#like we look at space from a very earth-based perspective

[comicaurora]

book recommendations?

Gideon The Ninth and Harrow The Ninth!

Part 1 and 2 of the Locked Tomb series, with the third entry coming out later this month. Pitched fairly accurately as "lesbian necromancers in space" what I love most about it is the worldbuilding - the ten thousand years of history that turned our world into this world. It's an absolute treasure trove of buried lore and eldritch nightmare fuel obscured constantly by unreliable narrators and fluctuating narrative tone. The narrator of the first book is too bored and checked out to noticed 95% of the crazy foreshadowing she's faced with, and the narrator of the second book is, for spoiler reasons, an extremely unreliable witness of the events going on around her. I will say that the opaqueness of the actual events of the story can make these books better on a reread than on the first read, and if I hadn't gone into Harrow The Ninth with a hefty bank of spoilers I probably would've tapped out about halfway through, because the book spends about half its wordcount actively gaslighting the reader about the events of the first book. It's weird and I love it.

Iron Widow!

Described as "pacific rim meets the handmaid's tale." Giant robot combat plus hefty political drama set in a futuristic sci-fi setting based strongly on Chinese history and mythology, starring basically a reimagining of Wu Zetian, a serious contestant for the coveted History's Baddest Bitch Award. Features one of the only instances of "should I choose the bad boy or the sweet, safe best friend? orrrrrr maybe we can all just fuck each other" polycule love-triangle resolution. A portrayal of socially systemic misogyny so frustratingly on-point it actually set my teeth on edge and made it very easy for me to root for the heroine burning the world down for funsies and catharsis. Awaiting a sequel!

Elder Race

A relatively short read that's 100% worth it just for the fascinating language barrier portrayed between the two protagonists - the spunky princess of a sort-of-medieval fantasy kingdom setting out to slay a demon and prove herself to her mother, and the anthropologist from earth stationed on this planet to observe the cultural development of this human colony over the centuries. Each chapter is written from the perspective of one of these two characters, and at times we see events/conversations from each of their perspectives. The book is written in modern english, but this is explicitly a translation convention, as what the anthropologist says and what the princess hears are two very different things - something that frustrates him immensely. I want to see more stories written in this setting and it bums me out that I probably won't get any.

Thud!

Uh oh! How'd this Discworld novel get here? Looks like you'll have to read the other City Watch novels (Guards! Guards!, Men At Arms, Feet Of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch) to have sufficient context for this one! A fantasy police procedural (like all the other City Watch novels), this story centers on the eternal blood feud between dwarves and trolls and how it threatens to boil over in the cultural melting pot that is the great city of Ankh-Morpork, spurred along by the anniversary of a legendary battle between the two peoples that was left unresolved. Caught in the middle are the city watch, trying to keep the peace and solve several thefts and murders while wrangling two extremely insular communities that would rather be left to their own devices to murder each other in peace. There's also some absolutely incredible worldbuilding about dwarf culture and the unique texture the multifaceted concept of the dark takes on for a civilization that lives almost entirely underground. This is also explored in earlier City Watch books. Oopsies! I seem to have once again recommended six other books! Oh well!

#asks #media recs

[nerves-nebula]

(I wrote the thing and I'm very nervous to show it. And btw, Klin's Cklan isnt based on anything, I pulled it outta my butt for some random name. Also, there's a few 2012 references in there and 'Leo secret girlboy' stuff too cuz she's told nobody yet at this point. Enjoy 750 words of... fluff? I didnt check it and Im tired so it may make no sense and if so then I'm sorry)

"What'cha watching?"

Donnie flinches, his phone fumbling in his hands for a moment.

He was watching a sci-fi series- 'Klin's Cklan' (the odd spelling based off of the language that was made just for the show). Technically a tragic comedy. It followed the story of aliens who were approached by humans, new to space travel and the universe. A flip on the usual focus of being on humans and their perspective. And it was incredibly nerdy.

He knows that everyone's been making efforts to become better lately, but it hasn't been long enough for him, and he rushes to blacken the screen.

Donnie turns around, thankful for hiding the show, as it was Leo.

Leo, who has been making many efforts to improve himself.

Leo, who had been the main culprit of relentless teasing and a multitude of panic attacks.

Leo, his brother. 

It's too soon. He knows Leo would tease him about it, at least right now. And no hoping for a nicer future will change years of a schedule where he picks apart and tears at his most prized likes.

Though he's clearly been thinking for too long, as Leo waves his hand in front of Donnie's face. "Hello? Earth to Donnie?"

"It- It's nothing. Just some d-dumb show."

"...What's it about?" He asks, seemingly hesitantly.

"No- nothing interesting. You wouldn't like- like it."

Leo drapes his arms over the back of the couch from where behind Donnie he stood.

"At least tell me the name, if nothing else!"

Donnie represses the want to roll his eyes at that. 

"Fi- fine. It's called Klin's Cklan. You- You've probably never heard befo-"

And then Donnie notices his face. He'd been mostly looking away from Leo- preferring to glance at the sofa, the walls, the door especially. But Leo's eyes are sparkling so much that even his avoidant gaze couldn't help but notice.

"YOU WATCH KLCK?"

Donnie thinks that this whole moment might just be an illusion. Like that one time he got kidnapped and had been sedated by a fantasy-building helmet.

But Leo could be lying. Setting up for some kind of tease trap. Tricking him into thinking this was a sage thing to like before pulling the rug under him and saying that he was silly for ever believing that anyone he knows would like a show so nerdy.

It doesn't matter that it hasn't happened in two months. 

Donnie's eyes squint suspiciously.

"What- what declaration of peace did the humans accidentally break went the aliens went to- to the portal potty?" Yea, they named public bathrooms 'portal potties' and Donnie doesn't know who in the writing room came up with it.

"Cintag's treaty of the harmless, which made everyone on the planet try to kill the humans and sacrifice them like they did with the prior predominant species of that planet two thousand years ago."

Donnie blinks at Leo. He wasn't expecting a detailed answer- he wasn't expecting an answer at all.

Maybe this isn't a trick.

…

"Who's your fav- favourite character?"

"Mona. Like- look at her! She's a badass in a skirt- kicking butt and looking pretty and free while doing it! Even if is more of a side character."

"Fair enough. I like Dr Rockwell."

"The really sarcastic genius who's always flying?"

"Y-yea…"

"We both got attached to side characters, that's sad. I wish they'd show up more."

"Maybe soon. I heard that- that there was going to be a Mona-centric episode soon!"

"Hell yeah!"

And it's a silly conversation. 

Two sucky people, trying to get better, once with a power imbalance so prominent that it let the tides of both of their lives, talking about some silly sci-fi series.

No matter how much he wants to, he doesn't think he'll forgive Leo for some of what he's done in the past (with a particular conversation they had when they were fourteen or so coming to mind).

But he likes moments like this. It proves something for the future. 

And so he knows it's dumb to indulge in, and it will quickly fall apart in maybe a week, but this is all he has to hold on to. These little moments. A break.

So he babbles on with Leo about the stupid sci-fi show. Donnie thinks that this is the first time Leo has ever listened to one of his long rambles without even a shred of boredom shining through, so Donnie doesn't stop talking and for once, Leo doesn't stop listening.

It's nice.

sOBBBBB AWWWWW THANK YOUUUU GUHHHhgadg that's ADORABLE. you made that hella fast considering i just posted the art earlier today :')

my only note is that the formatting made it kinda hard to read, maybe less spaces between paragraphs next time? but otherwise I really liked this! thank you!

#nnstuff #ask #asks are sweethearts #neglected fic #teenage mutant neglected turtles

[cursedvibes]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "cursedvibes "?

I called myself "cursedvibes" because I thought that's the kind of impression the fics I want to write give off. My first beta reader @kaitakushi agreed (hehe) and so it was decided. As for fanfics, I'm not really gonna rank them but more list them by fandom...

JJK

Complicity by SenZen_Travers

Mahito/Kenjaku and my favourite fic of their ship. The characterization is really good and this might sound silly, but I'm glad Kenjaku is allowed to bottom here for once (very rare with Kenjaku ships in general unfortunately...)

King's Ascent by Acromos

Unfinished, but best Sukuna/Uraume fic I've ever read. Uraume is asexual and nonbinary. Love the world building and general prose here. Most of the chapters are focused on how the two grew up and they only really meet in the last one, but it's still incredibly good.

CSM

Well Prepared by Gay_as_fuck

Fic about Santa Claus and Tolka, his feelings for her and how she used him and gradually turned him into a weapon. There are only two fanfics about Santa Claus on AO3, but I'm glad this is one of them, it has exactly what I'm looking for. It's sweet, but also eerily creepy.

Houseki no Kuni

Shards of the Two of Us by undeadrabbit

Technically Kongo/Phos, but their love is platonic. Absolutely wonderful, kind of like someone wrote down all my thoughts about what happened between scenes or you got some additional canon material. Very heartbreaking to see them slowly drift apart and hurting themselves and each other despite still caring about the other.

