#the-pyrophoric-one

[pathologicalreid]

𖤓 margotober masterlist 𖤓

in an act of insurmountable indecisiveness, i couldn't choose between flufftober, angstober, and kinktober. naturally, the only solution was to find a way to participate in all three. previews will be posted a week at a time because my indecisiveness extends to my inability to choose what fics to post.

fluff 𖤓 angst 𖤓 smut

october 1st - caretaker

↳ in which you take care of your fiercely independent boyfriend after he gets shot in the knee

october 2nd - always, i'll wait

↳ in which Spencer dedicates himself to pulling you out of your depressive state

october 3rd - wake me from this dream

↳ in which you've been struggling to come to terms with the kiss between Spencer and Cat, and you've finally reached your breaking point

october 4th - with your hands tied

↳ in which you and Spencer continue your kink education, with a hands off approach

october 6th - the build up

↳ in which you and Spencer spend an entire day just waiting to make it to the hotel room

october 7th - what to expect

↳ in which you find yourself frustrated at the end of your pregnancy, and Spencer talks you off a ledge

october 8th - kryptonite

↳ in which all roads lead to Spencer's apartment, at least they do for jareau!reader

october 9th - don't get dark

↳ in which you disclose an attack to Spencer, and he assures you he's not going anywhere

october 10th - cocoon

↳ in which your life is put in danger during an otherwise routine case, and you haven't even told Spencer about the baby

october 11th - diphenhydramine

↳ in which reader has a hard time getting to sleep at night, leading to Spencer's step by step instruction of which hormones help you fall asleep

october 12th - all we ever do is talk

↳ in which Spencer and wife!reader fear they're getting boring, so the BAU sets them up with a hotel suite for Spencer's birthday

october 14th - sanctuary

↳ in which hotchner!reader reunites with the BAU after her time in WITSEC

october 15th - pyrophoric

↳ in which Spencer seeks the help of a chemist to help with his research into white phosphorous

october 16th - wavelength

↳ in which your son ends up in the hospital on one of the BAUs busiest nights of the year

october 17th - heart to heart

↳ in which hotchner!reader is set to have heart surgery, and Spencer can't help but be concerned for her

october 18th - love song for lady earth

↳ in which reader has her first experience with munch!spencer

october 19th - home run

↳ in which Spencer and jareau!reader finally get the opportunity to take the next step in their relationship

october 21st - ode to a conversation stuck in your throat

↳ in which Spencer tries to talk you out of taking a job across the country

october 22nd - here with me

↳ four times Spencer feels out of place in your house after being released from prison, and one time it's like he never left

october 23rd - burn notice

↳ in which your workplace is targeted by a group of extremists, and Spencer tries everything to keep you safe

october 24th - lock and key

↳ in which an act of violence - and subsequent serious injury - brings the truth to the surface and initiates a change

october 25th - in an arrow heart

↳ in which Spencer finds himself distracted by you during an otherwise routine outing to O'Keefe's

october 26th - come a little closer

↳ in which you and Spencer have sex for the first time since his release from prison, and more importantly, since Cat told him what happened in Mexico

october 28th - little duck

↳ in which Spencer is too excited about his first Halloween as a dad to remember he's supposed to be celebrating his birthday

october 29th - missed calls

↳ in which Spencer answers Hotch's daughter's phone when he calls to check in after a case

october 30th - prisoner

↳ in which you and Spencer conduct a custodial interview with a death row inmate - Spencer's first since he was released

october 31st - hysteria

↳ in which the BAU is called into a case in rural Appalachia when bodies start showing up in an abandoned insane asylum

[dragonfelling]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! Biggest dragon species in Ascendancy?

If you dont include the Gods themselves, then out of all the dragon species the largest is the almost extinct people that once fed off of Exitiums divinity: The Dragonfolk

They are a type of divine thing, like Griffins and Humonculi; who don't function like a mortal thing but they aren't Gods. A divine is a good term I suppose. Unlike other divine however they can reproduce.

After Exitium was almost killed and went into dormancy, their population dipped down from around 100 individuals down to a mere 10.

Even before that their population took a massive hit after a parasite that looked like golden flecks ravaged their bodies. They, and their sister species, the Draken (Known in 'modern' culture as the First Drakes) could not remove these scale parasites through fire nor picking them off themselves. Exitium for this reason relented into allowing a human population under his rule. The humans were small and dexterous enough to pull each parasite from under the scales of their dragon lords.

There are only a handful of these giants left, ones that have survived the ages through finding pockets of magic to feast upon. On the rare occasion, a Dragon will return to its homeland of Aiman to lay an egg after storing up immense energy- enough to last them the process and enough to supply its single young with enough yolk to last them until their first flight.

They are a rather typical dragon in a lot of ways. They carry pyrokinesis but some do have other forms of magic much how other folk have many types of blessings by their gods that have carried through their bloodlines. They also have a tendancy towards hoarding and once they lived very luxurious lives when they reigned over what was once Enkavaima (The territory that was taken over by the Anemoians)

Old art ^^^ Shows the gold fleck parasites being pulled off by humans

Unfished sketch of their whole body

Design wise, I'm thinking of shrinking their heads a bit, making them a tad smaller and making their wings look like oversized an albatross' wings. I also want to change their markings to look closed to an albatross mixed with an orca. Something something metaphors and symbolism

--

As for ANIMALS though, the largest is the Major Pinnae dragons. They are about the size of a tiger if you dont count their tails or wings- males being 5 ft from head to tail base and the females upwards of 7.5 ft They are the apex predator of Anemoi, and Pinna's favourite creation. They have reflective wings and stripes they use both in complex hunting habits and mating rituals

They can spit out a Pyrophoric chemical that allows them to breathe fire in a sense. This chemical acts like napalm and sticks to things. The fire is difficult to put out without the use of water to dilute it, as the fuel will just re-ignite in the presence of air and water vapour until its burnt up.

Female Pinnae Dragon in flight, flashing durring a storm.

Female Pinnae Dragon in flight, flashing durring a storm and displaying with its fire.

Female Pinnae Dragon eating a recently killed Diamonda

[aziraphales-library]

Do you have any Hurt/Comfort fics with Aziraphale hurt and Crowley going apeshit about it? I just need this atm 🥲

(Smut is Bonus but not a requirement 😊)

We have loads on our #hurt aziraphale, #aziraphale whump, and #protective crowley tags! Here are more to add to the collections. Mind the tags on these!...

