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charseraph · 11 months

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The River Jordan and Sweetpea are electric engines on the first railway on Mars.

River Jordan was the first one built, being the product of a collaboration between the nations who established the colony.

Sweetpea was donated by a coronal aerospace guild and assembled onsite. Her parts were imported and her blueprints were crownmade, so her visage is coronal.

Visage and the nature of living transport

Engines take the image of their creators. Their faces are not organic, and are more like a vessel for helpful senses and communication tools.

They come alive soon after they are built, once out of eyeshot for any moment. Attempts to stare at a new engine to see it stir are foiled somehow (blinks, saccades, CCTV malfunction, momentary lapse in attention). Not all engines come alive, as their animacy is often (but not always) decided by the intent of the builder.

Living engines can assess their circumstances and make judgements based on them. They are useful in volatile situations as an expert second opinion on conduct and design, and are capable of sensing external and internal problems quickly.

In calmer periods, they may not get adequate stimulation, and their personalities may interfere with their efficiency. For this reason, railways have their preferences when they build and purchase engines.

The facial material ends at the surface of the machine and is inscrutable in composition—the material appears to be made of itself, and is unusable for any other purpose besides as an engine’s interface with the world. If damaged, the material heals. If removed, it disappears. The conceptual self-referentiality of engines’ faces, souls, and senses deter scrutiny.

Living machines exist as a fact of the universe. Their animacy is cloaked in an analysis-averting antimeme.

Human Engines

Engines designed and built by humans possess dual-pinhole pupils that dilate into an elliptical shape, granting them a broad field of view and tolerance of rapid changes in light levels (such as in going in and out of tunnels). Deep set zygomata allow them to look directly to their sides, and with the dual-pinhole setup, they maintain some depth perception in monocular sight. Their pupil shapes are hidden by their black irises, which absorb glare. They can see clearly to their front and sides, but can’t see up or down very well. A tapetum lucidum retroreflects incoming light back through their retinas, granting them vision in darkness. The nictitating membranes and long eyelashes protect the eyes from dust.

The chemicals engines are capable of detecting are relevant to their purpose, e.g. distinguishing coal, gasoline, diesel, and wood fires from their smoke but not being able to distinguish or detect food smells. Similar to how cats, obligate carnivores, have lost their ability to taste sugar due to its absence in their diet, but can taste ATP for its presence in meat—engines can parse environmental and industrial scents, but will have wildly varied responses to food and fragrant compounds, often being unable to notice them.

To investigate an aroma, they slightly lower their bottom lip to take air into their vomeronasal organ located behind the upper incisors.

Engines do not require oxygen, but if debris enters the nasal passage, human engines will sneeze to:

Ensure their voice resonates properly,

Keep their olfactory facilities clean, and

Indicate to engineers that particle buildup may have occurred in other places, such as the boiler tubes for steam engines.

Crown Engines

Just as the tongue is the only colored object on a human engine’s face for distinguishability, so are the teeth on coronal engines. The positions of the upper and lower jaw indicate tone, functioning in communication similarly to eyebrows.

Coronal engine eyes consist of an armored cornea surrounded by a cuticle and muscular eyelid. The cornea moves with the help of the embedded eyestalk supporting it. The cuticle is lubricated with an oil-based film and is less susceptible to irritation than the aqueous solution on human engine eyes. The undersides of the eyelids and surface of the cornea are covered in setae, preventing chafing and reducing airflow on the cornea. The hairs catch debris and are combed out by the lids with a puckering motion.

To make up for unenhanced vision by human engine standards, coronal engine hearing is advanced, allowing the listener to pinpoint sound sources through triangulation of the four inner ears. Coronal engines, too, channel sound through their incisors and into their internal ears via the acoustic windows at the hinge of each jaw.

Coronal engines achieve their sense of industrial smell through the gustatory papillae that line their choana and pharynx. They supplement their olfaction by introducing cool air behind the heat pits inside their nares.

Coronal engines’ thermoception is more efficient than living crowns, as coronal engines’ faces do not produce heat nearly proportional to their mass.

Conversely, the tines heat up significantly hotter than the crown average for unambiguity in temperature tones. The origin of the tine thermal energy appears to be redirected from excess produced by the machinery, or from the face’s temperature directly.

Extramodal senses

Engines are capable of listening from within their cabs with greater acuity than mere conduction of sound through the body would suggest. Other unsubstantiated sensory abilities include:

Discernment of water/fuel quality within the framework of taste though intake alone

Somatosensory awareness in the entire body, not just the face

#BOA #the railway series #<- my cover all tag #the river jordan #sweetpea #crowns #my art #speculative biology #This is an AU of my sci fi story #thomas and friends

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spearxwind · 1 year

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for the dragon gifs post you reblogged, could you elaborate on your tags? as someone who loves speculative/fictional biology, id be interested in hearing how actual gliding wings would work for dragons, if youre okay with talking about it of course :]

Gosh, basically.... the whole wing shape is wrong for gliding

Firstly, a majority of the dragons' wings do not have any base to them. base being the membrane that should go down their side

By far the worst offender seems to be arrax here, but like. all of the dragons have NO membrane going from their arms down their sides, the only one who appears to have more normal wings is syrax

It's got more base to the wings so this gif looks slightly more natural to me but not by much

NOW,, my disclaimer. I am not an expert in aerodynamics. So I am just going off what I know personally

First off, the wing shape in most of these dragons is elliptical (like in sparrows) which is good for powered flight (flapping), and when they ARE flapping, it does look very good!! Very powerful strokes etc.

However, because they are missing that base at the wing, a lot of the energy of the downstroke would simply just escape. Wings in general work by "trapping" wind underneath them, by making the air on top roll by at a different speed than the air underneath and generate lift that way, but if there's nothing TO lift... then it won't work

Animals who actually glide all have very specialized wings for it.

Eagles, vultures, condors, etc: all of them have IMMENSE wings, and they almost cannot do powered flight (at least not on the same level that sparrows can), they rely a lot on updrafts

Their wings are all very wide, but very rectangular!! the base of their wings is basically the same width as the rest of the wing, generally

This is true as well for SEABIRDS which are all gliding experts. Seabirds have VERY not wide wings, but they make up for that in length, and this very specialized shape they have allows them to glide for literal WEEKS without needing to land

Basically, I suppose it's something of a tradeoff? Even in these birds the base is incredibly proportionate to the shape of their wings and body, and they depend on wind currents over the ocean specifically. They've evolved for that

alithographica has this VERY GOOD little chart of what different functions wings can perform depending on their shape

I personally think the got dragon's wings are incredibly disproportionate, looking at wings on any other animal it immediately stands out that a whole chunk of wing is simply... gone. For no good reason other than aesthetic I think

And besides the anatomical error, they don't have a clear purpose to their shape, they kinda do everything all the time and its jarring to see on otherwise incredibly designed creatures and its also an immense shame. It would have been so cool to see different dragons have different flying techniques (the only different one we get is caraxes with his wing legs, but from what ive seen)

#ask #anon #wings #long post #answering this asap because im fucking foaming at the mouth over wings #im so passionate about this no one in fucking fiction ever of any media of all time does wings correctly and it makes me explode and die #literally the first thing i always ever look at when theres new dragon media is the wing shape #if they get it right its an automatic 10 #PROPS TO GAME OF THRONES DRAGONS FOR HAVING THE PATAGIAL MEMBRANE THOUGH #THAT SHIT GETS NOT DRAWN OR ADDED TO CREATURES SO MUCH AND ITS SO HORRID TO SEE #BUT ITS SUCH A CRUCIAL DETAIL!!! I DONT UNDERSTAND!! WHY THE REST OF THE WING IS WRONG!!! IF THEY GOT THAT RIGHT!!!!#ITS LIKE GOING TO AN EXAM AND ACING THE EXTRA CREDIT AND HANDING THE REST IN BLANK #I DONT GET IT

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svndaysaweek · 1 year

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e^(iπ)+1=0 — {Feat. Minnie}

1.3k words

A/N: I've been studying math so hard that I came up with this... I don't know if all readers can understand this, so I recommend googling the inclined terms(which are mathematical ones). Also know that e^(iπ)+1=0 is the most beautiful formula in mathematics,,

p.s: Why is eˣ okay but e^(iπ)+1=0 not? Tumblr mysteries..

