#exploding through kilometers away

[dropthedemiurge]

Just so you know, when Joowan talks to Taevin (Love for Love's Sake actors) on their instagram lives, he STILL calls him jagiya (baby/darling/honey)

and they almost always enter each other's IG lives and then it starts feeling like their own private videocall because their looks and voices immediately become much softer and playful and they completely forget about fans until the very end

today they were introducing their cats (Vi and Hotteok) to each other and making it an online playdate for their fluffy pets, and again ended the live on 'i'll talk to you later in DMs~' so damn domestic i mean

they talk about everything and anything and update each other about their lives and talk about gifts to each other and their voices are so soft and affectionate

Joowan asked Taevin how does he feel about his upcoming bday (30 yo) and Taevin didn't hear him well so Joowan softly said 'I'm talking about your birthday, baby. your birthday' how about kill me now??

and i'm not the one to ship real people but what Joowan and Taevin created on LFLS set must've been very precious if they are still so extremely close and i'm about to squeeze them through my phone screen

(it's also been a year since LFLS aired and Taevin was filming unboxing for his own solo SG merch today but he also ended up unboxing the LFLS boxset just because? oh how they loved this project fr)

[itzy-bitsy-spidey]

Something made a hole in my backyard (pt.1)

In which an unexpected hedgehog visitor lands on your backyard.

Shadow the hedgehog x reader (platonic)

Notes: I saw Sonic 3 a few days ago and I have spiralled down a rabbit (hedgehog??) hole.This is rather short but there will be more parts to it!

Part 2

What a great time the night is, isn't it? It's peaceful, and quiet and such a good time to sleep. That's what you were doing the moment this story starts, just dreaming away without a worry in the world.

It was around midnight and your parents weren't home, so the Jackson's house was all yours to relax in. Outside the night was cool and there were no birds singing, only the distant sound of dogs barking.

So it actually did came as a surprise when you simply woke up in the middle of the night. No strange sound to wake you, no alarm, no sunlight, no nothing. Only a very dry throat and a weird feeling in your gut, as if something was supposed to be happening.

The walk down the stairs and towards the kitchen felt eerie, the feeling crawling up your back like tiny spiders that digged their little pointy legs under your skin. Even the sound of the water running as you filled your cup made every hair in your body stand on end.

You could see the backyard perfectly fine from the window, the moon light shining strongly and lightning everything up. Your parent's house was luckily a few kilometers away from the town so there wasn't really a lot of light pollution (or car noise, thankfully).

You could say that it was the lack of street lights what allowed you to see the phenomenon going on in the sky, but you were pretty sure that even in a modern city you could still notice what was going on. What was going on wasn't really something you knew, but it seemed as if a star had exploded on the night sky.

Against every reason that told you that you should run away and hide you could only gape at the sky in awe. With your eyes stuck to the window you made your way into the backyard, leaving behind your glass of water without even noticing that the remaining liquid had started to float out of the glass and into the air.

There's something else in the sky. It kind of looked like a star, one that shined brighter than the rest. And then you felt it coming. Every hair in your body stood on end, a chill ran through your spine and it felt as if time itself had stopped for a second.

The puddles of water that were left from the rain started to float, rising from the ground.

And then everything was silent.

You breathed in.

But you didn't have time to exhale.

A BOOM sounded,and the strength that, the thing you had thought to be a star, crashed with pushed you backwards, making you fall flat on your back. Your ears were ringing and your sight a little hazy, but nonetheless you stood right back onto your feet.

You had to see what had just crashed on your backyard.

The smoke and dirt made it hard to focus on what was resting on the ground, it seemed to be an animal of sorts (or even a stuffed toy, but you doubted that), the most important thing right then was that the thing was breathing.

And that it had made a huge hole in your backyard.

Your parents were so going to kill you.

[scary-grace]

certain stars - a shigaraki x reader fic

Nothing in your training prepared you for this: A deadly virus that burnt through Space Station Ultra, leaving only two survivors -- you, and Mission Specialist Shigaraki, trapped together in the command module. With time, food, and life-support running out, you have a choice about how you'll spend your final hours. You just wish you had any idea what you're supposed to do.

This is for @shigarakislaughter (happy birthday!) who asked for a forced-proximity roommates to lovers situation. Being me, I had to make it weird, and being one of my fics, it had to get away from me. I'm posting part 1 now so you'll have it for your birthday, and part 2 as soon as it's done! Shigaraki x reader, rated M, space station au, angst + suggestive content. dividers by @cafekitsune.

You stare out the windscreen, into the darkness. As empty as what lies before you is, a pure black void pierced here and there by distant stars, it’s less disturbing than what lies on the other side of Station Ultra’s rotation – Earth, wrapped in clouds, brown and green and blue. It’s only four hundred kilometers below you, no distance at all when compared to vastness of space beyond your high orbit, and yet it’s never felt further away.

It shouldn’t be. There’s nothing wrong with the space station, no malfunction that would prevent the shuttle docked to this very module from bringing you and your fellow astronauts home. It’s not a mechanical problem that’s keeping you here. And as if you needed a reminder, your control panel blips at you, the shipboard computer speaking up in its cool, mechanical voice. “Ventilation recycling complete for all compartments. Parts per million remains unchanged.”

You knew it would. Your heart still sinks. “Understood. Contact Mission Control.”

Mission Control picks up right away. Director Sasaki’s voice fills your headset. “Status?”

“I recycled the ventilation system in all compartments. Parts per million in the affected compartments hasn’t changed.”

“All other systems?”

“Normal,” you say. “Propulsion, auxiliary, heat-shield, life-support. It all works like it’s supposed to.”

“And what about you?” Sasaki asks. “Are you functional?”

You haven’t slept well in three weeks. You aren’t eating much, to conserve food, but even if you could eat as much as you wanted, you’d still be too stressed to be hungry. You’re getting claustrophobic in here. The air feels stale, even though you know it isn’t. “As functional as can be expected. Given everything that’s happened.”

“Yes,” Director Sasaki says after a moment. “This was not an outcome anyone could have predicted.”

Someone, somewhere must have, though. You’ve taken three trips up to Station Ultra since you graduated from the academy, and every time you’ve come back down, you’ve spent a month in quarantine, just to make sure you didn’t pick up any deadly space bacteria while you were in orbit. It was kind of a joke to you, like it was a joke to everybody. The vacuum of space is completely inhospitable, incompatible with any form of life. There’s no way anyone could come back to earth with a disease.

But a virus isn’t life, not the same way other things are. A virus could survive inert, waiting for the correct conditions to claim a host and multiply within them. Conditions like warmth and light and ample food. The kind of things that exist inside a space station. It came inside on Togata’s spacesuit, when he returned from a walk to fix some of the reflective tiles on the propulsor housing, and as soon as it touched air, it exploded to life.

You were in the command module, because it was your shift. By the time the viral load in the compartment was significant enough to trip the ventilation system’s alarms, it had already spread to six other modules, infecting everyone it found. You sealed off all the modules in response, isolating each ventilation system from the others. It’s the only reason you’re still alive.

You, and one other person. “What about Mission Specialist Shigaraki?” Director Sasaki asks. “Is he functional?”

“Close enough,” you say. Shigaraki’s been climbing the walls, but then again, this is his first trip into orbit. Most first-timers are anxious enough without being walled up in a single module, hiding from a virus that’s deadly on contact. “He’s sleeping right now.”

“I’d like to speak to him as well. Wake him up.”

You’d rather not. He’s been having a hard time settling down enough to sleep. Still, you’re not interested in getting busted by Control right now. “Right away.”

You pick up a pen, stand it upright in the air, then give it a flick, sending it rotating end over end across the compartment to bump against Shigaraki’s cheek. He’s a light sleeper. He jerks awake at once, grabbing for his mask. “Is it –”

“Everything’s fine,” you say, then wince. “Control wants to check in with you.”

“Don’t know what they want me to say.” Shigaraki rubs his eyes. “Same shit, different sol.”

“Then it’ll be a really short check-in.” You hold the headset out, and Shigaraki makes his way across the compartment to you. Station Ultra’s gravity is about a quarter of Earth’s, enough to make smaller objects float and enough to let Shigaraki get from his makeshift bed to you without touching the floor once. “Director Sasaki, he’s here.”

Shigaraki settles the headset over his tangled white hair, and you go back to staring out the windscreen, listening with half an ear. “It’s shit,” Shigaraki says, in response to whatever Sasaki just asked him. “I’m sick of listening to you all pretend we aren’t going to die up here.”

Your stomach clenches. You can’t hear Sasaki’s response, but Shigaraki’s comes through loud and clear. “You all are stupid if you’re thinking about taking that kind of risk. If this thing gets down there, everything’s fucked, so stop lying and figure out a way to off us both. Go to hell.”

He takes the headset off, ends the call, and tosses it back to you. “You were right. It was short.”

“I told him you were functional,” you say lamely. “Now he’s going to think you’ve got Pandorum or something.”

“We’d be better off with Pandorum than whatever got in here,” Shigaraki says. You’re expecting him to go back to bed, but instead he sits down next to you at the windscreen. “At least Pandorum fucks off once you’re planetside.”

He stares out the windscreen. You study him, like you’ve been doing when you get the chance. Out of all the crewmembers you could have picked to get stuck with at the beginning of the mission, you wouldn’t have chosen him. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t happy he’s here.

Shigaraki was a last-minute addition to the crew, after the mission specialist who was supposed to go caught the flu, and he was unhappy about it from the second he set foot on the shuttle. You don’t think anybody in the history of manned spaceflight has ever bitched about going into space as much as he did on the way up, but once you docked at Station Ultra, you figured out why in a hurry. He has motion sickness – bad – and short of being on a fishing trawler in the North Sea during a storm, there’s no worse place for that than a space station that orbits the earth while moving in a constant rotation. In his spot, you’d have bitched, too.

You tried to help him. Whenever you were on shift in the command module, you altered the gravity of whatever compartment he was in, trying to make it more like Earth’s and less like whatever his version of Hell is. You parted with most of your share of Dramamine, then all of it, hoping it would help. Maybe if you’d let him know you were doing it, he wouldn’t have been such a jackass to you – or maybe he’d have been exactly the same. Worse, even. Based on the way he snapped at people who asked after him, he doesn’t want anybody’s pity.

As far as mission specialists go, though, he’s great at his job, using the lack of signal interference in orbit to gather data from the most distant unmanned probes that have been sent out, ones that have been lost to contact on Earth for decades. Voyager, Pioneer, New Horizons, Odyssey, Earendil – all of them in interstellar space, all of them still transmitting. One time you wandered into the observation module on an off-shift and found him hunched over something, headphones clamped down over his ears. You knew better than to ask what he was listening to, but when he looked up and spotted you, he kicked out the chair next to his.

You were so surprised that you didn’t question it. You sat down, accepted the pair of headphones he pushed at you, and settled them over your ears, too. At first there was nothing but silence, the quiet of deep space without a hint of static. And then you heard it, so faint it was almost a mirage – soft humming, interspersed with high, clear notes that reverberate endlessly, overlapping with others before growing too distant to hear. It sent chills down your spine.

The two of you listened in silence for a long time, until even the humming faded away. You pulled off your headphones and turned to Shigaraki. “What was that?”

“Earendil’s been picking it up. This is the first time I caught more than a few seconds.” Shigaraki tapped something on his console, and a red light flickered off. He was recording. “It’s music.”

“From where?” you asked. “Aliens?”

Shigaraki shook his head. “It’s not a signal,” he said. “It’s something else. People used to theorize about it, back before science existed, but –”

“Musica universalis,” you said, and he nodded. “The music of the spheres. It’s real?”

“If that was what I think it is, yeah.” Shigaraki’s expression was thoughtful, softer than you’d seen it before. “Cool, right?”

“Yeah,” you said, even though it didn’t feel like the right word. Eerie. Awe-inspiring. Unreal. You watched as Shigaraki bent back over his console, pulling out an old-fashioned jump drive and feeding it into the nearest port. “Cool.”

It was hard to look away from him then. It’s hard to look away now, even though he’s the only person you’ve seen for weeks, the only person still alive in here with you. His white hair, which needs a trim. His red eyes, half-lidded as he looks out the window. The scars on his eye and his mouth, which you’ve wondered about but never asked after. You’ve got questions about him. And even though he’s right, even though you probably are going to die up here, you still can’t get it together enough to ask.

The two of you sit in silence until one of the alarms you’ve set goes off. You know what this one’s for. “Virus check,” you say, and Shigaraki nods. “Let’s get this over with.”

Every six hours, you check for signs of the virus. Temperature, pupil response, blood pressure, pulse oxygen level – and then a self-exam to make sure the pale splotches that signify infection aren’t anywhere on your bodies. The air in your module is clear, still, but you and Shigaraki still act like you’re in quarantine. Like at some point you’ll be declared virus-free and safe to go home.

Your vitals are normal. So are Shigaraki’s. “I was thinking,” he says as you put the blood pressure cuff away. “I’m pretty pale. I don’t know if I’d be able to pick out the spots on myself.”

