The Simpsons & Futurama Fanworks Central

Earlier this year I read a 1969 Robert Silverberg story called "Passengers," which involved parasitic alien possession. Although a great story, we never got to find out anything about the aliens themselves. I wanted to see what the PE crew would do if faced with an encounter like this. The wonderful part of my story was seeing personalities evolve for the alien invaders. Even though this was a fun story to write (it was a blast), it was also a great challenge. I re-read it quite a few times, just trying to make sure that it could be easily understood.
The title came from the concept that the alien would force us out of the "driver's seat," and into the "passenger seat" so that it could drive. Unlike the Silverberg story where the human host had no memory of the events of the possession, here the human knows what's going on and can't stop it - they're just along for the ride. Leela, it seems, has a mutant brain built a bit differently and can still communicate with her "driver." This was a difficult story and I hope I've written it well enough for everyone to get their funnybone tickled by it. Enjoy!

Rated PG with mild language and very mild adult situations

Typoes: "spoilsport" should be one word; "you're commander" should be "your"; "ladies and gentleman" obviously needs changing (unless there's just one man there).

I enjoyed this story quite a bit. The possession set-up is always interesting (I had a similar idea for a Futurama fanfic, though I never finished it), and the plot is good and goes in an original direction. Very nice ending.

Everyone seems to be in character (I especially liked Leela), and it was nice to see a Kif appearance. The aliens were pretty well characterised, too.

There are several excellent jokes. Things I liked most: Bender meeting the others on the street; Zapp complaining about

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being forced to be nice to Kif,

and the bit with Hermes in the ending. No, scratch that: pretty much everything in the ending is hilarious.

There are very few flaws in this story. It felt a bit low on tension; I realise you probably didn't intend for it to be nail-biting suspense, but it might have made for a more involving arc if

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the aliens had come off as more hostile or incomprehensible at first, making it more surprising when they turn out to be benevolent.

Also, the writing itself felt a bit lacklustre to me, with much more dialogue than description. Still, like I said, the humour is top notch.

In short, I found it a bit slow-paced and unmemorable, but with a nice storyline and many great jokes. My score: A-

PS. And I really love your promo picture.

Thanks! What I was really worried about was that someone might just get lost in all the flip-flopping back and forth. I actually researched several books just to see how they handled this thought-thingee; principal among them was Heinlein's "I Will Fear No Evil," which sort of has a similar situation of a character-within-a character. This was one of those stories that came along really fast. My favorite gag was

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Leela mistaking Hermes for Logu

which I tossed in at the last minute. I was really sweating over this one, but it was a barrel of fun to write.

I also enjoyed returning to my love of hand lettering; I don't know why, but I wanted to create a 1960's looking typestyle.

Good show, Guliver

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I especially liked the way you used Leela's mutation organically, as a reason for her to know what's going on with her body and why and to communicate with the alien invasion to her system organically.

Grade: A

missy_misery wrote:Good show, Guliver

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I especially liked the way you used Leela's mutation organically, as a reason for her to know what's going on with her body and why and to communicate with the alien invasion to her system organically.

Grade: A

Thanks! I could have gone with Fry with the delta wave bit, but I did that already. When you think of it, a mutant is sort of an "alien" to the rest of us...in a way.

*NODS* I'm glad you went with that angle, since the show's already poked and prodded it.