#but general credit for the grant (visible only on... the grant)

[fox-stuck]

academia is so fucking stupid and i hate working in it. It's so normal to cut folks off from opportunities or deny them the final portion of work so they don't get actual writing/publishing credits...

anyways looking up trades I guess if anyone has recommendations

[littlestarlightseverywhere]

Sunkissed

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Summary: The inner circle goes on holiday and Azzie is just allllll over his girl <3

Warnings: None

Notes: Thank you so much for all the love on my last story!

Image Credit: Pinterest

“It’s my pleasure,” Helion smirked, addressing the crowd with his words yet focusing his eyes on her. His brown skin reflected golden in the sun, the white cloth of his draped garment seeming to glow with it.

“Ever the generous host you are, Helion,” She played along for fun, the nature– and limits– of their flirty yet friendly relationship barely a secret.

“I wouldn’t dare displease you,” Helion purred. “You shouldn’t want for anything here. Just say the words, darling, and I’ll personally take care of it.”

Azriel was not the jealous type. He knew the effect he had on her, even all this time, and knew even better the effect she still had on him. It was like no time had passed since they’d been newly mated. His skin flushed as he recalled that initial period, how love-drunk he’d been, truly sated for the first time in his life by her burning affection, having his fill of her taste, and touch, and beautiful mind yet never getting enough of it at the same time.

He was a fool when it came to her, his brothers knew it, she knew it, and Azriel himself would not deny it either.

Yet his skin tightened over his bones and his shirt collar constricted the base of his thick neck ever so slightly as he walked behind her, watching Helion’s eyes trace her form, catching at her collarbones. The thought of him, another male, trying to provide for her, meet her every need, giving her anything… Azriel’s blood boiled. That was his place. He watched as his mate laughed dismissively, unobservant of Helion’s intense gaze.

She was beautiful, charming, and witty. No one could deny it. Rhys did not make her his foreign advisor for no reason. Azriel was quite used to people staring and trying to win her affections, but usually it never bothered him. Because at the end of the day, it was his ears that heard her thoughts and secrets, his eyes that watched her take on the world with grace and strength, and it was his bed they shared every night. He felt secure in their bond and she only had eyes for him, despite the entire world trying to court her at any given moment.

Mor and Feyre shared an amused, knowing glance at each other, studying the three as Rhys took over the conversation.

Helion led the group to his private lake just behind his palace. He was gracious in allowing the Inner Circle to have their summer holiday at his place in the Day Court, granting them access to his entire estate and anything on it for as long as they wished. “There are no such things as debts or favors when it comes to friends,” he said when he offered the location to Rhys in the first place.

The lake was downright gorgeous. Velaris was beautiful, but the Sidra could not compare to the Day Court’s waters even on its best day, a truth Azriel had kept to himself and Cassian had no problem voicing to Rhys. Its turquoise waters stretched for miles and miles, the sandy floor, algae, and tiny native fish visible through the watery looking glass. The palace sat behind them, watching protectively over its best-kept secret, and a vast expanse of green mountains rose on either side, their jagged edges softened by the lush native trees and vegetation. They curved around the lake the same way the gold of a crown hugs its jewel, enclosing it tightly in its earthy palm. Flowers trailed from the balcony down to the beach, the mud and sand padding the rock where the water met the earth. Blankets and a large wicker picnic basket lay ready on the beach.

Mor grabbed her and Feyre in her either of hands and dragged them down to the beach in a giddy, childish run. Azriel’s guiding, protective hand that had been poised at the small of her back suddenly felt cold at the fingertips as she was whisked away, her warm skin no longer close enough to soothe his skin like a balm.

He watched as she shed her clothes, throwing them haphazardly across the blankets. She laughed as Mor threw her dress over the picnic basket and picked out the gold pins in her hair, one by one, letting them land where they wanted to.

Azriel’s cheeks burned and his heart hammered with desire as he watched her shimmy out of her clothing, exposing her soft skin to the touch of the sun. The two-piece swimming slip adorned her curves so perfectly, like the garment was in love with its wearer. He’d picked it out for her. Her hair caught the breeze like something out of a novel and he swore he could smell her soap on the breeze even from all the way over where he was. Everytime he looked at her he felt like he was taking her in for the first time all over again. Part of him almost wanted to turn away with how difficult he suddenly found it to breathe, but he reminded himself with giddy disbelief, she’s mine.

“Easy,” Cassian muttered with a smirk, scenting him.

Azriel cleared his throat and Rhys sent him a boyish smile while continuing his conversation with Helion. Nesta and Amren joined the girls getting ready to get into the water while Elain and Varian settled on the blankets, books in each of their laps.

Mor was the first in the water, squealing at the sensation of it, cold at first, but warming to a luxurious temperature almost immediately. She laced her fingers with Feyre’s and they immediately followed Mor, throwing their heads back and laughing.

She savored the feel of the water against her skin, letting herself melt into its grasp and flow, letting it spread her hair behind her back and thread its liquid fingers through her strands. She submerged herself, gliding through the water until she was further out than anyone else. She’d waited for this holiday even before she knew they were going. She adored swimming, but there weren’t too many spots to do so in Velaris. In the water like this, enveloped in the lapping, balmy embrace of its ripples, she was at peace. Squealing, she beckoned the rest of the girls towards her, waving to Azriel from where he stood smiling like an idiot at her on the beach. He was shirtless now, and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him.

Azriel thought the sun complemented her skin, but in her eyes, it downright worshiped his. A glow even brighter than Helion’s overly-dramatic gold crown beamed from every inch of his body, tan and beautiful, broad and strong. She needed him in the water now.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a splash of water to her face. She gasped and laughed at the unexpected sensation, Mor and Feyre giggling like schoolgirls at their mischief.

Cassian, Rhys, and Azriel settled back into the blankets, supporting themselves with elbows that dug divots in the sand.

“Did you ever imagine this life for us?” Cassian asked his brothers as each of them watched their mates in the water.

They rarely got a holiday, and it was even more rare that they allowed themselves to take one if they had the time. Of course, it was Rhys that encouraged this outing in the first place. When Azriel and Amren refused, he required it, as their High Lord, to take the holiday with everyone else.

That wasn’t what convinced Azriel, though. It was his mate's excited chatter about the prospect of the holiday at Helion’s lake with all of their friends, getting to spend time with each other outside of Velaris, visiting another court without the prospect of war hovering over them, being able to swim for the first time in so long. She could hardly wait to feel the water on her skin, to feel the sun on her face, and to spend time with Azriel, experience a new place together. He couldn’t say no as he sat back on their bed and watched her try on her new swimming slips for him, as she packed their bags so early in advance because she could hardly wait.

No, Azriel would not take this vacation because of Rhys’ orders as High Lord of the Night Court, but because it made his soulmate so unbelievably happy. That was all the reason he needed.

Azriel shook his head. “I never would have expected it to be this good. Every day feels like I’m waking up in a dream when she’s next to me.”

His brothers could not even ridicule him for his uncharacteristic sappiness. None of them expected to have mates, let alone be so loved by them, when they were just three boys in a war camp deep in the Illyrian mountains. They did not dare to imagine anything about their future for fear of never seeing it. An rough-and-ready lordling and two bastards. What odds.

Life wasn’t always perfect– there would always be Hybern and their human sympathizers, and probably a hundred other things, to worry about. But with their loves in their lives and talks of starting families, they supposed it was as close to perfect as the Cauldron would allow.

The women spent some time in the water, swimming, splashing, lounging, and talking with their mates watching them as they talked amongst themselves. When they decided to get out to eat, Feyre challenged them all to a race.

“You’re going to regret that.”

Feyre raised her brows at Azriel’s mate, her closest friend out of them all, with mischief in her eyes. “Just because you’ve bested me in two other races doesn’t mean you’ll have this one too.”

“I think it does,” she smirked devilishly.

Feyre broke into a swim for the shore to the dismay of the other women. Amidst shouts of protest at Feyre’s unfair start, everyone else began their dash to the shore.

She sliced through the water like a knife through butter, already ahead of Mor, Nesta, and Amren, the latter of which refused to participate. Surpassing Feyre like a born nymph, she barely had to try as her body fell into the familiar motion of cutting through the soft waves of the lake until she felt the water shallow beneath her belly and she was able to stand.

The water swished at her ankles as her feet touched land once again, running up the beach. At the sight of Azriel waiting a little ways down with her towel in his hand, she all but forgot about the race. She ran toward him, blushing at his gaze. He immediately rolled the towel open and wrapped it around her as she ran into him, securing the towel with strong arms that wrapped around her body and swayed her gently with the momentum of her sprint. His strong presence was enough to halt her and she savored the feeling of his body at her back, his warmth seeping through he towel and caressing her water-frozen skin.

She was breathing deeply now, chest rising and falling under his arm. Azriel reveled in the thrum of her heart under his hold, willing it to ease.

Azriel nuzzled his nose into the crook of her neck and she giggled, ticklish and giddy at his proximity.

“Did you see the race, Az? I wooon,” she sang, reaching an arm out of the towel to hold his face behind her. She leaned back against his chest, craning her neck up to meet his eyes, eyes that were absolutely drunk on watching her high. She was naturally competitive, much like he was during his snowball fights with his brothers. Watching her in her element filled him with pride to an extent she would never fully know.

“I did, I’m so proud of you, honey,” he smiled, sliding one of his arms up until it was slung across her chest, connecting his lips with hers. She tasted like the water, sweet and fresh. Azriel couldn’t help himself as he grabbed her waist. It was like drinking from a fountain with an eternal thirst he couldn’t quench. More, more, more. He didn’t care who was around.

She pulled away, flustered. “You sure don’t mind putting on a show,” she turned around fully in his arms so that she was facing him now. The towel had fallen slightly, now hung loosely around the crooks of her elbows. Her wet hair fell in waves around her face and to him, she looked like a goddess of the water. He was barely religious, the furthest thing from it really, but he’d devote himself to her for nothing in return.