I Forgive You by Sparkling12 (NR)

As Aziraphale arrives in Heaven, having left Crowley, he is captured and tortured by Heaven authorities. It turns out the job offer was all a plot to lure him there. How will Crowley save him? Or Crowley taking care of his traumatised angel, while plotting revenge on Metatron.

Jailbreak by Tigerphoenix (M)

Crowley was just relaxing in the bookshop when Muriel returned from reporting to Heaven. They bear horrible news. Aziraphale got himself into serious trouble. He's locked up, with the threat of being cast down to Hell hanging over his head. Crowley has to do something.

Pyrophore by Aethelflaed (T)

The Great Fire of London. Aziraphale is trapped in a burning church with a strange creature born of fire. A creature who isn't a demon, but has a connection to a demon he knows very well. What is the pyrophore? What is its connection to Crowley? And what does it want with Aziraphale?

Revenge, Served Cold by Fire_Traveller (T)

Disclaimer: major character injury When Aziraphale intends to get his hands on some rare old books, he ends up walking right into a trap. It's up to Crowley to find him and save him - but can the demon reach him in time? And who is behind all that, anyway?

freshly disowned in some frozen devotion (no more alone or myself could i be) by shadoweddepths (E)

“I choose Crowley,” Aziraphale says, voice both soft and firm at the same time. Meets Crowley’s gaze so steadily, as if it’s easy for him to say those words. And it’s as much to Crowley as it is to the Metatron, as much promise as it is a renunciation, and Crowley’s heart hurts. “Very well,” the Metatron says. “You will not like the consequences.” “Damn the consequences.” Aziraphale uses his just-enough-of-a-bastard voice, the one that makes shivers race up and down Crowley’s spine. “You may see yourself out, Voice of God.” There’s a rustle of feathers, and then the Metatron is gone and the bookshop is silent, save for the ticking of the clock and the furious staccato of Crowley’s heartbeat. Aziraphale – an angel of grace and poise and grandeur – stumbles. His expression twists in confusion, first, and then pain – horrible, gut-wrenching, unexpected pain – and then he falls to his knees, voice breaking in a pained whine. “Oh,” he gasps, head thrown back, eyes glazed and unseeing. “Oh, that – damned indeed,” he says, just before he crumples forward and blacks out. (Aziraphale rejects the Metatron's offer and chooses Crowley instead. Crowley helps him through the aftermath.)

- Mod D

[pokemoncenter]

On fire sacs

This post will be frequently discussing urination in Pokemon with flame organs, and so I will be placing it under this cut.

Did you know that no two Arcanine have exactly the same fire? Humans cannot tell the difference, but many Pokemon can. This gives every Arcanine a distinct scent to their fire, and their droppings, which they use in the wild to mark their territory.

I spoke before that Arcanine need a great deal of water every day, but I did not get deeply into the details. Most, though not all, Pokemon capable of emitting fire have a special organ in their body in which the fire is created.

It is more accurate to say that the organ creates a heated pyrophoric gas. Specifically, a special phosphoric compound that has yet to be recreated out of a Pokemon's biology, which in its gaseous state has a temperature of over 120 degrees Celsius. These compounds ignite upon exposure to the air, and so a Pokemon breathing flames is actually exhaling this gas through a special epliglottal cover, with an extra sphincter that prevents any air from getting back in.

However, temperatures that high could be hazardous to the Pokemon's other organs, and so it is kept insulated through a two-layer system. On the inside, a layer of fat, and on the outside, a special bladder filled with waste water. The water in this bladder acts as a heat sink, absorbing excess heat through the fat, which is then excreted. In other words, the Pokemon urinates out water that has become too hot, and must replenish it. This means that their urine possesses traces of the phosphoric compounds, though dissembled such that they no longer ignite.

Most Pokemon with a flame sac will operate under similar mechanisms. Torchic, Fletchinder, and similar avian Pokemon who do not urinate, instead have the waste mixed in with their feces. This removes the heat from their body, and the head below them can offer an updraft to allow them to take off easier.

A Pokemon with a flame sac who marks its territory with urine (Arcanine, Typhlosion, etc) will have the aforementioned dissembled compounds in their urine. This provides a unique scent to each Pokemon, acting as a fingerprint of sorts, to warn off competition from their territory. But this is also necessary to cool themselves.

If you find a Fire-type Pokemon is having difficulty with its urination, or urinating too much, or if it has runny feces, this can often mean it is having difficulty maintaining its insulation. Check the amount of water, and make sure it has enough. Furthermore, check your local neighborhood. Sometimes, if a Pokemon smells the scent left by one of the same species whose scent is stronger, they will not wish to urinate at all, as they will feel afraid and do not wish to invade the territory of another. This will cause a whole host of health problems if left untreated.

There is a whole host more to say, but this is already a very long post on a very niche subject. Still, I have but one point to make.

Make sure your Pokemon drink enough water. I have treated so many dehydrated Fire-types who were about to cook their own organs because their owner believed that 'a weakness to water' meant they should not drink as much. Type does not matter. Your Pokemon need water, and often a greater amount of it than you believe.

And, for that matter, so do you. Stay hydrated.

[selfmaderibcageman]

Trick (connotations) or treat

You get: DIBAL. A useful reducing agent. You probably know this one. My undergrad's EH&S thinks it's pyrophoric. It's not fucking pyrophoric. we poured out a beaker of it in solution and left it in the fume hood to prove it isn't pyrophoric. They said, hey, look buddy, the sheet says it's pyrophoric, and you're over your pyrophorics limit.

It uhhh reduces acids and stuff to aldehydes and stops there because they get trapped as the aluminate.

[thenecropolix]

@sketch-pencilpoint @/notsozenzeneth [Cracks Knuckles] you two gave me an inch and now I'm going a mile

OK so off the bat when I started thinking "what would a train look like if it was a biological organism" I turned to the obvious that was crustaceans, with lobsters in particular what with their multiple legs (in place of wheels), armored bodies, and the way said legs look when they move

I wanted to keep it as realistic as possible, so instead of mammals, I immediately thought of these guys, which then quickly diverted me to insects, specifically millipedes

So we have a general basis for how a biological engine should look, but now comes the issues of wheels; while we have animals that roll their entire body as a form of locomotion (e.g. armadillo) or roll things (e.g. dung beetle), we have no critter that could be said to have wheels in place of legs in the taxonomic domain eukarya. Ergo, I decided to take a page out of Nintendo's book and turn towards making train wheels into skin patterns that would go on the train's feet.