Naruto

xenograft by Misfit_McCoward

AU where Sakura becomes Orochimaru's student while he's in Konoha and they do lots of experimentation together, on humans and animals alike. I like how Sakura slowly gets sucked in deeper in Orochimaru's machinations and loses any moral qualms she would otherwise have about the research they are doing, going so far as to compromise her own health for it. Just the sort of Mad Scientist story I like.

Be It Ever So Humble by Orochimartyr (ffnet)

A civilian enters one of Orochimaru's abandoned bases and inspects what has been left behind. I love stories that show the horror we are often familiar with in a story from the perspective from an outsider, especially if it involves the discovery of medical malpractice. There's a creeping sort of terror as we discover with this person what happened and piece together what horrible acts have been committed here. It actually really influenced my writing and was what I always aspired to write as well.

JJBA

can you tell that I like the Pillar Men?

I'll Follow You by Opus_Love

A Kars and Pillar Men origin story with Fix-It elements to it, since this is the 37th version of Kars we follow and this time he has the chance to make things right and not lose everything only to be cast into space. I especially love the slow development of Esidisi and Kars relationship and the little tidbits of information we get about the society they originated from.

We turn that old wheel round again by dratinigirl

AU where Kars lands on Earth again after being shot into space, but it's present day and Esidisi has been incarnated as a regular human, which gives Kars quite the culture shock. Very sweet, a bit angsty, but all ends well.

Youth, Man, and Father by dratinigirl

Another Pillar Men origin story. What can I say, I love the whole culture and society people come up with and I'm a sucker for EsiKars slowburn.

Monster

Five Roads Home by Lindra (ffnet)

Post-canon. Dieter and Johan bond over the child abuse they suffered and how it affects them even now. Johan is being cagey of course, but still more friendly than during canon events. It feels in-character though. Also found it nice to see Johan living as a woman now, but removed from the identity of "Anna".

#order of fandoms doesn't mean anything either it's just how I have my bookmarks organized #asks #jujutsu kaisen #chainsaw man #houseki no kuni #naruto #jjba #naoki urusawa's monster

[ammg-old2]

Now that the world’s most powerful space telescope is finally up and running, we’re in for a constant stream of stunning images of the universe. Just a ton of galaxies everywhere, more detailed than you’ve ever seen them, and too many stars to count—all of it sparkling with an intensity that humankind hasn’t captured before.

Not every interesting image from the James Webb Space Telescope is going to be a pretty picture, though. Some will be charts, like the one that NASA unveiled last week, all lines and dots and squiggles. That chart doesn’t have the special oomph of Webb’s view of galaxy clusters, or the wow factor of the Carina Nebula snapshot. But the unassuming chart, and the many others like it that Webb will produce over the next 20 years, is quietly thrilling in its own way. These images will stretch our imagination about what the worlds that exist far beyond our solar system are like.

You do have to know what you’re looking at, first. The chart reveals detailed information about the atmosphere of a giant, gaseous exoplanet with Jupiterlike qualities. WASP-96b resides about 1,150 light-years from us, tracing a loop around its own sun in just 3.5 Earth days. Its temperatures are higher than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 538 degrees Celsius). By measuring starlight that passed through the exoplanet’s atmosphere, Webb was able to detect the unmistakable signature of water, and even found evidence of clouds. On a planet as scorching as this one, clouds are really something else. It’s so hot that rock can condense in the air the way that water does here on Earth. Which means that on WASP-96b, the clouds are made of sand.

Sand! When Nikole Lewis, an astrophysicist at Cornell, told me this, I nearly fell out of my chair. “There are lots of things that will condense, other than water, given the right pressure and temperature conditions,” Lewis explained, as if she hadn’t just upended my idea of something as seemingly simple as clouds. I looked out my window, at the clouds of this planet, fluffy white poofs hovering in a blue sky, and Earth suddenly felt like exactly what it was, one of many, many planets in the universe, each with its own story and potentially its own kind of atmosphere. This is what Webb is poised to do: transform exoplanets in our mind from unknowable cosmic objects to very real places with alien skies.

Astronomers so far have discovered more than 5,000 of these exoplanets using other space telescopes and ground-based observatories. They’re quite skilled at discerning, upon discovery, an exoplanet’s orbit, mass, density, and other fundamental properties. And they’re getting better at teasing out information about their atmospheres. The Webb mission will send that particular effort into overdrive, revealing hidden details in targets that astronomers have already studied, uncovering the unknowns of worlds that they couldn’t reach before, and detecting, perhaps, the molecules that we know to be associated with the presence of life.

Webb observes exoplanet atmosphere this way: The space telescope aims its gaze at a star system and waits, basking in the incoming light. When a planet comes into view, moving—from our perspective—across the face of the star, the world blocks a little bit of starlight. But some light makes it through, and it filters through the planet’s atmosphere on its way out. The light arrives at Webb carrying the chemical signatures of any gases in those cloudtops. The telescope’s detectors break apart the light, like a glass prism splitting sunlight into rainbow colors. Astronomers pore over those data, picking out signs of familiar molecules and compounds, and then display them all on a plot known as a spectrum.

In the WASP-96b spectrum, the peaks indicate the presence of water vapor. To spot the evidence of clouds and haze in there, it helps to be a trained astronomer. “When there are clouds and hazes in the atmosphere, they will actually cause the water vapor—those signatures, those big humps you’re seeing—to be muted, so they’ll actually be a little bit lower than we expected,” Lewis explained. “That’s because the light is also passing through those clouds and hazes, and that’s subduing the strength of that water-vapor feature.”

When NASA released the snapshot of WASP-96b’s atmosphere, Lewis and her colleagues raced to see how the findings compared with other observations of the exoplanet, particularly by the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb had spent only a few hours observing the exoplanet and its star, and yet the error bars on the new data were far smaller than previous, more time-consuming efforts, Lewis said. And Hubble hadn’t detected any signs of clouds at all. The exoplanet spectrum looked as magical to exoplanet scientists as that galaxy-strewn deep field was to galaxy researchers. Just as Webb can produce galaxy-strewn deep fields in a fraction of the time it took Hubble, Lewis said, “we can do the same thing with exoplanets, where we only need to observe the planet, say, once or twice, as opposed to 10 times,” in order to find the little features they’re most interested in.

Astronomers want to use Webb to spot compounds more intriguing than water, such as oxygen, methane, and carbon dioxide—or, better yet, more than one in the same atmosphere. “If you, like, took some water and some methane and put them in a box and left them at room temperature on Earth, they’d actually combine into carbon dioxide, and you wouldn’t expect there to be any methane left over,” Megan Mansfield, an astronomer at the University of Arizona who will use Webb to study exoplanets, told me. “The only reason we have methane in the Earth’s atmosphere is because it’s constantly produced by life.” Finding some particular combination of gases that shouldn’t appear together, not unless some form of life was producing at least one of them—that’s the dream.

As intriguing as such a detection would be, Webb won’t show us definitive proof of alien life. The space telescope can only reveal the presence of something intriguing, leaving astronomers to work out the exact cause. Astronomers are still locked in a heated debate over the origins of a gas that might be present in Venus’s atmosphere, and that planet is right next door. This kind of work will be even more difficult when scientists are dealing with planets many light-years away. “I don’t think we’ll necessarily be able to say there’s definitely life on a planet, but I think it is possible that we would find some really interesting planets that we’d want to follow up on,” Mansfield said—potentially with a whole new space telescope. When astronomers first started talking about building a telescope like Webb more than 30 years ago, exoplanets had not yet been discovered. It was only later, as exoplanet science began to blossom into a real field, that the necessary technical capabilities were added.

But until the next great space telescope comes along, Webb will familiarize us with the range of alien atmospheres in the cosmos. Nearly one-quarter of the telescope’s first year of observations will be devoted to studying exoplanets. Astronomers can search for other kinds of atmospheric gases, and other, weirder clouds. They can even use the data to infer what might lay beneath the clouds, and make predictions about alien surfaces. They can form theories about how and when these planets formed, telling us better stories about the worlds beyond us, including small, rocky planets like Earth, orbiting at just the right, cozy distance from their star—potentially habitable worlds.

When NASA says “habitable,” it doesn’t mean that we could live there, or even visit. Even our closest planetary neighbors, located 4.2 light-years away in the star system known as Proxima Centauri, would take tiny robotic spacecraft, equipped with little more than some cameras and curiosity, several decades to reach. The Webb telescope can help us become more familiar with all kinds of alien worlds, but we can only marvel from afar, looking to the data—at the little peaks and valleys on a plot—to guide our daydreams about what these places might be like. Knowing the mass of an exoplanet is no doubt scientifically useful, but it doesn’t exactly jolt the mind. Clouds of sand, though? That’s pretty out-there.

#astronomy #space exploration #planets #exoplanets #meteorology #wasp-96b #james webb space telescope #this article is from mid-2022 but still really interesting!!!

