#alternate spinning technology

[techdriveplay]

GIGABYTE Launches GIGABYTE AMD Radeon™ RX 7900 GRE GAMING OC 16G Graphics Cards

Feb 26, 2024 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today announced the new GIGABYTE AMD Radeon™ RX 7900 GRE graphics cards powered by AMD RDNA™ 3 architecture – the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 7900 GRE GAMING OC 16G graphics cards available for purchase on February 27, 2024. The GAMING OC graphics card, a classic and popular GIGABYTE graphics card, focuses on…

[buckyalpine]

LMAOO OKAY IMAGINE 40s!BUCKY (like tfa stark expo version) MAGICALLY TELEPORTING TO MODERN DAY, and Sharon’s bitch ass is hanging all over him, flirting hardcore, and is absolutely thrilled bc he’s actually giving her some attention. BUT THEN HE SEES THE READER AND IS LIKE “oh wow who is THAT” and leaves her alone to go woo the gorgeous dame. I can picture her face getting all red and embarrassed and upset. And Sam and Nat and Tony are in the background giggling.

GOD I LOOOVEEE THISSSS 40's heart has my heart cause this blushing soldier would be such a perfect mix of devilishly handsome and adorably shy.

-

"Shit" Tony huffed watching his time portal experiment start up and fail for the fourth time in a row while Bruce continued to medal with the dials, resetting the machine once more. "Why does it keep doing that"

"Give it a secondary power source, there's not enough juice with the first one"

Tony nodded, rummaging through a pile of knick knacks on his desk, grabbing a vial and adding it to the generator.

"Alright, set the timer to 19:00 hours and 40 in the past. Let's see if we can just travel to yesterday first before messing with going back years" He snorted, as Bruce punched in the time before hitting the start up button. The machine started to rumble before growing hot, the dials and buttons spinning and clicking on its own, parts starting to pop off.

"Oh shit!" Tony ducked under the table, shielding himself from getting knocked out as the portal grew more powerful, a force filed growing, knocking down things around the lab.

"What the hell did you use as a power source?!" Bruce yelled over the high pitched whizz the machine started to make, blinding light filling the room before disappearing, leaving a cloud of smoke in its place.

"I don't know, I just grabbed something that look like it'd fit" Toy shrugged between coughs as the smoke dissipated, squinting when he realized the platform wasn't empty.

Someone was standing there.

"What the hell..."

Blinking with bright blue eyes was a young soldier, dressed in a fresh, clean and pressed uniform, looking like a lost puppy while Tony and Bruce blinked in both confusion and amusement.

"Banner what the hell did you do with the timer?!"

"You're vial set everything into over drive, it must've recalibrated to 1940 instead of a couple of hours ago!" Bruce threw his hands up while the younger version of Bucky stared at the lab with child like wonder, his eyes twinkling as if it were Christmas day.

"Holy shit..." He breathed out seeing the vast technology, his mind still reeling over what was happening. One minute, he was on his way to see Steve and take some girls dancing and next thing he knew, he was sucked through a loop.

"Dear God-alright, uh-Barnes?" Tony waved the soldier over, mentally debating on what to tell him.

"Mr. Stark? It's-it's an honor, sir" Bucky shook Tony's hand before standing tall before him with his back straight, ever the bright eyed Sargent. Tony scratched his head before letting him take a seat, figuring honesty was the best police.

"Sargent. This may take a while"

-

Bucky understood bits and pieces of what Tony explained to him while getting a tour of the compound, the common room being the last place for him to check out. The team alternated between greeting and secretly cooing over the adorable young Bucky while also simultaneously laughing at Tony. At the very least, the billionaire was lucky the actual Bucky was away on a mission with you and Steve; there was only so much he could handle in a day. The soldier decided to hang back in the living room with the others, happily chatting away with Sam and Nat.

Then there was Sharon

"Hey Soldier" She winked, giving him a smirk causing the young Bucky to blush, throwing her a flirty smile right back.

"Nice to meet ya' doll" Bucky drawled out making her giggle, his lip catching between his teeth when she flipped her hair back.

"Aren't you sweet" She whispered, her heart beating a little faster when he moved towards her, his sweet baby blues gazing down at her intently. She'd tried a million times to get Bucky's attention before and he didn't look at her twice. She wasn't about to lose her chance with the new one.

"Look whose talking" Bucky chuckled back, his naturally flirty nature taking over with ease, after all it would be rude for him to ignore her.

"Someone's gotta protect him from this randy she goat" Sam whispered while Nat snorted, watching the two of them continuing to flirt, Sharon's hands toying with the buttons on Bucky's uniform, making her way up to brush his collar.

There was no way she was going to just let the gorgeous soldier go.

The machine wasn't fixed any time soon so Bucky was given a room to stay in. He loved the feeling of modern day sweats, looking cute as ever in some comfy joggers and a cotton tshirt, his fluffy cropped hair always neatly brushed and face shaven.

He was a Sargent after all. He always looked his best, even in lounge clothing.

There hadn't been a day where Sharon left Bucky alone. She clung onto his side, practically crawling up his leg day in and day out while the others side eyed the situation, keeping an eye out for the innocent Bucky.

"So, what's a soldier like you doin' without a girl, hm?" Sharon teased, pressing her hand to his chest, loving the way Bucky flirted back with her while the both of them sat in the common room with a movie playing in the background. Tony, Nat and Sam glanced at each other, quietly watching from their place in the kitchen while the blonde continued to giggle and blush, running her finger's through his hair.

"How do you keep your hair so soft, Sargent"

"Well, I- woah"

Sharon frowned when the soldier stopped talking half way after something- or someone- caught his attention. His eyes grew wide, a classic boyish smile appearing on his face when he saw the prettiest dame he'd ever laid his eyes on walk by the living room, making his heart flutter.

"who was THAT" Bucky stared in awe, seeing her stretch her arms up, still in some type of modern tactical suit, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yet she was still one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen.

"Uh-excuse me" Sharon's face twisted watching Bucky stare are you like a love struck puppy, nearly jumping over the sofa so he could run and talk to you. He didn't take his eyes off you, practically swooning when he saw you pack away the gun from you holster.

"Huh-yeah, sorry-" Bucky mumbled, still focused on you, unbothered by the way Sharon's face was now red with embarrassment, seething at what he was doing.

"Look at this guy, he's not even hiding the fact that he's staring at y/n" Sam snorted while Tony and Nat snickered, watching the young Bucky watch you with heart eyes, "Aw man, he's got it bad"

"Hey y/n, looks like someone's got a little crush on you" Nat whispered, discreetly nodding to the living room. You nearly squeaked in surprise, seeing a very very young version of your boyfriend sitting on the couch, taking peeks over at you whilst ignoring the blonde who was still fighting for his attention.

"Tony, you did this, didn't you" You sighed while Tony smiled proudly, now fully invested in how all this was going to play out.

"I'll explain later. Go wash and change and you can talk to him"

As soon as you were out of the kitchen, Bucky scrambled to the group, cheeks tinted pink, bashful as ever, looking at the three smirking faces, wiggling their eyebrows at him.

"See something you like, soldier?" Nat prodded while Bucky nearly giggled, nodding.

"Who was that" He asked in earnest, truly curious to at least get your name.

"That would be y/n. I'll introduce you once she's back down. You might be her type, y'know" Sam winked knowing damn well he was your type. After all you were technically already dating. Bucky bounced on his heels, waiting patiently while Sharon huffed, refusing to move from her spot on the couch. You made your way back down after a shower to see an exited Sam and a shy Bucky along with a smug Tony and Nat.

"Y/n, meet young Buck" Sam smiled while you held your hand out, swooning at the way he shook it gently, throwing you smile few got to see, one he had when he got butterflies in his belly.

"Nice to meet you Sarge"

"Pleasures all mine, angel" Bucky whispered, leading you off to the living room to talk to you more, offering you a seat, wondering if you wanted anything to snack on or drink, forgetting Sharon's existence entirely. Sharon nearly opened her mouth to say something, immediately shutting it with a satisfied smirk seeing the other Bucky walk in followed by Steve. Hopefully he'd see his girlfriend was a cheating whore, flirting with someone else even if it was him from the past. Her brain wracked itself in hopes that this would all crash and burn while Bucky frowned the closer he got.

"What the fuck Stark" Bucky scrunched his face walking in on some punk flirting with his girl, only to realize said punk was a younger version of him.

"Relax, I'll fuse you two together" Tony shrugged while Bucky's face twisted again, grumbling when his younger self kissed you hand again, pulling you up for a dance while fumbling with a phone he'd just managed to figure out.

"They're cute" Steve grinned, nudging Bucky playfully while Bucky rolled his eyes, smiling to himself a little while later when you caught his eyes, throwing him a wink. You laid your head against the young soldiers chest while he swayed with you, unaware that he was being watched by everyone else, in his own world with just you in it.

"You better fuse us together" Bucky hissed, narrowing his eyes when you giggled at something that was whispered in you ear; Tony snorted with a shit eating grin on his face.

"Why Barnes, scared of a little competition?"

Before Bucky could retort, Sharon was up and walking with purpose, stalking right towards Bucky.

"Y'know they're both flirting hard, right? Aren't you two dating?"

Bucky wordlessly stared at her while the others looked at her with confusion, the desperation becoming embarrassing.

"Sharon, shut up" Sam deadpanned while her mouth gaped open and shut before storming off.

"Back to what I was saying. Scared, Barnes?"

"You should be the scared one" Bucky sassed back, knowing exactly what his younger self was capable of; he knew that innocent boyish charm did wonders when it needed to. That being said, even his past self recognized real love, gravitating towards his one true soul mate after just seeing her once.

He watched the two of you continue to dance and whisper, the young soldier tipping your chin up, eyes flicking to your lips, his soft pouty pink lips so close to yours, leaning down so he could press a kiss so sweet-

"Alright that's it, punk get your hands off her!"

[andmaybegayer]

For a different project I was reading about developments in induction heating technologies and realized I had a small misunderstanding about how induction stoves work.

So, the classic misunderstanding is in why steel works on an induction hob but aluminium doesn't. Most people assume this is because you need a magnetic material in order to induce a current, but if you know your physics you know this isn't true. You can induce a current in any conductor, and indeed inducing currents in aluminium is something that happens in industry all the time.

So then you get to my understanding of why you can't use aluminium and copper, which is that they're too good at conducting electricity. Induction generates a voltage that pushes a current through the material. Aluminium and copper are much better conductors than steel, so the generated potential is lower and the overall current is lower as a result of material interactions with the field, so you don't get nearly as much heat out of induction on aluminium as on steel. This was what I thought. This is also wrong, although it's closer.

The actual answer is one step deeper. Induction hobs have to operate at pretty high frequencies, usually 24-ish kHz, both for audible noise reasons and, crucially, because they rely heavily on the skin effect. Interestingly this makes that first wrong explanation kind of more correct, I'll get to that in a moment.

The skin effect is a thing that happens when you have an alternating current in a bulk material; the AC signal sets up magnetic fields that force current to flow in a thin layer closer to the surface of the solid rather than flowing evenly throughout the material. This increases the effective resistance of the material, since you end up with a reduced effective surface area through which current can flow. The skin effect gets more pronounced at higher frequencies, and it's part of why you'll see bundles of smaller cables used to conduct high power AC: each cable has its own skin that can carry more current than the same quantity of material in one bulk cable.