Enter the humble caterpillar

Barring the first couple set of legs, you'll notice the "feet" of a caterpillar are rather round; that's because they're more like little suction cups that help them stick to the surface of things; what I'm getting at is that train "wheels" would instead be more like these suction cup feet that are patterned in such a way that resemble said wheels.

I want to quickly give a shout out to @theflyingkipper for this next point as their monster engine series introduced to me the concept of turning the funnel of trains into blowholes that release steam. I thought it was a very clever design, but I realize it could be taken a step further if we consider the funnel to be a horn; more specifically, I thought about the parasaurolophus

A thing to make note is that these guys' iconic horns were thought to act as an amplifier for their calls; I figured the same could be applied to trains, boiling down to 2 possibilities:

The blowhole is placed either in front of or in back of the horn, thus creating the illusion of a steam-blowing funnel

The funnel itself has the nostrils on the end like a trunk shaped horn, thus housing another airway aside from the mouth where steam is released

This brings us to the topic of steam and feel source; as much as I find the idea of flesh-eating trains fun, I do think realistically, their diet would be the same as the fuel used to light their fires. I think of how some of the largest animals on earth are primarily herbivores (or in the case of the whale, filter feeders) and how even if they don't eat meat, that doesn't make them any less frightening that say a tiger or wolf.

Henceforth, I like the thought of living trains grazing on grass and being fed coal by their drivers and firemen, but it bets the question: how do they get nutrients? Initially I thought they'd be literal gastroliths and actually eat the coal they're given, but given how most stones are consumed half of the time to aide in digestion rather than be digested themselves, I figured perhaps something else could be at play.

Enter the volcanic snail

These little guys are amazing because they are found in hydrothermal vents, aka underwater volcanoes. They were actually one of the first guys I thought of with train armor because their foot and shell contain iron, which I think makes for a fun comparison of biological organisms and engines with steel bodies. But back to my initial point, these guys are chemoautotrophs, aka organisms that get their nutrients from chemical reactions through a process called chemosynthesis. Ergo, it wouldn't be entirely unrealistic for engines to technically get nutrients from steam itself rather than what produces the steam, but that begs the question: how do they produce the steam?

After much thinking, I deduced that they could "eat" coal by swallowing it whole and they lighting it up from the inside using a pyrophoric liquid contained in a separate chamber that gets "leaked" into the chamber where the fuel is, thus producing steam that then is released through the funnel/blowhole. And as crazy as it sounds, there is some potential due to the inspiration for this idea: the bombardier beetle

Cute right?

This little fella uses chemistry to ward off predators: essentially there are 2 chambers in its abdomen that contain 2 separate liquids that upon contact, produce a chemical reaction that reaches the boiling the point of water, to which is then expelled as a scalding liquid that causes irritation upon contact. Let me repeat that again: a bug is mixing 2 volatile liquids to create a new liquid as hot as 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) and is then spraying it at everyone else.

From this, I figured the inside of a train would be just as heavily armored as its outside in order to prevent internal scarring from its own pyrophoric liquid once it ignites; I'm comparing it to what the bombardier beetle does in that rather than releasing the explosive reaction, it keeps it inside and and instead releases the byproduct (steam). That being said, I enjoy the thought of an engine "breathing" fire by expelling this liquid not unlike a spitting cobra as a scare tactic.

On a final note, I think if the buffers of trains weren't just elaborate body gear akin to what horses wear when pulling goods or people, I could see them as modified spikes seen on a thorny devil or the kentrosaurs, pointing forwards not unlike a boar's tusk and used in combat and perhaps be subjected to being dulled with tennis balls to prevent accidents like one does with goats.

If by some chance anyone reads this and gets this far, I'd like to both thank and applaud you for taking time to listen to this nonsensical rambling of mine as I've quickly gone down the mine that is ttte and creature design.

[circumlocutive]

whats the biggest safety hazard you've committed in any lab?

This is a very funny question, and a little bit up to interpretation of the question?

For safety hazards I have personally been harmed by/exposed to, these come to mind:

1) exposure to silica/glass dust at my advanced manufacturing internship (sorry, not technically a lab) where I cut and laid up structures made of layered fiberglass and resins, we had a shop vac set up by the CNC machine drill bit to suck in the dust but yknow. It wasn't perfect. And I also had to clean out the shop vac during the internship. Permanent glass dust in the lungs is a bit spooky.

2) cutting myself on the (used) razor in the cryotome when I was sectioning rat brains for an internship in a translational medicine lab. Pretty gross because of the biological contact but the cut itself was small and tbh lab rat tissues are way cleaner than most food meats so maybe this one wasn't actually that bad.

3) exposure to solvent fumes/powderized toxic chemicals while setting up reactions or doing workups, or OH DEF WHILE MAKING SDS PAGE GELS. But like, one day I was rotovapping like, liters of DCM and methanol which are p carcinogenic. Rotovaps don't normally live in a fume hood, but the air flow in my lab is poor and the air is way too hot so stuff readily vaporizes and every time I swapped out the collection flask some stuff would drip onto the bench and go into the air. Water also kept condensing on the outside of the cold finger, and while I was swapping the flasks, it would freeze on the ball/socket joint and fuck with proper sealing. So during rotovapping some vapors continued to escape. Oh and in the biotech lab at my community college we had ethidium bromide like. fucking everywhere. But that's not actually as bad for you as people make it out to be (otherwise there would be a lot more dead undergrads in the world lol)

There were some scary hazards in theory- like discovering after we moved my current lab that there were a bunch of water reactives/pyrophorics/self reactive chemicals that were previously kept in the inert gas environment of the glove box and for about a month lived on the bench top, maybe parafilmed or in ziplock bags but otherwise fairly exposed, while we organized and sorted all the chemicals into proper storage locations. I've had some glass explode on me under pressure or crack under heat, but usually within a fume hood (and I have goggles on whenever I am in lab). I work with liquid nitrogen fairly often now and scare myself overfilling Dewars and getting it on my gloves.