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP MEMES FROM REDDIT 5/24/2023

“What is it with insufferable people and gaping their mouths open like fucking whales when they speak?” “I hate accountability too.” “Why cheat when you can leave the relationship?” “I guess we should decide who we’re eating first.” “Target in sight-- take aim and be ready to fire at my cue” "This body is weak, I must find a new host.” “So who wants an orgy if the elevator gets stuck?” “That might be kinda hot if everyone’s in the mood.” "Calm down, calm down, I said scabies not rabies" “Do you still have lice?” “Does anyone have a handkerchief, scarf or some garment I can borrow? I promise to return it.” “100% mortality rate my ass!” “Given your history, do you think you should be in here?” “Say nothing. Just laugh hysterically like someone’s just told you the funniest joke you’ve ever heard.” “Just taking this baby for its test ride. We've fixed it 3 times this week.” “You can add green onions to almost everything. “You have become the very thing you swore to destroy.” “Once every few months?!?” “What exactly does she want to know about her vagina?” “The standard has been pretty fucking low for a very long time but it's clear today that the mask of integrity has totally fallen from the face of greed.” “I can only imagine how funny that must have been from your neighbors perspective.” “Did you light your house on fire to kill the bedbugs?!?” “Just let me be happy before I die.” “Two chicks at the same time, man.” “You got a million bucks?” “You ever meet some of those people who are just happy people? Like genuinely happy, and kind.” “I want to do shrooms and experience ego death, cause god damn it sounds so horrendous and scary, but so beautiful and enlightening.” “I want to hit a crocodile in the face with a frying pan.” “I desperately want to be genuinely happy with what I have but I feel a fire burning deep inside me telling me that I havent hit the top of the mountain yet.” “I just wanna be the hottest goth at the gas station.” “Hunt a boar and eat it in a fire camp.” “My goal is to Eiffel Tower someone.” “Giraffes. No, I won’t explain myself.” “Not kinkshaming but kinkquestioning. Kinkpondering.” “I'm sorry for ruining 4.5k people's day.” “I’m so glad I don’t know what a lot of these are.” “Those disgusting, dirty little perverts.” “So long as everyone involved consents then I don't care, honestly.” “Rule 4, no chili powder in the bedroom.” “Sure enough, it was a small plastic baby doll he has shoved up his ass and then gave birth to.” “How do I delete my vision history?” “Yeah don't actually shove stuff up your ass unless you have a way to remove it Like a rope or a flared base Or some really strong ass muscles.” “Is it possible to kink shame someone who's into humiliation?” “I can not be responsible for anything I do.” “Lady that was dressed in full nurse regalia just took a squat and pissed in her nurse pants in the middle of a CVS parking lot.” “How do you feel about wigs?” “Are you sure there is tea in there?” “I wish Tinkerbell would poop rainbows on my face.” “Equal cake for everyone?” “Made it look so easy. That was badass.” “This takes me back to my childhood.” “Now I want my face painted!” “His jiggling is almost hypnotic. It's like a lava lamp.” “This is not the belly-dancer I ordered.” “So his red flags are all women!??!” “I love that our oceans are still a mystery to us.” “The earth is fucking weird.” “I'd hate to have a little tailbutt like that. I'd probably get it caught on everything.” “Wow that looks like a creature from a S. Dali painting!” “Why bother looking into outer space for aliens when we can just look at the bottom of our own oceans?” “You’re trying to tell me THAT isn’t from outer space?!?” “No idea what it is but it looks beautiful” “Once you decide to believe something, not only without evidence but in spite of it, all bets are off.” “It’s awful when a blowup doll gets a mind of its own. “The best pranks are the ones intended to confuse, not abuse.”

#rp meme #rp memes #rp starters #roleplay meme #roleplay memes #reddit

[tenebrius-excellium]

YOU WATCHED TRIGUN STAMPEDEEEEE??? HOWD U FIND IT WHATRE YOUR THOUGHTS !!

I CONFESS I WAS THE ANON ON YOUR BLOG YOU STUPID (affectionate) FRIEND; I GOT IT FROM YOU!!!

I LOVED IT!!!

Thanks for the accidental recommendation! :P

Ok I know NOTHING about anime, okay? Anything I say was great or not so great might refer to Trigun Stampede specifically, or it might just be an anime thing in general because That's What An Anime Is. I can't tell the difference.

LOVED the intro song (Tombi by Kvi Baba). Constantly listening to it right now. It's hauntingly beautiful yet so easy-going and chill. I looked up the lyrics and they're about being a light in the darkness, I dig that theme!

LOVED Meryl from the start. A level-headed young lady who craves the truth, justice, and knowledge beyond herself because it's the right thing to do. She cares so much. She doesn't steal any spotlight by interfering or by being dramatic. She simply observes, listens to instructions that will save her life, and draws her own conclusions. I'm glad we got to experience the plot through her perspective first! A "journalist investigating a story" may seem like such a dumb start - could be Hallmark. But in this Space Western setting, it's perfect.

VASH MY BELOVED. I hated his intro because it made him seem so dumb and silly. There's a difference between making a character seem naive so that he gets underestimated (bringing in the - surprise! - big guns later), and making him outright ooc to create a false first impression. Idk I knew that his FIRST scene where he needed a bullet was not how his character would remain.

HIS CHARACTER DESIGN IS SO COOOOL!!! Idk from the outfit down to his martial arts skills matched with radical forgiveness and pacifism - DUDE. He's very complex. Idk yeah he lets himself get shot in total surrender but there is the part where one bullet won't immediately kill him and he knows it. There's also the part where Wolfwood challenges him on his beliefs, saying that for all his "peace and love on planet earth" talk he sure does not clean up after the messes he creates. The thing is - it's not so much about taking responsibility for the bounty on his head or something, but rather for the fact that his behavior evokes confused, angry and frightened reactions because it comes unexpected to a human society that is drilled on survival. As much as he CHOOSES not to use violence time and time again, I think he needs to cultivate some awareness that this is unusual behavior and that it triggers people to do crazy things (based on insecurity) around him. On the positive side, he confronts each and everyone with their personal tolerance for violence and tests their hearts that way. Beautiful.

The team is so well balanced! Vash, Wolf, Meryl, and Roberto - Dream Team!

The actions scenes take my breath away. They are so so so so good. I am noticing the attention to detail and the accuracy to skill that everyone is describing. I am also highly enjoying the ingenuity of new moves and awesome use of weapons, physical strength and surroundings. I'm sorry, I can't explain the brilliance of these moves well - but you already know what I mean.

I didn't quite get the in-depth explanation of the conflict I think??? Like, I'm still not quite sure what a Plant is, why Vash and Nai are more intelligent than the rest of them, why they were in space to begin with and what exactly Knives was trying to achieve by traveling to a higher dimension? I really didn't get the angel theme and why Vash suddenly developed a wing and became dark (I like his darker look tho). I also don't quite understand Nai as a character. To ensure the survival of Plant seems like an understandable cause for his actions, but why be so cruel and uncaring about it? It doesn't explain his maniac barbarity. Explanations are more than welcome!

What is your obsession with Livio about?? I mean I know, he was epic in that one scene he appeared in, and his bond with Wolfwood was genuine and deep. But he literally took himself out like a light, so... where's all that additional Livio content coming from? It's also really sad. Like... he never even gave himself one minute after waking up. That was a bit morbid.

Oh my gosh Vashmeryl is the og canon? I'm happy there wasn't any forced romance between anyone in this season. Only platonic connections for once. Amazing. Whatever Vash and Meryl end up as, I'll support both.

If there comes a Season 2, I will watch it!!! I don't know how far I'll take Trigun Stampede in fandom, but believe me, watching this has positively altered me forever. It's so FRESH.

Again, thank you for the unintentional recommendation!

Cheers

Reddie

#trigun stampede #wherethekiteflies #ask #asks #spoon-cca #livio laughio lovio #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #meryl stryfe #nai #millions knives

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

Do you know of any free tools to look at the night sky from anywhere in the universe? I'm writing sci-fi and I have no idea what it would look like from faraway planets and galaxies. So far, I have planets with populations in the Andromeda Galaxy as well as the Pleiades.

Tex: Rather unfortunately, pretty much all of our telescopes and cameras and other technological doo-dads are on Earth and the surrounding detritus we’ve created in our upper atmosphere, so we don’t actually have any recorded visual media for the view from other parts of the universe (much less other planets within our own solar system), and everything we could scour the internet for would be from an Earth-based perspective. That being said, it’s much easier to take snapshots of the sky from Earth’s point of view and move the constellations, planets, and other celestial bodies around a bit to make a new “sky”. It’s also plausible to create a simple orrery and make some rough observations of what the nearest planets would look like from various planets in that solar system.

Wootzel: One of our pylons found a tool called Celestia Project, which might be of some help to you. It will allow you to look all around our galaxy, select and zoom in on different objects, see their surroundings, etc.

Unfortunately, I tried it out (on Android) and I could certainly find the Andromeda and zoom in on it… but it’s not very detailed over there, and I couldn’t look at individual stars in the Andromeda. I expect this suffers from a simple lack of detailed information that we can obtain from objects that are so far away. Beyond our own galaxy (and within it as well), our ability to know what distant objects look like is limited by what we can photograph and sense. Any tool or simulator that has much detail of distant galaxies would pretty much just be based on guesswork and filling in the gaps, so you aren’t likely to find anything that will give you both detail and accuracy.