“Do you want me to check for you?”

“We should check each other,” Shigaraki says. Your face heats up, and you look away. “Accountability or something. In case one of us gets infected and tries to hide it.”

“If one of us got infected, it would be too late for the other one,” you say. “Fine, though. Let’s check each other. I’m sick of trying to look at my own back without a mirror.”

You feel beyond awkward stripping down in front of Shigaraki, even though you leave your underwear on. He leaves his on, too. “I’ll check you first, since you’re the one who’s worried about it,” you say. “Turn around.”

His back is more muscled than you expected, not that you were expecting much. Other than patches of eczema, dry and angry red from the bone-dry air, he looks clear. “I’m not seeing anything.”

“Check for texture,” Shigaraki says, and your face heats up again. “Himura was pale like me, and they thought he was clear until they touched him.”

You set your hands on Shigaraki’s back, and he startles at your touch, even though he asked you to do this. You try to think back to what you’re looking for, what the others in the infected modules reported before they succumbed. Hard, pale circles on the skin that don’t change color when pressed on. Shigaraki’s skin is clear, everywhere you run your fingers over it, but you check again, and again. You haven’t touched anyone in weeks, not even to high-five or shake hands. It’s hard to pull away.

You make yourself do it before things can get weird. “You’re clear. On your back at least.”

“Your turn,” Shigaraki says, and you turn away immediately. At least now you won’t have to keep your arms crossed. He takes one look at your back and laughs. “A tattoo? Are you yakuza or something?”

“People get tattoos where I come from. Not just gangsters.” You jump as the rough tip of one finger traces over the design on your shoulder. “Don’t touch it if you’re just going to make fun of it.”

“I’m not. What is it?”

“I thought you didn’t care about backstory stuff,” you say. “Isn’t that what you said when we got stuck? We’re not gonna bond just because we’re breathing the same air?”

Shigaraki doesn’t answer. He usually doesn’t answer when he’s wrong about something. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

“Are you going to check me for the rash or not?” You wait until Shigaraki’s hands move, then answer his question, mainly to give yourself something to think about other than the fact that he’s touching you. “It’s Centaurus. The constellation.”

“I know what Centaurus is,” Shigaraki snaps, almost absently. His fingertips drift across your shoulder blades. “Closest stars to the sun, right?”

“Yeah. Alpha Centauri.” For some reason, your throat goes tight. “I always wanted to be an astronaut, even when I was a little kid. But kids are bad at distance, and time – the stuff that tells you what’s actually possible when it comes to space travel. I used to say I wanted to fly to Alpha Centauri and back. Just a few light-years away.”

You wait for Shigaraki to make fun of little-kid you for not understanding how spacetime works. He keeps quiet, his hands moving down your spine, and you don’t know what to do except to keep talking. “I don’t remember who told me. Probably some smart kid in elementary school. And I felt really stupid about it for a long time.”

“So you got a tattoo of it?”

“Yeah. When I got accepted to the academy,” you say. “Everybody was talking about why they wanted to be astronauts – I know we seem like a bunch of meatheads to you scientists, but it’s not easy – and I thought about how excited younger me would have been to be where I was. All the amazing things I was going to get to do and see. And if it was daydreaming about Alpha Centauri that got me there, even if I could never go that far, I didn’t want to be embarrassed about it any longer.”

Shigaraki’s hands come to a stop at your lower back, fingers curling around your hips in a way that’s not strictly necessary for what he’s supposed to be doing. “Did you ever think you’d die out here?”

“I knew it was possible,” you say. In the academy, they take you through every fatal accident, one by one, teaching you ever detail to demystify it. “I didn’t think it would go like this.”

“Yeah.” Shigaraki exhales, and you feel his breath against your shoulder. “You’re clear, by the way. Turn around.”

You turn to face him and realize that the two of you are standing much closer together than you started out. Shigaraki’s hands lifted away as you turned, but they settle back on your hips at once. “Um –”

“I’ve seen you watching me,” Shigaraki says. Of course he has. There’s nothing for the two of you to watch here but each other. You should have known better than to think you could get away with anything. “What do you think about when you do that?”

You’re going to die, right? Both of you, up here, whether Mission Control finds out a way to kill you humanely or just lets you starve. It doesn’t matter what you say. “You’re pretty. I like looking at you. I look at you and I can think about something other than this.”

His grip tightens ever so slightly. “Were you ever going to do more than just look?”

You’re both going to die. It doesn’t matter anymore. You lift your hands, set them on his shoulders, and step in close. Close enough to kiss, if Shigaraki wants to – and he closes the rest of the distance himself.

It doesn’t mean anything. You’re the last two alive. If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else. You aren’t special. You remind yourself of that as his lips press insistently against yours, as you tangle your hands in his hair and hear him mumble your name. You could be anyone. It doesn’t matter that it’s you.

It’s an effort to detach yourself from Shigaraki long enough to lead him over to the pile of blankets you’ve each been sleeping in when it’s your turn to rest. You’re both mostly naked already, so it’s not a question of where things will go. It’s not the best sex you’ve ever had. With what’s hanging over the two of you, what you’re both trying to forget, you don’t think it’s possible to have really good sex. What you get instead is what you need – connection, contact, a way to ground yourself in one moment, with the only other person in the universe who understands what it’s like to stare this down.

Shigaraki’s desperate in a way that surprises you, responsive in a way you wouldn’t expect, even though this was his idea in the first place. Clingy, too – you’ve both finished, and he won’t let go of you, not even to let you get more comfortable. “I’m not leaving,” you say, exasperated. “Where would I even go?”

He finally shifts to one side, and you’re able to get settled, just in time for him to crawl all over you again. “Touch-starved much?”

“I waited too long,” Shigaraki says. You make a questioning sound. “I should have done it when I figured out who was messing with the gravity.”

Maybe you’re hallucinating. There’s no way he’s liked you that long. Or at all. “Okay, but if we’d hooked up in the command module back then everybody would have known about it.”

“They’d have been jealous.” Shigaraki’s eyelashes flutter against the side of your neck. “And alive.”

And now they’ll never find out, because they’re dead. You feel sick when you think about all the people who will mourn your crewmates, who are mourning them right now – their friends, their families, their girlfriends or boyfriends or spouses or children. Some of them have kids. Who lived, and who lived a little longer, came down to luck. Being in the right place at the right time. Being on shift in the command module for you, and standing in the doorway for Shigaraki, just as the alarms started to sound.

Something crosses your mind. “What were you doing at the command module that night, anyway? I never asked.”

“Why do you think?” Shigaraki’s voice is blurring with sleep, and you resign yourself to being stuck here until the next timer goes off. “Tell you later.”

You’re not all that familiar with hookups – you didn’t have a lot of time for that stuff with your job, or maybe you didn’t make time. You’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to fall asleep together, all but intertwined. But maybe the rules are different when it comes to hookups when you’re both about to die. Hookups where you like each other. Where things could have gone somewhere, maybe, if you’d had more time.

Sleep is tugging at you, trying to lure you down. It’s hard to resist when it’s warm. How long has it been since you were warm? Your sleeping pouch in the dormitory module feels like a distant memory, and with the ventilation isolated, the heaters haven’t been able to shift warm air to the command module in weeks. You and Shigaraki should have been sleeping like this the whole time, if it was ever appropriate for both of you to sleep at once. One person needs to be awake in the command module at all times. That’s you.

Station Ultra completes half an orbit, putting you on the dark side of the planet, and when the module rotates to show you the blackness of space, you look through the windscreen and pick out the stars. Alpha Centauri is right there, close enough to see, millennia away. You’ll never get there, but some virus could drift through space, right up close to Earth’s atmosphere? Bullshit. Then again, a virus isn’t as complex as a human. It doesn’t need air or atmosphere or water to survive. The only thing you and the virus have in common is –

Heat. The virus is inert in the vacuum of space. It activates in sufficient heat. Out in space, it can’t hurt anyone. What if you could send it back where it belongs? You sit up, shifting Shigaraki out of position, and he swears sleepily at you. “What the hell? Lie down.”

“No.” You tolerate Shigaraki’s attempts to drag you back down for about two seconds, then use the hand-to-hand training you received in the academy to pin him. “Listen to me. I have an idea.”

He stares up at you, wide-eyed, a weird flush in his face. “About how to die painlessly?”

“No,” you say. “About how to get home.”

taglist: @atspiss @baking-ghoul @boogiemansbitch @handumb @agente707 @warxhammer @shikiblessed @cheeseonatower @koohiii @stardustdreamersisi @xeveryxstarfallx @lacrimae-lotos @aslutforfictionalmen @evilcookie5 @issaortiz @lvtuss @dance-with-me-in-hell @minniessskii @f3r4lfr0gg3r @deadhands69

[dollwrites]

ᴊᴏʏʀɪᴅᴇ ! ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ʀʏᴏ ᴀsᴜᴋᴀ

𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 ∣ smut ( minors dni ), fem!reader, noncon, gun kink ( gun fucking ), depictions of car wrecks / injuries, mild humiliation / degradation, use of the word rape, what a strange encounter lol. all characters featured are aged 18+

𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 ∣ please reblog && leave feedback. not proofread so there’s probably mistakes. thanks for reading < 3

𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 ∣ act five [ object stimulation ]

your heart was pounding hard against your ribs. right foot pressing down on the pedal. the engine revs louder, practically roaring in your ears, and the photo-white sports car tore down the dark asphalt. the road was slick, and the windshield wipers worked furiously to clear your few of the rain that seemed to pour endlessly from a hole ripped in the night sky.

this wouldn’t have been your first pick for a low profile— a foreign car that most people could only dream of being able to afford, but it was the only one that was unlocked. the only car with the keys in the visor, that fell quite literally into your lap when you flipped it down. but, you still needed to disappear, and the owner had most definitely reported it stolen already, so you avoided main highways. you kept the headlights off, and sped through the darkness on the least traveled backroad that you could find that would wind its way, lacking streetlights and attention, towards the airport. you knew very well that you’d have to abandon the car about six kilometers from there, and hoof it the rest of the way, but you still had a ways to go. twenty kilometers, maybe.

your mind had been so scrabbled with thoughts of escaping, starting a new life, and putting this one behind you that you hadn’t even turned on the radio. perhaps you should; it probably would’ve eased the stiff tension, but you’re grateful you hadn’t. that way, you were able to hear a low growling. one that was approaching from the rear, gradually growing louder. your eyes flit from the hardly visible road to the rear view, stomach twisting into knots as you saw twin lights behind you. still a ways back, but it seemed as if they’d appeared out of thin air.

sucking your lower lip into your mouth, your brows knit together and you press harder on the gas. RPMs slightly bumping up, the roar of your own engine exploded through the night air and you could see the headlights behind you dimming. you felt a wave of relief wash over you— but such a thing was short lived.

because the vehicle tailing you also snarled and sped up. the headlights grew brighter and brighter the closer it got, as if being reeled closer and closer to your bumper, and you felt your stomach flip over when the headlights flickered brightly, twice.

this was a chase.

the cops!

“Shit, shit, shit!” you hissed to yourself, pressing your foot down further. you could feel the floorboard on the other side. even as you gripped the steering wheel tightly, you could feel the wobble. with the roads so slippery, and the winds from the storm so fierce, Mother Nature threatened you with a crash. you’d never driven a car that would go this fast, either, so experience was not on your side.

still, you were determined to get away, and there’s no way in hell that a squad car could keep up with this speed… was there?

your heart sank to your stomach as your pursuer stays right on your bumper, headlights nearly kissing it, with ease. how was this possible?! with your anxiety turned up to one hundred, and no more pedal to stomp on with it pressed all the way to the floor, you stared back at the pitch blackness before you, trying to keep the car between the ditches at the very least as the wipers pushed a waterfall of diamonds that obstructed your view around the glass. the car moaned and swerved, and your fingers clamped harder around the wheel to attempt to keep her steady, but nothing could compare you for what came next.

speeding by the yellow sign so quickly that you almost didn’t see the hairpin curve warning until the silver guardrails sparkled from the blinding rays in your mirrors. no, no, no! you wanted to scream it out, but you hadn’t the time to form the words before fires were squealing, the unfamiliar car protesting with a stubborn swerve. you took a stupid chance and looked into the rear view once more, in hopes that the hunter on your ass wasn’t able to maneuver. only to find that, instead, the driver had sped into the middle, straddling the divider, with their headlights parallel to your back tires. it took you a moment to realize what the car intended by getting in this position, but by the time you had, you had no time to brace for the impact.

