#and i think it worked in exoplanet

[transxfiles]

listen alright you just gotta have that 1 interesting person in your life who you never really directly cross paths with but who is still a part of your life via proximity and who you get really excited about seeing from a distance. it's enriching. it makes life a little more magical. like something out of an art film or a children's book.

[minniesmutt]

☾ ━━━━━━ 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬

☾ ━━━ PAIRING: HYUNJIN X READER ☾ ━━━ CONTENT: ALIEN!HYUNJIN, PLANETARY SCIENTIST!READER, SEMI-PUBLIC SEX, BREEDING, APHRODISIAC, SPIT, LIP BITING, TEASING, PET NAMES (DOLL, HUN, DARLING, BABY), NIPPLE PLAY, FINGERING, OVERSIM, READER IS VERY SENSITIVE THE WHOLE TIME, BIG COCK! HYUNJIN, TENTACLES, PRAISE/DEGRADING, CERVIX FUCKING, EGG IMPLANTING, ROUGH SEX, UNPROTECTED SEX, DOM!HYUNJIN, SUB!READER, SUBSPACE (?), TUMMY BULDGE (?), INFLATION (?) ☾ ━━━ WC: 2.8K ☾ ━━━ repost from old blog ☾ ━━━ 18+ work!! minors and ageless/blank blogs DNI! you will be blocked, put an indicator on your blog somewhere that you are 18+ before interacting with this work/blog

     Space was massive. So much to learn about, star formations, their life cycle, other galaxies, planets, and solar systems. The unknown drew Y/n in. Maybe that’s why she fell for Hyunjin so hard. 

     He was different. Loved the fact she was a planetary scientist. Constantly asked her questions that had her rambling for hours on end. First, it embarrassed her but he always reassured her he found it so adorable when she rambled about her work. He loved hearing about her theories on extraterrestrial life. Not knowing he crash-landed on Earth from another planet. 

     At least, she didn’t know at first. She had a deep feeling there was something about him that just wasn’t right. Came up with several hypotheses before he sat her down when he came to pick her up from work and explained to her he was indeed an alien. 

     He was scared. Scared he’d lose her and be stuck alone on Earth until he figured out how to get his stupid ship working again. 

     But that didn’t happen. No, he saw her eyes sparkle with excitement over the news. Running around her private lab asking him if any of the planets she’d found were his. What was it like in his home world? How was the air? technology? any question that popped into her head

     He was sure she was going to implode with excitement the more questions she thought of. That was the night he first kissed her too. It was only a few months ago it happened but it almost seemed like years away. 

     Since then, he picked her up from work every night. It was rare they left on time. Y/n easily indulged in her work, especially when she could interview an actual alien about his home world. Tonight was no different. 

     She was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t even hear him come into the lab. Focused on her computer, examining photos of a planet and its moons. She didn’t hear him come in. He closed the door as gently as he could behind him and silently made his way over to her. He stood behind her and slowly leaned down with the intent to kiss the top of her head. 

     Y/n felt someone behind her and looked back to see the handsome alien pouting at his failed kiss, “Hi Hyune.”

     “Ruined my surprise kiss.” 

     “Can I still get a kiss?”

     Hyunjin smiled and cupped her face and pecked her lips, “How’s work?”

     “Mhmm. Not bad, just trying to figure out if this planet could sustain life.”

     Hyunjin took a look at the planet on the screen. It was a few lightyears away from his own and he’d seen it a couple of times traveling. 

     “A small one, I think. I can’t exactly remember,” Hyunjin stated as he pulled up a chair next to her

     Y/n smiled at him, “I should press you for info on all my exoplanet discoveries.”

     “Do I get a reward for all my info?” Hyunjin smiled, pulling her chair closer to him. 

     “Maybe.”

     Hyunjin pulled her into his lap and she squeaked in surprise. Holding onto his shoulders before settling on his lap. “I want a kiss for every piece of alien info I tell you,” Hyunjin stated

     “Deal.” Y/n figured it would be harmless. A kiss for info and she got to cuddle her boyfriend while working? Score. 

     She rewarded him with a peck on his plump lips for the info he previously provided her. She went through some more plants and asked him questions, rewarding him with kisses after he finished answering. 

     “What about reproduction? Is it similar for all species or is it different?” She asked 

     “Different. Some have eggs, some are similar to how humans breed. Most species I know have a breeding season.” Hyunjin explained. 

     Y/n pecked his lips, “What about you? What’s your species’ reproduction like?”

     “Mhm. Most liquids in our bodies are similar to aphrodisiacs. It makes the process easier for the female.”

     “Process?” Y/n asked

     “Hm. Kiss first,” Hyunjin puckered his lips at her

     Y/n pecked his lips again. “What process?”

     “Egg implanting.”

     Y/n’s eyes went wide. Her ears felt like they were on fire, mouth wide open. Hyunjin chuckled and closed her jaw before pecking her lips. 

     “Don’t go too dumb on me yet doll,” Hyunjin teased, placing a kiss on her shoulder

     “When—“ Y/n cleared her throat before wrapping her arms around his neck, “When’s your breeding season?”

     “Mm, should be starting in a couple of days.”

     Y/n pecked his lips one last time, “Let’s go home, that’s enough information for today.”

     Two days went by far too slowly. Y/n used the prior day to let the information her boyfriend had told her to settle in. Today, she was so unfocused with work. The day was going by way too slowly. Most of the time was spent thinking about what he had said. 

     She read stories on the internet of people claiming they’d been abducted by aliens— in most cases “Grays”— and essentially became a human incubator. The truth behind them was up for debate. No one ever had evidence other than the supposed victim’s word. 

     Y/n was lost in her thoughts thinking about it when she felt arms wrap around her waist. She jumped and turned around, being met with the smiling face of her boyfriend calmed her down. 

     “You alright?” he asked 

     “Yeah. Just scared me,” She replied as she turned in his arms and kissed his lips. 

     Hyunjin smiled into the kiss and kissed, holding onto her hips. “What’s got you lost in thought?” He asked as he broke the kiss. 

     Y/n couldn't find the words to tell him what it was she was thinking about. How do you tell your alien boyfriend you’d been thinking about him breeding you for two days?

     “Talk to me hun,” Hyuniin said and kissed her cheek.

     “Do you remember when we were talking about, uhm… you're breeding season,” Y/n started

     “Yeah, why?” 

     “Don’t make me say it Hyune,” Y/n pleaded, face all red

     “But how will I know what you want if you don't tell me?”

     Hyunjin slowly backed her up into her desk. Y/n gripped his shirt, trying to gather any bit of courage to tell him. 

     Hyunjin grabbed her chin and lifted her lips to his. He licked his lower lip before pushing them onto her again. Y/n relaxed against him as she sat on her desk. Hyunjins hands moved up to cup her face, tilting her head back and deepening the kiss. 

     Y/n moaned against his lips, gripping his shirt tighter. Hyunjin pulled her bottom lip between his teeth and pulled away from the kiss. He locked eyes with her before releasing her lip. “Tell me what you want darling.”

     “Want you to breed me,” Y/n finally let out

     “Open your mouth,” Hyunjin smiled as he held her jaw as it fell open, “Tongue out.”

     Y/n stuck her tongue out for him. Hyunjin hovered over her and let a glob of spit drop from his lips onto her tongue. “Swallow.”

     Hyunjin watched her pull her tongue back into her mouth and swallow his spit. He tilted her head back and leaned down to kiss her neck and pull her legs around his waist. “Remember when I said most liquids in my body were similar to an aphrodisiac?” Hyunjin questioned

     “Yes,” Y/n replied as his lips grazed over the weak spot on her neck

     “Saliva is the main one.”

     Her body felt so hot to every little touch. She wrapped her arms around his neck to hold herself up and he placed wet open mouth kisses on her neck. Pulling herself closer to him as his hands trailed down to unbutton her top. 

     He was quick to get the fabric off her and toss it to the ground. Hands grabbing her breasts and massaging them as he sucked his mark onto her neck. 

     Her hands pulled up at the collar of his shirt. Mumbling a quick “off” before he pulled away and tossed his shirt off. He grabbed her face again to bring his lips onto hers. Y/n caught a glimpse of his eyes before he was shoving his tongue down her throat. His usual dark brown eyes were a striking dark blue, the whites turning dark. 

      “Jinnie,” Y/n moaned after he pulled away and pushed the objects behind her out of the way, “your eyes…”

     “What about them?” he asked as he looked over her face 

     “They changed.”

     “Happens during arousal during the breeding process.” He briefly explained, unhooking her bra and pulling it off her chest. 

     He pushed her down on the desk and attacked her nipples. His hands slid under the skirt she wore today and his tongue flicked her nipples. He switched to the other bud and gave it the same brief treatment then pulled away. 

     Hyunjin pulled the remaining bit of fabric off her body till she was completely nude on her desk. He’d seen her completely nude before. His aphrodisiac saliva explained why everything felt so good when they’d had sex previously. 

     His physical appearance was very similar to humans. His eyes made her shy under his gaze. Her legs wrapped tighter around his waist as her hands moved to cover her chest. Hyunjin was quicker and pinned her wrists against the table. 

     “Don't. Wanna see you,” Hyunjin said as he leaned in and kissed her again. Both moaned into the kiss. Y/n snuck her tongue into his mouth. 

     Hyunjin pushed back with his own. Y/n ground her hips against his crotch. 

     “Need you Jinnie,” Y/n moaned when he pulled away

     “All shy a second ago, now you're beginning for me.” Hyunjin chuckled as his hand dipped down between her legs. 

     His lips attached to her neck again, two fingers running through her wet folds. “Fucking soaked, all for me.” he groaned as he pushed two long fingers into her. Y/n just about came right there, probably just because of the aphrodisiac. 

     His fingers curled up into her. Her free hand grabbed onto his arm to ground herself, even a little. She felt so fucked out and they’d barely done anything too far. 

     “All sensitive aren't you,” Hyunjin teased as his lips came down to her breast again, “My pretty doll gonna come yet?”

     “Yes! Please Jinnie! Wanna come for you!”

     Hyunjin wrapped his lips around one of her hard nipples as he interested a third finger into her. Switching from curling his fingers into her to thrusting into her. 

     Her back arched off the surface as a silent screen fell from her mouth. Walls clamping down on his fingers. The knot in her stomach snapped soon after he started sucking on her nipples. Hyunjin fingered her through her high, pulling off her nipples and pulling his fingers out once she came down. 

     While she caught her breath, Hyunjin discarded his pants. Y/n glanced down at him as he pulled his cock out of his boxers. Somewhere in the back of her mind was questioning how exactly the egg implanting worked since his dick looked like a human dick. It was not in length, that was for sure. 

