#the science that can scale for understandability

[borealing]

most common sitcom situations tend to be due to proximity

cops

hopital

neighbours

office

please can one single studio exec take a chance on me and my exciting new sitcom idea:

research laboratory

[elizabethrobertajones]

jump scared by the 4th Doctor saying "well" with an uncanny intonation to how 10 says it, except I thought that was just a David Tennant-ism considering he does it in everything eventually, like, that CAN'T have started with him copying this cadence and absorbing it into his being? Right?

[ragnars-tooth]

i did finish the unicorne files a couple of days ago but i fear i'm already rereading them and making notes again because SURELY i've misunderstood the takeaway

(MANY a spoiler in the tags)

[corellianhounds]

Me writing what should have been at most a bullet point one-shot comedic romance adventure: “hee hee hoo I’ll knock this out in no time”

Me, four months later and 112k+ words in: “Hmm I think I need to look at the practical engineering reference guide again so we can really assess the recycler issue on this cistern in the compound because I don’t know that they could have it on the lower level if the mountain rock is going to have a level 9 on the Mohs hardness scale—”

[monarch-ambrosia]

i’ll give it a shot. why not.

i mean looking at this and looking at the sky are similar. not just because they look alike but because they’re both a look back in time, in a way. when you look at the stars, some of the light that you see has taken tens of thousands of years to get to your eyes. that’s what thousands of light years away means—it means that light is old. older than any span of time our small and earthbound minds can understand. so old that some of the stars that produced that light aren’t even there any more. you see those stars as they were when they made that light, not as they are now. since those photons began their long journey to you, new ones have been born, old ones have died, others have simply changed. galaxies have changed shape. and thus when you and i look into the face of the night sky, we look back in time.

this beach stone is much the same, if on a different scale. its cosmos is smaller, each “star” a creature that once breathed in the oceans of a world that is now only stories pressed into the earth by time. stories written in stones, in mud, in the oldest light our young eyes could accept. and by the grace of science and time and god and humanity, we in our fleeting and precarious finiteness can read them all around us, and imagine what may have been.

[the-maid-of-witchwood]

Gimme your mermaid Pete ideas (just bullshit them, it'd be funny)

Oh, wow, I really am not prepared for this. Let’s see what I can come up with…

Following the lore I know of this AU(?)/fic idea to the best of my knowledge for this:

Initially he was really excited about being a mermaid - like think of all the discoveries and science research he could help with in this form!

As he got older, and realised the darker elements of all that stuff, it killed that enthusiasm. Possibly isn’t as fond of science subject-wise. Knowing he could be specimen if he’s caught

Richie (not so much Ruth as her questions are more sex based and just ridiculous - “where does your dick go when you transform? Does it fall off or something?”) can sometimes get a little invasive as his questions aren’t too dissimilar to a proper scientist when trying to understand this

A little insecure because stories and media always portray mermaids and merman as being exceedingly beautiful

Usually wears a t-shirt as a mermaid, at least in the beginning until he gets more confident in his body

Doesn’t have a bedroom at Ted’s, his room is literally just the second bathroom

But it’s covered in Star Wars posters and shit and has all the essentials a bedroom would need, save the bed

Ted didn’t think he needed a bedroom/bed

Kinda obvious but he will no longer eat seafood

He has permanent scars on his scales from almost getting caught by a fisherman

He has never told anyone the true story behind this, instead he just tells them he scraped himself off the side of one of Linda Monroe’s boats

He has the scar in human form too, but it’s fortunately not as obvious

There’s subsequent conspiracy theories of a mermaid in Hatchetfield but nothing concrete (to tie it to Pete, anyways)

The going theory is that it’s Zoey Chambers - young, beautiful, sings like an angel, the lore of Mima Chambers and swimming - she was the one who started said rumours. She had Hailey make a fake report about it, in the hopes it would give her more attention and more desire to be cast by directors. Pete knows; he was there at Beanie’s when she came up with the idea and told Hailey to do it

Pete gains an extreme fascination and interest in marine life post becoming a mermaid

He does a lot of swimming at night, gets as far out of Hatchetfield as he can in that time before circling back

There’s a lot of muscles that needed to be stretched and it’s not like he can do much in public or during daylight. And the bathtub at home or Ted’s is not big enough for him to do anything in

In saying that, his parents gave him a much bigger bathtub. It’s not much (because they’re not rich) but better than what he has at Ted’s, so he can at least stretch out a little

He brings back shells for Steph and sea glass for Grace from his late night adventures

Steph has attempted going with him a couple times, but doggy paddling does not make up for a lack of a tail

Ruth tries to give him voice lessons, in the hopes he’ll then be able to lure sailors and maybe let her have one or something

[danmguido]

On Lovecraftian Horror

Happy Friday!

There you are sitting at your desk, maybe you're working longhand or your fingertips are tapping atop unpressed keys, and BAM! You have an idea that involves a monster that could've oozed its way right out of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Before you begin, pause a moment.

I get it. I like stories of the vast unknowable myself. I grew up playing Mass Effect and I'm particularly fond of the way Jason Pargin was able to nail it in his John Dies At The End series, and in such a way that I cared about the characters and their humors in spite of the overwhelming, multidimensional terrors that hunt them, but that's because I prefer heavily character driven stories and that's a diatribe for another day.

I've read a lot of aspiring fiction in this genre, and my main critique, the most common pitfall I see within cosmic horror, has nothing to do with character, setting, worldbuilding, or language. It has everything to do with writing that which is inherently unknowable, assuming you're trying to follow convention.

In other words: The monster has to be as alien to you as it is to the reader and characters. Forty page character sheets won't work here because at this point your "monster" isn't really a character. Remember, it isn't a being you can intelligently understand, and that's where the horror lives. It's a reckoning force defying nature, physics, and our fundamental understandings of science. Novels like The Three Body Problem by Cixin Lu illustrate this sense of scale and terror through sheer confusion and technological advancement.

Recall that Lovecraft's most popular story, The Call of Cthulhu, is epistolary. It's told through loose fragments, rumors, journal entries, it's never directly handled. Your job isn't to portray a gigantic, globular mass of eyes descending over New York City to deliver it's final judgement on humanity out of a thin blue Thursday afternoon. It should instead be the effect it has on the characters, or maybe second person to the reader itself, a virus in which just speaking or reading the name of your creature puts you at risk of harm.

