#like only the sensors have x-ray vision

[four-birds-in-a-trenchcoat]

Okay so I've been thinking of this post here for a while now:

We all know this post is hilarious, but really how well would the Justice League handle the Cloudburst and the Arkham Knight's tank? Could they survive? Could they take out the tank? So as a little thought excersise I'd go through on a member by member basis and how well they'd handle it. Welcome to my unofficial dissertation.

(If you think I'm wrong or missing something I probably am but let me know, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this.)

SUPERMAN - MOST LIKELY

It's been consistent in most media that Superman is not affected by fear gas unless it's mixed with Kryptonite, however this is explicitly stated to be the most powerful version of Scarecrow's toxin, so for the sake of argument we'll say it will affect him, just slower than a human. Superman would have three practical options in that case: Use super breath to blow a path through the Cloudburst, hold his breath, or survey from above with X-ray vision to minimize contact with the gas.

WONDER WOMAN - VERY LIKELY

The Arkham Knight's Tank shouldn't be an issue to the Man of Steel; the shots would absolutely knock him back in a head-on approach but as soon as Superman makes it to the body of the tank it's all over.

Being an Amazon warrior and their princess, Diana's rigorous training has given her a strong mental fortitude, strong enough to at least once break through fear gas. (A/N: I haven't read much Wonder Woman and ultimately it's up to the writer but from my understanding this is what I've come to) Personally I think she's the most likely to last as long as Batman did in the cloud. If Wonder Woman can make it to the Batmobile (which seems to filter out the air from the Cloudburst) before the fear gas takes over her mind she'd be able to cross the first hurdle.

Based on the scenario I described, Wonder Woman could absolutely take out the Cloudburst tank using the Batmobile. But what about other methods, just for fun? In a one-on-one fight Wonder Woman could take out the tank, albeit just a bit slower than Superman. She likely wouldn't go for a head-on attack but could break through the shell of the tank with ease. Problem is this hypothetical only applies if you argue WW can handle the fear gas directly, which I do not think they would.

GREEN LANTERN (Hal, John, Guy, or Jessica) - SOLID CHANCE

If you don't think this Batman would trust Diana with the Batmobile, she still has the Invisible Jet but all things considered it wouldn't do much. The Cloudburst is so thick it disrupted even the Batmobile's sensors making any attempts to fire at the tank a literal shot in the dark. What's more is the jet doesn't have the precision anti-tank weaponry that the Batmobile has. According to Wikipedia the Invisible Jet (in Wonder Woman 1984) is based on a combination of the F-111 Aardvark and Panavia Tornado GR1, of the two the highest caliber of precision weapon is a 27mm revolver cannon, which comparably is a joke to the Batmobile's 60mm cannon needed to take out the heavy drones and tanks. Ultimately the jet would not be much help against the tank but it came to my mind so I had to discuss the potential of it.

THE FLASH - UNLIKELY

Green Lantern's weakness is Yellow due to being the color of fear (well actually it's because of a battle against Parallax but he is a physical manifestation of fear so...). Because of that it's unlikely that anything whichever Lantern constructs wouldn't even break through the cloudburst. I wasn't sure if there was ever an instance of a Lantern dealing with fear gas and somehow the ONLY instance I could find is Justice League: Doom where Hal was able to conquer the effects after learning it's an illusion. So if whichever Green Lantern would attempt to fight the Arkham Knight would need to be very experienced.

Assuming Green Lantern can enter the cloudburst without issue, the tank is a goddamn joke. They could create a high powered sniper rifle, their own batmobile, or literally a hand with a Tech Deck to grind the tank and smash it.

The Flash still needs to breathe when he runs so he can't just dash in and punch a hole in the tank. His best solution to clear the path would be to form a tornado around Gotham in order to dissipate the cloud, but that's a serious risk to everyone left in the city, not to mention the collateral damage of scattering the Cloudburst across the sky. So no, I don't think Flash could get past the fear gas.

MARTIAN MANHUNTER - UNLIKELY

If you negate the gas itself it wouldn't be too hard for the Flash to destroy the tank. Dash around it so fast it starts to break apart, run around the Earth a couple of times and punch its weak points, all things considered the tank is the easy part.

As a side effect of watching his entire race dying, J'ohn J'onnz's has a crippling fear of fire. That doesn't even require fear gas to create, just a bit of gas and a match. While we have no real reference on if Scarecrow's fear toxin affects Martians, but it can then this fight is over before it even began.

Like most members with actual powers, the Arkham Knight's tank is simple enough to take down. Being as strong as Superman not to mention invisibility he could walk right up to the tank and destroy it before the Knight even knows what happens.

AQUAMAN - UNLIKELY

This was interesting to think about because I didn't actually know if Aquaman even has to breathe above water, but from a bit of research yes he does in fact breathe oxygen on land. This means the Cloudburst would affect him on land. What's more, the final appearance of Scarecrow in Batman: Arkham Asylum has him threatening to drop the chemical into the water, poisoning Gotham, meaning to some extent fear gas can travel through water. HOWEVER, the version of the gas in Batman: Arkham Knight was already dispersed into the form of a cloud, making it a lot harder to disperse into water. So hypothetically, Aquaman could create a torrent running through Gotham's streets as a shield against the cloudburst, but he could not leave the water.

Aquaman is incredibly strong, but not as strong as Superman or Wonder Woman. Given the hypothetical of needing to stay in a constant stream of water, any direct shot from the cannon would knock him loose and he'll have to face the fear gas. Putting this together, Arthur Curry would have to be fast and precise aiming to the tank's weakest points while moving very fast lest he get shot. While I considered Aquaman just hucking a whale at the tank could probably work, the streets of Gotham are not built for that kind of attack and would cause tens of millions in property damage, not to mention possible unnecessary casualties.

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This covers the founding members of the Justice League, but for fun I'll point out a few more members worth thinking about.

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CYBORG - While I don't think it's possible for him to make it through the Cloudburst, I would be remised if I don't acknowledge that he could hack the Batmobile in order to take out the tank.

PLASTIC MAN - I think Plastic Man might be the only member with a natural immunity to anything Scarecrow throws at him due to his entire biology being changed to plastic. That said, he poses no chance against the tank.

RED TORNADO - Since he's a robot, fear gas does nothing to Red Tornado. However the Cloudburst is powerful enough to damage electronics. Whether or not the weather will affect him would be up to the writer, but that fact might not even matter due to just being able to blow it all away.

The tank would absolutely devastate Red Tornado in a one-on-one fight meaning he'd have to move really fast with direct strikes to the weak points in order to defeat it.

DOCTOR FATE - This isn't even a contest he could just teleport the Arkham Knight and his tank to Hell.

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In doing this thought experiment I have come to realize that the plot of BMAK would be incredibly boring with any other hero because they'd decimate the Knight's militia in ten minutes. Furthermore, Batman is one of the only League members with enough willpower to brute-force fear gas, making him more or less the only one insane enough to take on this threat. So from all of this I think it is safe to say that he is in fact NOT stupid for not calling the Justice League. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[fanfalc-616]

Zane’s Original Body: Sensors

[Rundown Masterlist]

Optics:

Aka, a fancy way of describing his eyes. His eyes function rather similar to a humans; the camera is behind the pupil and the iris controls the motion and size of the pupil and how much light is let in.

He has incredibly high powered cameras that actually allow him to see things even better than humans; however, this is limited by his GPU, which only processes and is able to translate a certain amount of it. The cameras take in information of what things look like, but the GPU is what makes it comprehensible to him. Typically, he can see much better than a human, but in the right- or rather, wrong- situations, that can change.

He also happens to possess several settings to them that he can filter on and off at will, with these settings being night vision, thermal vision, and zooming in. He does not, however, possess x-ray vision, as that is too complex for his systems and also gives off radiation which is,,, not great.

Audio:

Zane’s audio sensors work fairly similar to the collecting ability of microphones, picking up audio in more or less the same fashion- however, this does mean that he can’t quite filter sounds the same way that neurotypical humans can, and can struggle with sensory issues to a pretty big extent if there are too many noises happening at once.

However, while he can’t filter noises well, he can adjust his sensitivity to be higher and pick up noises in a larger range despite already having hearing better than a human’s- accomplishing this by concentration and straining to hear better much in the way humans can, and when he’s finished, it typically tends to slowly lower back to a normal range over the course of a minute or so.

Touch:

Touch sensors are fairly commonly known even in real life technology. But the ability to feel everything all over his entire body is a little more complicated.

For Zane, there’s not a lot of actual sensors in his body; three in each limb, four in his chest, four in his lower torso, and three in his head.

That may seem like a lot, but compared to the size of his body versus the size of the sensors, it’s surprisingly few. It seems like to be able to feel everything everywhere, all of his body would need to have it, right?

But there’s a solution to prevent them. Very sensitive wires- almost like human nerves- coming off of them create a thin mesh directly below his synthetic skin, which notices the pressure- as well as other senators, such as temperature- and where, which is taken back to the actual sensor, which interprets it and sends it through more wires to the spine, where it is then taken to his ‘brain’ to be processed.

This also means that the true sensors that the wires connect to are incredibly sensitive, far more than any human is on any part of their body. Meaning any injury that touches those… well, he’s not gonna have a fun time with that.

Taste/Scent:

Taste and scent are actually very similar, so I’ll be covering them together. Both ways, there’s a form of molecular detection system that associates types of molecules and their compositions with sensations that are registered as ‘tastes’ or ‘scents’. The two are already very closely related for humans, but for Zane, there’s very little difference between them. This is part of why he’s so good at cooking; he can get a feel for what the result is going to be before he even completes the dish, and can make adjustments accordingly.

Proprioception:

Proprioception is the sense of motion, movement, and where things are in relation to your body. For Zane, this is actually a subtle type of scanner rather than an actual sensor- in this case, a short-range radar.

It sends out small subtle electromagnetic waves which bounce off of things, and upon returning, are processed to tell the exact location of his surroundings.

On top of this, he has a back up; a typical motion sensor. It produces ultrasonic waves outside of the human range of hearing- and Zane’s range of hearing- that behave similarly to the electromagnetic waves. With both of these active at once, it is very difficult for anything to slip past him. This is why he is so good at noticing very subtle changes to his surroundings; which he had originally attributed to his sixth sense before discovering his nindroid nature.