After the food had been brought out, the Inner Circle enjoyed the lunchtime feast of bread, wine, fruit, and meats. After everyone had eaten their fill, namely Cassian who was half passed out on his back, they lounged on the beach. Nesta nestled into Cassian’s broad side with her book, speaking to Elain quietly. Amren and Varian had rattled off somewhere right after they were done eating– insatiable those two were. Mor was laying on her back, facing the sun, catching a tan.

“I’m so happy we did this,” Feyre said softly, addressing the group. “It feels like lately our joy has come from short-lived bursts of happiness or quiet. I can’t tell you all what it means to me that we can have this time without preparing for the worst.”

Rhys rubbed a soothing thumb over her shoulder. Everyone raised their glasses to that.

Azriel leaned back into the sand, one arm folded under his head and the other extended as his mate rested her head on the inside of his bicep. Tired from swimming and full from their meal, she curled into his side, draping a leg across his.

“I’m so happy to be here with you,” She murmured into the side of his chest, peppering kisses there on his warm, tan skin. Azriel brought his arm around her, pulling her closer and resting a hand over her hip, enjoying the heat of her sun-kissed skin beneath it.

He rested his mouth at the top of his forehead as she drifted in and out of sleep. He was like her sleeping drug. Whenever they sat back together to watch a movie, read their books, or on nights in with their friends for some wine and card games, she could hardly stay awake beside him.

His heart swelled. She felt so comfortable around him that her guards collapsed to dust in his presence. She gave herself fully to him, to his care, and he wasn’t sure if he could hold her any tighter at that moment.

Helion came out to check on his guests. “Like a litter of babes, the lot of you,” He chuckled as he took in his friends, exhausted and full, lazing about his private beach. His eyes floated over to her, to her dozing form beside her mate, beautiful and soft. Peaceful. Azriel was aware of his gaze– he always was aware of anyone perceiving his mate. He only opened his book and continued skimming his fingers on her hips above the waistband of her swimsuit. She was blissfully unaware, half awake, half dreaming, lulled into a world of dreams and darkness by the steadiness of Azriel’s breath and light touch.

After the group of friends were well rested, everyone made their way into the water again. Cassian, Rhys, and Azriel raced out to the middle of the lake, Azriel the obvious winner and it wasn’t even close. Cassian batted a wave of water over Az with his wing in tantrum and Rhys only laughed until his stomach throbbed. They played chicken, Nesta on Cassian’s shoulders and she on Azriel’s. Mor wanted to pretend-play mermaids and they dragged the males in on their fun. They begrudgingly played along, yet were silently more than happy to oblige them. Nesta placed a crown of algae on Cassian’s head and he fully committed to his part as King of the Plankton. They floated on their backs, swam in circles, and splashed waves at each other.

Climbing the jagged, rocky cliffs on either side of the lake, they jumped off of their ledges into the water below, in flips and turns, nosedives and backflips. The setting sun cooled the water, a pink and purple sky above their heads melting into an inky blue that lined the horizon.

A perfect day.

Everyone grew tired again. From the beach music began to play. Light and upbeat, but beautiful and soft– distinctly Day Court.

Azriel gently grabbed her hand, leading her behind one of the cliffs they had jumped off of. It was the largest cliff jutting out of the lake and provided complete privacy when they were on the other side of it.

“I’ve been waiting to get you alone all day,” Azriel said, removing a hand from under the surface of the water and moving a lock of her hair behind her shoulder. He took in her tanned skin and sun-blushed shoulders and cheeks.

“All you had to do was ask,” She replied, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

Azriel’s self control snapped like a rubber band and he pushed his body through the water against her, pinning her to the rock behind them. His hand cradled the back of her head against the jagged cuts of the cliff. He needed more, but he paced himself, letting himself savor the feel of her skin under the water. Azriel ran his hand up and down the side of her stomach, his fingertips trailing the skin as he moved. Her skin pebbled in the wake of his touch, sending a shiver down her spine. Even in his frenzy he took his time. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer as he slanted his lips over hers, water sloshing between their bodies in whatever space was left.

She sighed into his mouth and it drove him crazy. Pressing her chest to his, she needed to be as close as could, within his very being if it was possible.

“If I could just crawl into your skin and live inside your heart I would,” She told him one drunken night when she’d gotten so trashed with Nesta and Mor that he needed to fly her back home rather than walk like they always did after a night out. Azriel never forgot those words, and everytime they kissed or hugged he was reminded of them with an intensity that made his chest squeeze.

“Az,” She whispered into his mouth. His hands lowered from her waist to her hips, thumbs skimming the waistband of her bottoms again.

She couldn’t get enough of him. No matter how much time passed, he drove her absolutely mad. They’d only stopped for air once they absolutely could not breathe anymore, and even then, Azriel didn’t pull too far away, needing to feel her breath on him.

“What has gotten into you today?” She laughed lightly, though definitely not complaining. It was not like him to be so risky, to be so passionate when they weren’t completely alone.

“I just love you,” was all he said.

Night fell over the Day Court slowly but surely. The day had gone on forever. By the time it was dark enough, some of Helion’s housekeepers started a bonfire and replenished the beach with more food and wine.

She laid down on the blankets again with Azriel beside her, propped up on his elbow and leaning on his side so he was looking directly down at her. Their legs were intertwined and they laughed and spoke softly, a bit away from the rest of the group.

Azriel’s free hand rested on the plane of her soft belly, listening more than he spoke. Of course he was a man of few words, but around her, he enjoyed letting her speak. It was one of his favorite things, learning more and more about the way her brilliant mind worked with the things she said.

With her thoughts, ideas, and opinions, he thought she was incredibly intelligent– the smartest person he knew. He learned so much from her eloquent tongue, adoration filling him from head to toe when she went on her tangents.

The first time she even went on one of her rants in front of him, even before the bond had snapped into place, she was flustered and apologized to Azriel. At the time, she didn’t know Azriel liked her back and dread filled her veins at the idea that she possibly scared him away for good. But he simply shook his head and encouraged her, asking questions and helping her carry the conversation when he felt it start to falter with her hesitation.

They rejoined their friends at some point– he couldn’t remember when, or how long they’d been lost in each other. When she said she wanted to go sit with everyone else for a bit, he agreed. He’d always follow her wherever she led, no questions asked. Back up the beach, up to their room, to the ends of the earth, even.

[lotus-tower]

somehow when writing all this I forgot about the prosthetic phallus. gintoki the true protagonist whose sword is made all the more sword-like because its non-literality conveys more efficiently that what it embodies is the swordconcept—prosthetic also because it’s being forged before our eyes (though without us noticing at first). gintama says “if you don’t have your own, store-bought is fine” about the great institution of the Cool Signature Shounen Sword, which is funny, but mainly gintama posits that in the end you have to craft your own with everyone’s help anyway.

it’s then really interesting for gintoki’s evil clone to have, quite literally, a prosthetic dick. and kintoki knows that the dick is the key, that the dick is fundamental to gintama’s language of worth and its basic fabric—and he clearly understands that non-literality, that prostheticness is okay. in fact, maybe from his perspective, being designed to be what he is, the cold “facts” of gintoki as a character are quite obvious to him—blueprint data he was given as part of his construction. he at no point seems to have any real investment in the idea of being a human vs being a robot. he’s here to usurp gintoki as an animanga character, as a protagonist, so it really doesn’t matter. whether he’s artificial doesn’t really matter—according to his instructions manual gintoki is also artificial. and so someone as arrogant and self-absorbed yet relationally aware as kintoki feels neither inferior nor superior for being a literal robot.

but he doesn’t understand it, not really. he doesn’t understand the whys of the prosthetic phallus or the gintama swordconcept in general. this is, of course, because he isn’t gintoki but was instead designed to be Golden Boy Alpha Male gintoki, and gintama is fundamentally a story based in loserspace. by which I mean not an “objective” space where all losers go (kintoki is obviously a loser too), but a space focused on, preoccupied with, and making productive, loserhood. every part of kintoki’s body was designed in a way that makes him fundamentally incompatible with this, so of course he doesn’t understand.

tama, like lake toya, is a character whose artificial nature only serves to make her thematic package starker and easier to receive. gintama is generally blunt in its messages. just like lake toya is more sword-like by visibly carrying the naked idea of the sword, tama is made more human by being a robot that gained sentience through the Magic Humanity-Granting Seed. gengai’s introductory episode also very effectively used a hollow robot holding a very tender and sincere message inside it for sentimental effect. this is also a reminder that the first time we meet gengai, he’s constructed artificial facsimiles of his son—not meant to replace him, though, but rather for him to project his emotions on, and to embody a certain kind of will.

so by the time of kintoki’s introduction, we know that robots can be sentient, and this doesn’t really require any real storytelling or justification. and we know that gengai isn’t the type of character to actually think a robot can replace a person, as that person—rather, he built kintoki because he agreed with shinpachi and kagura that gintoki was fucking annoying, and he built kintoki to replace gintoki instrumentally. and, to his credit, kintoki does what he’s designed to do. and he doesn’t want to replace gintoki as a person—he does understand his assignment, he understands the blueprint data, he understands the instructions manual. if he wanted to replace gintoki as gintoki, he would have killed him from the getgo. he wants to replace gintoki as the main character, instrumentally, and for this purpose making gintoki part of his harem serves to convey how effective he’s been at accomplishing his goal.

he reboots the world as a vapid moe harem because that’s the kind of series that is most straightforwardly built around how important, unique, and special the main character is. he has no use for loserspace—he reads the abridged gintama script and sees that the ensemble cast must trust him, rely on him, and have their hearts moved by him—and he’s like, well, okay, but why is he a loser then? it would be more efficient like this.

which is to say, kintoki understands that he must be the recipient of all these relationships and emotions, but he fundamentally does not understand Hole. many, many people project all sorts of things onto gintoki. gengai projected his grief over his son onto his (very much non-sentient, yet all the more endearing as a carrier for it) robot. no one can project onto kintoki. kintoki understands that he’s empty inside—he’s a robot, after all, and he’s like two weeks old, and he sees the script, he sees that gintoki is too, it all checks out—he sees that gintama is lame, that it’s stupid, that it’s gross, that time doesn’t pass meaningfully, that time can keep cycling—so why not turn it into an incel fantasy harem? What is the difference between his dick joke and gintoki’s (gintama’s) dick joke? It’s still a dick?