One other issue I've come across in reading from a litany of fledgling unpublished fictioneers who take a stab at this genre is that it doesn't seem to be understood. The genre strongly echoes condemnation, damnation, the price of obsession, the price of knowledge, the price of ignorance, yes, but also the warning in bland optimism.

"Yeah, I'll just pledge my eternal soul to this unknowable deity 40,000 eons older than me, and then I will wield all the power."

That sounds dumb out of context, doesn't it?

It's not just about feeling earned or not, either. At this point, whether our earthly brother understands this or not, he's simply a vessel unbolting the latches of an old door sealed an unknowable amount of time before he existed. If we haven't been following him, haven't seen his transformation from upstanding citizen with a healthy few indelible and mortal sins to a hunched over, hooded lunatic who hides his deeds away from the very sun he orbits, this often lands flat and assumes stupidity on the part of your audience.

That's what makes this particular brand of horror so difficult, in my opinion. The balance from describing an unknowable, unfathomable monster that shifts through dimensions so as not to be physically described vs. making sure the audience knows that said impossible, indescribable force is destroying your character's mental state. Anyone can write, "I looked at the monster and it's very essence shattered my mind, scrambling it into a dark and forbidden wind, and even now trying to recall it sends shivers down my spine and vomit up my throat". It works. But it's flat without knowing who this character was beforehand. A slick talking lawyer bursting with personality? Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

So:

Before you start make sure

Your main character isn't your deity

Your main character is fleshed out well

Writing/reading is about the only time cosmic horror can work because it blends on disengaged senses. You're not really seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, touching, but you are feeling. It's why hardly any games work in the genre without over explaining themselves or coming off cheesy, same with certain films in my opinion.

Leverage that.

Leverage Plato's allegory of the cave, your readers have only known shadows.

Make us see more than shapes. If you’re into horror, cosmic dread, or writing craft talk like this, feel free to follow... I post often.

[windyremedy]

⏾ time machine mishap +18

pairing: dinasour hybrid alpha bkg x cat hybrid omega reader

cw: dubcon, a/b/o, pheromones, breeding, knotting, scent marking, claiming, time travel

word count: 1.5k

notes: i’m just gonna leave this here and peace out thanks

you weren’t a scientist by any means, gods no.

honestly speaking you had terrible grades in both chemistry and physics combined—or actually any science related classes! but you somehow ended up in a laboratory anyway after volunteering to be a test subject in their newly manufactured invention.

more specifically a time machine you weren’t really informed much about. now that you’re thinking about it, maybe you should’ve asked additional questions to avoid getting into any future trouble. but you were already far too late and the reward money was very much blinding your common sense.

so the only thing you know about whatever it might do is take you through time. perhaps not even in your own universe but to another dimension distant from the era you currently reside in. now that sounds unbelievable and earlier you thought so too. because despite the massive technological advances done from before to now it still should be leaps above truly achieving teleportation, right?

well, no.

stepping out of the metallic structure you find yourself greeted with gigantic flowers and uniquely colored tree’s seemingly reaching the skies with its height. you were both fascinated and a little afraid of the unfamiliar environment but stood your ground and looked around a couple steps farther from the unexpectedly successful contraption.

though it seemed like you strayed a bit too far and now you can’t find that damned machine. everything looked too similar but also not at the same time with leaves larger than your entire body confusing you which one you already passed. then droplets of rain began to fall rather violently.

you really shouldn’t have offered to test it out. now you’re scrambling to find shelter in the unforgiving weather with the beats of water hitting harder than you were used to. finding shelter in a fallen log you sat drenched, like a wet cat. literally. the clothes you wore didn’t help either, already stained from all kinds of dirt and mud.

they must have expected you to head back soon or perhaps not at all. but there was no time to dwell on what could or couldn’t be the case. you had to focus on the present if you wanted any chance of surviving. shivering in your makeshift leaf blanket that you came across at some point in your treacherous journey. you tried to keep yourself warm, breathing into your palms repeatedly but alas it wasn’t helping and you slowly felt yourself drift in and out of consciousness. exhaustion almost consuming you until you heard a noise, loads of them.

a violent stampede cracking the sticks and stones beneath. you heard roars from outside echo throughout as if speaking in a language you couldn’t of course understand, being a hybrid human in the modern era after all.

taking a quick peek you saw a group of humongous men no more than four wearing rugged fur loincloths. in their hands were like baseball bats or to better describe it massive clubs that looked like it could really hurt with just one swing. they all looked mostly human aside from their sheer size incomparable to your own world’s standards, scaled skin on some areas like their arms, and thick tails attached behind.

to your horror one of them managed to pick up the small sound of a stick you accidentally stepped on from trying to move back and hide. yet another grave mistake done sincerely by you as red eyes zeroed in your form from the hollow log, gaze unshifting despite steering out of view.

shit.

SHIT.

what do you do?

from the looks of it they are way stronger and can no doubt outrun you. out of the whole time you’ve been here, this moment by far has been the most stressful. as thoughts after thoughts turn your brain haywire you failed to figure out a plan before getting harshly pulled from the open log.

upon your view upside down you were met with a massive erection sticking out from his loincloth. he turned you back up much gentler than you’d expect from the initial pull, as he aggressively leaned in your neck inhaling your scent. oh you didn’t know how much he wanted to breed you right then and there in the forest.

your smell was so sweet, a lot sweeter than what he was used to. in comparison to other omega’s he’s come across, it was a lot more potent piquing his interest like no other. unlike any other hybrids he’s seen, you were not only the most exotic looking but you were barely defiant either. not even fighting back for any ounce of dominance.

good thing he found you first or else you definitely wouldn’t have made it safe with your soft pointy ears and smaller than normal height. even the shortest of hybrids would dwarf over you like it’s nothing. plus your tail didn’t look like it could do much damage. oh how lost you must’ve been all alone but it’s okay, he’ll protect you. as an alpha it was only a given to take care of the weak.

taking off one arm from his strong hold on you, he pointed to himself uttering from what you could only presume was his name. you nodded meekly, half afraid, half unsure. maybe you should’ve been a hundred percent afraid but then again there was a reason you ended up here in the first place.