[wolfspiders-web]

Fallout: 009

So, I've had this CRAZY idea knocking around in my head for years to make a crossover/AU of Fallout (in particular, 4) and because this anime has been my eternal brainrot since the early 2000's, Cyborg 009. I mean hey, if the Institute can have functional teleportation then I can throw in superpowered cyborg soldiers for funsies. This draws inspiration from multiple incarnations of the series with more emphasis placed on the 2001 “Cyborg Soldier” anime, so this is more of a retelling of that using the location and lore of FO4's Commonwealth. Also, I might have cranked up the “tragic backstory” for some of them up to 11. Things.. snowballed a little. okay maybe a lot actually, I'm so sorry to 001 in particular They are flawed, but they are still human, and they're attempting to make the best of an incredibly shit situation.

I meant for this to be an askblog-type thing that never went anywhere because I couldn't find the inspiration for art, but at this point I feel I have a metric ton of written material (the main profile document for the 00-Cyborgs, Dr. Gilmore, and the Dolphin is 25 pages long and technically still unfinished). I'm going to continue to spiff up and infodump to this sideblog, but if any y'all have a question about something you're more than welcome to ask it!

(special thanks to @gghoulishh for helping me hash out so many details! I should have started posting this years ago tbh)

Mini-profiles for the main cast below the cut:

001 Ivan Wisky

Son of pre-war Black Ghost cyberneticist Dr. Gamo Wisky, 001 is a telepathic and telekinetic psyker, the stressful process of becoming a cyborg having “unlocked” Ivan’s brain and these new abilities. Super-intelligence was the original goal, but Black Ghost was extremely pleased with this unforeseen outcome. Dr. Wisky had offered his own newborn son as a test subject but didn’t do it out of any particular love for the dying child; the only reason was because Dr. Wisky was being blamed for multiple failures on the Cyborg Soldier project and would have likely been killed for it. Despite appearances, he is a tactician on par with 008.

002 Jet Link

Having been tricked into getting into a vehicle with Black Ghost agents inside, Jet was taken for the Cyborg Soldier project right off the streets of New York. He's one of the most shell-shocked out of the original generation of 00-Cyborgs; having the living, breathing city of New York fresh in his memory as if it was only just moments ago. He’s unable to believe his home, his country, has been reduced to an irradiated and dilapidated ruin. However, this new wastelander life still feels like being back in his old gang; fighting for survival every day with a group of united people, just with the ability to fly at high speeds with rocket legs.

003 Francois Arnoul

Extremely perceptive to others even before being remodeled, Francois now has the ability to detect life through walls and at great distances through audio cues and x-ray vision. Due to her sound-based abilities she is also an excellent mimic and ventriloquist, and can store then use any animal or creature roar she hears to incite fear and confusion. A pre-war French-Canadian citizen, her brother was the last person to see her during her kidnapping, though now she has no family but the Cyborgs. The dissonance of the present time to her memories of a simpler time causes her great distress, but Francois has become a master of bottling her emotions to not worry her team.

004 Albert Heinrich

More machine than man, some mistake Albert for a prototype android with his assortment of mechanical parts and very little actual flesh left. Legally blind due to how the sensor implants in his eyes didn't take too well, but he can still see with them. He was taken by Black Ghost agents after a routine flight home with his fiance went horribly awry, leaving her dead and Albert dying. Black Ghost agents found him in the wreckage and turned him into a walking arsenal. The knowledge that he shares more in common with a robobrain than his original humanity weighs heavily on him.

005 “Junior”

For those who don’t know him, many take Junior’s silence as a sign of your average Super Mutant’s below average intelligence. But somehow in the process of FEV mutation he kept his sanity, intelligence, and his humanity; unfortunately he does not remember anything about his past after the process was complete. Black Ghost, ever willing to push the envelope, modified an already strong being into an unstoppable force. Despite this, Junior is a literal gentle giant as many of the wasteland’s non-monstrous wildlife will approach him and even relax in his presence.

006 Chang Chanku

A short man, but one who could probably wrestle a potential meal into submission if he wasn’t already a walking flamethrower. Before Black Ghost took him, Chang was a Brahmin farmer and an excellent cook; he still is due to his newfound control over fire. Being a Chinese descendant of those interred in camps before the Great War, one would think that Chang needs to watch his back in the country that his ancestors once tried to invade. But the idea of “Chinese” and “American” burned in nuclear fire generations ago, and all but the most devoted to history have long since forgotten. Now, everyone is united under one banner: as survivors.

007 “Great Britain”

A pre-War actor gone ghoul, GB has seen the world gone to hell in a handbasket firsthand but that doesn't seem to have effected his cheerful demeanor. Or he just doesn't see the point in caring about it anymore. His love is still the theater life he made his career in before the Great War stole it away, particularly Shakespeare's works. His augmentation is a highly experimental, highly top secret one involving the use of nanomachine technology gained from a crashed alien mothership. This gives him active camouflage and allows him to morph his body into almost any desired shape and back using a button on his stomach that resembles a hernia. With 003 supplying sound effects they make a terrifyingly convincing combination.

008 Pyunma

The only one with real combat experience before becoming a cyborg soldier, Pyunma was once the leader of an infamous local raider group before being kidnapped by Black Ghost. As the field tactician of the group he knows how to fight, and the dirtiest ways to fight, though the team prefers to not come to that. His specialty is water combat and he is able to breathe underwater, though as the highly irradiated waters in and around Boston are a danger to what's left of his organics he has extremely high radiation resistance to compensate.

009 Joe Shimamura

The golden child and final member of the 00-Cyborg prototypes. Before Joe was taken by Black Ghost he was in the courier service, his natural speed and endurance doing him well in the dangerous expanse of the wastes. An orphan, Joe was raised by the owner of a courier service in his village and he was found to be a natural born runner. Now even that has been upgraded past the limits of the human body, which would make him one hell of a courier if Joe could go back to his old job. But his ties are with his new "family" now, having become a reluctant member of the rebel 00-Cyborgs who are now trying to right the wrongs of their creators as well as survive in an unforgiving wasteland.

Dr. Issac Gilmore

A high ranking cyberneticist of the Black Ghost organization, Gilmore defects with the rest of the cyborgs in a hoax hostage situation in order to escape Black Ghost's grasp and cope with his own guilt over what he's done. He advises the team from a distance during operations and handles all their maintenance himself. He has varying degrees of insight into the factions of the Commonwealth, such as how the Black Ghost, Institute, and even the Enclave and BoS operate. Dr. Gilmore’s knowledge is invaluable for dealing with these groups politically – and offensively if it ever has to come to that.

[aikoiya]

DP AU - PT AU - Dina Phantom's Powers

As a Phantom, Diana is skilled with telekinesis (often using it for damage control during fights to try & keep debris from falling on top of civilians), healing both with medicine & with her powers, & a technique that she calls her Shield Shot (but she doesn’t learn it until Ultimate Enemy). It allows her to shoot a special ecto-beam & erect a shield where it lands. It takes a bit of training to get it to where she can make the shield erect before the beam hits something. She's used it to save a lot of lives. Once she’s got a handle on it, she begins to teach her brother her new technique in case she’s ever not there.

Diana was faster when flying or swimming, more agile, flexible, & dexterous, more stealthy, & with a higher pain tolerance than Danny. While Danny is stronger, tougher, faster on land, & has more stamina than Dina.

She does have a Ghost Sense & it’s an extension of her core & element too, but it doesn’t work like her brother’s does. Instead of being able to sense when there’s a ghost a great distance away & their general direction, she more has a heightened awareness of where a ghost is when within a shorter, more immediate, vicinity even when they are invisible. It comes to her like ripples in a pond or sonar or echolocation & it shows itself in the form of watery eyes & involintary tears. She is also much stealthier than Danny by nature, even being able to turn off her own glow as a ghost when she wants to & suppress her heat or cold signature & ecto-signature so sensors can’t detect her. This is later something she teaches Ellie who takes to it like a duck to water.

Diana later develops a cold core like her brother, but instead of ice, her main element is water. She’s an Avatar: Last Airbender fan & absolutely takes up tai chi to mimic the waterbending fighting style. It actually does help with her water manipulation, too! She later learns cryomancy, but she had to work towards it before it would manifest in her. Ice comes pretty easy because it’s basically just frozen water, but it’s still not as natural to her as just using water is. Instead of just creating ice from thin air like Danny, however, it works more like waterbending in that she gathers water first, then turns it to ice. She uses it medically to ice over wounds. The ice she initially makes is unfortunately just normal ice unlike the Ghost Ice that Danny can produce which is practically indestructible & is resistant to earthly heat. However, the ice she makes does seem to have a healing affect to it, which is a plus. She can eventually make Ghost Ice, but it's very hard for ghosts who's main element isn't ice to do.

Now, like I said before, Dina someday learns cryomancy, but it was more something she had to work towards rather than something that just manifested like it did for Danny or her hydromancy for her. Also, it'd never come to her as naturally as water does for her. The reverse can be said for Danny as well. She could still get very good at it though. In contast, Danny's secondary element is wind & he too has to work for it.

She is able to coat her hands in an aqua aura & heal injuries with it when she touches the afflicted area. It works even better if she treats the injury medically beforehand.

She also develops x-ray vision, but it's nowhere near as efficient as a Kryptonian's as it works more like an x-ray machine, her vision showing up in black & white & grainy. Not to mention that she's unable to see through walls.

However, despite it's lack of efficiency, it majorly improves the efficiency of her healing of others as it shows her the internal damages, which allows her to guide the energy right where it needs to be. She has to know the general healing process of the injury in question for it to have the best possible effect.

At some point, Dina learns something she calls her ‘Shocking Grasp.’ It’s where she channels electricity into her hands, but she can only really use it for specific things & only up to a certain level of power because of her & Danny’s personal weakness to electricity. She typically uses it to either pester her brother or their friends by giving them little shocks, like static. Or, more importantly, as a defibrillator in emergencies. The first time she used it, it was by accident when she was trying to treat a civilian after a battle. He’d gone into cardiac arrest & his heart had stopped beating. Diana panicked & just zapped his chest, causing the man’s heart to restart.

She can also use Ghost Stingers like Danny, though she speculates that it's an extension of her Shocking Grasp.

It later turns out that Danny & Diana's elemental powers of ice & water aren't entirely ecto-based & are also partially magic. I mean, Danny's Ghost Ice is obviously ecto-based, but the rest of it is a mix of magic & ecto. As such, even when they are unable to use their ghost powers for one reason or another, they are still able to use their elements in the form of cryomancy & hydromancy.

Eventually, Diana has the idea to create fog around them to obscure vision with their core elements, Danny's of ice & Diana's of water. Diana's can only obscure vision, but anyone inside Danny's who isn't resistant to cold will quickly begin to freeze over. While at first Danny & Diana, themselves, can't actually see in the fog, they can eventually learn to sort of sonar through it using the water droplets & ice fractals as an extension of their innate supernatural senses.