I think that gintama’s lack of interest in engaging with dichotomies like human and non-human (in the biological or racial sense), organic and inorganic, is a large driving force behind what gives kintoki an interesting, understated texture. again, he is not concerned with being a robot. if anything, he is assured by it, he’s certain in his purpose and his goals and his ability to achieve them. there is no insecurity over being a hunk of metal, there is no insecurity about his humanity or lack thereof (see, he can just take his head off to wash it), there isn’t even loneliness despite him being one android in a huge city of people unlike him, because the protagonist is inherently a lonely role anyway (and gintoki is human and still lonely among humans). he feels no envy or animosity towards flesh.

instead, you could almost argue that he’s secure in artificiality. he thinks that because his dick is prosthetic, he can succeed as the main character. because his dick is prosthetic, it will last when others wither. because his dick is prosthetic, the world will revolve around him. it’s a fascinating concept, to have a main character with a prosthetic phallus for the sake of an embodied spiritsword, and to then create an evil clone of him who fixates on the prosthetic, and literalizes the wrong part of the metaphor. or maybe, literalizes it in the opposite direction? rather than the prosthetic (wooden) sword being a vessel for the thematic spirit of gintama, it’s gintama’s spirit—understood here not incorrectly by kintoki as its places, relationships, and symbols—that are twisted in service of the prosthetic sword, to highlight how shiny and prosthetic it is, how golden and stainless and immortal.

all this because he doesn’t understand hole. classic straight man mistake

[fadesvoid]

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[evidence-of-the-unknown]

[ID: An illustration of a conspiracy theorist's cork board, with three articles pinned up and connected with red string. Notes attached to the articles read, "recent local events" "Won't take my calls- bought out" and "Never trust a lab coat!" end ID] Full transcripts are available under the read more.

We've made it to our first intermission! Special thanks to my dad, a former journalist, for writing the newspaper articles for me. I gave him a basic outline and he did incredible work.

[Article 1 Transcript: Portland radio jock to call Meteor Flats Home Radio personality will be taking your calls on local station KWTF-AM Cecily Palmer Meteor Flats Gazette (Jan. 6, 2019) Big-city radio jock Barney Hopkins will be bringing his unique brand of news, commentary, and community reporting to Meteor Flats with the premiere of his call-in show, Voices on the Air, on our local public radio station, KWTF-AM. “I want to bring my brand of storytelling to a whole new group of people,” Hopkins said. “Kicking around the Pacific Northwest for a few years I’ve seen a lot of stuff — and I mean a lot — and one thing I’ve learned is that every little town has a big story to tell. And it’s usually a pretty weird one.” Meteor Flats’ airwaves are about to get more than a little weirder, if you judge by Hopkins record in famously weird Portland, OR. While a student at Portland State University he reportedly devoted a week-long series on campus radio to investigating claims of a Sasquatch living in the nearby Forest Park. Sources say he was kicked off the student radio station after a late-night interview that he claimed was conducted with a “moth-man,” although no tapes of the alleged incident exist and students who supposedly heard it said it consisted only of Hopkins asking questions interspersed with a “freaky buzzing sound, man.” “You’d have to be blind to think we’re alone on this big, strange, spinning ball of mud,” Hopkins told this reporter. “I’ve been calculating the vectors and time-tables, and I’m telling you — Meteor Flats is special, and I’m here to give a voice to the side of this community that the suit-and-tie types don’t want you to hear from!” Sources at Meteor Falls Community College & Technical School say Hopkins has been in contact with “certain fringe individuals” in the departments of Conceptual Physics and Speculative Biology, but Dean Alister Frumke has refused to comment on any association with the controversial Hopkins. Voices on the Air premieres at 9:30 p.m. on January 12 on KWTF, 999.9 AM. End transcript.]

[Article 2 transcript: Government project expected to draw traffic to the area, but critics are concerned Hiram McDougal Meteor Flats Gazette (April. 12, 2016) A new government project 15 miles outside our neighboring community of Carrion, NM, promises to bring jobs and business to our quiet corner of the state, but some area residents are worried about the secretive facility. Details are scarce, but the facility will reportedly be known as the Carrion National Lab for Unquantizable Physics Research. Signs visible Tuesday at the construction site credited the Grimke- Yao-Kandinsky Foundation as the funding entity, but the signs had been replaced by Wednesday with generic signage proclaiming “Good Things Coming, Just You Wait!” with a mascot character of a happy dancing atom. Some residents have expressed concern that the exact nature of the research to be conducted ta the facility is unknown. The college was unable to shine any light on the subject. “We have no official connection to the project,” proclaimed Meteor Flats Community College Dean Alister Frumke, “and nothing more to add at this time.” However, sources on the faculty reported that several members of the Department of Conceptual Physics had recently been granted multi-year sabbaticals, and the college itself had apparently obtained additional funding from unknown sources. Local contractors have confirmed that they have been hired to build a new covered parking and faculty pool facility for the school administration. Nonetheless, local business leaders were optimistic about the impacts of the new project. “It’s about time we got our own Area 51,” said Madge Plover, owner of the All Right All Night Diner on the south edge of town. “Get some tourists in here looking for flying whatnots. And all those research guys — researchers — whatever, they’ve got to go some place for a good meal — Lord knows Carrion isn’t exactly burstin’ with five-star eateries.” “I reckon I’ll offer them up a dis- count,” she added. “Ten percent off to anyone in a lab coat!” Access to the site has been limited by a new fence installed sometime between midnight Thursday and dawn Friday of last week. End transcript.]

[Article 3 transcript: Carrion residents claim lights, missing animals linked meteor flats experts skeptical about claims of “mystery lights” Hiram McDougal Editor, Meteor Flats Gazette Scientific authorities at Meteor Flats Community College and the prestigious yet mysterious Carrion National Laboratories are skeptical about claims of “mystery lights” and other phenomena in the skies over the tiny neighboring community of Carrion, NM. “I think if anything was going on in our airspace, we would have noticed,” said Dr. Helena Von Weber, formerly of the Meteor Flats college and currently listed as “director of unspecified research” at Carrion National Labs. Carrion residents have pestered sheriff’s deputies with reports of clusters of lights “flying in formation” over the small desert town for the past several weeks. Adding to the confusion, local rancher Daphne Frick has blamed the loss of a prize mare on the unknown aerial lights. “There was a light out back, bright as day, then it just shut off, like a door slamming shut, and the next morning she was just gone,” Frick said. She described the light as “cold and white, like a magnesium flare, but also kind of warm and purple, you know?” Area veterinarian Dr. Dani Ortega said no “unknown aerial phenomena” are needed to explain the disappearance. “Coyotes are a lot more likely than UFOs,” she said. “Dang things are clever. Hungry too.” “It’s just coyotes,” she repeated, convincingly. — Nov. 17, 2022 Unverified photo of “lights” submitted by a Carrion resident. End transcript.]

[lizlives]

This is going to be a very different kind of thing than I usually do, but randomly I've been thinking about how much Dreadnought (from the Nemesis book series) would be a good opponent for a death battle style matchup against Homelander. Unlike Omni-Man or Superman, she's not clearly stronger while still having some things that could potentially be a boon for her such as her lattice ability. Anyways, I randomly decided that I would use their respective r/respect threads on reddit and try and construct evidence based research on who I think would win in a fight. Here is what I've put together! The opening introductions are sampled directly from the original respect threads so credit to them, the rest is written by me. Also, I'm going by the Amazon version of Homelander for this obviously.

“I see a world that is terrified of me. Terrified of someone who would reject manhood. Terrified of a girl who knows who she is and what she’s capable of. They are small, and they are weak, and they will not hurt me ever again. My name is Danielle Tozer. I am a girl. No one is strong enough to take that from me anymore.”

Danielle "Danny" Tozer led a miserable life as a closeted transgender teenage girl in an abusive household. That is, until one day she witnessed the world-renowned hero Dreadnought suffer a fatal attack from a supervillain. With only moments to live and knowing that the world needed his powers, Dreadnought bestowed his powers unto Danielle, granting her not only his superhuman abilities and senses, but also, as a side effect, molding her body into it's ideal form. Reborn, Danielle must learn to accept the weight of the responsibility of not only being the fourth incarnation of Dreadnaught, the attention of being the most publicly visible transgender superhero, but also the challenges involving the presence of the Nemesis and its effect on the world.

"I don't make mistakes. I'm not "just like the rest of you." I'm stronger. I'm smarter. I'm better. I am better. I'm not some weak-kneed fucking crybaby that goes around fucking apologizing all the time. And why the fuck would you want me to be? All my life, people have tried to control me. My whole life. Rich people, powerful people have tried to muzzle me, cancel me, keep me impotent and obedient, like I'm a fucking puppet. You know what? It worked. Because I allowed it to work. And guess what. If they can control me, then you can bet your ass they can control you. They already do. You just don't realize it. I'm done. I am done apologizing. I am done being persecuted for my strength. You people should be thanking Christ that I am who and what I am, because you need me. You need me to save you. You do. I am the only one who possibly can. You're not the real heroes. I'm the real hero. I'm the real hero."