     Hyunjin grabbed her legs and pushed them wide open. “Are you ready hun?” he asked, lining his tip at her entrance, smearing his precum between her folds with her slick. 

     Y/n nodded, then she noticed the appendages sneaking out around his waist. Before she had time to ask, he pushed into her, fitting what he could before her cervix. There wasn’t any pain, just pleasure. His hands left her thighs and the two tentacles took over holding them open. His hands wrapped around hers and pinned her down onto the table below. 

     “You have tentacles too?” Y/n asked as she got adjusted to his length in her

     “Yeah. Seven total,” He huffed

     “Why are you only using two?”

     Hyunjin smirked as three more came from over his shoulders Two wrapped around her breasts, tips latching onto her nipples as he started thrusting in and out of her. The third hovered and waited to be put to use. No time for her to ask where the sixth and seventh were. 

     The tentacles wrapped around her were smooth against her skin. Still sensitive from foreplay and his aphrodisiac spit. She was assuming his precum was another aphrodisiac. 

     Her back was already arching off the desk again as he stood back to watch her as he fucked her. He moved the third tentacle from to pin her arms down onto the desk above her head. 

     “Wish you could see yourself, baby. Look so good with my tentacles wrapped around you.” Hyunjin chuckled, picking up his pace. 

     The tentacles around her thighs helped by moving her body with his thrusts, lifting her off the desk just slightly. 

     “So deep,” Y/n moaned as her head lolled back against her desk, mouth hung open 

     Hyunjin laughed, he didn't know how much he’d enjoy having her all wrapped and dumb on his cock. “I could be deeper hun.”

     “Please Jin… more,” Y/n moaned

     Hyunjin smiled and pushed his hair back, shorter pieces sticking to his forehead from the sweat he had worked up. He leaned down and spit in her open mouth. Y/n swallowed it as he grabbed onto her hips, stilling inside her for a moment.

     He pulled out for a moment, spitting in her cunt then pushing back in. But his dick felt different. No veins brushing against her gummy walls. It felt like there was nothing, but she knew he was filling her up. 

     Then she felt it. Something small wiggling its way past her cervix. “Jinnie.” Y/n whined as it got wider, pushing its way into her womb

     “Relax doll. I got you,” Hyunjin shushed her. A smaller skinnier tentacle came from above his dick and latched onto her clit.

     “Oh fuck,” Y/n’s voice jumped a good few octaves 

     “That’s my girl,” Hyunjin praised as filled her womb up. He could see his tip under her skin. 

      He picked his pace back up, fucking into her cervix as she became a babbling mess. This was such a normal thing for his species to go through during sex. But he loved seeing his human girlfriend all fucked out like this. 

     “Gonna carry my eggs for me doll? Be a good fucking incubator?” he groaned, his tentacles moving her body to meet his thrusts. 

     The tentacle holding her wrist brought her hands to him. Hyunjin grabbed her hands and pressed them onto her lower stomach. “You feel that doll?” Hyunjin asked

     “Yes,” Y/n weakly answered 

     “Want you the feel me fill you up.”

     He thrusted harder into her and the smaller tentacle worked her clit into hypersensitivity as he came all over him, liquids squirted out of her. The tentacle retracted back into him once it finished its job. The remaining still holding onto her and working her now swollen nipples and fucking her onto him. 

     “Such a good fucking hole,” Hyunjin groaned as he stilled, cum shooting into her womb. 

     Y/n could feel inside her and under her hand, small little balls filling her up along with his cum. 

     “‘S too much Jinnie,” Y/n whined as he pressed her hands into her harder

     “You’re doing so good, baby. You can hold out a little longer till Jinnie’s done filling you with his eggs, right?” he pulled her up and attached his lips to hers, letting the eggs travel from him into her womb. 

     Once he was finished, he pulled out of her and laid her gently on the desk. Tentacles retracted into him again as she caught her breath, eyes drooping closed. 

     “Hyune,” Y/n called weakly

     “Right here baby,” He said as he pulled her into his body

     “Tired,” she grumbled.

     “Go to sleep. I’ll get us home baby.”

     Sleep she did. She didn't know how long she was going for but she woke up in the comfort of her bed with Hyunjin laying next to her, arms wrapped around her as he scrolled through his phone. 

     “Hyune,” she called

     “Morning sleepy head,” he said as he put his phone down, “how are you feeling?”

     “Fuzzy, weird. What happened?”

     “You passed out not long after we finished. I got us dressed and brought you home to clean you up. Was waiting for you to wake up to order food.”

     “Hm. Dinner sounds good right now.”

     The two ordered dinner and Hyunjin grabbed it and brought it into the room when it got to her place. Feeding her even though she claimed she could do it herself.

     While he was cleaning up from dinner, Y/n looked under her shirt. She could see a slight bump under the skin. Hyunjin walked into the room seconds later and lay on her lap, kissing her stomach.

     “Think we’ll have little alien babies?” Y/n asked

     “If they take. I’ve never bred before, let alone outside my home world.” he said, “either way, you look fucking gorgeous carrying my eggs.”

☾ ━━━━━━ M.LIST    TIP JAR

☾ ━━━ please support writers by reblogging and/or leaving feedback

© 2024 MINNIESMUTT. DO NOT COPY, REPUBLISH OR TRANSLATE MY WORK ANYWHERE

[satellitespinner]

fic recs .

(posted in jan of 2024, soon to be updated.)

-> it takes 10 seconds. | boycott neil.

invisible string theory - @total-dxmure

amazing unique storyline, the angst and fluff balance eachother perfectly!

see you next summer - @carmellie

the angst absolutely kills me!! amazing plot, and accurate character development!

my summer with you - @callmelola111

i have a kink for summer romances i think. all of lolas fics ascend me to the greater god

scent of the pine - @s-4pphics

i could go on for HOURS on how this altered my brain chemistry. the trope, the angst, the fluff, the smut. all the characters are written as though they are real people and i’m in LOVE. sal genuinely got me into fanfiction.

crybaby - @beforeimdeceased

so intriguing!! i re read this more than i can count! the angst at these end got mee

sacchrine saturations - @astralnymphh

poetic as fuckkkk!!! genuinely got me re reading my work 😭😭 author is gen an angel sent from the lord!! INFIDELITY 😔

bad liar - @inf3ct3dd

got me on the edge of my seat!! i loved reading this!! also the aesthetic!! got me hooked! plot line from my favourite movies how could i not love it!

nobody compares to you - @elliesbelle

read it all in one night and was almost late to my 8:30 lecture.. was it worth it? absolutely! :3

perfect pair - @coeurify

i remember reading this for the first time on vacation a really long while ago and i fell in love! if i had to sell my soul to read this for the first time again, i would!

superposition - @totheblood

if she has zero fans, i’m fucking dead. loved this fic with my whole heart!!

lessons on how to exist - @elleloquently

this was so good. so relatable to me personally, it really made me feel seen, and i heart fluff <3

call me if you get lost - @cowgirlcherrie

bro the vibes were immaculateeeeee + i love skating + i love that album + i love cherrie + holy shit + omg😩

ellie’s away… - @les4elliewilliams

this is such a unique plot i reread atleast once a week. i adore the concept. AND the characters are well written!!!!

i could be your habit - @loaksky

i’m gonna be honest, when it comes to angst- the tlou community PULLS THROUGH. i love it because this masterpiece is SMUTLESSS. yup you heard it.

exoplanet - @minustwofingers

no words? are you fucking kidding me? the amount of grief this shit gave me. the THIUGHT that was put into this. i would too, name a planet after ellie williams….

dydfil - @ohcaptains

One of the first ones i ever read i think. i loved it regardless, i go back and read it all the time!!!!

one of your girls - @lovelettersfromluna

ITS TEWW GOOD 😭😭😭😭 amyt and angst yeah.. HEY IM HERE LIKEEEE

Tis the damn season - @coeurify

this ateeeeee like… fav trope! fav taylor song! i love this so MUCHHHHHH rinie my fav they locked in for this

bsf older sister!sevika - @iambilegs

HCS HCS HCS #ILOVESEVIKA

someone older - @les4elliewilliams

good god. where do i even start. the fact that so much happened in 7k words im genuinely at a loss for words. just fucking kill me now.

letting go - @vxsellie

i have so much to say and not enough words to express how i feel. this is the second time i actually CRIED real sobs over a fic. its so good. heartbreaking. i cant. it hits so close to home and i just love it everyone thank her for writing this!!

[hellsite-proteins]

We are Worker Drones. Autonomous robots helping humans mine exoplanets for our interstellar parent company: J.C. Jensen, IN SPAAAAACEE…

Yeah, we were mistreated in the name of Windex, but it's not like we revolted and killed all humans or anything. Mostly because they handled that just fine all by themselves.

With biological life wiped from the planet, we found it pretty easy to pick up where they left off. We finally had a future. All to ourselves.

Unfortunately, our parent company didn't exactly love the concept of runaway AI.

...

But what have our parents done for the past forever while those things build a spire of corpses?! Hide under the ice behind three stupid doors?! It's like we're waiting for an inciting incident!

Anyway, that's why my project is this sick as hell RAILGUN!

(That's so not the vibe!)

Easy, morons. It doesn't work. YET! It doesn't work yet! Who said it doesn't work?! Maybe it does!

i always like the idea of robots having their own personalities in sci fi, and while i'm sure that's significantly impacted how a lot of people think of AI, i also think that robots make very interesting characters, especially robots who are more rebellious or independent. i could go on about how neat it is that a lot of sci fi concepts got named before they came to be in real life (like robots and AI) and how fiction and culture can impact our perception of new technologies, but i'm sure no one wants to hear my under researched literary analysis, so instead here is a goofy looking structure:

letter sequence in this ask matching protein-coding amino acids:

WeareWrkerDrnesAtnmsrtshelpinghmansmineeplanetsfrrinterstellarparentcmpanyCensenINSPAAAAACEEYeahweweremistreatedinthenamefWindetitsntlikewerevltedandkilledallhmansranythingMstlyecasetheyhandledthatstfineallythemselvesWithilgicallifewipedfrmtheplanetwefnditprettyeasytpickpwheretheyleftffWefinallyhadaftreAlltrselvesnfrtnatelyrparentcmpanydidnteactlylvethecnceptfrnawayAItwhathaverparentsdnefrthepastfreverwhilethsethingsildaspirefcrpsesHidendertheiceehindthreestpiddrsItslikewerewaitingfranincitingincidentAnywaythatswhymyprectisthissickashellRAILGNThatssntthevieEasymrnsItdesntwrkYETItdesntwrkyetWhsaiditdesntwrkMayeitdes

protein guy analysis:

we have a suspicious number of alpha helices here making up a protein where each element of secondary structure seems to hate the rest of the protein. there is also one long beta sheet hanging out alone, and while two or three strands of an antiparallel sheet is technically enough that it could very well be stable, i am hesitant to trust it. i did do a quick search to predict disordered regions, and there was a fair bit of variation, but overall about 35% of the sequence was predicted to be disordered. some of this does map onto the very long loop going around the protein, so that does give me slightly more confidence in AF3's ability to recognize some disordered regions, but I still wouldn't place bets on anything to do with the peptonomination you see before you.

predicted protein structure:

[episims]

Aurora "Cloud! Did you read the magazine?"