CRUNCH!

in the blink of an eye, you were spinning. your hands slipped from the steering wheel and instead attempted to shield your face. the speed at which the smallest bump sent you spiraling was sickening. your stomach leapt up to the base of your throat. after what seemed like an eternity twirling, the car collided into the silver barrier. the impact slammed your head into the window beside you, you felt it fracture from the force against your temple, and the sudden pain causes a blackout. your vision went dark, and rubies dribbled from the wound by your hairline.

sizzling.

no, hissing. you force your lids to give way, though they feel as if they each weigh a ton. clouds of thick, gray smoke bellows out from beneath a crumpled white hood, marred by thick, black skids. your eyelids droop, and you slump against the window. it wasn’t shattered, but breaks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact where you lay. your breath, albeit labored, is the faintest sound you hear. a car door catches your attention. one that slams. and then slow, steady footsteps. boot soles crunching over broken glass. getting closer. everything within you is screaming to move. to fling the door open and throw yourself out onto the asphalt. to run. crawl if you have to. but you’re too disoriented. nauseous from the spinning. dizzy from hitting your head. you can’t muster enough control over your own body to move it.

and you don’t have to.

the latch on the door clicks, and suddenly, you’re poured from the driver’s seat out of the car. your seatbelt must’ve snapped— or, perhaps, you��d never buckled it when you got in. you couldn’t remember right now. your head swam, and your writhed on the ground, flipping over on to your back. rain splatters cold on your face, and drenches your clothes, sticking your top to your curves, running down your bare legs as you try to pull them up into a bend. “Ggg…gh…” it’s nowhere near a coherent word, but a gurgle as your eyelids flutter. raindrops blurred your vision whenever you attempted to open them completely, but you could see a smear of white looming over you— just the right size to be a person. but not one wearing any sort of uniform. on the contrary, he must’ve been wearing a trench coat. white, because the rain had begun to sink through it, as well. giving it a translucent appearance around his shoulders and biceps. “Ah— are you a cop…?” it was the only thing you could ask, perplexed by his appearance. golden hair, piercing blue eyes, and his lips were in a thin line, unbothered and distant.

“No.” the answer is so abrupt that it catches you off guard, even in your dazed state, and you peer up at him, perplexed, as he slides a slender hand into his coat, fishing around for something.

“Then, why did you—“ your breath catches in your throat when a sleek, black barrel is staring back at you, inches from your face, water careening off it. “Sh— shit…!” you’d never expected a gun, and most certainly not a machine gun. how the hell did he get his hands on one of those?! “Don’t!” your hands fall back against the cold concrete in complete surrender, your body as flush to the ground as you can make it, your hazy gaze trained fully on the gun that hovers just in front of your lips. if you were to try and sit up, you would kiss it, so you stayed still, except for the involuntary tremble that washed over your cold, dripping body.

“You’re a pathetic, quivering excuse for a car thief,” he replies, pushing the barrel close enough to graze across your lips. you whimper and turn your head, closing your eyes tightly, expecting any moment for a bullet to come blazing out from the gun’s depths and tear a hole through your skull. he must be the owner of the car, you deduct, even in your fear-crazed mind. “Aren’t you sorry?” he taunts, the barrel tracing the line of your jaw. “Look at what you did to my car.”

the rain is pounding down on your face so hard that his soft, almost monotone voice is all but inaudible. you squint against the dribbling into your eyes blurring your vision, staring at the crumpled up soda can that was once a dazzling sports car. oh, shit. your stomach churns, your legs shaking as you push your feet on the asphalt. your flip flops slide against your soles, the throng threatening to slip as you try to squirm out from underneath the gun. “Yes!” you chime with a broken mewl, nodding vigorously. “Y—yes, I’m so… so, so sorry! Please, please, I’ll pay for the damages—“

he laughs out loud. throwing a soaking, blond mop back and bellowing out to the crying clouds. “You will, will you?! With what cash??” he was still chuckling when his sapphire gaze falls back upon you, wild and sparkling even in the dark of night. it nearly ceases your heart in your chest at just how… wicked he looked. taking a step closer, his boots crush small pebbles and shards of glass as they plant themselves on either side of your feet. the barrel lingers on your face for only a moment longer before it descends, dragging along the neckline of your dress, tugging it down to expose one of your breasts. his eyes follow the gun’s lead, drinking in the sight of your mound glistening with rain and a pert, stubborn bud. “Are you hiding hundreds of thousands under that dress of yours?” the barrel circles your nipple, causing your back to arch, and you chew on your lower lip, giving a sheepish shake of your head. “Then how will you pay me back?” he asks, his eyes drifting lower than your chest, and settling on the way the rain drenches the bunched up fabric of your skirt on your crotch, outlining your hips and your clenched thighs, creating a pleasant Y.

you weren’t stupid. you knew what he was implying, and you thought you knew what he wanted from you. hell, you would’ve given it to him, too, if that meant he wouldn’t kill you over this damn car. “I— I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want…” he hums, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he considers the offer. careening the barrel of the machine gun lower, it peeks underneath your skirt at the knee, and with a little push, he’s nudged your shuddering thighs apart and pushes the end against your panties— a flimsy resistance. you grunt at the discomfort ( and fear that the slickness of the metal might cause his finger to slip ), but stare up at him with a pleading, helpless gaze. “Do you know what I want from you, little mouse?”

you shook your head, trying to play coy and innocent, which elicits a scoff from the armed man.

“I want to hear you beg for your life.”

your heart drops into your stomach, “W—What?”

“You heard me,” he replies, as if it were the most normal request in the world. “Beg to live. If you sound pathetic enough, I might even grant your wish. After all, I have a soft spot for strays.”

“Please! I want to live,” you start, your heart thumping harder against your rib cage. you still couldn’t move from your back on the ground, and your head was spinning with all the possibilities of how this encounter could end. your voice broke as you pled for him to show you mercy. “Please, please don’t kill me, I will do whatever you want… !” in a deft motion, the barrel slips beneath your wet panties, and runs slow, taunting laps between your netherlips as you speak. you have to swallow the saliva pooling in the floor of your mouth. you wanted to be sick at this unfamiliar sensation of cold metal heating up as he coats it in your slick. “L—let me prove it, please. I will prove it to you. A—anything!!” his eyes flicker up to yours, and a dubious grin etches his lips upwards as he gives the gun a little push, and the barrel slips inside of you. your back arches off the ground, and you clench your teeth with a light hiss, knitting your brows together. “Nn…ghh?”

but he only seems more overjoyed with your discomfort, pumping the first, few inches of the barrel into you with slow, deep thrusts. “Take it,” he ushers, golden tendrils glowing like a dripping halo stuck to his forehead. “If you want to live, you’ll take it just like a cock.”

one of your hands presses against the asphalt, whilst the other starts to reach between your legs, stopping against your belly. you couldn’t pry it out of you without upsetting your assailant, so you clench your fist against the fabric of your skirt, feeling how heavily saturated with water it was. “Fff— fuck…” there was supposed to be a you after the expletive, but you couldn’t bring yourself to finish the insult. though you were scared of angering him, you were also trying to push past how unnatural the hard metal felt sliding in between your spasming, spongy walls, unyielding as it barreled into you at such a steady pace. he didn’t speed up or slow down, keeping the same rhythm, even as your arousal started to build ( much to your dismay ) and you began to squirm and rock into it. he seemed almost… robotic. as if he could fuck you with this gun all night.

“Your cunt’s getting slippery.” he notes, matter of factly. it made you cringe, the way he announced the state of you as simply as if a check engine sign had flashed up on his dashboard during a long drive, and he pushes into you with a little more force, sliding another inch inside in the process. the solid edge punches at a sensitive nerve bundle, and your breath catches in your throat, killing a helpless yowl. “You’re starting to like it. Sick. You must be completely deranged.” but he was grinning like the cheshire cat as he teased you, the strap that would’ve been hooked on his shoulder slapping against his waist as he drills the weapon into your tender sex. “What’s next? Do you want to cum with your pussy stretching around my gun?”

you want to say no. jesus, you want to scream it. however, the look on his face tells you all you need to know. he wants you to. maybe just for the sick thrill of it all, not even for his own gratification. so, begrudgingly, you nod, and he howls with laughter again, like a happy hyena. “Beg for it, then.”

your jaw works, your couplet almost unable to form the words. the fucking he was giving you was numbing your mind to a point, the repetitive, deep prodding of metal into your guts made them twist into knots. “P—please,” you hiss against clenched teeth, your eyes helpless and doelike. “Please can I cum on your…. On your gun?” as much as you didn’t want to, you humped into his movements, driving yourself closer to the edge as you rasp out the plea.

he doesn’t answer, not verbally, but the way he jams the weapon into you with more precision, aiming specifically for that spot that made your muscles clench, you know he’s telling you ‘go on. do it.’

and surprisingly, it doesn’t take long.

a couple of ragged breaths and whimpers later, and you were overcome by an orgasm that seemed more aggressive than any you’d had before. like it wasn’t the making of your own body, but this stranger had created it simply to torment you even more than violating you with a gun could. you trembled and groaned, rolled against the wet ground, smearing dirt and grime across your skin and your clothes before you came to.

meanwhile, he seemed overjoyed. with a pleased sigh, he withdraws the barrel from your sex, and waves it around, admiring the slick coating that makes it gleam. “Deranged and messy,” he murmurs, before aiming it at your face again, but this time, he drags the barrel that smells like your lust across your cheek, tilting your head up to stare at him from your helpless bed of concrete and broken glass. “You like to ruin my toys, don’t you, little mouse?” his voice is dangerously low, and he hisses with a devil’s edge. “Give it a kiss and say ‘thank you, Ryo, for making me a messy, little rapedoll.’”

your lips are moving before your brain catches up, planting a kiss against the barrel. you have to stop yourself from allowing your tongue to loll out and swipe a taste of your pussy from the metal. rain flooding your open mouth as you gurgle out, verbatim, “T—thank you, Ryo. For making me… a messy… little… rapedoll.”

“Mhm.” he hums, slipping the gun back under his drenched trench coat before taking a step back to admire his handiwork. “That snatch of yours will make whoever picks you up off the side of the road a happy man.” that was the last thing Ryo said to you, before he turned on his heels, his boots stomping back to his vehicle. you’d already closed your bleary eyes when he revs the engine. tires bark close enough to you for you to feel the heat and smell the burnt rubber before the vehicle speeds like a bullet into the dark, leaving you alone and broken, replaying what happened to you over and over.

[apod]

2024 February 23

The Pencil Nebula Supernova Shock Wave Image Credit & Copyright: Helge Buesing

Explanation: This supernova shock wave plows through interstellar space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Centered and moving upward in the sharply detailed color composite its thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge-on. Discovered in the 1840s by Sir John Herschel, the narrow-looking nebula is sometimes known as Herschel's Ray. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its pointed appearance suggests its modern popular name, the Pencil Nebula. The Pencil Nebula is about 800 light-years away. Nearly 5 light-years long it represents only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant though. The enormous Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter, the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the section of the shock wave seen as the Pencil nebula was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar material.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240223.html

[staarboyyy]

supernova

depowered!homelander x reader | no pronouns

18+ characters / scenarios - minors dni

tags / warnings ; homelander reffered to as john, angst with a fluffy ending, domestic sweetness, anxiety attack, eating difficulties

summary ; john feels lost after losing his powers despite settling into a "normal" life with you.

word count ; 1k

a/n ; i posted this a while back to my old ao3 and wanted to put it here, please enjoy !

‘ When a massive star runs out of fuel, the force of gravity causes it to collapse on itself and explode. The stars' remains are fired across the galaxy at a speed of forty thousand kilometers per second. Entire galaxies are outshined by the death of one star - A supernova.’

    “Do you think I’m still - Me?”

   

    “What do you mean?”

John fell silent to this question, his eyes cascading slowly over the small apartment before him. It was nothing at all like his room in the tower. Empty, walls barren and painfully dull, the windows only give way to the falling sunset's leaking sunlight, furniture worn in and bought second hand. You pursed your lips as you watched him take in the room for the hundredth time today, his eyes tired and lost, heavy bags underneath the once glittering blue gaze you found yourself swimming in. With a sigh, you bring yourself closer to him on the couch, causing him to give a quick glance to you - John is still himself. Painfully so. Your hands were hesitant for a moment, raising to gently comb through his now fading hair, the dark brown blooming at the roots; Yet his tired eyes suddenly widening at your movement stopped you. He was defenseless, not having left the apartment you bought together for quite some time, losing the muscle mass he once flaunted with shameless pride. His posture had even changed, instead now slumping forward with his elbows resting on his knees, wearing loose pajamas you had brought him home. 

    “It’s all I ever was. So what am I now,”

    John began in a soft voice, his eyes faltering as they drew away from you, to your hands. In his mind, your hands looked different. Everything about you did. He took a slow inhale, the breath swelling in his chest in the same unfamiliar fashion it did since he lost his powers - Everything had become so much more delicate in his eyes; The first time he had helped bring in the couch, you two now sat on, he couldn’t bring it in on his own, and found himself soon weeping on the ground before you, hardly able to explain with words how pathetic he felt he had become. Useless in more ways than he could ever think. Even the small things, having to keep up with eating and drinking water, had become more of a challenge than he had anticipated, and it showed in how his fingers trembled. He so desperately wanted to be grateful when you reminded him, but he still seemed to have a glint of fierceness in his eyes when you did - How dare you assume you knew better than him? But now you had. You had come to know him more than anybody else in the world.

