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ideasforhomeimprovement · 2 months

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The Core of Comfort: Assessing Insulations for Interior Wall Applications

Are you looking to enhance the comfort and energy efficiency of your home through proper insulation? Insulating your interior walls is a crucial step in maintaining a comfortable and cozy living space, as well as reducing your energy bills. With a wide range of insulation options available on the market, it can be overwhelming to determine which type is best suited for your specific needs. In this article, we will explore the core aspects of assessing insulations for interior wall applications, including reviews for insulations for house walls, insulations for interior walls, and insulations for new construction.

Insulations for House Walls Reviews

When it comes to insulating your house walls, there are several factors to consider. The type of insulation material, its R-value, and the installation process all play a significant role in determining the effectiveness of the insulation. Some popular options for insulating house walls include:

Fiberglass Insulation: This traditional insulation material is cost-effective and easy to install. It is available in batts or rolls and provides excellent thermal resistance.

Cellulose Insulation: Made from recycled paper products, cellulose insulation is environmentally friendly and offers good soundproofing properties. It can be blown or sprayed into wall cavities.

Foam Board Insulation: This type of insulation is rigid and provides a high level of thermal resistance. Foam board insulation is ideal for areas with limited space for insulation.

Spray Foam Insulation: Known for its superior air sealing properties, spray foam insulation creates a tight barrier against air infiltration and moisture. It expands to fill gaps and cracks in walls, providing excellent insulation. When choosing insulation for your house walls, consider the climate in your area, the desired level of insulation, and your budget. Consulting with a professional insulation contractor can help you make an informed decision.

Insulations for Interior Walls Reviews

Insulating your interior walls is essential for maintaining a comfortable indoor environment and minimizing noise transfer between rooms. The type of insulation you choose for your interior walls will depend on factors such as the wall construction, space limitations, and desired soundproofing capabilities. Some options for insulating interior walls include:

Mineral Wool Insulation: This type of insulation is made from natural rock or slag fibers and offers excellent fire resistance. Mineral wool insulation is also effective at reducing sound transmission between rooms.

Polyurethane Foam Insulation: Polyurethane foam insulation expands to fill wall cavities and provides a high level of thermal resistance. It is ideal for insulating hard-to-reach areas and creating a seamless air barrier.

Denim Insulation: Made from recycled denim jeans, denim insulation is an eco-friendly option that offers good thermal performance. It is free from harmful chemicals and can help improve indoor air quality. Before insulating your interior walls, assess the specific needs of each room and consider factors such as moisture control, fire safety, and indoor air quality. Proper installation of insulation is crucial to ensure maximum effectiveness and energy savings.

Insulations for New Construction Reviews

If you are building a new home or undertaking a major renovation project, choosing the right insulation for your interior walls is essential to create a comfortable and energy-efficient living space. New construction offers the opportunity to incorporate the latest insulation technologies and techniques to optimize energy performance. Some advanced insulation options for new construction include:

SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels): SIPs are prefabricated panels that consist of an insulating foam core sandwiched between two structural facings. They provide high levels of insulation and can help reduce construction time.

Cavity Wall Insulation: This traditional insulation method involves filling the wall cavities with insulation material such as fiberglass or cellulose. Cavity wall insulation can improve thermal performance and reduce heat loss.

Radiant Barrier Insulation: Radiant barrier insulation reflects heat away from the interior of the building, helping to keep indoor spaces cool in hot climates. It is often installed in attics and roof cavities.

When planning insulation for new construction, work closely with your architect, builder, and insulation contractor to ensure that the insulation system is properly integrated into the building design. Consider factors such as building orientation, window placement, and the overall energy efficiency of the structure.

In conclusion, assessing insulations for interior wall applications is a critical step in enhancing comfort, energy efficiency, and soundproofing in your home. By choosing the right insulation materials and installation methods, you can create a more sustainable and enjoyable living environment. Consult with insulation professionals to determine the best options for your specific needs and budget, and enjoy the benefits of a well-insulated home.

#insulationsfornewconstructionreviews #insulationsforinteriorwallsreviews #insulations for new construction reviews

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dinasobuildingsupply · 3 months

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Best Commercial Building Supplies in Staten Island

DiNaso Building Supply is the go-to source for superior commercial building supplies in Staten Island. Catering to diverse projects, we offer high-grade materials including framing lumber, sheathing, plywood, and roofing. With a commitment to quality, our team ensures timely delivery to your construction site.

#commercial-grade hardwood plywood #hardwood plywood for building construction #plywood sheets #building material supplies staten island #residential building supplies new york #softwood plywood for flooring #foam insulation ny

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agentgreenbean · 2 years

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help girl my snake is trying to escape his tank again

#lined the edge of the lid with construction tape for now #probably need to buy thicker foam weather insulation strips to line the lid for now til i eventually get a new tank #hes probably too fat to escape anyways. but just in case

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humanbyweight · 3 months

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Call for Public Participation

As many of you know, my company – Owlfly LLC – is working to develop a new kind of thermal insulation for buildings inspired by the way wasps construct their nests. Our insulation product (which we’ve appropriately named YellowJacket) is certified as more efficient than nearly all commercially-available fiberglass insulation, and we’re creating better prototypes every month. Last year the US government took interest in our work and awarded us SBIR grant funding for further R&D.

As part of the grant, we are required to conduct 30 interviews of potential customers. The idea is to gather information so we can fit our product to the market as best as we can prior to launch.