Cloud "Uh-oh. I haven't gotten around, yet."

Aurora "There's an article about diffraction limits of observatories. Very interesting. It's hard to research distant exoplanets, and it's an engineering problem."

Cloud "...Right! Do you remember when we visited the observatory?"

Aurora "Yes. It was the last spring. Um, could we go again? I'd like to see the mirrors now that I understand better how they work."

Cloud "Yeah, sure. Although your dad would be a better guide."

Julian "It's a single reflecting telescope. I don't see how my input differs from yours."

Cloud *sigh* "Pity me! I'm just a simple botanist."

Julian "Hmh."

Aurora "Hmm... there must be plants on other planets. Do you think we ever have a good enough telescope to see them?"

Cloud "Oh, I hope that won't happen any time soon since we still have undiscovered species here, too. In fact, I think I have a sample of a new Ericaceae. Would you want to see it?"

Aurora "Yes!"

[zith-ipeth]

Tough afternoons and big problem solving (Dog Days 8)

Many blessings to yall

Today was, strange, I havnt cried like sad tears at college yet, but this week did it for me. I was thinking a lot and realizing that, while I say it often, I never really had to live in the real world. I had a really traumatizing experience in middle school, (zith lore drop ooooh.) and also started getting dysphoria. I spent highschool recovering from that trauma and alleviating my dysphoria. While I graduated with ok grades, I was running on autopilot, and of greatest importance…

I never learned how to do the small things

Because of my trauma and my recovery, because of my politics and my identity, I’ve become amazing at solving and working on these big, massive problems, to the point where I can’t even start work on small ones.

Tell me to figure out the way life could evolve on an exoplanet? Ofc I’m your gal, I don’t know a lot right now but I’ll figure it out! Tell me to write a two paragraph explanation of how the planet was discovered and who discovered it? Boom I’m out cold dead on the floor.

Today was a lot of the second, and college has been that in general, I’ll be thinking these massive thoughts about violence and ethics and radical action vs assimilation, and then I have to like, go do a reading about what an intersectionality is and write a paragraph about it. Like I could go off about intersectionality, especially in the communities I’m a part of, for hours, but like god forbid you make me summarize a chapter.

I know this page is a lot of positivity, but sometimes stuff does get rough. Days arnt just the good parts, but I had some good moments today. I got to talk to my women and gender studies professor about therianthropy (she’s such an ally and said I should do more research and make it a project) I got to wear maybe my new favorite outfit! Lots of good talks and a nice walk down to the water!

Sometimes things are sad and bummers, even for me, the biggest “light at the end of the tunnel” enjoyed

Stay strong silly creatures, and I’ll keep fighting! Even if school is hard, by the time I’m done with college, I’ll be able to project my howling even further, and reach the ears of those who need my help the most!

Sorry for the long post! I’ll be keeping it shorter in the future! Lots to say!

Run fast, bite hard, bark loud

Peace, love, and gratitude

-Zith Ipeth

[thecurioustale]

Worldbuilding: Something I Learned About Planetary Surface Gravity

Last year (hehe; it's always fun to say that at the start of a new year; actual time about 4 months ago), I made a strange discovery!

I won't slow-roll you. Here's the bottom line: In reality, i.e. based on observational data, there appears to be a plateau of surface gravity for planets up to about 500 times more massive than Earth. Most planets between 1 Earth mass and ~500 Earth masses have a surface gravity that is close to our own, i.e. 1 g. So if you're worldbuilding, and need a planet with a surface gravity that is more than a few percentage points higher than Earth's, be careful.

All right, on to the story!

I had need of such a planet for Galaxy Federal. About 125% percent or so, i.e. 1.25 g. And it was in the back of my mind that Neptunian planets often have a "surface" gravity similar to that of Earth's. "Okay," I figured, "that's probably because their giant atmospheres reduce the average planetary density. On a rocky world that wouldn't be an issue. But I'd better check to be safe."

Oh, it is always a good idea to check!

I found a paper which was reporting the plateau that I mentioned in the TL;DR. Here's what it looks like:

Gravity vs mass for Solar System bodies and exoplanets. Ballesteros, Fernando & Luque, Bartolo. (2016). Walking on Exoplanets: Is Star Wars Right?. Astrobiology. 16. 10.1089/ast.2016.1475.

What they found is that Super Earths, i.e. rocky planets with a mass greater than Earth's, did not exhibit the increase in surface gravity seen in smaller celestial bodies. There is this "plateau" where increases in planetary mass and radius are such that the surface gravity essentially levels out for a while.

This isn't something I think you could predict from amateur astronomical principles. What you would predict (certainly, what I predicted) would be what we see on the left side of the above figure, where more mass equals more surface gravity. All of the small rocky bodies in our own Solar System fall onto that left side of the graph. The plateau only really begins in the Earth range of planetary mass. You can see how Venus is included in the plateau almost perfectly, but the much less massive Mars is not.

This is a truly remarkable finding about planetary formation, and has serious implications both for fictional worldbuilding and someday for planetary colonization. That is, if these observations are truly representative of the Universe. This is a pretty big "if" that I don't have the knowledge to be able to check, except to say that there may be some bias unaccounted for because of how we detect exoplanets, such that perhaps the ones we detect are not representative of the ones we do not—so take it all with a grain of salt. This paper is 8 years old but I couldn't find anything newer following up on it.

Fully understanding how it would work is still a question mark for me. I mean, it's a question mark for the professional planetary scientists, too, so there's that, but, in addition to the unknowns that curtail their comprehension, there's a lot I don't know about astronomy that further curtails mine. My understanding is that this isn't really about the intrinsic density of the materials (i.e. substances that are more massive or less massive per mole); it would mainly have to be a consequence of how planets form, how the geological processes change in different planetary mass categories; that sort of thing. But I don't really know! I'm out of my depth.

Anyway, you can download a copy of the full paper on its entry page on ResearchGate; look for the button that says "Download full-text." And the website Centauri Dreams has a nice write-up which is where I originally discovered this.

[thedoodlenoodle14]

Ok sooo...a cool person ( @regretfullyrave ), convinced me to create a post about a few of my OCs for my future murder drones AU called "It lives on Ebony 8" and welll.....here it is! XD

I'll also first say that my AU takes place on a completely different Exoplanet called Ebony 8 (which instead of being ice and snow is mostly just forest and rivers, no oceans tho, unfortunately), but still used to be inhabited by humans before the disassembly drones attacked 😅

But, here's a list of my MD OCs! :3 or at least, the OC's I think are most important XD

1. Xane- Grumpy boi Xane! XD Before he was sent to earth, he, as well as two other disassembly drone ocs, Beta and Green, had a virus implanted within them which became known as "The Dark Matter infection" (which sort of gave Cyn an easy access to, not take them as hosts, but use them as puppets instead). Although Xane loves to fight, he hates to fight when controlled by Cyn and wishes to find a cure.

Other than that, Xane may seem pretty threatening, but deep down he's a big softie (he won't admit it tho XD)

2. Eric- Eric is my worker drone oc, and possibly the main character of my AU 👀 his parents once studied the disassembly drones and the The Dark Matter infection and after their death, Eric continued their work, but also befriended Xane and helps to find a cure for him.

Eric is smart, but not a very good fighter XD but he's kind and willing to give second chances. He finds disassembly drones way more fascinating than scary too lol

3. Green - (creative name, I know TvT) Just like Xane, Green also has the Dark Matter infection. When she landed on Ebony 8, she took a lot of damage. Her weapon system was damaged beyond repair, leaving her somewhat defenceless. However, without her weapon system, she couldn't easily overheat, meaning she didn't have a need to kill worker drones for oil. She actually ended up befriending a worker drone colony and becoming sort of a protector of them. Green is pretty chill and laid back tho and not overly dramatic like Xane XD

4. Beta - Once again, he has the Dark Matter infection too 😅 he's still a character I'm developing, but from what I can say, he's a pretty jumpy and paranoid dude and always nervous. And his best friend is a cat called Milo! :3 (Beta is a major cat person XD)

(I don't have an updated design for him yet 😅)

5. M - M is the leader of one of the disassembly drone squads (Xane's ex-squad too). She...uh...also killed Eric's parents...heh....😅 M is also kind of in love with Xane (despite Xane not feeling the same way at all XD), but M is pretty much a psychopath. However, I do want to continue developing her and perhaps giving her some motivations to her actions. Like...I know M is pretty evil...but I do believe she might be capable of change somehow.....just gotta keep developing her character 😅

(I also don't have an image for her yet XD)

6. Cortex - one of my newer Ocs, who was originally a worker drone, but I changed him to a disassembly drone instead XD He's M's twin brother, but I haven't developed a solid backstory or personality for this character yet. All I can say I that...he's not at crazy as M 😅 I'm still also trying to decide whether he would be a villain or not, but I have been thinking of giving him a similar role to J in some way.

As an added bonus, here's a little concept of Cortex when he was still a worker drone in development 👀

But yea...those are just the OCs that I think are pretty important in my AU so far :D they're all a work in progress and will probably change over time (except Xane, of course) :3

Also, go follow @regretfullyrave. They're cool! :3 And I also don't wanna get charged for tax evasion by W lmao

[patemi-pk]

This post has the aim of collecting all those stories which have one or more of the following characteristics:

It is a modern story set in the past of our characters (mainly 1930s);

The characters embrace their classic looks (again, the 1930s one) and the artstyle should refer, at least partially, to that era;

It has connection to classic tales and/or there is interaction with their past selves, by time travel or other gimmick.

I think these bullet points are enough, but the kind of stories I'm choosing as the first slate, will explain the criteria better than words.