Tags: Math(?), Choking, Creampie, Loving Sex

******

Minnie is like the eˣ function to you. The way her consistency fills up your heart—eˣ differentiated is still eˣ—, her always positive character—its domain is always positive number—, her out-of-this-world beauty—e^(iπ)+1=0—, and–

The way her back forms an exponential arc in front of you.

"F-fuck,"

On her knees Minnie is taking your pounding, with her entire body. Her back arcs upward to meet you face to face, as she turns her head back to you and into a blissful kiss.

You draw the sin x graph with your tongue inside her mouth. Up and down, up and down, corresponding to her tongue that draws a cos x graph, intertwined with yours completely—but following the exact same period of 2π.

You push her down to the mattress, and now you can see the hyperbolic curve of her waist. You grab on the narrow valley of it and continue pounding.

What you are doing to Minnie is distorting the perfectness of her body, although it's your way of worshiping it. The circular dark orbs in her elliptical eyes disappear into her head.

You choke her from behind. The amount of air getting in her lungs converges to zero, while the pleasure diverges to infinity.

Her fingers dig into the mattress as you pace up. You feel her walls pulse like sin x. Instant grips and loosenings of her pussy indicate that she is now close. You contribute the last drop of your patience for her orgasm—the maximum, when the derivative of her pleasure hits the X axis.

"I'm cummi–"

Minnie cums with a scream silenced by your grip around her neck. You for a moment regret restraining her voice, but no. You can just make her cum again, again, and again.

You flip her around to face you and resume the race. The race of which finish line you all are aware of obviously.

You kiss her again, this time drawing infinity with your tongue. It of course doesn't mean that it'll last forever, but you feel like it lasts as long as eternity itself. Rather, it would mean the neverending high you two are sharing right now.

Integral. Integrity. You and Minnie in bed together can't be counted as two. Undivided pleasure travels your connected, shared body. No boundaries are found between you and Minnie as you are pulled into a tight hug by her. You can feel how smooth her skin is, how soft her breasts are like it's your body—forget about the breasts, maybe.

Actually, it sounds quite right because it is your body—it's been so long since you lost count how many times you two told each other "You're mine,". Minnie moaning beneath you is yours. Yours to savor, yours to please, yours only to love.

Yes, yours only, and vice versa. You two are bijective functions. Each of your factors matches each of hers, without duplicity.

Again, you're hers only. Minnie is here, taking your cock to define you, to differentiate you, to integrate you. Minnie is moaning underneath your body, to be your proof, to be your solution, to be your answer.

"Are you close, babe?"

You were just about to say that you were, but you are so predictable a problem—Minnie knows the exact formulae to use when dealing with you.

"I am,"

Go ahead, she eyes you. You crook your neck to nibble on her ear and whisper,

"I fucking love you, Minnie,"

The moment you cum inside her, you are sent out of this world. The real world means nothing to you. Imaginary sensations feel more real than the real ones. Like you're feeling the i itself—the imaginary number.

1×1=1. You and Minnie just can't get separated. When it comes to you two, it's not the concept of addition or subtraction. You two love each other so it's 1×1=1. When you two are away from each other, you're still one, because 1÷1=1. Being 2 means you and Minnie are two 1s, which makes you two different individuals—right now, and of course always, you'd disprove that proudly.

You already came about half a minute ago, but you don't pull out. You see Minnie's heaving back and it's perfectly symmetrical—her erector muscles being the perfect axis for it.

It's an even function —f(x)=f(-x)— that you get visual, psychological satisfaction from. That way you could split her perfectly into two halves.

Your hands softly rub on her back. She still is in the middle of recovery, as you can feel her bumping heartbeats on your palm.

"Y-you feel so warm, baby,"

Minnie slightly lifts her limp head from the bed and murmurs with such a low tone. You then pull out and lie down next to her. Turning your body to her side you brush her hair behind her ears. She looks at you and gives you a satisfied, satisfying smile that could literally melt anything, everything.

Minnie's hand comes up to touch your face and–

It hits your still hard dick and she looks at it.

"Wanna go for another round?"

Minnie asks you, sitting up and getting on your thighs. It's a question with only one answer, it's another function that defines you two—a constant function, no matter what she says your answer is yes, undeniably.

Minnie grabs it, strokes it softly, and you feel your lust being recharged. Seems like she doesn't even look for your answer, anyway.

"Holy–"

You're inside her. Right after insertion Minnie starts to ride you out fast. You can only gasp at the feeling of her already-fucked inside, which is what you do every fucking time. Minnie kneeling, each of her knees are next to your both sides as she waves her hip and waist on you.

"Ah, fuck… You can last longer, right?"

She again asks you a question, locking fingers with you. Just like before, your answer is undoubtedly yes. Minnie then brings your hands to her lower waist and leans down forward, completely relying her weight on you. She lets your head into her embrace and whispers into your ear.

"Warm me up again, baby."

Your hands go down to grab on her hips and you begin fucking her upward with pace. As soon as your thrusts start to fuck your previous cum deeper into her womanhood, she moans beautifully into your ear.

Her arms tighten around your head, but the only tightness you can recognize is that of what's around your cock. She nibbles on your ear. Hot breaths tickle your ear, and her teeth on it motivates you to go even faster, rougher, and harsher. That's what loving sex is to her, and of course, to you too.

Your right hand detaches from her ass and gets on the back of her head. Minnie then lifts her head slightly up to fall into a dirty kiss. This time, you review the whole session beforehand.

You are drawing sin x, cos x, and infinity randomly with your tongue. Her back begins to arc exponentially, so you strengthen your hand on her head to keep her body tangent to yours. Your fingers on her ass rubs on her another hole, to make her pleasure diverge to infinity.

And everything you're doing earns her uncontrolled scream of ecstasy, as if she's trying to make an auditory definition of orgasm.

She again closes in to lock lips with you, and soon she cums. On your still-moving cock she cums hard, and in your mouth she lets the orgasmic sound out. It travels through your body fast, reverberates in your skull, sending you over the edge in no time.

You push deep into her for the last time before violently cumming inside her again.

It's explosive, you would term it. Minnie's entire body reacts to every spurt you shoot inside her.

"Holy fuck…"

You let out a sigh of words.

"Baby, that was…"

On top of her lungs she says, only to pause for breathing.