In the right kinds of steel and iron, 24kHz is enough to generate a current carrying skin only a few tenths of a millimeter thick, which has a high enough resistance to generate the heat needed for cooking. Ferromagnetic materials have very high magnetic permeability, which causes them to experience much stronger skin effects. Copper and aluminium, between their high conductivity and lower magnetic permeability, have much weaker skin effects, their skins at 24kHz are much thicker, and so you just can't kick up enough resistance to the current to generate heat, it just spins around in there getting kind of warm but you'd have a hard time actually cooking with it. Indeed, non-magnetic stainless steel also won't work on induction hobs, because it also has a much thicker skin effect.

So you have the "real answer" being a fun hybrid of the two incorrect explanations.

The main side effects I take away from this are twofold.

1) you can absolutely make an induction hob that will heat copper and aluminum and non-magnetic stainless steels, you just need a high enough frequency to generate a strong enough skin effect to generate heat. Panasonic makes one that uses 60+kHz induction under the brand "Met-all".

2) if you physically constrain the current by having a really thin piece of metal, you can induction heat it anyway. When I read this, I stopped, took out a piece of aluminium foil, and stuck it on my induction cooktop. It almost immediately got incredibly hot and I pulled it away before anything bad happened. Turns out you could definitely melt and maybe even vaporize aluminium this way. So don't do that. Apparently people do this with lightweight titanium cookware too, which would not be able to sustain the necessary currents in a large bulk solid but can if you thin the base of the pan out enough.

[caliburn-the-sword]

the main talking point of a lot of people that love eah but bash on descendants is that "eah was deep!! descendants was just a disney knockoff that meant nothing and was just a cashgrab" SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP (to be clear i am an eah lover). analytical thoughts to follow:

consider also, that auradon is portrayed as very technologically advanced in direct opposition to the isle being associated with magic (even with its ban) and a lot of of clearly second hand, worn and torn fridges and tvs and whatever

also, the fact that she felt PRESSURED to not only culturally assimilate into auradon culture, but alter her physical appearance to assimilate further. consider mal's costuming in the first movie. on the isle, we see her with (what i assume is her natural) purple hair, leather, etc. she is even, to a degree, gender nonconforming. pretty much the ONLY time we see her in skirts is when she's trying to impress ben for her plan to work

compare this with the hair costuming in descendants 2:

(i actually can't remember which scenes the third one was in but whatever) they have taken away her sparkle!! she's assimilated firstly into auradon fashion by dressing in pastels like them, and in SKIRTS which she textually only wore in the first movie when she wanted to impress ben. now with the added context of her wanting to impress auradon. and it really speaks a lot that she feels she has to conform to gender norms more in order to be accepted by auradon

and what about hair. she's felt the need to not only change the way she dresses, but change her hair to the eurocentric standard, so blonde that it's almost WHITE to conform to auradon's society (because let's be real, her mum's a fairy/dragon and her dad is a greek god. i'd be MORE surprised if she was DYING her hair purple than it being natural). changing your natural hair in order to to conform to and be accepted by the majority... where have i heard that one before??

shoutout to @soniccat

(to be clear. it is not a one for one analogy. "hey using a spell to force someone to forget what you did is an invasion" to me is like going "well actually people were right to fear mutants in x-men because some of them were walking weapons" IT'S A METAPHOR THAT IS ALSO A PLOT DEVICE)

('backwater' being used ironically, do not let my meaning be misconstrued here. a better way to word it is that immigrants are guilttripped into having to be 'grateful' for their oppression in a first world country because microaggressions or assimilation is considered better than the alternative, being back in your home country where living conditions may be considered poorer)

in the sense that for instance, jay put a VK spin on supporting feminism. like yes, he could've done it the rulefollowing, create a petition and gather signatures route, but INSTEAD he finds and exploits an existing loophole to let lonnie join the team. or evie shouting out dizzy's creations, uplifting her voice despite the fact she could've still taken the credit since she was the one that paired the outfit with the accessories. etc

are the descendants movies objectively bad movies?? yes. but this was to me, one of the most compelling analogies for immigrant struggles. take particular notice how almost ALL the main VKs are either racebent from the original disney movies (evie, carlos, uma) or were already based on an ethnic character (mal, jay)

but wait, mal is the whitest white girl to walk the planet. how is she already based on an ethnic character?

glad you asked. it is quite unclear in the descendants movie (basing its portrayal of maleficent on the disney sleeping beauty) is a fairy or a dragon. while the maleficent movie isn't canon to the descendants universe, i'm still going to use the fact that she's a fairy with the magical ability to turn herself into a dragon

a lot fairy folklore comes from ireland. the name maleficent itself, and i quote

shares similarities to the name millicent. millicent has irish (or scottish) roots (even a coat of arms) as in

thus one could argue that maleficent herself could potentially be irish coded

whether or not you agree with the idea that maleficent is irish coded, it is undeniable that mal is the daughter of hades, a greek god. it's a shame that that was a retcon in the third movie and not planned from the start, because the role could've gone to an actually greek actress (please google the ottoman empire and greek independence day if you still think it's not fitting for me to group mal with the others)

where was i going with this?? right. it's extremely telling that most of the main/side VKs, save for gil, are ethnic, in the story of a group of misfits finding themselves in an unfamiliar country with new social norms for them to learn as they try to fit in with and become accepted by their peers

[drnikolatesla]

One of the Greatest Inventions of All Time

Nikola Tesla has many revolutionary inventions to his credit, but he is best known for his pioneering work in the development and promotion of alternating current (AC) electrical systems. Tesla's innovations in AC technology revolutionized the generation, transmission, and distribution of electrical power, becoming the foundation for the modern electrical power systems that we use today.

There is a common misconception made that Tesla was the first to invent, or discover, AC, but this is not true. It is well-known that Hippolyte Pixii was the first to discover AC in 1832. Pixii was an instrument maker from Paris who built an early form of an alternating current electrical generator (based on the principle of electromagnetic induction discovered by Michael Faraday), and thus started a new industry in power transmission. Tesla was not the first to discover or invent an AC motor, but he was the first to invent a practical AC induction motor with commercial value that could outperform all other motors. It must be noted that Italian inventor Galileo Ferraris also invented an induction motor similar to Tesla's, but it had no commercial value, and he even admitted himself that it was useless. Tesla's induction motor operates on the principle of electromagnetic induction, properly utilizing a rotating magnetic field that induces a current in a stationary conductor, resulting in rotational motion. The utilization of the rotating magnetic field makes the motor more simple, robust, versatile, efficient, and cost effective in that it has less moving parts reducing the likelihood of mechanical failure (as was common in other motors).

Tesla's induction motor became a fundamental component in the field of electrical engineering and is used today in various applications, being one of the most widely used devices in the world. The motors play a crucial role in transmitting electrical power to homes and businesses. They are commonly used in power generation plants to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy, which is then transmitted through the power grid for distribution to various locations. Induction motors are also widely employed in appliances and machinery within homes and businesses for various applications. These applications include conveyor systems, hoists, cranes, lifts, pumps, fans, ventilation systems, compressors, manufacturing machinery, wind turbines, washing machines, refrigerators, garbage disposals, microwaves, dishwashers, vacuums, air conditioners, robotics, electric vehicles, trains, power tools, printers, etc. Basically, anything that requires a spinning action for power.

The induction motor is widely considered one of the most important inventions in the history of electrical engineering. Its importance lies in its transformative impact on industries, its efficiency and reliability, and its role in the broader electrification of society.

[stellar-solar-flare]

A Fairytale Of A Disaster | S.R.

Chapter 2: Looking For The Happy Ending

Explicit - 18+ only! | Steve Rogers/Doctor!Reader

Your friend set you up with a perfect guy. Unfortunately, when it's time for you to meet 'Grant' for the first time, he has stood you up. On Valentine's Day of all days.

Was it too good to be true? Or does he instead have a very, very good reason why he's late, and a desire to make it all up to you?

FIC MASTERLIST | AUTHOR MASTERLIST | AUTHOR AO3

<< Previous chapter

Fluff, hurt/comfort, meet-cute, misunderstandings, eventual smut, healthy communication. | Background Sam Wilson/OFC.

Chapter Word Count: 2696 words.

Reader Specifics: She/her, late twenties (a few years younger than Steve in this fic). Training to be a trauma surgeon (has completed med school, in residency stage). Likes books and houseplants. No description of appearance (other than clothes and such), no use of Y/N.

A/N: I wanted to write a Valentine's Day oneshot, and then it turned out it has parts. Oh no. Well, here we are. I hope you enjoy this fluffy little trope collection! As always, thank you for reading, and hearing what you think means a lot to me.

Alternate Universe: The Avengers Initiative continued SHIELD's work after its collapse to corruption. The Avengers are living together in the Compound - Bucky has healed, and Civil War never happened because Tony and Steve worked through their differences like adults.

Chapter Warnings: Discussion of Steve's canonical trauma; mentions of Steve/Peggy.

I do not own anything Marvel related. This is an unofficial fan work. No copyright infringement intended. This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

Chapter 2: Looking For The Happy Ending

A part of you was really, really glad that you had decided to order the wine; you could feel your nerves flaring up, now that the initial surprise at the evening’s direction had passed. It was less so that he was Captain America, the literal superhero, the most eligible bachelor in the entire country according to many, and more so that his musky scent and his warm presence were going straight to your head. It felt like on some level, after all the conversations, you already knew who he was, but messages couldn’t have prepared you for everything. Like how the sheer presence this man had, how he could simply stand next to you and send off a signal that he was completely aware of you, was making your head spin. Feeling some initial curiosity and a little crush over messages was one thing; being hit in the face with the raw, sparkling physical attraction you were feeling was quite another. And even as you didn’t exchange words — too much attention here, too many ears listening — you could see Steve stealing looks at you over the brief minutes you waited.

You weren’t quite so sure any more that you didn’t believe in fairy tales.

The car arrived so fast that you were at least half-certain that Steve had carried it with him, tucked into his back pocket with the assistance of some Tony Stark’s bordering-on-magic technology. You barely had time to get your food back in a cardboard takeout container and finish the glass of wine before Steve glanced at his smartwatch and told you that the car was waiting.

You reached for your purse to pay the bill, and he stopped you with a gentle hand placed on your forearm. He’d slipped into the bathroom earlier to wash the worst of the dirt off his hands and face, and now, when he wasn’t afraid of making a mess out of you — oh, your subconscious needed to get things together or you weren’t going to survive this night — you could feel the entirety of his palm pressed on your bare skin.

“Please. Let me. That’s the least I can do for having kept you waiting,” he murmured, his eyes in yours.

He was already going to cook for you; you thought about arguing about the fact, but looking into his eyes, it was clear that this was very important to him. You could have afforded it, certainly, and it did feel a little unfair to let him pay when he hadn’t been enjoying the food at all. But since he was on Tony Stark’s payroll, you doubted the few drinks, the appetizer, and the fish and chips you now held under your right hand were going to make much of a dent in his cash. If it made him feel better…

“Only if you insist,” you replied after a beat, smile on your face.

“Oh, I do,” he smiled. “A lady never pays on the first date. That’s the rule. Especially when I asked her out.”