Homelander is the home grown All-American Hero represented by the Vought American Corporation. He is the leader of the Seven and considered the most powerful Supe on Earth. He's the result of a refined compound V fetus that became Vought's first successful superhero. He represents nothing more than deceit, profit and the Vought American Way!

Striking strength: Dreadnought has more control of her strength than Homelander it seems, able to move her strength up and down depending on how careful she wants to be. Homelander more frequently aims to disembowel his enemies with gut punches and does so with general ease, while Danny frequently aims to break bones and does so with relative ease. At near max power she's ripping into heavily armored war machines and flying through box cars strong enough to rip them completely apart. Most of Homelander's striking strength achievements amount to either trading blows with people of near power to him such as Soldier Boy, Black Noir and Butcher on temp-v, or immediately killing and disemboweling regular humans, usually killing them instantly. The only other notable strength achievement he has is listed as "damaging" a concrete wall, a metal fuel container, then a larger metal fuel container, but this doesn't seem like much compared to Danny's ability to rip into reinforced metal, albeit sometimes with some effort, and with much greater control and handling. For this, I give the win to Dreadnought.

Lifting/Throwing: Notably, Danny is able to save a plane with some effort only a few days after getting her powers, though the plane nearly falls apart in the process. The end result was minimal casualties. Homelander is faced with a near identical situation and doesn't even try to save it, likely due to fear of optics and damage to his brand from survivors, but potentially suggesting a lack of genuine ability. Danny has claimed she can bench press a school bus and Homelander seems to be able to escape after being crushed by one, making it kinda a draw in that particular case. Most of the rest of Homelander's achievements amount to being able to throw small objects long distances and being able to lift other people of a similar power level off of him. Meanwhile Danny is able to redirect and lift satellites, jets, train cars, and mechs with a great deal of effort depending. For this, I give the win to Dreadnought.

Blunt Force Durability: Most feats Homelander has shown show him able to withstand a great deal of damage from similar opponents. Danny has had her bones broken by opponents at least as strong as her if not stronger but not completely folded. She takes hits from Red Steel a super on par with her in strength. Sense we've already established she's at least a bit more strong than Homelander at least in terms of her striking ability, I'd say that gives her at least a slight edge in durability? It's a bit hard to say, Homelander rarely ever shows any sort of affect or damage from his fights, but Danny does, and yet she's still able to generally to take most of it to a seemingly greater degree than he does? It really comes down to which you think is better. A person facing smaller threats and barely flinching, or a person facing bigger threats and flinching but not completely folding. It's a bit weird, but my intuition is for Danny due to facing stronger opponents and more regularly.

Piercing Durability: Both seemingly can survive point blank bullets with minimal feeling. Homelander specifically seems to have no feeling at all when faced with bullet damage, while Danny mentions feeling some discomfort, albeit minimal. A person did attempt to slice her neck at but this effort failed, however her ability to withstand piercing is tied to her lattice ability, meaning she can switch it off. This could be a slight advantage to Homelander given he seems to be incapable of receiving any damage regardless. For both of these reasons, I give the edge to Homelander.

Heat Durability: Danny is able to withstand beam sabers with some blistering afterwards, ignores flamethrowers, and endures atmospheric re-entry with some admitted risk. Homelander has taken Butcher's heat blasts and gotten up, was early on able to survive putting his hand in fire, and also was caught in a gas explosion that he escaped unharmed. Dreadnought is able to withstand heat damage with minimal damage while Homelander seems to be unharmed by any heat. Homelander wins this one.

Speed: Lots of specific numbers, but just based on what we've seen them do, either based on the compared speed of known jets or based on directly stated speed, both are capable of breaking the speed of sound, but Danny seems to just have higher speed numbers in general. She's also theoretically able to fly faster in areas with less wind-resistance. Also worth noting, she has dodged multiple laser beams in the past, only getting tagged a few times in the process, meaning dodging Homelander's single heat blasts might not be much of a problem for her. For this, Danny gets the upper hand I think.

Other: The lattice ability possessed by Danny seems to be much more advanced than Homelander's x-ray vision, able to see down to molecules, not to mention able to influence them at that level.

Conclusion: Homelander's main advantage in this fight might be his laser vision. Danny has been shown to be impacted by concentrated heat and some mild impact from piercing. Besides that she takes blunt force trauma decently well given her opponents and seems much stronger and faster than him overall. I would say this would be one of the most difficult fights of her life, but I think she would make it out on top due to the edge her lattice ability gives her with healing and molecular manipulation. If cornered, and this would absolutely be a desperate move, it might be theoretically possible to give him brain damage, as she was able to untangle one consciousness in someone's mind from another. That suggest some sort of ability to manipulate minds, if only to unravel them.

Also worth noting, there's a small precedent for Compound V still leaving someone's interior weak to damage (i.e. Translucent) but at one point Danny drinks enough cesium and strychnine to “light her up like Chernobyl”, and remains unaffected by it, suggesting her body is more densely protected while technically having weaknessess Homelander's less dense defense doesn't.

Ultimately, I would also say just her attitude makes her a strong contender. She regularly deals with opponents who are similarly obsessive and intimidating much like Homelander and are at least as strong as her and she seems generally unphased by them, only responding with more energy alot of the time. Homelander is going to rely on intimidation to an extent, something Danny is familar with. Not to mention, once she realizes he doesn't measure up to her in some key ways, this intimidation will work even less, thus giving her a psychological edge. Her bravado has a decent chance of throwing him off, especially the longer the fight goes on. Homelander being emotionally volatile makes him, well, more volatile, but it also makes him unbalanced and sloppy, something Danny could theoretically take advantage of. She has demonstrated in the past being able to make smart calculative decisions even when under immense pressure. Able to muster up the mental fortitude to heal a golf ball sized hole through her whole torso despite not being able to breath and struggling to retain consciousness. The same could not be said for Homelander, who is extremely easy to undermine emotionally if faced with any sort of genuine threat, even partially. For me, I say the winner is Dreadnought.

Overall, I would just really love to see what kind of verbal sparring these two would have. Righteous anger vs childish rage. Spirited passion vs insecure posturing. It would be so interesting just to see them interact. Also, read the Nemesis books! They're really good!

[greenhikingboots]

Chispas's Prompt! Obviously! 😁

Haha. Obviously! About this post. I'm going to keep the original ficlet prompt in my inbox so I can eventually reply to it. So that others can start to envision where this is heading, I'm also going to copy/paste it here. And then the first section of what I've written so far will be below the cut. Prompt: Two popular fan-fic writers for the same fandom. Sansa writes sweet modern aus with a fair amount of smut, while Jon is a canon stickler who never has any romance. While on Sansa's laptop one day, one of her friends (I don't care who) leaves a comment on one of Jon's fics asking when x & y are going to kiss already, or something like that. You know...hi-jinks ensue.

Sansa Stark sits cross-legged in the living room she shares with her sister, peering at her reflection in an antique, floor full-length mirror she bought a few months earlier. It dominates the corner where she most likes to get ready — creates the perfect spot for her ritualistic preening and primping ahead of a fun night out. Tonight, for instance, Sansa’s celebrating her birthday with the rest of her family. They’ll soon be dining at one of Winterfell’s highest rated restaurants, The Glass Garden. “This place looks pretentious,” Arya says. She’s sprawled across the couch behind Sansa, most of her body visible in the mirror so long as Sansa tilts her head to the right. When she does, she sees Arya scrolling on her phone, presumably looking at the restaurant's menu. Instead of replying, Sansa shakes her head and continues curling her hair. It’s true she picked somewhere fancy for her twenty-fifth birthday, but, hey, a quarter of a century is a big damn deal, isn't it? She refuses to let Arya make her feel guilty about that. “This salmon dish sounds good, though,” Arya mutters after a moment. And then, without warning, she lets her phone drop to her stomach and says, “Hey, Robb invited Jon. Did he tell you?” Sansa’s heart nearly leaps out of her chest. She’s known Jon Snow, her brother’s best friend, for as long as she can remember. But it has only been since moving back to Winterfell after graduate school that she’s really started to notice him. At first, it was Jon’s improved looks and increased confidence that caught Sansa’s attention. Shallow stuff she told herself she’d be able to dismiss after a week or two of practicing. But then, during the practicing, more and more of Jon’s positive traits stood out. There’s a long list of them. He’s a good listener, a hard worker, and a generous tipper. He loves animals and his mother too. He asks clever questions and makes clever observations. He sticks up for outcasts and underdogs. And his smile — It’s cliche to say that when Jon smiles, he lights up the room. But because his smiles are so hard-won, Sansa’s starting to believe some cliches are true. And Seven save her when she's actually the one to cause Jon’s smile. Sansa pictures it now, without really meaning to, then tries not to smile at her own reflection in the mirror. Arya doesn’t know about her crush on Jon, and that’s how she’d like to keep it. “No, Robb didn’t tell me,” she replies. “But that’s fine. Jon’s practically family too.” Arya nods sagely, like maybe she’s crediting herself for setting a good example — she accepted Jon as family long before Sansa ever did — then begins scrolling on her phone once more. It’s five minutes later, when Sansa’s finished her hair and moved onto her makeup, that Arya breaks their silence, this time saying something totally mundane. “So, uh, I just got an email I need to reply to. It’s too much to type on my phone, so can I use your laptop instead?” Arya’s own laptop is in her bedroom, not far away, but since Sansa can see hers tucked in the corner of their couch, next to Arya’s feet, she grants the favor. “Yeah, sure. Go for it,” she says. Sansa doesn’t think any more about it until a certain sequence of noises piques her interest. After the clattering of Arya’s fingertips slows down, the clicking of the touchpad speeds up. There are so many clicks, in fact, that it seems like Arya’s comparing items on different tabs or following links in search of some hidden answer. After a glance in the mirror at her little sister, it’s more than Sansa's interest that is piqued. It's her nervousness. “Why are you grinning?” she asks. “No reason,” Arya chirps. But she’s fighting back a laugh and smashing the laptop closed as fast as she can. Lying, obviously.