    “You’re here. With me. In a shitty one-bedroom apartment with terrible plumbing, and a t.v on the ground. But, you’re here still. If that was all you were, you wouldn’t still be here, you know?”

    Your words made his breathing hitch slightly, head falling to avoid your gaze - This was something he did far too often these days. Choosing to let the words fester angrily in his mind, the feeling of his lashes becoming wet from the absurd uncontrollable urge to cry, making his stomach turn nauseatingly. John hated crying more than any of the other traits that came with losing his sense of self. How the unbridled heat gathered tightly in his throat, unable to breathe through it how he normally would have. It’s suffocating how his breathing shakes, his hands clenching in feebly weak fists, nails digging hard into his palms. It hurts. Searing hot, the bubbling need to let a sob break from his chest seems to take over all other rational senses. A strangled gasp escaped him, your arms coming quickly to wrap over him as he shakes his head - He wants to pull away, to scream, to collapse to the floor and beg for whatever God there might be to take him back. To pull him back to the subconscious torture of being the face of America. 

    “I can’t protect you - I can’t even protect myself.”

    You held onto him still, your grasp firm in an attempt to ground him. The feeling of his panic rising made him feel absolutely sick. To experience adrenaline in a way he’s never felt or seen before, to feel the fear he once drank down in careless gasps - It made him feel glued to the spot, a deer in the headlights. Your arms felt strong, felt stable, and hard around him as you pulled him closer to your chest. For so long, John had been able to hear your heart from standing yards away, and now the rarity of it became one of a cherishable sound. His ear pressed against your chest, his breathing still faltering as he listened quietly, foreign tears lacing down his cheeks in slow streams, his eyes wrenched shut in an expression of agony. 

    “You’ve always protected me; You never needed powers to do that. You make me feel safer than anyone, even now. Especially now.”

    John’s eyes slowly opened at this, the sound of your steady heart filling his head, silencing his own thundering one. To him, protection had always been dependent on his strength over others, mind, and body. How he was so easily able to twist words, make others blood run cold with just the sound of his voice or a squeeze of his gloved fist. His eyebrow twitched, lips moving briefly to form words that refused to leave his now swimming mind. He looked nearly confused at how you could so easily speak to him despite your shifting expression of furrowed brows, eyes warm and sympathetic. Normally, John would have jumped at this type of rumbling fear, using it to fuel the continuing power he bathed in - But instead, he slowly raised his hand to meet your cheek. It used to feel so malleable underneath his fingers, yet the warmth spread over his palm now, gently moving across the soft skin with a soft rumbled exhale from his lips. 

    “You promise?”

    “I promise.”

    And then for just a fleeting moment, his breathing calmed. Everything felt safe in this moment, his hand on your face, gently clutching you in hopes of not losing you. Never losing you.

[theofficialastronomy101]

This supernova shock wave plows through interstellar space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Near the middle and moving up in this sharply detailed color composite, thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge-on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its elongated appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula. The Pencil Nebula is about 5 light-years long and 800 light-years away, but represents only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter, the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar material. In the featured narrow-band, wide field image, red and blue colors track, primarily, the characteristic glows of ionized hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Video published by Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas) allegedly showing them tracking an officer in the elite Shaldag unit, Yitzhar Hoffman, before he was killed by a sniper. Hoffman is said to be responsible for the siege and storming of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

Translation:

A unit of the occupation forces is holed up in Gaza City. The images obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera allow the location of the concentration to be determined. The field command center was established in a sports club, about one kilometer away from Al-Shifa Hospital, and located within the Jawazat area, which witnessed fierce clashes between the Israeli army and the Resistance factions for weeks.

This is Yitzhar Hoffman, a platoon leader in the Shaldag Special Unit. He was responsible for drawing up a plan to besiege Al-Shifa Hospital and then storm it last November. According to photos obtained by Al Jazeera, which are being shown for the first time, the Al-Qassam Brigades monitored Hoffman's movements after storming the hospital. At the end of last January, the Al-Qassam Brigades waited for the Israeli army to announce the killing of Hoffman so that they publish pictures of the operation and identify the targeted person.

The Al-Aqsa flood was not the first confrontation in which the Qassam Brigades used sniper weapons. The developed Al-Ghoul rifle that mimics the specifications of the Austrian-made Steyr rifle, caliber 12.7 mm, has the capabilities and features of an assault rifle with an adjustable system, to transform from an assault rifle into a sniper rifle.

The Al-Qassam Brigades were able to manufacture it locally and it bore the name of one of the most prominent symbols of military manufacturing in Al-Qassam: the martyr Adnan Al-Ghoul. With the rifle, Al-Qassam produced the appropriate ammunition to enhance the rifle’s effectiveness and feasibility.

The ammunition was manufactured with three specifications:

1- Training that enable the preparation of fighters within the special units.

2-Ammunition designed to target flammable materials.

3-Used to deal with the armor and fortifications used by the Israeli army.

The impact of the locally manufactured weapons is show on battlefields, in a way that the bullet penetrates the helmet worn by the soldiers and explodes after penetration. The bullet can also penetrate the protective vest, which is supported by a metal plate that shatters when hit to cause damage to the upper area of the body. It can also penetrate and disrupt devices and systems used by the occupying army.

To put the weapon into use, the Al-Qassam Brigades trained special units of fighters within its combat formations, as the photos obtained by Al Jazeera show. Training takes place after selecting fighters who have qualities that enable them to withstand long periods of waiting to capture a potential target, the ability to work under extreme pressure in difficult field conditions, the flexibility of concealment, determining the importance of the target and making the decision of execution.

The Qassam had previously used sniper weapons in field combat in battles before 2007, when it seized medium-caliber rifles like the Russian Dragunov and Brezhnev models and the Belgian FN FAL rifle. But it suffered from limited availability, scarcity of ammunition and its high cost. Then, heavy snipers including the Austrian Steyr and the Chinese M99, were brought into the Gaza Strip through supply lines. And documented operations were carried out using them.

The Ghoul rifle is the latest weapon in the resistance’s arsenal, which according to Al Jazeera’s information, recorded a verified hitting distance of 1800 meters in Al-Aqsa Flood Operation.

[stripedstarsblueflags]

If you could do 9 and 17 from the dialogue game for loscar it would be amazing (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠❤

I read your another one with sargebon and it's dknfkskdnsjks *explodes from emotions*, please write more🙏🙏🙏

i swear i didn’t mean to write 4.7k, but what did i wake up to this morning? no beta we die like williams public image

here you go loscar nation 💙🧡

“You can’t keep it bottled up forever.”/“Feel better now?”

Pain is temporary.

Pain is irrelevant.

Pain is invalid.

He shouldn’t have been gritting his teeth. The ache in his jaw throngs all the way down his neck, and at some point he’d bitten the side of his tongue. Oscar doesn’t remember that; he just remembers driving, the scream of the engines crowding into one meaningless cacophony, staring down the beam wing in front of him and willing the pain to end.

It didn’t. It hasn’t.

He’d known the first race was going to be bad, but he’d been confident in the adrenaline, the 5.8 kilometers of pure endorphins to keep him above it lap after lap. And it had… sort of.

The pain had spread, though. As the race went on Oscar could imagine the single fracture widening like unraveled thread, jagged edges deepening and shooting outwards until his whole body was cracked porcelain. The pain was sharp, hot, razor-wire wrapped around his chest. It was almost a reprieve to be overtaken, because then the frustration and determination to make up the place would block out everything else for just a moment.

He didn’t finish on the podium, but that was alright. It was Lewis’s moment, and anyway he could barely lift himself out of the car, let alone a crown-shaped trophy.

It was easy to smile and nod his way through the debrief, easy to let Lando do the talking. Lando didn’t know about the break. A lot of the team didn’t know, because it was supposed to be minor, it was supposed to be temporary irrelevant invalid just a little setback. And it would be. He just had to have a little breather first, ice it, give it some time.

It’s almost sunset when he leaves for the car park. He’d spent too long in his driver’s room, slumped against the wall with his shirt off, eyes firmly closed because looking at the bruising made him nauseas. He’d told Kim a little about the situation, told him he’d call if it got worse, and asked to please not let anyone disturb him. Nobody had.

He’s fumbling one-handed with his keys when a voice says, “Leaving so soon?”

Oscar nearly jumps out of his skin, his keys clatter to the ground. “Jesus christ, Logan, don’t fucking do that.”

Logan puts up his hands innocently, but the gesture is incompatible with the smirk on his face. “Not my fault you don’t look up,” he says. “I was trying to get your attention.” He’s leaning back against a telephone pole, dark blue hoodie blending in with the evening shadows. Still, Oscar can’t help but feel snuck up on.

Oscar shakes his head. “You walk too quiet.”

“That’s a weird insult.”

“You’re weird.” Oscar starts to bend over to pick up his keys, but a stabbing pain shoots all the way through to his shoulder blades and he bites back a sudden shout. He has to abandon the motion midway.

Logan walks around the car and picks up the keys. He’s pulled his sleeves up over his palms, fingertips barely visible. Oscar doesn’t really feel the cold, but there’s already a slight flush over Logan’s cheeks and nose. His lips look redder than normal.

Logan’s voice softens. “It was really bad today, huh?”

Oscar looks away, breathing around the aftershocks. His first instinct is to lie, to offer a curt and stoic denial. To snatch back his keys.

But Logan would see through any of that in an instant.

“Not great,” he admits. He can hear the grimace in his own voice. “I just need to give it some time…”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m driving.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “I just drove a Formula 1 car, I think I can handle a little traffic.”

“I’m not saying you can’t.” Logan’s smiling again, but it’s a gentle smile, knowing and fond. His eyes are bright, crinkled at the corners. He doesn’t give back the keys. “I’m saying you don’t have to. You’re staying at the Platt Hotel, right?”

”Yeah,” Oscar answers. He has half a mind to just make a grab for his keys, but the other half is thinking about left turns, how he has to move his arms so much more with a normal steering wheel. How long the drive gets at night.

“Cool, me too.” Logan looks down at the keys and unlocks the car, then steps forward and pulls open the driver’s side door. He has to get right into Oscar’s space to do it, arm practically reaching around his waist. There’s a rush of warmth as he moves closer, a fluid and unhurried step as if they’re not just millimeters apart.

Logan starts to turn back to him, and Oscar realizes that if he doesn’t step back their faces are going to get closer– a lot closer. The wind ruffles Logan’s hair, and they’re close enough that Oscar catches the scent– something fresh and summery, seawater and citrus…

He steps back in a hurry, uncharacteristically clumsy as he’s set off balance by a fresh cascade of memories. What being this close in the dark would’ve meant years ago. How they don’t touch anymore but his body recognizes the warmth, the chest-to-chest contact like a second skin. How the urge to stay in place, to reach his hands up isn’t conscious but muscle memory.

He nearly falls over at the suddenness of it all, the nostalgia that’s hit him like a truck within a single moment. Logan puts a hand on his shoulder, no more than a pat, but it’s stabilizing. “Sit in the back,” he says. “That way you can put the seatbelt on your right.”

Oscar lets Logan drive his car, and it shouldn’t remind him of anything.

Logan’s never even driven his car, this or any others. The city is unfamiliar and indifferent. They’re going to the same place, but not because it’s anybody’s home.

And then Logan connects his phone to the bluetooth, and Oscar remembers the playlist.

Seasons change and our love went cold…

From the backseat, Oscar says, “Remember the time you had to drive me back from that club?”

Logan laughs over the music. “How could I forget,” he answers, smiling at Oscar in the mirror. “You’re the worst lightweight I’ve ever seen.”

Oscar laughs even though it hurts. “It– it wasn’t that bad, I…”

“You had one drink, dude. One. And then I had to carry you off the charaoke stage.”

Oscar groans. “I was only 18. I shouldn’t have started with tequila.”

“You think?” Logan turns up the music. “Wow. What a throwback.”

I dare you to do something, I’m waiting on you again…

“It wasn’t that long ago,” Oscar points out.

“Guess not.” Logan tries to shrug and turn the wheel at the same time and ends up with something like an interpretive dance. “I just haven’t thought about it in forever.”

“Really?”

Oscar doesn’t know why his voice comes out so small, so hurt. He doesn’t know why he is hurt.

Maybe because of how the night ended.

How Logan had driven them both back to his own flat because he didn’t want to leave Oscar alone. How he’d tucked his arm around Oscar’s waist and lowered them both onto the bed because Oscar’s didn’t have the coordination. How they’d fallen asleep, and woken up, wrapped around each other.

And I still hear the echoes, the echoes…

“Just feels like a while ago,” Logan says nonchalantly, and Oscar decides to let it go. He has to let it go.

They arrive at the hotel sooner than Oscar expects.