Diana tends to use her Shocking Grasp on those caught in her water-based fog to up the voltage & cause a decent amount of damage.

Diana possesses the same Obsession as her brother. However, they both have different perspectives on what it actually means to protect people. To Danny, it means to fight off the ghosts so that people don’t get hurt in the first place. Diana’s thoughts on it are similar, but to her it also means healing those who’ve been hurt despite their efforts. Especially, her brother after he’s been hurt in a fight. As such, they have a lot of the same powers, but also not, with Diana having more of a Cleric thing going as opposed to her brother’s Paladin of the same faith. Similar power sources, different executions.

She's not very good at duplicating, so she instead takes advantage of her imperfect use of the move to give herself an extra pair or 2 of arms that she uses to help her multitask.

After becoming ghosts, Diana & her brother have a psychic connection, but they can only talk telepathically to each other if they're within a certain distance from each other. Beyond that, they can only sense the other's stronger emotions. It comes in useful with planning or knowing when their twin is in danger. The further their distance away, the dimmer the feeling is, but it never fades entirely. They can block the link for a time when they want. Dina does it to keep her brother from cheating off her during tests. This connection formed because their base souls are 2 halves of the same soul: Jack Frost/Nightlight.

After mating with Vlad, Dina also creates a psychic link to him. This happened because they are soul mates. As such, Danny has no link to Vlad. The same thing happens with Danny & Sam. Dina has no connection to Sam.

During Reign Storm, Dina & Danny eventually learn that they can fuse together. This is also because their base souls are 2 halves of the same soul. As such, this plus ectoplasm's natural amorphous-ness, allow them to merge like in Steven Universe. This power eventually develops into a real ability that allows them to fuse with others, but only if they are sufficiently ecto-contaminated enough.

As a sidenote, Danny & Dina both have the Wail & Shield Shot, but Dina's Wail (or Spectral Scream as she calls it, because it's got a higher pitch than Danny's) isn't quite as powerful as her brother's & the shields that Danny erects with Shield Shot aren't as sturdy as Dina's are.

At the end of the Christmas episode, she helps the other ghosts fix up Christmas. Then, she sees her brother use a new ability to fix the destroyed presents & points out that, that power could be useful if he can use it to fix up the damage made after ghost fights.

He hadn't even clocked this until she mentioned it to him, but he's unsure if this even is a new power or just a plot device for Ghost Writer's poem.

Turns out that it is a new power & now Danny & Dina use it all the time to fix up the town after fights. Though, the Phantom Phemme is the one who usually uses it. She tend to mix it with her telekinesis during battles where debris would've fallen on citizens & immediately fixes the damage.

As a result, a lot of the townspeople that had been against them for property damage & such, no longer have a reason to hate them. Of course, that doesn’t stop others from continuing to do so, or for plenty of the ones that did because of the property damage to keep hating them for some other reason. Regardless, the twins' reputation goes up. However, there are still plenty who still hate them anyway.

Eventually, Danny, Dina, & Ellie all learn to use different types of photomancy. Danny learns asteromancy, where he can magically produce & manipulate starlight. Di learns lunamancy, which allows her to magically produce & manipulate moonlight. Then, Ellie learns something that I'm gonna call albedomancy, which is the magical power to produce & manipulate the light that reflects off of planets.

Like Danny, Dina eventually learns to manipulate the weather, but only weather patterns involving water & ice to an easy & effective degree. Wind & lightning are difficult for her. Lightning more so than wind.

Dina also turns out to have a connection to aquatic animals & is able to control them to a degree. She can understand water mammals to a degree, but only water mammals. Not necessarily speak to, so much as understand what they're 'thinking'/feeling as animals aren't sapient enough to truly think. Definitely not complete & cohesive sentences like media portrays it as.

If it were understanding speech or speaking to water mammals, she'd only be able to get basic ideas. Like, 'angry,' 'hungry,' 'happy,' 'confused,' & 'curious.' Nothing detailed & the animal wouldn't be able to comprehend complex sentences. So, she'd have a lot of difficulty communicating with them even despite being able to speak to them.

She also learns how to use her Wail underwater which works a little like a whale call.

Another thing is she gains the ability to hypnotize/mesmerize/charm people with her voice.

Phantom Twins AU Masterlist

[someonestole15]

It takes about the half-life of Polonium for me to write one post.

Dead are not silent.

In the dead of night, you can truly hear their whispers, each of them asking the same question. Why in a million years would I be the one to leave so soon? I keep thinking on an answer to that question but so far, I have found nothing but static, dead air. Radio crackling from the dying signal, I allowed it to slip loose from my grip and fall into the void beneath me. Bright light ahead, forming into a console somewhere within my OS.

>>CPU impact detected, checking system status... >>Unit condition compromised, Damage within acceptable limits. Proceeding with reboot

From my dreams back to reality, a voltage coursed from my powercells through to my heart and CPU, kick starting everything and sending most sensors to 11. Hurts like hell, I tried to keep my breathing calm as the shock faded into a blissful numbness with the safeties cutting off the data flow. Sensory input returning slowly and the numbness subsiding, I hazily got on one knee as my gyroscopes started calibrating. Which way is down, gravity pull this way so that must be it, right, now how does one walk again...

Systems calibrating to my weight, one leg at a time I stood myself up and took in the surroundings, my scanners painting the forest around me in wireframe before the optical systems finally calibrated, allowing color to return to my vision. Rain, navigations messed up so no idea how we got here, I patted down my jacket and noticed my pistol and shotgun were still in their place and the hazmat suit, despite a few scuffs, was still intact.

Booting up my scanners, I felt them spin around for a bit inside my skull before settling in to the front and scanning the zones around me. No active hostiles, the scan came up with four tags near me, it took a moment for the identifier to read their tags. Rest of X-ray, status: alive, a faint sigh of relief got through my filters as I glanced up to see cooling towers visible above the trees at a range of approx. 300m, my rangefinder could not get an accurate reading.

Slow and steady to where Valkyrie was lying, the rest of squad not far from her. Red visible even through the hazmat gear and her scanners quietly ticking away, I gently pulled her over to her side and gently shook her.

“Hey, you better not be dead on me.”

 “Who...” Dazed but alive, she grabbed onto my jacket shortly before identifying me. “Oh it’s you. Where were you, what happened?”

“Not sure, seems I caught a close look at a rifle stock if I read my logs correctly.” I responded as I gave her my hand and helped her up.

“We had a similar tale from what I can remember; the security team took us down as soon as we got out of the range of the cameras.”

“Things are not adding up, but we have more important things to figure out what is going on.”

“Alright, I got your six.” She said while racking back the slide on her handgun, the faint red glow from her eye shining through the mask.

Speculation as the only thing to rely on, we moved from marker to marker, waking up our remaining squad members. One by one, the tracker on my HUD filled up and once we had all five, we took shelter near a service cabin close to the edge of the clearing, using the piled up logs as cover. Rations and medical kits to recover and bind up the few wounds, the weather started to clear up but the mood in the squad was clearly down.

“So now what?” Oscar asked, grabbing the pack of smokes from his vest pocket once again.

“I need to think... What did you find inside?” Richter asked, holding onto his bandaged arm. Likely painful even if just a graze, it would take a moment for the painkillers to kick in.

“It was more than a leak, the entire section was contaminated and the traces were consistent with a chemical weapon we found on that haul a few weeks back.”

“Right, they knocked us out once we were out of camera range... Played me like I was some damn boy scout.” Richter said with bitterness in his voice and pacing around, kicking away small rocks and sticks as he walked.

“Breathe. Don’t get angry, get even.”

“Even? All right... We need to get through to Control.”

“I think... Yes, I am getting a signal through; whatever they were using for jamming is not active anymore.” Diana said, followed by a round of testing from the rest of us. Hazy signal but it did connect; Richter grabbed hold of his radio with a pained grunt before switching over to his working arm.

“Control, this is X-ray, do you copy?”

“Control copies, thought we lost you X-ray.”

“Situation update, stand by.”

“Copy, send traffic.”

Traffic sent, data packages from smaller pieces coming together, the radio remained quiet until Richter had relayed all the information, responding only with a quiet “Copy that.”

“X-ray, this is Control. Listen up; it is clear from what you said that the mission objective could still be completed. We will dispatch a backup team to assist in both containing the hazardous materials and securing the plant. Going to be a hell of debrief...”

“Roger that control, what are our orders?”

“Secure the front gate for a rendezvous with the backup team and continue operation Pale Flame. We’ll look into who or what might have caused the guards to turn on a rear echelon unit.”

“Got it, X-ray out.” Richter said into his radio before turning to the rest of us. “You heard the man. We will secure the front gate for our backup unit. Phoenix, are you able to take point?”

“Ready and able.”

“Good, rest of you, spread out and cover the flanks. Clear? Good, execute.”

An arrow cutting across the clearing and onto the forest road leading back towards the plant, scanners like flashlights leaving no place to hide as the road beneath our boots shifted from gravel to dirt and finally asphalt. Arriving at a row of garages and shutter doors, we cleared corners and moved through the area, avoiding a few blocked off paths and reaching the road leading to the plant itself. Short jog from here to the reactor complex, I grabbed cover as Richter gave the command to halt.

“Anything on the scanners?”

“All quiet.”

“Same here.”

“I would have expected a patrol by now, something is certainly not right.

“That many guards for a lone power plant... ”

“Take cover. Time to kick the hornets’ nest.” Richter said under his voice as he drew his pistol and removed the magazine, firing one shot towards the sky. Echoing throughout the forests and sending a flock of birds scattering from the trees, I could hear the faint clicking from my sling mounts as we waited for anything to appear on the scanners. Loud to silent again, the wind rustling the fabric on my jacket and nothing on the scanners, just as on the way here.

“Clear. Double time, head on a swivel.”

Steady pace across the opening and into the plant complex, we double-timed it across the parking lots and access paths until we reached the front gate. Our truck was still parked there, partially covered by a blue tarp, almost as if someone had tried to hide it. Security cameras and motion trackers offline beyond the fence, the container command outpost had been dismantled, but the handler was nowhere to be seen. After confirming that the gatehouse was empty, we kept our eyes on the plant and waited for the backup team to arrive.

Boot tapping gently against the concrete to the beat of the track, my scanners picked up movement along the road. Pause, the faint hum of an engine reached my audio systems as the radio signal came through.

“X-ray, this is Gamma, do you copy?”

“This is X-ray, we hear you.”

“Copy, we are approaching now, how’s the situation at the gate?”

“Gate is clear.”

