diii said, retreating, and Zizi smiled and threw another quick salute before turning back to the food on the stove. Her implants showed concentration and curiosity, and then Captain Diii was outside the room with her again.
She turned toward Taa, who was still concerned. “I have heard that ships with a human listed on their crew roster have a 30% lower chance of being targeted by pirates?” Taa volunteered.
“Yes, yes,” Captain Diii mused. The risk was very low to begin with, especially for a ship like hers that did not haul valuable cargo, but anything that lowered it further could not be all bad. “It is not your fault in any case, Taa. Nothing could have prevented this human from boarding.”
Taa relaxed some, and Captain Diii returned to her inspection of the ship. Then she went to the helm and transmitted her updated crew roster to the main control base, encrypted only very lightly.
It certainly would not be bad to be known to have a human aboard.
(via aethersea)
amusewithaview asked: DRAGON AGE MR. AND MRS. SMITH AU OMG WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT. I mean, my brain immediately goes to Leliana/Zevran, which, no, because I broship them. BUT CAN YOU IMAGINE ROGUE!PURPLE!HAWKE/ZEVRAN Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU??? Where Zevran and Hawke meet during Hawke's first year in Kirkwall as a mercenary/smuggler and then they have this awkward long-distance courtship and and... omg IDEK, this amuses me so much though.
LISTEN YOU COULD DO THIS WITH SO MANY THINGS.
DRAGON AGE ORIGINS: IDK HOW I’D SWING IT BUT LELIANA/WARDEN? FUCK YEAH
DAII: HAWKE/ZEVRAN HELL YES
SHIT MAN LIKE HALF THE CHARACTERS IN INQUISITION ARE CANONICALLY AT LEAST SORT OF SPIES (Leliana, Bull, Varric, maybe Dorian depending on which hairs you wanted to split, and that’s just who i can think of at midnight after a glass of wine) LET’S GO PEOPLE
DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THIS, I READ A SPY AU OF FUCKING LES MIS LAST MONTH AND THE ONLY THING THAT OCCURRED TO ME AT THE END OF A (frankly fantastic) FIC WAS “GOSH THIS WOULD BE EVEN BETTER IF IT WAS A MR & MR SMITH AU”
IF YOU’RE GOING TO WRITE A SPY AU ANYWAY WTF WHY WOULDN’T YOU
OR IF SOMETHING IS CANONICALLY A SPY THING WHY WOULDN’T YOU WRITE THIS FIC
BASICALLY WHERE IS MY MAN FROM UNCLE MR & MR SOLO AU
*throws gun-shaped confetti*
MAKE IT ALL SPY ROMCOMS, FOLKS
[video]
amusewithaview asked: LINK ME PLEASE
I’m publishing this publicly because I feel like everyone deserves to know that there is a Mr. & Mrs. Smith AU of Clint and Natasha and IT IS GLORIOUS.
Anyway everyone should read it and also??? Why is there not a Mr & Mrs (or Mr & Mr/Mrs & Mrs/etc as applicable) Smith AU of every ship???? I’m disappointed in you, fandom.
me (cleaning up): holds knife
intrusive thoughts: what if-
me: ok edgelord we get it what if i slit my wrists right now can we please just focus
Additionally;
me: *waiting for the subway*
intrusive thoughts: what if you jumped
me: it would cause a four hour delay while they pick your body parts out of the rails you fucking prick, can we please for once get on public transit without going through thisAlso;
Me: *walking along a busy road*
intrusive thoughts: What if you just fell over in front of this truck?
Me: It would back up traffic all fucking night and probably hurt a lot of people you prick.Gosh. I never have thoughts like this
didnt ask but that sounds nice
Me: *walking down the stairs*
Intrusive Thought: I could throw myself down these flight of stairs and leave more time for everyone else!
Me: Or you end up with a broken wrist and sprain ankle you dickhead keep walkingMe: *driving on a bridge*
Intrusive thoughts: I could just drive straight into that lake and finish it right now.
Me: You asshole, this is a new car. Just fucking keep going like everyone else you prick.oh my god,^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I needed this
Me: *standing at a lookout* It’s so beautiful here…
Intrusive thoughts: yeah, look at that view, you could just step out into it and you’d probably never feel the impact when you hit the ground 20m below…
Me: Bitch, don’t ruin the view for everyone else. Fucksake.