[forrestfanfics]

So This is Love || Civil War 13: “Self-Cooking Hot Dogs”

“So This is Love” Masterlist

Previous Chapter  ||   Next Chapter (Coming Soon)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Captain America: Civil War

"To generate, disseminate and preserve knowledge. And work with others to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges..."

The sparkle in my eyes couldn't be more apparent as I recited the statement alongside the mass group of students and professors in the auditorium.

I stood backstage, watching through the small gap in the curtains, as I wasn't allowed to show my face to anyone besides the select staff members.

"Well, you are the others. And quiet as it's kept, the challenges facing you are the greatest man kind had ever known." My dad was standing dead centre of the stage, giving his speech, where each word was provided by a teleprompter only visible to himself.

MIT... My dream.

I would've been in my third year there if I hadn't struggled so hard with Aeronautics.

But I'd be starting my first year in September and with the exhausting amount of preparation my dad put me through the past year, I passed the test with flying colours...

"Plus, most of you are broke."

Laughter came from the crowd.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Rather, you were."

Okay, well. Exhausting preparation and a comically large hypothetical check.

"As of this moment... Every student has been made an equal recipient of the inaugural September Foundation Grant. As in..." Pause for dramatic effect...

"All of your projects have just been approved and funded."

A round of applause from the students.

"Absurd."

I turned to the man who spoke next to me. A tall, skinny man in a black turtleneck with the ugliest, nastiest look on his face directed at the back of my father's head.

"Dude, you're kinda ruining my vibe here-"

"This was mine. All my hard work. And he makes a fool out of me. How can he stand there without a care in the world like he hadn't just taken credit for and mocked my life's work in front of all these people? BARF? Look at him! A pathetic man like him shouldn't take geniuses like me for granted," he spat every word like it was poison.

"You work for my dad?" I asked monotonously.

The scowl on his face disappeared when he looked at me with a bit of shock. "You're Y/N Stark?" He asked so casually. As if he wasn't just insulting my father to my face. "My name is Quentin B-"

"Yeah... I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. Especially those who talk shit about my dad and his work," I waved my hands up in defence, turning to walk away when his hand got hold of my forearm. My head snapped back at him, chills running up my spine as the hairs on my arm stood up from the strange fear I suddenly felt around this man.

"You think you can help me out?" He asked like he wasn't just insulting my father a second ago.

"What?" I scrunched my nose, attempting to pull my arm away, but his grip was iron and my wrist was starting to ache.

"Put in a good word? Convince him my project is worth the care? Convince him to reimagine its purpose in the way I intended it! And for God's sake, give me the credit I deserve!"

"Please, let go of me," I said, trying to sound calm when in reality everything about this screamed danger.

"He'll listen to you. You're his little girl. He'll do it."

"Please stop!" I finally managed to claw his hand off of my arm and shove him back. "Don't ever come near me again," I warned with a shaky voice.

Before he could call out to me, I booked it, rounding the back of the stage to the other end just in time to see my dad being bombarded by the Dean rambling.

I took a moment to hold my hand over my chest, breathing heavily and shakily as I gently rubbed the part of my wrist he held.

Whoever the hell that psycho was, I hoped what he said wasn't true.

From what I was aware, that project was meant to act as some kind of therapy for my dad.

The idea of him stealing some guy's idea and passing it off as his own made me sick to my stomach.

I thought back to when he was first showing it to me. It was his way of introducing me to my late grandparents.

"They would've loved you," I remember him saying.

Sick. Absolutely sick. I refused to believe it. Why should I? He could've been lying to get me to talk about him with Tony Stark. That guy probably didn't even work for him.

My intrusive, distressing thoughts came to an end when I heard the conversation between my dad and the Dean.

Well, the one-sided conversation the bald guy was having with Tony.

"Hear me out, I got this killer idea for a self-cooking hot dog-"

My dad's eyes landed on my approaching figure and got hold of me, only to push me between him and the blabbermouth.

I took the hint and pulled the Dean aside while my dad spoke to another staff member.

"We'll catch up later!" He said to Tony as I dragged him away.

"Hi, my name is Y/N Stark. Tony's daughter. It's very nice to meet you, sir. Say, what's this about a self-cooking hot dog? Maybe I could pitch it to the old man," I gave my best fake smile and the most chipper attitude I could muster as the guy in front of me beamed.

"Oh, why, it's very nice to meet you, Miss Stark. As you're aware, I'm the Dean around here. I actually have a lot of questions. Like, why were you hidden away for 15 years? Do you know what a pedicab is? Because let me tell you, I know a great guy who can hook you up, and maybe I could-"

"Get on with it," I shook my head when I realised my dad was already gone.

"Right. Hot dog. Basically a chemical detonator embedded-"

"Say, why don't you e-mail me, huh? Here's my card," I smiled even wider, plucking out the random business card I grabbed in the lobby and placing it face-down in the palm of his hand.

"Oh, wow! You just gave me your number. There are so many things I want to discuss with you and your dear old dad."

"Yeah, yeah. I gotta go," I jerked back, going to move when I noticed something and stopped myself. "You look very familiar." I pointed out.

"How so?" He asked, tilting his chin up to the side.

"Probably just look like some character... I watch way too much TV," I shrugged and left to go after my dad.

"Wait! Which chara- Miss Stark! Which character?!"

●    ◉    ◎    ◈    ◎    ◉    ●

"Dad!" He was standing in front of an elevator down the hall when I found him. There was a woman who eyed me before saying something to my father and walking away.

"Hey," I greeted as I approached. "Oh my God, who was that guy?" I chuckled. "I know you don't want me throwing around my name like that to just anyone, but I'm really reconsidering that self-cooking Hot dog idea. Sounds like a million dollar investment."

The smile on my face faded when I noticed the dread on my dad's face.

"What happened? Who was the lady?" I asked, glancing down the hall to where the lady disappeared.

He seemed to be deep in his thoughts. But his face only showed horror the longer he looked at me.

"What?" I asked before I was abruptly brought into an embrace.

"I love you," he whispered into the top of my head, planting a kiss in the same spot.

The sudden impetuous affection ceased my working mind, clearing my head of any thoughts as I tried to digest the action.

Whatever he was talking about with that lady made me wonder what exactly was going through his head at that moment.

I decided against trying to come up with an answer for receiving unprompted affection from my dad, and wrapped my arms around him.

"I love you too, Dad."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

[marvelousmop]

Ranking the Songs of Jack the Giant Killer (1962)

Jack the Giant Killer isn't a musical... or at least it shouldn't be. If you haven't heard of it (and I'd assume you haven't), it's one of those fantasy adventure movies with lots of stop-motion puppets like "Jason and the Argonauts" and "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad"... unfortunately, Columbia Pictures saw this similarity and weren't too pleased, threatening to sue the filmmakers.

Their solution to avoid getting sued? Make it a Musical!

No new footage was filmed and boy can you tell. If you saw the musical version without knowing the history, you could probably guess that some of these songs were added in post.

Fortunately, nowadays you can see the non-musical version quite easily (in fact it's up on some of those movie youtube channels and freebie streaming services - it's an alright adventure flick with really good set design and some interesting visuals), but I'm not interested in that. I wanted to see the musical. So I did, and now I just want to talk about the songs, from best to worst.

[Disclaimer: there is no official soundtrack, most of these song titles are just conjecture on my end.]

1) A Spectacle!

This song has been stuck in my head for days. It is a very ill-fitting ice capade-esque song underscoring an action scene where Jack fights a bunch of monsters... it's also a duet with the main villain (Pendragon) and his henchman, which only serves to make it more bizarre. If you had to listen to any song from this soundtrack, listen to this one, there's a reason it's the only song I could find on youtube without uploading the unlisted clip myself.

2) You Can Do It!

Picture this: you're near the end of the movie. You think Jack has won, but Pendragon has a trick up his sleeve... in a flash, he raises his red cape, and his form shifts into that of a mighty dragon! Swiftly, he descends upon Jack's ship, ready to take the fight into his own hands in a climactic final battle... and then this song plays. This goofy motivational song better suited for the middle of a musical than the final song.

It has also been stuck in my head for days.

One other confusing thing is that I'm not sure who's meant to be singing this song. Like, it's the same nasally male singing voice used by both Pendragon's henchman (though it can't be him since he has no reason to cheer Jack on) and the Leprechaun (though this song doesn't use the same rhyme scheme the Leprechaun uses, and all his words are accompanied by a jingle which is absent here, so it can't be him either). Maybe it's God?

3) Title Card Song & Coronation Song

These two songs play near the beginning of the movie, with the former also getting a reprise for the end credits. I'm lumping them both together because I couldn't remember what they sound like if you held a gun to my head, though, for the Coronation song, it's quite amusing that they have to hide most of the crowd because it would be very visible that they aren't singing.

4) Just Ask Me

Quite a boring love song with generic and slightly repetitive lyrics, but what makes this song stand out to me is the editing going on in this scene. You see, the lyrics are barely close to anything the characters are saying, so the editors have to pull out all the stops to make it fit the scene - footage is slowed down, sped up, looped (and it's all very visible thanks to the various background elements) and in the end the woman is still clearly saying something very different to the lyrics. It's honestly like a proto-youtube poop.

5) We Have Failed, Master

This is where we get into the real good stuff. A keen listener may pick up on the fact that, despite their attempt to make "We have failed, master, we have failed!" into a chorus and the slight rhytmic patter of the henchman's lines, this is very clearly just a normal dialogue scene that has been recklessly converted into a song. Granted, you see this stuff in operas all the time, but it's very bizarre to see in something that's trying to sound like a Rankin Bass musical.