They’d talked the whole drive home, not about anything important. Airport stories, golf, which one of them has the weirder teammate (every time Oscar thinks there’s no one wilder than Lando, Logan tells him Alex’s latest hot take in blatant defiance of all human logic, and Oscar has to concede). Even with the music, it felt somehow quiet in the car, and Oscar realized he couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had spoken alone.

They take the same lift, and Logan leans against the opposite wall. Leaning against every vertical surface in sight doesn’t come naturally to Oscar, but it suddenly looks like a good idea; his whole body aches. Sitting down in the car, his arm propped against the door, had been a reprieve. Now he’s all too aware of his own weight, his hand heavy and limp at his side like a stone. The pain in his chest is different now, less sharp and more pressure. Like the deformed seat is still around him, constrictive and unyielding. His body has been overcompensating without him even noticing, but he’s paying the price in his spine, the back of his neck.

He closes his eyes and the weight increases, a white-noise waterfall filling his head. The voice trying to catch his attention comes out muffled, incomprehensible.

“Oscar.”

Oscar flinches back into the present, which is a bad idea. He grimaces and tries to cover it up by talking too fast. “Um, sorry, what was that?”

Logan furrows his brow at him, his eyes darkening with concern. “I said ‘What floor.’”

Oscar looks at the unlit panel of buttons and realizing he’s been standing in an unmoving lift for almost a minute. “Eleven,” he says, after taking a moment to think about it.

Logan steps forward and presses the single button.

“What floor are you on?” Oscar asks, trying to sound casual.

Logan looks him up and down slowly, chewing his lower lip. He puts his hands back in his pockets and some sort of decision happens behind his eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells Oscar.

On the eleventh floor, they step out together.

Oscar doesn’t even think about it. The only thing on his mind is his hotel bed, and how much he can’t wait to get in it.

It takes Logan following him into his room and closing the door behind him for his alertness to return. “Wait, why– why are you in my room?”

“What will you do after I leave?” Logan asks.

The question sounds loaded, almost like a trap. Oscar looks back at Logan, trying to search his face for any sort of answer, but his steely eyes are unreadable.

“Probably just… go to bed?” he says warily.

Logan reaches out and touches his lips.

It’s so shocking, so unexpected and jarring that Oscar completely freezes. Logan’s touch is feather-light, fingertips warm and gentle on his lower lip, drifting to the corner of his mouth.

And now the memories are back for real. How Logan’s fingers had once felt dragging through his hair, splayed over his shoulder blades, laced between his own. How his bitten-down nails had still managed to leave scratches, long red streaks, on his back. The pressure on his lips when he tucked his face into the side of Logan’s neck, pressed a kiss to the top of his head on long and empty nights, accidentally bit Logan’s lip behind the fence of a karting track because he was sixteen and stupid and had never kissed a boy before.

Logan’s voice is low, solemn, and Oscar tries to listen over the pounding of his own heartbeat.

“You have dried blood on your mouth,” Logan tells him. “You’re dehydrated. You haven’t eaten in hours. Your hair is tangled. You’re still wearing your watch. You haven’t taken your meds. You can’t keep this bottled up forever, Oss. You’re in pain.”

Oscar tries to form words, opening and closing his mouth around air before he can stutter out a sentence. Logan’s eyes are near burning with intensity. How much he sees is burning.

“I… I was gonna take care of all that.”

Logan shakes his head. “No, you weren’t,” he says.

Oscar shouldn’t let this happen.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they’d said it was over. They’d promised. It was a consensus, a mutual understanding. They both knew everything they had to lose. They’d ended it nearly three years ago and it had stayed ended.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they can’t mean anything to each other. They can’t be anything other than friends.

But that’s not what this is feeling like.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan runs a flannel under the sink and dabs the blood off Oscar’s lips, warm and wet pressure a relief against the teeth marks. When dips his fingers in the water and pushes Oscar’s hair away from his forehead, easing apart the tangles and sending tingles down his spine that are too familiar.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan takes his shirt off for him. When he lifts the fabric with careful hands, slow, steady. When Oscar whimpers as he has to lift his arm and Logan stops to let him catch his breath, free hand firm on his lower back. “Ssshhhh,” he whispers.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan sits next to him on the bed talks him into taking the painkillers, gentle and persistent. “You’ll sleep better if you take them, and you need the water.” Oscar mumbles his protests even as Logan twists the cap off a water bottle and puts it in Oscar’s hand. “It’s not weak to need help. I’m not here because you’re depending on me, I’m here because I care.”

Oscar swallows the meds and looks over at Logan. He can feel the wide-eyed, dumb shock on his own expression, because he’s not quite sure he heard right. Maybe in his exhaustion his mind was just telling him what he wanted to hear.

But Logan’s eye contact is steady, unwavering. His jaw is set. The silence that stretches between them is taught, electric.

Oscar leans closer.

”Careful,” Logan whispers, but he doesn’t pull away.

Oscar takes Logan’s face in one hand and kisses him, and it’s like they’ve never been apart.

Their lips move together and it’s like they’re eighteen, tasting alcohol on each others’ mouths and not caring, needing the contact anyway.

Oscar’s eyes slide shut and it’s like they’re seventeen, too-long phone calls over too much distance, whispering about the things they would do if they were together.

Logan cradles his jaw and it’s like they’re sixteen, but also not like that. Because then they were clumsy and unsure and heavy-handed with desire. But now Logan holds him like he knows where Oscar will break, and where he can push back.

They kiss and it’s like they never ended.

Logan pulls away too soon and Oscar chases his mouth, embarrassing and needy and not caring about it. Logan puts a hand in his hair and tugs his head back, not painfully but keeping the distance. “Breathe,” he commands.

Oscar does, not realizing how long he’d gone breathing in only Logan and abandoning oxygen. He pants, breath hot and ragged, lips wet. It hurts, but not as much.

”Feel better?” Logan whispers.

Oscar nods and closes the distance once again.

“You can’t keep it bottled up forever.”/“Feel better now?”

Pain is temporary.

Pain is irrelevant.

Pain is invalid.

He shouldn’t have been gritting his teeth. The ache in his jaw throngs all the way down his neck, and at some point he’d bitten the side of his tongue. Oscar doesn’t remember that; he just remembers driving, the scream of the engines crowding into one meaningless cacophony, staring down the beam wing in front of him and willing the pain to end.

It didn’t. It hasn’t.

He’d known the first race was going to be bad, but he’d been confident in the adrenaline, the 5.8 kilometers of pure endorphins to keep him above it lap after lap. And it had… sort of.

The pain had spread, though. As the race went on Oscar could imagine the single fracture widening like unraveled thread, jagged edges deepening and shooting outwards until his whole body was cracked porcelain. The pain was sharp, hot, razor-wire wrapped around his chest. It was almost a reprieve to be overtaken, because then the frustration and determination to make up the place would block out everything else for just a moment.

He didn’t finish on the podium, but that was alright. It was Lewis’s moment, and anyway he could barely lift himself out of the car, let alone a crown-shaped trophy.

It was easy to smile and nod his way through the debrief, easy to let Lando do the talking. Lando didn’t know about the break. A lot of the team didn’t know, because it was supposed to be minor, it was supposed to be temporary irrelevant invalid just a little setback. And it would be. He just had to have a little breather first, ice it, give it some time.

It’s almost sunset when he leaves for the car park. He’d spent too long in his driver’s room, slumped against the wall with his shirt off, eyes firmly closed because looking at the bruising made him nauseas. He’d told Kim a little about the situation, told him he’d call if it got worse, and asked to please not let anyone disturb him. Nobody had.

He’s fumbling one-handed with his keys when a voice says, “Leaving so soon?”

Oscar nearly jumps out of his skin, his keys clatter to the ground. “Jesus christ, Logan, don’t fucking do that.”

Logan puts up his hands innocently, but the gesture is incompatible with the smirk on his face. “Not my fault you don’t look up,” he says. “I was trying to get your attention.” He’s leaning back against a telephone pole, dark blue hoodie blending in with the evening shadows. Still, Oscar can’t help but feel snuck up on.

Oscar shakes his head. “You walk too quiet.”

“That’s a weird insult.”

“You’re weird.” Oscar starts to bend over to pick up his keys, but a stabbing pain shoots all the way through to his shoulder blades and he bites back a sudden shout. He has to abandon the motion midway.

Logan walks around the car and picks up the keys. He’s pulled his sleeves up over his palms, fingertips barely visible. Oscar doesn’t really feel the cold, but there’s already a slight flush over Logan’s cheeks and nose. His lips look redder than normal.

Logan’s voice softens. “It was really bad today, huh?”

Oscar looks away, breathing around the aftershocks. His first instinct is to lie, to offer a curt and stoic denial. To snatch back his keys.

But Logan would see through any of that in an instant.

“Not great,” he admits. He can hear the grimace in his own voice. “I just need to give it some time…”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m driving.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “I just drove a Formula 1 car, I think I can handle a little traffic.”

“I’m not saying you can’t.” Logan’s smiling again, but it’s a gentle smile, knowing and fond. His eyes are bright, crinkled at the corners. He doesn’t give back the keys. “I’m saying you don’t have to. You’re staying at the Platt Hotel, right?”

”Yeah,” Oscar answers. He has half a mind to just make a grab for his keys, but the other half is thinking about left turns, how he has to move his arms so much more with a normal steering wheel. How long the drive gets at night.

“Cool, me too.” Logan looks down at the keys and unlocks the car, then steps forward and pulls open the driver’s side door. He has to get right into Oscar’s space to do it, arm practically reaching around his waist. There’s a rush of warmth as he moves closer, a fluid and unhurried step as if they’re not just millimeters apart.

Logan starts to turn back to him, and Oscar realizes that if he doesn’t step back their faces are going to get closer– a lot closer. The wind ruffles Logan’s hair, and they’re close enough that Oscar catches the scent– something fresh and summery, seawater and citrus…

He steps back in a hurry, uncharacteristically clumsy as he’s set off balance by a fresh cascade of memories. What being this close in the dark would’ve meant years ago. How they don’t touch anymore but his body recognizes the warmth, the chest-to-chest contact like a second skin. How the urge to stay in place, to reach his hands up isn’t conscious but muscle memory.

He nearly falls over at the suddenness of it all, the nostalgia that’s hit him like a truck within a single moment. Logan puts a hand on his shoulder, no more than a pat, but it’s stabilizing. “Sit in the back,” he says. “That way you can put the seatbelt on your right.”

Oscar lets Logan drive his car, and it shouldn’t remind him of anything.

Logan’s never even driven his car, this or any others. The city is unfamiliar and indifferent. They’re going to the same place, but not because it’s anybody’s home.

And then Logan connects his phone to the bluetooth, and Oscar remembers the playlist.

Seasons change and our love went cold…

From the backseat, Oscar says, “Remember the time you had to drive me back from that club?”

Logan laughs over the music. “How could I forget,” he answers, smiling at Oscar in the mirror. “You’re the worst lightweight I’ve ever seen.”

Oscar laughs even though it hurts. “It– it wasn’t that bad, I…”

“You had one drink, dude. One. And then I had to carry you off the charaoke stage.”

Oscar groans. “I was only 18. I shouldn’t have started with tequila.”

“You think?” Logan turns up the music. “Wow. What a throwback.”

I dare you to do something, I’m waiting on you again…

“It wasn’t that long ago,” Oscar points out.

“Guess not.” Logan tries to shrug and turn the wheel at the same time and ends up with something like an interpretive dance. “I just haven’t thought about it in forever.”

“Really?”

Oscar doesn’t know why his voice comes out so small, so hurt. He doesn’t know why he is hurt.

Maybe because of how the night ended.

How Logan had driven them both back to his own flat because he didn’t want to leave Oscar alone. How he’d tucked his arm around Oscar’s waist and lowered them both onto the bed because Oscar’s didn’t have the coordination. How they’d fallen asleep, and woken up, wrapped around each other.

And I still hear the echoes, the echoes…

“Just feels like a while ago,” Logan says nonchalantly, and Oscar decides to let it go. He has to let it go.

They arrive at the hotel sooner than Oscar expects.

They’d talked the whole drive home, not about anything important. Airport stories, golf, which one of them has the weirder teammate (every time Oscar thinks there’s no one wilder than Lando, Logan tells him Alex’s latest hot take in blatant defiance of all human logic, and Oscar has to concede). Even with the music, it felt somehow quiet in the car, and Oscar realized he couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had spoken alone.

They take the same lift, and Logan leans against the opposite wall. Leaning against every vertical surface in sight doesn’t come naturally to Oscar, but it suddenly looks like a good idea; his whole body aches. Sitting down in the car, his arm propped against the door, had been a reprieve. Now he’s all too aware of his own weight, his hand heavy and limp at his side like a stone. The pain in his chest is different now, less sharp and more pressure. Like the deformed seat is still around him, constrictive and unyielding. His body has been overcompensating without him even noticing, but he’s paying the price in his spine, the back of his neck.

He closes his eyes and the weight increases, a white-noise waterfall filling his head. The voice trying to catch his attention comes out muffled, incomprehensible.