Apparently, Steve’s rules for a first date also included helping you into your coat and paying for the tip of the person working in the cloakroom. His hands were warm when they brushed against your shoulders as you slipped into the coat he was holding up, even as he didn’t linger. It seemed that he ran hot, or that the suit had some sort of temperature regulation built into it, because he didn’t seem to mind stepping from the warm restaurant into the cold February evening. The biting wind made you huddle deeper into your coat for the few steps from the door to the car waiting at the curbside.

“Ladies first,” Steve smiled, reaching to open the front passenger door of the decidedly nondescript black SUV.

Before you could ask, you realized that the driver’s seat was empty.

When he’d mentioned calling the car, you had obviously assumed that he’d be calling someone to drive you over to the Avengers Initiative Campus upstate; instead, he had literally called the car.

“It’s not on the public market yet,” Steve said, answering your wordless question. “Something Tony’s been tinkering with. It’s easier if we have vehicles stashed here and there in fully automated garages.”

“For date-related emergencies?” you grinned as you slipped into the seat, guiding your skirts with a hand as you did.

“Among other things. Although I don’t find myself in this situation very often,” he said as he closed the door after a quick glance to check that your skirt wasn’t going to get caught in the door. “It isn’t the kind of guy I want to be.”

He was smiling, but there was something underneath his tone. For the few seconds it took for him to go around the car and settle in to the driver’s seat after tossing the shield in the backseat — heedless of the white leather of the car and the grime on his suit — you thought about it.

It couldn’t be easy for him to date; not with the reputation and the fame attached to his title. And not with the demands of his job causing all sorts of delays and rain checks; all the emotions coming through his voice had already told you as much. He would’ve accepted it if you hadn’t been willing to give him a second chance after almost standing you up. He would’ve left it there and never bothered you again. And yes, perhaps that would’ve been fair — there was nothing wrong with not wanting to deal with your significant other having a job like that. But the same could also be said about your job.

Instead of replying immediately, you let him focus on merging into the traffic, even as you realized that compared to the things he usually did, driving — even in New York — was probably as easy as breathing. You shifted in your seat to recline more comfortably.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re that guy,” you replied. “Not the one to keep someone waiting without a very good reason, and not someone who dates just for the thrill.”

He gave you a chuckle in reply, but something about the way he glanced at you was so warm that it tingled in your veins.

“Thank you. And it does mean a lot. I can’t say I…” he murmured, his eyes back on the road again and you were certain it wasn’t just about the traffic. “I didn’t exactly have the easiest time concentrating today. I kept thinking that I’d blown the chance to have something great once again, that the world had again decided that I wasn’t making it to a date.”

His words lingered in the air for a few seconds, during which you very clearly understood what he was talking about. Of course, it was ancient history in more ways than one, but everyone knew the story of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter and the dance that had needed one hell of a rain check because he had sacrificed himself to save the world from the alien weapon. After the seconds ticked by, he glanced at you again, redness on his cheeks and something panicked in his eyes.

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that, I don’t… I’m not comparing, I don’t want to compare, I’m not looking for any sort of replacement for a road not traveled, it’s just…”

He sighed, trailing off again. His eyes stared forward, and his hands squeezed the wheel of the car hard enough that they might leave finger-shaped dents behind. Finally, he spoke again, something resigned in his voice:

“I’m sorry. Look, if you don’t want to do this, if you don’t feel like you’re up for this after that, just say the word and I’ll drop you off where you want,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to make you feel like you’re a second choice or anything like that. I’m obviously not great at this and if you don’t want to deal with that… ”

“Hey,” you said very softly. “No need to go looking for a grenade to throw yourself on, Captain. This isn’t an army camp.”

You reached over, letting your fingertips brush the top of his hand right there on the edge of where the wrist turned into the back of his palm. He glanced over at you again as you sank back to your seat, and even with the brief contact, you didn’t miss the fragile hope in his gaze.

“I’d rather hear how you feel than leave this car,” you continued. “I don’t think there’s anything very surprising about those things crossing your mind, and it doesn’t have to be about comparison. Obviously being faced with rather similar circumstances to the ones that were present when something very traumatic happened to you would bring up memories. Of events, and of people.”

Some of the tension drained away from Steve’s shoulders, but the chuckle that left his mouth was a little joyless.

“You’re pretty good at that,” he said.

“I’ve trained,” you raised your brows. “Comes with the skillset. But seriously, I’d understand if you need a rain check after what has obviously been a pretty intense day for you. We could plan something else.”

Your eyes flickered back to that cut on his chest, visible through the tear in the suit. The wound was already closing, and probably in a few hours it would be completely gone. You wondered if people thought that the same also happened to everything he experienced. If the public accounts about the eidetic memory were true, then he remembered everything, and even as his brain was probably better at processing things and arriving at the place where he could look at experiences logically, that didn’t mean the experience wasn’t intense.

You pulled yourself back to reality, reeling in the doctor and the researcher in your head and looking up at him again. He was staring at you — as much as he could, with his head halfway turned towards the road, but nothing about the way he was driving indicated that he wasn’t focusing on that, too.

“Is everything alright?” you said.

He breathed out, scrambling for words again as he returned his complete attention to the road.

“No, yes, it is, I mean…” he breathed back in, gathering his composure. “I am not used to anyone… getting that. Or even asking that.”

Something twisted in your chest, and had he not been driving, you would’ve wanted to take both his hands into yours. It hadn’t taken you more than a few texts with him to realize that this was a thoughtful man with a big heart and so much to give, and now, it didn’t surprise you that he wasn’t used to people understanding what it was like to be him.

“I don’t think anyone can ever understand another’s experience, not really,” you said. “And I wouldn’t dream of thinking that I know what it’s like to be you, what it was like to go through everything you have gone through. But I know how it is to have to be the one who has everything under control in the operating room. I know how it feels to feel like your job takes over all other aspects of your life. How it is to wonder if you’ll be lonely for the rest of your life and… And thinking that the best chance of finding something great you had had in a long time had just slipped through your fingers.”

You could feel the heat on your cheeks as you said the last words. They had halfway escaped your lips, brought forth by the way he’d accidentally served you his heart on a platter. Even as you hadn’t been fighting gods-knew-what in Antarctica, it had still been quite an emotionally intense night, and that was obviously bringing everything out in the open. You lowered your gaze to your hands in your lap, not really daring to look at him. You might’ve just made everything beyond awkward.

But when Steve spoke, it didn’t feel like that. His voice was genuinely warm, so warm it made the atmosphere change too. As if some sort of miniature sun had suddenly been trapped in the car and its rays were now transforming whatever floated in the air into something you could just let be there, existing in between the two of you.

Forming a bond of trust.

“Thank you,” he said. “For trying to understand. And for telling me all that.”

“I don’t think that’s something you should need to thank me for,” you murmured back. “But I do want to hear, if you want to talk about it. And I want to hear as someone who wants to get to know you, not as someone who is a medical professional.”

The cautious smile on his face had spread a little, and upon your disclaimer, it briefly lit up his whole face. Then, his expression returned to a more somber state, but it wasn’t quite heavy anymore. Just serious, as he looked back to what had once been, and a tiny hint of nostalgia had crept into his voice.

“I think it took me a couple of years to get back out here not because of any burning love for Peggy but because I needed to let go of the life I would’ve had, could’ve had, back in the forties. So that everything wouldn’t be tainted by comparison, not to something that was necessarily better but to something that was familiar. I’d built all these hopes about my life, if I got healthy, if I got into the army, if I met someone with whom we’d hit off… Realistically, it wouldn’t necessarily have been Peggy. It might’ve been, but it might not have worked out at all with her if things had ever progressed beyond some chemistry and one kiss in the middle of a war zone. But I had these images in my head about a happy ending and everything it meant in that era, and I think that if I’d tried to find one here earlier, before I went through all the therapy, I would’ve not been able to appreciate the good things — not because they wouldn’t have been as good or better than what I’d thought I’d have but simply because it wouldn’t have been the exact image I had conjured in my mind. And now, when I finally felt like I was ready to try to find that happy ending again, I was pretty scared that something great was going to slip through my fingers again, as you put it,” he said, and smiled a little sheepishly as he stopped. “I don’t know if that makes any sense. But I don’t want a rain check, if you don’t, despite everything.”

You smiled, not just at his honesty but the admission in between the lines, that he truly thought this might become that happy ending and that it had already felt like something great to him. It wasn’t really a surprise, after what he’d said about being marriage-minded when it came to dating — realistically, things wouldn’t have progressed this far if he hadn’t been thinking that — but it was still different to hear it like this, sitting right next to him and feeling the words, rather than as an explanation of his general mindset over messages.

“I think it makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate your honesty, and the fact that you worked on yourself and made sure you are doing things for the right reasons,” you said. “And for what it’s worth…”

You smiled to yourself, peeling open the cardboard container that held your food and extending it to him.

“…I don’t see a reason why this night can’t be absolutely great despite everything. Want some fish and chips?”

He chuckled, reaching over to grab a fry. As he did, he brushed his little finger briefly over the knuckles of your hand holding the box, sending a tingling feeling of electricity up your arm, and you knew that he heard what you’d said between the lines, too.

I don’t see a reason why this can’t be our happy ending.

Next Chapter >>

[novella-november]

This isn't going to be another "you hate fanfiction!!" because very obviously you do not, but it is prompted by the discussion of branching out into original work, since it's something I often struggle with when trying to make that jump. Do you or any of your followers have any good resources on beginner worldbuilding? I really struggle with it.

Thank you!

If you check out my post where I made a "Prep Calendar" for Outline October (Which is a November-prep alternative/ supplement to Ominous October, the spooky short story event), I actually made a rather rough calendar outline of how to go about world building in advance for November;

The basic first steps for me are usually just three things:

Who are your characters

What kind of world do they live in (aka setting)

Whats your main plot/conflict?

To start worldbuilding at its lowest level, start with number one and work your way up; figure out what kind of character you'd like to write, where they live, and go from there!

Here is the prep calendar I threw together in MS paint, I definitely reccomend downloading it on desktop to actually zoom in to see what all it says lol.

And as a bonus, I will even make a fun, silly little exercise for anyone who'd like to get some practice in!

If you want to join in, grab a pen and pencil, or open up your favorite note-taking app :D

Here we go....!

Let's start out by saying that my basic concept for a character is *spins mental wheel of random ideas*....... a talking deer! 1) So now that I have decided that I want a talking deer character, now I have to decide: A) do *all*deer talk? B) Do *all* animals? C) Or is it just this one singular deer who is special? 2) If it *is* just this one singular deer who can talk, are they: D) otherwise a perfectly normal deer who just happens to be able to talk? E) Can they talk because they used to be human? F) Can they talk because they used to be an Alien or encountered Alien Tech (scifi) ? G) Can they talk because they used to be a Magical Creature or ran into a Magical Spell (fantasy) ? 3) Now you get to decide, mostly if you chose A or B from #1 but also useful for C : H) Is your story a more personal nature documentary, with realistic interactions between predators and prey? I) Is your story going to be a unique world where deer have built a society with technology and know how to defend themselves from predators? J) Is your story a unique world where all animals can talk and are equally sentient, therefore predators are revered as gods or keepers of the dead, who bring all back to the circle of life and prevent the spread of illness and disease, with older animals proudly going "to the wolves" to give their life to their brethren who consecrate the bones of the dead and keep resources plentiful? K) Or are predators the monsters in the dark, the teeth that bite, the slavering jaws that kill to live and *cannot live any other way*, so has learned not to regret? L) Or even, predators who feed from the already-dead when they can, and eat their fill of berries, nuts and fruits when they cannot, because they do not wish to take the lives of others for their own sake?

