#⎝there are more things in heaven and earth⎞ ic. horatio.

[buzzdixonwriter]

And Stop Calling Me Horatio [FICTOID]

“It’s in there, somewhere.  I know.”

“How do you know?  Where’s your proof?”

“I don’t need proof, I have faith.”

“Faith in what?  Who told you it was in there?”

“I didn’t need to be told, I knew.”

“But when did you know?  There must have been a time before you ‘knew’, correct?”

“Not necessarily.  I could have known but not known what I knew.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense!  The truth always dwelt inside me, I just never realized it.  It’s like knowing you’re straight or gay or transgender as a child:  You ///know/// something deep inside you but you can’t articulate it.”

“But that’s about internal identity, what you’re claiming is something with objective proof about it being true or false.  Either there is a lighthouse embedded somewhere deep inside a glacier or there isn’t.”

“I say there is.”

“You can say your ass is made of solid gold but that doesn’t make it true.”

“Nonetheless, there’s a lighthouse embedded inside a glacier.”

“Whare?  What glacier?  Where is it located?”

“I…don’t know, I’m still searching.”

“What evidence do you have?  Glaciers are hundreds of thousands of years old, they predate human civilization.  How could a lighthouse be embedded in one?  It would be ground flat by the weight of the ice.”

“Unless…it was built there by humans who carved out a space for it.”

“But why would anyone do that?  It completely negates the purpose of a lighthouse!”

“Perhaps the builders erected it for other reasons.”

“What builders?!?!?  You haven’t shown one iota of evidence such a lighthouse exists, much less of any builders.  How can you even dream of assigning motive when no proof exists the thing is even real?”

“The strength of my belief proves there must be something to my theory.”

“But nothing you say makes sense!”

“’There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’.”

“That doesn’t prove it exists!”

“There must be something to it or else I wouldn’t believe it.”

“You are wrong!”

“False!  You ‘believe’ I am wrong.  Your belief is no more true or false than mine.”

“Your lack of evidence is proof you’re wrong.”

“On the contrary, it’s proof I’m right.”

“How?”

“I…haven’t figured that out yet, but when I do you’ll be among the first to be informed.”

“You!  Have!  No!  Proof!”

“Like I said, I don’t need proof, I just need to believe.”

  © Buzz Dixon

[tyllt]

Quotes (pt. 2)

Peace

I found a sliver of sun today and stood in it, squinty and content in its fleeting embrace. I never thought I'd miss you. - Josh Groban

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? - Oscar Wilde

Summer arrived in full force. Cicadas cried from the cherry trees and in the evenings a pleasant breeze blew briefly as dusk began to arrive earlier each day. - Sukegawa Durian

I sincerely wish for you every possible joy life could bring. - Bob Ross

I'm kind of in love with everything, that's just how I am. - Anonymous

"It's so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!" It takes all of my persuasive power to try to convince her that she is already here. - Liz Gilbert

And on the last day, when all his work was done, he only just discovered the sun, on the last day. - Moby

This has been going on for so long already, this unfolding. Harry doesn't know how many more ways they can find to mean something to each other. - Anonymous

I thought the earth remembered me. She took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichen and seeds. - Mary Oliver

But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: this is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I'm saying? Does it feel this way to you? - Kazuo Ishiguro

I have nothing to gain from kissing her. But I am no longer looking to gain anything. - John Green

Make it simple, but significant. - Don Draper

Along the lake path - bird song implied. - Anonymous

There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point? - Pam Beasley

You're writing lines about me; romantic poetry. - Halsey

I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return. - Frida Kahlo

Womb to tomb, sweetheart. - dropdeaddream

I believe in angels, something good in everything I see. - ABBA

Part of loving the winter is submitting to it. - Anonymous

And so I fall in love just a little, oh, a little bit. Every day with someone new. - Hozier

Needle-dark December smells. She walks with wonder everywhere. - Muriel Rukeyser

In March I'll be rested, caught up and human. - Sylvia Plath

What's the winter for? To remember love. - Theodore Roethke

We call everything on the ice "love". - Viktor Nikiforov

The only difference between a flower and a weed is judgement. - Wayne Dyer

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. - Matsuo Basho

We all have one foot in a fairytale, and the other in the abyss. - Paulo Coelho

Not to sound cosmic, but I've made plans for the next 3,000 years. Before, it was only three days at a time. - Prince

You have me. Until the last star in the galaxy dies, you have me. - Amie Kaufman

If we want peace, we have to be peace. Peace is a practice, not a hope. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Happiness only real when shared. - Christopher McCandless

A sunny day in the void. - Dave Filoni

And all I want to do is fly. - Eric Whitacre

I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. - Vincent van Gogh

We don't really know where this goes, and I'm not sure we really care. - Bob Ross

I'm alive! I'm alive! I am so alive! - Aaron Tveit

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not valid, but is often true. - Anonymous

Harry looked at the leaves gently dancing in the breeze, the way Kavika had taught him to look - observing details, things he thought he already knew. - Lettered

Make the decision everyday to be happy. - Anonymous

Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home. - J.K. Rowling

Dancing is for people who are free. - Jojo Rabbit

And so, our journey comes to an end. But yours continues on. Grab hold of your dreams and make them come true. For you are the key to unlocking your own magic. Now go. Let your dreams guide you. Reach out and find your Happily Ever After. - Anonymous

We take death to reach a star. - Vincent van Gogh

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - Hamlet, Hamlet

I'll be good, I'll be good. And I'll love the world like I should. - Jaymes Young

I was born free, and that I might live in freedom I chose the solitude of the fields; in the trees of the mountains I find society, the clear waters of the brooks are my mirrors, and to the trees and waters I make known my thoughts and charms. I am a fire afar off, a sword laid aside. - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

'Denied the catharsis of punishment' is an underappreciated but hugely effective narrative consequence.