Additionally, check out collections of space photography from NASA, or look specifically for the Hubble if you prefer. See if you can find articles about the characteristics of particular systems that interest you. If your habitable planets orbit stars of different types than our Sun, look up imagery and characteristics of those stars to get an idea of what sort of planets would exist around them that support life, and if they’d be similar to Earth or not (some kinds of stars might need their habitable planets to be farther out, for example, making their years much longer). From just about anywhere in the universe, the sky is just going to be full of lots of white dots to the naked eye. Depending on the positioning of the planet, one might be able to see features like the way we can see our Milky Way as a swath of brighter, blobby space. Still, it’s probably not going to look so dramatically different than how we see the sky.

#google submitted #space #tools

[dadbodsandbots]

Blursing you with all the ship questions but half for Sam and half for Logan.

reese this is going to take FOREVER thank you!!! Sam first then Logan :3

PRE-RELATIONSHIP (Sam)

How did they first meet? I think I answered a similar ask a few months ago, but we met in the UNSC! I served the Office of Naval Intelligence as a civilian xenoarchaeologist and was assigned to a project development committee to coordinate a mobile museum that would later form the institutional basis of Outpost Discovery and the Museum of Humanity in the years following the Human-Covenant War. Part of my assignment is to interview new UNSC recruits as part of a sustained program designed to preserve soldiers' oral narratives for future generations (ofc with the UNSC, there's always a shadier aspect like weeding dissent and such). I'd like to think this is where I first interact with you, Isaac, and Sam! I talk to each of you about your impressions of the various objects on exhibit, what motivated you to enlist, your perspectives on human-alien interactions, etc, etc. It's supposed to be a very cut-and-dry process with an approved list of questions by the UNSC, but those go out the door the second I actually sit down to interview Sam. As time passed, Sam and I met outside of the scope of the project where he very gradually opened up about his past, his doubts and frustrations, and what he hoped to accomplish so long as I promised to keep it off the record. At that point, I dropped that I stopped bothering to record our conversations a few weeks back which stunned Sam so much that I heard him laugh for the first time and cursed myself for not having my recorder for that specific moment so I could listen to him forever.

What was their first impression of each other? me: LARGE GORGEOUS MAN oh god his hands are nice wow he's listening to me? no I talk too much even though that's what I'm paid to do. please don't fuck this up- Sam: wow she is really qualified to lead this exhibit and makes the Sangheili language sound nice

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together? mf I don't tell my irl family about people I talk to 🧍they don't find out about him until I show up on earth fresh off the MIA list with a toddler and husband in tow you and Isaac are genuinely surprised that Sam seemed to open up to someone outside of your Small Group Dynamic, but y'all also rib him about why he didn't give the nice stripper at the run-down titty bar next to the base a taste of that sweet, sweet 28% APR because OF COURSE the Slow Burn Vegas Wedding choir has to preach to him

Who felt romantic feelings first? my romantic ass staring into the dirty bathroom mirror at 4 AM: DO NOT get attached I'm professionally looking him in his beautiful grey eyes for professional reasons he's probably going to get KIA'd and you'll be another dumb idiot who didn't know when to stop Sam:

6. Did either of them try to resist their feelings? BOY HOWDY DID WE LMAO See the "first kiss" question below :^)

7. If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think? us: 🧍🧍 ( we don't believe in god but please please please)

8. What would their lives be like if they had never met? I'd settle on Chorus after barely surviving the genocide and would help Kimball's administration manage the archeological recovery of Forerunner artifacts/weaponry that Charon Industries illegally trafficked to fund the attempted takeover. I also testify in court against Hargrove, Charon stakeholders, and certain UNSC officers since I blew a whistle years prior on Charon's' shady dealings with ONI and got a one-way trip to Chorus on a fake "expedition" trip as a form of corporate retaliation. Chorus is socially and technologically isolated from UNSC-controlled space and will be genocided anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Sam's story would be mostly the same: betray Felix, be a vigilante, contact Grif, etc. He'd see me on the news during an interview with Dylan Andrews for the Interstellar Daily and never contacted me out of sheer visceral shame that he came that fucking close to murdering me alongside thousands of other Chorusians without a second thought. Beneath all that, he's proud of me for bucking against the corruption he refused to acknowledge for so long.

GENERAL (Sam)

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go? I probably took the plunge because if Sam said no, I'd have an excuse to cut bait and disappear back into the UNSC archives lmao Imagine my surprise when Sam reciprocated and I promptly threw up due to nerves. Sam once again proved his resolve by immediately holding my hair and not bouncing due to secondhand embarrassment. Marriage material from day one tbh

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like? It was definitely something boring and low risk like dinner and a movie lmao sorry we're vanilla as shit We'd become as comfortable in each other's presence as we could in public without breaching UNSC anti-fraternization protocol (lol lmao) and were probably walking in the evening from another date interview when he commented about the movie with his rare dry sarcasm that made me burst into a fit of snort-laughs. I recovered enough to catch him smiling and we both knew all professionalism was over from that point forward.

What was their first kiss like? After a few months of dates interviews, Sam received his first active duty deployment to somewhere off-world (but before Reach) with you and Isaac. We were sipping on beer on my apartment balcony, trying to keep it together by talking about anything else but the classified and the inevitable. Sam wouldn't look at me and kept nursing his empty beer before saying that he appreciated getting multiple opportunities to tell his story and that any future interviewees would be lucky to have me. He'd barely finished the sentence when I choked out that I didn't want anyone else. I'm near tears and thought I fumbled the entire thing so I about ran before Sam grabbed my wrist. We were paralyzed by the desperate silence that dominated the moment before we kissed for the first time on that shitty, cramped balcony. The beer was your typical bottom-shelf American piss lager, but it's something of a nostalgia item for us, especially years later when we're separated on occasion due to Sam's private security jobs. Isaac never stocks that brand for bar customers, but keeps a six-pack in the breakroom fridge because he bitches that he's sick of "that mopey look."

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)? We probably both dated later in life than average so we were written off as either "probably gay" or "That Guy" by peers or had one-and-done "dates" that fizzled out due to lack of chemistry. Sam was the first person that I felt like I didn't have to chase after for approval or security, and he appreciated that I was infinitely curious about the world and cared about what he had to say even if it wasn't what others wanted to hear.

What’s their height difference? Age difference? I hc Sam as being 6'2" or 6'3", while I'm just under 5'3" so :3 size kink go brrrrr We're probably close enough in age tbh? Maybe with Sam being two or three years older.

What’s their relationship with each other’s families? Sam: lol lmao (no contact and [REDACTED]) me: lol lmao (they're nice esp when Mason's born, but are probably weird about Sam because he's brown cagey about his military service history and not used to boisterous/healthy family dynamics)

Who takes the lead in social situations? me!! I'm Sam's new government-assigned People Person™  :3

Who gets jealous easier? me, but through no fault of Sam's because other people perceive his gorgeous self :/ Sam lowkey thinks it's amusing because I absolutely do not clock when someone flirts with me, but hyper-analyze if the cashier was trying to smash by handing him the receipt .02 seconds too long.

Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear? meee :3c Sam's ears are really sensitive so he loves/hates it when I lean over to whisper something lewd, especially if he can't pull away because I've trapped him in a hug The few times Sam does retaliate in private I turn BEET RED and just fumble the entire sexy plan I had cooking for like a month /)///(\ it's okay though, he thinks I'm extra cute when flustered because it reminds him of when we first started dating. The consistency of my reactions is a major source of comfort and intimacy for him.

LOVE (Logan)

Who said “I love you” first? I did and I'm 99% sure we've been drinking when it slips out because he made me feel safe "just like my (Catverse) Logan used to," and hearing those first three words curdles Logan's buzz enough to make him walk out of the bar out of a pure flight response because people who love him don't tend to end up anywhere but an early grave. He's halfway down the street when he stops in his tracks, curses, and backtracks to peel me off the bar and bring me back to wherever he's crashing to sober up. He makes it clear that he is not "my Logan," whatever that used to entail, and that he's too damn old and too damn sore to be anyone's rebound.

What are their primary love languages? Logan's love language includes basic resources like food, clothing, and personal space. Tending to each other's most basic needs is understood as a sustained act of preservation and self-sacrifice, which helps him ease into emotional intimacy. Physical intimacy certainly includes sex, but also vulnerable acts like allowing himself to nap on my lap, brushing each other's hair, and parallel play. My love language includes words of affirmation, physical touch, and gift-giving. Logan is prone to giving simple, handmade gifts to test a partner's interest, which I also reciprocate as I'm similarly craft-oriented.

Who uses cheesy pick-up lines? meee :3 but all Logan has to do is hit me with a "darlin'" and I fold like a lawn chair

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA? Logan and I are most physically intimate at "home" or anywhere relatively private where we can actually unwind. When we're bar hopping, he gets an ego boost when I cling to his arm or when I slip my hand into the back pocket of his jeans.

Who initiates kisses? At first, it's Logan. He's used to taking the lead and doesn't mind it, but there's something about his partners kissing him when he least expects it that just hits different. Definitely gets off on teasing kisses and "the chase."