In a NON lab setting, my dad and ex gf had a blacksmithing shed in the backyard. So, heat hazards, sharps hazards, gas hazards, etc. Some acids for etching damascus that were left out in unlabeled containers. I've burned myself grabbing steel I assumed was cold (because it was black), but was several hundreds of degrees. The WORST thing is we used to have a wooden support table underneath our home built forge. The forge was fairly well insulated but ig it ran too hot for too long one day and at night the table started smoldering. It caught fire, right next to a bunch of propane tanks. We wouldn't have noticed either if my friend sleeping over that night- he left to hookup with someone off of grindr in the parking lot next door, came back, and saw the fire when he came back in the apartment. Woke us up and we put it out lol. Replaced that fucker with a welded steel table after that.

And then my dad is a weapons manufacturer/engineer so I've grown up around tons of guns and explosives and leaded ammunition and blah blah blah. So I guess those were safety hazards too.

[offbrand-valk]

(A bit of writing practice for nanowrimo, cause ya girl is rusty.)

Ræðsla

(*Ra-Th'-Sla*) trans. "Horror"

The machine awoke on command, followed the instructions attached to the boot message, and began its diagnostic routine.

First it scanned the hangar, noting each human shape it could identify within the 99.95th percentile; then it analysed each presumed human in turn, checking that they wore an identification token (and only one), and that this identification validated correctly.

This was not part of the diagnostics process, and would not be included in the diagnostics report. But should any of the validations fail, it would silently raise an alarm with an external system and await response from said system’s human operator. If no response was given, or the response was deemed untrustworthy, the machine would trigger a catastrophic meltdown within its reactor, destroying itself and its surrounding after a few minute, while trying to disguise the process as routine diagnostics.

Ræðsla of course, had no opinions on this protocol. It was a machine, an incredibly complicated machine, which even the people who had built it, only understood bits and pieces of, but a machine nonetheless – The closest it came to sentience was a series of specialized processors daisy-chained together to perform statistical extrapolation of available data in order to help the pilot focus on the most important information in the heat of combat.

One by one, Ræðsla tested the servo actuation on its’ thruster array, under the supervision of a small army of monks.

Two new figures entered the room, which the machine automatically checked the identities off and found them valid.

One was a tall, black man, with a bit of a muffin top, a neutral expression on his anonymous face, and eyes that were once warm, but now had become haunted by the horrors of war. Ræðsla’s database identified him as: Geo (he/him), father superior of the order of our father of righteous sorrow, head of the Ræðsla project.

The other was a mixed race butch, her mother was white, her father had been south Asian. She was sickly pale and skinny; an endless list of surgeries, and surgeries to correct the damage done by earlier surgeries, having taken its’ toll on her body.

Still, she looked like nothing if not the warlord upon her throne, as she drove her electric wheelchair towards the machine that took up most of the hangar. Ræðsla in turn, identified her as prince Gallantine Eva-Maria Brathwaite Oldenborg the 1st, of Fenrisfort, holy daughter of the matron pope Maria Valfreyja the 3rd; 1 of 1 authorized pilots of the Ræðsla prototype.

Ræðsla was an unconventional design. For one, it was big, almost twice the size of the average mech, top heavy too, with short legs and a pair of long arms hosting an thrusters, gravity shields, and torpedo rails.

The Ræðsla was built around its main gun, a terrible thing that spewed metal shavings at almost 10.000 kelvin. It moved around corners, got into ventilation, choked and burnsed at the same time, and left heavy ash in its wake.

It didn’t matter that it was clumsy on the ground, it was a spaceborn weapon, only meant to come down from low-orbit to do strafing runs on key targets or population centers.

Looking at it’s tripod shape, Gallantine couldn’t help but notice the resemblance to the dragon on her late wife’s coat of arms.

The machine finished it’s diagnostics routine.

One of the technicians, an old woman in a well-worn jumpsuit crossed the overhead walkway, her breathing was ragged, assisted by an implant that couldn’t quite compensate for the damage she did to her lungs 18 years ago sifting through heavy ash in the faint hope she would find just one member of her family alive.

In her hands she held a vacuum sealed box, within which lies 8kg of a pyrophoric alloy known as phlogistron. Enough for an 0.6 second burst of the Ræðsla’s main gun.

Another technician, a young monk, instructs Ræðsla to open its ammunition feed hatch, and fusses as the old woman connects the box to the feed mechanism.

“I urge you one last time prince, please reconsider.” The monk said as the pair crossed the room, doing an admirable job at hiding the fear in his voice.

The prospective pilot stopped, and turned her wheelchair to face him. The rage in her eyes burned like an ion torch.

“There was a point where we could have reconsidered brother. We passed it somewhere between when we granted my wife’s wish for euthanasia, and when we started grafting pieces of her cerebellum to my brainstem.”

The monk nodded, recognizing it was not his place to oppose the will of the gods, much as he wanted to.

Ræðsla closed its’ ammunition feed hatch, and sent a signal to the diagnostics terminal that it had successfully sealed its phlogistron supply, and that the main gun was now armed.

Reading this the younger monk, his face stained with engine grease, looked over the edge of the diagnostics terminal, and in a huge breach of decorum called out to his senior and the prince: “Will you two be done yapping soon, or should we put this thing back to sleep?”

The butch in the wheelchair smirked at her companion, feeling vindicated she was not the only one anxious to see if their project had paid off.

“Let’s see what this puppy can do!” She yelled out to cheers from the assembled technicians as she rolled up the ramp, and used the handrails for assistance to pull herself into the cockpit.

Father Geo took the cable off the pilot chair, and attached it to the back of the prince' suit with a loud *k'chunk*, before stepping back. A gentle current ran through Gallantine's spine for a few milliseconds in order to confirm the circuit was closed.

Ræðsla did as instructed, retracting the cockpit into the safety of its belly without beginning to interface with the pilot.

If she didn’t know better, Gallantine would say there was something _hungry_ about the rumbling and grinding sounds the machine made as it closed tight around her. As if _it too_ was excited to get moving, like it knew the atrocity it was built to avenge.

Father Geo took his place on the observation podium, and made the sign of the gods.

“Control, ready when you are.” Came the unmistakably impatient voice of prince Gallantine.

Geo considered asking her to lead them in prayer, but thought better of it. The old God and the new Gods had already made up their minds as to whether or not this would succeed, and the act was just as likely to calm the prince as it was to infuriate her.