Just smell the grass! The dirt! Just like I dreamt they'd be! Just feel that summer breeze, the way it's calling me. For like the first time ever, I'm completely free! I could go running and racing, and dancing and chasing, and leaping and bounding, hair flying, heart pounding, and splashing and reeling, and finally feeling - that's when my life begins! - Rapunzel

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity. - Edvard Munch

[wingpyre]

@aperihellion​​ asked: ❛ You are my protector and my best friend. ❜ hamlet @ horatio :)

     hamlet  was  never  one  to  keep  people  very  close  to  him,   horatio  knew  that  much  stepping  into  this.   and  he  wouldn’t  change  a  single  thing  about  it,   he  has  plenty  reason  to  not  TRUST  as  freely  as  most  give.  but—   perhaps  he’s  selfish  in  these  thoughts.   because  while  hamlet  has  kept  an  arm’s  length  away  from  other  people  he  keeps  horatio  at  his  hip.   at  his  beck  and  call.   just  a  phonecall  away.

     the  normal  stone  cold  expression  on  his  face  slips  away  and  softens  a  bit  more  when  he  hears  hamlet  say  that.   he  always  says  things  like  that,   it  can  be  overwhelming  sometimes,   having  hamlet,   but  horatio  would  rather  see  him  than  the  world  happy.

     ❝  my  dear  lord . . .   hamlet . . .  ❞   he  doesn’t  know  what  to  say,   never  does,   really,  when  he  goes  off  on  these . . .   not  rants  because  that  would  infer  it’s  an  angry  discussion.   his  ADORATION  for  him,   perhaps?

[chiropteracupola]

(hi its highseasgirlbossing) hmm how abt either local lieutenant experiences midwestern winter or more things in heaven and earth, or both if you feel like it? :3 (i admit that im also curious abt not not catboy keith but i'm afraid it won't mean much to me since i havent read it yet. still, if you want to go ahead!)

you know what, let's do all three, why not!

for the first, the actual midwestern winter of it all isn't really the focus of the fic, but in the first few months of the year, I had enough nice descriptions of Trudging Through The Snow amassed from my own experiences being a fool in the midwestern winter that I thought I'd send poor dear william bush on a little journey through an extra excessive wintertime.

‘now, em, why didn’t you just put these in a terror fic, since that’s already chock full of ice and snow and other frosty times?’ you may ask, but see, it happened to fill out one of my pre-existing half-thought-out ideas quite nicely, which happened to be ‘what if all those seafaring superstitions actually came to something for once’, which I then directed into ‘bush rescues hornblower after he’s stolen by the fae’.  makes no sense, yeah, but it compels me, so.

He paused, and stood for a moment as the snow sifted down around him.  It shifted over the ground in little waves, the light dusting carrying in arcs and curves over the ice.  It was almost unnerving to watch it move so, each swirling, eddying gust of it almost a thing alive.  He looked to the left, to the right, and before knowing why, backwards.  The ship was gone, and all that remained in every direction was a swirl of austere, granular white.  The only sound remaining was the gentle crunch of the snow as Bush shifted from foot to foot.  Every surface in sight, the slow, soft arcs of snow stretching up to where a horizon should have been, glittered white and featureless and lovely.

of course, I am taking a good number of liberties with it to give it a bit more tone than what it’s based on, since ‘oh heck I tripped and fell over in the snow again. and then I did that again. and a third time.’ doesn’t quite hit the spots I’d like to hit in this one.

.

I am almost certain that 'more things in heaven and earth, horatio' will be one of my favorite things I've ever written, if I can just manage to buckle down and write the rest of the darn thing. that's right, this is the buzzfeed unsolved au! 

it’s drawn from a number of things I’m inordinately fond of, such as spending about a week every winter watching buzzfeed unsolved while I sculpt until my brain begins to drip out my ears, and visiting the uss hornet with my brother.  since it’s sliding rapidly back and forth between silly and spooky, I’ve gone with show-hornblower for this one.  and also because I felt like this was archie’s kind of adventure, and I felt sad to leave him out of it. 

“Can you say my name?”  The box popped and hissed, crackling at a frequency that set Archie’s teeth on edge.  “I just want to talk to you.  Do you have anything you want to say?”

“Leg.”  The sound emerged vague and mangled from the static, barely discernible.