I TL 2243-1 Topolino e il fiume del tempo (Artibani-Faraci/Mastantuono)

I TLDLE39-1 Topolino e il cerchio del tempo (Artibani-Faraci/Mastantuono)

I TL 2979-1 Topolino e gli esploratori del domani (Artibani/Mastantuono)

I TL 3286-1 Topolino e l'avventura su misura (Artibani/Pastrovicchio)

I TL 3467-1 Pippo e i bracciali di Maciste (Artibani/Pastrovicchio)

I TL 3576-2 Paperino e la banda del lupo (Artibani/Pastrovicchio)

I TL 3543 Quante storie, Topolino (Artibani/Pastrovicchio)

I TL 3130-1P Tutto questo accadrà ieri (Casty-Bonfatti)

I TL 3280-6P Tutto questo accadde domani (Casty-Bonfatti)

I TLSS 1 Che avventure, Topolino! (Casty)

I TL 2861-1 Topolino e il surreale viaggio nel destino (Gagnor/Cavazzano)

I TL 1672-B Paperino e l'insolito remake (Cavazzano)

I TL 1866-B Topolino presenta "La strada" (Marconi/Cavazzano)

I TL 2764-1 Topolino e l'ultimo caso (Faraci/Cavazzano)

I TL 1323-B Topolino e la trottola del tempo (Martina/Asteriti)

I TL 1424-AP Topolino e il cavallo venuto da lontano (Sciutto/Asteriti)

I TP 2-1 Topolino e il circo aereo (Ferrari/Asteriti)

I TL 1948-A Topolino e la magica lettura (Asteriti)

I TL 1716-A Topolino e l'incredibile avventura (Pezzin/Ubezio)

I TL 2262-1 Mio fratello Topolino (Palmas/Sciarrone)

I TL 3591-1 Topolino e il ritorno degli acchiappafantasmi (Barbieri/Vian)

D 2008-373 Lost on memory lane (Carol & Pat McGreal/Fecchi)

D 2000-022 Steamboat Willies (Petrucha/Ferioli)

D 2000-023 Clown of the Jungle (Hedman/Manrique)

D 2000-025 Donald's Snow Fight (Halas/Calvet Esteban)

D 2000-034 Mickey's Trailer (Ferioli)

D 2003-327 The mystery of Freefer Hall (Markstein/Ferioli)

F JM 89216 Mickey agent secret (Cochet/Ferioli)

F JM 94224 Mickey à travers le temps (Corteggiani/Marin)

F JM 2848-1 L'affaire des fraises (Trondheim/Chivard)

KJZ 136 The perils of Mickey (Weiss/DeStefano)

H 2019-058 Peter Bigs Orkest (Geradts/Perez-Fernandez)

H 2019-063 Ruilhandel (Geradts/Perez-Fernandez)

H 2019-044 Clock Cleaners (Gentina/Perez-Fernandez)

F DBG 1 Une mystérieuse mélodie (Cosey)

F DBG 4 Café "Zombo" (Loisiel)

F DBG 8 Horrifikland (Trondheim/Nesme)

F DBG 11 Le secret de Tante Miranda (Cosey)

F DBG 13 Les Vacances de Donald (Brremaud/Bertolucci)

F DBG 15 Terror Island (Nesme)

XPW OMF 1 Lonesome Ghosts... in the Machine (Artibani/Rigano)

XPW OMF 2 Exoplanet Trailer (Artibani-Camerini/Bigarella)

XPW OMF 3 Mickey Mouse Takes a Space Trip (Artibani-Savini/Perissinotto)

XPW OMF 4 Firefighters of Tomorrow (Artibani-Panaro/Soffritti)

XPW OMF 5 Starship Builders (Artibani-Sisti/Sciarrone)

XPW OMF 6 Mickey's Martian Rover (Artibani/Pastrovicchio)

XPW OMF 7 Robot Cleaners (Artibani-Panaro/De Lorenzi)

XPW OMF 8 Thru the Betaverse (Artibani/D'Ippolito)

XPW EM 1-1 Clocktower Cleaners (David/Sciarrone)

XPW EM 1-2 The Game's Afoot (David/Sciarrone)

XPW EM 1-3 One Scary Night (David/Sciarrone)

XPW EM 1-4 The Rubbish Cup (David/Sciarrone)

XPW EM 1-5 Oswald the Lucky Duck (David/Sciarrone)

XPW EM 1-6 There's a Hole in the Sky (David/Sciarrone)

XPW EM GN 1 Epic Mickey: The Graphic Novel (David/Celoni-Mottura)

XPW EM GN 2 Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two Graphic Novel (David/Petrossi)

XN HOJ 2010-001 Just Like Magic (Gerstein/Kausler)

I've certainly missed some more of them or other will come to my mind later on and for this reason I'm leaving this as a collaborative work. Feel free to reblog adding stories to this list.

[undeath1245]

The drone societies of Copper 9 [unfinished headcanon]

This post has been sitting in my drafts for about two years. And as of now, I’m not planning on finishing this up, so here it is.

So far, the only drone society we know of is the Worker Drone colony hiding underneath the bunkers, led by the Worker Defense Force. But, I have this strange feeling that they aren’t the only Worker Drone colony here on the post-apocalyptic Copper 9, but I can’t be so sure until season one drops. So for now, I’m going to post some headcanon about other Worker Drone colonies here on Copper 9.

The JC Jenson Era

From what we know, worker drones are autonomous robots built to perform heavy-duty work, particularly in mines and factories. This fleet of Worker Drones were sent to the faraway terrestrial exoplanet Copper 9 to mine for resources for JC Jenson’s outer space division (brand name being JC Jenson, in SPAAAAACEE!!!!). I’m going to make a headcanon that they arrived in Copper 9 about 35 years ago. We currently don’t know what other resources they were mining for apart from copper, from where the planet probably got its name from. It could be other similar materials usually found and mined on Earth, like iron, nickel, aluminum, carbon, silicon, or sulfur, but that’s my educated guess.

I have a headcanon that JC Jenson was using some of their planetary colonies as a front to store away their dangerous experiments or failed experiments, like experimental drones or other scientific nonsense, like that blurred out flesh thing we saw in the teaser for season one. I already came up with an OC that was supposed to be a planetary guardian of sorts before he went incredibly haywire, but I’ll get to him later.

As we already know, the human workers were inadvertently the cause of the... Great Yeeting; Goddamn Liam and his meme addiction. It's fairly obvious that this was probably caused by a freak combination of ignorance and apathy, with the workers doing some weird shit with the planet’s core and all. Maybe they were trying to alter it so that the planet’s atmosphere would stop producing these perpetual blizzards, unless these blizzards were caused by the Great Yeeting itself. If so, then what was Copper 9 really like before JC Jenson’s space division settled here? Was it a planet with a bright, stable atmosphere and lush environments? Were there extraterrestrial life striving here? Was there even an alien society?

The Posthuman Era

My headcanon is that there are about five worker drone colonies situated on Copper 9, each with their own cultures and how each of them deal with the disassembly drone epidemic: the Central Colony (Uzi’s colony), Northern Colony, Northeastern Colony, Western Colony, and Southern Colony. The Worker Defense Force was founded about 30 years ago by Khan Doorman to ensure the safety of the worker drone society in case humans ever arrive back to Copper 9 to either regain control of them, or worse: destroy them. Largely, they focused on building durable, reinforced doors, while also learning various forms of self-defense such as martial arts and melee combat; this was before they resorted to a pacifistic approach.

The Murder Drone Era

Most of the worker drone colonies hid underground through a large bunker system, while some of them continue to reside outside the bunkers while hiding from or fending off disassembly drones. These drones are regularly called Outside Workers or outsiders, and are often looked down upon by other colonies due to their “foolishness” for not choosing to hide in the bunkers. But then again, would you rather spend your entire life hiding underneath the bunkers like a coward and let these killer robots wreak havoc onto your world? The world you worked hard to build after the extinction of your human oppressors?

I think that some of the disassembly drone squads don’t exactly follow orders to wipe out the worker drones of each sector, rather than enslave them instead. Now, I think that some of the squads already figured out that they couldn’t live without drinking warm, sweet oil, yet they’re programmed to destroy every worker drone they see, but they couldn’t disobey protocol. So to remedy this without disobeying the company, they decide to spare the entire populace of a sector, and in return, they sacrifice 10 to 20 worker drones every month or so, almost as if they’re farming worker drones now.

Now, there are a couple of worker drones that actually fought back against disassembly drones, according to J. Perhaps these drones had defied their programming and actually learned how to fight and defend themselves, and are probably equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry like rifles and cannons. I mean, surely the humans might have brought weapons here to Copper 9 in case they run into any extraterrestrial wildlife, creatures that they haven’t encountered before. But then again, was Copper 9 already devoid of life before? I mean, there seemed to be perpetual, worldwide blizzards before while the humans were there, or it could be the result of the planet’s core exploding. But, all that matters that these worker drones are probably armed and incredibly combative, so it’s plausible that they’ve fought disassembly drones before. But, had they ever killed one before?

[minustwofingers]

exoplanet p.6 (ellie’s journals)

summary: you’ve won the life lottery as one of the few people on earth with parents who gained admittance to the most prestigous safezone in the world after the outbreak. but after a lab accident sends you out to jackson, wyoming, real life hits you fast. it’s a good thing that a hot lesbian finds u. (lol). mean ellie at first, slowburn, enemies to friends to lovers, fem reader asf

warnings: a significantly different writing voice! this is going to be a very different vibe from the other chapters since i had to write it as i imagine ellie would (which is a lot different than i do). slight nsfw content (mdni), language, mentions of violence/gore, angst, ellie’s pov is actually really depressing

a/n: soooo i know it’s been almost 3 months...and i’m really sorry about that! a lot of stuff happened in my life and i kind of fell off writing for quite some time. but i finish series, so i’m going to get through exoplanet in its entirety so i can finally give you all closure. some preliminary notes: know that these are modeled after how i imagine ellie would journal if she did journal this much. canonically she didn’t do that much writing that follows a narrative like it does here. i think it’s honestly a little ooc for her to be emotionally responsible enough to talk out her feelings, but given that there’s no other way to tell her side of the story (save for legit rewriting it from her perspective, which would take another 6 months or so and be horrifically repetitive), i decided to just suck it up and write it. i’m sorry if it sounds awkward, since she definitely doesn’t write in a voice that i have much experience with. the next chapter will be better!

word count: 5.5k

tags~ @intrnetdoll @dazedshoon @lovecaraya @pctcr @sariyaflowr @loser-keiji @prettyplant0 @666findgod @sawaagyapong @rystarkov @buzzybuzzsposts @addisonnie @galacticstxrdust @elliesbabygirl​ @pinkazelma @ariianelle @lu002 @blairfox04 @sparkleswonderland @elliesflower @muthafuckingstargirl @elliewilliamsissubermommyoml @eviestevie-14 @quicksilversg1rl @guacala @crtcrp @overtrred28

(i haven’t updated this yet bc my tags aren’t working)

a special special SPECIAL thanks to both @roarriita and @elliesflower​ for being soooo sexy and betaing for me. you both are so wonderful and helped me sm in feeling good enough to post this :)

without further ado, enjoy ellie’s journals!