Who’s the big and little spoon? Logan is used to being the big spoon, especially early in the relationship. The longer we know each other, the more he craves being the little spoon since that's a place of vulnerability he very rarely gets to indulge.

What are their favorite things to do together? Watch samurai/wuxia movies, read books, drink beer, go camping, ride motorcycles, fight, and fuck!!!!!!!

Who’s better at comforting the other? Logan would say I'm better at soothing, but I'd counter that my comforting style is rooted in placating before navigating deeper, messier emotions together. I might not know how he feels and might not even understand, but I'd want to try if he'd let me. His "comforting" style can be a lot like ripping off a bandaid. Still, he can demonstrate an incredible amount of emotional intelligence when talking to someone he cares about one-on-one. He catches a lot of flak for his "cowboy speeches," but he'll tell me what I need to hear because odds are he's learned the exact same lesson the hard way so he wants to give me the chance to listen now or learn later.

Who’s more protective? Logan. There is no argument here. (Source: his entire publication history.) He appreciates that I don't fuss over him, but wishes I wouldn't tank hits that would make Hulk think twice. All that does is piss him off even more. Beserker power couple? Beserker power couple.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection? Physical affection, but he has to feel ready to initiate it because getting clingy too soon makes him feel itchy. He loves physical affection from loved ones, platonic or otherwise. Logan values action over words, but even he needs affirmation that he isn't an animal, a product, or a blight. He's a man before anything and anyone else and that's what he'll be until he stops breathing, so he better believe that I'll fight anyone who says otherwise until I do the same.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise? "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash is the ship name for a reason. "Black Widow" by The Ugly Kings "I Don't Know Why" by Kate Wolf

What kind of nicknames do they call each other? "Darlin'" and that's about it. "Honey, Love, Sweetheart, Hot Claws"

Who remembers the little things? Logan, ironically lmfao. He's better at remembering events or preferences, while I'm better at remembering things he said years ago. He swears I bring up old shit to be contrarian, but only because he's sexy when riled up :3c

DOMESTIC LIFE (Logan)

If they get married, who proposes? fyi this discord message has lived rent-free in my head for four entire years

After this conversation with Daken and another with Laura and Gabby (they're both enthusiastic and delighted for their Dad, but Logan knows he has to act soon because Gabby can only be sworn to secrecy for so long lmao), Logan invites me on an extended camping trip up the Appalachian Trail and into Canada where we walk, hitchhike, and scrap our way back to his favorite place in the woods near some lake that shines clear in the day and is full of stars at night. We stay there for a few nights before I notice he's already on the last can of the six-pack he bought at the last gas station and ask if he's okay, which prompts him to nut up and pop the question. 2. What’s the wedding like? Who attends? hooo boy lmao who doesn't attend? Naturally, his family (EVERY SINGLE X-MAN EVER), the Avengers (East and West Coast), Alpha Flight, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and every other group he's a part of gets an invite. Kurt officiates and Ororo is his Best Lady :) you and Norman are invited (mostly you, we know who your plus one will be but Logan's not gonna pal around lmao), but only if Norman promises to behave :))) Logan's bachelor party involves him and a few friends (and some on-off enemies) preemptively jumping Sabretooth because you know he's scheming to ruin our big day. They beat his rancid ass so fucking bad he doesn't bother showing up for the wedding OR honeymoon because he got crumpled like aluminum foil and dumped somewhere in New Jersey. Then they go hit as many NYC bars as they can before morning and see who can get banned from the most establishments.

3. How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like? 🗣️ LOGAN GOT TOO MANY KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! do healing factors affect birth control?? lmfao there's probably a scare or two but I don't see us having kids. This is a comic book relationship there will be au kids at some point lol lmao. Unstoppable Force (mutual breeding kink) vs Immovable Object (everything else)

4. Do they have any pets? Jonathan the Wolverine by way of Gabby. Reese and I have joint custody of Gob and Dog-Sized Man-Thing, but Logan makes them stay at Oscorp because they're "too damn weird, even for me."

5. Who’s the stricter parent? Logan acts like he is (and he is when it's a Serious Life Lesson). I don't even bother acting like a parent to Laura, Gabby, or Daken because it would feel patronizing and they can handle themselves just fine. Gabby and I get along like a house on fire, though.

6. Who worries the most? I worry about mundane things like dinner plans, packing spare uniforms, etc. while Logan worries about team obligations, his past, etc. we both got emotional baggage and existential dread in spades lmao

7. Who kills the bugs in the house? Logan can but usually just carries them out. He never lets me live down the fact that I'm the ONLY spider-person who has arachnophobia.

8. How do they celebrate holidays? This but unironically Logan and I getting into actual shouting matches over which is a real holiday: Boxing Day or Groundhog Day but fr, we celebrate Christmas with the X-Men because that's basically one big family get-together. He and Kitty usually spend some of Hannukah together since that's always been their thing, but she invites me along once she gets used to having me around since I make Logan happy, too. :')

9. Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning? Meee. I'm so sleeby tired and need my short king back to keep me warm! 😭

10. Who’s the better cook? We're both decent at homestyle or campfire cooking since quick, cheap food is what we're used to. Logan is a GOD on the grill tho. Grilling in denim cutoffs at the X-Men swim party 😩💦 I usually let Logan cook because he picked up some recipes from Madripoor, Japan, etc. that are to die for.

11. Who likes to dance? We both do, but it depends on the setting! I do casual, silly dances around the house because I cannot stand still for anything and usually have to cajole Logan into joining me. We both love slow dancing together when it's just us, though. Candles, vinyl, the whole shebang before we fuck nasty on the floor as God intended.

#ship: in a world of lost and found #ship: it ain't me babe #FINALLY DONE THANK GOD #but fr this was fun and helped me explore some things and some retcons so ty ty

[nova-alien-rants]

i haven't seen antisemitism being talked about outside of jewish spaces and that scares me.

DISCLAIMER: i DON'T support everything the israeli government has been doing. people have a right to be pissed at them for what's going on, and they have a right to support the palestinians. i genuinely hope the civilians of gaza and israel both have peace, as well as the world at large. the palestinians do NOT deserve what they have been and are currently going through. i am speaking from the perspective of a jewish ukrainian israeli. if you can't handle political shit don't open this post. and if you choose to, DON'T JUMP DOWN MY THROAT FOR BEING INSENSITIVE! TALK TO ME ABOUT IT! PLEASE EDUCATE ME SO I CAN DO BETTER!

ever since this shit with israel started, antisemitism has increased by like 500%. and that's based on the last time i dared look up the statistics.

something i learned from a very young age is you can never expect ANYONE to care about the jewish people. we can HOPE non-jews will care, but we'd be fools for EXPECTING them to. so many people wonder how the holocaust happened, and this is how. everyone either just turns a blind eye since they don't care due to this not directly affecting them, or they just stay silent due to fear of being politically incorrect and getting dogpiled for it.

and why is it that supporting the jewish people is politically incorrect in the first place? because we view israel as our homeland, as the holiest place on earth, as the country we have the deepest connection to? are we really villains simply for having certain religious beliefs?

what hamas has done and continues to do is NOT justified and NEVER will be justified. i can't tell what's worse: having 2000 people in your country murdered, raped, tortured, and/or kidnapped completely out of nowhere, or having half the world support those who did it.

hamas doesn't care about anyone. they don't even care about their own people. they don't give a shit about any their lives.

if hamas was truly a resistance movement, why is it that they take the money meant for gazan humanitarian aid and instead use it for their weapons, making sure no civilians see a single dime? why is it that hamas disperse their personnel and have bases amongst civilian infrastructure so the only way for israel to take them out is by killing gazan civilians with them? why is it that they brainwash their OWN PEOPLE into believing hamas has their best interests at heart just to backstab them?

there are 10 cables running into gaza from israel supplying the gazans with electricity. when hamas destroyed the barrier between the two, they took out nine of the ten cables, and then blamed it on israel. THEN they demanded israel gave them aid after taking hundreds of israeli hostages? what country gives aid to their enemy? especially after said enemy is still holding hostages from them?

if hamas genuinely wanted justice for the palestinians, why did they not try and have normal relations with other political leaders, especially those in israel? why did they not at the very least organize peaceful protests? why did they decide to permanently destroy the lives of countless innocent israelis?

the fact that so many people support the actions of hamas is insane to me, and the fact that those supporters have become emboldened by that cold-blooded display of violence to commit their own acts against the jews is incredibly telling. this goes WAY beyond hating the israeli government. they hate the jews. they want us dead.

they try to say they don't hate jews, just the zionists. but almost every single jew IS A ZIONIST. so ultimately guess what? they hate the jews. it's like someone saying "i'm not homophobic, i just hate people who have gay sex." and i feel like people don't even understand that the definition of zionism is NOT that israel should not have any palestinians living there. it's simply the belief that israel is the jewish homeland. who ever said we can't or don't want to share with anyone else?