“What!”  Even after hundreds of investigations, the spirit box still made Archie more than a little unsettled.  However, he managed to quickly recover his cool and keep the conversation going, hard on the ears as it was.  “Did… did something happen to your leg here?”  The box chittered ferociously, interspersed with faint and flickering voices.

“Is that a yes?  Can you say …yes?”  The box made an awkward squawk.  Archie sighed.  “Be sociable, won’t you?”

I think maybe a bit of the difficulty I’ve been having with writing it is having to first-name all three of them, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever done or seen done for them in a way that I’ve wholly enjoyed.  I don’t think that that Premium Ghost Bros energy would hit right if I called them by their surnames either, so that’s something that I’m planning to keep fiddling with as I go along.  it’s a very slow write, but it is also just 100% me being silly and having a good time, so it’s remained quite fun!

.

if you'd believe it, this is actually the third time I've started writing something where at least one character is inexplicably a catboy, and then gotten less confident with that plot point over time until it just resulted in Just A Lot of Very Strong Cat Comparisons.  (although, I've rotated enough actual attempts at worldbuilding catboys into eighteenth-century britain through my mind at this point that I should probably give up and just do that for real at some point...)

His was a lean, sharp, wildcat sort of handsomeness, and so, remembering his features set into a snarl seemed hardly out of place.  Just the same, like a cat he was but little weight, all bones wrapped up in layers of uniform.  No softness, nothing going spare, and instead, a sort of concise, sleek ferocity that made Ewen almost expect to be hissed at.

He laughed a quiet little laugh to himself, thinking of other cats he had known, and wondering if, with enough coaxing, Captain Windham might be convinced to make himself comfortable on the hearthrug.  As Ewen did so, he could almost hear the man’s scowl deepen, though neither could see the other’s face.  He allowed himself the rest of a smile, but ceased to chuckle, thinking it better to allow Windham as much of the little dignity that remained to him as he could.

I actually don’t have much of a plot to this one yet, it’s more of the smack-sentences-in-my-notes-app sort for now, but we’ll see what comes of it!

[starsspin]

        ❛    STARSSPIN   ❜     //  ᴄᴏᴜʀᴀɢᴇ ᴅᴇᴀʀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ; There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

    AN INDEPENDENT & SELECTIVE  multi muse. ――  featuring muses from starz’s spartacus, tolkien's legendarium, star wars, leverage, bridgerton, grishaverse, original characters & more. ――    est. OCT 2020         //    produced by katie ; 25+ ; she/her.   //     heavily affiliated with: @jedimastre​, @fleetcaptian​​ & @starssung​

┊┊*ੈ✩‧₊˚          CARRD // MUSES // temp rules

blogroll: @wornkindness​, @insufferablygood​, @heartcarried​, @starscrowncd​,

updated muse list under the cut:

muses are organized alphabetically by fandom, then name ** secondary muses

original characters elanoreth of dol amroth - fc. marina moschen mereliss of rohan - fc. clementine nicholson & jodi comer

a song of ice and fire eddard stark** - fc. chris pine

bridgerton edmund bridgerton - fc. jeremy northam & rupert evans violet bridgerton - fc. ruth gemmell

csi vegas: gil grissom - fc. william petersen

grishaverse baghra morozova - fc. synnove karlsen & zoe wanamaker lada garin** - fc. madeleine madden

haunting of hill house hugh crain** - fc. henry thomas & timothy hutton  olivia crain** - fc. carla gugino theodora crain** - fc. kate siegel

inheritance cycle brom holcombsson** - fc. adrian bower garrow cadocsson** - fc. jeffrey thomas marian edithsdottir** - fc. caitriona balfe murtagh morzansson - fc. freddy carter roran garrowsson - fc. mark rowley selena kendrasdottir** - fc. amy manson

leverage harry wilson** - fc. noah wyle james sterling** - fc. mark sheppard maggie collins - fc. kari matchett parker - fc. beth riesgraf tara cole - fc. jeri ryan

night at the museum octavius** - fc: steve coogan

spartacus gannicus - dustin clare ilithyia - fc. viva binaca laeta - fc. anna hutchison mira - fc. katrina law naevia - fc. lesley-ann brandt & cynthia addai-robinson quintus lentulus batiatus - fc. john hannah spartacus - fc. andy whitfield & liam mcintyre saxa - fc. ellen hollman sura - fc. erin cummings

star trek agnes jurati** - fc. alison pill chakotay** - fc. robert beltran guinan** - fc. ito aghayere & whoopi goldberg philippa georgiou (mirror) - fc. michelle yeoh una chin riley - fc. rebecca romijn

star wars bail organa** - fc. jimmy smits captain rex** - fc. temuera morrison commander cody - fc. temuera morrison jaro tapal** plo koon** qui-gon jinn - fc. liam neeson shmi skywalker** - fc. pernilla august

tolkien’s legendarium arondir - fc. ismael cruz córdova amrothos** - fc. mena massoud elboron** - fc. aramis knight elfwine - fc. avan jogia elphir** - fc. dev patel erchirion - fc. gregg chillin faramir - fc. mahesh jadu finduilas** - fc. indira varma imrahil** - fc. naveen andrews ivriniel** - fc. tba rosie cotton** - fc. angel coulby