“Glad to hear X-ray, Gamma out.”

Faint humming to a low-pitched growl as an APC pulled through the gate and parked up near the middle of the parking lot, deploying a squad of CTO soldiers before a large transport truck followed it in. Hauling what I would guess to be a mobile laboratory, it passed us and stopped behind the APC, deploying a smaller crew of CTO soldiers, one of them wearing an orange armband over his dark hazmat suit.

“2-2 takes security. 2-3, on me.” Voice muffled by the mask and with an electronic buzz to it, the man seemed to be quite carefree despite the situation at hand.

“Looks like we got here just in time, you haven’t burned the place down just yet. Lieutenant Ryan Gray, Gamma squad command, here to assist.”

“Glad to have you Gray, I trust Barnett gave you the details?”

“Chemical weapon on the loose and we’re here to help in containing it. We gathered the ones who weren’t busy or dying, so you got all hands of 2-3.”

“We managed to secure a scan of a sample before the guards turned on us, shouldn’t take too long to work out what works.” Diana said, pulling up the chemical formula on her PDA.

“Alright, Davis and Carlson, lend her a hand. Richter, stage is all yours.”

“We had a team recon the inside of the plant. So far, it seems the contamination is localized inside this section of labs here.” Richter explained while setting up a small holographic mapping tool and pulling up the plants blueprints on it.

“These kinds of laboratories usually have an external sprinkler access point, so all we have to do is locate it once we have figured out what we need.”

“External, so outside... It seems to be clear out here but we cannot be sure about the inside. If the security team is hunkered down in there, they could potentially cause more harm than just a chemical leak.”

“Indeed, I think we form three teams, one per reactor and secure them. We have enough soldiers to have at least three soldiers from 2-2 in the squads.”

“I’ll take one.”

“You sure Richter?”

“I’m sure; a busted wing is not going to keep me down.”

 “Full of piss and vinegar that one... All right, two more.”

“I’ll take a team; I was on the team doing internal recon so I have a basic layout in my memory.”

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“Phoenix.”

“Think I’ve heard that somewhere... If Richter is fine with it, then so am I.”

“All yours. Bring them back alive.”

“Will do.”

“Oscar, I want you on the third team.”

“Yep, I might be a bit rusty on the team leading but I’ll give it a run.

Plan coming together, we divided into our teams and rearmed, the empty medical kits to full and damage to the equipment patched together. Richter in charge of Alpha, me running as the lead for Beta and Oscar taking Gamma’s name for his squad, easing up the communications as everyone behind was now under the X-ray squad marker.

Cassander, Alexander and Demetrius, three old kings lending their names to the three reactors inside, I felt the faint feeling of claustrophobia creeping in as my filters settled in place and the squad communications came online. Richter’s team headed for Cassander and Oscars made their way to the Demetrius, leaving Alexander for us, I reminded myself of the basics of squad commands and took point with Valkyrie and the rest of the squad behind me. Trust takes time and I am glad to see Richter having enough to let me run this squad in here, Ryan stayed behind with the laboratory and comms, losing both our contacts to the CTO command, although not something I’d do every day... I have enough in keeping Valkyrie and myself alive, having a third member ended up in a dead dog. Shake myself back to reality; we got a job to do.

Déjà vu walking across the corridors, a trail of dusty footsteps still visible on the floors although faintly, we made our way through with multiple red warning lights and a low tone alarm making the entire area feel more eerie than before. Reports of warnings and alarms matching what we heard from the other teams, we carried on deeper inside the utility corridor; the radiation readings remained low, almost too low even for an inactive reactor.

Blast door spanning across the corridor, bringing us to a halt, the squad took positions to guard the rear and sides while I pointed one of the soldiers to open the door via the terminal.  Quick fingers and equipped with the required access keys, the soldier, tagged on my HUD as Fox, got through the doors security and unlocked it.

“Nice job Fox. Pack up, we’re moving.” Valkyrie and two others through the door, Fox stopped me before I could pass through and handed me their tablet.

“Sir, I think you’ll want to see this.”

“Lay it on me, what am I looking at?”

“I managed to get into the main control systems to see the reactor status and the percentage there shows zero fuel.”

“What?”

“All the control rods are fully deployed and the turbines are slowing down, likely running on trace steam from the reactors cooling system. It will likely last a few more hours but after that this place will go dark.”

“And no sign of the security teams anywhere... There is no way they could have hauled off that amount of fissile material so either they are still in the core or moving it out now. Let’s get a move on, relay this to the other teams.”

“On it sir.”

Past the blast door and through a few security doors, we reached the reactor control room. Servers recording data in separate rooms and more switches than there are days in a year, another pair of soldiers, tagged as BAT and HOUND, split up and started running down the reactor checklist. No direct access to the reactor core but a large steel shutter covering the window with several radiation warnings and instructions written on it, I felt the faint buzz of radiation emanating through it.

“Can you get this shutter open?”

“Working on it, the system keeps locking out on me.” Hound stated, tapping on the keyboard and responding to Bat as they ran down the checklist. Eyes darting across the screens, Hound finally let out a sigh as he tapped enter one more time and the shutter started opening.

“There, this thing is antique. Bat, next item.”

“Right, next on the list is...”

Small increase in radiation on the scanners but again, not enough to match a running reactor, the core hanged from the mounts above a pool of coolant with all of its shielding open, the control rods lowered and all the spots where the fuel was supposed to be, empty. Therefore, the data was right, and with no guards in sight, it was as if they had taken the fuel with them, running the possibilities through my head, I grabbed hold of my radio and contacted Richter.

 “Richter, it’s Phoenix, we got an empty reactor housing here.”

“Same over here Phoenix, zero fuel. Logs say it was running this morning so there had to be fuel here.”

“Oscar, anything on your end?”

“Same with our reactor, no rods.”

“Roger that, secure any information and logs you can find then bring the reactor to a shutdown state. After that, rendezvous back at the front gate. Richter out.”

“You heard the man, pull the plug and copy the drives.”

“On it.”

Voice over the PA, announcing the reactor shutdown protocol before the shielding lowered back into place and reducing the radiation readings to near zero. Bat and Hound brought the reactor down and confirmed the shutdown had been completed and everything related to the core was in standby, would not want the pumps flooding the place with nothing to cool down.

Needle back to zero, terminals scoured for information and sensors recorded before securing the control room with rolls of warning tape and leaving the facility, reuniting with the rest of the team and meeting back up with them by the front gate.

Cataclysm event incoming with 26 tons of nuclear material missing, I do not want to see someone setting this place on fire.

Then again...

Hey there, sorry I've been gone again.

Life has been a lot for a while now and I am battling writers block even as I post this. Being sick and having no voice from the coughing left me with few options for things to do, so here I am.

The heat is also getting to me but staying hydrated has somewhat helped with that and I urge you to do the same.

Starting up the next post soon enough, hopefully the waiting time between then and now won't be that long.

Catch you later. Harry

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics: Weird astronomical photos.

A. The "Glowing Eye" or "Dandelion Puffball" planetary nebula¹ in the Aquila² constellation, 6,500 light years away.

Almost a light year in diameter.

B. The "Veil Nebula" is the result of a star, that was 20 times larger than our sun, going nova³ 8,000 years ago!

It's located 2,100 light years away in the Cygnus⁴ constellation.

And, it's translucent filaments are made out of delicate plasma⁵ threads.

C. A 2019 International Space Station photo of a "blue jet⁶." It arose from a thundercloud & 'splashed' against the Earth's ionosphere⁷.

The jet was preceded by a "blue bang⁸" near & above the island of Nauru, out in the Pacific Ocean.

D. Photo of the Milky Way⁹ seeming to arch - above Yosemite National Park¹⁰?

No other info found on it.

E. Gigantic cyclones over Jupiter's North Pole. 1st imaged - in infrared¹¹ - on 2016 by the Juno probe.

All of the hurricanes turn counter- clockwise & almost form a stormy octagon!

An 'unstable' shape - that never-the- less has survived since 2020!

Weird Shit: In 2000, a large x-ray spot was found at this Pole! An 'emitter'¹² that pulses every 45 minutes.

Another, smaller x-ray pulse was also found in Jupiter's South Pole as well!

And still, nobody knows why they're there...

F. A close-up of Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere, with its marble colored cloud cover. Photo courtesy of the Juno probe.

Often compared to a Van Gogh painting...

I found no other info.

G. From April of 2023, a truly massive plasma 'waterfall' over 61,000 miles above the sun's surface!! Caused by a flare large enough to swallow 8 of our Earths!

The 100s of plasma threads 'dripping' back down are caused by the sun's magnetic field's¹³ pull.

Though not rare, they aren't usually photographed. Another was 'caught' way back in 2008!

Notes:

1. An expanding region of cast-off gas & dust from the outer layers of dying red giant stars.

They have nothing to do with planets!

2. Aquila is Latin for the "Eagle" constellation. This represents the bird that carried the Roman God Jupiter's lightning bolts!

It's brightest star is Altair.

3. The sudden flaring up of a dying star, that slowly fades out over the following weeks or months.

This explosion doesn't destroy the star & it may flare up again...

4. Cygnus is Latin for the prominent "Swan" constellation.

Has many deep space objects near it. The 1st known x-ray source, Cygnus X-1, is located here.

5. Plasma is the 4th form of matter, after solids, liquids & gasses.

Its electrons wander freely among atomic 'cores' - instead of staying put orbiting one nucleus.

Some examples are: lightning, solar winds, auroras, neon, stars, etc...

6. Blue jets are bizarre forms of up- side-down lightning that shoot up- ward some 31 miles & last a bit less than a second!!

The color is due to nitrogen becoming electronically 'excited' into releasing some of its energy - as light.

7. But, the circular 'elf' marks where the intense & expanding electric pulse hit the Earth's ionosphere, which extends 37 to 190 miles & that carries radio signals far around our planet.

8. A blue bang is the violent mixing of cloud material with different electrical charges.

This proceeds & generates the blue jet.

9. The Milky Way is the large spiral galaxy in which our solar system finds itself.

It seems to form a hazy band of dust & clouds - from our POV. One that appears like a milky spill of light on dark nights.

10. Yosemite was 'born' in 1864 & is best known for its grand waterfalls.

But, it also includes deep valleys, big meadows, giant sequoias - even a vast wilderness area!

Beautiful spot for some astronomy...

11. Infrared is actually a wavelength of light radiation which is usually emitted by hot objects - like living things.

In the spectrum, it lies between the color red & microwaves.

Used in sensors, night vision devices, remotes, etc...

