hufflepuff/slytherin friendships are the best and most terrifying thing ever because i am positive that if 2 people were two take over the world it would be a slytherin and a hufflepuff
Vampires are feared everywhere, but the Balkan region has been especially haunted. Garlic has been regarded as an effective prophylactic against vampires. We wanted to explore this alleged effect experimentally. Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches instead. In strictly standardized research surroundings, the leeches were to attach themselves to either a hand smeared with garlic or to a clean hand. The garlic-smeared hand was preferred in two out of three cases (95% confidence interval 50.4% to 80.4%). When they preferred the garlic the leeches used only 14.9 seconds to attach themselves, compared with 44.9 seconds when going to the non-garlic hand (p < 0.05). The traditional belief that garlic has prophylactic properties is probably wrong. The reverse may in fact be true. This study indicates that garlic possibly attracts vampires. Therefore to avoid a Balkan-like development in Norway, restrictions on the use of garlic should be considered.
The human steps onto the station from her shuttle, and walks into the scanner. It flashes – no weapons. I pity her, though there’s nothing I can do for her. By tomorrow she will be a slave the same as me; the Gaunvans collect ambassadors like trophies.
“Hello there! Amanda Thorn, ambassador for the Empire of Humanity. You’re a Ixian, correct?”
Mimicking human body language, I nod my head. "That’s correct. Ix Malasan. It is an honor to meet you.“
She smiles, reminding me again that she has somehow modified herself to breathe atmosphere suited to the Gaunvans rather than wear a respirator like myself. Other than that she appears to be a standard human, something I am led to believe is less and less common as they pursue the bizarre compulsion humans have to alter their bodies. Changing hair color, adding pigments to their skins in patterns and pictures, growing long tails or ears that mimic other species from their planet. No other known species tampers with their bodies like this.
“Not to be undiplomatic, she says, “but the Gaunvans enslaved your people. Why are you here?”
“We… reached a mutually beneficial agreement. We would have lost in combat and been eliminated, so we chose to preserve what we could of our culture. The Gaunvans are not naturally skilled at diplomacy, so they bring me along to assist and to show that peace can be made.”
She nods. "Understood. I can respect that choice. How much freedom do you have, personally?“
Smart of her, to start planning for her future. “A fair amount. I have free reign on the ship when we are in transit. At the homeworld I have reasonably comfortable quarters.”
“Have you ever met the Empress, or…?”
“Oh, no. No, while on the homeworld I am confined to my chambers – but they’re quite spacious.”
“Shame. Okay, plan ‘A’ then. Let’s get this over with.”
Despite my attempt at encouraging diplomacy, the Gaunvan commander starts with threats. I don’t know why I bother. He looms over the human, chitinous plates almost black in the dim light. His pod of six is posted around the room, for show more than for actual security since she followed orders and came alone and unarmed. "Failure to surrender will bring the full wrath of our army upon you. Humanity will be crushed, and wiped from the universe.“
To her credit, she looks very calm. "We live in a post-scarcity society. Bloody conquest just seems silly, doesn’t it?”
“It is for the glory of Gaun!”
“Well, I’m not prepared to get into a religious debate with you,” she says, “since I doubt there’s anything I can do to change your mind. Since you’re committed to this course of action, what are you willing to offer if we surrender?”
Now he goes back on script. Maybe I am getting through to him a little? He talks about the benefits of being enslaved, mainly the protections for up to twelve designated culturally historical sites. They’ve been mostly good on their word on my homeworld, though they did use the area just outside of the Hahhn Memorial as a waste dump.
She nods as she listens. There was a part of me that was worried she would argue, because the humans are somewhat childlike. They don’t understand the horrors of war. Certainly they fought in the past, but the last time they had to battle was more than two of their generations ago, so these ones have all grown up coddled and soft. They play games with each other instead, silly competitions. They make art, and play pretend, and alter their bodies for fun. They don’t have weapons anymore, and wouldn’t know how to use them if they did.
“Well then,” ambassador Thorn says, “this is about what I expected. On behalf of humanity, I would like to formally reject this offer.”