[thisdayinfavrd]

February 12, 2009

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you feed us wine coolers, do we not put out?   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 62

My clumsy, sweatpants-clad seduction was timed to commence with his morning wood and a Rush song. I'm not a sex kitten, I'm a sex LOL cat.   @AinsleyofAttack (Ainsley Drew) – 58

We named our dog "Thesaurus," but we rarely call him that.   @pagecrusher (Simon Goetz) – 45

This Charles Darwin guy must have done something really stupid to get the Darwin Awards named after him.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 44

Survival tips if stranded on a magical island!  1) Be pretty! 2) Talk early and often! 3) Be a dog! 4) Befriend smoke monster! 5) Other!   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 43

Just lost power. Panic setting in. Sgt. Ice Cream was the first to be eaten. Oh, God. It's horrible. Horrible.   @bcompton (Doom Nibbler) – 41

Sex with me is like a luxury cruise, shorty. There's motion sickness and shuffleboard and old people and you can't get off no matter what.   @fireland (Joshua Allen) – 41

I like to think somewhere out there is a private collection of iSight video of me eating lunch in front of my computer. Maybe a pay site.   @lonelysandwich (Adam Lisagor) – 40

The remains of someone who has been cremated are called cremains. That's just plain lazy. Real plazy.   @awryone (Josh Donoghue) – 38

200 years ago today, Charles Darwin was made from the rib of a tortoise.   @awryone (Josh Donoghue) – 36

But vaccines have *chemicals* in them. The measles are all-natural and organic, man. Totally the kind of thing you want your kids to have.   @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 36

Missing tweet #1201994242   @cleversimon (Unavailable) – 34

As long as the kids move out before they get better at detecting our lies than we are at theirs, I think we'll be okay.   @vmarinelli (Victoria Marinelli) – 33

Buddhists are so hung up on detachment. Detachment, detachment, detachment. Sheesh, people. Let it go.   @texburgher (Geoff Barnes) – 33

I clicked on one little link and my mom got scared; she said "You're movin' in with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air."   @thewesterly (Nathan Edwards) – 33

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,  than are dreamt of in your philosophy.  To start with, tentacle porn.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 31

Piñatas are all fun and shit until God butts in and then we have the Hindenburg disaster. This is why God can't have nice things.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 29

We've both sacrificed things we love to maintain this relationship. For me, it's condescension. For him, it's setting me up for failure.   @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 29

Fool: "How now, nuncle! Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters!" Lear: "I don't get it." Fool: [Hits self in crotch.] Lear: "LOL!!"   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 29

Don’t click me, bro.   @gruber (John Gruber) – 29

[makerof150papermasks]

Hamlet Mariofied: Act 1 Scene 1

Bolded names refer to the Mario characters playing the roles. The character role names remain unchanged in the context of the play and its dialogue

 Toad = Bernardo

Daisy = Francisco

Yoshi = Marcellus

Luigi = Horatio

Donkey Kong = Ghost

Act I, Scene 1

Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

Enter two Sentinels-[first,] Daisy, [who paces up and down at his post;] then Captain Toad, [who approaches him] while the theme from Big Boo’s Haunt.

Toad. Who's there?

Daisy. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

Toad. Long live the King!

Daisy. Bernardo?

 Toad. He.

Daisy. You come most carefully upon your hour.

Toad. 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

Daisy. For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

 Toad. Have you had quiet guard?

Daisy. Not a mouse stirring.

Toad. Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

 Enter Luigi and Yoshi.

Daisy. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

Luigi. Friends to this ground.

Yoshi. And liegemen to the Dane.

Daisy. Give you good night.

 Yoshi. O, farewell, honest soldier.

Who hath reliev'd you?

Daisy. Bernardo hath my place.

Give you good night. Exit.

Yoshi. Holla, Bernardo!

 Toad. Say-

What, is Horatio there ?

Luigi. A piece of him.

Toad. Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

Yoshi. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

 Toad. I have seen nothing.

Yoshi. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.

Therefore I have entreated him along,

 With us to watch the minutes of this night,

That, if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

Luigi. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

Toad. Sit down awhile,

 And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

Luigi. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

 Toad. Last night of all,

When yond same star that's westward from the pole

Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one-

 Enter Donkey Kong, cue startup screen music from the Donkey Kong arcade game.

Yoshi. Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again!

Toad. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.

Yoshi. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

Toad. Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.

 Luigi. Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

Toad. It would be spoke to.

Yoshi. Question it, Horatio.

Luigi. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night

Together with that fair and warlike form

 In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!

Yoshi. It is offended.

Toad. See, it stalks away!

Luigi. Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!

 Exit Donkey Kong.

Yoshi. 'Tis gone and will not answer.

Toad. How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on't?

 Luigi. Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Yoshi. Is it not like the King?

Luigi. As thou art to thyself.

 Such was the very armour he had on

When he th' ambitious Norway combated.

So frown'd he once when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

'Tis strange.

 Yoshi. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Luigi. In what particular thought to work I know not;

But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

 Yoshi. Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch

So nightly toils the subject of the land,

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon

And foreign mart for implements of war;

  Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week.