and beyond hating just jews, people hate all israelis at large. they hate the russians because they happen to have putin in charge, they hate the chinese because covid happened to come from wuhan, and they hate israelis because of the israeli government they have no power over. this SCARES me as a jewish israeli. how am i, a regular civilian, personally responsible for something a country's government is doing?

this has been happening CONSTANTLY ever since october 7th.

before this shitshow happened, antisemitism was still a rampant thing because that's just how the world is. it isn't a new concept. but the fact that people are now being so vocal about it, so violent and in your face about it, is HORRIFYING.

i have felt so unsafe on my university campus because of this. i've been chased, followed, screamed at, called slurs, threatened, and pelted with various objects. i live in the very obviously jewish dorm on the most bustling part of campus, and i'm TERRIFIED for anyone to see me entering or exiting the building now. i've already had to skip classes multiple times because i feared for my physical safety.

they're having pro-palestinian rallies literally every other day now, right next to my dorm and directly across the street from where the bus stop is. and if they want to support the palestinians, that's fine, but so many of these protesters are extremely violent and aggressive, especially toward jewish passersby. it's very telling.

and jews are afraid to speak up. we're a minority. we're such a tiny percentage of the world and we're already very aware of how widely hated we are despite our minority status. most of us are too scared to rock the boat.

some jewish celebrities have come forward expressing their support for israel (not insulting or coming after anyone, literally just standing with israel because they're JEWISH), and the backlash they've gotten is BEYOND insane to me.

this isn't just a matter of justice for the palestinians. this is a very old, deep, complex issue which has existed for THOUSANDS of years. it's an issue between the jews and muslims. seeing americans who don't have any affiliation to the conflict saying all sorts of shit about it makes my blood boil; none of you will ever understand the full context. keep your mouths shut. stick to american politics. y'all already cause enough issues about that shit anyway.

i'm scared there will be another holocaust, and it's not happening in germany this time.

[acorrespondence]

32 and 23 :)

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

Oh this is very difficult because I write fiction pretty much exclusively on my phone! I don’t require a consistent writing space, and pretty much the only constant between my many writing environments is a way to avoid or block out distracting sounds. I’ve written in my bed across 4 different houses and apartments, on couches in the same, on trains and buses and in the passenger- or backseats of cars; on porch swings, tree swings and fire escapes; even in hammocks in the woods. For me, being distracted by things around me is actually a pretty important part of my writing process—or maybe it’s more the ability to use those things to distract myself. I like to be surrounded by interesting things to focus on when my mind wanders or when I need to puzzle something out or take a little brain break.

Near where I grew up, there’s a little public park at the base of a dam. It’s not a park in the traditional sense; there’s no grass, and the area around the river is steeply inclined and thickly forested. Huge rocks jut up from the base of the falls, and continue down along the river, and in the summer when it’s dry, or when the dam hasn’t been running, the water collects in the deepest crevices and leaves most of the bedrock bare. Deep gouges scar the stone, vestiges of the dynamite boring holes they used to level the ground there and give the dam waters somewhere to fall. The river splits around several towering shelves of rock that stand much higher, and on one of those shelves lies a giant felled tree, a good six feet of trunk hanging out over the river, lifted some fifteen or twenty feet above the riverbed. I used to walk out onto the log and sit or lie at the end of it and write. I also liked to climb down and sit on the lower rocks close to the water. I’ve always been drawn to moving water, mostly for sensory reasons—the sound of it, the reflection and refraction of the sunlight as it tumbles over itself and the rocks and roots in its path. Anyway, that’s probably my favorite place I’ve gone to write.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

Another hard one! Usually the reason I’m struck by lines in fics and novels and poems is inextricable from the context they’re written in, so isolating them from that context takes away some of their power in my mind. My brain is always trying to make connections—I dislike simplification. So if something specific strikes me in a piece of writing, it’s usually in a specific context or in connection to something else. I’m also not a very inventive or innovative person. Most of my creative output is more focused on synthesis and reframing. I guess what sticks with me more are conceptual threads shared across multiple perspectives, the little things that connect stories and memories and pieces of writing that maybe on the surface don’t seem to share much in common—and often these things end up threaded through my own writing.

One of my favorite poems is “The Hour and What Is Dead.” Here’s the first stanza: “Tonight my brother, in heavy boots, is walking / through bare rooms over my head, / opening and closing doors. / What could he be looking for in an empty house? / What could he possibly need there in heaven? / Does he remember his earth, his birthplace set to torches? / His love for me feels like spilled water / running back to its vessel.” In high school, we read Beloved by Toni Morrison, along with its companion essay, “The Site of Memory.” That essay contains the following quote: “You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. ‘Floods’ is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, that valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory—what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared.”

These two excerpts and the connection between them caught in my mind, and together led to this piece of narration from one of my current WIPs: “Raylan . . . scoots over. ‘Come on then, get up,’ he says, resigned, and reaches out to steady her as she climbs up on the bed. She scrambles in beside him, Boyd following after. Raylan loses his breath a little, winded, as she burrows her head under his ribs, the place she’s always trying to get to—like spilled water running back to its vessel, though it’s hardly where she came from. Boyd moves nearer, closing her in like a comma between parentheses. They sleep.” This paragraph in my fic is in conversation with both those other excerpts, and mirrors their themes of love/memory/familial relationships. My intention with the story as a whole is to explore inherited trauma, inter-generational relationships, systems and cycles of violence/crime/poverty/abuse, and the idea of Harlan living on in Raylan (and Boyd) and passing to his children through him—how it’s reflected in this child who had never stepped foot there in her life prior to the beginning of this story. It’s just one line, fleeting and fairly inconsequential, but I think something about it brings to mind these themes. Several people remarked on having enjoyed that line in particular, so at least there’s that.

So, whenever a line sticks with me, this is what my brain does with it. I know no one reading the story is going to make these connections, but they both fit in with the themes and ideas I’m constantly preoccupied by, and therefore constantly worrying at in my writing. And I do feel like it helps me to clarify those themes for myself and anchor them in the story, even if the references aren’t recognizable to readers.

(Questions here)

#ask game #togina toli-a #gosh sorry for how rambly i am #i’m like a politician the way i keep answering the questions i want to be asked instead of the ones i’m actually asked 😅 #justified #my fic #toni morrison #the hour and what is dead #giving you all a little sneak peek at how my bizarro brain works <3 #thank you for the ask!!! #long post #writing #heavy heart #justie2justie communication

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

DART successfully deflected the orbit of an asteroid, but by how much? Using data from NASA’s successful double asteroid redirection test in September 2022, a team of scientists including Siegfried Eggl, an aerospace engineer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, calculated the momentum transferred to the target asteroid on impact to be greater than they expected it would be. They found the momentum was significantly enhanced by the recoil created from streams of particles produced by the impact. “The smaller asteroid of the binary Didymos, Dimorphos, that was hit by the DART spacecraft is basically a rubble pile—an agglomeration of lots of tiny and not so tiny pebbles—so I wasn’t surprised at the larger quantity of ejecta the impact created,” said Eggl. He is one of the authors of a paper published in the journal Nature. ASI’s LICIACube satellite acquired this image just after its closest approach to the Dimorphos asteroid, after the Double Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART mission, made impact on Sep. 26, 2022. In this image, it is possible to observe the Didymos and Dimorphos from a different perspective, which can be useful to determine the shapes of the asteroids. Credit: ASI/NASA The team of scientists calculated the momentum transferred to Dimorphos as a result of the impact, the Beta factor, and learn its displacement with respect to its primary asteroid Didymos. He said, going into it, they could infer the shape of Dimorphos from images recorded by DART’s DRACO camera, but without knowing the mass it was difficult to estimate the momentum transfer onto Dimophos,. After the impact, they had new information that made a big difference in their ability to make accurate calculations—they knew that the impact changed the period of Dimorphos’ orbit by 33 minutes. “I think the most important outcome is what we've learned in terms of how we anchor our simulations,” Eggl said. “We’ve tried to derive all the deflection predictions based on first principles, but we didn't have a single, actual data point. Now we have that and can compare which results match and which ones give us a better understanding, so that we have better predictions in the future.” The team ran Monte Carlo simulations using random combinations of variables such as whether Dimorphos was more or less massive than Didymos. Eggl’s role was to ensure that the simulations were statistically correct and accurately reflect reality. He said, because near Earth asteroids are very diverse in their makeup, more tests like DART are needed. “If we had pictures of the primary asteroid beforehand, our pre-impact predictions may have been more in line with the results coming out of DART,” Eggl said. “The amount of momentum transported by ejecta was not completely out of the possible range that we calculated, but it was on the high end. We need to do more tests on other kinds of asteroids, to better understand which uncertainties we are looking at when we try to deflect an actual impactor.” Eggl noted that thanks to the joint work of his Ph.D. student Rahil Makadia and researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, we know that neither Dimorphos nor Didymos pose any hazard to Earth before or after DART’s controlled collision with Dimorphos. According to Eggl another mission conducted by the European Space Agency, Hera, will accurately measure the mass of Dimorphos by sometime in 2027. That will allow the DART team to further refine the results of world’s first dedicated asteroid deflection mission. About the DART project, which he has been working on since it began in 2013, Eggl said, “A lot of the work I do is predictive in nature and yet to be validated. In that respect DART was unusual. The mission had a very quick turnaround. Because we had done all of the preparation and made predictions using the software and models, once we got the actual data from the mission we were able to immediately run the simulations and learn the results quickly.” “I think what we also learned is that if people work together, we can achieve amazing things, like to actually deflect an asteroid.” The NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Double Asteroid Redirection Test team which includes Eggl and two of his Ph.D. students Rahil Makadia, and Bhaskar Mondal, is receiving the 2023 AIAA Award for Aerospace Excellence. The award states it is “In recognition of humanity’s first time purposely changing the motion of a celestial object by a team of protectors of our home planet.” IMAGE....ASI’s LICIACube satellite acquired this image just after its closest approach to the Dimorphos asteroid, after the Double Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART mission, made impact on Sep. 26, 2022. In this image, it is possible to observe the Didymos and Dimorphos from a different perspective, which can be useful to determine the shapes of the asteroids. Credit: ASI/NASA

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #nasa #dart

[merlin-made-me-bi]

Hello hello! Heard you were lonely in quarantine, so I have a question for you: How do you think the giant eagles in lotr actually fly? Like, they're big enough to carry people, and the biggest bird I know of struggles to get off the ground without a sizable canyon nearby they can yeet themselves off of.