“Oscar.”

Oscar flinches back into the present, which is a bad idea. He grimaces and tries to cover it up by talking too fast. “Um, sorry, what was that?”

Logan furrows his brow at him, his eyes darkening with concern. “I said ‘What floor.’”

Oscar looks at the unlit panel of buttons and realizing he’s been standing in an unmoving lift for almost a minute. “Eleven,” he says, after taking a moment to think about it.

Logan steps forward and presses the single button.

“What floor are you on?” Oscar asks, trying to sound casual.

Logan looks him up and down slowly, chewing his lower lip. He puts his hands back in his pockets and some sort of decision happens behind his eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells Oscar.

On the eleventh floor, they step out together.

Oscar doesn’t even think about it. The only thing on his mind is his hotel bed, and how much he can’t wait to get in it.

It takes Logan following him into his room and closing the door behind him for his alertness to return. “Wait, why– why are you in my room?”

“What will you do after I leave?” Logan asks.

The question sounds loaded, almost like a trap. Oscar looks back at Logan, trying to search his face for any sort of answer, but his steely eyes are unreadable.

“Probably just… go to bed?” he says warily.

Logan reaches out and touches his lips.

It’s so shocking, so unexpected and jarring that Oscar completely freezes. Logan’s touch is feather-light, fingertips warm and gentle on his lower lip, drifting to the corner of his mouth.

And now the memories are back for real. How Logan’s fingers had once felt dragging through his hair, splayed over his shoulder blades, laced between his own. How his bitten-down nails had still managed to leave scratches, long red streaks, on his back. The pressure on his lips when he tucked his face into the side of Logan’s neck, pressed a kiss to the top of his head on long and empty nights, accidentally bit Logan’s lip behind the fence of a karting track because he was sixteen and stupid and had never kissed a boy before.

Logan’s voice is low, solemn, and Oscar tries to listen over the pounding of his own heartbeat.

“You have dried blood on your mouth,” Logan tells him. “You’re dehydrated. You haven’t eaten in hours. Your hair is tangled. You’re still wearing your watch. You haven’t taken your meds. You can’t keep this bottled up forever, Oss. You’re in pain.”

Oscar tries to form words, opening and closing his mouth around air before he can stutter out a sentence. Logan’s eyes are near burning with intensity. How much he sees is burning.

“I… I was gonna take care of all that.”

Logan shakes his head. “No, you weren’t,” he says.

Oscar shouldn’t let this happen.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they’d said it was over. They’d promised. It was a consensus, a mutual understanding. They both knew everything they had to lose. They’d ended it nearly three years ago and it had stayed ended.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they can’t mean anything to each other. They can’t be anything other than friends.

But that’s not what this is feeling like.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan runs a flannel under the sink and dabs the blood off Oscar’s lips, warm and wet pressure a relief against the teeth marks. When dips his fingers in the water and pushes Oscar’s hair away from his forehead, easing apart the tangles and sending tingles down his spine that are too familiar.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan takes his shirt off for him. When he lifts the fabric with careful hands, slow, steady. When Oscar whimpers as he has to lift his arm and Logan stops to let him catch his breath, free hand firm on his lower back. “Ssshhhh,” he whispers.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan sits next to him on the bed talks him into taking the painkillers, gentle and persistent. “You’ll sleep better if you take them, and you need the water.” Oscar mumbles his protests even as Logan twists the cap off a water bottle and puts it in Oscar’s hand. “It’s not weak to need help. I’m not here because you’re depending on me, I’m here because I care.”

Oscar swallows the meds and looks over at Logan. He can feel the wide-eyed, dumb shock on his own expression, because he’s not quite sure he heard right. Maybe in his exhaustion his mind was just telling him what he wanted to hear.

But Logan’s eye contact is steady, unwavering. His jaw is set. The silence that stretches between them is taught, electric.

Oscar leans closer.

”Careful,” Logan whispers, but he doesn’t pull away.

Oscar takes Logan’s face in one hand and kisses him, and it’s like they’ve never been apart.

Their lips move together and it’s like they’re eighteen, tasting alcohol on each others’ mouths and not caring, needing the contact anyway.

Oscar’s eyes slide shut and it’s like they’re seventeen, too-long phone calls over too much distance, whispering about the things they would do if they were together.

Logan cradles his jaw and it’s like they’re sixteen, but also not like that. Because then they were clumsy and unsure and heavy-handed with desire. But now Logan holds him like he knows where Oscar will break, and where he can push back.

They kiss and it’s like they never ended.

Logan pulls away too soon and Oscar chases his mouth, embarrassing and needy and not caring about it. Logan puts a hand in his hair and tugs his head back, not painfully but keeping the distance. “Breathe,” he commands.

Oscar does, not realizing how long he’d gone breathing in only Logan and abandoning oxygen. He pants, breath hot and ragged, lips wet. It hurts, but not as much.

”Feel better?” Logan whispers.

Oscar nods and closes the distance once again.

[apas-95]

Bas van der Akker capped the needle and slowly twisted it off the syringe. He threw it into a hard-plastique sharps container, before screwing on another needle. Carefully, he packed away a vial of solution, and tossed out a glass ampoule of reactant. He grinned a stupid, toothy grin, and punged the needle into his leg.

Anna Hudáková observed disinterestedly, twisting her pen between her fingers. Her notepad was almost blank, and the tape recorder stuffed back into her jacket pocket. She never wrote about men, because she didn't understand them, or didn't want to. The biohacker in front of her was no exception.

"The body is a machine," he said. The syringe slowly deposited 0.3 millilitres of highly-controlled medicine into his musculature. "Everything in the world you see is a machine. But the body is special. Every other machine is superstructural, reflections of the metamaterial base."

He pulled the syringe out of his leg, dragging layers of tissue up along with it, pinching up skin around the needle. The needle was mass-produced, cheap, good quality. It came out with an impossibly-audible pop, and a bead of blood.

Bas's words broadcast now through the air and somewhere else. "The body is dialectical," he said. "Everything comes from a source, but the body can go back to that source." His voice was inside Anna's head like tinnitus, and he didn't notice when she stood up. "It can connect to it, and ride it back down, or modify it. Go to the source of a can of coke, and it connects to every other body at that source."

Anna went and retrieved the vial of solution, dropping it into her pocket and replacing it with an identical-looking one.

"Take the monopolis, for example," Bas thought. "What the communists learned from the fascists was how very useful it was to have purity of thought, purity of ideas. A pure idea is a powerful source, one that can connect hundreds of millions of bodies at once. If the weather in the noösphere is good, you can catch monopolitical thoughts from five thousand kilometers."

Anna pulled her chair close by his, and sat leaning her forehead on his temple. There was the barest mental recognition of this from Bas, like feedback on a microphone.

Slowly, Anna built up a feeling.

"How many genders are there?" she thought. Bas almost replied. "Three," she continued. "Though two are most prevalent. What is gender? Gender is a network protocol. It is a means by which we process interactions with others. What is your gender?"

Bas groaned silently.

"Drone," Anna thought. "On and on." The feedback increased. "What is my gender?"

"Worker," Bas reflected, thoughtless - energised from without, like an RFID chip.

Anna overwrote him. "Queen," she thought. "Signal. Command."

Bas was overheating, feverish. Anna pushed her forehead against his clammy skin, concentrating. Slowly, she built up a feeling.

"I am here," she thought. The human antenna beside her exploded into feedback and noise, the remnants of a signal lobe dissolving around her.

She stood, exhaled, and went for the door. She didn't want to be here when it came.

[refigiowen]

An entry from the personal journal of weaponsmith Casey Chulainn, inventor of the Chulainn MA55 also known as the "Godfinger".

I was beyond shocked when the military of New Amekira contacted me, a small and unknown weaponsmith to make a specialized gun for a new division of their army. It is needless to say I, and I am fully serious when I say this, did a flip on the spot. They told me nothing at all about the division, of course not, but they told me to make something big, something that could punch a hole through the thickest pieces of metal. They wanted me to design and build a god damn canon and shrink it down so that a man can make fine red mist out of his enemies. And so I did.

Now, fast forward a few tortourous months full of sleepless nights and mountains upon mountains of scrapped and flawed designs, to the day of the testing. "This has to be it," I thought, "the guys should be here soon to test it, they sure are taking their sweet time" I said as I began to walk in circles before the table on which the gun was laying. A day or so before I finished the final prototype of the gun, I was notified that a member of the supposed "new division" would come and test it out. I almost shat myself on the spot. I hastely finished the prototype that night and prepared a shabby little shooting range the next day. Now, I knew that this thing packed a punch, a solid one. So I placed the target a kilometer or so away (just in case I placed a second one a little closer).

Now, let me first describe the gun itself. Before I decide on a design for one of my weapons, I almost always dig through ancient scrolls written by weaponsmiths from the old world to gather inspiration. It was then when I found an entry detailing a musket model known as "Moukhala" that, in some cases, was 6 feet long. And I was immediately hooked on it. So I began to come up with a design for this, soon to be, behemoth of a gun. After a few rough sketches and prototypes I came up with a design that should be, unlike the other prototypes, able to withstand its own sheer amount of firepower and not explode. The final design was a rifle with a barrel longer than any barrel i had ever seen before with a length of roughly 10 feet modelled after a Moukhala. The long barrel allows it to build up more firepower on top of the already insane firepower. Shorter barrels from previous prototypes were shown to cause the gun to lose range and deal less damage to the target and overall suffer from a loss of muzzle velocity. As such, i opted to go with a much longer barrel. I felt as though I had put my life into this weapon. "I cannot fail this once in a lifetime opportunity to engrave my name into the history of weaponsmith," I told myself day for day, and I felt as though i achieved just that.

Now, after i rethought every decision i had ever made in my life that may have caused me to end up in this situation, a man wearing what i could only describe as "medieval with a hint of modern" arrived at the shooting range. He wore a helmet similar to the ones of those who conquered Amekira back in the old world, a large piece of red cloth covered his head and upper body from the sun. He wore a black leather attire and cloak, his stature was tall and he was well built. His left shoulder seemed to be covered in armor though I wasn't able to see it clearly. I wasn't able to get a glimpse at his face.

The man didn't say a word, simply walked up to the rifle and looked at it. While I would usually ask him what his problem was, in that moment i knew that this guy was the real deal. Something about him was simply... ominous, I felt that he was who I was supposed to meet here today. So I started rambling about the design, origin, and whatnot. He cared not one bit and picked it up. I sighed and put on some ear protection, which turned out to be much needed. He picked up the 10 feet long rifle and loaded the 55. caliber ammunition into the gun before aiming it at the somewhat closer target. Nothing could have prepared me for what would happen the moment he fired the rifle.

In a moments notice the loudest "bang" i had ever heard rang out across the sandy desert, so loud that my ear protection barely worked. The man took the recoil like it was a slight push from a buddy or something. After i had recovered from the sheer loudness of that bang, i took a good look at the target: gone, reduced to ashes. "Great!" I thought. Then i looked at the target further away: same thing. And then i grabbed my binoculars from the table and took a good look. The bullet travelled a good 15 to roughly 20 kilometers, and if not stopped it easily could have gone even further.

"This thing is ridiculous!" I shouted in excitement. "I figured you guys might want to use this badboy against ships or vehicles and aircrafts, so I decided to develope special explosive rounds! Add them together with the sheer impact of the bullet and the firepower... Man, this thing could sink an entire battleship!" Now, while the man didn't say a word I could sense that he thought "Yes, good" in that moment. He only shot a single round, looked at me, and before he left patted me on the shoulder and uttered the word "Godfinger" into my ear. I nodded and he left the range in silence. And so the Chulainn MA55 "Godfinger" was born, the longest and most devistating anti-material rifle ever build, capable of sinking the biggest of ships and aircrafts. The MA55 became the signature weapon of the Konquistador Division, the vanguars division of the New Amekiran army. They position themselves kilometers upon kilometers away from the battlefield or their target, take aim, and go for a fatal hit before the enemy even knows they were there in the first place. By the time the enemy recovers from the hit, the rest of the army's units would have already arrived to the battlefield and ensured a clean victory.

While they do look like some weird mix between a knight and a more modern agent, they are equipped with top gear. Their coat allows them to be unvisible to most radars and drones. From what i was told, each member of the division is given an eye transplant that allows them to zoom in and out with said eye. This is to eliminate the need for a scope that might cause light to reflect from it and reveal the Konquistador's position.