What might be toward, that this sweaty haste

Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?

Who is't that can inform me?

 Luigi. That can I.

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,

Whose image even but now appear'd to us,

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,

 Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet

(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)

Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,

Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

 Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror;

Against the which a moiety competent

Was gaged by our king; which had return'd

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same cov'nant

 And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,

Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in't; which is no other,

As it doth well appear unto our state,

But to recover of us, by strong hand

And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

 So by his father lost; and this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations,

The source of this our watch, and the chief head

Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

Toad. I think it be no other but e'en so.

 Well may it sort that this portentous figure

Comes armed through our watch, so like the King

That was and is the question of these wars.

Luigi. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

 A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;

As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

 Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

And even the like precurse of fierce events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates

And prologue to the omen coming on,

Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

Unto our climature and countrymen.

[Enter Donkey Kong again.]

But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!

I'll cross it, though it blast me.- Stay illusion!

 [Spreads his arms.]

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me.

If there be any good thing to be done,

That may to thee do ease, and, grace to me,

 Speak to me.

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,

Which happily foreknowing may avoid,

O, speak!

Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

 Extorted treasure in the womb of earth

(For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),

[The cock crows.]

Speak of it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Marcellus!

Yoshi. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

 Luigi. Do, if it will not stand.

Toad. 'Tis here!

Luigi. 'Tis here!

Yoshi. 'Tis gone!

[Exit Donkey Kong.] Theme from Sirena Beach plays.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is as the air, invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Toad. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

 Luigi. And then it started, like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

Awake the god of day; and at his warning,

 Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine; and of the truth herein

This present object made probation.

Yoshi. It faded on the crowing of the cock.

 Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Luigi. So have I heard and do in part believe it.

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

Break we our watch up; and by my advice

Let us impart what we have seen to-night

Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

 As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently.

Exeunt.

[scifigeneration]

Discovery of cigar-shaped asteroid from outer space could help unveil secrets of extrasolar worlds

by Monica Grady

It came from outer space … and went back there two weeks later, having astonished and excited astronomers and planetary scientists. A cigar-shaped object, less than half a kilometre long and barely bright enough to be detected by the world’s most powerful telescopes, payed us a flying visit in October this year – reminding us that the heavens still hold plenty of surprises.

There have been amazing changes in the way we view the smaller bodies in the solar system over the last five years. The Rosetta spacecraft’s observations of the duck-shaped comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko taught us a lot. Similarly, the heart-shaped ice-covered plains of Pluto photographed by New Horizons and the bright spots on Ceres, as imaged by the Dawn mission, have forced us to revise our ideas of the formation and evolution of comets, asteroids and faraway dwarf planets – and the relationship between them.

Now, courtesy, not of instruments on board spacecraft, but of detectors firmly based on the ground, we have observations of something that seems to be somewhere in the spectrum between comet and asteroid – but with a strange orbit that sets it apart from any other body in the solar system.

The orbit is hyperbolic, the object entered the solar system at a very steep angle to the ecliptic plane. It then rounded the sun, dipping below the ecliptic as it did so, and shot out again. What makes this orbit so interesting is that when its trajectory is traced back, it is clear that the object did not originate within the solar system – not even within the “Oort Cloud”, the reservoir that marks the outer fringes of our planetary system.

The orbit of I1/2017U1. ESO/K. Meech et al., CC BY-SA

The mystery visitor comes from beyond the fringe, and so is interstellar. This is the first time scientists have discovered an asteroid from outside the solar system, and the finding has been published in Nature.

Window on extrasolar worlds

In honour of this interstellar tourist – and perhaps in the hope that we might start to observe more of them, the International Astronomical Union has come up with a new cataloguing system for interstellar asteroids. It is designated I1/2017U1, with the “I” for interstellar and “1” because it is the first. The interstellar object was detected by the PanSTARRS1 telescope on Hawaii, with follow-up observations on five other major telescopes. The discoverers of I1/2017U1 have named it “‘Oumuamua” – a Hawaiian-based word meaning a messenger reaching out from the distant past.

PanSTARRS telescope. MaxPixel, CC BY

'Oumuamua has an odd shape – about 800 metres long and ten times as long as it is wide. And although its hyperbolic orbit originally led observers to conclude that it was a comet, additional images showed no trace of a comet tail, and it was reclassified as an interstellar asteroid. It is likely comprised of rock and perhaps metals. Spectra, images of light captured from an object and spread out according to its wavelengths, reveal that its surface is reddish. This is the case for both some comets or a certain class of asteroids (D-class).

So, we have a small, dim, fast-moving object – why should we get excited? Let’s be grandiose about it – after all, practically every article following discovery of gravitational waves declared that this was “opening a new window on the universe”. And, given its orbit, surely 'Oumuamua is worthy of similar hyperbole? I reckon we can say that the object is “illuminating the path to extrasolar worlds”, although we probably will not be able to trace exactly which planetary system it comes from. It shows that planetary systems around other stars are likely to have formed in a similar way to our own, ejecting fragments of rock like 'Oumuamua.