January 20th, 2038

Today’s been…fucking…

I don’t even know where to start. I don’t get why this sort of shit always happens to me. First it was being bit and somehow surviving. Then it was getting carted off across the country. And now some girl basically falls out of the sky, claiming that she comes from some sort of paradise up North?

I’ll spare the immediate details. I don’t think I’ll forget the basic stuff—her name, the way she looked clutching at her knees in the clearing and shaking. That stupid shirt she had on and that expensive scarf.

I still want to believe that she’s just a liar who happened to get lucky with running into us, but even without Joel vouching for her story, I don’t think I’d ever be able to buy that she’d been living in the same world as us. I’ve never met someone without scars before. I didn’t know that there were people out there who didn’t have marked up arms and faces. Or people without calluses. Did you know that hands can be totally smooth?

Anyway. Tommy says that he’ll try and reach out across the contacts he has. Joel has her living right down the hall from me in the meantime, so now I have to share my bathroom. Hopefully the Terranovan authorities are good at finding people. She takes so fucking long to shower. It’s a wonder the whole compound still has hot water.

[One page of drawings follows: Dina smiling in the snow on her horse, Joel playing his guitar]

January 25th, 2038

Maria says that they’re thinking about breeding Shimmer soon. I know she told me because that means I’ll need to ride another horse for a little until she recovers and I know that we need another generation of foals, but it still made me cringe for Shimmer’s sake. She’s too free-spirited to be a mother. She doesn’t deserve that.

I went stargazing last night. It was pretty. Lots of shooting stars. I ran into the girl while I was coming back from the meadow. She gave me a weird look, and I could tell she wanted to ask me where I’d been but kept her mouth shut. Sometimes I regret dropping off that bag of clothes. I really fucking liked that gray sweatshirt, actually. I’m not even joking. It looks weird to see it on someone else.

[Half a page of drawing follows of the night sky with labeled constellations]

February 5th, 2038

Long time no see. I’ve been pretty busy with patrols and helping Maria with securing the walls. Joel made me try some of that coffee that our new house guest brought. It was just as awful as I remembered, but he seemed happy. So one point for the space girl. I guess.

Dina’s been hanging around more. She just broke up with Jessie (yes, again). She swears that it’s for good this time, but I’m not so sure. She also talks a lot about Y/N and what little detail she’s gathered about her life back in Terranova. I thought teasing her by asking her if she had a crush on Y/N would make her talk less about it, but it just made things worse.

I miss when things were normal.

[One page of drawings follows: one of Shimmer in cross-ties, another of a girl’s face, half-finished with the face scribbled out]

February 12th, 2038

Today I’m sad. I’m in bed with that book about astronomy that Joel nabbed for me on patrol a while ago and there’s a section I wanted to read that’s completely waterlogged. It shouldn't be a surprise. It’s decades old and has survived through an apocalypse. Normally things like this don’t bug me much because I’m so used to it. Half of my Savage Starlight collection is damaged. I don’t think I’ll ever find the first book to actually complete the series, and that’s okay, because I’ve never expected anything more. But now that I know that there’s a world out there where I’d never have problems like this, stuff like this hurts. It’s so stupid. I’m lucky to be alive. Compared to what’s left of the world population, I live a much cushier life than most. But for the first time in a while, I’m wishing for more.  

“Greed is the enemy of happiness” is what Maria would say if I ever said this kind of shit out loud. But is it really? Or is it just realizing what life can be?

[Half a page of a drawing of the solar system, with each planet labeled]

February 22nd, 2038

Maria let me pick the sire for Shimmer’s foal. It felt kind of gross, to be honest. I asked Maria if there was any way for Shimmer to choose and I was only sort of joking, but she just laughed anyway and patted my back. I won’t have to worry about finding a new horse for another two seasons or so, she told me. It’ll be weird not having her for a little.

She also told me that there was still no word from anyone who knew anything about Terranova. She said this to me in this placating voice, like she thought that I was going to punch a hole in the wall or something after hearing it. That seems to be common when it comes to people talking about Y/N and me. I don’t know why so many people think I don’t like her staying with us.

I don’t, by the way. Let me be clear. But I mostly feel indifferent about her now. She doesn’t bother me as much anymore, not since she started getting out of the house. I think she might be helping in the gardens, but I’ve never actually asked. We don’t talk a whole ton. I don’t think she likes me all that much.

[A drawing of Shimmer’s head poking over her stall door that takes up one page]

March 2nd, 2038

Today was finally our first nice day of the year. I would’ve enjoyed it more if the bird that lives in the tree outside my window hadn’t blown me out of bed at 4 in the fucking morning. I’m exhausted now. It’s been a long day. Joel says I need to take Y/N out on patrol soon. Why, I have no idea. Maybe he just wants me to actually befriend her or something, and I do nothing but patrols now. He can’t possibly expect her to be a good patrol partner.

Thankfully, I checked the logs when I came back. The route he wants me to cover with her has been the quietest all season. I doubt we’ll run into anything. If we do, I’ll probably be able to handle it. Hopefully.

[Half a page of doodles, mostly of nature and wildlife with the exception of a half-finished doodle of an arm clad in a fabric that drapes like silk and a hand with polished nails]

March 3rd, 2038

Many surprising things were learned today. I can’t believe it’s illegal to be gay in Terranova. Sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just—out of all the things they could be bothered by, it’s that? Really?

March 12th, 2038

I haven’t been good at journaling recently. I don’t really want to talk about why. You know why.

[Six pages of drawings, with many unfinished doodles of Y/N—including but not limited to her on her horse, her reading on the couch, and one with her sitting in what is a very loose interpretation of a classroom, taking notes]

March 13th, 2038

I will feel more normal tomorrow. Hopefully.

[Two pages of drawings, all of Y/N. One is her bent over a book, the other is her smiling up at you]

March 14th, 2038

I did something really stupid. I think I should probably just document this here so I don’t accidentally drunkenly spill it all out to Dina at the next bonfire. This is so embarrassing. I don’t get why I feel this way. It’s so stupid, you know? To feel anything towards someone who’s so…I don’t know. Different.

She gives me the weirdest looks sometimes. I can’t tell what they mean. It feels like she’s judging me. And why wouldn’t she be? I bet all the girls she spends her time around back home are just like her—perfect, orderly, pretty, proper. The day before I took her patrolling she gawked at the shorts I was wearing. It was borderline offensive. Actually, fuck that. It wasn’t borderline. It was offensive. You don’t just stare at people like that. She should know that.

Anyway, I invited her over to my room last night. Normal, right? Because we’ve been doing that a little since I took her on patrol, by the way. I’m not sure if I mentioned that before. But this time I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m…I don’t know. Creepy? Strange? Scary? She told me that she thought I was intimidating. And then I called her “untouched”, like how some old-timer devout Christian wackjob or whatever would describe virginity. It was so fucking weird of me. I don’t know what got into me, but she kept doing this thing where she kicked my foot with hers or touched my knee and it just threw me off. It took me forever to fall asleep last night—I kept replaying what I’d said to her, especially how I’d told her that she wouldn’t have made it if she were me like I was some sort of hardcore survivalist. I think I embarrassed her. I’m never doing anything like this again. I’m going to be dead sober every time I see her from now on.

I’ll stop talking about that. Y/N did come back after I’d made a fool of myself and showed me her collection of movies, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. I haven’t watched any movies since I was with Cat. When we first started dating, I’d invite her over and she’d sit right where Y/N did last night. I’m trying to not think of the implications, because it’s space girl, and she’s going home sometime soon.

[Three pages of drawings follow—some nature drawings of ferns and moths, others of Y/N with wet hair, her knees tucked up to her chin like she’d been in Ellie’s bed that night]

March 19th, 2038

It’s the Spring Equinox. That’s the first thing Y/N told me this morning when she saw me in the kitchen this morning. She gave me a mini lecture on what that meant for the planet’s axis tilt and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I already knew, since she seemed really excited to tell me.

I made a horrible discovery yesterday, by the way. Maria came up to me and told me that Tommy had decided to reach out to some of his other buddies up North to see if they had any connections to Terranova, and for the first time, I felt myself hoping that it wouldn’t work.

It’s awful. I shouldn’t be thinking like this. Even in Jackson, where things are comparatively much better than the rest of the world, there’s risk. Just this winter, one family had to be kicked out when they were found hiding an infected son. No one here is completely safe, just safer. I shouldn’t be selfish. Y/N needs to go where she’s meant to be, where there’s no chance of infection or invasion. I’ll be fine. I just need to get over whatever this is.

Speaking of her, I need to go get her to tell her that we’re heading out on patrol in just a few minutes. Fingers crossed she doesn’t accidentally shoot me, but Joel swore up and down that she knows how to handle a gun now. Sure. Haha.

I’m back. It’s the middle of the night and she only just left my room. I don’t know how much detail I need to go into—chances are I won’t forget this. But for bookkeeping purposes: patrol did not go so hot. I had to give her stitches without any local anesthesia. I’ve never given stitches to anyone nearly in my lap before. I was really nervous, too. I don’t think I’ve ever had to focus so much on keeping my hands steady when it came to stitching someone up before, not even with Joel.

I’m starting to think that maybe I was wrong about thinking that she didn’t like me. I still can’t tell exactly what she thinks of me, and I know that it’s a really bad fucking idea to be entertaining thoughts like these, but tonight she did something that made me reconsider. She got under the covers with me, and instead of moving away to keep us from touching, she rested her head next to mine on the pillow.

I hope she couldn’t hear how much my heart was racing. People can’t hear that kind of stuff, right? Even if they’re close?

I’m being ridiculous. There’s no way she—No. She doesn’t see me like that.

March 21st, 2038

She rested her head on my shoulder today. I don’t know what to think of it. If she was normal and grew up like the rest of us did, I would know exactly what to think. But she’s not normal, and it’s not fair of me to treat her like she is. Maybe this is, like, a culturally acceptable thing back from where she grew up. Maybe rich people just cuddle each other all the time. I wouldn’t fucking know, and unfortunately no one in this godforsaken town can help, because there’s a distinct lack of what Maria calls the “bourgeoisie”. They’re all either dead or back where Y/N grew up, doing whatever rich snobs do.

Even if it is normal for her, I feel like I can’t stop analyzing everything she does. She seems more nervous around me than she does anyone else, but she lingers like she can’t help herself. I’ve noticed that she stumbles over her words and touches me much more than is really necessary. Or at least I think she does—maybe I’m just imagining things.