“in sargon territory, not safe without mark. to others stranger.” his deep voice rumbled in your ear sensitively.

carrying you on his shoulders he barked out to the others. although you couldn’t understand a single thing he said, you quickly connected the dots as they stepped closer to you and your captor with high interest in what their friend had found.

squirming you tried to escape with the little energy you had left. alas bakugou’s grip only secured you even more. to him, it only seemed like you were just eager to take his cock already.

“will scent you, don’t worry. safe with me.”

he spoke again, continuing to rub your back as if to calm you from your hissy behavior. whatever else they conversed about you had zero clue. but it sounded like they were agreeing on something before katsuki trudged in a direction.

you didn’t think he was gonna kill you. i mean if he really wanted to he would’ve already done so since he could easily snap you in two but he was careful in handling you. that had to mean something, at least you hoped it did.

by the time you woke up you found yourself in a dimly lit cave on top of a stone slab with thick layers of fairly soft fur. unable to move, you realize quickly that you were being embraced by the hulking man that had found you. sensing your nervousness from the anxious pheromones you were emitting he slowly grinded into you.

“you’re awake, will breed you all better.” he murmured from behind, practically covering you in his scent with his body.

flustered by his actions you tried breaking free from his hold as slick leaked out of you.

“what are you—“

“shhhh, it’s okay. gonna fuck you full. mother of my children.”

before plunging his abnormally huge dick in your hole. not even easing you to take that damned pole of a cock, girth just as wide as it is tall. luckily for you he didn’t ravage you immediately like you expected. slowly bouncing you himself as you were basically immobilized from the first thrust. you sat their pliant as he rubbed your stomach outlined with his enormous cock. sloppily kissing your neck then to your lips as he turned your head.

“nghhh, aghhmmmh. please— ah!”

katsuki thinks he just found his new favorite sound and it was you moaning as you took his cock obediently in your wet fucking pussy. grunting in pleasure he paced himself to go faster, heavy balls smacking loudly each time as his hips met your ass. despite wanting to just keep ramming into you full, he tried to restrain himself for a second as to not injure you but that love drunk look on your face said it all.

turning back at him with a pleading look and a voice he knew that was begging for him to continue. what kinda alpha would he be if he didn’t fulfill his omegas wishes and so he thrusted even harder. hands gripping from your waist to turn your neck as he kisses you all messy and wet. parting from each other’s mouths as strings of long saliva break from your lips. only the obscene sound of skin slapping together could be heard echoing and a mantra of.

“mate. mate. mate. mate. mate. mate. mate. my mate.” he muttered obsessively, knotting you full as your body convulses into climax before biting your neck and claiming you as his.

forever.

[tanadrin]

Can you explain in what what you think eugenics doesn't work? Does this basically boil down to skepticism about the accuracy of GWAS studies? My understanding is that academic consensus is "G probably exists, disentangling direct genetic inheritance vs genetic cultural inheritance is complicated but possible, we can identify a number of alleles which we're reasonably confident are directly causally involved in having a higher G factor"

when it comes to intelligence, its heritability, and its variation at the population level, my understanding of the science is:

highly adaptive traits don't, in fact, vary much at the genetic level between populations of a species because they are strongly selected for. in an environment where a trait is being strongly selected for, a population that failed to express that trait strongly will be rapidly outcompeted.

intelligence is probably the quintessential such trait for humans. we have sacrificed a great deal of other kinds of specialization in favor of our big brains. we spend an enormous amount of calories supporting those brains. tool use, the ability to plan for the future, the ability to navigate complex social situations and hierarchies in order to secure status, the ability to model the minds of others for the purposes of cooperation and deception means that we should expect intelligence to be strongly selected for for as long as our lineage has been social and tool-using, which is at least the last three million years or so.

so, at least as a matter of a priori assumptions, we should expect human populations not to vary greatly in their genetic predisposition to intelligence. it may nonetheless, but we'd need pretty strong evidence. i think i read this argument on PZ Myers' blog a million years ago, so credit where that's due.

complicating the picture is that we just don't have good evidence for how IQ does vary across populations, even before we get into the question of "how much of this variation is genetic and how much of it is not." the cross-national data on which a lot of IQ arguments have been based is really bad. and that would be assuming IQ tests are in fact good at capturing a notion of IQ that is independent of cultural context, which historically they're pretty bad at

this screed by nassim nicholas taleb (not a diss; AFAICT the guy only writes in screeds) makes a number of arguments, but one argument I find persuasive is that IQ is really only predictive of achievement in the sense that it does usefully discriminate between people with obvious intellectual disabilities and those without--but you do not actually need an IQ test for that sort of thing, any more than you need to use a height chart to figure out who is missing both their legs. in that sense, sure, IQ is predictive of a lot of things. but once you remove this group, the much-vaunted correlations between IQ and stuff like wealth just straight-up vanishes

heritability studies are a useful tool, but a tool which must be wielded carefully; they were developed for studying traits which were relatively easy to isolate in very specific populations, like a crop under study at an agricultural research site, and are more precarious when applied to, e.g., human populations

my understanding based on jonathan kaplan articles like this one is that twin studies are not actually that good at distinguishing heritable factors from environmental ones--they have serious limitations compared to heritability studies where you actually can rigorously control for environmental effects, like you can with plants or livestock.

as this post also points out, heritability studies also only examine heritability within groups, and are not really suited to examining large-scale population differences, *especially* in the realm of intelligence where there is a huge raft of confounding factors, and a lack of a really robust measurement tool.