Planetary scientists study comets and asteroids because they are almost unchanged records of the material from which the solar system formed. Carbon-rich meteorites derived from certain asteroids contain organic matter that, when delivered to Earth by impact in the earliest days of terrestrial history, could have been the precursor material from which life developed. Such meteorites also contain small quantities of interstellar organics from reactions in the interstellar medium.

It is possible that 'Oumuamua and objects like it could carry similar records of their stellar formation. And it is also possible that there are many such objects hurtling through the solar system. As instruments on telescopes get more powerful, we will be able to detect them more readily and even make spectral measurements of their composition. This is exciting, as they almost certainly have different compositions than our own – shedding light on how the extrasolar system they came from formed.

As William Shakespeare wrote over 400 years ago: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Monica Grady is Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

[zephrbabe]

Unexpected

SFW, I promise.

“Hey, Steve?” Darcy called from her bathroom. He could hear her running the tap.

Steve rolled onto his back in her bed, and stretched his whole body under the garish duvet. If his hands and feet overhung the edges when he did, he wasn’t bothered in the slightest. That might have been the best night of sleep of his life.

Preceded by one of the best nights of his life, full stop.

But, Darcy had said something, so he should probably get his head out of the clouds and answer her. “What’s up, Darce?”

“You know how I rocked your world last night?”

Steve looked up at the mangled headboard, recalling exactly how she’d gotten him to do that. He grinned. “Yeah, you sure did.”

“Ok, well, it looks like you’re super down to your sperm.”

He sat up. That was an odd thing for her to say, not least because her voice was a little strangled. “Is everything okay, Darcy?”

He swung his feet to the floor, toes catching in some of their discarded clothes. The water stopped, and she stepped into the doorway of her bedroom. She halted there, the single, slanted beam of morning sunlight fell across her body. She was beautiful, even in an oversized t-shirt blazoned with a cartoon dog that he still didn’t recognize.

She smoothed a hand over the fabric of her nightshirt, but the shape was wrong. There was a curve to her belly that hadn’t been there a few hours ago. It was more than a curve- she was unmistakeably pregnant.

He couldn’t draw breath, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

How is this possible? he wanted to say. Not one of the many, many tests they’d run on him in the ‘40s or after the ice had suggested something like this could happen. His mind raced; his heart raced; he felt full to bursting with feelings he couldn’t name.

Darcy had stepped close while he’d fixated, a pale hand rested against her pronounced belly. Steve looked up at her grin, and those unnamed emotions surged up-

“Oh my god, your face!”

There was a camera flash, and Steve startled. He realized, as Darcy drew back a step, that she’d been hiding her phone down at her side.

Now that he was focused on her face, Steve recognized that particular grin. It was Darcy’s up-to-no-good grin. He’d seen it often enough, usually before some kind of explosion. Or distant, enraged yelling.

“What is going on.” He could be forgiven for letting a little of the Captain bleed into his voice. His heart was still beating quick-time.

Darcy cackled. She tossed her head back, clutched her pronounced stomach, and fucking cackled. “It’s a prosthetic!” She flipped her t-shirt up over her belly, and smacked it like a watermelon. It looked like her skin. It sounded like skin.

Steve let her wind down; he loved her laugh, even if it was at his expense. Darcy could laugh at anyone, and they’d laugh with her. They might feel on the verge of an aneurysm for a while, but she had a knack for making people see the humor in a situation.

By the time she was able to explain, Darcy was gasping for breath. “You know the- assignment I’m on- next week?”

Steve nodded. It was only the third official mission she’d been given as an agent of the new organization formerly known as SHIELD. She was going to be undercover with Agent Daniel Marcus French from San Bernadino, California, eldest of two, one tour in the US Navy, graduated with honors from Culver University, favorite sports team- the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Steve probably should not have memorized French’s file.

“Well, we’re posing as a couple, and someone in Logistics thought it would sell our cover better if I were pregnant.” She rapped her knuckles on her bared “belly” like it was someone’s door. “This sucker is as realistic as they could make it, which, let me tell you, is pretty damn realistic.” She pressed her hand to her back in an excellent impression of every pregnant woman he’d ever seen. “This thing weighs a ton.”

Steve laughed, and gave her a light poke. The false belly was warm, but to his fingers the skin didn’t feel quite as real as it looked.

Darcy walked forward until she straddled his knee, but didn’t sit down, and slung an arm around his shoulders. The belly was wedged against his side, and they would have been chest-to-chest, but it was clear she couldn’t get closer without repositioning entirely. Her light grumble turned into a squeak when he wrapped his arm around her padded waist and tugged her that much closer.

She dropped a kiss into his mussed hair. Against his side, the belly moved.

They froze.

“Please tell me there is not some alien about to burst out of your stomach,” Steve said. Her wide-eyed expression had to match his own, and she’d gone chalk white.

“No. No- it’s- I completely forgot, oh my god,” Darcy relaxed by degrees, finally resting her weight on his leg. “There’s a bunch of electronics and motors and regulators inside this. Including something that randomly mimics a baby kicking.”