That was awesome, yeah. You know that, because you feel just like her too.

You look into her eyes, and find the excellence itself, the perfect, absolute beauty—e^(iπ)+1=0 .

#kpop male reader #kpop x male reader #kpop smut #minnie smut #gidle smut

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max1461 · 2 months

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like I'm watching the richard borcherds series on elliptic functions right now and I don't want to say "who give a shit" but I kind of a little bit don't get why you would care

#math

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cookiesuga55 · 3 months

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Full of Life (Minimoni)

TW: eating disorder.

You know what I adore. Healthy fat. Round soft jiggle laid over muscle, proving that someone is loved. Gaining weight as a form of healing. Comfort and safety and trust.

Jimin gets "healthy fat." His previously malnourished and over-exercised body is finally getting more than the bare minimum number of calories to function. This all begins when he starts dating Nutritionist Namjoon, and his boyfriend purses his lips at just how little Jimin consumes in a day. Jimin is so exhausted all of the time. He complains of headaches, and Namjoon knows exactly why.

"Six cups of coffee and one granola bar is not enough fuel to last all day, little chick."

Despite Jimin waving him off with excuses about being too busy in the dance studio to eat, Namjoon hauls his own meaty, bulked-up ass to the kitchen at 1 am and cooks balanced meals for Jimin to snatch from his fridge on the way out each morning. He knows just what kinds of calories Jimin's deprived body needs. Moderately portioned rice and grains mixed with peppers, tomatoes, and a sprinkle of olive oil. A slab of seared salmon or some other healthy protein for Jimin's body to actually have enough energy to last the day. Sauteed vegetables, sliced cheese, and a healthy portion of fruit. A little bar of dark chocolate that he knows Jimin adores. A protein smoothie full of nutrients and calories for Jimin to sip in the morning instead of overdosing on caffeine. He adds an apple and draws on a sticky note. A little wobbly smiley face with a speech bubble. "Eat me!"

Namjoon presses another sticky note on the coffee machine for Jimin to see when he wakes up. A "breakfast and yummy lunch in the fridge for you. <3 Joonie."

Jimin is so pouty with affection when he wakes up and sees the notes and the food made with love from his hyung. He tosses it in his bag on the way out, chaotic and haphazard as always, almost late as he shucks on his trainers and snatches the delicious-looking smoothie instead of the stale coffee that he forgot to empty out the night before.

Namjoon keeps up caring for his boyfriend, and it isn't long before Jimin's frail and exhausted body begins filling in. Namjoon kisses his baby chick's pudgy cheek before heading to the early shift at the clinic, and murmurs as always, "love you-" before leaving.

Jimin having actual food and a well-balanced diet helps his body so much. He starts coming home from work with more energy, smiling and glowing at Namjoon with fuller cheeks, asking if he wants to go for a bike ride together along the river. Namjoon practically beams as he can see the life pouring back into his boyfriend now that his body is approaching a healthy weight. Jimin has a soft waist, and Namjoon can't help but adore it. Rubbing in his hands as he hugs him from behind in the kitchen, feeling the sweet, warm curves of his body and leaning down to kiss his neck. Jimin melts into him like usual, and Namjoon feels so much pride in the way Jimin's tummy gently pushes out into his hands. Jimin is so healthy. He's full of life and love, and Namjoon makes sure to worship the ever-living hell out of him, so Jimin doesn't slip into any of the negative thoughts that he confessed to him one night over a bottle of shared wine about why he started dancing- to lose weight.

Jimin is just so happy these days, and he knows that Namjoon is a major contributing factor. He finally has enough energy to start going to the gym with Namjoon whenever his cute, huge koala asks him with hopeful eyes. Jimin follows the exercise plan that Namjoon's personal-trainer friend at work whipped up for him.

"Nothing for weight loss," Namjoon had told Jungkook privately during their lunch break, "I just want him confident and healthy again. He was so frail, Jungkookie. I was scared he was going to break."

Jimin jogs on the elliptical and watches Namjoon squat with a bar of weight hiked over his shoulders. Tiddies and ass to die for. Namjoon is so fucking thick and yummy. Jimin licks his teeth after taking another drink of the protein shake that his boyfriend gives him every morning. They chase their weekly gym-runs with shower sex at home, and then Namjoon cooks them up a hearty breakfast to offset all of those burned calories.

His hyung is a little obsessed with clean-eating, but Jimin doesn't mind. It's cute how Namjoon always goes to the organic section of the store and bikes to the farmers market. Jimin practically has a personal chef with how good Namjoon's cooking is. There's always a delicious meal on the table for him, with seconds ready to be dished onto his plate.

Jimin finishes filling in, and starts filling out. He lays in the morning sunshine glimmering across their bed, thoroughly fucked. Both of them softly pant and bask in afterglow. Namjoon's warm, ringed hand is resting on Jimin's tummy and gently rubs circles.

"Have you noticed..." Namjoon's voice is fucked from moaning. Jimin turns to him and can't help but glow. It's his favorite sound. Namjoon's morning voice, deepened and scratchy from pleasure. "That sex has gotten so much better since you started eating more? You have more energy, baby."

Warmth floods Jimin's cheeks, but he nods, a little bit shy. Namjoon's hand caresses the curve of his waist, fingers sinking into the supple weight. "I love this, by the way," Namjoon whispers and gives Jimin's love handle a little squeeze. He squishes in his hyung's hand. "I prefer you healthy and soft over sharp and exhausted," Namjoon nuzzles into his neck, and Jimin wraps around Namjoon's warmth.

The truth spills out of Jimin before he can think twice, "me too..."

"You haven't had a headache in months too, lovely. You're full of life." Namjoon cuddles him back, pulling him into his thick chest. Jimin burrows into it, breathing him in. Jimin isn't dumb. He's noticed the way that his body has been rounding out, filling up with muscle and a healthy layer of supple padding, making him curvy and plump. His hips even have stretch marks over them, complete with bruised kisses painted over them by Namjoon. His hyung has done such a good job of making him feel comfortable and loved in his new body.

"I know," Jimin whispers into the safety of Namjoon's chest, knowing that it's all because of his boyfriend's care. "Thank you, Joonie. I'm so happy like this."

That's all that Namjoon needs to hear to practically rumble in his chest, and kiss the top of Jimin's head. He pushes Jimin onto his back, laying his hearty weight on top of him and sliding his big hands down to Jimin's waist. One of Namjoon's dimples presses into his cheek as his lips curve up into a smirk. "Now that I don't have to be so careful with you..." He squeezes Jimin's plump sides, "You're fucking sexy with some weight on you, baby."

Jimin's cheeks heat up, and a whimper bubbles out of his throat. Embarrassing. That's embarrassing that he just whined from Namjoon squeezing his tummy. "I- I am?" He looks up at his hyung's hungry face. Namjoon pets his palms over him, squeezing everywhere that's warm with fat. His lidded eyes darken.

"I told you that I love this- Healthy. Curvy. Soft. You're perfect for squeezing and biting." He licks his lips as he drinks Jimin in. The look that Namjoon is keeping him pinned with has Jimin wanting to mewl and arch up into him. To hook his stretch-marked thighs around Namjoon's waist and beg.

All Jimin can do is whine and tug on his boyfriend's thick biceps.