6) To Us

If you thought the last one was bad, this one is barely trying to sound like a song. There's no clever editing, no rhythm, no chorus, not even a cheeky attempt to add more lyrics while a character is facing away from the camera, it's just a dialogue scene!

Thank you for sticking with me through my inane opinions, and I hope you enjoyed this tour through probably the most bizarrely constructed musical. Credit to this Twitter post for inadvertently informing me of this... masterpiece.

[koreanbibliophilegirl]

Hi, midterms are over, and I had the weirdest and oddly well-structured dream of all time two nights ago, so NEW AU TIME:

Goldenduo-centric bc the dream was goldenduo-centric

Tomes are magic books that grant you the knowledge and power unique to each Tome

Tomes are very powerful but also very rare, and some Tomes(fire, ice, etc.) may even have drawbacks if you don't also master a different Tome to balance it out

You can still use magic even if you don't master a Tome though, Tomes aren't the only source of learning magic

Tommy is a basic magic user who only dabbles in it cuz it's useful

His family members are all pretty powerful, so Tommy's definitely got the genes to drastically improve, but he doesn't really want to, he's got better stuff to do

Purpled is a bit more professional, he attends a magic college thing(?)

Tubbo's family(specifically his mother's side) has had the Ice Tome for generations now but someone who turned out to be a Fire Tome user befriended then kidnapped Tubbo's mom and took the Ice Tome

It's been a bit more than a decade though and Tubbo's family is resigned to never finding the Ice Tome again

Tomes have a habit of getting around, it's a shame they lost the Ice Tome after generations but that's not the problem

The problem is the (pretty much certain) murder of Tubbo's mom

Ice Tome users are especially weak to fire magic, even the slightest attack from a Fire Tome user would be enough to kill an Ice Tome user

So yeah anyway there's really not much anyone can do about it

One day Purpled gets kidnapped cuz uhhhhhhh my dream did not provide this bit hang on-

....HIS COLLEGE IS A PRESTIGIOUS ONE AND THEY HAVE A SUPER POWERFUL TOME THAT THEY LET MAGIC STUDENTS WITH HIGH POTENTIAL READ

Uhhhh it's Purpled's college and Purpled is an alien sooooooo maybe the Tome is something star/galaxy-related?? ...planetary chakra- no that doesn't fit well with the worldbuilding

....Light??? Soundwaves???? (Can you tell I've been studying Earth Science too much)

Hang on I should totally use what I've forcibly drilled into my head during this last month or so

PLANETARY WAVELENGTHS

...Look, there are supposed to be multiple Tomes, not all of them can be centered around Aristotle's Four Elements-

Anyway planetary wavelengths! Can be used for. Uh. Shoot did we even learn this

You magically make the waves go slower or faster! You can make Gamma rays! X-rays! Ultraviolet/Visible/Infrared light! Microwaves and Radiowaves! (BTW that's the order of wavelength, from shortest to longest)

Sobbing. I'm a humanities kid why do I use science in my fics but not philosophy(<-is a liar, is planning short story about Francis Bacon's New Atlantis concept for extra credit in Ethics & Ideas(?) class)

Okay so turns out it's called electromagnetic waves in English

Purpled is an Electromagnetic Wave Tome User now

...No it does not sound nerdy shut the fudge up

Okay so that's sorted ig

So Tommy goes to find Purpled without knowing he's kidnapped, but turns out the ppl who kidnapped him is the group that killed Tubbo's mom

At some point he gets caught and is about to be killed but from the back of the group someone who apparently just arrived goes "What the f*ck?"

Turns out Tommy's friend Eryn was part of the group without realizing they torture and kill people(look, this was funnier in my dream, okay?)

So Eryn goes "F*ck this sh!t I'm out" and uses the initial surprise to just. Drag goldenduo out of the circle of Bad Guys™️. This was how it went in my dream, but since I'm making it into a proper AU, let's say he used bursts of fire cuz he's a Fire Tome User

They escape the building with an invisibility charm cast by Eryn draped(?) over them

....And that's about as far as I got.

Yeah. Anyway feel free to contribute to Tome variety if you want, I need ideas.

[sushibuild]

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[katrinafaire]

The Forgotten Book 1: The Cure - Introducing Our Main Characters

While there is a fairly large cast of characters mentioned in The Cure even by it's half point, and even a fair amount who play roles of importance, the story is in fact centered on only three, and I would love to introduce them to you as best I can and still avoid plot spoilers.

The first character you meet goes by Bria (Ambria Hearth) and she is about to graduate as a medical chemist after six years of study (eight, counting two years of prerequisite study before gaining entry to the academy) when the events of the book go down. She's in her early thirties, 5'5" (165cm) with brown eyes and somewhat curly brown hair just past her shoulders, with light, cool toned skin. She's in decent shape because she walks or bikes everywhere. She doesn't wear much makeup out of a habit from working in a lab environment

I have semi-accurate fan casts for all three of them, should anyone want to know, and they might show up in mood/inspo boards later. If I do get commissions though, I'll absolutely show them off.

She is intelligent, intuitive - and impatient. While not overly nosy in general, if she feels something has any relevance to her or those she's close to, she wants to know and will carefully but persistently pursue that knowledge until she's actually given a 'no' by someone she respects. She's very well trained as a medical chemist, at the top of her class in academics, but doesn't actually have a lot of experience outside the classroom because she just hasn't had the opportunity yet.

Bria is upbeat and positive, ruthlessly optimistic until faced with situations that shake her resolve. Even then, she is quick to recover. She cherishes her loved ones even when they frustrate and irritate her and in general fills the archetype super trope "The Idealist" with the subtrope "Plucky Girl" - she's braver than she knows, pushed on by her determination to 'just do the right thing' regardless of how dangerous it ends up being. For her songs I think I'd have to choose I Lived by OneRepublic and Fight Song by Rachel Platten.

She's fun to write, and more nuanced than people in the book necessarily give her credit for. She goes through a lot during the course of the book (some of which isn't set in ink yet) but even when she's worn down, even if you stripped her down to her core, you will find the sunshine is shining through unbreakable diamond.

(For the sake of not dropping an even longer post on the dash, the other two characters are under the cut. Depending on your extensions, of course, this may have cut off sooner.)

Luca (Joel Luca) is the next character briefly introduced, though what little is shown is very telling. Luca is a man whose poker face is a blinding smile. He's a whirlwind of energy and full to bursting with emotions. He is both friend and mentor figure to Bria, and sometimes a bit of a big brother presence as well despite being over a decade older (mid forties).

Luca is 5'11" (180.3cm) with light blue eyes, short auburn hair, and darker skin. He's in excellent shape, given he prefers to deal with emotional upheaval with exercise and he is very, very prone to strong emotion. Granted he has a (initially unexplained) "gift/curse" of uncanny intuition that definitely effects that, but he's also just a man who feels and feels passionately.

Luca's never met a stranger (though sometimes I think he wishes he had) - he can strike up a conversation with anyone and his bright smiles and smooth tones nearly guarantee your average Joe isn't going to realize when it's fake. Of course, that means if he's visibly upset or angry he wants you to know about it - or, in some instances, he's just too worked up to smile.

While Luca's intuition is easily one of the more memorable aspects of his character, especially the times it's highly plot relevant, I would be remiss not to mention how warm he is. How he tries to be kind, even when he's hurting or upset. These are traits he grew into, though; he still has to fight not to give into impulsive action and rash emotional responses, a fight he doesn't always win. He's working on it.

His archetype tropes would definitely start with "The Kirk" and also teeters on the edge of "The Ignored Expert" at times. I do actually have two songs for him, The Change by Garth Brooks (link goes to a cover), and You've Got To Stand For Something by Aaron Tippin.

I have a blast writing Luca though it's a hard balance between his hard earned wisdom / experience and his potent emotions. I like to think I've struck a good balance.

Last but definitely not least is the Sage, Grimoire (additional naming revealed late in the book). To understand Grimoire is to first understand the Sages. Essentially, the Sages are living repositories of specialized knowledge from the modern era of the book back to theoretically the first documentations of their craft. They all conveniently have photographic memories that span across their senses. Grimoire is the active Sage of Medical Chemistry. Now in his late thirties, he's been training / in conditioning since he was four. No one seems to see the problem here.

Physically, Grimoire can at times be imposing. Though built lean, he stands at 6'3" (190.5cm) and has a broad frame, primarily in the shoulders with a swimmers build. His black hair is straight, coming down to brush his shoulders, and his brown eyes echo the warm tones of his light skin. He's been wearing glasses since he was in his early twenties, his voracious reading in questionable lighting as a boy catching up to him.

Grimoire is all about fact and truth, and feels physically ill when put in a situation where he has to lie - he'll do it, if he has to, but he won't like it. Like most Sages, Grimoire is happiest when pursuing new knowledge, which has led to him becoming educated in adjacent medical fields as well as random assortments of other things he simply ran into and asked about.

He's aware that straight honesty is not always the best response regardless of it being easier, and has gone to the school of Obi-Wan with appeasing his professional self with the thought that something may well still be true - from a certain point of view. Generally, however, he prefers to be honest.

Grimoire grew up childhood friends with both Luca and Bria, and at the start of the book he and Bria are dancing around their feelings for each other. While romance isn't the focus of the book, that will still be explored and resolved.

Archetypes for Grimoire would definitely be "The Conscience", "Seeker" and "The Spock" - obviously a running theme there. Off the top of my head, I'd choose Courage by Clay Finnesand and Invincible by David Archuleta for his songs.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of insight into the trio that run the show in The Cure. I'll be putting more out over time about them, and about important side characters as well as more lore in general.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions at all, hit up my askbox and I'll get a reply out! Anon is enabled, I believe, if you're anxious or shy. If I can't answer your question for whatever reasons, I will at least share a cool fact from my worldbuilding. That's all for now, take care!