Oh no. Foolish humans. The galaxy will miss your innocence. The commander makes an excited clicking noise, looking forward to combat. He reaches a blade-tipped hand towards ambassador Thorn, but hesitates as every device in the room bleats out an alert – we’ve all lost communications with the outside.
Like one of the dances humans do, she gracefully pivots around while taking his hand. She ends up close to him and places her other arm against his thorax, then… oh gods. Gods, what… she’s ripped his arm off. It’s not possible. The commander is clearly thinking the same thing, staring in mute shock at his dripping limb.
“I’d like to extend a counter-offer,” she says, and flips the arm around before jamming the bladed end into his neck. The warriors around the room are fidgeting, uncertain. They haven’t been told to attack, and don’t want to dishonor their commander by intervening in a fight with such a small creature. She’s still holding the commander’s severed arm in his neck, but she rotates and heaves, lifting him off the ground with it for a moment… and then his head pops off, landing squarely on the conference table. She allows the corpse to slide to the ground, and straightens her clothes as if they aren’t covered in ichor.
I don’t understand.
The warriors, now with no orders at all, finally act. She smiles as they come for her, I suppose because she has done her duty to send this powerful message of resistance. She can die in peace. Or… no… She’s killing them. She’s smiling because this is fun for her. Though they’re partly killing themselves; if there had been two of them, prepared, strategic, they might have prevailed. Watching six panicked fighters get in each other’s way while trying to stop a smaller, faster, and somehow impossibly stronger foe is almost hypnotic. At least one is killed by the stab of a friendly lance due to pure confusion. It’s over faster than I would have thought possible, severed limbs strewn across the room. I’ve got some fluids splashed across my clothing. Only one yet lives, and he is retreating. She seems to be allowing it.
She follows behind, holding a lance. The wounded and scared warrior scurries down the hallway towards his ship, looking back behind him as he goes. She’s just… walking. Calm. And for some reason I’m following. The last Gaunvan reaches the airlock and the second he enters his code she throws the lance – throws it! – and spears him.
“Come on, we’re stealing their ship.” She says it like this is the most normal thing in the world.
“There are thousands more on board! Thousands! Almost all warrior caste!”
She smiles again, and keeps walking. I see errors on the screens that we pass, messages indicating communications have been lost. They can’t tell anyone what is happening here. Even the communicators within the ship are on nodes rather than being wired, so the warriors at one end of the vessel won’t be able to coordinate with the other end. Do they even know they’ve been boarded?
“How?”
We enter the bridge after she kills a handful of other guards with ease. They’re too shocked by her presence to act in time. Once the door are sealed and she is working on the control systems she starts talking to me again.
“Well, you know, we do like to be prepared.”
“But you… you ripped his arm off.”
“Yeah, that was super satisfying.” She looks at me appraisingly. "Oh, come on. Is it really that surprising? You knew we were into changing ourselves, right? Being strong enough to pop an overgrown bug’s forelimb off isn’t rocket science.“
“Your people are so peaceful…”
“Oh, sure, most of them. But we did that, too. Tweaked ourselves over the years to decrease aggression and some of our tribalistic tendencies, increase empathy… all stuff that can be undone if needed. Though for a good cause even the nicest of us can squish a bug or two.”
“You bond with Ry’ling devourers!”
“Those are the big fuzzy guys that look like cats, yeah? Those guys are adorable! But… look, liking some things that could kill us doesn’t mean we’ll sit back and get enslaved. We didn’t put up with it well when we enslaved each other, and we certainly aren’t going to go for it now that we’re… finally… on the same page about slavery being unacceptable. It was, uh, a longer time than we like to admit before the last hold-outs were convinced of that one.”
I can feel the ship un-dock. We’re moving. "What about all the warriors on board? They’ll break through the doors eventually!“
“Not according to this control panel here. Take a look.”
It says there’s no atmosphere in the rest of the ship. Life signs are negative on all but two of the warriors, presumably the only ones that got to their suits in time. She disabled all the safety measures, somehow. She just killed… I check the life signs readout again to confirm the number… three thousand, six hundred, and fourteen soldiers. Wait, how is it tracking that unless… “Are communications back up?”
“Yeah, I’m calling some friends. The military is right around the corner, so to speak.”
“But Earth doesn’t have a standing military.”