Namjoon purrs as he worships him. "A healthy mix of muscle and enough pudge for people to know that I'm taking good care of you. That you're finally being kept well-fed." He shoves his hands underneath Jimin's back and slides down, getting a thick handful of his ass cheeks. Jimin feels like he's going to catch on fire with how much pleasure is thrumming through his body, settling in the core of his belly. Namjoon sinks down and hums against his fluffy belly, like he knows where the heat blooms inside of Jimin. "Softened tummy and tits for me to worship, and a plump peach for me to bruise-"

Namjoon's teeth scrape against Jimin's padded hip bones. Jimin whines uncontrollably, dissolving into melted desire at the body worship. He desperately clutches at Namjoon's hair, tugging hard just how his hyung likes it. His back arches, making the sweet curve of his belly push up into Namjoon's face. He can feel his boyfriend's lips stretch into a smile against his skin.

"I'm taking advantage of all of that extra energy you have for my own pleasure. That makes me a bad hyung," Namjoon drags his lips up Jimin's stomach. God that feels so fucking good.

"Take advantage- Please-" he gasps and frees his pillowy thighs to hook them around Namjoon and lock him in place. He wants him to keep kissing his tummy. "Gods, Namjoon, please fucking take advantage- I'm all yours-"

Namjoon laughs in delight against Jimin's softened stomach and begins pressing firm, needy kisses down his belly and across his waist. His voice is teasing and thick with desire.

"If you insist, baby..."

Jimin is cut off by a moan. "I fucking insist..."

#minimoni #bt5 feedism #namjoon's tiddies #soft #comfort

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abibliophobiaa · 10 months

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beyond — chapter six preview

releasing on 6/30/2023, 12pm EST.

——

“Figured I’d get in a workout because Charlie is napping,” you explain, stepping further into the room, stopping in front of the endless rows of dumbbells your husband keeps on a rack against the fall wall of the room with wall to wall mirrors reflecting your nervous image back at you. “And also because it’s raining, so I couldn’t go outside.”

“Uh huh.” He takes a final gulp of his water and places it down onto the floor beside him, about to start more bicep curls when he catches your image in the mirror. “Looking for something?”

Maybe it’s your inability to figure out what weight dumbbells you should start with. Maybe it’s because you’re already forgetting the layout of the TikTok workout you watched earlier that evening you intended to try. Maybe it’s the fact you know you want to start lifting weights, if only to help with your running and dog walking business (some of those bigger dogs get a little rowdy). Maybe it’s the fact you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. As a result of all of that, your teeth pinch against your bottom lip, skin taut between, meeting his stare in the mirror.

“I’ll probably just hop on the treadmill. Go for a walk,” you decide, cowering away from his curious stare to rush to the farther corner of the room where the cardio equipment is.

The present set up has a treadmill, elliptical, stairmaster, and spin bike. More than you’ll ever need, but you’ll never complain because one of the perks now in being married to Steve is that you were able to cancel your own membership and save a little extra cash every month. Hopping on, you tap on the large screen panel to set your leisurely walking pace, pop a pair of headphones in your ears, and drown out the sounds in the room.

The plan works.

For all of five minutes.

Because you’re minding your own business, bobbing along to “Bad Girls” by M.I.A. as you strut across your runway slash treadmill belt, when Steve decides to lift his weights once more. Uses his knees to help prop them up, going right into a set of overhead dumbbell presses.

And damn it, if the sight of him when you walked in hadn’t sent you into orbit, this certainly does.

From where you’re standing you can see his back. The constellation of moles you never really paid much attention to, but now want to mark the path of with your fingers. Want to trace them like the stars in the night sky. With every overhead arch, his sinewy back ripples, muscles in his arms straining, veins sparking to life beneath his skin. From where you’re standing you can see the lines of his abdomen, the sweat pooling across ridges, clinging to those perfectly sculpted divots. Can see the way his chest jumps with each movement, making your thighs clench.

Only—one's thighs shouldn’t clench on the treadmill.

Except yours do.

And promptly send you crashing onto the belt, skin ripping from your kneecap in one rapid swipe.

A giant, gaping black hole in the floor would be a good escape right now. That or a meteor falling from the sky, with its target directed at your head. Anything to rid yourself of the mortification of your current dose of reality.

Steve’s already dropping the dumbbells by the time you fall onto your rear, nearly crashing into the glass window in the process, your trembling hands clutching your scraped up knee.

It burns. A white hot heat that has your eyes prickling, embarrassment burning like a heated iron in your chest. And to make matters worse, Steve utters out a soft “baby” as he drops down in front of you, and that might as well signify the end of all life function. Because not only have you fallen off a treadmill ogling your increasingly “not-so-fake-husband,” but now he is calling you “baby” on top of it all.

“Baby, let me see,” you realize he’s saying as you come crashing back to reality, the hazel of his eyes growing darker as he crawls closer on the floor, trying to inspect your knee. With a reluctant sigh, your hands fall away, revealing the freshly torn skin. “That’s a mean looking burn. Come on, let's put something on that.”

“I’m fine right here,” you argue, back pressing against the mirrored wall.

“Why?”

His brows lift high on his forehead, left hand curling over the unbroken skin of your left knee. You can see he’s wearing a black silicone wedding band today, not his usual wedding ring, and yet you don’t miss that simple gesture. Always wearing that symbol of your union, while your own are presently sitting high enough in a ring holder so Charlie won’t be able to mistake them for very expensive doggy chew toys.

“It’s gonna hurt like a bitch.”

“It’s a little burn, and then you’ll feel better,” he promises, giving your knee a little squeeze. “I’ll be so gentle.”

“Steve.”

“Honey.”

——

see you friday! 💍

#steve harrington fanfic #Steve Harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #modern day!au

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crimeronan · 6 months

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it looks like a lot of the writers who use tumblr professionally are working to put together a new space for us, so once i know which website/app they've settled on, i Will probably pop over there.

i don't think there's ever going to be a site with the same level of functionality for visual artists, photographers, writers, and bloggers alike. so since i'm a writer i'm gonna pick my battles and follow the writers where they go.

i'm also likely to curate an RSS feed so i can follow artists and photographers and local bloggers on twitter and instagram. but as for following me somewhere, i'm just waiting to find out. i think collective organization of writers is better than panicking and signing up for like 12 different microsites at once.

i'll keep you guys posted. hopefully wherever i go will support my fandom shitposting and personal blogging. and of course i'll still be on ao3 at elliptical when you want my non-shitpost writing.

#tumblr #like others have said i'm staying here til the doors shut #but it's just practical to back up my blog and have a presence elsewhere too.#i started the blog backup process as soon as i heard tonight #it can only be done from web but you guys should too.... in case the feature breaks in the future

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ranidspace · 6 months

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The Millennium Prize Problems are a set of 7 mathematical problems that each have a one million dollar prize if you are the first to find a correct solution of the problem. (simplified, very bad) Explanations for all of them in the bottom, but feel free to reblog as to why your favourite is the best

The Riemann Hypothesis: For the following equation,

The Hypothesis states that all non-trivial zeroes lie on the n=1/2+ti line, where t is a real number, and i is the imaginary unit

Yang-Mills Theory and the Mass Gap Hypothesis: The Yang-Mills Theory explains the "Standard Model". Which is the behaviour and interactions between elementary particles, such as quarks, gluons, and leptons. It however does not explain the interactions in the nucleus. To prove it you must prove that the Yang-Mills theory holds true for any "compound simple gauge group", and the mass of all particles predicted by it must be greater than 0(mass gap)

The P vs. NP Problem: In computer programming, P problems are anything can be solved by a turing machine(computer) in a "polynomial"(ie: ax^2+bx+c) amount of computation time (considered to be easily solvable, though not all P problems have a known solution etc etc). NP problems are problems, that while not solvable in a polynomial amount of time, a solution is able to be verified in a polynomial amount of time. The definitions of these are a bit fuzzy, and P vs NP asks if there's a fundamental difference between the two at all.