*clears throat* ahem. Drama done (can you see why I love worldbuilding) ,

go ahead and pick a letter from each of the above options, and jot them down on your paper or note-taking app.

You now have: A basic character, their backstory, and a basic setting!

From three-ish questions from a basic idea, you can spawn multiple possibilities, each of which can branch off into their own unique iterations!

Here's a few more, if you'd like to continue the exercise as further practice:

What is your deer's name?

What do they look like / what kind of deer are they? (deer of various species are found over almost the entire world, so there is tons of variety! :D )

What kind of world do they live in?

How do they interact with humans?

*are* there humans in your story?

What kind of zany or terrifying adventures would your talking deer and a human go on?

What kind of adventures would your talking deer go on with other deer or other animals?

How does your deer get along with other species?

Do they have friends from other species?

Do they have rivals from other species?

Do they have *sworn enemies* from other species?

Do they have a *love interest* from another species?

etc!

I am hoping this game/exercise is helpful, my brain being both autistic and ADHD means I am, at the drop of a hat, ready to start spouting more and more ideas sparked from a single concept at any given moment!

And yes, if you did this exercise, please feel free to use your deer character in a story, draw art of your deer character, etc!

If this exercise was helpful to you or fun, please feel free to tag any deer creations with "NovellaDeer" , I'd love to see them!

You can easily adapt this exercise to any story concept you need to worldbuild; pick what basic idea you have for a main character, and start asking yourself questions about them and their circumstances, and let yourself come up with multiple, contradicting answers for each question; the more the merrier!

After you've decided which starting answers you like the most, you can work your way down the list, asking follow-up questions, and before you know it you will have your very own original character :D

And do not feel like you need to keep your character exactly the way they start out as; characters evolve over time, and you may find yourself changing their "base" character to suit your story or to suit your tastes as you get more experienced with writing and world building!

[quackysmackk]

Same!! It also provided more stable grounding for some of my own ideas, like there being another Vanny involved, along with the fact that the Freddy we see in Ruin is not the Freddy from SB, along with a couple other things, but what I'm gonna suggest here is something different.

Digital Possession~

The game showcased that possession of a robot is very much a possible thing, albeit not in a supernatural way (though still possible) but in a digital way through the use of VR/AR technology~ And they don't even need to be dead! So imagine if the Glamrocks gained their personalities or sentience through having someone's "actual" personality uploaded into them? OwO

OOOOO

That’s an interesting take!

I do like the idea about the personalities and sentience’s being uploaded to make things more “sentient.” It’s like a modern spin to the FNaF history of possession giving animatronics movement/life.

I feel like the game also revealed an alternate point of view into what we could define as the whole process of “giving life” to something in the FNaF universe.

[drawings-in-the-void]

Day 8: Spaceship

While not technically a spaceship, it's still cool to be there.

There’s nothing quite as annoying as being summoned on a random Tuesday during your lunch hour.

Ok, maybe it could be slightly outshined by the second time Danny had ever been summoned before, and the sinking feeling that this was something that would, in fact, be a recurring issue. What made that particular incident a bit better than the current predicament was the fact that he had 100% been summoned in the middle of a bonfire party, in the year 1988, on Halloween, surrounded by drunk teens and 20 somethings.

It took half an hour to get everyone to chill out.

It took another half hour for Danny to get the whos-whats and whens.

After 15 minutes of being taught how to do trick shots at beer pong someone tripped and fell on the summoning circle, the line of salt it was drawn with broken and Danny was treated to whatever feeling happened when he got summoned, only in reverse.

Did he say annoying? The cultist the first time was annoying, these guys kinda ruled for the 15 minutes of A-lister fame he got for being a freak of nature. 

This is all to say Danny already got an earful from Clockwork about how the magic that bound Pariah Dark prevented any summonings of his person, however with his defeat at Danny’s hand meant that if people were just trying to summon whatever power technically held the throne, he’d be the one next in line.

Danny had asked how that even worked, considering it was technically his parents' technology that “defeated” Pariah Dark, he had just been piloting it.

Clockwork had just raised his hand and made a so-so motion.

Useful, once again.

The only other information he had been able to get out of the old/young/man/ghost was that when he was being summoned didn’t necessarily mean just moving through space, after all the infinite realms are infinite for a reason, and time didn’t really exist here, dead as the rest of it’s occupants, so things tended to happen out of order. Additionally, as it turns out the party he’d been, well invited to, wasn’t just out of time, but out of place as well.

Clockwork said that that incident had pulled him to the bonfire had dragged him between timelines as well, which Danny took to mean more like it was an alternate universe from his own, and the longer CW took to answer his ensuing questions kept making his head spin.

“If people are just gonna be able to summon me all the time, is there a way to stop it? I can’t just be dragged away all the time, I’ve got homework! And a Doomed tournament!” he had asked, feeling a bit childish as he had floated in the space around Clockworks’s head while the ghost looked onto the cog occupied by aftermath of the bonfire party, and from the cog’s point of view Danny could make out a few unconscious bodies in various sleeping positions around the extinguished fire. 

One girl, slumped against the failing fabric of a folded chair and painfully crimped blond hair spilling over her face, waves a hand in the air, seemingly to swat away some nats in the early morning, only for a particular thing to happen to the air around her hand. 

The air around it wavered like a heatwave, and bugs, previously invisible from the point of view of the cog, now glowed a faint white, and dispersed from the campground area.

“The further you are pulled from your timeline, the more drastic the changes are to your own.” Clockwork had told him.

Danny speedruns away from the cafeteria, and the ensuing excuses his friends have to make to whichever teacher was on lunch duty, and he’s able to dive into a closet moments before the feeling of being dropped into freefall whites out his vision. 

According to Mary Jane (blond crimped hair) it’s quite a sight when Danny got summoned, and he thinks he can kinda connect the dots between what he feels and what everyone else sees as it happens. 

So far each time he’s dropped into a summoning circle it’s always been in ghost form, and this was slightly different as he was still Danny to begin with, which was a great mini heart attack to have when he realized, only for that feeling of weightlessness to wash over him as he’s thrown back into the visible plane. What everyone else sees is the air in the circle to crumple like a piece of paper, and a bright-as-the-sun tear to rip through it. 

From this rift, one small, white, gloved hand reaches through, gripping the crumpled air like a wall and following it shortly with another hand, also reaching through to guide the person attached to them into the room.

From the rift, it’s nearly impossible to really understand what you’re looking at, and it’s not until Danny sets his feet gently on the ground beneath him, like gravity was only a suggestion, that all parties got a good look at eachother.

Now, knowing that you could be anywhere and anywhen for any reason made Danny prepared to be as open minded as possible to keep things from getting out of hand.

He was not prepared for several very buff, brightly colored, costumed adults.

With the spectacle died down, the room was dead silent, and Danny was starting to feel awkward.

He’s dealt with screaming, he’s dealt with groveling, hell he’s even dealt with people trying to sell him their souls. 

The woman in front of him, the one in the middle holding some old looking book, colored a deep green, seemed frozen in time, mouth agape in surprise. He realizes, somewhat belatedly, that she’s dressed in a magicians costume, and was in fact lacking in the pants department.

Current assumption: Costume party gone wrong.

The room he’s been summoned in looks a bit like a meeting room for corporate office stuff, going by the table moved off to the side and stacked chairs.

Revised assumption: Office costume party gone wrong.

Little bit of an older crowd compared to the last party he was invited to, but to their credit there’s been a lot less screaming this time around, maybe the simplest way to get back to lunch is the direct route?

“...Hi?” Ancients, he was bad at this, but in Danny’s defense these guys were giving him nothing! Luckily getting some words out broke the tension.

Unluckily it was not because that tension went away.

“Zatanna, did something go wrong with the spell?” First guy, a big muscled guy in bright blue and red spandex and straight up a cape, talks first, forcing himself next to the magician woman, who clamped her mouth shut with a click of her teeth. 

“N-not possible-”

“It has to be, this is a kid!” Another guy, all in red this time with a hood(???) covering the top half of his face mirrors the first guy looking at the book, much to the annoyance of the magician lady who glares at both of them as they crowd around her.

“Keep your position Flash, this is still an unknown.” Another big guy, all in black with cat ears on (?????) growled out from the corner of the room that Danny didn’t even notice before.

“It’s still a kid! A glowy, floaty, kid but this isn’t some world ending demon.”

“We cannot judge a book by its cover, I suggest we simply ask the child.” Finally, a quite frankly, terrifyingly tall woman spoke up from her corner of the room, and Danny could feel the weight of her gaze on him like it was physical. 

And suddenly all eyes on him once more.

“You guys were trying to get Pariah Dark for your costume party?” Danny might’ve lost the plot a little bit while everyone was talking at once. 

Magician lady snapped her book shut.

“You’re not Pariah Dark?”

“Nope.” Danny says, popping the “p” and leaning back on his heels. “And you should probably stop trying to summon the guy, he’s kinda a pain to deal with, plus you’re gonna have to try harder to jailbreak him than that.” Talk about judging a book by its cover, these guys had to be the most brightly colored cultists he’s ever met.

“Pariah Dark’s been imprisoned?” Cat ears growls out again, and Danny thinks that if he’s sick he probably shouldn’t have shown up for a summoning party.

“Uh yeah, has been for a while? Well, got out, was put back in again- sorry, so what’s with the costumes?” Yeah he’s gotta ask now it’s starting to get distracting.

“Our apologies-” Tall lady again, she moves from her corner to circle around to stand in front of the rest of the group to be face-to-face with him, only a few inches from the chalk lines written on the stiff gray carpet. “We haven’t done proper introductions yet, if you wouldn’t mind extending some grace to us, I am called Wonder Woman and my associates…” She nodded behind her, and the magician woman stepped up with the book in hand. “Sorry, yes, my name is Zatanna, and behind me is Superman and Flash, Batman’s the guy in the corner over there-” “Hng.” “-Don’t let ‘em scare you, we were just, well. Caught off guard a bit.” She fiddled with one of her white gloves and Danny feels a bit like he got someone else’s invite to a birthday party.

“You would’ve been less caught off guard if the tyrannical ghost king showed up in your office instead?” Danny can’t help but ask.

Zatanna pursed her lips together in a tight line at that, and with an impressive face of consideration she glances from the tall lady (these people have such weird names) and back to him. 

“You’re a resident of the infinite realms right?” She levels her own question at him, and Danny hums, kicking both his feet off the ground and floating a few feet above where he was standing and taps a finger to his chin consideringly and kicking one leg over the other so he was essentially reclined on nothing but air.

“I wonder what could’ve gave that away…” He theatrically sighs, and when he side eyes the group again the stupid shtick did its job and everyone looked a little less likely to start throwing things at him. Except the dude in the corner, he just looked the same. Broody.

“But yeah, you dragged me through the ghost zone with that thing,” Danny continues, nodding to the book in the woman’s hand, “But you won’t be able to get Pariah.”

The flashy guy, or the flash or something, went from being 10 feet away from Zatanna to 1 in less than the blink of an eye, which is enough to sufficiently distract Danny enough to not pay attention to what he hissed in her ear, which was “Did you kidnap a dead teenager Zatanna?”

Zatanna did something with her hand and Flash was suddenly very busy dealing with his jaw being locked closed.