She laughs. Not just a little bit. She’s actually doubled over for a moment, unable to catch her breath. "Sweet Jeebus, you guys actually fell for that? No standing military. Have you read about us at all?“
Three ships appear seemingly out of nowhere, and one docks with the Gaunvan vessel. Once the atmosphere is restored we head to the airlock to meet them, and I’m surprised by an entire platoon of Gaunvan warriors. Speaking English.
“Okay boys, send your last goodbyes! This is in all likelihood a one way mission. Commander Thorn! It is an honor to see you again, and might I say you look exquisite drenched in the blood of your enemies!”
She bows to him, blushing, and then salutes the Gaunvans. Or… humans? Can they change themselves this drastically?
“You’ve got two holed up in here somewhere. Bridge is clear, have the techs bring the new brain on board.”
“New brain?”
She looks at me like she’s forgotten that I’m here, and then turns back to the others. "Men, this is our new friend Ix Malasan who has just been liberated from his captivity. He’s going to be helping with our intel. Malasan, yeah, a new brain for the ship. Once this vessel is cleaned up and back in service with a new crew we’ll be able to take it over whenever we want even if all of our boys get killed. We cooked up a really sadistic AI for it.“
“But how do you know the protocols? This was your first contact with the Gaunvans, they’ve never lost a ship anywhere near here!”
“No? There wasn’t a mining colony disaster two years ago?”
“But that was just an accident… and you weren’t even involved in the war yet… and…”
The faux-Gaunvans have finished boarding. The one that was talking to them before puts a bladed claw on ambassador – commander – Thorn’s shoulder. "You coming with?“
“Naw. Orders said I could only come if they allow ambassadors near extremely high value targets. Malasan here says they don’t, so I need to wait for my next mission back on Earth.”
“It would have been nice having you with us, Thorn. Well, maybe we’ll see each other again. Suicide mission or not, I think I’ve decided to live through it.”
“Bold choice,” she says, and kisses him next to his lower mandibles.
He nods at me, then turns back to his men. “Okay everyone, we are now officially on the job. And what is that job?”
In unison, they start chanting.
“FUCK! SHIT! UP! FUCK! SHIT! UP! FUCK! SHIT! UP!”
For a moment I nearly feel pity for the Gaunvans. Nearly. Commander Thorn leads me off of the ship, and I start thinking about what useful information I can provide the ‘harmless’ humans. Fuck shit up, indeed.
I love the concept of ancient immortal beings being so completely done with life and all its bullshit that they just don’t care about anything anymore. Like, they could fuck you up a thousand times over but they’re more interested in seeing if they could drive backwards while making a margarita to care
@morgynleri – relevant to your interests, possibly?
*cackles* There are a couple immortal beings I can think of that might try that, just because.
Obi-Wan looks absolutely stunning in his designer red-synthleather tanker boots with matching belt and brand-new Jedi robes, still fresh and spotless. His hair is impeccably styled, curling just enough at the end to give the illusion of flame licking down the back of his neck. Qui-Gon takes a closer look when Obi-Wan glances away and… yes, he is definitely wearing makeup. Wearing it very, very well. His former Padawan’s contouring skills are sharper than the blade of a lightsaber.
Qui-Gon quickly looks away when Obi-Wan’s gaze flicks back toward him, and busies himself with trying to look busy. It doesn’t work half as well as he hoped – Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, causing his eyeshadow to sparkle momentarily in the light, and spoke into his communicator again.
“You’re almost here, right?” Qui-Gon can hear his current Padawan’s voice faintly. Anakin sounds like he’s laughing. “I’m… yes. No… yes. No, I mean, it isn’t awkward, what would give you that idea? I’m simply ready to start this mission. You know how I detest waiting.”
Obi-Wan looks away again, and Qui-Gon decides than and there that it’s time to act. Obi-Wan can’t truly still be angry with him. He can’t. (Qui-Gon hopes).
Swallowing, down his nerves, Qui-Gon moves away from his seat across the room and makes his way over to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan is still chatting on his new comm, none the wiser until Qui-Gon taps him lightly on the shoulder and clears his throat.
“Obi-Wan, I hate to interupt, but I want… er, I mean, need… need to ask you something.”