Me: *doing literally nothing*
Intrusive thoughts: What if-
Me: Can’t you just shut the fuck up and chill for once? God damn
me:*sitting in a car,staring out the window*
intrusive thoughts: you know we could so easily open the car door and jump out
me:that would cause a traffic accident buddy,lets just keep looking at shit
me: *driving behind a semi*
intrusive thoughts: if we slammed the foot on the gas-
me: this isn’t even our car, dumbass, it’s Tony’s
(via littlestartopaz)
In case anyone wants to suffer about Clan Lavellan, I wrote a chapter for that.
Ever since the last Jedi trailer came out, I’ve been trying to think of Deep Good Meta to contribute to the Star Wars fandom but literally all I’ve got is:
Rey standing out in the rain. Luke asks her what she’s thinking. Rey closes her eyes. “I am going to have sex with my boyfriend in the rain,” she announces.
“Oh,” says Luke, who was maybe expecting something about feeling the flow of the Force, but he’s adaptable. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”
“I’m going to go ask Finn to be my boyfriend and then we are going to have sex in the rain.”
Luke nods. “A sound plan.”
Personality wise, Rey has perhaps one of the firmest chins he has ever seen, second only to his sister which is a thought Luke promptly pivots away with a Jedi master’s aptitude for resolutely not thinking about things and calling it meditation.
Rey raises her firm chin yet higher. “We’re going to do all the sex things in the rain.”
“I’m very happy for you,” Luke says with complete honesty. He’s happy for Finn as well, if a little concerned he should give the boy a head’s up. Rey grins at him. Luke doesn’t grin back but mostly because he’s still trying to be stern as a teaching technique so he doesn’t get attached.
He’s aware, by the way, that he’s failing.
Pushing that thought aside (he’s very good at that these days–it’s a very quiet island, it doesn’t offer much options for hobbies besides ignoring thoughts and brooding on them and occasionally fishing), Luke asks, “You do know what you need to know?”
“What, like how to do it?” Rey asks. She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. Of course. Sort of. I’ve done it before, loads of times.” There’s a very thoughtful pause. “There weren’t many humans in Jakku,” she says, a little worry slipping into her voice. She furrows her brow. “But I figure humans, you know, other humans–it’s basically the same but with only the four limbs. Less slime. And no scales?” Luke gets the impression she didn’t mean that last part to be a question.
And because she’s a student, a young student, his only young student and fellow human on this island whose population has suddenly skyrocketed to four, he does not say what he’d say to a friend and peer, which is, “honey you can’t make assumptions like that, you would not BELIEVE what people with dicks have done to modify them.” Instead, because he’s a mature teacher who is frantically relearning how to be that to the hungriest student he has ever met, Luke says, “I can’t vouch for Finn’s situation. But I’m sure you’ll have a very good time.” After Luke discreetly passes her a few anatomical drawings, just to be on the safe side.
(via aethersea)
Anonymous asked: Okay so I see that Immortal Diana and Continuously Reincarnated Steve post you reblogged but if that were the case, she would have to watch him die every time.
*steeples my fingers and looks at you seriously*
Dearest darling heart, I think you have sorely mistaken my interest in this AU.
I live for the narrative of the immortal godlike being and the ongoing eternal tragedy of the deaths of their reincarnated beloved. Like, yes, I want a lot of really cute scenes of Diana curled up in bed with a dozen different incarnations of Steve. But what I really want is for her to find him in war after war (she doesn’t know if he’s drawn to her–she fights like breathing, she can’t give it up any more than she can cut her heart out of her chest–or if he’s drawn to the fight–he tried doing nothing, she remembers him telling her that) and sit at different veteran’s gravestones in each generation and fucking ache for him.
Like, yes, this is terrible. I am interested in the terribleness. I am interested in Diana who sees a golden head among the civilians as she bursts in to save Clark and Bruce’s asses–a man dressed in plain clothing who’s trying to hurry other away in front of him–and feels her heart stutter and decides that this, this will be the time they live happily together.
It’s an honest decision, at the moment she makes it. It always is, the first time she sees him.