If you are an HVAC contractor, architect, engineer, distributor, or homeowner, we want to hear from you! Please contact me if you would like to participate in a brief interview. Every piece of feedback helps us forge the future of insulation technology!

#sustainability #insulation #Owlfly LLC #YellowJacket #:o

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crossdreamers · 10 days

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Scientists need to present the complexity of sex and gender in a meaningful way

The science journal Nature is tired of science being misrepresented in the debate on gender and transgender identities and has launched a new series of articles on sex and gender.

In the article We need more-nuanced approaches to exploring sex and gender in research, Stacey A. Ritz and Lorraine Greaves argues for scientists embracing the real complexity of sex and gender.

They emphasize that both sex and gender are not fixed categories but rather encompass a range of traits, factors, and experiences that vary between individuals.

Sex is a multifaceted construct involving anatomical features, hormones, gene expression, and physiological processes, with no single trait defining an individual's sex.

Gender, on the other hand, encompasses not only one's sense of self but also societal roles, norms, and opportunities, which can vary across cultures and over time.

Moreover, they underline the interconnectedness of sex and gender, suggesting that they are not easily separable concepts.

Scientist have, like all humans, ideas colored by their own culture

They also argue that scientists will have to look at their own implicit biases as regards they and their colleagues understand sex and gender:

Many phenomena in diverse fields, including medicine, archaeology and history, show that science has never been insulated from social and cultural biases, or from stereotypes and mythologies about sex and gender. Funders and regulators are still trying to remedy the lack of inclusion or under-representation of women in clinical trials of drugs or devices. Such biases lead to common mislabelling such as ‘the male hormone testosterone’ or ‘the female X chromosome’ even though testosterone and X chromosomes are important for normal physiological function in all human bodies... Truly understanding the impacts of sex and gender on human life will require a mix of transdisciplinary, quantitative, qualitative and intersectional analyses — which strive to assess how people’s experiences are shaped by interacting social processes, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and colonialism.

Read the article here.

Illustration: Sophi Gullbrants/Nature

#transgender #trans #lgbt #lgbtqa #queer #nonbinary #gender #science

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cleolinda · 7 months

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I grew up in a haunted house and I didn’t notice

This is not a story about boo ghosts or shadow people. If it were, I would have figured it out, at least.

When I say "I grew up in a haunted house and I didn't notice," you have to understand that there was a lot going on with this house. It's not the house that I've written about currently living in, the one with newspaper and soda cans stuffed where insulation should have been, the one with constant home-repair calamities. No, my childhood home was a crumbling pile of red brick built in the 1920s. Narnia was in the backyard, and the back deck was my ship on the high seas. The house was surrounded by banks of flowers, lilies and irises and roses, and it was full of creepy shit I didn’t even blink at. I loved it.

It didn't look haunted, or even particularly historical. It was almost disappointingly normal—I lived on a street with a house that had a turret, for God's sake. No, it was just old and small. There's a lot of pre-Depression houses getting torn down in these suburbs; my town has been awash in construction for the last 20-30 years as people buy up cheap old houses, raze them, and squeeze mini-mansions onto their tiny lots, all to get their kids into a good school system. It gives me a chill to think of it, but yeah, that might happen to my childhood home someday, small and plain and unassuming as it is. My pirate ship has already been renovated into an extra bedroom, the new owners told us.

When we moved into the house in 1983, though—it had clearly been renovated in the '60s or '70s; the wallpaper was hideous, and the upstairs bathroom was carpeted. Shag-carpeted. The house had closets the size of shoeboxes; my bedroom, the one with the peach wallpaper, didn't even have one. The room down the hall had four, including one cut into the wall, under a slanted ceiling tucked beneath the roof, that looked like you'd stash a witch there when the Salem HOA came by. There was a fan in the attic—well, first of all, the attic was just one more room on that upstairs floor. It was directly across from the (carpeted) bathroom, and that room (lit by one ominous, hanging bulb) was just a short corridor with storage spaces on either side, hidden behind big sliding doors. And the fan at the very end was built into the brick outer wall of the house. Like our house was functionally open to the elements, between the blades of that fan. I have no idea what the fuck anyone was thinking when they built that, and how the fuck anyone kept the wildlife out.

We certainly couldn't. Squirrels lived in the roof and bowled with acorns. It was like listening to a pinball machine at night. I have an abject horror of cockroaches because sometimes an adventurous one would fall off the ceiling in the middle night, onto me, while I was trying to sleep. (Like, try to imagine that—you’re awakened from a dead sleep by a vague, paper-light skittering sensation up and down your arm. When Pennywise comes to me, he will show up as a cockroach.) But wait! There was more! We had herds of crickets in the basement that felt compelled to jump at people. Sometimes there were centipedes! Those were polite enough to only come out at night. In the dark.

By the way, that basement was totally unfinished. I don't mean that it just had exposed beams or concrete walls. I mean that the basement had uneven, mostly shoulder-high masonry walls, and then it was just open on three sides, extending under the rest of the house. Like just dry red Alabama earth and rocks and grainy dust tumbling around in this vast, dark—it wasn't even a crawl space, a child could have stood upright in it. This child? Oh fuck no. And the washer and dryer were down there. I had to creep down there, down a rickety plank staircase, past the staring dark caverns of my own basement, through a low-lying fog of aggressive crickets, go BEHIND THE STAIRCASE, and then do my laundry there. There was also a firewood pile by an old fridge, and only God knew what was under that.

None of this was haunted. All of this was completely normal to me. This isn't even the haunted part.