“Sorry, just to clarify, we aren’t trying to summon Pariah Dark to end the world or something, we were going to try and stop it! According to some rumors, he had been released and the crown and ring had once again been claimed for the throne, something like that you understand could be devastating, not just in our world but yours too! I have a spell here that could potentially weaken him, and we could work to keep him from getting out again-”

“But he’s already locked up.”

“It’s your word against many, I’ve spoken to others from your realm, they all say the same, that the king has returned!” Ah. Not great. 

Danny lets himself fall back to the ground with a dull thud and holds out a hand for the book.

Wonder Woman raises an eyebrow at the bold gesture and Zatanna regards him with a level of distrust.

“What exactly are you trying to prove- hey!” Wonder Woman plucks the book from her arms, keeping it out of reach of the shorter woman until she holds it out to Danny, just outside the circle.

Danny steps over the chalk lines with ease and takes the book.

Zatanna and Superman both inhale sharply at the motion, and Flash made a muttered sound of alarm, Danny ignored them to instead see if there would be any reaction from the big lady, she was clearly the one in charge. 

“You could have left the circle at any point, correct?” she asks him, and Danny nods.

“You guys should stop looking for Pariah Dark, or to summon him, even if you got lucky and got him here, I doubt you have the power to hold him back.” Danny hopes he sounds serious enough to not be taken lightly, he opens up the book and flicks through it when Wonder Woman’s face becomes distant and she nodded, glancing over to the Batman guy.

It’s nearly all in ghost writing, something Danny’s still not great with, and going by the sticky notes pressed between the pages the magician woman only translated about a fourth of the book, and the translation wasn’t exact going by Danny’s own knowledge and what was written down. Oh well, he should probably see if Clockwork knows what to do with it. 

Danny snaps the book closed and sticks it in his chest like he would with his thermos, partially to keep anyone else from trying to take it back and partially to watch the various reactions of horror from the adults.

“Like I said, you guys don’t need to worry about him anymore anyways, so if that’s sorted I’ll leave you to your uh- well whatever you guys do?” Danny says, backing away back to the chalk lines in the carpet, if he can rub his boot into the chalk, he might be able to break the right line to send him back. He’s paused by a cartoon ripping noise coming from the red guy.

With probably a bit too much dramatics put into it, Flash breathes a great big grasp of fresh air as his jaw comes free. Near Danny, Zatanna rolls her eyes.

“Ok! Hold on a second kid! I don’t know about the rest of you guys but there’s still WAY too many questions we’ve got to just let you leave yet, with our stuff in the first place!” 

In the blink of an eye Flash is in front of him, glaring down like Danny’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I mean this isn’t technically yours, you guys can’t even read it!” He protested, taking another step back.

“You don’t need to tower over him, Flash, he's still just a kid.” Superman piped up, “What are you gonna do to him, throw him out the airlock?” Airlock? 

“Don’t be stupid ghosts don’t need to breathe, besides, wouldn't throwing him out in space be the same as telling him to go home!” Space???

“The infinite realms aren’t in space Flash it’s another layer of reality all together-” Zatanna is cut off as Danny drops through the floor.

For every layer of dense machinery and the occasional yell of surprise, Danny knows what he’s looking for the moment he drops through the last layer and finds himself looking down at Earth from a fucking spaceship.

Danny was definitely very cool and chill about being face to face with one of his biggest dreams.

He definitely didn’t let out the soundless scream of a teenager and do half a dozen laps around the perimeter of the station (Yes he knew after the first lap that it technically wasn’t a spaceship, but wow was it a LOT more advanced than ANYTHING he had seen in NASA’s magazines). 

What finally paused him from flying around like a kid in a candy store was surveying the stars around him, and that’s exactly where Batman found him.

Danny didn’t see him at first, and didn’t expect to either, as thick metal shutters raised on the wall he had thought was just a wall, and instead revealed a foot of glass, and the room that Batman was now in. 

It was the light that had Danny turning back to the station, shifting from where he had been sitting, cross-legged in space. When he turns, Batman nods his head to the space next to him in the hall. Danny sighs, and phases through the glass, dropping down to stand on his feet.

“You really don’t need to worry about Pariah anymore he-”

“Was defeated by you.” The older man rumbles out, he looks out the window to space, like he doesn’t need to see Danny’s reaction to know his response. Danny opens his mouth to protest, but it dies when Batman levels that look to Danny, and he’s really not able to read it at all, but with his mouth set into a hard line, Danny could almost say he looks grim.

“Uh, yeah, technically. Honestly it’s kinda… Complicated.”

“And now you’re the new Ghost King.” Danny’s boots have become incredibly interesting all of the sudden.

“...It’s complicated.” The first person for Danny to talk to about the Ghost king deal other than Clockwork and it’s a guy in a bat fursuit, lovely.

There’s a beat of silence and Danny wonder’s if Mr dark and broody is going to ask him more, but he seems to think better of it, because he instead turns back to the window.

“...Is it your first time being out in space like this?” The change in topic is a bit out of left field, but not unappreciated, as Danny looks back up to the window with lights in his eyes.

“Yes! Well, kinda? The ghost zone- er infinite realms, are kinda like space, just a lot greener with a bunch of purple doors that could go anywhere! And I’ve flown all the way up to some satellites in the past but I’ve never been on a spaceship or a space station before! Some of this technology is incredible, nothing like my pa-” Danny clears his throat, purposefully not looking back to see if the slip was noticed. “And uh, the stars here are different.”

“Different?” 

“Shifted, some of the constellations I know aren’t there. While I was out there I uh, well I guess I was making up new ones.” He finished, a little embarrassed. 

Batman just hums an affirmative rumble.

“The others aren’t upset about me taking off right? Sorry, I guess I just got a bit excited, I can still answer any other questions you guys wanted to ask.” 

“You don’t need to apologize, Flash shouldn’t have tried to antagonize you. Besides, you’ve already given us the answers we needed, I told Zatanna to start redrawing the circle to send you back home.”

Batman says this to no one, because in that same breath, he’s found himself in a crumpled pile of brooms, mops and buckets.

And he’s missed his lunch hour.

[gotyouanyway]

an actual non-joking vague outline & the most self indulgent thing i could ever imagine:

episode 1 timeless children style matrix flashback overview of gallifreyan history (but it's about the founders not the doctor. platt style. sorry)

episode 2 companion gets to see what the planet is all about. characters like romana and borusa are there. romana is president. some gallifrey audio lore is incorporated. it's fun

episode 3 the main threat is revealed to be something related to gallifreyan history and/or technology. the eye of harmony and the matrix play a big part. maybe it's rassilon AND omega returning this time. maybe even the o-

episode 4 companion gets in trouble and faces discrimination for being an alien. the most star trek this season gets but more purely fucked up and less moralizing bc it's not star trek

episode 5 a plot-driven tour of the capitol. chasing or hiding from someone, you know. i want to see the academy, low town, and regular living quarters

episode 6 another lore dump, this time we visit a House or the drylands or something. maybe it's an alternate timeline twilight zone thing where the companion wakes up as a time lord on gallifrey. maybe leela is there

episode 7 the cia gets involved with the main plot and they try to involve the doctor. yeah the doctor is actually in this season. i forgot

episode 8 welcome back mr. the other and welcome back hand of omega? things are starting to spin out of control

episode 9 chancellery guard lower decks or some other kind of breather

episode 10 major nod to the political games of gallifrey audios. romana and the doctor turn on each other. things get dangerous and weird especially for the companion. the time lords are starting to look quite alien and scary

episode 11 the eye of harmony is involved with the main plot so we get weird about that too. hand of omega is a main character

episode 12 and of course, while we're at it, we get VERY weird about the matrix. main plot is resolved everyone is (kind of?) friends again. the doctor and companion are leaving now but we're definitely coming back regularly in the next few seasons......

[the-emerald-isle-au]

hello!

this is an au created by @0vergrowngraveyard. idk if there’s any real plot to it yet. it started off as character design practice then became a kitesune!tails au then it spiraled into this so i’m still figuring shit out as i go lmao

feel free to ask questions to either myself or the characters! i’m not sure how often this will be updated but i sure will try

general story:

an accident involving the chaos emeralds sends sonic to an alternate dimension (it’s kinda like a shatterverse) where his friends (+eggman and sage) have very strong connections to the chaos emeralds and all dwell on an island called the emerald isle

the main island is split into 3 areas:

- flaming core zone

- whispering woods zone

- luminous ravines zone

each area has its own unique ecosystem and little villages where his friends are seen as great protectors

there’s also one tiny island that can be seen from the shorelines of the flaming core zone that appears to be home to very futuristic technology but it’s not a place that any of the inhabitants of the main island travel to. plus it’s usually covered by fog anyway there’s no need to worry about it, right? as they say: out of sight, out of mind

in order to get home, he needs to collect all 7 of the chaos emeralds but it’s proving to be a little challenging

unsurprisingly, these new versions of his friends are a tad bit protective over their power sources and none of them are trusting sonic nearly as quickly as he hoped they would. in fact, a lot of them seem to straight up dislike him! i guess that’s what happens when you ask someone to give up their power for a complete stranger

i’ll get more into the specifics in future posts but this is the basic idea of it

i hope you guys enjoy my ramblings about this silly little idea that’s been spinning in my head like a microwave 🩵

[lonestarflight]

Cancelled Missions: NASA's October 1977 Space Shuttle Flight Itinerary

"Soon after President Richard Nixon gave his blessing to the Space Shuttle Program on January 5, 1972, NASA scheduled its first orbital flight for 1977, then for March 1978. By early 1975, the date had slipped to March 1979. Funding shortfalls were to blame, as were the daunting engineering challenges of developing the world's first reusable orbital spaceship based on 1970s technology. The schedule slip was actually worse than NASA let on: as early as January 32, 1975, an internal NASA document (marked 'sensitive') gave a '90% probability date' for the first Shuttle launch of December 1979.

In October 1977, Chester Lee, director of Space Transportation System (STS) Operations at NASA Headquarters, distributed the first edition of the STS Flight Assignment Baseline, a launch schedule and payload manifest for the first 16 operational Shuttle missions. The document was in keeping with NASA's stated philosophy that reusable Shuttle Orbiters would fly on-time and often, like a fleet of cargo airplanes. The STS Utilization and Operations Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston had prepared the document, which was meant to be revised quarterly as new customers chose the Space Shuttle as their cheap and reliable ride to space.

The JSC planners assumed that six Orbital Flight Test (OFT) missions would precede the first operational Shuttle flight. The OFT flights would see two-man crews (Commander and Pilot) put Orbiter Vehicle 102 (OV-102) through its paces in low-Earth orbit. The planners did not include the OFT schedule in their document, but the May 30, 1980 launch date for their first operational Shuttle mission suggests that they based their flight schedule on the March 1979 first OFT launch date.

Thirteen of the 16 operational flights would use OV-102 and three would use OV-101. NASA would christen OV-102 Columbia in February 1979, shortly before it rolled out of the Rockwell International plant in Palmdale, California.

As for OV-101, its name was changed from Constitution to Enterprise in mid-1976 at the insistence of Star Trek fans. Enterprise flew in Approach and Landing Test (ALT) flights at Edwards Air Force Base in California beginning on February 15, 1977. ALT flights, which saw the Orbiter carried by and dropped from a modified 747, ended soon after the NASA JSC planners released their document.