12. Outer space X-ray emitters or sources are only easy to spot - if they're seen straight on!

Otherwise, they seem 'hidden' if pointed slightly away from Earth!!

Most stellar objects shine with only a little bit of x-ray light.

But, strong x-ray emitters are a million times brighter than the total output of our sun!

They can actually be seen millions of light years away - in other galaxies!!

The closest x-ray source is SS 433, which is 10 times larger than our sun. It's actually in our galaxy - around 20,000 light years from us...

13. The electromagnetic field is the magnetic effects created in space by moving electrical charges.

Light, electricity & magnetism are different forms of this radiation.

This is the fundamental force for the creation of stable atoms & chemistry.

1913: Recap.

Bio: A perturbed Lovecraft wrote in to the Argosy magazine, stating that the love story genre & a certain Fred Jackson's tales - in particular - weren't up to par with the zine's usual quality.

Howard further asked for such work to not take over most of the Argosy's print space.

All this, even though HPL knew that some people did like such stories.

Readers who felt the same way as Lovecraft, also derided Jackson's tales for being cheap, disposable & sentimental trash!!

Well... Jackson's fans quickly came to his defense!

The upshot being an almost year long, snail mail war in the pages of Argosy & it's sister publications.

Most of it was just good natured 'sparring' between the two parties involved.

Which just goes to show that 'trolling' isn't limited to the Internet. Nor is it a recent activity.

People have been taking 'wild offense' at other's opinions since humans 1st developed.

All of this versified 'smack talk' did bring Howard to the attention of the UAPA, a group of amateur writers - from around the U.S. - who published their own fanzines & magazines.

HPL joined the UAPA in April, 1914.

1921 Quotation: HPL, "(In) the United, I obtained a renewed will to live; a(n) existence... other than (as) a superfluous weight; a sphere in which... my efforts were not... futile. For the 1st time, my clumsy groupings after Art were... more than faint cries in the unlistening void."

Output: Lovecraft returned to writing a new astronomical column in the Providence Evening News - until 1918.

He also wrote the poems "Ad Criticos" & "End of the Jackson War" in 1914.

[alexander-clifford]

Understanding the role of R&D in the software development industry

Businesses are increasingly utilising and expanding their technical activity to keep up with the pace of digital transformation, provide a competitive edge, streamline operations, and reduce operational costs. R&D in software development is transforming the capabilities of the information technology industry. Whether you’re fully focused on developing software or you created a tool to help you with a project and therefore it was only a part of what your business does, you could receive a financial boost from R&D tax credits, a reward for your innovation. Let’s find out more about the role of R&D in the software development industry.

What is R&D in the software development industry?

Research and development is a core component of software development. Software is made to address specific business challenges such as effectively managing data to speed up decision making and prevent human error. The activities involved in developing software meet the criteria of R&D tax credits:

Innovation and advancement

Software development often involves creating new or improved products, services, or processes, which align with the goal of R&D incentives.

Technical uncertainty

To qualify for R&D tax credits, a project must address technical uncertainties. Software development projects frequently encounter challenges and uncertainties related to complex algorithms, coding, system architecture, and more.

Experimentation

Developing software often includes trial and error processes with various approaches and iterating to find the best solutions to complex problems. These efforts could entail experimenting with different algorithms to find which one increases performance at the best rate.

Customisation

Eligible research and development activity doesn’t just include creating brand-new software. If you customise existing software to meet the needs of a different sector or improve the functionality of existing software by adding an integration, this would also count! 

Essentially, if you have spent money on software development for paying staff involved (including their managers), subcontractors, externally provided workers, cloud computing and data costs, or other eligible R&D costs, then you could potentially retrieve some of the money you spent back. The latest rate for SMEs is a cash benefit of 18.6% for loss-making SMEs, a 21.5% corporate tax reduction for profit-making SMEs under the SME scheme, and a 20% enhancement rate for larger companies under RDEC.

What does R&D in software development look like?

We have compiled some examples of advancements in software development that can be considered as R&D. The list is not exhaustive. Let’s discuss them one by one:

Develop software to test the functionality of machinery for your project

This involves creating custom software tools to assess and enhance the performance of specialised equipment, optimising processes, and reducing downtime, ultimately contributing to technological advancements and operational efficiency within your specific industry.

Integrating advanced technologies into software development

Improving or creating software that involves: 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

Cloud computing

Data processing and storage technologies

Internet of Things (IoT)

Augmented Reality (AR)

Virtual Reality (VR)

Developing advanced algorithms for medical image recognition

This would take place in the healthcare industry and allow for more accurate and efficient diagnoses from X-rays, MRIs, or CT scans.

Creating software for precision agriculture

This software would integrate data from drones, sensors, and GPS to optimise planting, irrigation, and harvesting for higher crop yields and reduced environmental impact.

Designing self-driving car software

This automotive software relies on machine learning, computer vision, and sensor fusion to improve safety and efficiency on the road.

Transforming gaming applications with software solutions

Creating immersive experiences and real-time interactions with cutting-edge graphics that have been developed with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). 

Improving fraud detection in finance

Taking risk analysis to the next level by building sophisticated algorithms that enhance the security and efficiency of financial transactions. 

These examples showcase how software development plays a crucial role in advancing various industries through research and development efforts. To see an example of a qualifying R&D software development claim and how an R&D tax credit specialist succeeded in retrieving the benefit, read our case study.

Who qualifies for R&D in the software development industry?

Any company engaged in software development may be eligible for R&D tax incentives, including:

Software development firms - Typically, businesses with teams of developers assisting other companies with their software projects.

Software companies - These entities may develop and refine software, offer Software as a Service (SaaS), business solutions, or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

In-house software developers - Any business undertaking customised software development projects in-house.

The scope of qualifying R&D activities is extremely broad so it’s always recommended to check eligibility with an R&D tax credit specialist to ensure you don’t neglect a worthwhile claim.

Takeaways

In conclusion, R&D plays a crucial role in the software development industry by driving innovation, addressing technical uncertainties, and fostering experimentation. This not only helps businesses stay competitive and streamline operations but also makes them eligible for R&D tax credits. Whether it's customising software, integrating advanced technologies, or developing algorithms for various industries, software development activities can qualify for tax incentives. Companies engaged in software development, including software development firms, software companies, and in-house developers, may all be eligible for R&D tax credits. To secure these credits, it's essential to prepare a comprehensive claim with technical documentation that meets HMRC's standards.

How to secure R&D tax credits for software development?

To receive the financial benefit of R&D tax credits for software claims, you need to prepare an R&D claim for the scheme you’re eligible for. This involves presenting all your R&D costs as well as in-depth technical documentation that showcases your project. HMRC requires complete visibility into the methodology used for software enhancements, the encountered challenges, and the strategies employed to resolve them. It’s important to meet HMRC’s standards within the claim to keep the process simple and prevent any costly and time-consuming enquiries. 

At Alexander Clifford, we have extensive experience in R&D tax credits in software development, securing our client base with fantastic news time and time again. The structured processes our expert team follows have unlocked remarkable success in recovering overlooked R&D tax credits for our clients, and we take pride in assisting them in optimising their financial returns and obtaining the rewards they are entitled to. It’s your turn to benefit from R&D so get in touch!

[msp234]

How Does Thermography Inspection Work?

 In non-destructive testing and preventive maintenance, thermography inspection stands out as a powerful tool for detecting hidden issues in various systems and structures. It relies on the principle that all objects emit thermal radiation, and by measuring the temperature differences, it can identify potential problems.

Thermography, often referred to as thermal imaging, is a non-invasive and powerful technology that allows us to visualize and analyze temperature variations on the surface of an object or within a system. This remarkable tool has many applications, from industrial and electrical maintenance to medical diagnostics and even building inspections.

In this blog, we will delve into the fascinating world of thermography inspection and explore how it works, its various applications, and the benefits it offers.

Understanding Thermal Imaging

Before diving into the intricacies of how thermography inspection works, it’s essential to understand the basics of thermal imaging. At the heart of this technology is the fact that everything with a temperature above absolute zero (-273.15°C or -459.67°F) emits infrared radiation. This includes not only objects but also living organisms.

Thermal cameras are designed to capture and translate these infrared emissions into visible images. Instead of displaying the actual temperature in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit, they represent temperature differences as variations in colors. This is what makes thermal images so easily interpretable by the human eye.

The basic principle is that areas with higher temperatures are represented in warmer colors, such as reds and yellows, while cooler areas appear in cooler colors, like blues and purples. This color scale, often referred to as the ” color palette,” helps us quickly identify temperature variations and anomalies in objects or systems.

With thermography, we can see beyond what meets the eye, detecting potential issues before they become major problems.

How Thermography Inspection Works

Thermography inspection is a versatile technique that can be applied in various fields, each with its unique requirements and methods. However, the underlying principles of capturing and interpreting thermal data remain the same. Here’s a step-by-step explanation of how thermography inspection works

1. Camera Setup

   The first step in thermography inspection is selecting an appropriate thermal imaging camera. These cameras are equipped with sensors, often microbolometers, that can detect infrared radiation. The camera’s lens focuses the infrared energy on the sensor, which converts it into electrical signals.

2. Data Capture

   When you point a thermal camera at an object or a system, it begins capturing thermal data from the surface. This data is collected in the form of thousands of temperature readings across the camera’s field of view.

3. Data Processing

   Based on the selected color palette, the camera processes this data and assigns colors to different temperature levels. Warmer areas are assigned warmer colors, and cooler areas are assigned cooler colors, creating a thermal image.

4. Analysis and Interpretation

   The thermal image is displayed on the camera’s screen in real-time, allowing the operator to identify temperature anomalies and patterns. These anomalies could indicate problems, such as overheating electrical components, leaks in a building’s insulation, or anomalies in a person’s body temperature.

5. Documentation and Reporting

   In many applications, it’s essential to document the thermal findings for future reference or for sharing with others. This can be done through still images or videos captured by the thermal camera. These images serve as valuable records for further analysis and decision-making.

Thermography inspection is like having X-ray vision for your equipment, allowing you to diagnose issues without invasive procedures.

[gear-project]

So, when Nagoriyuki's weak point ability and being able to see auras, does this mean he sort of has X-Ray vision since HAppy Chaos mentioned it when Sol and Vernon were trapped in the White House? I ask this because I wondered if this explains how he is able to see from his mask, unless he doesn't NEED to see and is willingly fighting blind as vampire senses are stronger than your average human.

The Mask Nagoriyuki wears was meant to help suppress his urges for blood, but the technology behind it is still not fully understood.

While it is true that he has the ability to sense weaknesses in others with his vision, that is not quite the same as X-ray vision.