“Hold on a moment, Anakin.” The look Obi-Wan gives him is lethal. “Yes, Master Jinn?”
Qui-Gon smiles nervously. “Well, uh. I see you have a new communicator, and I was wondering if you’d perhaps care to exchange numbers?”
“Just like you exchanged Padawans?” Obi-Wan asks sweetly, and continues unperturbed to Qui-Gon’s shocked expression. “I don’t have a communicator.”
With that, he turns back around, and continues to talk on his communicator.
the next time someone tells me I need to be more diplomatic I’m gonna forcefully remind them that historically diplomacy has usually involved assassination, blackmail, kidnapping, betrayal, propaganda, and thinly-veiled threats of all-out war.
Was my robe this pink and fluffy yesterday morning, Mace wondered calmly, while some part of his awfully sleep-deprived brain screamed in horror. Then he shrugged and dragged it over his shoulders anyway, dismissing it as a lingering dream he’d soon wake from, and then have to drag himself through his whole morning routine all over again—this time for real.
The last three days had been entirely surreal as it was: doors sliding back and forth entirely without reason, as if startled by a puff of air; lifts traveling up and down repeatedly between floors without stopping, experimenting with rates, then dropping down to the lowest levels no one had even used in years; the bloody announcement system blaring music at 0300—music that should have died in a Hutt hole on Nar Shadda, for Force’s sake. Council meeting minutes had been committed to datapad by hand, but mission details and rosters were, more often than not, inaccessible.
The commissary food, remarkably, had been much improved. Mace absently considered decommissioning the droids altogether, then wondered if there was any way to preserve whatever particular bug had been spawned in their coding.
Coding. Right.
A few days ago, Tahl had approached the Council with a request to ‘make some changes’ to Temple security, with the assistance of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. They had argued, convincingly, that the system should have been updated years ago—several times, in fact, since Obi-Wan had first hacked it with Tahl’s help at the age of fourteen. Anakin, now twelve, had managed the same in under three hours, entirely unassisted. They also added that if the Council did not allow them to make changes, they’d go ahead and do it anyway, since obviously nothing was stopping them. Eventually they—begrudgingly—owned up to the fact that Anakin’s exploits had not gone unnoticed, and in fact Master Jocasta Nu was out for blood since half of the Archives had apparently winked out of existence (not erased, just temporarily inaccessible, gods only knew why).
The Council had been persuaded by the argument, and assigned a Master-Padawan pair of Shadows to ‘assist’ (to oversee, and possibly control the potentially destructive trio, to mitigate disaster).
The Council really should have considered the character of the Shadows in question; as it turned out, the two could give Tholmé’s entire lineage a run for their money.
No one had heard from all five of them in the last three days—no surprise there, as some had had about as favourable a reaction to the various malfunctions as Jocasta Nu herself. Mace also privately suspected that the Padawans and Initiates had taken advantage of the chaos to unleash a truly wild array of various pranks.
Mace was beginning to think this morning dream was getting a bit too long. He hadn’t run across anyone yet, but no one seemed to notice the robe, or just gave it an arch glance in passing and said nothing. Honestly everything was too blasted normal.
Finally he turned the corner to the residence hall that currently housed the Kenobi-Jinn lineage. Qui-Gon, it appeared, was just stepping out of his quarters as Mace approached, and looked up with some apprehension at the sense of an approaching Council member. Mace was just thinking he ought to find time to pay the man more casual visits when he saw Qui-Gon’s diplomatic mask slam down tightly over his features. Some mischief was surely afoot, then.
“Morning, Qui-Gon,” Mace called. “I’ve been looking for your Padawan and Knight-partner, and one rather tall wily Noorian, is there any chance you might have seen them?”
Qui-Gon coughed lightly. “Mace, what are you wearing?”
Mace stopped, then carefully dared to look down.
Robe. Hot—practically neon—pink. Fluffy.
Alright, so he was awake, then. Finally, someone showed a reasonable reaction.
“Actually, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to them about,” Mace said, a little too casually. “The laundry looked a bit bright this morning. I wanted to know if the laundry droids had lost their collective sanity, or if Skywalker had somehow managed to release hallucinogens into the water.”
Qui-Gon nodded, like this was the most normal thing he’d heard all year. “Definitely the laundry.”