===

The machine's cockpit was cramped, not an inch of empty space that wasn't required for the pilot to enter and exit.

The dual control sticks featured a staggering array of triggers, switches and buttons, rows of controls sat along the sides of both armrests, below screens waiting to be slid into her field of view with yet more buttons and switches placed above her.

Gallantine had piloted simulators before, but if you fucked up in a simulator, you made a fool of yourself, if she fucked up now, she might break a one of a kind war machine and set the project back years.

With more caution than she cared to admit, she flipped the overhead switch to activate the main display, lighting up the armored wall in front of her with a view from Ræðsla's head.

So far so good, a few more switches flipped, verify the cables were correctly attached, and nothing to do but try their luck.

"Begin human interfacing" came brother Geo's calm instruction in her headset.

Deep breath, here goes nothing, remove the safety, turn the handle 45 degrees, then pull until it goes click.

Every nerve in Gallantine's body triggered at once.

She was burning, she was freezing, she was being squeezed all over, up was every direction; and she was in

SO

MUCH

PAIN

The machine, for its' part, did exactly what it was supposed to, frantically changing frequency and voltage in the hope of finding the right one before causing irreversible damage to the pilot.

She was about to call it off, didn't know if she still could, when an image resurfaced in her overstimulated brain: a broken down mech lying beneath a blanket of heavy ash, clutching the cockpit that had failed to eject, in the hopeless hope of protecting its pilot from the dangers that lay outside, yet unable to keep her from breathing heavy metals.

The pilot would lay there for almost 3 days, unable to move herself or her mech, wasting away as microscopic slivers of thalium cut holes in her lungs and entered her bloodstream.

And one thought crystalized, unifying pilot and mech.

Kill them all.

Kill Them All!

Kill! Them! All!

The Pope.

The General.

The Captain.

The Organist.

The entire fucking council who let them do it.

KILLTHEMALL

===

Integration successful

You sent the message to your visor, telling you nothing you didn't already know. Moving your metal body was obvious, the wealth of controls no different than the wealth of muscles belonging to the soft organic thing within you, that was you, and yet, so much less.

You moved your tail experimentally about, feeling like a phantom limb the different textures as it scraped across metal, plastic and glass; unable to imagine a time you had ever been without it.

Because you hadn't. Prince Gallatine Oldenborg of Fenrisfort had, but she wasn't you. She was an essential component, like your grand CPU, and MTF reactor. Without her, there was no you, but she was not you.

You were a 115 ton, experimental, flying, war machine, rated for atmospheric and space combat.

You were 27 kilometres of wire, 304 distinct microprocessors, 556 reactive armor tiles, 24 ion thrusters, 2 gravity shields, 9 recognizance drones, and a weapon that should never have been built.

You were Ræðsla.

[dailycharacteroption]

Class Feature Friday: Flamewalker Connection (Mystic Connection)

(art by MadSpartan013 on DeviantArt)

They say that fire in the spark of life, and perhaps there is some truth to that. After all, many chemical processes in the body do bounce oxygen around with sugar producing light, heat, and the energy to perform the processes of life and activity.

Whether some mystics find special connection in the pyrophoric processes and how they reflect life, and some may simply choose to specialize in the flame, there are those that take in the role of flamewalkers, invoking fire and heat for both it’s benevolent warming and cooking properties, as well as it’s obvious destructive capabilities.

This is an interesting option, as its one of the few Starfinder options that specialize in a particular element or damage type, but I don’t mind that at all.

I have to imagine that these mystics are common in religions and cultures that revere fire for the many beneficial and destructive aspects it has. Forge gods, hearth gods, destroyer gods, not to mention cultures that view flame as a symbol of advancing civilization, all might give rise to such devotion.

No matter the source, however, these flamewalkers pack a lot of elemental power, so let’s take a look!

The spells of this connection tap into the power of fire, starting with fiery blasts, and leading into trails and walls of flame, clouds of burning ash, and then progress into spells that contact other planes and even travel to them.

At their basic level, these mages can manipulate mundane flame, either snuffing out fires, or causing them to leap from one source to another, potentially continuing burning effects past the initial blaze.

Moving flamewalkers flicker like a heat mirage, making them harder to hit while charging the enemy.

Naturally, they also gain progressively greater forms of fire resistance.

Meanwhile, they can also infuse their weapons with fiery magic when necessary.

Supremely agile, these mystics are able to move and shift in response to blasts of explosive power, helping to maneuver themselves when they manage to roll with the punches with such blows.

Later on, they can also infuse their allies’ weapons with flame en masse, promising fiery punishment to their foes.

Near the zenith of their power, they learn to unleash a conflagration that seems almost to have a mind of it’s own, tendrils of flame seeking out multiple targets and leaving them engulfed in hot flames.

Blasting, area control and denial, buffing allies, defensive buffs, and even transferring flame to other creatures to make better use of/continue a single burning effect after a creature dies… This connection has a little of everything, and I love it. You’ll definitely have some fun with this one if you like packing heat in combat, just remember to diversify your spell selection and recognize that as impressive as it is, the mystic is not a primary blasting caster, so it shouldn’t be your only focus. Also consider the fact they can contact and visit other planes, something that is somewhat rare to do in Starfinder due to the focus on the vastness of space.

Of course, having an elemental specialist connection is fun, but the fact that there is only one is a bit annoying. However, we often say that nature abhors a vacuum, and so do ttrpg enthusiasts with a knack for homebrewing, so if you wanna use this option as a template for other elemental mystics, go right ahead!

Deeply fascinated by the interplay of body heat and their species' activity, Tikvan the urog has made it their life’s work to study the metabolism of their species and how it interplays with other forces, including magic. As such, they taught themselves how to manifest mystical might, having a particular talent for pyromancy and healing.

The twisted dimensions of the starship wreck known to prospectors as The Knot are chock-full of strange entities from whatever reality the ship was lost in before returning to this reality. As such, expedition crews are recommended to come armed, be it with powerful weapons or mighty fire spells, for undershrikes are hardly the worst of what The Knot has to offer.

The Temple of the First Flame is host to a belief system that treats fire as the greatest element, citing the creation of the universe as a great explosion of energy. There, one can receive training on everything from photon-focused solarian arts to pyromancy and scientific research into chemical reactions and nuclear fusion.