(if we are worried about intelligence at the population level, it seems to me there are interventions we know are going to be effective and do not rely on deeply dubious scientific speculation, e.g., around nutrition and healthcare and serious wealth inequality and ofc education; and if what people actually want is to raise the average intelligence of the population rather than justify discrimination against minorities, then they might focus on those much more empirically grounded interventions. even if population differences in IQ are real and significant and point to big differences in intelligence, we know those things are worth a fair few IQ points. but most people who are or historically have been the biggest advocates for eugenics are, in my estimation, mostly interested in justifying discrimination.)

i think the claims/application of eugenics extend well beyond just intelligence, ftr. eugenics as an ideology is complex and historically pretty interesting, and many eugenicists have made much broader claims than just "population-level differences in intelligence exist due to genetic factors, and we should try to influence them with policy," but that is a useful point for them to fall back onto when pressed on those other claims. but i don't think even that claim is at all well-supported.

[fatehbaz]

Posted about British colonial officials in 1860s South India being fascinated by studying geology of Deccan Plateau as both a potential source of material wealth but also as more like intellectual curiosity that allowed them to consider "deep time" and the place of "civilization" in history. And someone shared post, commenting in tags something sort of like "interesting how British Empire could be so focused on rocks."

And really:

Both British imperial power and British popular imagination are tied to "ancient rocks"

British coal and coal-powered engines transformed global ecologies and societies with railroads and factories at the same time that British public became widely aware of dinosaurs, extinct Pleistocene megafauna, the vast scale of deep time, geology, and uniformitarian Earth systems. Then British anthropology, Egyptomania, archaeology, etc., were implicated in professionalization of sciences and ideas of primitivsm/racial hierarchy. Then British extraction of liquid fossil fuels instantiated expansion of petroleum products. Victorian popular culture had a penchant for contemplating death, decay, deep past, civilizational collapse, classical antiquity. So there's a simultaneous fixation on both temporality and materiality. Which both involve "earth."

-

Consider:

Coal. How the mining of "ancient rock" (300-million-year-old Carboniferous) and coal-burning probably strongly propelled Britain (tied also to enclosure laws and Caribbean slave profits reinvested in ascendant financial/insurance institutions) to the "first" industrialization around 1830, helping cement its global hegemony and setting a blueprint for European/US industry. How burning that ancient rock "unlocked steam power" for Britain and facilitated the rapid expansion of railroad networks after the first public steam railway in 1825 (steam engines then let Britain reach and extract resources from hinterlands) while the rock also powered textile mills after the 1830s (putting poorer Britons to work in mills and factories while "Poor Laws" were put into effect outlawing "vagrancy" and "joblessness") which reshaped "the countryside" in Britain and reshaped global ecologies and labor regimes. Provincial realist novels and other literature reflect anxiety about this ecological/social transition. Even later Victorian novels and fin de siecle commentaries hint how coal and industrialization invoke temporality more directly, in that the engines and technologies provoke rhetoric and discourses about exponential growth, linear progress, and dazzling future horizons.

Fossils of Pleistocene megafauna: How an extinct Mastodon was displayed at Pall Mall in London in 1802. And how William Conybeare's discovery/description of coal-bearing rock in Britain led him to name "the Carboniferous period" in 1822, but it wasn't just coal power that this event inspired. in the very same year, Conybeare described the remains of extinct Pleistocene hyenas at Kirkdale Cave in Britain. The promotion of this discovery of Ice Age hyenas gave many Britons for the first time an awareness of deep past and obsession with Creatures. But the promotion also brought spectacle, public display, poetics, and marketing into natural history like "edu-tainment," a "poetics of popular science." This took place in the context of the rapid rise of British mass-market print media. Geological verse, Victorian novels, and cheap miscellanies reflect anxiety about this temporality and natural history.

Geology as a discipline: How the 1830 publishing of Lyell's monumentally significant Principles of Geology, directly inspired after he observed British ancient rock formations at Isle of Arran, completely changed European/US understanding of deep time and geology and the scale of Earth systems (uniformity principle), which made people wonder about linear notions of history and whether empires/societies can survive forever in such vast time scales.

Dinosaur fossils: How the "first dinosaur sculptures in the world" (dinosaur fossils reminiscent of ancient rock?) were reconstructed and put on display by Britain in 1854 at Crystal Palace in London following "the Great Exhibition," an event which set the model for future exhibitions and started the global craze for "world's fairs" and expositions showcasing imperial/industrial power for decades (the model for Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893, Paris event of 1900, St. Louis event of 1904, and beyond).

Soil mapping: How "ancient rock" was entangled with one of the most significant scientific projects of all-time, Britain's "The Great Trigonometric Survey of India" in 1802, undertaken to survey and record soil types across South Asia. After the resistance of the leaders of Mysore had finally been defeated, the subcontinent was vulnerable to consolidated British colonial power, and surveys were ordered immediately. The mapping of acreage for tax administration by the East India Company would remake societies with bordered property, contracted ownership, tax/wealth extraction. But the Survey also let Britain map soil for purposes of monoculture agriculture planning. Britain then used geology/soil as potential indicators of biological essentialism that equated "ancient" Gonds of India or "ancient" Aboriginal peoples of Australia with primitivism. Adventure stories and sportsmen's pulp magazines reflect anxiety about these cultural and geographical frontiers.

Diamonds: How the discovery of ancient rock (diamonds, from tens of millions of years old kimberlite) in the Kimberly (South Africa) rocketed Britain to more power when their colonial commissioners took possession in 1871, giving Britain a foothold and paving the way for Cecil Rhodes to amass astonishing wealth while completely remaking social institutions, labor regimes, and environments in southern Africa, giving Britain so much profit from diamonds that in 1882 Kimberly was only the second city on the whole planet to install electric street lighting.

Egyptomania: How British archaeologists digging around in ancient rock of their vassal/colony of Egypt, especially the tens of thousands of ancient Egyptian artifacts that they collected between 1880 and 1890, contributed to a craze for classical antiquity and a fixation on the ancient Mediterranean and mummies.

Victorian death fascination: How British archaeologists interacting with ancient rock in Southwest Asia (Mesopotamia, Levant) coupled with the Egyptomania also strongly influenced Late Victorian obsessions with death, decay, the occult, millennarian dates, and civilizational collapse which continued to influence culture, fashion, historicity, and narrativizing in Europe/US for years. Perhaps they wondered: "If Ur could fall, if Thebes could fall, if Mycenae could fall, if ROME could fall, then how could our civilization based in fair London survive such vast eons of time and such strong geological and environmental forces?"