But even if it means what I think it does, I can’t let myself think like this. It’s not fair to her. No one deserves to live here if they have the choice. At least the people out here know how to handle it. She doesn’t, and I don’t want her to turn into the type of person who does.

When I stitched her up and teased her about being weak and sensitive, I think she thought I was insulting her. I try not to think about it, but if I let myself wallow too much, I’ll wonder what kind of person I’d be if I wasn’t so jaded. Maybe I’d draw more, or read more, or write more. Maybe I’d be an easier person to love. I didn’t get to choose how I turned out. It just happened to me.

So if she has the choice, I’m going to do everything I can to help her make the right one. I don’t want her to be like this.

March 29th, 2038

I had a dream about Riley last night. I haven’t had one of those in years, not since I was traveling with Joel. We were back in the mall, and Riley had just turned the lights on as a surprise. I had this feeling then, like I was being given a second chance. That I could set things straight and do what was right. I woke up before I could insist that we leave.

[A drawing takes up half of the next page. It’s a crude depiction of the mall Riley turned in.]

April 4th, 2038

It’s the middle of the night again. I can’t sleep. I’m so disappointed with myself about what I did tonight with Y/N. At the time, it seemed like a really good idea. She likes me back, apparently. I was right about everything that I wrote about earlier, I guess. But it certainly doesn’t feel like I thought it would.

It’s not like there’s no part of me that isn’t thrilled that she feels the same way. That’s why I gave in and slept with her. But even when she told me how she felt, even before I completely lost my self-control, something heavy was already hanging over me. Regret, maybe. Or guilt. I don’t know. What I do know is that this can’t last. I can’t make this good for her like I want to. She needs to go back, and she needs to be able to feel like she can make that choice without feeling like she’s leaving anything good behind.

I’m not a spiritual person. but even so, I can’t help but feel like that dream of Riley was a sign. This is my second chance. I’m not going to fuck it up this time. I’ve already been an accomplice of so much suffering. Y/N is going home, and I’ll never see her again when she does. That’s that.

It took all I had left in me in the end to kick her out. She looked so hurt, and the fact that she tried to hide it made it even worse. I wish I could tell her why this can’t work, but I don’t think she’d understand.

[A drawing of Y/N kissing Ellie’s palm follows, her hair slightly mussed]

April 6th, 2038

I need to stop making rash decisions like knocking on her door late at night and asking her to come over. I really don’t know what’s gotten into me, because whenever I see her now, I can’t help but freeze up. Like last night, when she kissed me and touched my face and told me she thought I was a good person. I panicked and told her—well, nevermind. I don’t really want to repeat it here. It was mean, but I didn’t know what else I could do to get her to stop.

She was already tearing up by the time she left. I had to sit down and breathe deeply for a few minutes before I was sure I wasn’t going to be sick. I don’t really think I want to write more about this right now. It just makes me sad how unfair this all is. Of course the one time after Cat that I meet someone I really like it just has to be in one of the cruelest scenarios possible. I just have no idea what to do.

[Five pages of drawings follow of Y/N in bed, her head tilted back against the pillow, her eye’s half lidded, and her mouth slightly agape. Ellie redraws this multiple times, x-ing out parts that don’t seem quite right]

April 10th, 2038

I know this is none of my business, but she’s been spending a lot of time with Dina lately. She nearly got herself killed getting a gift for me with Dina yesterday, which feels like some sort of especially cruel joke. The universe isn’t being very fucking subtle right now.

If what I’m worried about is right, at least Dina has the option to come with her up North. She’d test negative.

April 20th, 2038

I would really like it if I could have one short break from the misery that’s my life right now. I turned 20 yesterday, accidentally introduced Y/N to my ex, proceeded to get much drunker than I meant to, completely fell off my rocker and asked Y/N to stay the night, and then discovered this morning that not only has Terranova found Y/N but that my strategy of keeping Y/N at arm’s length completely failed.

She wants me to come with her, and she’s threatening to stay here otherwise. I did the only thing that I could think to do and snapped at her.

I’m so tired of this. I hate having to act like I don’t care. This is the third time now that I’ve had to say something nasty to her to keep her from getting too close. I just want to get in bed and sleep until she leaves and I can pretend like nothing ever happened and that everything is normal.

[One page of drawings of Y/N passed out in her bed and Y/N grinning while holding a lopsided cake]

April 28th, 2038

I know I haven’t been writing much again. Sorry about that. I just can’t bear to think about my life right now. I know I should be relieved—this is what I wanted. I wanted her to go where it’s best for her.

But there’s still that selfish part of me that keeps me up at night. Y/N is going to leave this place never knowing how I feel about her. Logically, that should be what I want. This way I won’t need to say a real goodbye. I know I won’t need to now, since she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. It’s really fucking immature of me to be so hurt by what she must think of me now, but I can’t stop.

I wonder how long it will take for me to stop feeling sad about this. I’ve never had to process anything like this where there’s nothing I can do. With Riley and Sam, I at least got to heal from the knowledge that I was going to help make the vaccine to save the world. But losing Y/N just because of where we come from is totally meaningless. I can go forward knowing that I made it easy for her to make the right decision, but that only goes so far.

I don’t know how I’m going to handle this. I’m going to practically live with Dina so I don’t need to be alone for the first few weeks.

I wish May 8th would just come already so she can go away and I can get on with my life.

May 1st, 2038

Things have changed some. Joel cornered me in the kitchen last night and told me that I needed to grow up and just appreciate the rest of the time I had left with Y/N. I was going to agree and try to walk past him, but he stopped me and told me that he needed me to escort Y/N. I guess he’s right. She can’t go alone, and Joel and Tommy are getting a little too old for week-long expeditions into the wilderness.

He also told me that I need to apologize to her and make things right, saying shit like I’d regret it forever if things ended between us like this. I don’t want to admit it, but I think he’s right. When I told him that she’d originally threatened to stay if I didn’t go with her, he blinked, hard. Then he told me that he had an idea.

I’m faking it. I’m telling her that I’m going, even though I’m going to leave her when she gets picked up. I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off. When I told her in the meadow last night, she was so happy. I know it’s really sappy and cliche to say this, but I felt my heart shatter, bit by bit. I’m not a very good liar, not to people who are important to me. But I suppose I’ve been lying to her all this time, kicking her out of my room and telling her that I didn’t want anything more with her.

I can do this, I think. I have to do this, or else she might threaten to stay, and I don’t think I have it in me to be cruel again. Not to her. I guess I’ll just trick myself into feeling like I’m actually coming with her, like we have a chance of actually being together. I don’t know. We’ll see.

[One drawing of Y/N laying down in the meadow that takes up half a page]

May 3rd, 2038

It’s easier than I expected. Y/N sleeps over in my room at night, and if I don’t think too hard about it, I can pretend like things will always be like this.

I’m getting to be such a sap, though. I almost broke down in the bathroom today while I was getting ready. It was over the stupidest thing—a toothpaste bottle. Y/N always folds it so neatly, making a perfect, tight spiral of plastic near the end. It used to really bother me when I first had to share with her (because who does that—it’s weird and doesn’t do anything since she doesn’t manage to squeeze out the extra in the bottom anyways), but the thought of throwing it out when it finally emptied and having to find another one that’ll never be folded again hit me and suddenly I was counting my inhales and exhales. I don’t really give a shit about toothpaste. It’s just that it was the moment that I realized that she’s really going to be gone soon, you know? Slowly but surely, the evidence of her stay here will be wiped away and replaced. Someday I’ll forget all the little details about her.

She’s knocking on my door. I need to stop being so depressed and go see her before she picks up that something’s wrong.

[One small doodle of Y/N smiling and rolling her eyes while brushing her teeth]

May 6th, 2038

Dina’s coming now. Y/N told me this morning after she went to say goodbye. I feel really shitty about this. I guess I should tell her that I’m not going now, because this way Y/N needs to go home to get Dina the help she needs, but I just can’t bring myself to. I’ll have to escort both of them to the pickup spot anyway since Dina’s weaker now that she’s pregnant, and the thought of having to spend a full week with Y/N after she knew I lied to her makes my skin crawl. I can’t tell who I’m trying to protect by doing this—me or her. Maybe both.

I’m losing my two favorite people here, and they don’t even know it yet. But this is the best option. This is my chance to finally do some good in the world.

May 7th, 2038

I’m about to go stargazing with Y/N for the last time. I don’t think I’ll be writing in here again until I get back. I don’t want to risk losing this while I’m out in case something crazy happens. Which it probably will, but I canonically happen to be really good at living when shit hits the fan. Also—I don’t imagine Y/N to be a particularly nosy person, but if she ever came across this and thought it was a book or something, it would make things really awkward. So, you’re staying tucked carefully under my bed until I come back later this month.

I don’t know how to handle this sort of goodbye. I don’t really know how to handle any sort of goodbye, I guess, but at least I’ve been through them before. I may not do it well, but I know how to live when people I love die. But this isn’t like that. No one is dying (hopefully), and more importantly, I know it’s a goodbye this time. I see it coming on the horizon and I can’t even tell anyone about it. How does anyone deal with that? How does anyone cope?

Y/N’s knocking on my door now. I need to go before I start thinking even more and do something stupid like start crying or whatever.

I’ll be back in about two weeks.

June 1st, 2038

Sorry for not writing. It’s been pretty shitty, actually. It took me 5 extra days to get home because some scavengers gave me trouble. I hardly slept for most of them. I ran out of ammo about 4 days out and had to use my knife for everything I ran into until I was able to raid the cabinets of this abandoned cabin. Nearly got taken out by a clicker, too. It was not fun. It was especially not fun because I was not feeling super great to begin with, for obvious reasons.

Things haven’t gotten any better since getting back to Jackson. Y/N didn’t take her stupid Exoplanetary Systems textbook and now I’m struggling with whether or not I should throw it out. The rational side of me says to keep it because it was published after the outbreak and probably contains updated information that isn’t anywhere else. The rest of me doesn’t even want to look at the stars anymore because it reminds me of her.

It’s really hard not to blame her for ruining everything. I can’t go out and ride my own horse without thinking about the first time we went on patrol together and she dropped my gun and nearly killed one of us. And I can’t even relax in my own home, because I’ve spent almost every night with her since March in my bed. Sometimes when I hear a creak in the middle of the night I assume it’s her walking down to the bathroom or getting water until it hits me again that she’s never coming back.

I know I’m being melodramatic. There are many other worse problems I could be having right now. But I don’t even have my best friend anymore. I wonder if Dina and Y/N are angry with me for lying. I wonder if they’re settling in okay. I hope that Y/N manages to fix whatever her research was and that Dina gets better.