So let's go back upstairs. The ground floor was lovely, homey, fine except for the time the living room ceiling fell out due to water damage. Upstairs was where it got weird. I've talked about being mildly bullied as an unknowingly autistic child; home was where I felt safe. In my bedroom upstairs, I had all those My Little Ponies and my easel with all my crayon-drawn fantasy maps and all the stories I wrote. It didn't matter if roaches fell on me in the deeps of the night; home, that's where I was happy. So when I was a young kid and I felt like a vampire was following me down the hall at night, I assumed I was just being silly.

I was aware of vampires in the 1980s as, like, the Count on Sesame Street (ah ah aaah), and Count Chocula, and Count Duckula on Nickelodeon, and the Bunnicula books that I loved. As a kid, I wasn't aware of movies like The Lost Boys or Near Dark, or any vampires that weren't broad caricatures of the Bela Lugosi look. I loved Spooky Stuff—I'm from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark generation—but vampires didn't scare me.

But when I had to get up in the middle of the night to go down the hall to the (carpeted) bathroom, I always had the sensation that something was following me as I was going back to my room. Something Dark. Not terribly tall, maybe not even much taller than me. And somehow, I visualized this deep in my mind as a vampire. Kind of a silly one, you know, the white-tie formal wear and the ribbon medal and the cape. I wasn't desperately scared that a Chocula was behind me, but I knew that I needed to get back to my room quick, and, at all costs, I must never look back. I must never look over my shoulder or else I would See It, something silly massing in the dark—and, brother, Eurydice would have been safe with me. Never stop running, never look back.

And I'm sure all kinds of kids develop little superstitions like this. It's probably a developmental thing, like having an imaginary friend (which I also had at some point). Even as a seven year old, I was thinking, This is silly, I'm just making it up (but not looking back costs nothing. Not looking at monsters is free). And I continued to think this, until I laughingly told my younger sister this at Sunday Family Dinner one night. We were both in our thirties at that point. And my sister started crying. Like just staring at me in wide-eyed horror, her eyes filling with tears. And she told me that when she had a bedroom upstairs, there was Something in there.

I won't belabor the exact setup, but at one point, we got it into our heads that we'd like to switch bedrooms, just for a change. I was 14, and I moved to her ground floor bedroom with the flowered white wallpaper and the big bright windows, and she went upstairs and took my room with the peach wallpaper and the cool slanted roof-ceiling (and no closet).

There were three other rooms on that upper floor (and I promise you this is important):

1) One was a small, windowless room that we used as a playroom, with weird cerulean blue carpet and sky blue wallpaper, one dim light fixture, and a little door in the wall that led to dark nothing. Like, you opened it, and you were confronted by a mass of pipes and machinery and just enough space to edge leftwards in the dark. Towards what? Fuck if I know, I sure as hell wasn't going in there. I think it was supposed to be for access to the HVAC system. I don't know. It was fucked. But when I was a young child, I had cooked for my baby dolls at our plastic play kitchen right next to that door, nbd, because apparently you put me in a creepy situation and I just go, yeah, we live like this now.

(I had not ever felt alone in that playroom, but I had also been too young to articulate that. Of course I wasn’t alone! I was with my dolls!)

2) The next room was the (shag-carpeted) bathroom. It had a big mirror over the sink counter, very typical, facing a vertical mirror that was behind the bathroom door. I've heard two mirrors facing each other can create a portal for the spirits, if you believe in that kind of thing. I once did the "Bloody Mary" thing there and nothing happened, idk.

3) The next room was the bedroom with four closets, where an older family member lived with us, and when she moved out, my sister moved to that room.

?) The fourth room, not really a room, was the dark, narrow attic.

So, Grownup Family Dinner at my current house, a few years ago: my sister told me that Something had lived in the Four Closets Bedroom with her. I'm not sure if she actually said it lived in the little Hide A Witch closet or if it was just kind of... ambient. I don't know what it looked like, or if we're talking about ghosts or Something... Darker, or what. I don't think she's entirely sure herself. She doesn't like to talk about it in detail a whole lot. What I know is that she felt it was there, and she had chosen that room to sleep in as a young teenager, and not a lot of sleep was to be had.

"I never really sensed anything, like… demonic," I said, puzzled. "Just the Chocula that followed me." And my sister was like, ARE YOU LISTENING TO YOURSELF??

"What about Rebecca??" she sputtered.

Oh, yeah: Rebecca. (A name I've changed at my sister's request.) I had a friend as a teenager who liked to mess around with ouija boards (AM I LISTENING TO MYSELF?), and we did a session at her house one time wherein we discovered that the ghost of a girl? young woman? named Rebecca lived (so to speak) at my house, and she had been murdered by her boyfriend. How we arrived at these specifics, I don’t remember, but I had told my sister about it because I thought it was interesting, and also, I was kind of a shit. My friend also decided she had her own ghost named Dusty. It was all one big [citation needed, footage not found], but it was also part of our family lore.

So, many years later, my sister told me that she had long felt—without knowing about the Chocula—that there were two spirits on the upper floor of our childhood home: the dark one, and a younger, lighter one. I sat there at the kitchen table and thought about it.

"You know, I did kind of feel like there was someone up there, when I was a kid," I said. "Sometimes I would go into the attic, and it felt scary, but like there was something there watching that was okay? Like having a lamp on in a dark room, kind of. It’s weird, because it’s just a feeling, I remember it very clearly, but I didn’t really question it or wonder."

I thought a bit more.