Navier–Stokes equations: These equations predict the movement of viscous newtonian fluids (almost all fluids you can think of that dont have debate over "is it a solid or a liquid" so not like, jello, jam, ketchup, shaving cream whatever). This asks if for any fluid in three dimensions, a "smooth"(differentiable at all points) solution to the equations can always be found

The Poincaré conjecture: In topology, the conjecture states that for any finite 3d topological space, where every loop in the space can be tightened to a point, it's necessarily topologically identical to a 4 dimensional sphere (A normal sphere is a 3d sphere, however it's a 2 dimensional topological space, as loops can only be placed on the "flat" surface, see photo below)

The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture: Elliptic curves(see photo below) are defined by y^2=x^3+ax+b. Some of them have an infinite amount of rational solutions, and some only have a finite amount, and this conjecture states that there is an associated function, that when it equals 0, there's infinite rational solutions, and when it is not 0, it's finite.

The Hodge Conjecture: "The answer to this conjecture determines how much of the topology of the solution set of a system of algebraic equations can be defined in terms of further algebraic equations." (im gonna be honest i have no idea, i lifted this definition straight from the clay mathematics institute)

The pointcaré conjecture has actually been solved, it's the only one on the list that has, but dont let that influence your decision

#poll #math #millennium prize problems

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shonk · 1 year

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#gif #animation #mathart #black and white #geometric #complex analysis #elliptic function #math #mathematica

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password-door-lock · 9 months

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“Do you ever play match three games?”

Saeran tears his gaze away from the wall he’s been staring at for the better part of five minutes. What kind of a question is that? “No.”

“Oh,” you slump against the stiff chair you’ve claimed for yourself since the two of you arrived in the waiting room. This is the first trip the two of you have taken out of the bunker without Saeyoung present, and although you're trying your best, it's still a bit awkward. “Can you help me anyway? I’m stuck on this level.”

Saeran rolls his eyes, but holds out his hand for your phone anyway. What else is he going to do? You insisted on showing up a full twenty minutes before the start of his appointment “in case there’s any paperwork” (there was none), and the magazines littering the coffee table in front of him interest him about as much as the drama rerun playing on the blocky old TV behind him— which is to say, not at all. “Whatever.”

You beam at him like it matters that he’s agreed to “help” you with your mobile game. Maybe it does matter to you— maybe in your head, this is an indicator that Saeran is healing, or maybe you’re just irrationally invested in the game. “It’s just match three,” you reiterate, as if that would mean anything to Saeran. Once, several months ago, he looked at the games section of the app store. It couldn’t have been two minutes before he became overwhelmed and frustrated with the sheer number of seemingly identical options available and decided that until further notice, his phone would be for accessing the RFA messenger app and playing with search engines only.

Your phone, however, is apparently for all kinds of nonsense outside of those basic functions. When Saeran accepts the device, he is greeted by a screen full of colorful orbs, dispersed in a seemingly random alignment against a pastoral backdrop. He stares at them, transfixed, trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to be doing with them. This is fun for you? Really? After a few moments, a strange grey cartoon character pops up in the corner of the screen to scold him for his inactivity. Its ears are large and round; its elliptical nose takes up half its face. Try this move, it urges, and two of the orbs begin to glow. Is he supposed to swap them? That would make a row of three green orbs. “What’s with this mouse?” Saeran asks.

He follows the creature’s instructions, and indeed, the green row disappears in a burst, though it is quickly replaced by new orbs which cascade from the rows above. “That’s a koala,” you explain, “Not a mouse. They’re marsupials, I think, so they live in Australia. They eat, um… leaves, from… I think it’s a eucalyptus tree? And either only koalas can eat eucalyptus or eucalyptus is the only thing koalas can eat, I don’t remember.”

Saeran shakes his head. This is not the first time you’ve presented him with contradictory and confusing “facts,” about which you seem decidedly unsure. Once you’d answered his questions about common house pets and local fauna, Saeran’s inquiries had apparently exhausted your animal knowledge, which proved to be severely limited from the start. “I’ll just look it up later.” Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. That depends on a lot of things, like how he’s feeling after his confrontation with the dentist and whether he’s still bothered by his ignorance about koalas when the two of you return to the bunker.

You watch over his shoulder as Saeran tries to play the game— tries being the operative verb. He switches orbs at random, more to see what will happen than because he has any strategy in mind. He isn’t even sure about the intended objective of the game, let alone the goal for this level— is he just supposed to get rid of as many orbs as possible? Instead of offering gameplay advice— which would, doubtlessly, vex Saeran to no end— you merely observe, occasionally cheering him on when he swaps some particularly important orbs or beats the koala to the punch with choosing a move. Normally, having someone hovering there would bother him, but… with you, it’s different. This is your phone, after all, and anyway, even if Saeran doesn’t trust you with his deepest, darkest secrets (he’ll probably never trust anybody with those) he has grown comfortable with your presence in his space. Maybe that’s a mundane thing for other people, but it’s monumental for him, and he knows that you don’t take it for granted.

He loses, of course. You probably play this stupid game all the time, and if you couldn’t pass the level, Saeran doesn’t see how you could expect him to do any better. “Sorry,” you grin at him, “I couldn’t set the difficulty level any lower for you. I’m pretty much a pro at this game— did you know I’m internationally ranked?”

You’re joking around with him now, treating him like a normal person despite the things you know he’s done and whatever you can guess. Though it doesn’t make much sense to him, Saeran can’t say he minds. “You play it, then.” He puts the phone back in your hand. He watches you lose six times before the dentist calls him, at which point, he rises, leaning in to mutter to you on his way out, “Maybe you should set the difficulty level lower for yourself.” Your laughter, loud and abrupt, draws a few stares from the other patrons of the waiting room— but in the scheme of things, Saeran is grateful to have made you laugh.

#here's some consolation fluff from the vault for the wedding people lol #I know 0 people voted for drabbles on my poll but I don't care #Also I seriously needed a break from writing angst #And in case anyone was wondering koalas can eat other plants besides eucalyptus but very rarely #And apparently there are also other animals that can eat eucalyptus but it's still toxic to most animals so give MC a break #mystic messenger #mystic messenger drabble

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whirligig-girl · 2 days

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Some of the history of Zwo-nmu System Exploration by Mellanoid Slime Worm Space Programs.

A reminder of the Zwo-nmu Planetary System. The Sun, also called The Zwo-nmu (literally The Day Light) is a G8V main sequence star with many giant planets. Mellanus, called Gymnome by some of its inhabitants, is the homeworld of the Mellanoid Slime Worms--Eaurp Guz's people. Mellanus is a coorbital of Omen in a horseshoe orbit. Every 15 or so earth years, Mellanus approaches Omen, which moves it into a higher or lower orbit around the Sun.