The first operational Space Shuttle mission, Flight 7 (May 30 - June 3, 1980), would see Columbia climb to a 225-nautical-mile (n-mi) orbit inclined 28.5° relative to Earth's equator (unless otherwise stated, all orbits are inclined at 28.5°, the latitude of Kennedy Space Center in Florida). The delta-winged Orbiter would carry a three-person crew in its two-deck crew compartment and the bus-sized Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) in its 15-foot-wide, 60-foot-long payload bay.

Columbia would also carry a 'payload of opportunity' - that is, an unspecified payload. The presence of a payload of opportunity meant that the flight had available excess payload weight capacity. Payload mass up would total 27,925 pounds. Payload mass down after the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm hoisted LDEF out of Columbia's payload bay and released it into orbit would total 9080 pounds.

A page from the STS Flight Assignment Baseline document of October 1977 shows payloads and other features of the first five operational Space Shuttle missions plus Flight 12/Flight 12 Alternate

During Flight 8 (July 1-3, 1980), Columbia would orbit 160 n mi above the Earth. Three astronauts would release two satellites and their solid-propellant rocket stages: Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-A (TDRS-A) with a two-stage Interim Upper Stage (IUS) and the Satellite Business Systems-A (SBS-A) commercial communications satellite on a Spinning Solid Upper Stage-Delta-class (SSUS-D).

Prior to release, the crew would spin the SBS-A satellite about its long axis on a turntable to create gyroscopic stability and raise TDRS-A on a tilt-table. After release, their respective solid-propellant stages would propel them to their assigned slots in geostationary orbit (GEO), 19,323 n mi above the equator. Payload mass up would total 51,243 pounds; mass down, 8912 pounds, most of which would comprise reusable restraint and deployment hardware for the satellites.

The TDRS system, which would include three operational satellites and an orbiting spare, was meant to trim costs and improve communications coverage by replacing most of the ground-based Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN). Previous U.S. piloted missions had relied on MSFN ground stations to relay communications to and from the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston. Because spacecraft in low-Earth orbit could remain in range of a given ground station for only a few minutes at a time, astronauts were frequently out of contact with the MCC.

On Flight 9 (August 1-6, 1980), Columbia would climb to a 160-n-mi orbit. Three astronauts would deploy GOES-D, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellite, and Anik-C/1, a Canadian communications satellite. Before release, the crew would raise the NOAA satellite and its SSUS-Atlas-class (SSUS-A) rocket stage on the tilt-table and spin up the Anik-C/1-SSUS-D combination on the turntable. In addition to the two named satellites, NASA JSC planners reckoned that Columbia could carry a 14,000-pound payload of opportunity. Payload mass up would total 36,017 pounds; mass down, 21,116 pounds.

Following Flight 9, NASA would withdraw Columbia from service for 12 weeks to permit conversion from OFT configuration to operational configuration. The JSC planners explained that the conversion would be deferred until after Flight 9 to ensure an on-time first operational flight and to save time by combining it with Columbia's preparations for the first Spacelab mission on Flight 11. The switch from OFT to operational configuration would entail removal of Development Flight Instrumentation (sensors for monitoring Orbiter systems and performance); replacement of Commander and Pilot ejection seats on the crew compartment upper deck (the flight deck) with fixed seats; power system upgrades; and installation of an airlock on the crew compartment lower deck (the mid-deck).

Flight 10 (November 14-16, 1980) would be a near-copy of Flight 8. A three-person Columbia crew would deploy TDRS-B/IUS and SBS-B/SSUS-D into a 160-n-mi-high orbit. The rocket stages would then boost the satellites to GEO. Cargo mass up would total 53,744 pounds; mass down, 11,443 pounds.

Flight 11 (December 18-25, 1980) would see the orbital debut of Spacelab. Columbia would orbit Earth 160 n mi high at 57° of inclination. NASA and the multinational European Space Research Organization (ESRO) agreed in August 1973 that Europe should develop and manufacture Spacelab pressurized modules and unpressurized pallets for use in the Space Shuttle Program. Initially dubbed the 'sortie lab,' Spacelab would operate only in the Orbiter payload bay; it was not intended as an independent space station, though many hoped that it would help to demonstrate that an Earth-orbiting station could be useful.

ESRO merged with the European Launcher Development Organization in 1975 to form the European Space Agency (ESA). Columbia's five-person crew for Flight 11 would probably include scientists and at least one astronaut from an ESA member country.

Flight 12 (January 30 - February 1, 1981), a near-copy of Flights 8 and 10, would see Columbia's three-person crew deploy TDRS-C/IUS and Anik-C/2/SSUS-D into 160-n-mi-high orbit. Payload mass up would total 53,744 pounds; mass down, 11,443 pounds.

JSC planners inserted an optional 'Flight 12 Alternate' (January 30 - February 4, 1981) into their schedule which, if flown, would replace Flight 12. Columbia would orbit 160 n mi above the Earth. Its three-person crew would deploy Anik-C/2 on a SSUS-D stage. The mission's main purpose, however, would be to create a backup launch opportunity for an Intelsat V-class satellite already scheduled for launch on a U.S. Atlas-Centaur or European Ariane I rocket. An SSUS-A stage would boost the Intelsat V from Shuttle orbit to GEO.

NASA JSC assumed that, besides the satellites, stages, and their support hardware, Columbia would for Flight 12 Alternate tote an attached payload of opportunity that would need to operate in space for five days to provide useful data (hence the mission's planned duration). Payload mass up would total 37,067 pounds; mass down, 17,347 pounds.

Space Shuttle Flights 13 through 18 would include the first orbital mission of the OV-101 Enterprise (Flight 17), during which astronauts would retrieve the LDEF payload deployed during Flight 7.

Flight 13 (March 3-8, 1981) would see three astronauts on board Columbia release NOAA's GOES-E satellite attached to an SSUS-D stage into a 160-n-mi-high orbit. OV-102 would have room for two payloads of opportunity: one attached at the front of the payload bay and one deployed from a turntable aft of the GOES-E/SSUS-D combination. Payload mass up would total 38,549 pounds; mass down, 23,647 pounds.

Flight 14 would last 12 days, making it the longest described in the STS Flight Assignment Baseline document. Scheduled for launch on April 7, 1981, it would carry a 'train' of four unpressurized Spacelab experiment pallets and an 'Igloo,' a small pressurized compartment for pallet support equipment. The Igloo, though pressurized, would not be accessible to the five-person crew. OV-102 would orbit 225 n mi high at an inclination of 57°. Mass up would total 31,833 pounds; mass down, 28,450 pounds.

Flight 15 (May 13-15, 1981) would be a near-copy of Flights 8, 10, and 12. OV-102 would transport to orbit a payload totaling 53,744 pounds; payload mass down would total 11,443 pounds. The JSC planners noted the possibility that none of the potential payloads for Flight 15 — TDRS-D and SBS-C or Anik-C/3 — would need to be launched as early as May 1981. TDRS-D was meant as an orbiting spare; if the first three TDRS operated as planned, its launch could be postponed. Likewise, SBS-C and Anik-C/3 were each a backup for the previously launched satellites in their series.

Flight 16 (June 16-23, 1981) would be a five-person Spacelab pressurized module flight aboard OV-102 in 160-n-mi-high orbit. Payloads of opportunity totaling about 18,000 pounds might accompany the Spacelab module; for planning purposes, a satellite and SSUS-D on a turntable behind the module was assumed. Payload mass up would total 35,676 pounds; mass down, 27,995 pounds.

Flight 17, scheduled for July 16-20, 1981, would see the space debut of Enterprise and the retrieval of the LDEF released during Flight 7. OV-101 would climb to a roughly 200-n-mi-high orbit (LDEF's altitude after 13.5 months of orbital decay would determine the mission's precise altitude).

Before rendezvous with LDEF, Flight 17's three-man crew would release an Intelsat V/SSUS-A and a satellite payload of opportunity. After the satellites were sent on their way, the astronauts would pilot Enterprise to a rendezvous with LDEF, snare it with the RMS, and secure it in the payload bay. Mass up would total 26,564 pounds; mass down, 26,369 pounds.

For Flight 18 (July 29-August 5, 1981), Columbia would carry to a 160-n-mi-high orbit a Spacelab pallet dedicated to materials processing in the vacuum and microgravity of space. The three-person flight might also include the first acknowledged Department of Defense (DOD) payload of the Space Shuttle Program, a U.S. Air Force pallet designated STP-P80-1. JSC called the payload 'Planned' rather than 'Firm' and noted somewhat cryptically that it was the Teal Ruby experiment 'accommodated from OFT [Orbital Flight Test].'

The presence of the Earth-directed Teal Ruby sensor payload would account for Flight 18's planned 57° orbital inclination, which would take it over most of Earth's densely populated areas. Payload mass up might total 32,548 pounds; mass down, 23,827 pounds.

Space Shuttle Flights 20 through 23 would include the first mission to make use of an OMS kit to increase its orbital altitude (Flight 21), the first European Space Agency-sponsored Spacelab mission (Flight 22), and the launch of the Jupiter Orbiter and Probe spacecraft (Flight 23)

Flight 19 (September 2-9, 1981) would see five Spacelab experiment pallets fill Columbia's payload bay. Five astronauts would operate the experiments, which would emphasize physics and astronomy. The Orbiter would circle Earth in a 216-n-mi-high orbit. Payload mass up would total 29,214 pounds; mass down, 27,522 pounds.

Flight 20 (September 30-October 6, 1981), the second Enterprise mission, would see five astronauts conduct life science and astronomy experiments in a 216-n-mi-high orbit using a Spacelab pressurized module and an unpressurized pallet. JSC planners acknowledged that the mission's down payload mass (34,248 pounds) might be 'excessive,' but noted that their estimate was 'based on preliminary payload data.' Mass up would total 37,065 pounds.

On Flight 21, scheduled for launch on October 14, 1981, Columbia would carry the first Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) Kit at the aft end of its payload bay. The OMS Kit would carry enough supplemental propellants for the Orbiter's twin rear-mounted OMS engines to perform a velocity change of 500 feet per second. This would enable OV-102 to rendezvous with and retrieve the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellite in a 300-n-mi-high orbit.

Three astronauts would fly the five-day mission, which would attain the highest orbital altitude of any flight in the STS Flight Assignment Baseline document. JSC planners noted that the Multi-mission Modular Spacecraft (MMS) support hardware meant to carry SMM back to Earth could also transport an MMS-type satellite into orbit. Payload mass up would total 37,145 pounds; mass down, 23,433 pounds.

On Flight 22 (November 25 - December 2, 1981), Enterprise might carry an ESA-sponsored Spacelab mission with a five-person crew, a pressurized lab module, and a pallet to a 155-to-177-n-mi orbit inclined at 57°. Payload mass up might total 34,031 pounds; mass down, 32,339 pounds.

During Flight 23 (January 5-6, 1982), the last described in the STS Flight Assignment Baseline document, three astronauts would deploy into a 150-to-160-n-mi-high orbit the Jupiter Orbiter and Probe (JOP) spacecraft on a stack of three IUSs. President Jimmy Carter had requested new-start funds for JOP in his Fiscal Year 1978 NASA budget, which had taken effect on October 1, 1977. Because JOP was so new when they prepared their document, JSC planners declined to estimate up/down payload masses.