Liquid fossil fuels: How "ancient rock" yielded liquid fossil that was extracted by British industrialsits when the first test oil wells were dug at "the Black Spot" in Borneo in 1896 which led to creation of Shell Oil company in 1897 led by a British director who was fascinated with ancient fossils. Followed then the global expansion of combustion engines, oil lubricants, and networks of imperial infrastructure to extract and refine oil. And how British tinkering with "ancient rock" of Persia and Southwest Asia led to the bolstering of a "Middle East" oil industry; the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was founded in 1909, giving Britain yet more geopolitical leverage in the region; the company would later become BP, one of the biggest and most profitable corporations to ever exist.

-

So the immaterial imaginaries of place/space and time (frontiers, the exotic/foreign, the tropical/Orient, ascent/decay, civilization/savagery, deep past/future horizons) justify or organize or pre-empt or service the material dispossession and accumulation.

British Empire transformed Earth and earth. Both materially/physically and immaterially/imaginatively.

[merakiui]

Reverse mer captivity

You’re the second mermaid to be discovered and captured for science. The first one died of maltreatment and was dissected, but scientists believe they’ve learned enough to keep you alive in captivity.

You’re trapped in a tank that feels minuscule compared to the ocean, mournfully calling to your pod while trying to avoid being poked and prodded by the scientists who seem to do it more for sadistic amusement than any real search for insight. It only gets worse when foreign dignitaries and government diplomats and generals come to see you, as you’re expected to perform for them.

Especially when you’re forced into heat to demonstrate your breeding capabilities…

Ohhhh,,,, reluctant and conflicted scientist Riddle Rosehearts who is put in charge of the whole operation. He's looking after you as the facility's best, but that does't mean they'll necessarily listen to everything he has to say. When he tries to explain to the higher-ups that you can't prosper in these conditions, that those musical sounds you make each and every night are actually cries for your own kind, they scoff and insist he's spending too much time reading fairytales again. "It's a mermaid," they tell him. "A fish. It's not human."

But you are human. Part of you is, at least. You're intelligent. You can feel and think; you have complex emotions and reactions. You grieve the loss of your friends and family, the loss of the sea. He feels so bad for you, but what can he do? He's just your caretaker, jotting notes that will either be accepted or tossed aside by higher-ups desperate to avoid a scandal and a lawsuit. Laws regarding the capture and treatment of merfolk are uncharted waters, so it's all very hazy as of now. But it doesn't take a genius to see just how unethical this is.

Riddle feels bad watching them force you down in the shallows, pinning you there so that you're spread for all of those curious eyes. He feels horrible having to watch you suffer in a forced heat, even more so when he spreads your soft, slick, puffy merpussy open on gloved fingers and explains all of the anatomical knowledge he's gleaned from his research. The way you keen around his fingers, weakly thrashing because they gave you a sedative to keep you from smacking your tail everywhere. >_< he knows it must be unbearable and he's so sorry, but then he has to do his job. Everyone's watching; they expect the genius Dr. Rosehearts to blow them away with his knowledge! He can't fail. So he has to be invasive and spread you wide, explain about the few ways reproduction works for merfolk (from what he's gathered), do his best to ignore your sweet whimpers and trills and the way your merpussy squeezes his fingers. ;;;;;

After what he's sure was a traumatic ordeal, you're released and you hastily return to the depths of your pool to suffer through the rest of your forced heat, splashing him and the other researchers on your way down. When Riddle visits you later with your dinner, you lurk in the shadows, scowling fiercely at him. He apologizes profusely under his breath, promising you he doesn't mean you any harm. You really are a beautiful creature. He wishes things were different. He's noticed your scales have seemed duller as of late. :( it's horrible, really.

He wouldn't be surprised if you wanted him dead, so he's very shocked when you're cooing at him, looking at him so sadly, almost as if you're begging for something. He doesn't understand at first until you roll over on your back to show him your puffy slit shimmering with wet beneath the fluorescents.

Oh.

You're still in heat.

Well. There's no one else here except the janitor, but even they're not dumb enough to come into your enclosure when it's so dimly lit. Maybe he could help you? It's the least he can do. He feels like he owes you so much more, considering his kind is the reason you're treated like a glorified circus animal. Besides, a sick part of him is brimming with curiosity. If you can allow this, then surely you must trust him to some degree? Maybe it's possible to establish a bond of some sort! The eager researcher in him trumps all of his morals and shame in this moment. T_T

[slightly-knot-insane]

Homemade

Monstertober 2024 - day 8 [ Chimera/Patchwork ] by @ozzgin

[ ???!monster x villain!fem!reader ]

tw: horror themes, light gore, twisted romance

You need a perfect boyfriend. Obedient, strong, devoted, endowed. But humans are so boring. You've dated so many and all of them have been so disappointing. Dull. Weak.

You walk around your laboratory. The only thing you like about humans is their arms. You like arms. Legs are not necessary, but arms are fun. And everything else you like about living creatures human beings lack: horns, tails, multiple set of genitals, maws, claws, scales. All those exciting things are not available for humans. Tsk, how annoying.

That's why - you think to yourself - you've created a perfect being for yourself. You've gathered and sewed all the body parts you liked. The recovery of your creation has been... shaky, and your new boyfriend still needs time to get used to his new body. But he is such a sweetheart! He is enduring all the pain and bleeding (and occasional body part detaching) just so that he could make you smile. He even wants to hug you and kiss you all the time. Your clothes always ends up bloodied but that's okay! It's not his fault.

"Hello... my dearest," he greets you from inside his cage, slowly forming words. "Will you let me love you today?"

You look at him and melt. His eyes are so gentle and affectionate, a perfect combination of all the colours you love. Even his tail is happily wagging! But you notice something else. He is trying to hide something between his legs. You bite your lower lip. "What do you have there?"

He blushes. "I... I can't control myself. I need something but I don't know what."

"Oh I know what you need," you giggle. "But I'm afraid you need to wait a bit more or you'll fall apart."

He grabs two bars of his cage with such force his enclosure shakes. Now you can see his massive boner peeking between the bars. It's painfully red and swollen. "Please, my dearest! I need... I need you."