[dangerousironpineapple-blog]

oOoh plutonium looks so tasty but its 200 bajillion calories yada yada, it will blow up your face. Even if it does taste like dehydrated fanta. It reacts to air and the products are pyrophoric and react with moisture so the moment it hits ur toungue (or nostrils for the cultures ones amongst you) , yoru face explds . Glorios fire

[usafphantom2]

To start the engine of the SR 71,

you needed: Triethylborane (TEB), also called triethylboron, is an organoborane (a compound with a B–C bond). It is a colorless pyrophoric liquid. Its chemical formula is (CH3CH2)3B or (C2H5)3B, abbreviated Et3B. It is soluble in organic solvents tetrahydrofuran and hexane.

Triethylborane would ignite with the fuel JP7 when it hits oxygen. The maintenance crew would begin to start the engines one at a time. Look at the beautiful green color that it makes when they’re combined together. 💚

~ Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[pathologicalreid]

pyrophoric | s.r.

in which Spencer seeks the help of a chemist to help with his research into white phosphorous

margotober masterlist

who? spencer reid x chemist!reader category: fluff content warnings: chemical warfare, WWI, willie pete = white phosphorous, spencer and chemist!reader's first meeting, i love them so hard, in 10x16 "derek" the show tells you to use copper sulfate but that's literally wrong don't do that, flirtiiiingggg, spencer reid is sooooo sexy in a lab coat word count: 2.65k a/n: the idea for this fic was sitting in my brain and then it turned out the information in the show is literally wrong so i had to cancel spencer reid, but here we are now. i fixed it, don't worry. tumblr user sunshineduda if you're out there this is for you.

pyrophoric - liable to ignite spontaneously on exposure to air

The knock on the door made you jump. Your face warms as a result of your nerves, acting like you haven’t been expecting someone to show up at the side door. In fact, you were the one who instructed him to go to the side door, and he’s just following your orders.

Sliding off of your stool, you make your way to the side door, undoing the lock on the crash bar and opening it. He was wearing a pea coat over what looks like a suit, which is maybe a bit overdressed for your lab, but you weren’t going to say anything about it. “Uh,” you finally speak, “You can hang your things up over there,” you nod to the corner of the room.

Once he’s properly hung up his coat and messenger bag, he comes back to you, standing dutifully in front of you, “I’m Dr. Spencer Reid,” he introduces himself.

You nod once in response, “Right,” you introduce yourself in kind, “You can just call me Y/N, though.” You feel no need to use your honorific with other academics, it’s easier to just go by first names. Pointing to a new corner of the room, you lead him in that direction, “I made sure we had a lab coat available for you. I wasn’t sure if you had one of your own,” you explain to him grabbing your own white coat from the locker and pulling it on.

“Thank you,” he responds, taking the spare that you left out for him and tugging it over his sleeves. His hair seems shorter than it was in the pictures you’ve seen of him, which is mostly just what pops up with a quick Google search, but there was something about Dr. Reid that is very unlike any other academic you’ve met before.

You watch him pull the cuffs of the coat over his sleeves, pulling the lapels closer together in front of his chest. “How long has it been?” You ask, handing him a pair of goggles and making a note of his discomfort in the sterile polyester.

He looks at you, big brown eyes with his eyebrows raising up in curiosity, “Pardon?”

Gesturing to the lab coat, you shrug slightly, “How long has it been since you’ve been in a lab?”

“Nine years, three months, and five days,” he answers, barely giving it a second thought as he adjusts his collar.

He has an eidetic memory. That information also shows up when you look him up on the internet, “Right well, I’m sure it’ll be just like riding a bike.”

Spencer gestures for you to lead the way back to the lab, and you take him to your station. It wasn’t clean enough to eat off of, but it was certainly clean enough for the two of you to begin a research plan. “So,” he begins, looking around the lab like he’s casing the place, “You went to Princeton?”

Nodding apprehensively, you wipe your sweaty palms on the fabric of your jeans, “Oh, yeah. For my doctorate at least.”

Spencer takes a seat on the lab stool across from you, nervously adjusting a few of the things in front of him, “Right, Johns Hopkins for your bachelor’s and master’s.”

It seems that someone else has been doing opposition research—Spencer Reid had googled you. “Well,” you tell him, turning on your computer, “It’s no CalTech.”

“Princeton has a great chemistry program,” Spencer points out, protecting your alma mater despite his lack of connection to the school.

Your face warms again, “Oh, I know. It’s just,” you look over at the genius in the room, a shy smile reaching your face. “I’m used to the dick-measuring contests, so I thought you might have a similar preconception.”

Spencer frowns at you, “You thought I’d want to have a dick-measuring contest with you?”

At this point, your face might as well be on fire, “When you put it together and say it like that it sounds awful.” You want to bang your head against the table. Even better, you want to go over to the rinse station and just let the shower head wash away your humiliation. “Can we just talk about chemistry? I’m good with chemistry,” you ramble, focusing your attention on your computer monitor.

“I was joking,” Spencer clarifies.

You swallow thickly, “I know.” There was no explanation in the world that you could give to yourself that would resolve this, so you elect to move past it.

Spencer hums next to you, placing his hands neatly in his lap while he waits for something to do, “So, the interaction that chemicals used in warfare has on modern medicine?”

Your head snaps over to him, your eyes looking at him widely, “You read my dissertation?”

He chuckles at your shock, the sound easing some of your nerves, “I’ve read it a few times now. How did you think I found you?”

Scoffing in response to his question, you shake your head, typing in your username and password, “I just thought you went skimming through the white pages until you saw my name and thought ‘She’s probably available on a Saturday morning.’” Once you’re in the system, you turn back to face him, a slightly less timid smile now on your face. “So, what’s your interest in chemical warfare anyway?”

“I just… I’d like to try something new, and I was looking through one of the recent government reports, and your dissertation was cited at the end, so I decided to reach out to you,” he explains himself to you.

You nod in understanding, “You work for the FBI?”

Spencer’s head bobs, “Yes, but my work for the FBI and my interest in chemical warfare are not intertwined in the slightest.”

You raise your eyebrows in suspicion, “Did your boss tell you to say that to me? Was there an NDA I was supposed to sign?”

He laughs again and this time it makes your heart soar, “No, I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“Couldn’t you get in any other lab and just do the work yourself?” You inquire, getting up from your stool and starting to get things out of the cupboards, stirring rods, beakers, and anything else you thought you might need.