"Oh yeah—there was also the time I just really felt compelled to go color in the playroom by myself at midnight, and it kind of felt like someone was there."

My sister stared at me, saucer-eyed, pale. Like I'm not sure I had ever seen anyone "go white" until that moment.

"Yeah, I just woke up and had this idea—I was maybe nine years old? That it would be super cool to do stuff at night when I was supposed to be asleep, so I got a flashlight and went into the playroom—"

"IN THE DARK??"

"Well, yeah. If I had turned on the light, someone would have seen it and told me to go back to bed. So I set this flashlight on the floor and got out the crayons and colored in one of my coloring books a while. Maybe the She-Ra one?"

Thinking back on it now—of course I was sitting right by the scary door. I think we all, you and I, saw that coming.

"And I had the same feeling I had in the attic. Like someone was sitting on the floor across from me, friendly, I guess I would say female, and it was cool. Like, it was chill."

My sister looked like she was about to pass out.

"I don’t really know how I could sense this then but not really say anything about it, or even think about it, until now," I said, shrugging. "I’m probably imagining it."

I’ll throw in here that one of the dolls I had in that room was a Raggedy Ann. Like, just for extra hilarity, Wee Cleo is hanging out, coloring, at midnight, with a ghost and a fuckin’ Annabelle.

So: My sister is adamant that our childhood home was haunted. And apparently I was entirely blasé about it (maybe possessed?), but then, I was dealing with a lot of suburban wildlife. My problems with that house were far more immediate. And crawly. Nor can we prove that the house was haunted—I certainly haven’t looked up any homicide records—and I don’t think that Vibes, In Retrospect, are valid evidence on my part. But I find it interesting that I knew what she was talking about. I find it interesting that I was like, "Yeah, that was chill." And I find it interesting that when I went away to college, and I lived in a dorm suite where sometimes I’d be the only person there while my roommates were out,

I remember noticing that it was the first time I’d ever felt alone in a room.

Who was that imaginary friend I'd had?

I asked my sister to read over this, partly because I wanted to see if she’d be willing to describe the Something Dark.

"Oh, I’ll tell you anything you want," she texted back, "but that’s not how it happened."

#part one of two #me for some reason #story time with cleo #tl;dr my childhood home was fucked up and I was hilariously unbothered about it #insects cw #long post #the haunting of jones house #spooky season #halloween everyday #first look on patreon

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eternalsa2z · 6 months

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Renovations

Tatianna had lived in her apartment complex for years. She didn't want to change things up when some wealthy investors bought the land around her. So the Titanic Ivory Towers were crafted around Tati. They destroyed to foundation, built out and up, injected new insulation, then added a paint job and total face lift of the appearance.

Tati tried to be unmoved by the changes. But something about the constructions sounds drilled into her head. As she inhaled the dust and fumes her body started to react. By the end of the renovations, Titi felt completely rebuilt from the ground up. She was now sleek, enhanced, and in desperate need of being filled just like the luxury apartments around her.

#f2f transformation #bimboification

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hometoursandotherstuff · 1 month

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Housing has gotten so ridiculous that a small shipping container/shed is now a townhouse.

Tiny House - $13,500 (Sacramento)

And, b/c this one is in Sacramento, CA the same one is $4,500 more: "2023 Tiny House, Tiny Home, Office, Casita etc. Brand New, Never Used. We Purchased this For our Pond Setting and Changed Plans. Cute Little Factory Built Tiny House. Steel Construction with Insulation. Portable and Easy to Transport. Measurements are 12’X7’X8’. Living area with Sofa-Bed Combo, Desk-Table, Sink Cabinet, Faucet, Mirror, Microwave, Bathroom with Toilet and Shower. Overhead Lighting and 110 Power Receptacles. Just Hook up Hot/Cold Water Lines, Power Source, Sewer and You are all set."

So, you've got your cot/bedroom in the corner, kitchen cabinetry w/microwave next to it, and bathroom/kitchen sink.

Corner kitchen table and seating. This isn't even remotely appealing and the sad cheap furnishings come with it.

Thank goodness they made a separate space for the toilet and shower.

It has to be moved to your own property with water and electrical hookups, plus a sewer.

https://sacramento.craigslist.org/for/d/sacramento-tiny-house/7715424421.html

#converted sheds #shed homes #houses #house tours #home tour

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50cal-fullauto-astarion · 10 months

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☈ your bones singing into mine ii

one - two

nikto x gen!bio-weapons engineer reader (no use of y/n) 3.4k words cw: honestly just the relationship being dysfunctional, also like warlord sugar daddy overtones, but that's just how this cookie is gonna crumble Nikto has swept you out of the darkness, and into an intact world burning full of ugly lights. He meets your every need as you work to create weapons to supply him an armory of shock and awe. He buys for you a place in Bruges, a rowhouse right on the water, and your only desire is a romantic dinner with him. He does not have it within himself to deny you.

Nikto brings you out into a world that is bright and burning, but mostly whole. He tells you that things are tied on a shoestring of balance, that any strong enough blow of breeze could tip the whole house of cards, and he has a look in his eyes that names himself typhoon.

He is one of the most complex and deeply locked men you have ever met in your life, and you have met a great many men with secrets that could turn cities into subatomic particles in a blinding flash of a second. He wants to father a new world, a savage paradise, and, yet, he holds you in the palm of his velvet-covered iron fist as his finest treasure.

Penthouses are cleared out for you–places high in the sky, in any number of cities, so far away from the ground and the dark. He pours money into your comfort like hemorrhaging, and he cares not that his funds bleed, because he can always dump more into the wound.