Steve plucked her from his knee, stood and spun, and dropped her onto the disarray of her sheets, her long hair catching the ray of morning light. He braced himself above her on the bed, looked into those soft blue eyes, and said, “Oh my god, your face.”

“Steve Rogers, you troll!”

Darcy attempted to whack him with a pillow, but he blocked it with a grin. She turned to tickling, which met with mixed success: after only a minute, her hands were pinned above her head by one of his.

Steve dipped down to kiss the little smirk off her lips. There was time before either of them had duties to attend, so-

“Fuck,” Darcy groused. “This thing is majorly in the way.”

It was. Each of them wanted to be much, much closer than the belly permitted, at least in this position.

Steve looked down at her, rosy-cheeked and grumpy. He’d never say so to her face, but it was one of his favorite expressions on her.

She wriggled under him, tugging her wrists out of his loosened hold, and started peeling the edges of the prosthetic down from under her breasts.

Darcy fought with it for a little while, trying to tug it down, grumbling imprecations under her breath that Steve heard clear as day. He remained braced above her, watching her efforts with growing amusement.

She paused in her struggles, and brought her winsome, mischievous blue eyes up to his. “Howsabout you help me escape this infernal contraption, and we can go back to demolishing my headboard?”

“With pleasure.”

–

Later:

“You are super good at this, but did you really think I’d gotten, like, 6 months pregnant after one night?” she laughed, breathless.

Steve tried to glower, but he was too relaxed. “'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio’…”

[wingpyre]

@aperihellion​​ asked: ❛ I hope you live the life you want to. ❜ hamlet @ horatio :)

【 prompt. acc. 】

     it  feels  like  something  is  lodged  in  his  throat,   and  no  matter  how  hard  he  may  try  he  can’t  swallow  it  down  nor  spit  it  out.  the  tears  that  sting  at  his  eyes  are  crystallized,   sorrow,   longing,   for  something  he  wanted  but  now  he  knows  he  will  never  have.   ❝  easy,   my  dear  lord,   i  pray  you  save  your  strength. ❞

     it’s  too  late,   he  knows  it,   but  oh  how  he  wishes  he  would  survive  this.   they’ve  been  through  so  much.   HAMLET  has  been  through  so  much.   he  deserves  peace  and  rest  but  not  like  THIS.   not  a  permanent  thing.   not  a  thing  that  steals  him  from  horatio  so  suddenly  and  sullenly.

     he  was  going  to  leave  it  at  that,   but  he  can’t ,  he  can’t.  of  course  he  can’t.   ❝  it  won’t  be  much  a  life  without  you,   i’m  afraid.  ❞   he  only  stayed  in  college  because  of  hamlet’s  encouragement.   he  WANTED  a  life  with  hamlet,   ever  present  at  his  side,   laughing  of  some  poor  fellow’s  foolishness  behind  his  back.   my  soul  chose  yours,   hamlet  had  once  said  to  him.

     he  never  got  the  opportunity  to  say  his  did  too.

     ❝  do  you  remember  when  you  said  i  am  perfectly  balanced  in  my  logic  and  passion?  ❞   he  lets  out  a  choked  laugh  that  boarders  more  on  a  sob  as  he  takes  hamlet’s  rapidly  cooling  hand  in  his  own,   holding  it  up  to  his  cheek,   ❝  i’m  afraid  my  logic  is  failing  me  right  now  because  this  is  all  so  senseless  and  i  keep  finding  myself  not  being  able  to  think  of  a  life  without  you.  ❞

     ❝  don’t  go…  ❞   he  whispers,   voice  breaking  and  cracking  like  the  heart  in  his  chest  with  each  word,   ❝  i  need  you.  ❞

[topsolarpanels]

The Modern, Molecular Hunt For The Worlds Biodiversity

The news is full of announcements about newly discovered different forms of life. This fall, we learned of a 30, 000 -year-old giant virus found in frozen Siberia. Up to now, known viruses have contained so few genetic information that people have questioned whether they can even be thought of as living. But giant viruses like this one contain so much better information as many bacteria, which are certainly alive, and are so big they can be seen with an ordinary microscope.

Earlier this year, we heard that deep in the ocean, by the boil hot sulfurous ventilate called Lokis Castle after the Norse god, a species called Lokiarchaeota was detected. It uniquely straddles the three domains of life: Eukaryota, including animals and plants; Bacteria; and Archaea, a domain that includes species pumping out methane in your gut right now.

Not merely are new life sorts being discovered, but so are entirely new ways of living. In the last week we learned of rich communities of bacteria that communicate with one another electrically, in the same ways as the neurons in our brain.

The way researchers stimulated these three discoveries illustrates how much the modern study of biodiversity has changed in the last 200 years. Instead of visiting pleasantly warm places with binoculars and a butterfly net, we are today look for life in places we never would have before, and we use the same molecular techniques that help catch criminals.

To Boldly Go

Traditionally, such studies of biodiversity was carried out by gentlemen such as Charles Darwin and Joseph Banks, sailing the high seas of global empires and sending back specimens to be stored in drawers of museums of natural history.