[bestworstcase]

i am asking you about tdt! remnant with particular interest in unhinged climate

it is so kind of you all to enable me (@meltedintoair @froginboillingpastawater @lemon-embalmer @blakistan)

don’t mind the unfinished continent i’m still (through gritted teeth) figuring the strandlines out… also if you’re wondering why solitas looks like that it’s because for narrative reasons i needed land at the north pole here’s what she looks like Put Together

ANYWAY you will notice that i’ve moved things around. anima and menagerie north by a solid 30’ and rotated sanus a little bit counter-clockwise for the sake of not having vale and vacuo on almost the same latitude. mostly this is for the sake of bringing the various climates of these places into more reasonable bounds for an earthlike-ish climate—except for vale, which has a maritime climate with cool summers and coldish winters at 6’N, because i fixated on the puzzle of “earthlike climate except for this One Region” like you would not believe.

but before we get to Refrigerated Vale we have to talk about

✨the moons✨

yes moons plural. because i looked at the broken moon and heard the siren call of THE TIDES. tdt!remnant has three moons: mar, the original, which is (like the canon moon) not tidally locked and has a massive dark crater on one side (THE MOUTH OF THE MOON–), and the much smaller anthe + ogmios, which formed through the accretion of debris flung away when the god of darkness exploded the moon and are smaller.

INCIDENTALLY the hegemonic calendar is a lunisolar calendar with months correlating to mar’s cycle and 8-day weeks (octs) correlating to ogmios’ much shorter cycle; anthe is culturally associated with the god of animals and khimerism—that’s the monotheistic worship of the god of animals practiced by many fauni—has an anthean lunar calendar that is wildly different. the vytali common calendar has 12 months divided into 8-day octs (with some gnarly intercalation going on to align the calendar with the solar year); the khimeric calendar has 17 months divided into 9-day enneads with an intercalary month and handful of three-day-long leaping festivals that rotate the calendar through the solar year in a fifteen year cycle. it would be remiss of me not to plug fantasy-calendar for all your batshit calendar making needs. i have a spreadsheet where i pin down all the math and then just set everything up in FC it has never let me down.

back of napkin math:

on average the tides are about +/- 3.9 m. neap tides where all three moons pull against each other, +/- 3.7 m. spring tides where they line up, +/- 4.2—these are the open ocean tidal range, coastal tides are highly variable but as a very rough estimate tidal ranges along the (habitable) coasts are probably somewhere between ~2 and ~16m, with significant amounts of uninhabitable coastline where the tidal range is much larger and building on the high tide coast means your settlement is several kilometers inland at low tide. riverside building is also quite difficult because tidal bores are. pretty extreme

port cities don’t have harbors the way we think of them. they have either sprawling, complicated systems of locks operated by konurgists (=professional practitioners of dust-based magic) or they have cliffside dry docks designed for lightweight vessels to ride in and out with the tides. vale’s wharf district is a maze of locks and caissons. argus and kuo kuana have dry harbors.

the other thing about multi-moon systems is you get more significant tidal flexing ergo more volcanism

so where earth experiences ~70 volcanic eruptions per year on average, remnant the triple moon tsunami tides planet gets to have a “statistically there is always a volcano erupting somewhere in the world” trivia question, and all the air quality problems and acid rain you get from that.

SO the first consideration with regard to tdt remnant’s earthlike climate is that the conditions which produce it are very different; i… am That kind of person who back of napkin crunched numbers for all of this (and spent like an hour fiddling to not tidally lock the planet to the star 😭) BUT the numbers don’t matter per se; the salient piece is that the sun is both cooler and a little further away than ours (<- yes this IS me looking into the camera like i’m on the office about the god of light) and the planet is kept habitable by tidal heating, meaning the friction produced by the moons stretching and squeezing the planet as they orbit around it.

the moons stress balling the planet is also what causes The Volcanoes, which release greenhouse gasses (keeping remnant warmer than it would otherwise be) but also semi-regularly you’ll get enough big eruptions in clusters to Deflect The Fucking Sun like it’s 1816 and global temperatures nosedive and climates all over go haywire for a year or two. i think this happens on average about once per century but the current historical period—the seventh era—begins with a quarter century called the forge years when the planet got HAMMERED by four really bad volcanic winters in quick succession. think “14th century black plague” levels of decimation, except it was worldwide famines + just an explosion of conflicts and wars over food sources + grimm, whose populations spike whenever there’s a major volcanic event because the planet’s mantle is a mixture of molten rock and atrum (=grimm juice).

(there are very few true herbivores in this world. there are a lot of animals that eat plants when it’s warm and meat when it’s cold. true herbivores tend to be either animals that store huge food caches or animals that can go a really, really long time without eating. plants mostly either develop super deep root systems, or pump out antifreeze proteins when the temperature drops, or develop cold-mediated serotiny, or a combination.)

BECAUSE OF ALL THAT, remnant’s oceans circulate in a completely different way than ours; tidal heating warms the bottom water at the poles, causing it to rise in strong east-to-west or west-to-east currents, forcing colder surface water downwards and flowing towards the equator. consequently remnant does not have permanent ice caps, although most of solitas is perpetually snowy above its strandline.

(the strandline is where the water is at high tide; as noted in many cases this is several kilometers inland from the low-tide coast. anima, solitas, alukah—that’s the unnamed dragon continent—and sanus are all a single contiguous landmass at low tide, with huge land bridges exposed. it is generally not a good idea to try to walk, with the exception of one specific island chain that is small enough to traverse safely on foot by walking island-to-island over a span of about three days, four if you’re being cautious.)

the upshot of all this is it’s relatively warmer and wetter at the poles and cooler and drier at the equator compared to earth, because the oceans are effectively upside-down, warmest at the bottom near the poles. (if you’re wondering why the tidal heating is distributed this way, the real-world exemplar i’m working from is europa. interesting reading!)

northern anima is a bit of a special case because even though it looks coastal, it isn’t; the sea in between it and solitas is very, very shallow and at low tides is just this for hundreds of kilometers:

so within that curve of the “dragon neck” shape, the whole strandline is functionally landlocked with respect to the warm rising polar currents and during the wintertime can actually get colder than the region of solitas where mantle is located.

and then there’s the impact of dust.

i’ve drifted quite a bit off the basic ‘fantasy elements’ approach taken with dust in canon because the concept of dust as a sort of crystallized energy appeals to me; so there are four basic kinds of dust (thermal, electromagnetic, kinetic, chemical) which can be further divided into subcategories by their specific actions. for example most ‘burn’ and ‘ice’ dusts belong to the thermal family and are distinguished by whether they radiate heat or absorb it. and i say ‘most’ because there are also things like organic-solar/“bog” dust, which forms in peat deposits and produces heat but is classed as an electromagnetic dusts because it’s solar-powered.

large deposits of dust modify the regional climate in often dramatic ways. and this is how we get Refrigerated Vale—the difference between vale and other equatorial regions isn’t as huge as it would be on earth, because remnant’s equatorial band is relatively cool and generally falls more into a ‘warm-to-hot mediterranean climate’ than tropical, but vale is very noticeably cold for its latitude. there are Two Reasons for this.

one is what i’m calling the tarthic koniohaline climate system (TKCS pronounced “ticks”). the tarth sea—that’s the body of water surrounded by alukah, solitas, and sanus—has a huge, several-hundred-kilometer-long seam of variegated dust running along the southern continental shelf, roughly following the curve of the alukite/sanite coastline but further out to sea. (“variegated” meaning it’s a mixture of different types all sort of entangled together.) sort of akin to a barrier reef, but dust.

the tarthic dust formation is mostly a mix of absorptive thermal dusts (colloquially: frost) and kinetic dusts (colloquially: tidal) which together act to cool and desalinate water upwelling against the continental shelf, which is then pushed southward in a clockwise direction along the sanite/alukite coast. that produces a very cool, wet climate along the coastline with frequent thunderstorms as cold fronts coming off the water collide with warmer air rising from the vivax sea to the south (which again: think mediterranean).

vale sits on the southern periphery of the TKCS and is cooled by prevailing winds originating from the tarthic coast. it isn’t as rainy year-round as the vitrine peninsula but it does get quite a lot of precipitation.

the other factor Refrigerating Vale is that there’s absorptive thermal dust in the mountains, too. eastern vale—the counties in the northeast part of the continent, which were contested during the great war and (unlike in canon) not wholly lost to the grimm—has a very pleasant climate, warm summers and mild rainy winters, sometimes snow in the north and at higher altitudes. prevailing winds are fairly dry and warm when they hit the mountains and then rake over peaks that are just covered in frost/ice dusts and act as a giant heat sink, so western vale gets these bitterly cold, super dry winds pouring down the mountains during the summer that collide with warm coastal winds and cause huge storms. in winter the prevailing winds are much weaker, though still freezing, and blow further out to sea so there are fewer storms and infrequent snow but the snow that does fall tends to stick until the spring.

and that’s why the maragda valley is nicknamed the world’s refrigerator and vale’s chief export is various frost/ice dusts :)

OTHER FUN DUST-RELATED THINGS.

the southern part of alukah is called the mordicchiate coast and it’s one of the only regions in the world with a true tropical climate because it’s very, very rich in an assortment of kinetic dusts (mostly different grades of grav) that essentially cook the region by Vibrating Constantly

the other tropical region is in equatorial anima, a big swath of jungle and humid-subtropical grassland in what’s called the palash basin. it’s hot because it’s the caldera of an ancient supervolcano and one of the most volcanically active regions in the world. there are a lot of grimm. there are so many grimm in the palash basin. there’s also a strip of super-fertile land running along the northern rim of the palash region so people keep trying to live there anyway.

along the southwestern coasts of solitas (where those free villages are in arrowfell) there are just enormous underground seams of radiant thermal dusts which heat up the land enough that it’s possible to farm there during the summers; it still snows year-round, but the soil isn’t frozen so all you need is tents with clear panels you can uncover/cover to control sunlight.

the nequam desert—that’s the one surrounding vacuo—is also laced with radiant thermal dusts that bake what would otherwise be a warm arid steppe into a parched, burning-hot desert that wants to kill you. there are hotspots all over the place where the dust veins are so close to the surface that you can cook on the ground; nomadic desert peoples notoriously almost never use cooking fires and were instrumental to vacuo’s success in the great war because radar systems were still very rudimentary and no fires at night meant vacuan guerrillas could maneuver undetected until they appeared seemingly out of fucking nowhere to maul enemy supply convoys.

the wildlife in the menagerian interior are unique on remnant because there is a preponderance of electromagnetic and chemical dust formations on the surface—mostly “shock” dusts, which discharge or generate electricity—and the animals living have been in an evolutionary arms race for millions of years with the result that if it can’t generate electrical shocks on its own, it’s gluing electric rocks to itself decorator-crab style or it’s got specialized structures in its mouth that it can pack dust into and discharge shocks from when it bites you. “how can the wildlife be more dangerous than the grimm,” the rest of the world asks. “we have scorpions whose stings deliver an electric shock at a high enough voltage to kill you before you hit the ground,” says menagerie. “and lightning snakes. and an electrical tortoise. and storm bears–”

there’s a volcano called mount halog on the northwestern dragon-head peninsula of alukah that began to erupt in 332 VE—twenty-five years ago—and has been more or less continuously oozing lava and half-formed grimm ever since.

acid rain (and snow) is a worldwide issue because of the extreme volcanism and in rainy climates settlements exist in a more or less constant state of repair and reconstruction; once a settlement is abandoned it will fall into ruin very, very fast unless the climate is extremely arid. the most volcanically active regions in the world are northern alukah, the palash basin, and the east coast of anima; volcanic smog blows north to kuchinashi from the palash basin fairly regularly.

black rain is a very dangerous weather phenomenon caused by ateric ash—the stuff grimm disintegrate into when they die—floating up into the atmosphere and then precipitating down as liquid atrum. which. coagulates into new grimm. the drippings from the wyvern in canon are the same in principle but much more severe; typically black rains will spawn lots of small grimm—think rat- or cat-sized—and may not leave puddles large enough to form something like a beowolf at all. but a swarm of rat-sized grimm is still no picnic, and black rain is difficult to forecast, so within the vytal league it’s standard practice for huntsmen and grimm extirpation forces to be kept at the ready whenever heavy precipitation is expected, just in case it’s tainted.

the oceans are also quite a bit more acidic than earth’s and tend to be very nutrient-rich near the poles and barren with pockets of life here and there in the equatorial regions—which, as discussed in the Whale Post, in combination with the relative cold creates selective pressure for VERY LARGE akin to the phenomenon of abyssal gigantism but extended higher into the middle pelagic zones. the greatest diversity and density of oceanic life is around the north pole.

(the MONSTER WHALES are called hafgufa, females live in pods around the north pole, males are solitary and range worldwide.)

also,

because atrum does not freeze above absolute zero, and because the planetary mantle is atrum intermixed with magma, every spreading rift in the ocean also constantly pumps out rivers of atrum, which 1. plays an important role in moving and mixing waters to sustain those pockets of nutrient-rich waters where marine life flourishes in the equatorial regions, and 2. slowly but steadily spawns diluvian grimm. the VAST majority of grimm in the world are sea monsters born from these underwater rivers :)

[carionto]

Bon voyage!

Wait, who's going? Where?!?

The time had arrived for Humanity's first colony ship to depart. A behemoth among the giants of the Human fleet. Thirty five kilometers long, fourteen wide, seven tall, capable of housing up to twenty one million people, and fully self sustaining. It's destination - Andromeda!