Flight 23 formed an anchor point for the Shuttle schedule because JOP had a launch window dictated by the movements of the planets. If the automated explorer did not leave for Jupiter between January 2 and 12, 1982, it would mean a 13-month delay while Earth and Jupiter moved into position for another launch attempt.

Almost nothing in the October 1977 STS Flight Assignment Baseline document occurred as planned. It was not even updated quarterly; no update had been issued as of mid-November 1978, by which time the target launch dates for the first Space Shuttle orbital mission and the first operational Shuttle flight had slipped officially to September 28, 1979 and February 27, 1981, respectively.

The Space Shuttle Orbiter Columbia lifts off at the start of STS-1.

The first Shuttle flight, designated STS-1, did not in fact lift off until April 12, 1981. As in the STS Flight Assignment Baseline document, OV-102 Columbia performed the OFT missions; OFT concluded, however, after only four flights. After the seven-day STS-4 mission (June 27 - July 4, 1982), President Ronald Reagan declared the Shuttle operational.

The first operational flight, also using Columbia, was STS-5 (November 11-16, 1982). The mission launched SBS-3 and Anik-C/3; because of Shuttle delays, the other SBS and Anik-C satellites planned for Shuttle launch had already reached space atop expendable rockets.

To the chagrin of many Star Trek fans, Enterprise never reached space. NASA decided that it would be less costly to convert Structural Test Article-099 into a flight-worthy Orbiter than to refit Enterprise for spaceflight after the ALT series. OV-099, christened Challenger, first reached space on mission STS-6 (April 4-9, 1983), which saw deployment of the first TDRS satellite.

NASA put OV-101 Enterprise to work in a variety of tests and rehearsals (such as the 'fit check' shown in the image above), but did not convert it into a spaceflight-worthy Orbiter.

The voluminous Spacelab pressurized module first reached orbit on board Columbia on mission STS-9 (November 28- December 8,1983). The 10-day Spacelab 1 mission included ESA researcher Ulf Merbold and NASA scientist-astronauts Owen Garriott and Robert Parker. Garriott, selected to be an astronaut in 1965, had flown for 59 days on board the Skylab space station in 1973. Parker had been selected in 1967, but STS-9 was his first spaceflight.

The 21,500-pound LDEF reached Earth orbit on board Challenger on STS-41C, the 11th Space Shuttle mission (April 6-13, 1984). During the same mission, astronauts captured, repaired, and released the SMM satellite, which had reached orbit on 14 February 1980 and malfunctioned in January 1981. Challenger reached SMM without an OMS kit; in fact, no OMS kit ever reached space.

STS Flight Assignment Baseline document assumed that 22 Shuttle flights (six OFT and 16 operational) would occur before January 1982. In fact, the 22nd Shuttle flight did not begin until October 1985, when Challenger carried eight astronauts and the West German Spacelab D1 into space (STS-61A, October 30 - November 6, 1985). Three months later (28 January 1986), Challenger was destroyed at the start of STS-51L, the Shuttle Program's 25th mission.

In addition to seven astronauts — NASA's first in-flight fatalities — Challenger took with it TDRS-B, NASA's second TDRS satellite. The Shuttle would not fly again until September 1988 (STS-26, September 29 - October 3, 1988). On that mission, OV-103 Discovery deployed TDRS-C. The TDRS system would not include the three satellites necessary for global coverage until TDRS-D reached orbit on board Discovery on mission STS-29 (13-18 March 1989).

Following the Challenger accident, NASA abandoned — though not without some resistance — the pretense that it operated a fleet of cargo planes. The space agency had at one time aimed for 60 Shuttle flights per year; between 1988 and 2003, the Shuttle Program managed about six per year. The most flights the Shuttle fleet accomplished in a year was nine in 1985.

Shuttle delays meant that JOP, renamed Galileo, missed its early January 1982 launch window. It was eventually rescheduled for May 1986, but the Challenger accident intervened. Galileo finally left Earth orbit on 18 October 1989 following deployment from OV-104 Atlantis during STS-34 (October 18-23, 1989).

Between the time JOP/Galileo received its first funding and the Challenger explosion, NASA, the White House, and Congress had sparred over how the Jupiter spacecraft would depart Earth orbit. Eventually, they settled on the powerful liquid-propellant Centaur-G' rocket stage.

Citing new concern for safety following Challenger, NASA canceled Centaur G'. Galileo had to rely on the less-powerful IUS, which meant that it could not travel directly to Jupiter; it had instead to perform gravity-assist flybys of Venus and Earth to reach its exploration target. Galileo did not reach the Jupiter system until December 1995.

LDEF had been scheduled for retrieval in March 1985, less than a year after deployment, but flight delays and the Challenger accident postponed its return to Earth by nearly six years. On mission STS-32 (January 9-20, 1990), astronauts on board Columbia retrieved LDEF, the orbit of which had decayed to 178 n mi. LDEF remains the largest object ever retrieved in space and returned to Earth.

During reentry at the end of mission STS-107 (16 January-1 February 2003), Columbia broke apart over northeast Texas, killing its international crew of seven astronauts. This precipitated cancellation of the Space Shuttle Program by President George W. Bush, who announced his decision on 14 January 2004.

The end of the Space Shuttle Program was originally scheduled for 2010, immediately following the planned completion of the International Space Station. In the event, STS-135, the final Space Shuttle mission, took place four years ago (July 2011), three months after the 30th anniversary of STS-1. The Orbiter Atlantis lifted off on 8 July with a four-person crew — the smallest since STS-6. It docked with the International Space Station to deliver supplies and spares and landed in Florida 13 days later."

Article by David S. F. Portree: link

source, source

NASA ID: S77-5784, S77-5785, S77-5758

[acti-veg]

One thing I can't stand is "feel-good" science fiction where animals still have the same moral value as shit. Dear author, the people in your setting figured out how to violate physics for their interstellar travel, they could have figured out bioreactors for fuck's sake.

I find this to be on of the most obvious weaknesses in so much sci fi and world building in general, that it so clearly carries modern day attitudes into the future, and just tends to dress them up in technology. I adore fantasy but the genre can be just as guilty of it as sci fi, taking modern prejudices and just putting a fantasy spin on them. It's all the more obvious when it's a blind prejudice, like speciesism is, in which case they just take it as a given that alternative reality creatures would share their own views.

Some settings are better at it than others. Star Trek for example discusses the fact that they 'stopped enslaving animals for food purposes' long ago, and the vulcans are largely a vegetarian society. More recently the sci fi series Travelers on Netflix is apparently is a vegan future, partly as a result of climate change but also the show’s overarching theme about consciousness and our relationship with the natural world.

If you're interested in more sci fi with an AR theme, a few other examples includes Arthur C Clarke's The Deep Range, Zoomen by Fred Hoyle, Okja of course, Simom Amstell's Carnage (comedy but still in the sci fi realm) and a less obvious one is War of The Worlds, widely seen as analagous of humans farming animals.

[oneminutefiftysixseconds]

@cavsthighs @mundanememory great minds think alike! i'll do personal jesus in a second post because this got long

so it's lonely out in space is a development/expansion of the other side -- for cycleprompttuesday 'technology', it's matej/tadej in an alternate present wherein spaceflight development has accelerated to the point where there are established outposts on the Moon, research stations on Mars and space stations orbiting different planets.

matej and tadej are both cosmonauts, in an at-time tenuous but established relationship. tadej has been selected for a particularly ambitious solo mission, and matej is the voice of ground control, an important job know as CAPCOM.

two of you ask so there's two snippets: one from near the very beginning, tadej suiting up pre-launch

Technicians swarm Tadej like ants around an apple core, tightening his glove and boot cuffs. They fit the black-and-white communications cap through which launch control will talk him through before handing over to Matej and the rest of ground control, securing the little click-strap under his chin. A pair of microphones sit on wire-framed arms just below his lower lip, and they move slightly as he blows a kiss toward the observation window. Tadej’s brother snorts in laughter and his mother returns the kiss, and Matej knows it was directed toward all three of them.

and one from much later on, when tadej's craft has docked with a small station that jasper (a fellow astronaut, also from a pilot background) works on. they trained together for tadej's first moon mission (youngest orbital pilot since the 70s)

“Hey, hey! Jasper, that's mine!” “A digital recorder? Retro! Not on the mission specs, is it?” Tadej shakes his head, and makes a move for the recorder. Jasper taps it away easily, just out of reach. It spins around, tumbling end over end toward a taped-down list of experiment setups. He lunges for it again, but Jasper elbows him backward, sending him careening and grasping for one of the wall-handles. “Oh, I see! You snuck it. Nice, nice. Hello, this is Jasper Philipsen, pilot of the Hyperion Four speaking into mystery recording device smuggled by mission specialist Tadej Pogačar on the Odesij, the loneliest little spacecraft in all–” Jasper kicks expertly away from another failed attack. Laughing, Tadej goes in for the kill – a drinking pouch from breakfast still floats loosely next to his cupboard-bed, and he grabs it, squirting a healthy glob into Jasper’s hair. It sprays out in perfect spherical droplets as he shakes his head, gasping at the cold.

the setting alternates from matej on earth to tadej in space, and the italic text is audio from a little digital recorder tadej's making special recordings for matej on :)

they've made the choice to keep their relationship under wraps so as not to jeopardise either of their careers/opportunities for missions, but part of the story on Earth is matej trying to handle various people's suspicions while tadej is literally tens of thousands of kilometres away.

there's just so much of this i enjoy writing; some favourite scenes right now are tadej doing a video call presentation to kids from his hometown, answering their questions about space :'), matej meeting mathieu who is current CAPCOM at ESA, and a press conference inspired by matej's incredible post-stage interview at last years TdF <3

and a random bit about backgrounds: dr matej mohorič is a physicist/aeronautical engineer turned cosmonaut when an experimental radiation-shielding material he was involved in the development of needed an expert to handle it in space, and tadej was an aerobatics pilot as a teenager before training first as an Earth-Moon shuttle pilot (he always wanted to go into space for as long as he can remember, used to go stargazing with his brother and watch for the different stations orbiting overhead <3) all that is to say they have quite different perspectives on many things space-related despite their exceedingly high levels of expertise and training -- matej was the backup for this mission should something have happened to tadej in training

and as for the Space Action i don't want to spoil it too much (but i do); but i will say that i have been reading Andy Weir's books and rewatched Apollo 13 for inspiration, and there's a hell of a lot that can go wrong on a spaceship!

[random-thought-depository]

Had a funny erotica idea that ended up spinning off, 1) some thoughts on what the sexual culture of one of those science fictional supermajority-female human societies (e.g. Ursula K. Le Guin's Seggri) might be like, 2) an alternate history setting specifically set up to create a social context in which the funny scenario I was imagining might happen a lot.

Tagging some people I think might be interested in this: @who-canceled-roger-rabbit, @aurpiment, @lizardgirlclawmarks, @feotakahari, @loving-n0t-heyting.

Some of the stuff under the cut is NSFW/sexually explicit.

The original thought I had which started this: Type of girl who grew up in a lesbianism-normative social context and ends up re-inventing the idea of giving men oral sex from first principles via "Is there something like cunnilingus but for boys? I feel like there should be!" but since her technique is directly derived from the techniques she's learned for eating out (cis) girls via "well, I think the ballsack is homologous to the labia and the penis is homologous to the clitoris, so..." her version is mostly eating out her boyfriend's balls and perineum while using one of her hands to stimulate his penis (her boyfriend is not sexually experienced or knowledgeable so it doesn't occur to him to suggest anything different).