It’s a wound he wants to sustain, because he likes to see you clean, and comfortable, and sparking electricity as you work. He provides makeshift, mobile labs for you. Thousands upon thousands of dollars for computers, and programs, and security. Though he lifts you into the light, he makes you a small space of darkness, allowing you to run and return to your work.

He begins to call you Spider, or Pauk, depending on whether his English is dropping your name like a threat, or if his Russian is soft and trying to entreat you.

There is a place in Bruges, right on the water, that he pulls together for you. It is smaller than your other hideaways, cozier. Bulb-lit with warm wooden flooring and tall walls. He walks stiffly through the halls, watching for your reaction, and his shoulders relax when you turn from the window watching boats on the water to give him your cracked grin.

“It’s out of a book,” you say, “the buildings are such bright colors. How is this real?”

“It’s always been this way here,” he tells you. He shuffles a moment, bringing his clasped hands from his back to his front, before he adds quietly, “We’re glad that you…find it acceptable here.”

Surely he is remembering the blocs he grew up on, all the colorless brutalist construction from the Soviet era. Houses for workers, starvation in the streets. You wonder if his place had heriz rugs all over the floors, to insulate sound and cushion steps and provide color.

You press your fingertips into the cool glass, looking at him, wondering about him. You’d like to see his face, though he’s told you that it is a nightmare. You’d like to kiss him. You know he loves you, just as you love him.

“It’s perfect. I’m going to like it here,” you tell him, and your heart swells and patters when his shoulders raise a little bit, proud of himself for his pick. With his hidden face, you’ve become an expert in his body language. All his little tells become clear to you, the more time you spend with him.

He is slow with you, cautious. Not as if approaching a wild animal, he would never treat you with such base suspicion and wariness, but as if he is the animal, well-aware of exactly how powerful his bite is. He treasures you too much to damage you.

Such brutality is held within this many-faceted man, vast and damning. He is a gentleman though, through accident or practice, and he puts that hardwork into effect with you.

It causes you to make the first move most of the time.

“I want you to have dinner with me tonight,” you say, tapping your fingers against the glass, feeling the condensation cling to your fingerprints.

He shakes his head. “Your value is too high for us to allow you out of the flat, Pauk,” he says gently, misunderstanding, as if reminding you. There are so many beautiful homes he has carved out for you, but you’ve never stepped foot outside of them.

He thinks you want to, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The reality is that you are brimming with hatred at the fact it still stands. That your suffering was for nothing, and the apocalypse still lies dormant but rumbling, a stalled birth. You love your closed spaces and your blackout curtains that hide the world and your tall walls and bright lights.

“We can have something ordered and brought to you,” he continues, trying to soothe the blow that never landed.

A grunt of annoyance snaps out of your throat, hand pressing flat to the glass. “Nooo,” you draw out, turning to face him in full. “I want you all to eat here, with me. Only us, none of the guards making all that fucking noise with their heavy boots. And I want to pretend that we’re all just having a nice night. And there are no contagions or stadiums or belt-fed guns.”

In shame, his head drops a degree, arms tightening in front of him. The supple leather of his gloves creak. “Apologies, Pauk.” His head remains that one slice lower, but his eyes flicker up like a bird’s from beneath his rippy lashes. “We…” he pauses, trying to formulate the words, “we will put that together. For you. What do you want to eat?”

Your hand comes away from the glass, and you press your palms together like a prayer, holding the sides of your hands to your lips. “I want something bloody and buttery. Something good made by someone that doesn’t love me.”

A small noise like a laugh sounds behind his heavy mask, and his neck relaxes. It puts together a picture of thought: it’s a good thing we do not cook for you, then. “We will find something.”

Neither of you cook. It’s a sad reality. You were too built up for epidemiology and plague-practitioning to have the room or time to learn the skill, and Nikto readily admits that he’d long ago lost his sense of smell. “Nova gas,” he explained, funnily enough. “That was your grandfather’s work, yes?” It was. He and his team. You are a legacy leper-making, just like God and all of his followers.

The sun has settled fully in the city of Bruges, and the light of street lamps, the running lights of boats on the water, and fairy lights around shopfronts make the water glitter. It is warm here, with all the brick and cobblestone soaking up the yellow light, and for once you are fine with the curtains open.

Nikto has spoiled you rotten with clothing, all of it fine and soft and rich. You dress comfortably, beautifully, and wander the flat, looking over things leftover from past tenants, waiting on his return. He always leaves you with a guard when he is gone, and tonight it is a short but sturdy woman from Montenegro who does not speak. She sits on the small leather couch in the living room, reading a book with horses on the cover, rifle across her lap. You do not bother her, but you cannot wait for her to leave.

When Nikto arrives, it’s with yet another guard, this one in plainclothes, carrying two large paper bags in their arms. It’s always seemed funny to you that he just goes out in the mask, nightmare beneath it or not, and that people must have reactions in public. But, you don’t think Nikto travels anywhere that people would dare comment on it. He has lackeys for embarrassing, mundane duties.

He takes the bags from the second guard, and dismisses the woman on the couch, letting you approach to lock the deadbolts on the back of the door when they’re out. It is your comfort and your right, he will not interfere with it.

Meeting his eyes, you grin a cracked grin at him. “Smells good. What is it? What was the restaurant called?”

He makes another laugh-noise, looking skin-close to bashful. “We do not know. We sent Dejanović to get it, he knows the city.” He peers into the bag. “He said foreign dignitaries enjoyed the place. We don’t feel like that always speaks well to quality.”