This graphic is in a rotating reference frame following Omen. green circle is Omen's orbit in a non-rotating reference frame. Yellow circle is Mellanus' inner/short/summer/hot orbit. Purple circle is Mellanus' outer/long/winter/cold orbit. Blue and gray circles are the orbits of Cold Ember and Rabbit. Times are given in Earth days and distances in Earth-Sun-distances (astronomical units)

Omen is named, of course, as it represents drastic climate change--orbital seasons affecting both hemispheres for many years at a time.

With that reminder out of the way...

Zwo-nmu (the star)

extensive telescopic study from low mellanus orbit. The first solar telescope to enter orbit discovered the corona but was not set up to observe it properly, so follow-up missions had to be undertaken.

studied by the Cold Ember probes and by at least one dedicated "sun-scraper"

Cold Ember (the hot super-earth/sub-neptunian)

Of the five probes sent to Cold Ember at various times, only two have made it.

The second one to make it is an orbiter. It relies on stationkeeping propellant so its elliptical orbit always keeps its apoapsis on the night side of the planet, such that it can spend time in the shadow to keep cool. Within a few days of it running out of stationkeeping fuel it will begin to overheat. There are proposals to send a Rescue Shuttle up to resupply and repair the probe, but the strict rules about use of alien spacecrafts in the mellanoid space program make that difficult.

Rabbit

Visited by 2 robotic probes--a flyby and a short-lived orbiter. A lander/rover is planned, but doesn't have the same priority as the Omen Development Program and the Ice Giants Exploration Program.

Mellanus Orbit

At its peak, Mellanus had thousands of satellites and dozens of space stations, but a near-miss with ablation cascade (see: the movie Gravity (2013)) that was only averted thanks to the recently installed phaser network has lead to many restrictions being put in place on the number and function of satellites. Early in the history of mellanoid space exploration, there was not much automation available. Satellites had to be crewed, and so there were many space stations, and when automation happened, those space stations grew into constellations of satellites. Telecommunications constellations were the real culprit, with several competing agencies, companies, and nations setting up their own independent constellations ranging from 10s to 1000s of satellites each. But now, subspace technology has rendered low-orbit communications satellites obsolete, and there are just a few dozen geosynchronous communications satellites, a GPS network, and the number of Mellanus observation satellites has been coralled.

One of the United Mellanus Space Program's current duties is the cleanup of low orbit, which is operated both by phaser blasts in an emergency and by crewed spacecrafts. Most of the space stations in mellanus orbit are specifically infrastructure intended to refuel these spacecrafts, since they need to be able to access a wide range of inclinations, and inclination changes are difficult to accomplish.

Other space stations include the constellation of orbital drydocks, which are all orbiting about a hundred kilometers apart from one another, and the Starbase, a very large rotating artificial gravity space station which was built between the 2340s and the 2360s, and serves as the space end of the interstellar spaceport.

Mellanus natural satellites

Mellanus has one permanent satellite, Ubbi, a 340 meter wide rubble pile which is thought to have once been another asteroid's moon, millions of years ago. It is just barely bright enough to be seen by a mellanoid who has expanded their eye to the greatest practical width, but it wasn't noticed to be a moving star until after the invention of the astronomical telescope and the popularization of sun-centrism. It was thought at first to be an asteroid, since it was discovered while Mellanus was passing through Omen's trojan cloud, but careful observations determined that it was a satellite in a stable circular orbit, and a careful observation of photographic plates and star charts indicate it's been orbiting Mellanus for at least hundreds of years. It's named after its discoverer.

Many early mellanoid space activities have used Ubbi as a target. There are dozens of probes. Sadly Ubbi is very resource poor, being poor in both volatiles that could be used for propellant and metals that could make it valuable. It's not even a useful science target, since one of the earliest missions to visit it was an impactor which essentially exploded Ubbi. It reformed again, but completely resurfaced, burying clues to its origin as a satellite. Ubbi is currently orbited by one derelict spacecraft and

There have been three temporary natural satellites of Mellanus to be visited by spacecrafts. All but one have entered Mellanus orbit only for a few months and were only visited by robotic probes. The largest one, Temma was three kilometers across and in an eccentric orbit that remained stable all the way up until two Omen conjunctions later, so it lasted for about 30-35 years. However, as a carbonaceous asteroid, it was rich in volatiles, and it was explored and settled extensively by all major space programs. The first crewed international interplanetary trips to Omen used fuel refined from Temma and brought down to low orbit.

The Omen Coorbitals (Trojans, Greeks, and Other Horseshoes)

Outside of Ubbi and Temma, the Coorbitals are the next step out into space. Mellanus occasionally has close encounters with coorbitals. Over time Mellanus and Omen together have corralled the coorbitals into very specific lanes. There are far fewer coorbitals around Omen than Glerbuh, or, say, Jupiter, because coorbital or not, Mellanus is still a planet. Most of the coorbitals are trojans, with the apsides neatly tucked in between the outer edge of Mellanus' sphere of influence in the low orbit, and the inner edge of Mellanus' sphere of influence in the high orbit. The Greeks--the trojans on the leading edge of Omen's orbit--are especially depleted. It's thought that Mellanus was once the only large object in the greek camp, but was perturbed onto its current horseshoe orbit billions of years ago. As a result, the greek camp is a hodge-podge of scattered objects from elsewhere in the system, whereas the trojan camp is comprised of more objects original to this part of the circumstellar disk. Each camp can answer different questions about the evolution of the Zwo-nmu system, and Mellanus' relation to it in particular. Ironically, even though the greek camp is Mellanus' original home, it's the trojan camp that is more relevant to studying Mellanus itself.

It is possible on any given year to send a spacecraft to visit Omen, Trojans, Greeks, or any other coorbital. However, the trajectories which take a minimum of fuel are only accessible 1-6 months or so before the closest approach with either object, and for crewed missions, less efficient but faster trajectories lasting only a month right around the close approach are preferred.

Outside of the Omen apparitions, the most active times for interplanetary spaceflight have historically been around the passing through the trojan clouds, which happens about 6 years before and after each Omen apparition. Starting from the low summer orbit, Mellanus passes the Trojan Camp. 6 years later, it reaches Omen and moves to the high winter orbit. 6 years after that, it passes the Trojan camp again. Then 15 years later, it passes the Greek Camp. 6 more years later, Omen appears large and Mellanus shifts to the summer orbit. 6 years later, it passes the Greek camp again. 15 years pass, and then we restart the cycle.

other horseshoe-coorbitals can be encountered at any time of year, but there's only a few of these known to exist.

Crewed missions to the other coorbitals have served as test flights for Omen missions, while also contributing meaningfully to planetary science as a whole. While asteroid exploration may not be exciting or glamorous, the use of trojan missions as testbeds has allowed a lot of groundbreaking work that otherwise might not have had any support to be performed.

Humans currently, in the real world 2020s, posses the propulsion technology and even, in principle, the industrial capacity to send humans to Mars. What we lack is a good idea of how to support humans on interplanetary spaceflight for many months or years at a time. A typical stay on the International Space Station is not even comparable to a Mars mission. That research is still underway. But we can go to the Moon. What's crucial is the relatively short turnaround time. A Moon mission may take only a week or two. The Artemis lunar missions will last longer, but not as long as a Mars mission would have to.