[video]
I know it’s illegal but whenever I get antibiotics from the doctor I save a few and give them to friends or coworkers who don’t have insurance so that when cold season comes they might be able to shorten their illness
That is not good- that’s not quite how antibiotics work.
Antibiotics kill some bacteria, but don’t manage to kill other bacteria. Just like when you get a particular sickness (or a vaccination), your body can protect you from future infections, any bacteria that came into contact with the antibiotic is protected from future doses of that antibiotic. Bacteria are very virulent breeders, so they spawn more resistant bacteria.
If you take the full dose of antibiotics, your natural antibodies can deal with the cells that are resistant while the medicine kills off the bacteria that isn’t resistant. If you don’t take the full course of antibiotics, then your body has to deal with both the resistant and the non-resistant strains of bacteria, and it can become overwhelming. Also, most bacteria are able to pass on genes between still-living cells, so that previously non-resistant strains become resistant, and you have inadvertently cultivated a stronger strain of bacteria.
Furthermore, colds and the flu are viral infections, so antibiotics don’t work against them anyway. The best protection against viral infections are vaccinations, as there are not many viruses that we have developed anti-viral medication against, once you already have the disease. If there are anti-viral medications, it is even more important that you take the full dose of the medication, because anti-viral medication is even harsher against the body than antibacterial medication is.
Spread this around; antibiotics are not candy
To put it shortly: antibiotics don’t do shit for the cold. You need to take the entire bottle that is prescribed to you. People not doing that is how antibiotic resistant infections crop up. People like OP are literally why diseases like MRSA exist.
OP shouldn’t feel bad about good intentions but this is really dangerous. There’s also the risk that your friends are allergic to the specific type of antibiotics you give them.
things that a better-off person can do for their sick less-well-off friends that don’t involve breeding superbacteria through misue of antibiotics:
- Buy them cold medicine
- Buy them cough drops
- Buy them fancy tissues with lotion
- Make them too much soup to eat in one go and freeze half for later
- Find them a low-cost clinic and accompany them there
- Tell them you are giving them their day’s wages and they are staying home Friday/Monday and then do.
- Go to their house. Wash the dishes, take out the garbage, walk the dog, scoop the cat or just plain change the whole litter box, clean the bathtub and mom voice them until they take a hot shower or steam their head.
- if they have asthma or bronchitis and are out of inhaler but you have a half-full one, that is a thing you can sanitize and share.
- ditto palliative prescription medication like “I have half a bottle of lidocaine gargle, you want it?” “I am bringing you the rest of my Robitussin with codeine” “here harvest some ibuprofen from my giant bottle of 1,000 ibuprofen”
I feel like some of this should have been covered in high school health class. It would do a lot to combat misuse of antibiotics. Superbacteria is really dangerous for everyone but is particularly bad for people with multiple antibiotic allergies and will lead to hospital stays for IV antibiotics of kinds they can take.
It’s really, really important to know how antibiotics work. I taught university students in an intro biology lab for two years and one of the things I really tried to emphasize was how antibiotics and antibiotic resistance works. To stress the importance I asked some variant of “how do antibiotics work” on three weekly quizzes in a row and I was still getting wrong answers at the end! Though, far fewer, thankfully.
Also, I would recommend against antibiotic soaps and whatnot, for similar reasons. Use alcohol or hand sanitizer if you want to kill bacteria. I can’t imagine there’s any bacterium in existence that’s still vulnerable to the antibiotics in those products, but just in case!
But, btw, I would like to point out that the VAST majority of antibiotic misuse is agricultural, when large factory farms pre-medicate their cattle with large and constant doses of antibiotics. The USA is particularly guilty of this, especially as it allows big ag companies to keep animals in much more crowded and unhealthy conditions than they could get away with otherwise.
Never use antibiotics for a simple cold. To much use of antibiotic can lead to the creation of resistant bacteria, and you really don’t want that when you have more serious infection.
This is the stuff they should be teaching in science classes as well as health class… Not (just) condoms the periodic table…
Um. Please make sure you and your friend have the same concentration and type of inhaler medicine before loaning one to a friend. That’s incredibly dangerous because if it’s not the same kind you could literally poison them or trigger an asthma attack. Please don’t. It’s arguably more dangerous than not taking all the antibiotics because it is powerful medication that should not be taken lightly like have you seen the giant side effect warning packet?
(via patroclvss)