You try to take the bag into your hands, but his arm tightens. He does not like you doing menial tasks. He likes it only when you are free to tend to your work and whims. It is much preferable to him that your needs are met, and he is glad to tend to those tasks when he is with you.

“If it’s all rot and garbage, we can make zakuski instead, and wash it down with vodka,” you tell him, swaying a little, hoping the promise pleases him. “Tahumi brought me a can of caviar, and even found a mother-of-pearl spoon for it.”

His eyes grow hard at the mention of Tahumi giving you a gift. That is another thing that heckles him. He does not like others knowing about you, much less providing for you. That is his honor, and an honor he thinks it is.

Your mouth starts to curl. “Don’t eat yourself with knots,” you instruct him, but his eyes only grow harder, his posture stiffer. “I wanted it, and Tahumi saw it, and he bought it. He did it to please you, because you are so here-and-there with your underlings. Your favor can’t be curried because it doesn’t exist.”

“They are warm, walking corpses, and nothing more,” he says, stone-solid, cold. “We don’t need them for anything more than catching bullets and carrying out orders. You are not a tool to buy their way into security. There is none, and you–you’re–”

He turns his head and breathes out hard. His body is held so tightly it paints pain on the walls behind him. His molars squeak as they grind together, trying to collect himself, but he is upset.

“Andryu,” you say, pulling his diminutives, trying to pluck the chords that will bring him back to you. You bend your body to swerve, attempting to capture his eyes. “Andryusha.”

There is a little break in the armor, a crack where you can push your fingers in, to find contact with him. There is a little light in his eyes. “We cannot allow you to be taken advantage of. Your wholeness is…” he trails off, struggling, and you provide him the territory to prowl, find his words. He turns and meets your eyes, and there is his passion. “Our last shred of warmth is you. If you are pained, or used, or discarded–it is a blow that would destroy the last human thing in us.”

And, here, your scant humanity answers his. You fold, slope, ease. You nod in agreement. “I know, Andryu, I do. But all of you know where my loyalties lie. You know I wouldn’t hesitate to find you if I felt targeted.” You want so horrendously to reach out and touch him, but you don’t. You have to allow him to initiate, otherwise he cannot handle it. “My lot is in your lot. I go where you go. Everyone else is a corpse that forgot to lie down and die.”

Using his language in ways that he understands it unlocks him to you. His gloved hand comes up, hovering just to the side of your jaw. But he doesn’t touch, he only traces the air in a line down the bone structure.

He allows—or, rather, you give him no in allowing you to stand in the kitchen as he unpacks your meals to plate. It could be call an awkward affair, if either of you had the social graces to register that feeling in your minds.

He’s taken his gloves off and swatted at your hand trying to take the paper bag for recycling, giving you a sharp look borne of the love he holds. Again, not allowed to lift a finger.

There are faded Cyrillic characters tattooed across his knuckles, the black ink bloated and faded to blue. SOS across three fingers: either spasi, otets, syna or Suki Otnyali Svobodu. Save me, father, your son. Bitches robbed my freedom.

He’s never told you which in specific, though he’s offered both as options. Tattoos are carved into so much of his skin, and he’s given you brief walking tours of them when he’s stripped down enough for them to appear. A warping on Russian prison tattoos, repurposed for the Spetsnaz.

Epaulets on his shoulders—horses die from work. Devils just below those, oskals, hatred of authority. ‘I Fuck Poverty and Misfortune’ in Cyrillic, riding his Adonis belt. A lighthouse on his forearm, yearning for freedom. His skin tells his story, hard-lived, a language known to few.

His plating skills are what cause him minor self-consciousness. He’s not an artistic man, and he has no eye for aesthetics. The blood-rare ribeyes are just placed and pushed to one side of the plate, crumbled blue cheese dumped artlessly on top. Creamed potatoes end up slopping over roasted asparagus, and he growls in his throat, frustrated. He is trying incredibly hard to make it pleasing. The more he moves it around, trying to be careful, the worse it looks.

He wouldn’t care if it was solely for him. His frustration is because you will not be eating something pretty. In his mind, the only things you deserve are pretty and perfect.

His hands stop fussing, resting on the edge of the counter, glaring down at the plates. “It looks like shit,” he renders his verdict. It sounds like he is considering throwing it away and ordering something else.

“Pelmeni look like shit. So does poutine. But it all tastes good, so we still eat it,” you push back. “No one eats shiny plastic or tinsel.”

He grunts again. “People eat shiny plastic and tinsel all the time, because they are fucking stupid.”

“If any of you are insinuating that any of us are fucking stupid, you’re being a fucking child.” Despite the content of your words, it is not said with heat. It is an olive branch, trying to reach him across the expanse of his dissatisfaction. You’re not sure you’ve made contact until his fingers start tapping on the counter, and he hums Krokodil Gena’s Birthday Song deep in his chest. He is calming, rectifying reality with himself.

After a few, long moments, he picks up the plates, nodding at you, and carries them to the dining table outside the kitchen. It is situated in front of a set of big picture windows that he honestly does not like you standing near, ever, but it is for the sake of the evening. He sets your plate down, and pulls out your chair for you, before he seats himself. There are already sets of silverware and water on the table. A bottle of vodka, and two small glasses to drink from.

You start by pouring two sips of vodka, offering him one. A toast falls out of your mouth, unthinking, and he clinks your glasses together in agreement. When you put your shot back, he hands you his glass, and you shoot that, as well. He has not removed his mask. He will not. But he overturns his glass next to yours.