Ooh this is a great question. So the simple, obvious answer is that it’s middle earth and the rules of science don’t apply here and it’s just Manwe with his magic. But that’s also quite boring.

Instead, I’ll show you the rabbit hole that I went down thinking about it scientifically. Also, quick disclaimer that while I do own the science and middle earth book, I haven’t read it yet, so this is all my own conjecturing.

To start, let’s put perspective on how big the eagles are weight wise and how they compare to our own birds. To figure this out, I started with looking at the average ratio of eagle weight:prey in talon weight. While most eagles carry approx 1/3 of their weight, the extreme example is the harpy eagle which can carry up to 2x its own weight depending on conditions and if you’re looking at male v female harpies since the males are much smaller (from forestwildlife.org). I’m going to stick with 1/3 for this scenario, but also keep in mind that they have capability for more if the situation demands/they have ideal conditions like open space/high speed/full extended wingspan/not needing to land to pick up whatever it’s picking up.

Now turning to The Hobbit when the eagles rescue the company. Tolkien never specifies how many eagles there are nor does he specify the number of dwarves per eagle. Meaning we have a lot of wiggle room. Since we know for a fact that one eagle carried Dori and Bilbo without seeming issue, I feel that it’s reasonable to assume that each eagle could carry one dwarf feasibly or one human/elf/maiar, and up to 2 dwarves in extenuating circumstances like in the Hobbit. So if we calculate about how much a dwarf would have weighed, we can then calculate the weight of these birds.

Which then gives the tricky question of how much do dwarves weigh. Despite being shorter (~4ft), we know that the generalization of them is that they are rather stocky and strong which would preclude them to having a heavier denser weight, and therefore I am going to assume between 150 - 230 lbs give or take based on the individual. Let’s assume that one dwarf is 200 lbs (215 with gear). That means that an eagle would be about 630 lbs, one hefty bird and twice the weight of a large ostrich).

Given what you said about larger birds benefitting from a canyon to successfully launch, I’d say that the Carrocks they eagles nested at would have suited for this need. Additionally, we can assume that the fell beasts were probably very similar in weight and they are able to lift themselves from the ground (I believe), but I do think we need to bring suspension of belief back at this point.

I hope this answered your question! I quite enjoyed spending like 2 hours on this ask poking around the internet and digging into various parts of the books.

#LotR #lord of the rings #great eagles #middle earth scientific musings

[benevadeca]

OK so strange journey thoughts I'm confused about the womb of grief and empyrean ascent.

Like it's established the womb of grief is where mem aleph imprisons the people who are against her (so Law gods mainly, but also Amon* who IG is a chaos demon who's just not in her specific camp)

(*Amon is interesting bc he's the only boss you don't fight, he's the one Alex fights. And like oof do I have words abt Alex as a character but it's like entirely not her fault she's so badly written, like she basically exists to be "every future you chooses sucks" but with noooo nuance. But anyway love that Amon's wikia states "He procures love and reconciles controversies between friends and foes" I think it is a fun tidbit Alex just attracts guys who she tried to kill who like her despite this fact.)

OK so I get why the player had to fight all the Boss demons each level to get the cosmic fruit fragments bc both video game logic IG and also IG that they needed to be in the hands of someone safely in their law camp/a human who is easy to manipulate but that demons can't get to easy, but if they're the demons who controlled who can pass through each level then like why such a big deal truly.

the concept being that the wise men's power was sealed away and split apart and "put under protection" (words of Lucifer in Chaos redux route), but the people who were guarding them were all the Boss Law prisoners and Demeter was like explicitly on good terms with them even as they were like. killed by the protag

Also if the 3 wise men were theoretically imprisoned how did they get to their weird blank board room in Sector Eridanus, like they escaped prison but were weakened? Or?? But then why is their empyrean descent, basically their Law Domain(TM) at the heart of the womb of grief. either it's been a while since I played and I just didn't pick up on all the lore and I'm missing something or it for realsies doesn't make sense.

The wardens of the womb that you fight are all #girl chaos demons, so very explicitly in Mem Aleph's camp and fits with the mom feminine divine thing. Maria being the last boss i'm still kinda confused on but like at least thematically IG it works or something. Also the 3 wise men merging into Shekhinah is very #gender, same like how Mem's empty form is a fetus with like a classical greek old guy head. Like most things in smt i don't get it but I am looking and it compels me somehow.

And TBH on just a larger level trying to understand the themes of each of the sectors...like sections A-D are representing human vices i guess, while E is sort of the utopian illusory ideal of what earth could be without human pollution (following the wikia), so kind of an alice in wonderland mirror parallel world.

It also being where the Vanishing Point, Oroborus, Yggdrasil, and 3 wise men have their base all serving to embellish this area as like the central plot where we go from extended exposition to Shit Picks Up difficulty jump representing both that you're no longer ignorance of the stakes but also a turning point is coming in where you're going to fall on this cosmic war. Also personal comment but the wormhole they can escape back to earth to being called the Vanishing Point is just something so fun I think. Something something perception perspective parallel lines working to create the illusion of depth in a 2 dimensional space.

Sector F is rly interesting in that it's so. Meta, both on a gamer level but also with the whole Great Will thing, and the idea that (according to the wikia) it "Represents the Schwarzwelt in its original state. It resembles a massive computer, collecting massive amounts of data." So the idea of like. technology mimicing biological processes (following the theme of humans as a virus in that specifically eco-fascist way strange journey has going for it) which in term loop back to technology. I think it's interesting! It being where i think tiamat refers to it as like, a garden or something? where seeds are planted and reborn and it being where the old bosses come back and are shown in what is like closer to their "true" more pure form.

That it's the Schwarzwelt in it's original state but it's sector H that's like true origin of Earth, I think the implication of the Schwarzwelt as not as natural a phenomena as claimed by the supernatural parties but something manufactured as part of this ongoing cosmic war is also again pretty fun I think. Or i could just be completely reaching and pulling this out of my ass, never know!

Sector G I genuinely don't get like...we never see the true face of it it's just kind of uh previous sectors remixed! The illusions thing I guess being metaphor for this where you make your alignment choice and secure what ending your on, so all about perception and there being no true "reality" because all judgements are based on the limited information available in a given moment. Or alternatively with sayyy, the Law and Chaos factions making their bases literally on alternate subdimensions right on top of one another, that very confrontation of self and the other identity formation lacanian boundary transgression kind of thing. But who knows!! Not me!!!!

I had more to say on shekhinah and mem aleph but this post is long lol I'm making a new one

#mine #smt #strange journey

[medicinemane]

I'm just very tired and I'm just not capable of seeing any good in what I do

I mean that really literally too, like... I just... everything to do with me is just me. The stuff I make in minecraft is just the stuff I make, I've lost the ability to have perspective on it. When I look in the mirror that's just me. When I do something like clean the trailer that's just something I've done

Negative views on stuff happen cause fuck... that's most of what I've heard and continue to hear, there's a lot of it that's really internalized. Most of it's probably dysfunctional, but it's what I know

Then the other problem is like... if any of this were any good, if I were any good, why... it's hard not to fill in the blanks, you know?

Like my looks, I... I don't really have a strong opinion on my looks, I look like me... that's not someone I particularly look, but I just look like me. But the blank spaces get hard not to fill in. If I'm even remotely attractive why hasn't anyone ever seemed to think so, you know?

I'm not saying it's objective stuff, but... you get it? If cleaning the trailer mattered or was worth anything why didn't it matter to anyone else? If anything I do is worth a damn... wouldn't I hear it even once?

