a story is true - a story is untrue

Lux ☆ she/her ☆ aromantic bisexual ☆ Black Sails, DC Comics, other fandoms sometimes ☆ icon by flintsjohn, header by sailorsally

[missus-andrist]

Rhaenicent based off that one pic

[cherryri]

[catfoodforcat]

love the spaceship tango scene a bit too much.. (the entire rough was 17s but i only managed to clean up this much)

[goldenaltar]

concept: no astrophage au where eridians and humans still make first contact but like, properly. a whole diplomatic mission meeting in the middle of space to save travel time. stratt is humanity's greatest representation. the eridian equivalent is equally as scary and secretly soft. it's all very star trek.

but rocky and grace put the whole diplomacy thing in jeopardy by being too best buddy with it. like they're both really low level members of the mission. some engineer necessary for ship maintenance, and an obligatory molecular biologist they brought along in case they found more alien cells out in space. and these two guys like, somehow keep ending up hanging out essentially "at the back of the classroom." consistently left out of the actually important negotiations, and well, they're bored!

grace steals some laptops and starts jury-rigging his own personal translator for rocky, despite the fact that the official translation software is way quicker to learn and much more nuanced. rocky starts learning english, simplifies his eridian, and immediately starts mocking grace for needing the software. they start blabbing to each other about all the weird quirks of their respective cultures and advanced science their planets can do. the whole time they are ribbing each other about culture stuff. grace eats in front of rocky. rocky forces grace to sleep in a corridor somewhere so he can keep watch.

then stratt and the eridian leader find out and it's like

stratt: you. you've been meeting in private with a member of the eridian deligation?

grace: ... yyyes.

stratt: and you shared with them classified scientific documents?

grace: i... maybe gave him. a laptop. he's so smart! what was i supposed to do?

stratt: HIM? you've assigned male pronouns to a genderless species?

grace: he said he likes to match!

stratt: do you even know the name of this eridian?!

grace: i call him rocky :)

stratt: 😰

then on rocky's side of things it's like

eridian leader: sorry did you say you called the human after one of its digestive noises?

rocky: yeah :)

eridian leader: and. you've been telling it about how to make xenonite. one of our most vital trading resources.

rocky: yes yes, grace is very ignorant about basic chemistry 🙄

eridian leader: right. and you watch it sleep. despite the fact that all the human beings we have spoken to have described this as a cultural violation?

rocky: well he didn't like it at first but he came around!!

anyway both sides of the delegation are sweating profusely (metaphorically speaking) until they see rocky and grace in action and are like ohh! they're both freaks. we are not to blame for this. these two are just really bad at navigating cultural norms.

cut to grace curled up with rocky while he sleeps like a baby.

[cybermanes]

Not now kitten daddy’s building a wildly incriminating digital footprint

[thatdassie-evil]

divorce selfie

[dogfennel]

sleep sleep sleep

[cowardsexual]

not to sound like "why is there slop in my hetslop" but I'm never not going to be baffled by the sheer amount of baby fics in the strattland ao3 tag. "ryland comes back to earth and *gasp* eva had his child!" you cannot convince me that woman didn't immediately get her tubes tied. girl the famine

[cowardsexual]

if eva stratt gets pregnant she is aborting that thang and adding it to the pile of reasons why she's going to hell

[manyblinkinglights]

#yet another way she's allegorically murdering him second hand. you get it

[ziyuanyuan1113]

Alicent advising Rhaenyra, ngl I have a lot of gripes with how many extreme changes they've made to the source material but I still love their relationship so...

Twitter

Bsky

[stillarriving]

so grateful to this movie for inspiring me to draw again :)

[sharkfiinn]

this isso dumb

[deervsheadlights]

shitty fanfic by the one and true rocky would be a hoot. rocky gets really into star wars or mass effect and makes his damsel in distress humansona have relations with a hunky [insert species of exoskeleton-having bug people] and when grace finds out hes like well okay buddy you have fun im not going to examine that.

[deervsheadlights]

ive come to the conclusion that the bug person in question would be a turian (mass effect) because they are in possession of a metallic exoskeleton that protects them from radiation :)

also they appear to have avian traits, including gizzards. you know. like they swallow rocks to help with digestion.

[moltengoldveins]

Warning: A little bit of titty

[stillarriving]

if i were to lose you

maybe i’d lose myself too

[goatgirleyes]

"Is it normal to ... ?" No. Nothing in the world is normal. Normal things don't exist. Existence itself is deviance. Let this false world die by your sword. Kill everyone.

[deervsheadlights]

LMAOOO somebody please draw rocky riding a horse. the mental image alone is sending me. he has a whole fifth limb, he can rope twice as many cattle taumoeba. i need him in a cowboy hat and tassels and spurs

[sunglasseshorse]

this post struck me with Divine Horse Girl Inspiration. More Western AU ramblings under the cut

Ok, here’s my pitch - Grace is a disgraced ex-eventing champion who got into a massive fight with a fellow rider on live tv. Now he works with Rocky on the ranch wrangling taumoeba LOL. It took him a bit to adjust to riding Western but he learned fast!

Rocky is still an alien in this AU and it is not addressed or explained at all. Also I think Grace kept his personal horse from his eventing days so he maybe rides a Thoroughbred or Arabian or something. Open to ideas!

[deervsheadlights]

my own horsegirlboy heart just grew three sizes... this is so beautiful and silly i love your mind.

yes-anding the AU under the cut:

maybe stratt owns the stable he boards his horse at and breeds some thoroughbreds with fancy pedrigees on the side. and obviously she sees all of this going down on tv. and when grace gets the news he is (at least temporarily) suspended from all USEF events and his trainer quit he cries in an empty stall and she walks up to him and tells him she doesnt respect him but she likes him and he should just let this blow over and take a break.

cue grace: i didnt even do anything! the old guard just cant handle hearing the truth (which is that their techniques are outdated and borderline abusive)!

stratt: you called your competitor a 'staggering waste of manure' and repeatedly made false doping allegations.

grace: okay. uh. yeah. but that doesnt make the other stuff any less true!

stratt: respectfully, grace, i think you could do with a break. i have an acquaintance who is looking for some help with his stock, it might do you some good to go down south for a while...

grace: uh, thanks but. im good. i dont need charity.

(some more back and forth)

stratt: im not trying to talk you into anything. im trying to make you understand that you will need to take this offer because i need more space in the stable for my own operations. i can arrange transport for you and hail mary.

(betrayal)

(carl, the head stable manager, while loading mary into the trailer: youre gonna do great.)

cue grace getting to rockys ranch. stratt neglected to mention hes an eridian and there arent exactly a lot of them in the business so grace is definitely in for a surprise. and having a difficult time adjusting and generally feeling dejected and forlorn but being tragically charmed by rockys cowboy ways. rocky takes none of his self-pitying shit and makes him work for his bed & board but after some initial tension they start getting along and the bickering is more amicable than not.

fast forward it turns out they like each other very much so grace stays at the ranch and ends up giving riding lessons to kids <3

[dracadraca]