Even for Kum Haehyun, who sees Ki lines as "strings" within people… that does not mean she can see through walls.

Most likely the mask has additional functions (like Night Vision or Body Heat Sensors) that help Nagoriyuki see when the mask is enclosed around his face… but even then, if it further enhanced his sensory ability, he would have caught up to Sol and Vernon much faster than they would have wanted.

As a side note: Sentinel Androids were built in the latter half of the Crusades to monitor dormant Megadeth Class Gears that posed a major threat (Lightning the Argent describes them). They had a wide array of advanced sensory capabilities, even detecting radio and magnetic frequencies and other outer spectrum signals. Only the Sacred Order had the authority to deploy them.

That same technology was probably also applied to the Mask to a certain extent, though probably not something Nagoriyuki regularly uses.

Only Raven, "The Undying Disease" (that we know of) has the physical capability of eluding such advanced surveillance technology.

Sol and Vernon probably showed up on a number of security cameras and devices, but Nagoriyuki took his time tracking them down (since he had no interest in working for Happy Chaos in the first place).

[ymiwritesstuff]

I know I've already given you a request but this is stuck in my head. Could you do a Gyro x female vampire reader who is trying to go without feeding but just becomes weaker as a result and Gyro has to help her? Thank you and you're amazing!!!

Aah, thanks so much for the request and I am so sorry this took so long. I hope this will make up for it. I tried my best as I still need to get used to writing regularly but I sincerely hope you enjoy this!

Regaining Strength

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run

Gyro Zeppeli x Vampire!Fem!Reader

Summary: When the sun begins to raise the three travelers find themselves spending the upcoming day resting at a motel. However you quickly notice something isn’t right and it doesn’t take long before a certain Italian offers his help.

Notes: A bit of blood

The sun peaked over the vast horizon, bringing the rays of yet another morning with it and coating the area in a pleasant warm glow. This would mean yet another day of tiring riding for the majority of the racers of the Steel Ball Run, but not for a certain group of three.

The staff of the small motel looked at you and the two males rather curiously when you reserved a room to spend the day in, having been riding on horseback the entire night. Competitors occasionally traveled during the dark time of the day, however, none did this as consistently and often as you did. And the sole reason for this unusual time of travel was you.

Being a vampire provided a certain set of advantages but with those advantages came things that made life just a tad bit more difficult. Any exposure to sunlight could mean certain death for someone like you so the only way you could advance in the already dangerous race was doing so only when the sun set. Fortunately for you, you quickly found yourself in the company of Johnny and Gyro, the latter of which you had grown quite fond of during the Steel Ball Run.

After the curtains of the room you were to reside in had been closed and the young Joestar fell into a deep sleep on one of the beds, you found yourself looking around the quite charming space surrounding you, while secretly looking for any places from which the deadly sun could seep through. Gyro stood in front of the now-closed curtains and carefully peeked through, as he often did.

“Damn, the daytime looks so weird now. Who knew I’d get used to being awake at night so quickly,” he said while his emerald eyes scanned the sight of the morning before him. You looked at him while standing next to one of the empty beds and chuckled lightly. “Welcome to my world.” The Italian glanced at you and flashed a grin that slightly showed his golden teeth before turning back to the window.

“You sure you don’t wanna come take a look at this? The sun looks awfully pretty today,” he joked, knowing full well that his request would receive no action as you weren’t dumb enough to walk into certain death. Still, you played along.

“Oh, really? Well, perhaps I should-”

“When did you last eat?”

Suddenly, completely out of nowhere your legs gave out and you instinctively relied on the bed next to you for support. Your vision got strangely blurry and everything around you seemed to spin and distort in all kinds of ways. Having heard your sentence cut short as well as the small groan that left your mouth, Gyro quickly turned around, his previous joking attitude disappearing entirely.

“(Name)? Everything alright?” He swiftly approached you and helped you on your feet once more, however the strange dizziness was still very much apparent. “Y-yeah... I just... Felt dizzy all of a sudden...” Your hands held onto him for support while your mind tried to go through the possible causes for this sudden sensation. You were just about to realize what made you feel this sick, but Gyro seemed to reach a conclusion faster.

His question immediately caused you to look up at him and you began thinking back at the earlier events of the night. The distance you rode with your horses was a long one and Gyro made sure you were properly fed the entire time. However, for some reason, the feeling of hunger never hit you, or you had somehow managed to ignore it entirely. “Just before we started moving,” you say quietly, as you know that he realized just how many hours it had been.

Consuming blood was something you never enjoyed, yet you had to do it in order to stay alive. Starvation was already bad for a human, but when a vampire like you was in its clutches, things could get dangerous quickly. Gyro stayed quiet for a few seconds and you expected him to scold you for allowing yourself to go without food for such a long time, but instead, he let go of you and walked to the bed you had been next to, sitting down.

“Alright, you know the drill,” he said and began to remove his scarf that was loosely around his neck, the sight of which immediately made your eyes glow. “You know I’ll worry my ass off if you don’t eat.” His voice was unusually serious. Despite his playful and sometimes sarcastic personality, Gyro took you and anything you needed very seriously, to the point where he didn’t mind offering his blood in order to keep you strong. However, he also knew of your unwillingness to feed on human blood, let alone his.

“Gyro... You know I don’t want to. Besides, I feel just fine. Look,” You spun around a couple of times to try to convince him that you didn’t feel the previous dizziness anymore. But you couldn’t control the underlying desire to consume the delicious liquid flowing under the skin of his neck. Gyro looked at you, giving you a look that was not impressed by your convincing and you secretly knew he wasn’t going to let this one go.

“(Name), you know damn well I’m not gonna move or rest until you’ve been fed.” He said, still looking at you with eyes that were filled with determination and slight worry. He was stubborn about all of this, but it only because he cared. His gaze softened lightly. “I’ll be fine, you don’t need to worry your pretty little head off.” The small hint of playfulness in his voice returned and admittedly eased your discomfort slightly. However, you were still reluctant.

“But... What if I drink too much?” Your thoughts immediately went back to the last time you had drunk his blood and just how overwhelming the feeling had been. It was always risky and the last thing you wanted was to hurt him. His brows frowned slightly, but his gorgeous emerald green eyes were still locked on your currently weakened form.

“You won’t.” This caused you to finally look at him. The amount of confidence his words had puzzled you, how could he be so sure? “Gyro, this isn’t a game. How could you possibly know-”

“Because I trust you.” The way he spoke stuck to you like tar, his words reaching the very core of your being. He knew the risks, but was still willing to help you in any way he could, from traveling at night just so he could have you near him, to offering you his very own blood that you needed now more than ever. You accepted defeat with a sigh and made your way to him. It was not merely because his words and trust in a creature of the night had such an effect on you, it was also because the unbearable lust for blood seemed to partially be controlling your movements, your nose picking up the scent of the liquid under his skin.

You swallowed nervously as you sat next to him, the sound of his blood flowing in his veins echoing in your ears. “Just... Please tell me if it gets too intense,” you said, voice barely audible. “Sure thing, cara.” You barely caught the reassuring grin he flashed you as your eyes were already staring at the spot you desperately wanted to sink your fangs into. With slow movements, you lowered yourself to his neck and could hear his heart beating rapidly, despite his calm demeanor from the outside. It calmed you in a way.

With a small sniff you took in the captivating scent of his blood and after placing a gentle kiss on the soft skin of his neck, you pierced the delicate flesh with your fangs and immediately felt him flinch. You held onto him and as soon as the warm liquid hit the sensitive sensors on your tongue, something snapped within you, and that overwhelming lust you experienced last time you did this only seemed to grow. With every gulp, you regained your strength, and the more you consumed, the more addicting it became

It was unreal. Your claws gripped onto the material of his shirt and the desire to feel stronger kept your fangs in his neck even after you had devoured enough. You couldn’t stop. You wanted more. You needed more. All the surrounding sounds were overpowered by your own inner voices demanding more of that heavenly blood of his. It was intense, and Gyro could feel it too.

“W-woah... Hey, listen, (Name),” he said, his voice becoming much quieter and raspier. He felt his blood being drained from him and as your lust grew and your grip on him tightened, he knew it was time to stop. “I... I think you’ve had enough...” He gently grabbed your shoulders, which fortunately seemed to bring you back to reality as almost immediately, he could no longer feel your fangs digging into his skin.

Your (E/C) eyes looked up at him, worry sparkling in them. You were so quick to check up on him, you didn’t even notice the blood dripping from the corners of your mouth. “Are you okay?” You simply asked, feeling stronger than before, but worried about his condition. As a response, he merely chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. And you seem to be as well.” He said and looked at you, noting just how much better and healthier you looked. A sigh of relief escapes your lips and after you wipe the remaining liquid from your lips, you gently bring them to his cheek, as a sign of gratitude.

“Thank you.”

Gyro grinned at your action and immediately threw his arm around you. “Anything for you. Oh, and thank you for not killing me.” He joked once again, which made you giggle and wrap your arms around his neck.

“Of course, dear. If you died who would be my personal blood bag?”

The fact that he seemingly took this lightly was unbelievable to you, but then again, Gyro Zeppeli was one of a kind and you were fortunate to have him by your side.

[scienceandshitposts]

Impossible Colors

Ah, Rainbows. Bands of color that streak across the sky, water droplets refracting the Sun's brilliance into distinct bands that light up the world. Everyone knows what a Rainbow looks like, with stripes going from Red, to Orange, Yellow, Green, Indigo, and Violet. These (arguably) 6 colors make up all of human color perception, and combined with light, allow us to see the world around us.

As much as we would like to believe that these colors are concrete facts of reality and completely objective, they are not.

The EM Spectrum:

The light that our eyes detect is a very fractional percentage of electromagnetic radiation known as the visible light spectrum (shown above). This radiation is made up of extremely small particles called photons that move at the speed of light. As they move, they move up and down in a wave pattern. The frequency with which they move up and down depends on their energy, with measurements being defined as the distance between peaks. The lowest energy photons (like long wave radio) can take almost a kilometer to reach another peak, while in high energy photons such as gamma rays, the distance is so small it is measured in picometers, which for comparison is about ten percent the side of a hydrogen atom. The light that we see is much larger, ranging from 400 nanometers for violet to 700 nanometers for red, or about the size of a bacteria. There are animals that can see beyond this range, even our own eyes can just barely see UV light but it is blocked by the lenses in our eyes. People who have had their lenses remove describe the color as a whitish purple. Other examples include certain bees or birds. How do animals (humans included) see colors you ask? It all has to do in the retina.