Alvin built discoveries of life at depths that had never been visited before. OAR/ National Undersea Research Program( NURP ); Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst, CC BY

For this kind of exploration, out of sight was genuinely out of intellect. Until 1977, we had no idea the ocean floor was home to life at all, never mind rich communities including Lokiarchaeota. They were first discovered by the submersible Alvin which wasnt even looking for life. Its original mission was to study the ocean floor go looking for evidence of plate tectonics. As well as discovering evidence that the sea floors are spreading, Alvin sent back images of a rich new ecosystem of wholly unknown species fueled wholly by chemical energy, instead of solar energy like all other ecosystems previously known.

A fact we now take for awarded is that wherever we look for life, we find it, including concentrated acids, liquids as corrosive as floor stripper, in rock and kilometers beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. It can even survive in outer space( though of course we havent identified any non-Earth-originated life yet ).

Comparative DNA profiles of 14 people, obtained via PCR. Wellcome Images, CC BY-NC-ND

Genetic Fingerprints

But whats amazing about the discovery of Lokiarchaeota is that no one has ever actually find it. Everything we know about it is discovered by the new field of metagenomics, which allows us to extract fragments of Dna from the environment, read the sequence information and examined it with computational techniques.

The starting point for metagenomic research can be anything, including feces, in the case of the human microbiome, or a sample of ocean sediment, in case of Lokiarcheota. Ultimately these genetic profiles are known to us only as an electronic string of 1s and 0s in computer memory and described to us by mathematical algorithms.

Such molecular and computer technologies are also how modern detectives use DNA to catch murderers.

First, we find some DNA in the environment that may be of interest to us, by fishing for it with molecular probes called primers. Then we can use the Polymerase Chain Reaction( PCR) to make a huge number of copies of the Dna of interest. That allows machines to read the genetic information it contains immediately into computer databases.

These digital databases are where biodiversity information is now stored. Theyre replacing the dusty drawers of natural history museums, filled with corpses of specimens collected over the centuries.

Is The Concept Of Species Itself Endangered ?

Anyone who watches crime reveals knows well the detective value of such databases in identifying felons by allowing the comparison of enormous sums of information.

Its the same for biodiversity study. For instance, a new species of elephant was recently discovered employing these techniques to analyze and compare the DNA of living elephants and even DNA removed from museum specimen of the extinct mammoth. We now know that African elephants that live in the woods are as genetically different from those on the savanna as humans are from chimpanzees.

Eschericia coli perhaps the most famous microbial species of all is an excellent example of how the idea of species itself is on its style to extinction. Seem at one genome of E coli and you will find that more than half the genes may or may not be found in some other E coli . Seeming at the sequences, many isolates of the food-poisoning bacteria Shigella appear more like E coli and vice versa.

So these days questions of molecular diversity arise , not the issue of species number. How and why does gene content change , not just in microbes like E coli but in us as well: we have about 20,000 genes and have recently discovered that at least 200 of them may be dispensable, given that perfectly healthy people do not have them at all.

How promiscuous is life with its genetic information? We have find viruses borrowing cassettes of photosynthetic information from their hosts. How does our genetic diversity interact with that of the rich ecosystem living in our gut with its impacts on human health? One entire domain of life, the Archaea, has not a single instance of a species causing cancer in anything why?

Not a butterfly net in sight in the modern biodiversity lab. QIAGEN, CC BY-NC-ND

What Do We Gain By Studying Biodiversity ?

We study biodiversity for two reasons that run hand in hand. First, of course, we value scientific knowledge for its own sake.

Remarkable discoveries in pure knowledge abound. We now know that an organism detected so recently that most people have still never heard of it, Prochlorococcus, makes 20% of the worlds oxygen. Thats one in every five breaths you take! The research spotlight has recently focused on the biodiversity of your gut, an ecosystem at the least as complex and interesting as the tropical forest.

Secondly, this knowledge lets us lay claim to the natural world and exploit our knowledge of it. The European examine of biodiversity have all along had imperial motivations. Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition to further Americas Manifest Destiny but ensured it had a pure biodiversity research component as well: Jeffersons interest in botany and its applications was well-known.

People have a long history of exploiting the knowledge that comes from fundamental research. For instance, the molecular detective work that identified HIV as the cause of AIDS has enabled us to turn a dreadful fatal disease into a chronic, manageable adversity. The commercial potential in Archaea is famous and almost unbelievable, as batteries or optical computer memory, for example.

New forms of life continue to turn up. Most viruses, like HIV and influenza, have about 10 genes. Giant viruses, only discovered in the last decade, have over 1,000, the same order of magnitude as Prochlorococcus. The huge Pandoravirus is full of genes that are unlike anything known hence the name prompting the question whether theyre a fourth domain of life.

As the hunt for biodiversity get ever more technological and specific, get ready for a continuing stream of radical new discoveries. As Hamlet told: There are more things in heaven and ground, Horatio, than are dream of in your philosophy.

Sean Nee, Research Professor of Ecosystem Science and Management, Pennsylvania State University

Read more: www.iflscience.com

The post The Modern, Molecular Hunt For The Worlds Biodiversity appeared first on Top Rated Solar Panels.

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[wingpyre]

new muses added:

horatio

tenth doctor