Wait, Andromeda? As in, a different galaxy?

"Yeah, that's the general idea, though this ship in particular, called The Herald of The Chosen, is privately funded by the Church of the Unforgotten and can kinda bypass a lot of red tape that's holding up the others. Twenty eight thousand members are aboard. Notice the pattern? Seven is a holy number to them and they really stick to it."

Wait wait wait, privately funded? As in, your government isn't involved? How is that even feasible? Like, logistically or legally?

"Well, back when we accidentally blew a reactor 700 years ago and caused what most saw as beyond a biblical apocalypse, there were more than enough people who became convinced of a lot of things that were kinda hard to argue against at the time.

The fact we had 'vanished' three centuries prior and there was no sun or moon or stars in the sky but things still functioned as if they were set a firm foundation for a lot of religious movements and reinforced some existing ones.

So, while most people aren't all that into faith, the ones who are are firm believers. Just so happens several big-shots are part of the Unforgotten and pulled a lot of strings and set aside many differences once the Earth 'reappeared' in real space. And now just over a year later, we have this Andromeda voyage."

Right. We're still processing that a private Human organization outperforms most of our industrial shipwright systems. We're getting used to that happening more often. Anyway, why so far, can't they establish their colony somewhere in this galaxy?

"Uhh, kinda pointless don't you think? It takes like what... six months to hyperjump from one end of the Milky Way to the other. We can colonize in-galaxy with just regular transports. Oh, I guess since your generators can't charge your hyperdrives while mid-jump it would take you a lot longer, huh. Something like five or six years, right?"

Wait. What? WHAT? You charge AND discharge hyperdrives while IN HYPERSPACE? AND YOU DON'T EXPLODE!?!

"Well, not over short jumps. We did find it becomes wobbly if you do both for over forty days straight, and then, yeah, it does blow up. We're working on a re-router. It'll be fine. Current fix is to just have two drives and switch from one to the other at regular intervals. No issues since we solved the synchronization bug that jumped half the ship clean off into a different hypertunnel.

You'd think warp gates would be the way to go, but we found that going through a literal tear in space-time causes quantum entanglement to break, among other potential problems, human testing is still a while away, so you'd end up cut off from all communication. Even the most ardent zealots still want access to the extranet."

Meanwhile, as the alien delegates swear and fumble and possibly hurts itself in its confusion due to exposure to "Humans being typical Humans", The Herald of The Chosen drifts gently into open space, to a medium sized open broadcast fanfare from fellow Unforgotten members who were not chosen. Then, as unceremonious as hyperdrives are, the act of a vessel of such magnitude jumping away still left an impression as everyone became aware of the suddenly vacated space.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

The origins of a fast radio burst

Fast radio bursts are brief and brilliant explosions of radio waves emitted by extremely compact objects such as neutron stars and possibly black holes. These fleeting fireworks last for just a thousandth of a second and can carry an enormous amount of energy — enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies. 

Since the first fast radio burst (FRB) was discovered in 2007, astronomers have detected thousands of FRBs, whose locations range from within our own galaxy to as far as 8 billion light-years away. Exactly how these cosmic radio flares are launched is a highly contested unknown.

Now, astronomers at MIT have pinned down the origins of at least one fast radio burst using a novel technique that could do the same for other FRBs. In their new study, appearing in the journal Nature, the team focused on FRB 20221022A — a previously discovered fast radio burst that was detected from a galaxy about 200 million light-years away. 

The team zeroed in further to determine the precise location of the radio signal by analyzing its “scintillation,” similar to how stars twinkle in the night sky. The scientists studied changes in the FRB’s brightness and determined that the burst must have originated from the immediate vicinity of its source, rather than much further out, as some models have predicted. 

The team estimates that FRB 20221022A exploded from a region that is extremely close to a rotating neutron star, 10,000 kilometers away at most. That’s less than the distance between New York and Singapore. At such close range, the burst likely emerged from the neutron star’s magnetosphere — a highly magnetic region immediately surrounding the ultracompact star. 

The team’s findings provide the first conclusive evidence that a fast radio burst can originate from the magnetosphere, the highly magnetic environment immediately surrounding an extremely compact object. 

“In these environments of neutron stars, the magnetic fields are really at the limits of what the universe can produce,” says lead author Kenzie Nimmo, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “There’s been a lot of debate about whether this bright radio emission could even escape from that extreme plasma.”

“Around these highly magnetic neutron stars, also known as magnetars, atoms can’t exist — they would just get torn apart by the magnetic fields,” says Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics at MIT. “The exciting thing here is, we find that the energy stored in those magnetic fields, close to the source, is twisting and reconfiguring such that it can be released as radio waves that we can see halfway across the universe.”

The study’s MIT co-authors include Adam Lanman, Shion Andrew, Daniele Michilli, and Kaitlyn Shin, along with collaborators from multiple institutions.

Burst size

Detections of fast radio bursts have ramped up in recent years, due to the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). The radio telescope array comprises four large, stationary receivers, each shaped like a half-pipe, that are tuned to detect radio emissions within a range that is highly sensitive to fast radio bursts. 

Since 2020, CHIME has detected thousands of FRBs from all over the universe. While scientists generally agree that the bursts arise from extremely compact objects, the exact physics driving the FRBs is unclear. Some models predict that fast radio bursts should come from the turbulent magnetosphere immediately surrounding a compact object, while others predict that the bursts should originate much further out, as part of a shockwave that propagates away from the central object. 

To distinguish between the two scenarios, and determine where fast radio bursts arise, the team considered scintillation — the effect that occurs when light from a small bright source such as a star, filters through some medium, such as a galaxy’s gas. As the starlight filters through the gas, it bends in ways that make it appear, to a distant observer, as if the star is twinkling. The smaller or the farther away an object is, the more it twinkles. The light from larger or closer objects, such as planets in our own solar system, experience less bending, and therefore do not appear to twinkle. 

The team reasoned that if they could estimate the degree to which an FRB scintillates, they might determine the relative size of the region from where the FRB originated. The smaller the region, the closer in the burst would be to its source, and the more likely it is to have come from a magnetically turbulent environment. The larger the region, the farther the burst would be, giving support to the idea that FRBs stem from far-out shockwaves. 

Twinkle pattern

To test their idea, the researchers looked to FRB 20221022A, a fast radio burst that was detected by CHIME in 2022. The signal lasts about two milliseconds, and is a relatively run-of-the-mill FRB, in terms of its brightness. However, the team’s collaborators at McGill University found that FRB 20221022A exhibited one standout property: The light from the burst was highly polarized, with the angle of polarization tracing a smooth S-shaped curve.  This pattern is interpreted as evidence that the FRB emission site is rotating — a characteristic previously observed in pulsars, which are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars. 

To see a similar polarization in fast radio bursts was a first, suggesting that the signal may have arisen from the close-in vicinity of a neutron star. The McGill team’s results are reported in a companion paper today in Nature. 

The MIT team realized that if FRB 20221022A originated from close to a neutron star, they should be able to prove this, using scintillation. 

In their new study, Nimmo and her colleagues analyzed data from CHIME and observed steep variations in brightness that signaled scintillation — in other words, the FRB was twinkling. They confirmed that there is gas somewhere between the telescope and FRB that is bending and filtering the radio waves. The team then determined where this gas could be located, confirming that gas within the FRB’s host galaxy was responsible for some of the scintillation observed. This gas acted as a natural lens, allowing the researchers to zoom in on the FRB site and determine that the burst originated from an extremely small region, estimated to be about 10,000 kilometers wide.

“This means that the FRB is probably within hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the source,” Nimmo says. “That’s very close. For comparison, we would expect the signal would be more than tens of millions of kilometers away if it originated from a shockwave, and we would see no scintillation at all.”

“Zooming in to a 10,000-kilometer region, from a distance of 200 million light years, is like being able to measure the width of a DNA helix, which is about 2 nanometers wide, on the surface of the moon,” Masui says. “There’s an amazing range of scales involved.” 

The team’s results, combined with the findings from the McGill team, rule out the possibility that FRB 20221022A emerged from the outskirts of a compact object. Instead, the studies prove for the first time that fast radio bursts can originate from very close to a neutron star, in highly chaotic magnetic environments. 

“These bursts are always happening, and CHIME detects several a day,” Masui says. “There may be a lot of diversity in how and where they occur, and this scintillation technique will be really useful in helping to disentangle the various physics that drive these bursts.”

[spacesummerchronicles]

Space’s Summer Chronicles #6: June 6th

Heyoo this entry was mostly written on the plane to Budapest!

Honestly this trip is not starting off super great, my plane got delayed cause of weather conditions, so I was in a series of uncomfortable situations for like four hours and by the time I finally got to the plane I was in a mood so I couldn’t even bring myself to read a book.

We took off around 7.15 pm, just as the sun began its slow descent. I didn’t notice it back on the ground but once we broke through the clouds, the blinding heavenly light filled up the plane. It was very similar to a rudimentary idea of paradise - white and yellow, hurts to look at but if you could stay and survive it, you would do it without a moment of hesitation.

Say Yes To Heaven (Honeymoon version, of course) started playing immediately after I wrote this paragraph. Fitting. If this was a movie this would be the moment when the plane exploded above the clouds, keeping me in cloud heaven forever - or at least until the sun set. Then it would be a long and agonising fall down to earth under the disapproving gaze of the stars. How could ever believe, even for a second, that I’m made of the same stuff as them? Then, the sea would reclaim me and I’d dilute away like the Little Mermaid.

The new Addison Rae album lowkey let me down cause the singles were so good meanwhile the only new track I really liked is Money Is Everything. I don’t know, it might grow on me. Anyways, still on the plane, should be landing in like 30 minutes and I’m pissed off cause I got a wrap like 3 hours ago and I’m still super full but I wanna go to an Asian fusion restaurant once we land. According to my math I’ll be at our accommodation in like…. 90 minutes, or at least I hope so. We’ll see. There’s this SUPER ANNOYING kid behind me and like, the headphones isolate his constant YELLING but he has some snacks that fill the plane with a DISGUSTING SMELL and he occasionally kicks my seat. Hate that creature.

I had a bad thought back when I was waiting at the airport. I was taking pictures of myself, for Instagram or here or whatever and I just noticed how….different I looked. Not compared to me from a year ago but to me from a WEEK ago! I have a feeling I’m always unconsciously switching faces, never something shatteringly different, but always something that I notice and no one else does. I do not like the current face. I gotta fix it. I have a way of fixing it but I have to wait til the evening. The realist in me says it’s bloating but I’m not sure. It’s like EVERYTHING is wrong. My hair falls the wrong way. My face is the wrong shape. I look tired yet I slept enough.

When I took a picture a few minutes ago, I could see the appeal in a way. If it was a random person on the street. But it’s not. It’s me. It’s supposed to be me. And what I see… isn’t. It’s weird.

Anyways, finishing this entry at midnight in my apartment in Budapest….first day was passable cause me and my friend were both in a bad mood - me cause of all the delays and suffering while we got to Budapest, him cause his luggage broke and he has to buy a new one. We arrived at our apartment at around 8 pm, I took a shower and then we went to find a place to eat. Fun fact: most restaurants in Budapest close by 10 pm which is honestly a cultural shock to me, like not even 11? We found one that worked til later and the food was amazing and cheap but the alcohol was meh and expensive. Maybe I should keep the drinking to bars cause later we explored Margaret island and it was FULL of places with cheap alcohol and good music. We walked around Margaret island and then went to find a supermarket (side note: differentiating between still and sparkling water in western european countries? IMPOSSIBLE. Thankfully a local guy our age helped us). Then we got home. We walked like 10 kilometers which was good but now I’m super tired and my shoes killed me so my feet are in bad shape. Gonna go to sleep and get ready for an early morning today: time to see the best sights and finally get into the vacation mood cause that didn’t happen today!!!

Also today was my first time taking a taxi from the airport instead of a bus or public transport and it was fun, I saw Budapest as the sun was setting and it was gorgeous. Can’t wait to see it properly tomorrow.

Summer progress bar: 5.6%

[apod]

2024 January 4

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Spitzer Space Telescope

Explanation: Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta Oph, a star about 20 times more massive than the Sun, lies near the center of the frame, moving toward the left at 24 kilometers per second. Its strong stellar wind precedes it, compressing and heating the dusty interstellar material and shaping the curved shock front. What set this star in motion? Zeta Oph was likely once a member of a binary star system, its companion star was more massive and hence shorter lived. When the companion exploded as a supernova catastrophically losing mass, Zeta Oph was flung out of the system. About 460 light-years away, Zeta Oph is 65,000 times more luminous than the Sun and would be one of the brighter stars in the sky if it weren't surrounded by obscuring dust. The image spans about 1.5 degrees or 12 light-years at the estimated distance of Zeta Ophiuchi. In January 2020, NASA placed the Spitzer Space Telescope in safe mode, ending its 16 successful years of exploring the cosmos.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240104.html