[grunerrenewable01]

Exploring Government Incentives for Bio-CNG Gas Plants with Gruner Renewable

In the shift towards sustainable energy solutions, Bio-CNG gas plant have emerged as a powerful tool in mitigating environmental impact and promoting green energy. Gruner Renewable, a leader in sustainable energy technology, is at the forefront of this transition. One crucial aspect that potential investors and partners consider is the availability of government incentives and subsidies for setting up bio-CNG gas plants. This article delves into how these incentives make bio-CNG projects more viable and attractive, and how Gruner Renewable can help harness these opportunities to achieve sustainability goals.

Understanding Bio-CNG Gas Plant

Bio-CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) is produced by purifying biogas, which is generated through the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter. Bio-CNG is a renewable, clean, and low-carbon fuel that can replace fossil fuels in energy production and automotive uses. Establishing bio-CNG gas plants not only helps in reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also supports waste management and generates economic opportunities.

Government Incentives and Subsidies: A Global Perspective

Governments worldwide are recognizing the environmental and economic benefits of bio-CNG and are thus rolling out various incentives to encourage the adoption of this technology. These incentives often include:

- Capital Grants: Many countries offer upfront capital subsidies to offset a portion of the investment required to set up bio-CNG facilities, making projects financially more feasible.

- Tax Credits and Reductions: Reductions in corporate tax rates, as well as investment and production tax credits, are common incentives that improve the return on investment for bio-CNG plants.

- Feed-in Tariffs: Some regions provide guaranteed pricing for bio-CNG energy fed into the national grid, ensuring predictable revenue streams for plant operators.

- Reduced Tariffs and Custom Duties: To support the import of advanced technology, some governments reduce tariffs and custom duties on foreign technology that is essential for building bio-CNG facilities.

- Research and Development Support: Financial support for R&D activities is also provided to encourage innovation in bio-CNG technologies and applications.

How Gruner Renewable Facilitates Access to These Incentives

Gruner Renewable not only specializes in the technical development of bio-CNG facilities but also in navigating the complex landscape of government incentives. Here’s how Gruner assists its clients:

- Incentive Identification and Application: Gruner Renewable’s expert team stays abreast of the latest government incentives and helps clients identify the most beneficial options. They assist in the application process to ensure that all potential benefits are captured.

- Project Planning and Compliance: Gruner Renewable designs bio-CNG projects that comply with local and national regulations, ensuring eligibility for government subsidies and incentives.

- Partnerships and Collaboration: By fostering strong relationships with government bodies and environmental agencies, Gruner Renewable ensures that projects receive the support and visibility they need.

The Impact of Government Incentives on Project Viability

Government incentives significantly enhance the economic viability of bio-CNG projects. By reducing initial capital requirements and providing ongoing financial benefits, these subsidies and incentives decrease payback periods and increase the internal rate of return (IRR), making bio-CNG projects attractive to investors and partners.

Conclusion

Government incentives and subsidies are vital tools that enhance the feasibility and attractiveness of bio-CNG gas plants. As the world moves towards more sustainable energy solutions, these incentives not only help meet environmental goals but also offer economic benefits to those investing in green technology. Gruner Renewable is your ideal partner in this journey, equipped to leverage these incentives to maximize project success and impact.

Call to Action

Are you considering setting up a bio-CNG plant? Connect with Gruner Renewable today to explore how you can benefit from government incentives and bring your sustainable energy project to life. Visit our website or contact us directly to get started on your path to a greener future.

SEO Strategy:

- Keyword Optimization: Uses the keyword government incentives for bio-CNG gas plants strategically throughout the article.

- Informative Content: Provides valuable information that attracts readers looking for financial advice on bio-CNG investments.

Engagement: Encourages interaction with Gruner Renewable to learn more about specific opportunities, driving traffic to the company’s website.

For more details visit now- https://grunerrenewable.com/

[govindhtech]

How AWS Deadline Cloud Streamlines Your VFX Pipeline

Deadline Cloud Rendering

AWS Deadline Cloud Concepts

With AWS Deadline Cloud, you can create and oversee rendering jobs and projects on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances by using DCC pipelines and workstations. You can build fleets, a rendering farm, and a group of queues. Your submitted tasks are put in a queue and are scheduled for rendering. A fleet is a collection of worker nodes with the capacity to handle many queues. Multiple fleets may process a queue.Image credit to AWS

Reach the Deadline Cloud

For teams producing computer-generated 2D and 3D graphics and visual effects for motion pictures, television programmes, advertisements, video games, and industrial design, AWS Deadline Cloud is a fully managed solution that makes render management easier. You may increase the productivity of your rendering pipelines and take on more projects by using Deadline Cloud, which makes it easy to start up, launch, and scale rendering projects.

Deadline Cloud’s advantages

Launch more projects concurrently, move rapidly, and enhance cost control

Within minutes, set up a fully managed cloud render farm

Deadline Cloud’s streamlined setup shortens deployment times from months to minutes, making it simpler to establish a render farm without having to handle backend infrastructure.

Boost control, visibility, and cost planning

You can control rendering costs and maintain budgets with the help of built-in cost management features, which include project-by-project use monitoring and budget setting. Pay as you go pricing and usage-based licencing let you only pay for the resources you use.

Expand ability to manage many projects concurrently and assist in meeting deadlines

With Deadline Cloud, you can take on new projects, render complicated assets, shorten production schedules, and better meet difficult turnaround times by scaling thousands of compute instances up and down minute by minute. After you’re done, reduce in size.

Utilise the integrated tools and integrations to expedite pipeline customisation.

Offering a wide range of customisation options and pre-integrated connections with well-known digital content development programmes including SideFX Houdini, Autodesk Arnold, Autodesk Maya, and Foundry Nuke

More is provided by Deadline Cloud for your rendering job

Concentrate on completing innovative projects with integrated tracking tools and a streamlined setup.

Get going right away

The dashboard and step-by-step setup wizard offered by AWS Deadline Cloud facilitate the creation of a cloud-based render farm. Once your render farm, studio, and connectors are configured, you can install plug-in packages to add tools and user interface components for a seamless experience. To provide task characteristics such as the frame range, render layers, and other application/render software choices, your artists use the plug-in user interfaces in their preferred software programmes.

Organise all of your rendering tasks in one location

Creative teams may execute multiple projects concurrently with AWS Deadline Cloud and cut production times without worrying about capacity constraints. You can manage all of your rendering projects in one location with the help of Deadline Cloud’s unified UI. You may monitor your farm, control your render tasks (including changing job statuses and priorities), and see logs and job status using the Deadline Cloud monitor. Users may be managed, projects can be assigned to them, and job role rights can be granted.

Control resources and spending

Deadline Cloud has built-in budget management tools to help you better understand rendering expenses on a project-by-project basis, along with pay-as-you-go pricing to guarantee you only pay for the compute you need for rendering. You may build and modify budgets using the Deadline Cloud budget manager to assist with project expense management. You can see the number of AWS resources utilised and their expected prices with the Deadline Cloud consumption explorer.

How Deadline Cloud may be used by creative teams

Change and adapt to fit the needs of creative endeavours.

Visual components

With support for digital content development (DCC) technologies like Foundry Nuke and SideFX Houdini, you can manage more complicated VFX and simulations. You can also connect the necessary software with the customisation tools that are offered.

Motion Pictures

With quick setup and support for programmes like Blender, Maya, and Arnold, you can quickly onboard artists and maintain production cycles with minute-to-minute scalability.

Visualization and design of products

Make it easier for designers, engineers, and architects to get render capability so they can process product renderings, simulations, and visualisations in more detail.

Cinematics from games

Integrated support for SideFX Houdini, Chaos V-Ray, and Unreal Engine speeds up the creation of cut sequences, trailers, and game cinematics.

Use Deadline Cloud to begin rendering

Start using AWS Deadline Cloud now

With only a few clicks, install plugins for your preferred DCC apps, define and construct a farm using Deadline Cloud monitor, and download the Deadline Cloud submitter to get started with AWS Deadline Cloud. Within the user interfaces of the plugin, you may specify your rendering tasks in your DCC application and send them to your generated farm.

After determining what scene data is required, the DCC plugins create a work bundle that uploads to your account’s Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket, transfers the task to Deadline Cloud for rendering, and delivers the finished frames to the S3 bucket so that your clients may see them.

Use the Deadline Cloud monitor to define a farm

First, let’s describe your farm and build the architecture for your Deadline Cloud monitor. To build a farm with a guided experience, choose Set up Deadline Cloud in the Deadline Cloud interface. From there, you can add groups and users, configure queues and fleets, select a service role, and tag your resources.

Select Skip to Review in stage 3 after monitor setup to select all of the default settings for your Deadline Cloud resources in this stage. If not, choose Next to personalise your Deadline Cloud resources.

Configure the infrastructure of your monitor and type the display name of your monitor. With this name, the online interface for managing your farms, queues, fleets, and usages is called Monitor URL. Once setup is complete, the monitor URL cannot be changed. Your rendering farm is physically located in an AWS Region, so if you want to lower latency and increase data transfer rates, choose the Region that is closest to your studio.

You can manage users (assigning them groups, rights, and apps) and remove users from your monitor by logging in. You can also add new users and groups. In the IAM Identity Centre, you can also manage users, groups, and permissions. Therefore, you need activate the IAM Identity Centre first if you haven’t already set it up in your region. See Managing users in Deadline Cloud in the AWS documentation for further information.

Step 2 allows you to provide farm specifics like your farm’s name and description. You may give tags to AWS resources for filtering your resources or keeping track of your AWS expenses, and you can configure an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key to encrypt your data under the Additional farm settings. By default, AWS owns and controls the key that is used to encrypt your data. You may change the encryption key by adjusting the encryption settings.