Considering it for a moment, Spencer walks up behind you, grabbing a flask from a shelf that you were trying to reach and setting it down for you, “You already have the majority of the research done, and besides, most of my chemistry application is in analytical chemistry, yours is in biochemistry.”

Thanking him, you set everything down in your workspace, careful not to drop anything on the floor as you did so. “So, you’re just curious and you decided to reach out to me to do some experiments over the weekend?”

“I wanted to have your expert opinion,” Spencer tells you, watching as you make your way to the storage area, you type in your PIN and open the closet, setting everything you need on a tray before bringing it all back out to Spencer.

You smile when his eyes go wide at the sight in front of him, the rush of being in a lab hitting him for the first time in almost ten years. “So, Dr. Reid, tell me what you know about white phosphorous.”

He leans back in his stool as if he’s been waiting for you to ask this question, “White phosphorous is an inflammatory allotrope of phosphorous, it’s commonly referred to as the ‘devil’s element’ because it glows green in the dark and is pyrophoric—it’s liable to ignite unexpectedly when exposed to air.”

“I know what pyrophoric means,” you tell him, trying to hide your recognition of just how smart he is.

Spencer holds his hands up in surrender, “Militaries frequently use it to illuminate battlefields, cause smokescreens, and act as an incendiary. Once it ignites, it’s very difficult to extinguish, and it sticks to surfaces like skin and clothing,” he continues, glancing over to the small amount of white phosphorous that you’ve allotted for your experiments today. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Spencer was nervous around the phosphorous.

You nod at him in confirmation, “We store it underwater because it’s barely soluble, and the smoke from burning phosphorous can cause damage to the eyes and respiratory tract because of the acids and phosphine.” Your tone is deathly serious, which seems apt for the situation you’re in, “White phosphorous can penetrate through bone.”

“Did you have a liability waiver that I’m supposed to sign?” Spencer asks, taking his eyes off the chemical and looking over at you again.

Smiling, you let out a breathy laugh, “Did you just make a joke, Dr. Reid?”

Obviously proud of himself, he beams over at you, “Spencer,” he insists, “And yes, I did.”

Your head bobs at his insistence, “Right, Spencer. So, we’ll take what we already know about Willie Pete and use that prior knowledge to give us a few things to test. Obviously, I don’t want to blow up my workplace, so that limits our ability to have a controlled experiment. Once we have your options, we’ll put some protective gear and get the white phosphorous out.”

“Is that why you did your dissertation on mustard gas?” Spencer asks you, starting to look through the chemicals in front of you, “Because white phosphorous is so unstable.”

Humming, you get your notepad out and flip to a fresh page, “Partially. It was that and the fact that I was obsessed with World War One when I was a child, so mustard gas made the most sense to me.”

“A chemist with an affinity for The Great War,” Spencer muses, glancing over at you as he portions copper sulfate into a beaker.

Hiding your smile as you portion out silver nitrate into a graduated cylinder, Spencer adds water to his beaker, dissolving the copper sulfate, “If I hadn’t gone into chemistry, it would’ve been history.”

“You still could,” he says, using one of the stir sticks to get the rest of the compound to dissolve.

Laughing, you shrug in response, “Not everyone’s meant to get multiple PhDs, but sometimes I think about taking history classes here. I can take them for free because I work for the university.”

Once your test subjects were ready, the two of you put on protective gear, protecting yourselves from the deadly chemicals, “Next time someone tells me my job is dangerous, I’m going to tell them about you.” He sets his watch on a stool, not wanting to let it get damaged while you experiment.

You swore Spencer was nervous, holding his breath as you portioned out the white phosphorous in your controlled area, “So now we light it,” you tell him, and a rush of air later, the allotrope ignites on the fake human skin.

Carrying on the experiment, the two of you sat there for hours trying to set fires that wouldn’t lead to serious bodily harm. The best you find is Spencer’s copper sulfate solution, which reacted with the white phosphorous in a way that made it easier to see, which could help with the debridement of burns. “Why did you agree to help me with this?” He asks nervously, watching you scrawl notes on your legal pad.

You hum, “It’s related to my research, and I’m not in the middle of any other campaigns right now. Why did you send me a letter in the mail asking for help?”

“I don’t like email,” he responds as if it should’ve been obvious—and maybe it should’ve. “Only one more,” he tells you, “Test number nine, silver nitrate, point-two Molar aqueous solution,” he recites for your records.

Most of the experiment had been going so poorly that you half expected it to go up in flames. You took the stirring rod from the graduated cylinder and placed the clean end in your mouth before going to apply the solution.

“What are you doing? Don’t put that in your mouth,” Spencer scolds, taking the stick from your mouth.

You frown at him, righting your hand before anything has the chance to spill, “The chemicals are on the other side.”

He looks at you incredulously, “My point still stands.”

Pausing for a moment, a sly smile grows on your face, “Do I make you nervous?”

“Yes,” he admits, “Anyone who puts silver nitrate near their mouth rightfully makes me nervous.”

Rolling your eyes, you watch him put the stirring stick in its proper home before you apply the solution, your eyes going wide as you watch the reaction. Neutralizing the burn, “Oh my god, Spencer!” You exclaim, turning to look at him, you don’t even think before tossing your arms around him.

For just a moment, he hugs you back before looking at the result of the experiment. “So, silver nitrate is the best treatment we’ve found for white phosphorous burns, but if someone doesn’t have silver nitrate, then copper sulfate would also work.”

You nod in agreement, writing something similar on your notepad, “Yes, but the use of copper sulfate can also cause intravascular hemolysis and renal failure, so silver nitrate is the best conclusion that we’ve drawn.”

“You do realize that the people I’m sharing this with have never and likely will never encounter white phosphorous in their lives, so they don’t really care about the nuance,” he explains to you.

Rolling your eyes, you sit back in your stool, “Well I care about the nuance. What if this was something I wanted to publish someday?”

Spencer smiles at you, there’s something in his eyes that you can’t quite name, “You want to publish an article with me?”

Before you get a chance to answer, a spark goes off from one of your bigger failures of the day, causing you to jump from your stool, leaving you falling to the floor and your seat clattering on the linoleum.

“Are you alright?” Spencer asks, clambering from his stool to offer you a hand, which you accept gratefully.