Oh how someone begging you makes you wet. He is begging for your pussy. And, to be completely honest, you've been thinking about that perfect cock of his for a while. You wanted to try it out every since you made it. And you've been oh-so-patient. You push your fingers inside your underwear. Oh fuck, you are soaked.

"Okay," you say with a trembling voice. "Let's try. But you stay inside the cage." You still haven't tested his temperament and emotional control. His impulses and stress reactions are unknown to you. But fuck it, science isn't for cowards! That's why you remove the bottom half of your uniform and press your ass against the cage.

He growls and sniffs the air and it takes him mere seconds to understand what he must do. He can only push his cock between the bars and nothing else and his massive phallus is almost to big for you. You rub against his glans, whimpering as it rubs your clit. But you humping him isn't enough. What can you do? And you come up with something so so so risky - you push your arms inside the cage and get immediately yanked by your perfect boyfriend's massive hands. He pulls you against the bars as hard as your body allows, and pushes his cock inside your hungry hole. You scream from delight, praising him, and he growls and howls behind you, overwhelmed by his first copulation. You quickly reach your first orgasm and so does he. He fills you so much your stomach swells. But he doesn't let you move away.

"I need to breed my dearest. I need to breed her every day. I am her pet and slave and I am here to serve her," he says.

You moan in joy, tears forming in your eyes, knowing you've succeeded in creating your perfect boyfriend.

[reasonsforhope]

"The world is betting heavily on carbon capture — a term that refers to various techniques to stop carbon pollution from being released during industrial processes, or removing existing carbon from the atmosphere, to then lock it up permanently.

The practice is not free of controversy, with some arguing that carbon capture is expensive, unproven and can serve as a distraction from actually reducing carbon emissions. But it is a fast-growing reality: there are at least 628 carbon capture and storage projects in the pipeline around the world, with a 60% year-on-year increase, according to the latest report from the Global CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) Institute. The market size was just over $3.5 billion in 2024, but is projected to grow to $14.5 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.

Perhaps the most ambitious — and the most expensive — type of carbon capture involves removing carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air, although there are just a few such facilities currently in operation worldwide. Some scientists believe that a better option would be to capture carbon from seawater rather than air, because the ocean is the planet’s largest carbon sink, absorbing 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

In the UK, where the government in 2023 announced up to £20 billion ($26.7 billion) in funding to support carbon capture, one such project has taken shape near the English Channel. Called SeaCURE, it aims to find out if sea carbon capture actually works, and if it can be competitive with its air counterpart.

“The reason why sea water holds so much carbon is that when you put CO2 into the water, 99% of it becomes other forms of dissolved carbon that don’t exchange with the atmosphere,” says Paul Halloran, a professor of Ocean and Climate Science at the University of Exeter, who leads the SeaCURE team.

“But it also means it’s very straightforward to take that carbon out of the water.”

Pilot plant

SeaCURE started building a pilot plant about a year ago, at the Weymouth Sea Life Centre on the southern coast of England. Operational for the past few months, it is designed to process 3,000 liters of seawater per minute and remove an estimated 100 tons of CO2 per year.

“We wanted to test the technology in the real environment with real sea water, to identify what problems you hit,” says Halloran, adding that working at a large public aquarium helps because it already has infrastructure to extract seawater and then discharge it back into the ocean.

The carbon that is naturally dissolved in the seawater can be easily converted to CO2 by slightly increasing the acidity of the water. To make it come out, the water is trickled over a large surface area with air blowing over it. “In that process, we can constrict over 90% of the carbon out of that water,” Halloran says.

The CO2 that is extracted from the water is run through a purification process that uses activated carbon in the form of charred coconut husks, and is then ready to be stored. In a scaled up system, it would be fed into geological CO2 storage. Before the water is released, its acidity is restored to normal levels, making it ready to absorb more carbon dioxide from the air.

“This discharged water that now has very low carbon concentrations needs to refill it, so it’s just trying to suck CO2 from anywhere, and it sucks it from the atmosphere,” says Halloran. “A simple analogy is that we’re squeezing out a sponge and putting it back.”

While more tests are needed to understand the full potential of the technology, Halloran admits that it doesn’t “blow direct air capture out the water in terms of the energy costs,” and there are other challenges such as having to remove impurities from the water before releasing it, as well as the potential impact on ecosystems. But, he adds, all carbon capture technologies incur high costs in building plants and infrastructure, and using seawater has one clear advantage: It has a much higher concentration of carbon than air does, “so you should be able to really reduce the capital costs involved in building the plants.”

Mitigating impacts

One major concern with any system that captures carbon from seawater is the impact of the discharged water on marine ecosystems. Guy Hooper, a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter, who’s working on this issue at the SeaCURE site, says that low-carbon seawater is released in such small quantities that it is unlikely to have any effect on the marine environment, because it dilutes extremely quickly.

However, that doesn’t mean that SeaCURE is automatically safe. “To understand how a scaled-up version of SeaCURE might affect the marine environment, we have been conducting experiments to measure how marine organisms respond to low-carbon seawater,” he adds. “Initial results suggest that some marine organisms, such as plankton and mussels, may be affected when exposed to low-carbon seawater.”

To mitigate potential impacts, the seawater can be “pre-diluted” before releasing it into the marine environment, but Hooper warns that a SeaCURE system should not be deployed near any sensitive marine habitats.

There is rising interest in carbon capture from seawater — also known as Direct Ocean Capture or DOC — and several startups are operating in the field. Among them is Captura, a spin off from the California Institute of Technology that is working on a pilot project in Hawaii, and Amsterdam-based Brineworks, which says that its method is more cost-effective than air carbon capture.

According to Stuart Haszeldine, a professor of Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh, who’s not involved with SeaCURE, although the initiative appears to be more energy efficient than current air capture pilot tests, a full-scale system will require a supply of renewable energy and permanent storage of CO2 by compressing it to become a liquid and then injecting it into porous rocks deep underground.

He says the next challenge is for SeaCURE to scale up and “to operate for longer to prove it can capture millions of tons of CO2 each year.”