It’s an odd affair, how the meal goes. Conversation picks up, on plans and your work, on the state of the world as it stands. That will run out, and you will both turn to other topics. Books, movies, cars. Oh, Nikto has such a soft spot for cars–he could talk about them from dusk until dawn. Luxury cars, supercars, performance and rally cars, working vehicles, even an astonishing breadth of consumer cars. He has opinions that stretch the globe, and you soak it up like a dry sponge.

The oddest thing is that you eat, and he does not. He keeps his hands resting on either side of his plate, guarding it as if he was a prisoner, but he does not once touch his silverware. He won’t eat in front of anyone. He can’t, not without taking the mask off. It’s something he didn’t have to explain to you, you just understood it by studying his patterns. It’s something that made him even softer toward you.

You finish, part of your steak left–you intend to slice it up and put it on some grilled crusty bread with piles of caramelized onions later–resting your fork and your knife on the edge of your plate. “That was good. Despite the dignitaries and dog shit. I want a copy of their menu, to tear up and eat bit by bit. I want all of you to have more dates with me, this one dripped romantic. All the seams were splitting up, and it went drop by drop by drop.”

“Date?” he queries, looking at you across the table as he reaches for your plate.

“Date.” You nod once, emphatically.

He shudders, smothering something that sounds like a sigh, averting his eyes. “We…will make sure there is a menu for you, next time,” he starts, unphased by your request. “Roses, if you like.”

You shake your head. “No use for roses, they wilt and die. Flowers all-wilted smell like the dark parts of the bunker, and my stomach eats and eats away at me because of that smell.” You send an apologetic look across the table, thinking. “I’ll take tokens in trinkets. Whenever you bring me jewelry, I don’t take it off.”

As if in example, you pull up your sleeves, showing him the bracelets he’s brought you, left for your discovery on desktops and dressers. Next, you tug at your collar, showing him a pile of necklaces.

His fingers twitch, looking at you helplessly. Not even he can prevent the swallow that goes down his throat, when he sees that you hoard the fine things he brings back for you.

Another long moment passes, and he is hoarse when he agrees, “Jewelry. We will bring you jewelry, then.”

In as much of a rush as you’ve ever seen him, he collects your dishes, and the bottle of vodka, storming back through the kitchen door. It doesn’t latch behind him, and you know he will be a while. It feels dirty, destructive and found and deceitful, but you sneak up to the crack, wanting to watch him.

His back is turned, his mask removed. Hair so deep in darkness it shines white under lights sticks up from his head at all angles, some of it missing from the side of his skull, along with an ear. He eats quickly, in clipped bites, gorging himself, stopping only to tip back the vodka bottle. It’s almost an ugly display, brutal necessity, and you know as well as you know the own pounding of your heart that he is uncomfortable, that he hates this. He hates to be bare.

You cannot see his face, and you would not try to see it. You want to see it someday, and that will only happen when he is ready to show you. You will not steal that freedom from him. You will not sneak looks when he is unawares. It is the same courtesy he has afforded you, and you are hellbent to pay it back in kind.

With that prickling your skin, you back away from the door, allowing him his needs.

When he returns, sitting next to you on the couch, he is warmed-through and softened by the alcohol and food. He takes hold of your ankle, pulling it into his lap, rubbing the knob of your bone with his bare fingers. His masked head tips back, resting against the back of the couch, and he heaves a heavy sigh.

Your stomach clenches, and your heart races. There is so much love between the two of you, so impossibly massive that it cannot ever be feasibly dealt with, and that is something you are fine with when his eyes meet yours in a crinkled smile.

Perhaps your union will kill the world as it stands, but you don’t particularly mind. His hands are warm against your bones, reaching deeper than any other human possibly could, and he looks at you as if you are his only purpose in life, even if that is not true.

“Andryusha,” you greet him quietly, turning your leg in his touch so he can have more skin.

Another small noise, pleasure, and he rubs deeper, followed by a soft, heartsick request, “Say it again, Paukya.”

#nikto #nikto x reader #cod nikto #mwii nikto #cod x reader #cod fanfic #cod mw x reader #my work

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mindblowingscience · 10 months

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Physicists have discovered an exotic new state of matter that takes the form of a highly ordered crystal of subatomic particles. The new state of matter, called a "bosonic correlated insulator," could lead to the discovery of many new types of exotic materials made from condensed matter, according to the researchers, who detailed their results in a study published May 11 in the journal Science. Subatomic particles can be separated into two categories: fermions and bosons. The primary differences between the two are how they spin and how they interact with each other. Fermions, such as electrons and protons, are often thought of as the building blocks of matter because they make up atoms, and are characterized by their half-integer spin. Two identical fermions cannot occupy the same space at the same time. "Bosons can occupy the same energy level; fermions don't like to stay together," study lead author Chenhao Jin, a condensed-matter physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in a statement. "Together, these behaviors construct the universe as we know it." But there is a case in which two fermions can become a boson: If a negatively charged electron is secured to a positively charged "hole" in a different fermion, it forms a bosonic particle known as an "exciton." To see how excitons interact with one another, the researchers layered a lattice of tungsten disulfide atop a similar lattice of tungsten diselenide in an overlapping pattern called a moiré. Then, they shined a strong beam of light through the lattices — a method known as "pump-probe spectroscopy." These conditions pushed the excitons together until they were so densely packed that they could no longer move, creating a new symmetrical crystalline state with a neutral charge — a bosonic correlated insulator.