And then that got me thinking of 1) this scenario is something I could see happening a lot in some science fictional super-majority female society that has a strong norm that sex is supposed to "private" and isn't talked about very much, 2) other weird-to-us interpretations of how heterosexual sex is "supposed" to work that a lot of women raised in a society like that might have.

So, alternate history concept/setting I ended up spinning out of this:

A world that some time in the early twentieth century got hit by a milder version of a Y: The Last Man type scenario, i.e. by a highly contagious infectious disease that for some physiological reason has a very sex-asymmetric mortality rate in humans. The disease wiped out about half of humanity, mostly men, and then became endemic.

The disease becoming endemic meant there was a period of two or three generations when giving birth to a boy meant probably signing on for a harrowing ordeal of watching your child spend their toddlerhood wasting away from a painful degenerative disease and then dying before their fifth birthday. The enabling technologies for sex-selective abortions were invented in that period, and when they were sex-selective abortions of male fetuses became a very widespread practice; most people saw it as a great mercy to both the potential child who'd probably die anyway and this way wouldn't suffer and the parents who'd be spared from witnessing the suffering of their child (there was a lot of quiet queasy "at least we have been granted this small mercy..." around the facts that the disease effected males worse than females instead of the other way around and the human species really only needed a relatively small number of males to continue...). :(

By the "present day" (which might be in the future from our present day) the situation with the disease is similar to the one with HIV in our world: there is no cure as yet, but it can be greatly mitigated, to the point that these people probably could go back to having a more normal society if they wanted to. But the culture of prophylactic sex-selective abortion has by now acquired significant cultural inertia, so it continues from basically a mix of intergenerational trauma response and sheer cultural and institutional inertia. A lot of mothers/potential mothers have not quite gotten the memo that with modern anti-viral drugs if they have a son he'll probably be basically OK and/or are not very comforted by that statement when it has the probably and basically hedges. Lately there's been a tendency for rationalizations for continuing the sex-selective abortions to shift to it being a prophylactic measure against birth defects, which males are vulnerable to because they lack redundant copies of most genes on the X chromosome; this is scientifically pretty weak, but... In the bad old days before modern anti-virals even a lot of boys who survived the disease were low-key messed up for life by it (think long COVID as the obvious real-world analogy), a lot of older men in this society were kids then and are noticeably kind of messed up, even with modern anti-virals infection often has a noticeable permanent negative effect on health, so "boys/men are naturally less healthy than girls/women" feels plausible in that context.

Some knock-on effects: near-collapse of technological civilization in the early twentieth century that probably took at least a generation to recover from, slower technological progress, and slower population growth. The "present day" might be something like the late twenty-first century with the world having stabilized from demographic transition at a population of 2-3 billion humans. And, of course, basically the entire twentieth century gets butterflied away (at least starting with no Nazis and no WWII with divergences piling up from there, maybe no WWI either - the initial pandemic is some time between 1900 and 1930 so the scenario starts with a world that's relatively recognizable but different enough for culture to develop in very different directions from OTL).

The extremely skewed gender ratios resulting from this meant lesbianism became this world's normative/culturally hegemonic sexuality.

I think this society might be very gender-neutral in a very femininity-as-default way. Like, it might be pretty normalized for guys to wear what we'd consider feminine clothing and present in to us very femmy ways, not as a transgender thing but cause that's just how everyone does things here (also because, lesbianism being the cultural default sexuality, looking femmy would be the obvious way for guys to look sexy to women who've done most of their sexual imprinting on other women). Would be pretty nice for the trans girls (the all of maybe three million or so of them there'd be in this world; in this world transfems would be a small minority of a not very big minority, and the explicit transfem rights situation might be pretty dire just cause there are so few of them it would probably be difficult for them to form effective political pressure groups).

The plague happened before and butterflied away the modern LGBT rights movement; normalization of lesbianism in this world happened through the "romantic friendship" paradigm instead of the "gay marriage" paradigm. It's pretty common for lesbian romantic partners to cohabit and co-parent, but the prevailing cultural script for this kind of relationship is that it's a kind of friendship; it's understood and accepted that a lot of friends of this type have regular sex with each other, but the cultural script for this kind of relationship isn't centered on sexuality; whether the relationship is sexual or not is basically considered the couple's (or triad's etc.) own business. The prevailing fictive kinship paradigm for "I was raised by my mom and her female lover" in this world is to call your mom's partner your aunt or tia or something like that (as opposed to our world's "two moms" paradigm).

The plague also happened before and butterflied away the '60s sexual revolution. This combined with normalization of lesbianism through "romantic friendships" paradigm has led to a culture that would look like an odd mix of very liberal and quite conservative to us. The "romantic friendships" paradigm meant monogamy norms and adultery taboos didn't get imported from heterosexuality, so polyamory and relatively casual sex also got normalized. It's seen as perfectly natural and respectable for somebody to have two or five very close friends instead of just one, and there's nothing particularly weird or shocking about the idea that more casual friendships or even something like "I hitch-hiked to get home on winter break and I ended up really clicking with the trucker who gave me a ride through most of Montana" might have a sexual dimension. Similarly, the functional equivalent of divorce would be relatively easy; if two previously close friends become more distant and one of them moves out of the other's house, well, not a big deal, happens all the time. I think incest might also be relatively tolerated in the sense of, like, it's pretty common in this world for actual sisters to be co-parents and the streams might sometimes get crossed between that and the romantic friendship Boston marriage thing. I think the fact that lesbian relationships involve no possibility of unwanted pregnancy and no concerns about biological paternity might do a lot to encourage development of relatively "free" sexual norms in a society like this. On the other hand, there's a very strong norm that sexuality of this sort is private and you basically only talk about it with intimates. Transmission of sexual culture and practical knowledge about sex (e.g. STD-prevention) mostly happens peer-to-peer and parent-to-child; equivalents of high school sex ed are either very minimal or non-existent. Basically, think of all the horror stories you've heard about red states with "abstinence only" sex education; we're basically talking about that kind of society but lesbian-normative instead of heterosexuality-normative. Well, not quite that bad; sex is considered private but not dirty, so parents here are probably on average better at "the birds and the bees" talks than red state parents, and it's more accepted that teenagers will seek out porn on the internet as a mix of outlet for their urges and autodidactic sex ed and there's a lot of cutesy uwu hegemonic-sexual-norms-affirming lesbian porn that's more-or-less explicitly made to be something teenagers can watch with parental approval or at least parental tolerance. Also, use of sex toys is very normalized on this world (they come in the mail in nice discrete plain cardboard boxes or can be bought in discretely unflamboyant shops and it's considered polite to keep them discretely tucked away in a drawer or box somewhere most of the time).

So, anyway, assuming that scenario at the beginning of this post is happening in this kind of society, other odd-to-us things I think might be going on in it:

The girl vaguely knows lots of guys don't like being penetrated, but understands this by way of analogy to stone butches. Like, that whole penetration-dominance-masculinity/envelopment-submission-femininity thing is not on her mental radar at all, her concept of what's going on is "yeah, most boys don't like most kinds of very intense tactile sexual stimulation, the best thing to do with them is to just let them pleasure you with hands, mouth, and toys and get off on empathy for your pleasure and let them do something like fucking you with a strap-on but the dildo is part of their body, the like strap-on sex but the dildo is part of their body thing is how they get orgasms cause that part of them is pretty sensitive." The girl's primary motivation for re-inventing giving her boyfriend oral from first principles is thinking "Maybe this is typical mind fallacy, but... that seems kind of bleak? He gives me all this fun diverse stimulation with toys and his hands and mouth and he only gets one kind of equivalently intense stimulation, and even that sounds like it might be more empathy-arousal than straightforward pleasure? OMG men's rights [whatever year this is]!"

Accordingly, when she first tries re-invented from first principles giving oral to her boyfriend she's afraid he might find that off-putting and unpleasant and is like "I know this might sound weird, but..." and "Please tell me if it isn't fun, I promise I'll stop!"

Also, since her boyfriend learned a lot of what he knows about how male gynephilia and heterosexual sex is "supposed" to work from women with similar beliefs to his girlfriend, he's internalized this concept of his own sexuality. Like, his well-meaning mom and auntie explaining "the birds and the bees" to him involved them giving him a sex toy that simulates PIV with the assumption that he'd need it to achieve orgasm without a partner. Before his girlfriend tries giving him oral they don't know whether it's possible for him to get orgasms from things that aren't PIV or simulated PIV or (sleep) dreams about PIV.

[frank-olivier]

Quantum Simulation: A Frontier in Scientific Research

Quantum simulation, a burgeoning field in modern physics, leverages the unique properties of quantum systems to replicate and investigate the behavior of other complex quantum systems. This approach offers a powerful tool to study intricate quantum phenomena that are otherwise challenging to analyze using classical computational methods or experimental setups. By harnessing the principles of quantum mechanics, quantum simulation enables researchers to explore parameter spaces inaccessible to classical simulations and gain unique insights into the underlying physics.

One of the primary platforms for quantum simulation is ultracold atomic gases, cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero. The low temperatures and high phase-space density of these systems allow for the study of individual atoms and molecules in a highly controlled environment, with minimal interactions with the surrounding environment. Optical lattices, created by interfering laser beams, provide a versatile and highly controllable platform for quantum simulations. By adjusting the laser parameters, researchers can engineer various types of lattice structures, enabling the study of phenomena such as Anderson localization, quantum phase transitions, and many-body dynamics. The periodic potential created by the optical lattice can mimic the crystal lattice of solid-state systems, allowing for the investigation of condensed matter physics in a clean and controllable environment.

Superconducting qubits, trapped ions, and nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamonds are alternative platforms for quantum simulation, each with its unique strengths and capabilities. Superconducting qubits use superconducting circuits to encode quantum information and exhibit long coherence times. Trapped ions allow for precise control and readout of their quantum states using electromagnetic fields. Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamonds offer long-lived spins and coupling to other spins, making them useful for quantum information processing and sensing applications.

A significant challenge in quantum simulation is minimizing and correcting errors, which can arise from imperfections in the experimental setup or external disturbances. These errors can lead to decoherence, causing the quantum system to lose its coherence and become difficult to control. Researchers have developed robust quantum simulation methods and error correction codes to mitigate these errors and extend the capabilities of quantum simulations. Techniques such as quantum error correction, dynamical error suppression, and fault-tolerant quantum computing aim to overcome these challenges and enable longer and more accurate quantum simulations.

Quantum simulation has enabled the discovery of new phases, such as topological insulators and supersolids, and the study of strongly correlated systems, like high-temperature superconductors. By mimicking condensed matter systems in the laboratory, researchers can observe and understand their behavior in detail, leading to a deeper understanding of quantum phenomena and the development of new materials and technologies. Quantum simulations have the potential to revolutionize fields such as condensed matter physics, materials science, and chemistry. By simulating molecular Hamiltonians, quantum simulations can provide insights into chemical reactions, electronic structures, and excited states, with implications for drug discovery and materials design. Furthermore, quantum simulations can accelerate materials discovery by predicting the properties of new materials and optimizing existing ones for specific applications.

Esteban Adrian Martinez: Introduction to Quantum Simulators (Summer School on Collective Behaviour in Quantum Matter, September 2018)

Tuesday, November 5, 2024