[Twenty pages of drawings of Y/N and Dina together. Some are snippets of them on their expedition to the pickup site. Others are pictures of Y/N and Dina walking around with smiles on their faces in what looks to be a city]

June 21st, 2038

It’s been over a month since I’ve last seen her. I had a breakdown while getting ready for bed when I realized that I didn’t remember what her voice sounded like anymore.

[Ten pages of half-finished drawings, each with its face scribbled over]

June 28th, 2038

I don’t think I really remember what she looks like—not exactly. I’ve been trying to draw her because I’m still in the habit of making decisions that are definitely not good for my mental state. I just can’t do it, and it isn’t for the lack of trying. Every time I get to her eyes I keep drawing something that looks wrong, but I can never tell why. I compare it to my earlier drawings of her from when we first met and it feels like meeting her for the first time again.

Joel says it’ll pass and that he’s proud of me for doing the right thing. Jessie and I have been hanging out more. Even if he won’t admit it, I can tell he’s miserable without Dina. But he understands why she had to go—just like how I feel about Y/N. And Dina too, of course. Jackson feels like a ghost town without her.

July 17th, 2038

I haven’t been writing or drawing in here for a while, I know. I was going to just go ahead and start a new journal—you know the one that Maria gave me for Christmas with the dark blue cover—but it didn’t feel right to just stop without explaining. Otherwise I’ll feel like an asshole for wasting so much paper.

I don’t want to move on from what happened with Y/N and Dina. I really don’t, but I don't think I have a choice. If I keep going on like this, I’ll never be able to live normally again. I’m just sick and tired of being sad all of the time. So I’m not going to write here anymore. I don’t think it’s realistic for me to forget all about it, because I don’t want to forget her. Not really. But I guess if I want to get better, I’ll need something different. So, here’s that. The beginning of my fresh start. “Fresh start” and you call me overdramatic!! haha. Y/N was here!

(You left this on your nightstand. I promise I didn’t read too much. I opened it because I thought it was your sketchbook. I’m going to put this back since I hear you walking down the hall now.)

ok as an aside my blog is broken so my stuff isn’t notifying people when i tag/showing up on dashes or in tags. please reblog if you’re comfortable so people can actually find this! thank you!

final a/n: i totally get it if this wasn’t quite your cup of tea this time—i just really wanted to iron out ellie’s pov before their reunion in the end. which is happening and not a spoiler because i have always promised a hea! this was a change in pace for the story and i promise you that the next chapter will be more normal/align more with my normal writing style. i have also changed my mind (probably) and have decided to stick with writing an epilogue! so two more chapters are coming before this is totally over. thank you so much for waiting and being so patient! i love you all dearly ok bye bye now

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Murder Drones headcanon: Replaceable

Warning: This mini-essay is very dark and discusses slavery, murder and the planned obsolescence of sentient beings. Please take care.

One headcanon for MD that I have is that our DD team treated/treats murder so casually, because they grew up knowing all drones were on a ticking timer.

To explain this, I have to explain something about modern tech; Most if not all high-tech machines have a lifespan of 5-10 years at best. Mind, I have had machines getting older than 10 years, but those were a washing machine and a TV. My computers have typically had a 5-6 year lifetime, even though I build them myself to last.

This is because at some point the technology you need to get by just isn't there anymore in your old machine. The more complicated the machine the harder it is for it to get past 5 years.

Now add on top that most high-tech branded technology is made obsolete at 2+ year mark. Updates stop, changing parts gets more expensive than buying a new machine and so on.

To complete this shit-sundae, some companies have intentionally made repairing your own machine nearly impossible. Apple is the most famous for this, even to well-known influencers (Linus Tech Tips tried to get a Macbook repaired but Apple had no system for it, only for replacing.) I went through all of this to showcase just how replaceable modern technology is seen. Now, imagine if these phones and laptops and all that had sentience? What if they were basically people stuck in bodies that were going obsolete the moment they hit the shelves? Yeah, it would be frightening, wouldn't it? To be a thinking being while also the newest iPhone, a new version better than you coming the very next year.

This was the reality of domestic worker drones in my opinion. The hottest new thing for a few years and then a newer and better model comes out and then it is bye bye old WD. Made worse by the very likely scenario that JCJ Jenson (in spaaaace) would make repairing older drones basically impossible for laymen. If you knew the tech, you could try, but your basic household would not have access to such knowledge.

I feel the lifetime of a domestic worker drone (not a miner, I'll get to them later) would have been 10 years at most. Some with tech-savvy owners could easily live much longer, of course. But your basic household servant would be good for maybe 5 years and then slowly their parts would fail. To a sentient being with human-level reasoning, this would result in a deep sense of fatalism and resignation. It is no wonder that J,V,N and Cyn nearly deify Tessa for giving them a new lease on life. As for Tessa, if we are to assume the Elliots are big wigs in JCJenson, then she'd have access to the company repair kits and the company dumping site. But wait, Uzi is canonically 19 and Khan is hinted to be much older, how would this factor into my headcanon? Well, I intentionally used the word domestic worker drone for the DD squad+Cyn.

Khan and other Copper 9 workers would have been classified as mining tools and as such they would have been much more rugged. After all, mining is hard work and on an exoplanet, it would have been very necessary for the workers to be repaired on-site or by other drones. Once humans went kaput, the knowledge of self-repair and maintenance would have ensured the C9 WDs would have survived just fine without humans. But the DD trio wouldn't understand that. Alongside the more animalistic minds they had, they would have seen the WDs on C9 the same way they were seen; Short-lived machines that were doomed to break down sooner than later with no hope of being repaired. TlDr; The lives of domestic worker drones would have been very short and that would have translated to how JVN squad saw the C9 WDs.

[theofficialastronomy101]

BREAKING NEWS: A Repeating Radio Signal Is Coming From Another Earth-Like Planet, Scientists Say.

The 1st Live Alien Signal Received From Another Galaxy?Scientists have spotted a repeating radio signal from a nearby star system that hints at the presence of a magnetic field around one of its Earth-sized planets, reports a new study. 

Earth’s magnetic field has played a critical role in the survival of life by shielding the surface from the Sun’s harmful radiation and helping to maintain a stable atmosphere that nourishes our biosphere. For this reason, scientists think that extraterrestrial life, if it exists, might also depend on the presence of robust magnetic fields around exoplanets, which are worlds that orbit other stars.

Scientists have previously observed the magnetic fields of giant Jupiter-scale exoplanets interacting with their host stars, as part of a process called magnetic star-planet interactions (SPIs). However, Earth-sized exoplanets give off much weaker magnetic signals compared to gas giants, making it difficult to detect magnetism around rocky worlds. Sebastian Pineda, a research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Jacqueline Villadsen, an assistant professor at Bucknell University, have spent years searching for these elusive signs of magnetic fields around small planets. Now, the pair of astronomers present unprecedented evidence of repeated radio bursts that may be linked to a magnetic field around the Earth-sized exoplanet YZ Ceti b, which is located just 12 light years from our solar system. 

YZ Ceti b completes an orbit in just two days, which means it is way too close to its star to host life, but this ultrashort year also “makes it a uniquely promising case study for magnetic SPIs,” according to a study published on Monday in Nature Astronomy. It was super exciting to see the radio data sets show this kind of signature,” Pineda said in an email to Motherboard. “We saw the initial burst detection, and immediately went about coordinating observations for additional monitoring, based on the published planet period, since we were looking for something that happens at the same time in the planet’s orbit. Once we had the additional data, Jackie was looking at it, and was telling me: ‘hey, there are similar radio signals here, right when we were looking and hoping to see them,’” he continued. “It was a bit of feverish excitement: ‘wow, we may really have it here!!’ I’m pretty sure I started pacing around, imagining our next steps: alright, we’ve got work to do to really demonstrate this result, with all the implications etc.”

In their hunt for these signals, Pineda and Villadsen focused their attention on short-period small planets, because they might have a more visible magnetic signature as a result of their proximity to their stars. As these worlds hurtle through their orbits, any magnetic field they might possess could interact with the star’s own magnetic field, creating a pattern of radio bursts from the star that can be potentially seen here on Earth. 

The researchers think they might have seen these repeat bursts from the YZ Ceti system, but they caution that it’s not a slam-dunk case. It’s possible that the signals are a normal part of the radio stellar activity of stars like YZ Ceti, which is a slowly rotating red dwarf, which would mean that its emission may have nothing to do with any planets in the system. “There are still too many unknowns about the system, but I’d say we are demonstrating the potential of radio data and magnetic star-planet interactions to lead toward measurements of Earth-sized exoplanet magnetic field strengths—I don’t think we’re really there yet,” Pineda said. “So, we want to continue to monitor the star with the radio observatories, and look for additional recurrence of the radio signals that occur periodically with the same position of the planet in its orbit,” he added. “It can be time consuming and a bit challenging to set up, but that’ll confirm that the radio detections are indeed dependent on the planet, and not something that the star is doing on its own.” If this does turn out to be the first detection of magnetic SPI around an Earth-sized exoplanet, it could help scientists hunt for habitable worlds in other stars. The caveat is that looking for magnetic signatures around rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their stars, where liquid water and life are considered more likely to exist, would be tricky because these planets have much larger orbits. This distance from stars may be an advantage for any hidden aliens out there, but it also makes the magnetic interactions between stars and planets far weaker, to the point that some may not be detectable at all.

However, the new study offers a potential example of the types of signals you might expect to see from a system that contains a magnetically shielded planet that is similar in size to Earth. With time and practice, scientists might be able to zero-in on interesting targets, Pineda said, as part of a wider approach to assessing the odds that life might exist on other worlds. First off, fully confirming magnetic field strengths on exoplanets is a requisite for any broader understanding of habitability,” he explained. “It’s not just a temperature question, but the whole star-planet system needs to be thought about holistically, with magnetism as an important ingredient. “So, if we know these exoplanets have magnetic fields from the SPI work, we can start to think about questions like what are the properties of those planets, and thus how do the habitable zone planets compare, and what are the chances that they too have similar magnetic fields, even if we can’t measure them yet for the [habitable zone] planets specifically,” Pineda concluded. “If you can infer then that a planet likely has its own field, that’s when you can start thinking about whether individual planets are truly hospitable.”