#science #stem #physics #excitons #materials sciences

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bluecollarmcandtf · 10 months

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Construction Crew Recruitment

Sam was ambitious: his dream was to play soccer professionally. Though he sat the bench most games, he always showed up hours early to warm up. He was determined to finally prove his worth to the university.

"Hey, kid!" rang a scratchy voice.

Sam's focus was broken, and he noticed how much he had sweat through his jersey. The soccer player identified a burly figure lumbering toward him, tearing up the turf with steel-toe boots. Judging from the flannel on his shoulders and the orange helmet in his grip, he was just some construction worker.

"What's up?" Sam warily called back.

"Looks like you're pushin' yourself pretty hard out there," the stranger belched, blowing his bad breath towards the athlete, "Wanted to introduce myself. I'm the contractor fer' the site 'cross the street."

He extended a calloused hand, but Sam hesitated to shake it.

"Too good to shake my hand, kid?" a grin of yellow teeth spread across the scruffy face, "That'll change. Here. Catch!"

The stranger carelessly tossed the hardhat to Sam. The athletes reflexes kicked in, and he dropped his soccer ball to catch the helmet.

"What's this for?" he couldn't help but examine the thing, studying all the scratches and dirt it had accrued over the years.

"For you, kid. Your new hardhat."

Sam chuckled at the word 'new.' This thing looked ancient. The thick dust that covered it was quickly transferring to his sweaty palms, but he couldn't let go. His hands felt like they were cramping, gripping the helmet tighter and tighter until it was almost painful.

"What's happening?" Sam winced.

The contractor just crossed his arms and leaned back like he was about to see a show.

Meanwhile, Sam was starting to breath harder. He'd worked up a sweat while kicking the ball around, but he suddenly felt hot. His jersey and shorts were getting thicker and itcher. He took a step away, but he almost tripped over his cleats as they grew heavier.

When Sam whipped back to the stranger, the guy was chuckling amusedly at him.

"Trust me kid," he cackled, "You wouldn't have gotten far kickin' balls. Soccer's for pansies."

Sam was too lightheaded to be offended. He would have collapsed, but the same cramp that clamped his fingers around the helmet was spreading through his body, locking his knees upright and arching his back.

His whole body was becoming more and more uncomfortable. Somehow, the material of his short-sleeve jersey felt like it stretched the full length of his arms. His legs felt the same restrictions as dense pants tumbled down and tightened. Sam's already sweaty body just became more damp and humid beneath his increasingly insulated clothes.

"You're lookin' a bit better, kid," the contractor muttered as he lit a cigarette, "Don't forget your tools now. You're gonna need 'em."

Sam had no clue what the guy was saying. He had a match to play. He didn't have tools, but a sudden pressure at his waist said otherwise.

Glancing down, he noticed a leather belt tightening around his heavy pants. He could have sworn he wasn't wearing jeans earlier. Worn leather pouches dropped from the utility belt, carrying tools he'd never used.

With his gaze downward, he noticed his soccer cleats were different too. They were clunky old boots, caked with mud and who knows what else. Sam was hyperventilating at the sight of himself. He just couldn't understand what was happening to him.

"Put it on."

"What?"

"Put on your helmet," he replied, calmly blowing smoke in Sam's face, "It'll finish it."

The soccer player didn't want to put it on. His mind was already halfway brainwashed, but he knew he didn't want to see what happened when this guy was done with him.

His hands betrayed him.

The tendons on the back of his palms strained as he gripped the hat, and his arm strained as they raised it towards his head.

"Please, no..." was all he could gasp as he brought the orange helmet down on his head.

It reeked of sweaty hair and pinched tightly. It was just as uncomfortable as everything else he now had on. The thing felt like it was going to constrict his skull until it reached the center of his head.

Then suddenly, all the discomfort faded.

Sam let out a sigh of relief, chuckling at the overwhelming sense of relief. He lifted his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow, surprised by the dirty work glove he had on.

"How you feelin', kid?" he heard the contractor grunt.

"Finne," he quickly replied, "What happened?"

"What do you mean, 'what happened?' you're waistin' my is what's happenin'. Get back to work before I fire your butt."

"My bad."

Sam glanced down at himself. The work clothes he had on felt right. He always wore denim and hi-vis. He was a construction worker after all.

The new hire stomped off the field with his boss, barely noticing the soccer ball he left behind.

"See that big ole' pile of rubble? I want it moved off-site by the end of the day," his boss told him between puffs.

"You got!" Sam grunted and grabbed the wheel barrel.

His old teammates began rolling up for their soccer game. They found Sam's ball but no sign of the teammate. They didn't think to check the construction site across the street. That's where Sam was during the entire game, occasionally glancing over to the match as he shoveled demolished bricks and moved them across the site.

The college game seemed eerily familiar to Sam, but he couldn't think why. He'd dropped out of high school years ago. He thanked God for this job. The contractor was like a father to him, and Sam was happy doing grunt work for the guy for the rest of his life. He knew soccer was for a bunch of pansies anyway.

Eventually, the game ended and Sam forgot completely about sport. The rest of the construction crew showed up, and Sam gratefully did whatever task they asked of him. The majority of them just smoked and stood around, joking with the contractor.

They seemed to be laughing in his direction,but he didn't mind. He was eager to prove just how useful he could be to them. He might be a simple laborer, but he was determined to be the best one there.

#hypno story #gay hypnosis #mind control #male transformation

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