But he believes there is huge potential in recapturing carbon from ocean water. “Total carbon in seawater is about 50 times that in the atmosphere, and carbon can be resident in seawater for tens of thousands of years, causing acidification which damages the plankton and coral reef ecosystems. Removing carbon from the ocean is a giant task, but essential if the consequences of climate change are to be controlled,” he says."

-via CNN, April 29, 2025

[torturedreid]

The Perfect Formula

BARTENDER SPENCER

word count: 1265

warnings: drunk reader

The BAU’s bullpen had been transformed for the night, a rare occasion where work was on pause, and celebration took center stage. Strings of lights sparkled around the desks, and a large Bluetooth speaker on Derek’s desk blasted Garcia’s eclectic mix of holiday classics and ‘80s pop. The mood was relaxed, the team scattered around the room with glasses in hand, laughing and unwinding. A makeshift bar had been set up on the break room counter, cluttered with liquor bottles, mixers, and fresh fruit.

You leaned against the counter, watching as Spencer Reid stood at the center of it all, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, meticulously measuring liquids into a shaker. His tongue poked out slightly as he concentrated, and his cheeks were flushed a light pink, either from the heat of the room or the attention he was drawing from the team.

He’d taken charge of the cocktails after Morgan joked that Reid’s genius might finally be put to use for something other than criminal profiling. What had started as a tease quickly turned into a spectacle, as Spencer muttered to himself about ratios, volumes, and chemical balances while precisely measuring ingredients.

“Spence, you could just eyeball it, most people just pour and pray,” you teased, resting your chin on your hand as you watched. “It’s a party, not a chemistry experiment.”

His eyes flicked to yours, wide and flustered. “Eyeballing it would risk an imbalance in flavor profile, which could ruin the entire drink. It introduces too many variables. Cocktails, especially something as classic as a Daiquiri, require precision. The ideal ratio is two parts rum, one part lime juice, and one part syrup. Deviate from that, and you throw the balance off entirely.”

“Sounds pretty straightforward,” you said with a shrug, obviously joking, but of course he didn’t understand that.

“It’s deceptively simple,” he countered. “The ratio is easy to remember, but the variables compound quickly. For example, the dilution from the ice adds approximately twenty percent water to the final mixture, so you have to account for that when calculating the initial ingredient volumes. And then there's the acid-to-sugar ratio in the lime juice and syrup, which needs to fall between 1.2:1 and 1.6:1 for optimal flavor.”

You stared at him, blinking. “Did you just…math a cocktail?”

Spencer smiled faintly as he reached for a lime. “Of course. Math is the foundation of mixology.”

He began squeezing the lime, pausing briefly to weigh the juice on a small scale he’d brought over from the lab. “The average lime produces about 30 milliliters of juice, but that can vary depending on the ripeness and size. Too much acidity and the drink becomes harsh. Too little, and it tastes flat. This lime gave me 28 milliliters, so I'll adjust the syrup accordingly to maintain balance… for the record, this isn’t just a cocktail. It’s a daiquiri. The original recipe was created by Jennings Cox in the last 1800’s, and its simplicity makes it particularly vulnerable to imprecision.” 

You couldn’t suppress a laugh. “You really are a genius, you know that?”

Spencer glanced at you, his face flushing deeper. “I’m just applying basic principles of chemistry and physics,” he said, his tone modest but his expression pleased.

“You’re applying science to make a party drink,” you teased.

“And doing it perfectly,” he replied, with a rare bit of sass, pouring the lime juice into the shaker.

You watched as he added the rum with his standard precision, using a jigger to measure out 60 milliliters before pouring it in. Then came the syrup, which he poured slowly, his eyes narrowing as he calculated the exact amount to offset the slight deficit in lime juice. Finally, he added ice, giving the shaker a firm tap before picking it up and shaking with a smooth, practiced rhythm.

The clink of ice against metal filled the room as his arms moved fluidly, the muscles in his forearms flexing, exposed from where he’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. You tilted your head a little, unable to look away as he focused entirely on his task.

“Spencer-” you started, your tone teasing.

“Not yet,” he interrupted, holding up a finger without breaking his rhythm. “If I stop shaking too soon the drink won’t chill properly, and the dilution will be uneven.”

You smirked, waiting until he finally strained the drink into a glass. He slid it across the counter to you, looking up with a mix of anticipation and nervousness.

“Here,” he said, his voice soft. “Let me know what you think.”

You took a sip, letting the tartness of the lime and the smoothness of the rum wash over your palate. It was perfect- bright, balanced, and refreshing.

“Spence, this is amazing,” you said, meeting his gaze.

His lips quirked up into a small, bashful smile. “Really?”

“Really,” you confirmed, raising the glass in a mock toast. “To Spencer Reid, cocktail extraordinaire.”

He chuckled softly, his blush deepening and he turned to prepare another drink. 

--------------------------------------------

Hours later, the party was in full swing, but you found yourself repeatedly drawn back to Spencer’s bar. Each time he made you something different- a Margarita, a Negroni, an espresso martini- explaining the history and chemistry behind each one as he worked. You found it endearing, and hot, even as your head began to feel pleasantly fuzzy from the alcohol.

“Another, please,” you smiled, sliding your empty glass across the counter.

Spencer raised an eyebrow, his hands hesitating over the bottles. “That’s your fourth drink,” he said cautiously.

“And every single one has been delicious,” you replied, leaning on the countertop.

“Maybe you should slow down,” he suggested, his tone gentle but firm.

“Come on, Spencer,” you sighed, pouting dramatically. “You’re the barkeep here. Don’t leave me hanging.”

He sighed, relenting as he began preparing another cocktail. “You know, alcohol inhibits your prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making and impulse control.”

“Yeah, yeah, science boy,” you said, waving him off. “Just make the drink.”

By the time you finished that one, the world felt slightly tilted, and your laugh had become louder, less contained. You stumbled against the counter, giggling as Spencer reached out instinctively to steady you.

“Okay,” he said firmly, taking your glass from your hand. “That’s it. You’re done.”

“What?” you protested, looking up at him with puppy dog eyes. “No way, I’m fine!”

“You’re drunk,” he replied, his voice soft but unwavering.

“I am not drunk.”

“You just called me a wizard and asked if we could open a bar together,” he pointed out. “No more drinks for you. You need water.”