Absent a permanent moon of any substance, the Mellanoids are able to get their relatively short turnaround missions done thanks to the coorbitals. If Mellanus were still a trojan, it'd have emptied out the Greek Camp. Omen would never get particularly close, and it'd take over a year to make a round trip to it. It'd be just as hard to reach as Mars or the Main Asteroid Belt. But since Mellanus is in a horseshoe orbit, for about a year at a time every 6-15 years it is within spitting distance of some celestial body or another. Every 18-19 years that celestial body is the magnificent planet Omen with its own system of moons. When it's not Omen, it's the coorbital asteroids.

Propulsion wise it is not that much easier to reach the Omen coorbitals than it is for humans to go to Mars. You still have to escape Mellanus and keep accelerating on top of that.

But instead of bringing all of the comforts and necessities involved in the long-term habitation of space with you to a distant planet, you can get away with using capsules that are not much more advanced than what we were using in the Apollo era. The long term habitation problem is solved, leaving the only major problem left that of propulsion, of vehicle design. And since Mellanus is relatively small and they aren't shy about using nuclear rockets, the propulsion problem isn't that big of a deal. in a way, Omen and the coorbitals are a crutch. By the 2340s Mellanoid space programs still had not undertaken crewed interplanetary missions beyond the coorbitals. But, at least in Star Trek, human spaceflights to Europa & Jupiter were being undertaken in the 2020s. These missions would have had to take years! that said, there is a reason Omen has been such a focus--and it's not just because it is so culturally important.

The Omen System

Since the dawn of the Mellanoid space age, there have been six Omen apparitions.

Years given are Earth Years

1) 2300: Two nations launched robotic flyby attempts this year. One succeeded, but it was little more than a spinning photopolarimeter which could take a grainy image of Omen and a magnetometer which produced useful magnetic field readings. 2) 2315: Two failed atmosphere probes for Oldsky, one successful robotic lander on Rival, one successful robotic lander on Spark, and successful orbit insertion of a robotic Omen orbiter which continued to send back photos of Omen and its moons right through to the next conjunction. During the lifetime of this orbiter, Oldsky was conclusively shown to have complex life. 3) 2329: First crewed missions. There is a crewed landing on Rival, a crewed orbiter mission for Oldsky. It had originally intended to operate out of a small space station placed into Oldsky orbit a year in advance, but this station was covertly destroyed by Zaldans, and the orbiter mission was repurposed as a mere flyby, which fails, leading to first contact with Zaldans. 4) 2344: The most important year yet--the beginning of space archaeology. It's also the year asteroid Temma departs Mellanus and makes its own flyby of Omen. 5) 2358: International grand tour involving orbiters and landers on every planet including Oldsky. Leads to formation of United Mellanus Space Program. 6) 2373: Fission-impulse rockets have made regular interplanetary travel between Mellanus and Omen possible on any year. 7) 2387: Oldsky is now a colony of Mellanus.

Mellanus is on the border of the Zaldan sphere of influence, and with the increasing expansionism of the Cardassians and the tragedy of what they had begun to do to the Bajorans, the Zaldans desired military bases on the stars near their industrial colonies and their homeworld. These bases had to provide deuterium, so they needed to be located in a system with a gas giant, and also function as repair stations. The stars surrounding Mellanus were poor candidates--there are no M-class habitable planets around the nearby stars, and the only other gas giants were hot Jupiters or brown dwarfs which would make deuterium extraction difficult.

The Zaldans respected the non-interference directive, but not if it meant a gaping hole in their security. They would set up a military base on Omen's M-class moon Oldsky. There was an orbiting space station and a surface base, connected by cargo transporters and shuttlecrafts, staffed by military officers and a few civilian personnel, not unlike Deep Space Nine, but considerably more of a frontier for all involved. There was also a space station built in very low orbit of Omen, designed to scrape the atmosphere for deuterium to fuel freighters. These ships would be undetectable to the mellanoids as long as ships entering the system avoided activity during close encounters and all ships entering and leaving the system hid their photon wakes behind the Sun, resulting in fairly complex routing.

During the 2329 Omen apparition, a spacecraft that had been intended to fly by Omen had a severe failure, akin to Apollo 13. Still over a month from home, with no prospect but a horrible death, they were famously rescued by Commander Halen's ship, EZM-407, marking official first contact with the Zaldans. They were returned to Mellanus and the Zaldans finally landed, showing the world that not only were Mellanoids not alone in the universe, they weren't even alone in their own solar system.

Several ships visited Mellanus over the next few years on primarily diplomatic missions, but the Zaldans still kept hands-off, sharing only a minimum of information with the Mellanoids. Not many Zaldans had Halen's affinity for the slimes, and they saw mellanoids as lowly uncivilized savages--and their flowery polite diplomatic language only confirmed this to them. It wasn't before someone really stood up to them--a space program engineer who had gotten tired of standing in the sidelines while his people were being insulted--that the Zaldans finally found a glimmer of respect for the mellanoids.

There had been plans to fly a Mellanoid astronaut to Oldsky in exchange for allowing Zaldan researchers to visit Mellanus, and even early talks of embassies and sharing of the Omen infrastructure, when the Zaldans just… disappeared. Completely cut contact.

If sharing their solar system with rude bullies (who, yes, could have wiped them out a dozen times over yet decided not to so at least there's that) wasn't scary enough, those rude bullies disappearing without a trace was even scarier. On a scale greater than even the Apollo program, nations rushed to assemble their missions to visit Omen and Oldsky to figure out what happened to the Zaldan Military Base. Their robotic probes launched on off-years didn't return any answers--crewed exploration and actually landing mellanoids on Oldsky would be the only answer.

There was also the fact that recovering technology from Oldsky could potentially be transformative--the right technology in the wrong hands could destroy the world. This is spaceflight at its most competitive. This was no longer a game--recovering the alien technology was potentially life or death.

After the first contact with the Federation and the series of revolutions and reforms that lead to the current political situation, one of the main unifying rallying cries for mellanoids was the notion that they deserved the right to sovereign exploration of their own solar system. Outsiders--whether Zaldan, or Federation, or Dominion--would not develop any part of the system!

Ok, the Federation can provide some baseline infrastructure to protect Mellanus from invasion, but space exploration is OUR COMMON HERITAGE!

The current age of Mellanoid Space Exploration is characterized by extensive permanent infrastructure development. Since the 2360s, Mellanoids have been building research stations on Oldsky, Lake, and Rival. Setting up an industrial capability on another planet from scratch is hard to do, but Oldsky has a stable climate year-round and a breathable atmosphere. Much of Oldsky is a desert, and even the "humid" regions are quite dry, but it's still more habitable than literally any other planet in the solar system except for Mellanus, which makes it practical to build using traditional methods.

As of 2380, more people are living and working on Oldsky at any given moment than are doing so in Low Mellanus Orbit. Oldsky station visitors includes geologists, biologists, space archaeologists still studying what remains of Zaldan activity on Oldsky, civil engineers, aerospace engineers, construction workers, miners, marine biologists, submarine helmcrew, aircraft pilots, spacecraft pilots, rover drivers, doctors, astronomers, and even a few tourists selected by raffle.