I feel like... that if someone was a real well and true hermit, based on what I've found, there's a good chance that they'd wind up not really having much opinion on themself. They are who they are and they do what they do

I think a lot of the ability to observe ourself kind of comes from being observed, we kind of need an exterior perspective to help contextualize things or they just are what they are

I mean I can look inside a lot and tell you a lot of stuff... I can step back and speak descriptively like this... that's not the issue

It's just I kinda can't say anymore how anything I make in minecraft looks. I actually do mean it when I say I can't tell if what I'm doing is even cleaning. I actually kind of don't know. It's a thing I made, it's a thing I did, I can't assign a value to that stuff

Only reason I assign negative values to everything about me or that I do is cause I've heard that stuff pretty much my whole life so I internalized it, but like... how on earth could I determine something like if my face is attractive or not? I don't have that knowledge, I can't assign value there

Anyway, I'm gonna go to bed, I just figured I'd toss out another idea into the trash

People act like I need to stop being suicidal, but it's not like when I strip all the negative emotions away and just talk about things as objectively as possible anyone really likes me any better

...I'm tired, like I'm just really really really tired

To sleep, perchance never to dream

#mm tag so i can find things later

[spacenutspod]

This year, the James Webb Space Telescope celebrated its first full year of operation, during which it returned a treasure trove of images. And it’s just getting started. Since it first began sending pictures back home in July 2022 from its location 1.5 million kilometers beyond Earth’s orbit, JWST has peered deeper in space and farther back in time than any previous telescope could manage (SN: 7/11/22). Hundreds of scientific papers have already been published based on JWST images, barely a year and a half into the telescope’s planned 10-year lifetime. But JWST may end up having much more than a decade to study the cosmos. Thanks to a perfect launch, the mission was left with far more fuel to point the telescope than expected, astrophysicist Jane Rigby of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in September at the First Year of JWST Science Conference in Baltimore. “Now we have more than 25 years of propellant.” If the first 18 months of JWST science are any indication, the telescope could be ushering in a decades-long golden age for astronomy. Here’s just a few of the things JWST showed us in 2023. A closer look at the nearest stellar nursery The swirling Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is a dusty delivery room packed with about 50 young stars comparable in size to our sun or smaller (SN: 2/18/08). These infants were born when gas and dust in the cloud condensed in quantities large enough for gravity to kick-start the fusion reactions that burn in the hearts of stars. Dozens of young stars are scattered throughout the stellar nursery of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan/STScI, Alyssa Pagan/STScI In an image that JWST collected of the stellar nursery in July, the very youngest stars are still ensconced in dark regions across the top and down the right. Infant stars announce themselves with jets of hydrogen molecules that appear as streaks of long wavelength infrared light, colored red in this depiction, that result when the new stars develop. The JWST image is clear enough to reveal shadows around some of the stars that could be dusty disks like the one that encircled our sun when it was young. Those disks in turn are where planets are born. Our own sun started out in the same sort of stellar nursery 4.6 billion years ago. At 390 light-years from Earth, Rho Ophiuchi is the closest stellar nursery to us. Because there are no stars between us and the nursery, JWST has a front row seat to let us see the birth and early lives of stars much like the sun. Could it be twins? Glowing columns bracket what seems to be a young star that’s destined to grow to eventually rival our sun in size. The jets, designated HH 211, are about 1,000 light-years from Earth and embedded in the cloud of dust that bore the star. These columns are visible because the jets of gas that young stars emit in the early stages of their lives ram into the dust nearby at supersonic speeds. In the formation HH 211, jets of hydrogen and other gases bracket a newborn star (not visible).Webb/ESA, NASA, CSA, Tom Ray/Dublin The images of the jets captured with JWST’s infrared cameras have up to 10 times the resolution of any previous pictures of HH 211. Ripples along the center of the outflows hint that HH 211 may in fact be twins — a pair of young stars orbiting each other — instead of a lone star. Watching the weather on a ringed ice giant Even in a brief, 12-minute exposure with JWST cameras, there are signs that it was a cloudy day in at least a few places on giant, icy Uranus. This view of the planet’s north pole, taken in February, is possible because Uranus is tilted on its side. The overhead perspective makes the faint inner rings visible with unprecedented resolution (SN: 9/23/22). Other notable features include a pair of bright spots in the planet’s atmosphere that appear to be clouds, and a large, misty-looking polar cap. A view above the north pole of Uranus reveals clouds (small bright spots), a large polar cap (large misty spot) and rings around the planet. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph DePasquale/STScI The polar cap seems to form only as the orbit of Uranus exposes the north pole to the sun, and it fades away as the planet continues on its way. What the cap is, and why it’s present only when the pole faces the sun, is not yet clear. Future JWST studies and longer photographic exposures could solve the puzzle, along with giving us additional stunning views of the icy blue giant. Elements for life in the Orion Nebula Signs of chemicals crucial for the formation of life have turned up in the disk of dust around a star deep in a portion of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar. Although too small to be visible in this image of the nebula that JWST captured in June, the disk surrounds a dwarf red star designated d203-506. In a part of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar (pictured), dense molecular clouds envelope newborn stars. In this false-color image, the reddish-brown clouds are denser than the blue ones.Webb/ESA, NASA, CSA, M. Zamani/Webb/ESA, PDRs4ALL ERS Team The cool, red star isn’t much like our sun, but it exists in harsh conditions similar to the ones that our sun probably experienced early in life, thanks to the radiation bathing it from young, hot stars nearby. JWST detected a carbon and hydrogen compound in the red star’s disk that suggests chemicals important for the development of life can withstand the intense radiation in stellar nurseries. Surprisingly, the radiation that many researchers thought would disrupt organic molecules may instead provide the energy needed to create the chemicals that are the building blocks of life. Peering into the heart of the crab There is a small bright dot near the middle of the Crab Nebula in this JWST image released in October. The dot is a tiny, immensely dense neutron star that was left behind after a supernova explosion that appeared in Earth’s sky in the year 1054. The neutron star has intense magnetic fields that whip around as it spins, seemingly stirring up a smoky cloud. Magnetic fields from a neutron star at the center of the Crab Nebula whip up electrons to near light speed, causing them to emit light in a pattern resembling a smoky cloud that pervades the supernova remnant. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Tea Temim/Princeton University The wispy, white features are not smoke, but radiation that results when the neutron star’s magnetic fields accelerate electrons to super high speeds, close to the speed of light. The fine structure in the nebula’s image shows curving white rows that mark the lines of the magnetic fields. The Crab Nebula’s entire origin story is not yet clear, but the details that JWST’s infrared cameras provide, in conjunction with images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories, are helping astronomers to piece the Crab’s backstory together (SN: 5/23/22). These five images hint at what we’re likely to see from JWST over the next quarter century of observations. “Trying to keep pace with the results coming from JWST can be a daunting and challenging task,” said astronomer Marc Postman of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore at the September conference. “The sheer volume and diversity of discoveries are both exhilarating and challenging. And that’s precisely the kind of challenge we love to embrace.”

#space #astronomy #news #science

[mitigatingacademics]

{10.26.23 & 10.27.23}

I returned from vacation to an unsafe work environment.

It's so hot that you can feel the waves of heat emanating from the windows of the crew room when you walk by outside.

Colleagues tell me that they've reported the problem, but the response is less than satisfactory.

We rent space in this building and as such have no individualized control over the temperature.

Every year, after the first cold snap, if there's an Indian Summer, it gets a little uncomfortable...but it's never been this bad.

It's so bad that it makes you sleepy and when you try to eat something to perk yourself up you end up feeling sick.

I'm dehydrated despite drinking more than twice what I normally do during a regular shift.

"Someone will come look at the HVAC system on Monday," they've told us.

It was 77 degrees outside yesterday. The high is supposed to 44 on Monday. Don't bother. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Needless to say, my focus has been complete garbage.

I'm giving myself credit for accomplishing anything, really, even if it could have been more or something better.

Also, baking for a crew base, 5+ years in, is no less overwhelming than it was the first time I did it.

Fav co-worker did the candy this year, which saved me about $90.

Not mad about that.

Three Musketeers are all that's left in the bowls in the crew room.

A clear loser in terms of popularity, but I'm sure that even they will get eaten eventually.

Even thought they're MELTED, of course. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Productivity:

LSAT Trainer: Lessons 31 & 32

Reading:

How to be Sort of Happy in Law School -- (Chapters 13 & 14)

Ordeal By Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party -- (p. 176)

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth -- (65%)

I've found this book to be frustrating in some respects as, like absolutely everything else concerning this particular topic, it is HEAVILY biased by the experiences and opinions of the author.

I do commend her efforts to include research and balance, however. The further I get into it, the more informative and useful I'm finding it to be. A rare example of powering through paying off.

Co-worker locked up the office to go out to 29 this morning and I actually asked him what he was doing.

I'd lost all sense of time and place.

Told him I was reading a book about the Middle East and it was taking my entire (literally fried) brain to process it.

Then he shared his perspective on the situation.

We rarely agree on things, but, for the most part, I do actually enjoy engaging with him on these kinds of topics.

He may generally come to different conclusions than I do, but I've found that he tends to be better informed than the great majority of others that are so quick to offer their thoughts.

At the very least, respect for that.

#Personal #Academic Adventures #LSAT #Baking