“But Spence,” you whined, swaying slightly.

“Water,” he repeated adamantly, guiding you to a nearby chair and handing you a glass of water. “Drink this. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

You took the glass with a dramatic sigh, slumping into the chair. “You’re no fun.”

He crouched down in front of you, his elbows resting on his thighs, his eyes warm and concerned. “I’d rather be no fun than let you drink yourself into a black-out.”

“Fine,” you grumbled, sipping the water. After a moment, you added, “But you’re still cute when you’re bossy.”

Spencer froze, his eyes widening as his face turned a deep shade of red. “I-uh-”

“Relax, genius wizard,” you said with a lazy smile. “It’s a compliment.”

He stood quickly, muttering something about getting a snack. As he moved behind the counter again, you couldn’t help but grin. Even in your inebriated state, it was fun watching the famed Dr. Spencer Reid unravel.

[cognitivejustice]

Citizen science is a powerful tool for involving more people in research. By influencing policy, it is transforming conservation at global, national and local levels.

Citizen science actively encourages non-scientists to be a part of the scientific research process. Sometimes the terminology gets confusing. We say “non-scientists” but through taking part in citizen science projects, people become scientists – they’re just not professionally involved in the research.

It’s also worth noting that the “citizen” in citizen science is completely unrelated to ideas of national citizenship.

Put simply, it’s science by the people for the people.

Citizen scientists can take part in every stage of the research process. Depending on the project, participants can write the research questions, choose the methods, collect the data, analyse and interpret the results, and share the research as widely as possible. By broadening people’s understanding of scientific problems and solutions, citizen science can act as a powerful catalyst for change.

It is already making an impact across lots of disciplines, including conservation, by addressing barriers to policy change such as lack of evidence and low levels of public engagement and input. While it’s not yet common for citizen science to directly influence policy, in our research we’ve seen how citizen science can shape policy at every scale: through promoting policy, monitoring progress towards policy or advocating for policy enforcement.

At a local level, citizen science can influence policy and transform conservation science. The clean air coalition of western New York is a group of citizens concerned about smells and smoke, and their connection to chronic health problems in the community. The group collected samples in 2004 to determine what was in the air and presented this data to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

[whereserpentswalk]

You're working on an interstellar ship. You're currently monitoring a planet from orbit. As one of the six species with the ability to create faster then light ships, every nation of your species has agreed not to interfere with less advanced civilizations. It's for the best they say.

The planet you’re monitoring is dying of a plague. They don't understand germ theory down there, they've barely invented things like the printing press or gunpowder. It's not like they're less intelligent then you, they just didn't have as much time. The researchers on the ship think the plague is going to end their species. It's not certain it'll happen but it's looking like it.

The researchers on the ship talk about the people there like they're animals, they sneak into villages the plague entirely destroyed and steal corpses to experiment on. They treat the bodies as if they were never people. They talk about the actions of the people planetside like the natrual instincts of beasts and not the choices of rational creatures. "According to their primitive ideas about reality they burn bodies killed by plague." "A female is given the right to mate with her male as she pleases after their marriage ritual." "They lack the capability of understanding the proximity of our ship."

You eventually decide that you've seen enough corpses, and that you've seen too many people act as if there weren't people down there. You steal an escape pod one night and go down to the planet to tell them what's happening. You don't have a cure for their illness but mabye you can get them on the right track.

You see them alive for the first time, not just bodies in a lab but people going about their lives, talking to eachother, buying and selling goods at their markets, mourning their dead. They look different from you of course, your body is serpentine with your only limbs being the four long tentacles near your mouth, their bodies are insectoid with four wraithlike arms and four long skinny legs, their dark metal exoskeletons contrasting the white of your scales. You remind yourself that they're no lesser then you, that you have no right that they do not.

You don't pretend to be a god or anything like that, you want to be as honest with them as you can. You go to someone practicing medicine in one of their temples. She's a student, her species doesn't have a lot of knowledge of medical science but it's not just superstition, she's learning how to do surgery and make medicine out of plants as best as her culture understands. You think to yourself that she'd probably be a premed student had she been born into your species, mabye the type to go to a fancy school off planet, mabye the type to voluntarily turn herself into a cyborg. She's scared at first but she eventually calms down, you explain to her everything you know about the virus and how her species could prevent it from spreading, you treat her as an equal, and explain things in terms she understands but in as much detail as possible, without making anything up to make it easier. It's the best that you can do.

You eventually have to leave. You're found out pretty quickly, you needed your ID to unlock the escape pod. You very quickly are fired, and become internationally infamous. It's agreed that to not violate any treaties you're never allowed to leave your homeworld again, you can never so much as set foot on a starship. Years go by. You don't have a medical license anymore so you find work teaching medicine at a local college. You sometimes wonder what it would be like to have the girl you talked to on that planet so many years ago as a student. In a way she was your first student.

People sometimes want to interview you about what you did. You refuse most of them. There's a small but unpopular movement to make contact with less advanced planets who hold you up as an important figure. Saber toothed emothians, and soft fleshed earthlings, and many eyed galdians all come to you. They want you to endorse them, but it never feels right. The official narrative is that the planet you tried to saved as killed off by that virus, everyone says that the species you tried to help wouldn't have understood what you told them, and that the virus would have been their end a few years after you made contact.

Years go on. No spaceship ever had a reason to come to the planet you tried to save, so you never get any confirmation. You always look for that hope but eventually you give up, there's no reason to believe anything else. As your story gets further and further in the past you have no legacy, there are governments and corporations who make sure you're not remembered in public consciousness, and only a few online forms and academic historians really talk about your life anymore. Occasionally activists will scream your name, but the news never reports on it.

It is hundreds of years after your death. The species you saved all those years ago has finally created faster then light travel. All across their world statues of you exist, every child on their planet knows your name. The first planet they visit once they make first contact is your honeworld, and the descendents of the woman you explained germ theory to visit your descendents. They posthumously give you their highest awards, and thousands of them come to see your grave. Nobody there forgot what you did, you're credited with saving their species from existence. They wish they could tell you, everything was ok in the end, your compassion was not meaningless.