Rods and Cones:

In animals such as humans that have so called camera eyes, visual processing lies in the retina, a region that occupies the inner lining of our eyes:

Within the retina there are around 100 million sensor cells. The vast majority are a type called rods, which are used for light perception, as in the intensity of the light hitting your eye. These can not perceive color (at least not well, more on that later), and very useful for nocturnal creatures who need to rely on seeing at night, such as cats. These are the cells that take over when you try and see in the dark. The other type of receptors, called cones, perceive color (frequency of the light) and are best in bright environments, and this is the area where humans truly shine, both because of our sheer number of cones (still only around 5 percent of sensors) as well as one other factor:

Cone Types:

Unlike the rods which are all tuned to see the same wavelength (somewhere between blue and red, again more on that later), our cones are able to detect different frequencies of visible light. The three types in humans are known as shortwave cones (blue), medium cones (green), and long wave cones (traditionally known as red, closer to an orangish yellow). As shown on the chart, there is significant overlap between the ranges of the 3 cones. This allows the brain to figure out colors other than red, green, and blue without needing more cones. It does it by comparing the relative stimulation between the the cones, and doing some math inside the brain in order to figure out which color it is. This allows us to see colors such as yellow and cyan, which there is no separate cone to detect but can be pieced out by combination of the red+green and orange+green cones respectively. Although, because we do not have a separate cone for those colors, we can only see our mind's approximation of them based on combining and averaging the two together. There are animals that have more cones, such as goldfish, who can properly perceive yellow, unlike humans. Most mammals such as dogs are lacking the green cone, which results in them not being able to perceive green, creating a spectrum that would look like the one below:

Humans have a similar phenomenon called Deuteronomy where the green cone is mutated and is almost identical to the red cone. It is the most common form of colorblindness, and so it might be worth getting checked out if the two images look similar.

Where the System Falls Apart:

If you look over to the left side of the red cone's perception, you can see that it does not go down linearly and that it has a small spike near the end. This can cause your blue and red cones to fire simultaneously with certain frequencies. The problem is that this occurs in two spots. There is the one you would expect at where green is, but also one near the violet area because of the abnormality in the red cone, causing you to see those two spots on the spectrum as the same. The problem is that one of these two intersections are green, which is a very very important color evolutionary for humans since most of the environment around our ancestors was green. It was very important to be able to tell green from blue because it could mean the difference between something edible and something lethal when foraging. To compensate for this, the green cone was added, creating the trichromatic vision that humans have (as well as some primates and marsupials). Great, this means our ancestors were able to green from blue, but it still leaves the problem of that anomalous spot in the blue region where the red and blue cones intersect. If the brain averaged their frequencies, it would result in the color being green, which would defeat the point of the green cone. The solution was to create a hypothetical color that would be a fusion of red and blue that activates when the green cone is not active. This color is called magenta, shown below:

There is no spot on the electromagnetic spectrum where red and blue meet, which results in this being our brain's approximation of what red and blue together would look like. Nothing can truly produce magenta light, and things that seem to like your computer monitor are simply combining red and blue light.

TLDR; Your ancestor's brains couldn't tell green apart from red and blue put together, so a system was added to distinguish green and magenta is what's left, which is what your brain thinks red and blue together would be, even though there is no point where those two colors intersect in the spectrum.

Other Impossible Colors:

Chimerical Colors:

These are colors that are achieved where you can manipulate your cones by intensely saturating them to "fatigue" them, which causes over correction when returning to a neutral point. You can try and see these for yourself by staring at the x's on the left for about 30 seconds, and then quickly looking at the middle x.

Red-Green and Yellow-Blue:

There are systems in place in your brain to prevent red and green + yellow and blue from firing together to prevent confusion. It does this by figuring out which cone is firing stronger, and giving priority in perception to that one. By trying to force the two to merge together, some people are able to see hypothetical fusions of the two, called Red-Green and Yellow-Blue. You can try this for yourself by crossing your eyes so the two crosses are one. The results are very interesting even if you don't see the new color.

Hyper Green:

The green cone has no point along its range where it doesn't inter lap with the other cones. When you look at green, one of your other cones is always firing. If it was possible to only cause the green cone to fire, someone might see a color that looks even greener than green, called hyper green. Sadly there is no way to try and replicate this yet since it would involve direct stimulation of your cones.

Bonus: Rod Color Perception

As mentioned before, the rods in your eyes do have their own range, shown as the blue dashed line. This means that your eyes are slightly more sensitive to greens and blues in the dark, and reds are much dimmer. This is known as the Purkinje Effect, and it has several applications such as red lighting on submarines and engine rooms to preserve night vision by not saturating the rods, or by using bright green and yellow jackets and fire engines at night to be more visible than the normal red.

That's all for now, stick around for more in-depth explanations on scientific concepts, as well as science memes and showcases of cool scientific applications

[earthspirit10]

Ninjago Angst Week: Day Six - Sickness

@ninjago-angst-week​ klasdjfal;sjdfas AHHHH I’m sorry this is like, five days late, but I’ve been really busy and stressed and then research, but, uh, it’s here now? Hope it’s not too late :P

And well, this one isn’t as good as the others, in my opinion. (Well, I think it’s better than Day One, but for the others? Meh.) Writing someone sick (especially if I’ve never gotten that . . . particular disease before) is hard and I’m not even sure if I even got it all write. Also, Zane. Zane is hard to write too.

Trigger Warnings: Sickness (because that’s enough to be grossed out at), mention of death

---

As a nindroid, it wasn’t possible for Zane to get sick. He wasn’t a real lifeform like the others, nor was he prone to malfunctioning due to water or anything else a normal robot would suffer from. He was grateful for that, for even though he wasn’t physically human, he was human in his heart. It meant that he could take care of his siblings better without getting sick or injured himself.

When Jay had suddenly doubled over coughing, everyone had rushed toward his aid. Zane, of course, had helped whatever he could—he’d cooked warm meals for him, given him medicine, and made sure he was comfortable. (The others practically had to wrestle him into bed.)

It wasn’t unusual for Jay to be coughing these days due to a cough he’d developed, which wasn’t very uncommon or worrisome, but Zane was worried that the cold had progressed into something worse.

Zane opened the door to Jay’s room and poked his head through to check on his brother, who seemed to be curled up under layers and layers of blankets.

“Jay?”

Jay peeked out from under the blankets and blinked blearily, coughing a few times before giving Zane a reassuring smile. “Hey, tin can.”

Closing the door behind him, Zane entered the room and sat down on the bed next to Jay. He wasn’t afraid of catching whatever sickness his brother had, mainly because it was impossible. Still, he made a note to disinfect himself should he ever get close to any of his other siblings.

“How are you feeling?” he asked gently, remembering that Jay had sensitive hearing even without being sick.

“Bored,” Jay grumbled, huffing in indignation. “I mean, there’s nothing to do! I’m not even allowed to do anything! No video games, no tinkering, no—” His body suddenly shook as a coughing fit overtook him, and Zane watched anxiously as it dragged on. It seemed to take hours—though his internal clock told him it was only twelve seconds—before it passed, with Jay shivering and panting for breath.

Coughing. Fever. Chills. Immediately, Zane scanned the blue ninja’s body, his optical sensors switching into X-ray vision. It was difficult to do so with all the blankets surrounding Jay, not to mention that he was curled up.

“Jay,” Zane said softly, trying to keep his voice as even as he could. Jay blinked again, head tilting up in question. “Are you able to sit up?”

Jay nodded, though his expression still remained confused. Shifting around in his blankets, he sat up slowly, coughing weakly.

Now that his brother was sitting up, Zane was able to fully scan his chest, eyes narrowing. And as soon as he detected something, his metaphorical heart dropped, and he inhaled sharply, sensors switching back to normal vision.

No. That couldn’t— his brother couldn’t have—

“Zane, what— what is it?” Jay asked frantically, his voice edging on borderline panic. “What’s wrong?”

Zane swallowed, turning his head away. Now with this new knowledge, his advanced senses could clearly detect the wheezing whenever Jay breathed, the rapid pumping of his heart, the abnormal air flow in his lungs.

More worrying symptoms of— of—

“Zane, please, you’re really starting to worry me—”

Abruptly, he stood up, cutting off whatever Jay was going to say. Turning, Zane set his shoulder back, plastered on a smile, stopped his hands from shaking. He answered cheerfully, “Oh, nothing you should worry yourself about.”

Jay stared back. “Are you . . . sure?”

“Of course.” Zane nodded, already moving toward the doorway. “You should rest. Try not to exert yourself.” He said the last few sentences with more emphasis than he would normally put in.

“It’s not like there’s anything else I can do,” Jay sighed, but he flopped back onto the bed. Almost immediately, his body was wracked with coughs, but he waved aside Zane’s concern. “I’ll be fine, Zane,” he rasped. “Not goin’ anywhere. See?”

Zane eyed his brother for a few moments, then he exited the room, closing the door behind him. As soon as the door was closed, he laid his head on it, pressing his hands to his eyes.

Why was he overreacting with this information? It wasn’t like this was fatal, nor was it dangerous, so why was he acting like Jay had a life-threatening disease that could potentially take him away any moment? It wasn’t— it wasn’t like—

His back sliding down the door, Zane buried his head between his knees, tears springing to his eyes, tears that weren’t supposed to be there in the first place, and yet he was human enough to have them.

Sometimes, he wished that he didn’t have emotions, that he didn’t have to feel the pain, the guilt, the worry.

If Jay’s illness worsened, if fate decided to be cruel again, Jay might die. It was Zane’s fault for detecting it so late, for not scanning him the first time he’d shown signs of a cough a week ago. And that meant a higher risk for this sickness to become deadly.

And they had let him participate in training, in patrols, in crime scenes. Mainly because Zane had told them that it was okay, when it wasn’t okay. Not anymore.

What kind of brother was he?

Footsteps approached him, and Zane raised his head, blinking as his vision sharpened on Cole’s face.

“Zane?” the earth ninja’s voice was concerned. “What’s wrong?”

Zane inhaled. Exhaled. He shouldn’t lie to them. Shouldn’t give them the false sense of security he’d stupidly given to Jay.

“Jay has pneumonia.”

⸺

After that, everything basically descended into chaos and panic. Calls were made, antibiotics were bought, and new rules and patrols were assigned. Zane had to hold Kai back from bursting into Jay’s room and fussing over him, mainly because this type of pneumonia was contagious, partly because Kai looked incredibly mad and that wouldn’t do well for Jay’s mental health, which could also affect his physical health.

Eventually, Zane had to tell Jay of his condition, which he oddly took well. At least, considering how much the blue ninja would normally panic.