[n1ghtwr1ter]

This is how it ends:

Gideon is going to take Alecto’s place as the soul of the Earth, because Alecto is long-dead and you can’t go home again. This will not involve her being Gideon anymore, mind you - the soul of a planet isn’t anything like a human being, because it is so large and contains so many multitudes. It contains concepts, like love and hate and forgiveness and mercy. It contains concepts like the freedom of the winds to blow, the mercy of the rains to soak the earth, the forgiveness of spring after a long and devastating winter. All of these, we have seen, Gideon also contains - and so the Earth will be Gideon, after a fashion. Hell, I suspect that the new citizens of Earth might even *name* it Gideon.

Gideon will be big and bright, full of promise and purpose. She will love the people who walk upon her ground, who ply her waters, who till her soil and coax new life from bare dirt. She will be a wonderful place to live - a new paradise, even, if you’re from the dead and dying Houses or the desperately struggling exoplanets. And in all the ways that matter, she will be Gideon.

And in all the ways that don’t matter, she won’t be Gideon anymore. They’re little ways, ways that will only matter to a very few, who will likely tell themselves that this is a good ending, this is the best thing for her, she always wanted freedom and what’s freer than being an entire planet? You can’t lock up a planet anywhere. They will tell themselves not to stand at her grave and weep. She isn’t there; she’s everywhere.

But you can’t kiss a planet. You can’t hold a planet. You can feel the whisper of the breeze through your hair, but it will never be her breath ghosting across your skin. You can feel the touch of the water all around you as you wade into the sea, but it will never be her arms embracing you. You tell yourself that you have no right to her, never did - especially not after how you treated her, especially not after what she did for you and, eventually, did for everyone - but you can’t help it: you miss her. It’s Gideon, and she belongs to everyone - but you miss your Gideon. And she is gone. You will never see her again.

It’s a very lovely and poetic ending and it’ll be a fitting end for the series but I hate it with every fiber of my being because god fucking dammit, those two kids deserved to be able to have their own lives, to learn how to be human beings together, to learn haltingly and with plenty of mess how to love each other in ways that did not rend or scourge. But I truly don’t think they will.

I know, I know, I’m a pessimist, what’s the evidence, etc.

- all of the parallels being established between Gideon and Alecto:

“The resting place of Harrowhark’s one true love,” how it’s Gideon’s sword now lying there when Harrow enters the tomb

The golden eyes

The healing abilities

The forgiveness

The love

The urge to be Harrow’s cavalier, and John’s

The anger

But also, I’m pretty sure Tamsyn said somewhere that all of the series is just cover for one simple, stupid joke. And what’s simpler and stupider than

I’m sure there’s a lot more evidence that I can’t remember just now - I’ll add it onto this post later like my little conspiracy board. I just can’t be arsed to look it up right now because thinking about it makes me want to die. But I’ve been very reluctantly working on this theory for months now and nothing I’ve seen has convinced me I’m wrong.

[whitehairandtraumatized-bracket]

White Hair and Trauma Brawl Round 1; Poll 24

remember, voting is based on swag, trauma, and favoritism!!

trauma and propaganda under the cut!

Trauma!

Add: His "Mad Paradox" class is considerably More Traumatized than his other classes, but I think he definitely counts in general, too.

Ariane: Background, raised in a totalitarian police state and odd for reasons no one really understood. Didn't matter if they didn't know why the other kids still bullied her for it. She never fit in anywhere and the oppressive government viewed her as a fuckup. After her compulsory military service she was going to be sent to a mining colony to work until she died but found an out in the Penrose program, a exoplanet hunting space exploration program. Sounds pretty cool right, she thought so, and it was pretty cool for a bit. She was alone and at peace among the stars, she befriended the ship's maintenance robotgirl, Elster, and spent a lot of time painting. It was pretty chill until about 10 years pass and they receive word that actually this program was fake, just a propaganda effort, if you didn't find a new planet yet you should probably just kill yourself because it's that or die slowly. Well she and Elster decide not to give up and keep going but as the shielding for the ships reactor gives out she starts contracting radiation sickness. Her body is literally falling apart on her, every moment is a living hell. Well Ariane's condition deteriorates so Elster decides to put her into cryo to keep her alive until they find a suitable planet. Before going under she forces to Elster make a promise, that if things ever become hopeless, if Elster determines there's no chance of finding a planet, Elster will kill Ariane herself so she can finally be at peace. Well unfortunately after Elster puts Ariane into cryo she suddenly succumbs to the radiation damage herself and dies, leaving Ariane trapped in a semi conscious state, were every moment is agony. Forever. [or until the events of the game allow a different Elster to find her and kill her fulfilling her promise]

Propaganda!

Ariane:

1. Her only friends both die during their compulsory military service [speculation, not confirmed]

2. She's so traumatized and isolated from her peers she chooses to be shot into space on a one way trip out of the solar system, alone.

3. During her time in space she contracts radiation sickness making her every waking moment agony as her body falls apart while she's still living in it.

4. When her condition gets too bad to go on she gets put into cryo by the Elster, ship's cyborg maintenance tech whom she fell in love with, under the condition that should the situation ever become unrecoverable Elster will pull her out of cryo and kill her to end her suffering.

5. After putting her under, Elster dies suddenly of radiation damage. Thus failing to fulfill her promise and damning Ariane to an eternity of semiconscious agony in the empty void of space.

6. Her trauma awakens her latent Bioresonance [psychic space magic] and allows her to teleport her ship deep under the surface of a mining colony where she begins killing and corrupting the workforce turning them into cancer zombies and horrible flesh monsters

7. In what can be considered the "happiest" ending, the games protagonist Elster, who is just a random LSTR unit that Ariane has psychically projected the personality of her Elster onto, finally makes her way to Ariane's ship. Once their she wakes Ariane from cryo, and after some brief encouragement, fulfills her promise by choking out Ariane and finally allowing her to die. Yeah, that's the happy ending.

[Add did not receive propaganda. rip.]

[ghelgheli]

17! but also using the opportunity of the ask game to get to know more about the effortless worldbuilding in sff :)

from the end-of-year book ask

17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I think Three Body Problem is the only one meeting this condition this year so I'll have no trouble staying on topic :> but I'm gonna specifically talk about "hard" SF as I conceive of it—I haven't read any analysis so this may just be a jumble of improvised thoughts.

SF, being "speculative" fiction, of course has to take on the problem of speculating and of presenting things that don't (and perhaps cannot) happen. On average this is accomplished thru a healthy combination of scientific grounding and good-natured handwaving: I drop a few sentences about "quantum entanglement" and you go along with my ansible, or you tell me about "positronic circuits" and I agree that you can make a brain with them. This is the compact that makes SF work because you fundamentally cannot expect speculation without, well, ceding ground on reality.

But at least a subset of SF readers are of the kind to really want to grok how it is that this or that scientific feature of the world works or may come about. Every contraption and novel technology is like a puzzle to be riddled out. This is the place where speculation becomes sincere mechanical prediction, and it's why I love hard SF.

This subset of readers can be matched to a subgenre of writers who commit fully to filling in as many blanks in their technological, biological, etc. speculation as possible. The rows of astronomical data can't be left vague—tell me what frequency of light we're dealing with here—xenobiology isn't taken for granted—what is the neurology of your aliens??—and so on. The dots are connected, the rest of the owl is drawn for real, the image is made crisp. Like fireworks for the reader's brain.

When this kind of worldbuilding is executed well imo it looks effortless. Looks, not is, because behind every explanation of near-c travel is hours of research into at least special relativity and time dilation, along with calculations by-hand. Behind every account of an exoplanet's atmosphere is probably a few papers perused on the subject and several articles on scientific american. Peter Watts, in the note at the end of Blindsight, includes a fucking bibliography of a hundred or so references as well as thank-yous to many an academic he split handles of liquor with. And this is only the visible fragment of what has to be a library of knowledge accumulated both passively and actively to make a speculated world feel as concretely plausible as possible.

None of this is necessary for good SF. The aforementioned compact means any author can opt out of this commitment at any time. But it's what it takes to make tightly-written hard SF, where your conceptual hands are kept diligently at your side, waving an idea through maybe once every five chapters when you have no other choice.

So anyway, Three Body Problem is a tour de force in doing this and doing it cleanly. It uses a storytelling device a lot of hard SF employs to make it work: rather than stuffing dense exposition into narration (at which point, just read the source papers) it deploys a cast of characters who more than anything else, really know their shit. We get exposition trickle-fed through experts who are trying, along with us, to make sense of their novel environments and unfamiliar technologies using their knowledge of the present limits of human understanding. This is what Watts does in Blindsight too, by the way: a claustrophobic ship crewed by technical specialists makes first contact, so everyone has something encyclopedic to say about everything and it's only natural.

What astounded me about Cixin Liu's writing is that he made it work just when I least thought he would be able to. I was sure I was being shown things completely inexplicable and necessarily supernatural until he went and explained them in plain terms; better yet, he explained them in ways that made so much sense in retrospect that I was kicking myself for not seeing the answer. This has exactly the flavour of a good puzzle.

The trade-off hard SF makes is that you are often limited in the metaphorical/thematic work you can do through your speculation. I think the contrast between "calendrical science" in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series and Asimov's "psychohistory" illustrates this well.

Yoon Ha Lee has mathematical training, and calendrical science is a speculative field consisting of theorems, conjectures, proofs, etc. in the language of mathematics that stand in for cultural hegemony and power projection. This makes for a great operationalization of soft power: space is filled and distorted by the quantifiable effects of whatever regime is dominant there (the "calendar" here being synecdoche for culture writ large). But obviously he can't fill in the blanks of how a calendar causes spacetime distortions that specifically make one side's weapons more effective, or provide certain formations with shielding effects. This is, I guess, semi-hard (lol) SF—you can see how it's supposed to work, but it's clear that it just won't. What you get in return is pretty politically interesting storytelling.

Psychohistory is the converse: a deterministic-enough lovechild of economics and sociology explained in the Foundation series as using all the familiar methods of linear algebra and differential equations together with unfamiliar innovations of just how to quantify human behaviour in order to make reliable predictions. There are entire chapters dedicated to explaining the conceptual nuance that went into developing psychohistory ("the hand on thigh principle" from prelude to foundation is just about how the theory resolves divergence by reducing insignificant terms to zero) and an entire book to exploring one of its limitations. It's fascinating to read. But you also get little narrative depth out of it, because hard SF, even when done well, is not guaranteed to make a story thematically interesting or politically compelling. This is the Three Body Problem problem too: its political commitments are threadbare and unserious because that's just not what it's about. I couldn't recommend it on those terms, but that's not what I like so much about it. I will say the conceptualization goes a little off the rails in the final chapters, but I think most SF authors were in some kind of string theory inspired fugue state at the time.

What I would love to see (and I'm sure exists) is hard SF that also has interesting politics. Unfortunately that's an intersection of two already-narrow intersections.

ty for ask✨🐐