Propellant infrastructure has been established to keep the fast interplanetary rockets zipping along. At this point, it is possible to stay on Oldsky permanently, but so far, all visitors to Oldsky are temporary, and on years when Omen is inaccessible even with nuclear-fission-impulse rockets (i.e, when the Sun is between it and Mellanus), only a skeleton crew remains to maintain the stations.

Oldsky will probably not have its own self sufficient industry and capacity for its own space program any time soon, but it does have a spaceport serviced by reusable launch vehicles.

Phaser-thermal rockets are used for heavy lift launches from Mellanus these days, but conventional chemical rockets are still used on Oldsky, fueled by hydrogen and oxygen split by electrolysis. There is an oil refinery on Oldsky, so kerosene/oxygen rockets are possible too. things remain somewhat low-tech on Oldsky. Imported vehicles can be powered by batteries, but there aren't let any lithium mines on Oldsky--good deposits have yet to be discovered--so internal combustion engines powered by oil are sadly being used. The Oldsky Planetary Protection Office on Mellanus intends to phase out fossil fuel engines as soon as the planet is capable of producing its own high-energy-density batteries… whenever that is… also, between you and me, they really ought to get more aquatics flying on these missions. what an aquatic astronaut could find on Oldsky might be quite shocking.

Anyway outside of the Omen system and Oldsky Glerbuh has had its fair share of robotic exploration and crewed expeditions. Two of the four ice giants have also been visited by robotic flyby probes, and Glarpi (the innermost ice giant) has had a robotic orbiter. The big crewed grand tour expedition to explore all four ice giants and there moons was one of the major science goals of the 2380s outside of exploring and developing Oldsky. However, it had to be modified to turn into a rescue mission for a mellanoid starfleet officer who was stranded on a planet orbiting a nearby star called TE-92. It's a whole thing. If they manage to rescue them maybe they'll write a novel about it.

#long post #mellanoid slime #mellanoid space program #mellanoid slime worm #mellanoid worldbuilding #spaceflight #althist #spaceflight timeline

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czerwonykasztelanic · 1 month

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As I was analyzing the source code of a website about prime numbers, I came across a portrait of Legendre, the mathematician (known for his work on elliptic functions and number theory). Naturally, the name reminded me of Legendre, the dantonist. And the portrait seemed familiar, so much so that for a second I thought the two were the same person (or at least related to each other). Of course, that is very much not the case, but it turns out that the drawing does in fact depict Louis Legendre and not Adrien-Marie Legendre. And curiously enough, this mistake didn't stem from the historical ignorance of a teenaged math aficionado - the portrait had been incorrectly presumed to be the likeness of Adrien-Marie for some two hundred years before a group of French internauts noticed the disparity in 2005.

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askdannysroleswapau · 2 months

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"proof of concept" design for Voidball + some pupil designs from '22 (back when he still had a tail)

quite a lot has changed! a few key design details have carried over from this one (chipped ear, singular eye, and the heart-shaped hole in the torso), but many aspects have since been scrapped or reworked

design notes under the cut! but be warned! its just a little under 1k words

before we begin, there's this phrase that i'm going to be using a lot and you ought to know what i mean by it!

the phrase is "design philosophy" and in simplified terms, its a set of rules or principals one follows when designing a character. there's a ton of different design philosophies and they vary wildly depending on the medium, the team behind it, the art style, tone and even country of origin!

the one i used for Voidball is a mix of my own observation/analysis of Rob's character design and some principals that the team of Across The Spiderverse used for The Spot. here are the rules i eventually settled on!

remove as much recognizability as possible from the character's appearance, save for their physical stature and select features (eye/mouth/hair/ears/etc.) the end result should be almost entirely unrecognizable

details such as textures, markings, or accessories must either be done away with or heavily simplified

use sharp angles wherever possible, rounded shapes must be sparse (can you tell which part i gave myself more leeway on lol)

do not clutter the design or over-complicate it; principal of Occam's razor

now, let’s get started!!

Head and Ears

i set out with the intention to give him a similarly complicated head shape to Rob, but i quickly dropped this idea because i hate drawing complex geometry! the slice taken out of the head, however, ended up sticking around! you can see some examples of what was dubbed the "sliced melon" head in the doodle dump post.

you can see that the ears have stayed about the same, although i now avoid drawing them with super defined geometry. out of all of the details carried over from this design, the chipped ear is my favorite :)

Eyes

those pesky eyes! i wanted to keep the singular eye, but at first i was unsure of what to replace it with. you can see here that i initially replaced it with an isolated box of static. this looks bad and is not visually appealing!

as i began to imagine static functioning as more of a viscous, liquid substance, i decided to cover the left side of his face with a constantly dripping river of it, obscuring the eye completely. this is both easier to draw and more visually interesting! plus it removes recognizably, which was very important to the design philosophy.

as for the right eye, the pupil shape depicted here has two sharp triangle indents in it.

while it was an interesting idea, it looked too similar to the eyes you see on rubber-hose animated characters, which wasn’t what i wanted. the other three ideas i sketched had similar ideas regarding negative space, but all of them would eventually be scrapped.

as it turns out, the original pupil shape works for a reason! i learned there that going against the original philosophy would not end up working in my favor. i went on to pull many future design elements directly from Rob's design, such as the doubled pupil!

Upper Body

his left hand was originally disconnected/fragmented from his arm/wrist. while cool in concept, this was eventually dropped because it was too difficult to draw consistently. oh well!

his torso/waist were originally more cylinder/sphere-shaped to contrast how Rob's design is made of squares/polygons. again, i have since decided to follow the original philosophy instead of going against it.

my favorite design detail for the torso is the heart-shaped hole in their chest! it is by far my favorite thing to draw :3c

Lower Body

you can see that their waist was more of an elliptical shape here; the legs were also cylinders devoid of much static and largely maintained their patterns.

also notable are the missing portions of the legs. the right leg prominently features a jagged empty space below the knee and a missing section near the hip. this aspect was dropped to simplify the design and remove recognizability

not so much as a note as it is a funny tidbit, but the feet aren't meant to look as if they've been attached at the heel. i just drew the legs before the feet and didn't bother erasing the overlapping lines.

this design wasn't meant to be super solid or well-thought out, i just needed to get the general idea down on paper, and that's what i did! :)

Tail!

ah, the static tail! the visual style of the tail was meant to hearken back to the scan lines you see on old VHS tapes.

as cool as this idea was, it conflicted with him needing to have gained a pig tail in The Future, which i consider to be crucial to the story progression. hah! i love getting to write stuff like that.

having a tail also made him more closely resemble Gumball, which conflicted with rule #1 of the design philosophy. on top of that, i had already used the static tail idea in The Sister, and i felt like recycling it for another character would cheapen the impact of that moment.

and so i revoked his tail privileges. a tragic, yet necessary sacrifice 😔

and with that the notes are done! i don’t know if anybody will actually read this, but i sure did enjoy writing it!

#this is really more like concept art than a proof of concept but its too late to change that now lol #while i was working on this i actually stumbled across a second draft of this design from around the same time (august 24th to be exact)#but this post was already long enough #so i'm saving that for another time #long post #the amazing world of gumball #tawog #danny's roleswap au #drsau #voidball #voidball drsau

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