“That brings me to the second question,” Mace said, looking up again, managing to sound almost plaintive: “why couldn’t it have been purple?”
crack fic? have a crack fic. blame @obaewankenope for crack fic.
And I don’t mean like attractive cute, I mean like baby otter cute. What if the stumble upon us and go “ohhhhh my god!!! Oh my god!!!! I’m dying this is- look at it! Look at them!!! Oh my god!!!”
We usually imagine having to come up with some Devils trade or unholy arrangement to get tech and trade with aliens, but the instant they see us the aliens immediately set out into conservation efforts. They’re like “their habitat is becoming harsh and unlivable for them! We have to save them!” And everyone just puts a picture of us next to this information and they all agree “Look at them! We have to save them!!” We become like the panda mascots of intergalactic conservation efforts.
Simultaneously, our main export is just streams, videos, holograms, and photos of us. Aliens lose their composure completely over videos of us sneezing or yawning or eating pop tarts or playing video games or taking care of our kids.
There are lines of aliens who would LOVE to have a human in their home or on their ship. It’s a little condescending (we’re not sure if we’re guests or well treated exotic pets) but still a good opportunity, and any human who wants can go to space at any time basically for free or even for profit, and the aliens will go out of their way to give you anything you ask for.
There are obvious downsides. We struggle to be taken seriously. While it’s usually shut down pretty quickly, every once in a while some alien group sees the demand for us and tries to start an illegal trade. But at the same time, it’s neat that somewhere out there is an alien (or usually a LOT of aliens) that would love you unconditionally, find every flaw and idiosyncrasy endearing, be worried about you and do anything they could to make you safe and happy. They work hard to make our planet and our personal lives better and don’t ask for anything in return. They just do it because they decided we are important and worth saving just for existing. It’s an odd relationship, and we’re not always sure what to make of it, but honestly it goes a lot better than we worried alien contact would.
I’m down to be a spoiled pampered alien pet.
It would be a lot easier to get “fixed.”
We’re all a bit confused by the cute human memes, which are usually just pictures of some random human with a phrase in alien cuneiform next to it, but which many of the aliens think are hysterical. Photos of the Lincoln Memorial are particularly popular for this for some reason, and it’s a little unsettling to see the alien spaceships with pictures of Lincoln plastered across their forcefields, saying “g+gnor’gax!” and the humor just doesn’t translate at all.
I mean, it’s not bad, exactly. Just…odd. And fortunately alien music is mostly outside our hearing range, so the sad commercials with the interstellar equivalent of Sarah McLachlan broadcasting over them, explaining how the humans are suffering at this time of rotation just look like a rather puzzling montage of normal people. It’s just the aliens get so sad when they see it and their temporal glands leak and it’s…well, a little messy.
I love the idea that we are SIMULTANEOUSLY batshit-bonkers space orcs and the alien equivalent of Red Pandas or kittens.
Like, “Oh they’re adorable!” “Yes, but for the love of zornax, don’t let one bite you! My pod-cousin lost a hand that way!” “Do you think they evolved this way to surivive the terrifying fauna on their world?” “I saw a holovid of one riding one of the so-called “moose” one time!”
#wait #we’re big cats #giant murder cuteness
Oh my god that’s exactly it! 😀
But imagine that last bit as two different groups. Okay, so to one species of alien we’re adorable, right? And to another we’re orcs. Imagine the conflict of those two cultures. Team Orc is talking to Team Cuddles about how useful we are on dangerous field missions and Team Cuddles LOSES THEIR SHIT.
“You sent my cuddle-fwumpkin WHERE?!? to do WHAT!?!”
“They’re uniquely qualified to explore dangerous territories that are uninhabitable to most lifeforms … ”
“I don’t caaaaaare! Hfjfjfj HD bf!!!”
Like, foreign policy issued specifically for the proper utilization of human laborers. How would human cultures engage differently in these circumstances? Like, in the US would people look down on the humans that hang out with Team Cuddles as looking for alien handouts? Would they be blamed when Team Orc humans don’t get taken seriously on expeditions?
Like, there’s so muuuuuch more to explore here.
What about this?
Human: *Exists.*
Alien: Awww.