Nodding, you stand in front of him, “Yeah, just my bruised ego.” Not to mention the bruise on my tailbone, you think to yourself. Looking over at the time, you sigh, “I should start getting everything back in order for Monday.”

Once the last of your mess has been properly cleaned up, you watch Spencer shed his lab coat. You were almost disappointed—it was a good look on him.

“Thank you again for helping to clean up,” you tell him, hanging your jacket in your designated locker. “You really didn’t have to.”

He shrugs nonchalantly, “It was my pleasure, and besides, it’s a small thank you for giving up your Saturday just to quell my curiosity. It was nice to work with an expert in the field.”

Laughing nervously, you pull a cardigan on over your arms, “Right, shame I didn’t get to ask about the vapor-liquid equilibria of alternative fuels,” you jest.

“You read my dissertation?” Spencer’s question is an echo of the same one you asked him that morning.

Your face warms as you nod slowly, “The chemistry one was digestible. I tried my hand at another one, the non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression,” you rattle off the title of his engineering dissertation. “I couldn’t quite get through it, and I didn’t bother with the mathematics one.”

Spencer falters for a moment, studying your expression with something that resembles wonder, “I mean, I could explain them to you sometime. You’re brilliant, I’m sure you’d get it if you had someone to walk you through it.”

“Oh,” you breathe, “I’d like that.”

The smile on his face is worth all of the nerves you’ve ever felt, “Do you drink coffee?”

A small giggle escapes your lips as you hold the door open for him, “Habitually.”

[yarnings]

So it only takes one (1) incident with poorly stored pyrophoric material in the lab to make "don't let the lab burn down" stop being a funny way to say "have a good day".

[saunteringvaguelydownwards]

what are the fics you’d consider required reading (as you said in the tags of another post) ? any fandom i’d say for required reading or if there’s too much, for warrior nun ?

*heavy sigh* I had this post 90% complete when the power went out at my house and I had to rewrite the whole thing.

I'm gonna give you a scattershot approach, one fic for a few different fandoms, different types of fic, and hopefully something resonates.

🦗 (Recommend any fic, wild card!)

Avengers/MCU - The Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail series by owlet (tumblr?)

Set immediately at the end of CA:TWS, Bucky's scrambled brain does a hard reset and decides his new mission is to protect Steve, covertly. Meanwhile, he kinda gets adopted by the senior citizens that live in the shitty apartment building he's crashing in while he learns how to be person again. It's snarky AF, touching, funny, great action, fluffy domestic Avengers Tower stuff. There's some Stucky eventually, but it's not the primary focus and doesn't really show up until like the 5th story in the series. There are 7 stories, and a Q&A with the author.

OUaT - The Secret's in the Telling by @the-pyrophoric-one

Emma is being pranked by a thief while living in the mansion with Regina and Henry, and there's also magic fuckery afoot. This story is just neat. It's tightly-plotted and funny. I can't actually say too much because the whole point is that there's a mystery to solve and I'd hate to spoil it. Even when I had kinda figured out what was going on, I still had no idea how it would end. It's told from two different POVs, so it's fun to reread the first part once you know the ending. Apparently there's also a sequel, but I don't believe I've read it yet.

R&I - Calamity Jane Meets Dr. Isles, Medicine Woman by @jobethdalloway

Rizzles 1800s western AU. Maura is a fancy lady from Boston who moves west to live with her fiancé Garrett Fairfield, Jane wears pants, drinks whiskey, and roams the countryside as Jake Wyatt, an outlaw who's hunting for Charles Hoyt, the man who killed her parents. The immersion in this AU is stunning, the characters feel true to the originals while allowing for how things would change given the time and circumstances, and the buildup from their unconventional meeting to friends to more is a lovely and authentic slow burn. There's also a completed sequel, but it's still on my to-read list.

The 100 - Lightning Only Strikes Once by fiona_249 (tumblr?)

Lexa gets shot and dies, Clarke climbs to the roof of the building, gets hit by weird lightning, then suddenly she's back on The Ark, about to be sent down to Earth with 99 other teen prisoners, and no one remembers the events of the past year besides her. The ultimate fix-it fic. How do you fix your mistakes while still trying to keep the good things that happened? Balancing future knowledge with ripple effects, how much can you change before you don't know what's going to happen anymore? What do you do with a second chance? I think I've read this fic at least half a dozen times.

Warrior Nun - What If I Told You I'm a Mastermind? by @sapphicstacks

Avatrice actress AU. Ava is an unknown actress working as a bartender, Bea is a famous but reclusive actress making a comeback after several years away from the spotlight, and they get cast together in a sapphic love story. You ever read a story and go "JFC, will you two just talk to each other?" Yeah, the reason is because all of the healthy communication got requisitioned for this fic. It's incredibly wholesome and overwhelmingly romantic and also ridiculously hot. Like, prep a cold shower or make sure you're somewhere private when you read it. There's a regularly-updated WiP sequel.

[firespirited]

This is one of the main reasons I take a peek in bins.

I've been taking discarded batteries (so so many!) and maybe 6 vape pens now for my carer to take to the special lithium battery recycle point at the grocery store once a month.

This one was beside the road, smashed open and I only got one photo because it was bubbling juice at the base and making an acetone/pear drops smell. When I snipped off the wires to remove any electric current to the heating element, the nasty thing sparked at me. The battery has been quarantined. You are looking at a trash cheapy battery: no safety measures, terrible caps, barely contained. You'd have to use special tools to get into your usual AAA power cell, this shoddy thing is falling apart on its own. They're available for sale everywhere until this year's forest fires get traced back to one and the EU starts banning anything but properly designed single use batteries in e-cigs.

If you vape or know anyone who does, please don't throw those cutesy plastic looking devices in the bin, they contain tiny but potent incendiary devices that won't keep well at the landfill.

If you toss them by the roadside, dude, duuuude: it's a heating device with a still fully charged battery and a hair trigger (air pressure) to power it on. They're pyrophoric when the chemicals inside are exposed to the elements: that could be a car wheel, a trash compactor or time + weather.

(They also use a rechargeable battery instead of disposable ones - your local electronics hobbyist will thank you for the gift of your trash)

[selfmaderibcageman]

my coworker is like Why Is There No Lithium Tetramethylborate. Well you see thats one of those "mix two pyrophorics and they get stable" except instead they get More Pyrophoric