If you want to quickly complete the setup procedure with the default options, you may choose Skip to Review and Create.

Currently accessible

Amazon Deadline Cloud is currently accessible in the following regions: Europe (Frankfurt), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland).

Read more on govindhtech.com

[jcmarchi]

What goes up, must… be quantum? - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/what-goes-up-must-be-quantum-technology-org/

What goes up, must… be quantum? - Technology Org

A new experiment will test the notion that gravity, one of the fundamental forces in the physical world, relies upon quantum physics to work.

A trapped nanoparticle in vacuum at Wright Lab. Image Credit: Tom Penny

If so, it would further indicate the centrality of quantum mechanics in the universe and begin to explain the previously unknown underpinnings of a natural phenomenon so ubiquitous that most people take its existence for granted.

Yale’s David Moore, an associate professor of physics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is part of an international research team that will experiment, called “Macroscopic Superpositions Towards Witnessing the Quantum Nature of Gravity,” or MAST-QG. The five-year project, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, aims to lay the foundations for the experiment.

MAST-QG will attempt to link two foundational descriptions of the universe. General relativity, which is Einstein’s theory that gravity is created by objects with mass that curve or warp the space around them, is famously incompatible with quantum mechanics, which explore the strange behavior of atoms and particles.

Measuring the feeble gravitational interactions between quantum mechanical particles has previously been impossible due to their tiny masses.

Moore, a member of Yale’s Wright Lab, will work with researchers from University College London, the University of Warwick in England, Northwestern University, and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, to develop the experiment. The lead investigator is Gavin Morley from the University of Warwick.

We caught up with Moore recently to discuss the experiment and how it is likely to work.

Is it surprising to you that we don’t already know whether gravity is a quantum phenomenon?

David Moore: Gravity is this force that seems like the most apparent force in our everyday lives, but it’s a complete mystery. It’s embarrassing to say, really. Despite the fact we’ve been studying it for hundreds of years, we don’t understand gravity at a microscopic level in any detail at all.

We have this beautiful theory about how gravity works in astrophysical distances, thanks to Einstein’s theory of relativity. But we also know it doesn’t work when we apply that same theory to quantum mechanics and the particles that make up the universe. Why? For many of us in physics, that’s just an exciting question to try to answer.

Do we know how quantum mechanics influence other fundamental forces, such as electromagnetism and the “strong” nuclear force?

Moore: Yes, we’ve learned a huge amount about all the other fundamental forces — all but gravity, the one we’ve known about the longest. It’s the one force that doesn’t fit into our quantum picture of the world.

What makes gravity different in this regard?

Moore: Gravity is incredibly weak compared to all the other fundamental forces. For example, the attraction force between the electron and proton in the hydrogen atom, due to their electric charge, is nearly 40 orders of magnitude — 10 thousand trillion trillion trillion times — stronger than gravity. The other three fundamental forces that govern the universe — electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces — are all much closer in their intrinsic strength. The weakness of gravity is itself a major puzzle, but also makes experiments extremely challenging.

The only reason we know anything about gravity is because we have an entire planet pulling gravity down on us. The atoms in our shoes alone are enough to hold us up against the entire planet. It’s pretty impressive.

But we’ve never been able to put big objects, those objects we can see in the visible world, into a quantum state and witness the behavior of gravity at that tiny scale. So that’s precisely the idea of our experiment. We’re going to put some of the biggest objects ever into a quantum state and attempt to see their gravity.

What are those objects?

Moore: They’re called microdiamonds. There’s a very special, atom-sized impurity in diamonds called a “nitrogen vacancy center,” in which one of the diamond atoms is missing and a nitrogen atom is next to this vacancy. This strange type of impurity acts as nearly a perfect quantum system, which we can embed into a diamond crystal that is one-fiftieth the width of a hair.

We want to take the microdiamonds and trap them in a laser that will levitate them in the center of a vacuum chamber. We have technology that can “talk” to the quantum part of the diamond and use it as a handle to manipulate the entire diamond’s mass to see the gravity’s effects.

What is Yale’s role in the project?

Moore: We have traps for these microparticles here at Yale, at Wright Lab. We typically use them for glass, not diamonds. Our lab has done the world’s most sensitive search for dark matter particles that could have a tiny electric charge — a millionth of an electron’s charge. We can control the exact number of electrons and protons in a sphere held inside the trap. That’s exactly the kind of stuff we want to do with this gravity experiment.

What might prevent you from getting a quantum measurement of gravity?

Moore: We have to eliminate all interactions other than gravity. Gravity is so weak, if you have even one extra electron on this diamond, in addition to the gravitational force, you’ll never have any chance of seeing gravitational entanglement. We’re working hard not just on making these tiny quantum systems, but also keeping out all other forces.

Is there an aspect of this research that drew you in on a personal level?

Moore: This is really just about trying to understand how the world works. It’s like asking an artist why they do art. A lot of us are just very interested in knowing the fundamental building blocks of the universe. How do they work together? It’s a sufficiently important enough question that if we can learn anything in my lifetime, it would be exciting for a lot of us.

Source: Yale University

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[spacenutspod]

Astronomers are currently pushing the frontiers of astronomy. At this very moment, observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are visualizing the earliest stars and galaxies in the Universe, which formed during a period known as the “Cosmic Dark Ages.” This period was previously inaccessible to telescopes because the Universe was permeated by clouds of neutral hydrogen. As a result, the only light is visible today as relic radiation from the Big Bang – the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – or as the 21 cm spectral line created by the reionization of hydrogen (aka. the Hydrogen Line). Now that the veil of the Dark Ages is being slowly pulled away, scientists are contemplating the next frontier in astronomy and cosmology by observing “primordial gravitational waves” created by the Big Bang. In recent news, it was announced that the National Science Foundation (NSF) had awarded $3.7 million to the University of Chicago, the first part of a grant that could reach up to $21.4 million. The purpose of this grant is to fund the development of next-generation telescopes that will map the CMB and the gravitational waves created in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. Gravitational waves (GW), originally predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, are ripples in spacetime caused by the merger of massive objects – like black holes and neutron stars. Scientists have also theorized that there are GWs formed during the Big Bang that could still be visible today as vibrations in the background. In collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), researchers from the CMB-S4 project University of Chicago seek to build telescopes and infrastructure in Antarctica and Chile to search for these waves. Illustration of the Big Bang (left), the distortion caused by Dark Matter and galaxies (wavy lines), and the warped light received by the Atacama Cosmological Telescope (right). Credit: Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation/ACT Collaboration The collaboration currently involves 450 scientists from over 100 institutions in 20 countries. The entire project is proposed to be jointly funded by the NSG and the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), with the NSF’s portion being led by the University of Chicago, while Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will lead the DoE portion. The project is expected to cost a total of about $800 million and become operational by the early 2030s. In addition to searching for primordial GWs, these telescopes could also map the CMB in incredible detail and reveal how the Universe has changed over time. These telescopes could also help search for the elusive “Dark Universe” and validate our current cosmological models. John Carlstrom is the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Physics at UChicago and the project scientist for CMB-S4. “With these telescopes, we will be testing our theory of how our entire universe came to be, but also looking at physics at the most extreme scales in a way we simply cannot do with particle physics experiments on Earth,” he said in a UChicago News statement. Because the CMB carries information about the birth of the Universe, scientists have been mapping it for decades. These include space-based telescopes like the Soviet RELIKT-1, NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and the ESA’s Planck satellite. These missions have measured small temperature anisotropies (fluctuation) in the CMB with increasing detail, providing hints about how the Universe began. What is needed, however, are telescopes sensitive enough to answer the deeper cosmological questions, like whether the Universe began with a burst of inflation. To this end, the CMB-S4 will build incredibly complex instruments to map the first light of the Universe from spacecraft and the ground. The array will include two new telescopes in the Chilean Atacama Plateau and nine smaller ones at the NSF’s South Pole Station (SPS). The project will also rely on the South Pole Telescope, which has been operational at the SPS since 2007. Each site will play an essential role, with the telescopes in Chile conducting a wide survey of the sky to capture a more detailed picture of the CMB. Meanwhile, the telescopes at the NSF’s South Pole Station would take a deep, continuous look at a smaller part of the sky. The observations from Chile will help improve our understanding of the evolution and distribution of matter and look for relic light particles that may have existed in the early Universe. Meanwhile, the telescopes in Antarctica will offer a unique look at the Universe since it is here that the rest of the Earth spins around, permitting continuous observations of one section of the sky. Their combined efforts will allow astronomers to look for the ripples in spacetime that could only emerge from a space smaller than a subatomic particle suddenly expanding into a much larger volume. Said Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory physicist Jim Strait (the project director for CMB-S4), this is an ambitious but worthwhile goal. “In many ways, the theory of inflation looks good, but most of the experimental evidence is somewhat circumstantial,” he said. “Finding primordial gravitational waves would be what some people have called ‘the smoking gun’ for inflation.” Since these ripples would interact with the CMB and leave a distinct (but extremely faint) signature, large-scale and continuous mapping of the CMB should provide indications of their existence. The CMB-S4 should also provide clues about the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Whereas the former is theorized to account for the majority of the mass in the Universe (about 69%), the latter is responsible for its accelerating rate of expansion. Furthermore, mapping primordial gravitational waves would also help scientists find the connection between the forces of gravity and quantum mechanics. Microwave detectors are already so sensitive that measurements are dominated by background noise and local interference. Therefore, the plan is to outfit the combined CMB-S4 experiment with nearly 500,000 superconducting detectors, more than all previous experiments combined, and to greatly increase the number of measurements to provide a precise measurement of the signal level and reduce the noise. The new grant from the NSF will help fund the design of the new telescopes and site infrastructure, which will be the most complex ever built. Further Reading: UChicago News The post New Telescopes to Study the Aftermath of the Big Bang appeared first on Universe Today.