Human: Hold my space beer.
Alien: What?
Human: I am going to ramp this speeder bike over the main solar array.
Alien: What?
Human: *Ramps their speeder bike over the main solar array.
Alien: What?
Human: *Colonizes five “uninhabitable” worlds.*
Alien: What?
Human: *Uses stolen warp drives to turn a star into a torus.*
Alien: What?
Sargent Stabby: *Stabs the alien.*
Alien: *Has to have limb amputated.*
I’m for the idea that we are both adorable and fucking terrifying to aliens like
Essentially giant genius cats
“Sure she’s adorable NOW, but did you SEE her take out 10 Ar’loan guards singlehandedly in last night’s dangerous expedition?”
“Humans are very valuable assets to war, and it is important that even though they are adorable, they are sentient beings with their own wills. And they WILL destroy you if you do not treat them well. So if you find a human willing to be yours, you’d better treat them well. Last time a human was mistreated, the caretaker’s body was found crushed into a compacted trash cube. So I repeat, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TREAT YOUR HUMANS WELL- Or else. ”
In the intergalactic laws, there is no legal consequence for mistreating a human.
Instead, the laws merely state that the mistreated human will not be held responsible for their actions.
This is considered more than sufficient deterrence, and indeed, quite possibly a little too harsh.
A very long time ago, @dendral and I were talking about how the Republic needed a Tony Stark working for them – some tech genius who was a billionaire and was willing to create innovative weapons and armor for the good guys. Because the Separatists seemed to always have the better toys.
And then I thought, why have a Tony Stark when you could have actual Tony Stark?
And I just rewatched the first Avengers movie so why have just Tony Stark when you can have all of the Avengers?
So I propose to you all: A Star Wars x Avengers cross-over, set during the Clone Wars and sometime after the first Avengers movie.
Say the Bifrost bridge had been repaired and the Avengers had traveled to Asgard for something (maybe to be present for Loki’s trial, I don’t know) and on their way back to Earth, something happens and they end up in the Star Wars universe instead, possibly in the middle of a battle.
I don’t have a particular plot for this but consider what you can have in a crossover here:
Tony adopting ALL the droids
Tony salivating over the starships
All the clones wanting a flying suit like Tony’s – the maneuverability! The tiny but really powerful missiles! The ability to assemble itself and even come to you when you need it
JARVIS hacking into the Separatist droid control ships and seizing control of the droids to make them stand down
Tony building shields into the clone landing ships because wtf, you’re all just packing into these things like sardines in a tin can and hoping for the best while you drop through atmo straight into weapons fire?
Thor being the only one who can understand anyone in the SW universe because of Allspeak…until Tony builds in-ear translators and JARVIS works with C3PO to create a dictionary
Hulk running rampant through the droid army
The Jedi and the clones gaping at Hulk rampaging through the droid army and not knowing what to do (”Should we just leave him to it then?” “He does seem to be having fun.”)
The Avengers seeing Mace and being all WTF, WHAT’S NICK FURY DOING HERE??? only to find out that it’s Mace (who’s a little calmer than Fury but has a laser sword instead and seriously, what’s going on, why does Fury have a trans-dimensional twin? Does Fury know about this?)
Clint hanging out with the clones (that’s all, I just want him hanging out with them, sharing drinks and stories, getting into games about marksmanship)
The clones asking Clint why tf he’s using a bow and arrow and not something more high-tech
Clint using EMP arrows and explosive arrows (”oh, so that’s where the technology comes into play”) against the droids and tanks, jumping off of buildings, and doing his usual crazy reckless stuff
Jedi asking Clint if he’s Force sensitive and him being like, no, I’ve just got really good eyesight and I was raised in a circus
“He’s also a trouble magnet,” Natasha says.
“Let me introduce you to Obi-Wan, then.”
Natasha infiltrating the Senate and figuring out that something is really wrong with the Chancellor
Dooku trying to electrocute Thor with Sith lightning, only to find out that Thor’s the god of thunder and lightning does nothing to him
Dooku getting hit with lightning himself
Dooku getting pinned down by Mjolnir
Hulk picking up Sidious and slamming him down against the floor like what he did with Loki
There's a Mirror on the Wall 