“It’ll just— it’ll just pass, right?” Jay asked hoarsely, though there was a hint of fear in his voice. “Nothing much to worry about?”

Zane could tell that the others were pressed against the door of the room, anxiously eavesdropping on the conversation.

He nodded. “If you get enough rest and medicine, and there are no complications, then you should be fine.” The word should echoed ominously, silently, and he knew that all of them knew that not everything went as it should go.

Jay breathed out a sigh, before he dissolved into a bout of harsh hacking. Immediately, the mood spiraled into worried buzzing, and the door creeped open the tiniest bit. Zane rubbed his brother’s back, anxiously waiting for it to pass.

“Jay—”

“‘m fine,” Jay murmured, voice raspy from all the coughing. He closed his eyes, snuggling closer to his blankets.

Zane eyed him for a few more moments, heart clenching at his brother’s pitiful form. Swallowing, he stood up and patted his shoulder. “You should rest,” he whispered. The lightning ninja didn’t reply, but the slow rise and fall of his chest indicated that he was already asleep.

Zane turned on X-ray vision for a brief moment, scanning for any other unusual activity, then on to infrared, before he switched back to normal human vision. Slowly standing up, he exited the room, closing the door softly behind him, and was immediately met with the anxious gazes of his other siblings.

“He’s fine, for now,” he told them, keeping his voice carefully even. “He’ll simply need more rest and medicine. His immune system will do the rest.”

They all relaxed, if only slightly, but Zane knew that they would never truly be at ease until Jay was completely healed. After all, they had a bad history with luck.

⸺

As the days passed, Jay only got sicker. Almost the entirety of the week was filled with him coughing, the tense atmosphere rising every time it worsened. Still, Zane knew better than to give him cough medicine, especially since coughing was meant to help with the pneumonia. He made sure to monitor his brother every hour, checking on his lungs, his heart, his blood pressure—basically everything. It hadn’t gotten bad to the point where Jay would need to be admitted into the hospital, but he was dangerously close.

Once, as Zane left Jay’s room, he nearly bumped into Cole, who always hovered near. He nodded silently at the earth ninja and was about to resume his day when he suddenly felt a hand grabbing his wrist, holding him back. Surprised, Zane glanced back, and he blinked in alarm at the barely noticeable tears in Cole’s eyes.

“I—” Cole swallowed, looking away, as if embarrassed. His hand let go of the ice ninja’s wrist. “Jay’s going to be fine, right?” His voice was small, but it was pleading, desperate, almost like he was afraid of Zane’s answer.

Zane closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them. “He will be alright,” he said quietly and firmly, but he couldn’t help the fear that surged in him as he heard Jay emit another cough from within the room.

“That’s what the doctors told me,” Cole whispered, squeezing his eyes shut, and Zane wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or himself.

After a while, Cole shook his head, his eyes reopening. “I— well, when I was little, my mom— she was really sick.”

Oh. Oh. Zane stared back at his brother, not sure if he liked where this was going.

“A-and the doctors said that she’d be okay, that she was going to survive, but—” His voice stuttered to a stop, and Cole made an odd noise that sounded like he was choking, and he turned away.

The silence stretched on, very painfully loud, with Jay coughing occasionally in the background. Zane continued staring at his brother, not sure what to do in this situation. He wasn’t used to seeing Cole like this—so vulnerable and open, and it made his mechanical heart clench.

But he knew loss. All of them do, all too well. And he knew how it felt to feel so hopeful, hopeful for the future, only for that hope to be shattered.

So Zane did what anyone would normally do. He hugged his brother, wrapping his arms around him. Cole stiffened in surprise, but eventually, he relaxed into the embrace, hugging the ice ninja back.

Patting Cole’s back a little awkwardly, Zane whispered, letting his emotions seep into his voice, “Jay will be fine.” A beat. “I promise.”

And it wasn’t an empty promise. Logically, Zane knew that pneumonia wasn’t deadly, especially since Jay had a really good immune system. But for the sake of his family, for the sake of Jay, Zane wasn’t going to let his brother die.

He’d die himself before that would happen.

[peppersonironi]

For @duketectivecomics‘s Duke Week Day Five: Leadership (A day late, I know, but I had wifi trouble)

Summary: Nightwing offers Signal a chance to lead a small group for a mission. Duke is wary, but accepts the challenge. He proves to be a rather great leader.

Notes: Takes place after Season Two of Young Justice, and ignores Season Three (I still haven’t seen it, unfortunately).

“So will you do it?” Duke looked over at Dick, who had decided to brave the day as Nightwing in order to ask a favor.

“I’m not sure, Nightwing, That’s your team, and I’m perfectly happy taking care of Gotham.”

Dick pouted and dramatically flung himself over the nearest gargoyle. “You sure? I could really use the help. Don't you want to lend aid to your poor, poor brother?”

“You are literally a billionaire.”

“Ha ha, Signal. You know what I mean.”

Duke sighed and joined Dick beside the gargoyle. “Yeah, I do. Are you sure you need me? Why not Tim? Steph? Heck, even Damian would love the chance to boos those guys around.”

Dick sighed. “I told you, The mission occurs at the same time as one on the opposite side of the world, which I already have Tim scheduled for. Steph is woking a case in Hong Kong with Cass. And Frankly, I doubt the Team would appreciate Damian's … style of leadership. This one is smaller, and less of a priority. I have some of the newbies and more older members on it, but none of them have experience with leading stealth missions.”

“So give one of them the experience!” Duke was getting a bit exasperated. Why did Dick think it would be a good idea to handle a mission on a covert team he'd never even met before?

“It's not that simple.” Dick frowned. “This mission is time sensitive, and delicate. It really does need someone with experience leading it, but all my best people are elsewhere.”

Duke tilted his head, considering. “Why me?”

Dick laughed. “Why NOT you? Seriously, Signal. You handled a whole group of Robins, by yourself. No Batman. You proved yourself, and you've earned respect. I trust you with this.”

Duke considered, thinking through everything Dick had said. “Alright,” He sighed, “What's the mission?”

*****

“Team, I'd like you to meet Signal. He'll be joining you on the mission, as well as over seeing things.” Nightwing stood at the front of the group of heroes, turning to where Duke had just come in from the zeta tubes.

Duke walked forward, surveying the group. “ 'Sup?” He asked, unsure of what else to say.

“Signal, meet Beast Boy, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and Blue Beatle.”

Duke nodded and extended his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“I've been waiting to meet you for so long, dude!” Kid Flash said, racing forward to shake Duke's hand. “I've heard all about you, but the dates on when you actively joined the guys in Gotham were murky, and since I couldn't ask Nightwing or Robin – wait, does that mean Tim's no longer Robin? Why didn't he say anything? Unless the history books got it wrong, in which case woah, sorry I said anything – anyway  it was a bit of a tricky situation. Of course, I probably could have looked it up on the internet, but that feels like cheating y'know?”

Duke blinked several times. “Um, thanks, I guess? I didn't really think anyone bothered with me.”

“Are you kidding?!” Kid Flash was literally bouncing at this point. “You're one of the coolest bats! You patrol during the day, for one thing, plus your costume is pretty crash. Not to mention you're literally the only meta human Batman has ever let stay in Gotham! Although Black Bat might be one, no one was ever really clear on that.”

“You're a meta human?!” Beast Boy asked, shoving Kid Flash to the side. “Seriously? And you work with Batman?! How does that work?”

Duke laughed. “Yes, I am a meta. No, Black Bat isn't. She's just awesome. And I was Batman's protege before I gained my powers. When we found out, we kinda just rolled with it.”

“Translation,” Nightwing added, “He grumbled a bit before deciding that the rule only really covers Green Lantern.”

“Didn't it always though?” Duke asked his brother.

Nightwing laughed. “Probably. He never seemed to keen on Superman either, to be honest.”

Duke frowned. “Wait, then why did he stop by for tea last week?”

“Wait, he did?! Why wasn't I invited?!”

Duke shook his head and tsked. “Downside to no longer living at the house dude, that's all I'm saying.”

The Team was looking back and forth at the exchange. “Wait,” Blue Beatle said, holding up his hands. “Superman comes over for tea, at Batman's house, which you live in, but Nightwing doesn't anymore?”

“Yup,” Both of the bats said.

Blue Beatle blinked, then nodded. “Alright then.”

“What are your powers,” Wonder girl asked.

“Light stuff, basically,” Duke said. “I can see in several different light spectrums, lets me do a bunch of stuff, like limited x-ray vision. I can also 'replay' what happens in rooms, due to the light residue. I can also see a few seconds into the future.”

Everyone blinked at him.

“Not to mention you can control shadows!” Nightwing added helpfully.

Duke cringed. “Yeah, but that's new. I'm not really familiar with it.”

Everyone stared, except Kid Flash, who just continued bouncing.

“Alright,” Nightwing said after a moment, “Let's get on with the briefing.”

*****

The mission was simple: Infiltrate a high rise owned by Lex Luther in San Francisco, and retrieve information that was being stored on a hard drive. Said drive was only going to be present in the tower for twelve hours, nine of which Lex was also present. Hence the need for a small team, and the precise timing.

The infiltration was scheduled at 1400 hours, after Lex had left for lunch, and before the buyer of the information had arrived. Duke had been given the plans of the building, and multiple suggested strategies. One of these strategies was modified by Duke, and was what led Beast Boy (who insisted Duke call him Garth) turning into a fly in order to get through the vents.

“Are you sure I can't go for something more fun?” Garth asked on the way to San Francisco, “Like a snake? Maybe even a monkey!”

“No,” Duke had said, “A fly is the best option, it's the least likely to set off motion sensors.” At the disappointed face, however, Duke conceded, “You can be a monkey when you open the side entrance.” Garth had whooped in triumph, and Duke had to crack a smile.

Once Beast Boy had managed to get into the building, he made his way to the main security center and dismantled whatever detection systems Lex had in place, allowing Kid Flash (Bart, Duke learned) and Signal himself to make their entrance. The trio made their way to Lex's office, only needing to take out a single guard, and retrieve the hard drive from one of Lex's many (There were like thirty, sheesh) safes in the room. The cracking of said safe took longer than initially planned, but Duke managed to hack the system in time for the guard change. Boy was he glad Tim taught him how to hack.

With the target in hand, they made their way out to the back alley, where Blue Beatle (Jaime, he said his name was) and Wonder Girl (Cassie) were keeping watch. They were almost caught at one point, but Duke saw the guards coming and quickly shoved his teammates into a closet, along with himself. In the end, two guards who were lagging behind on their shift change intercepted them, but Blue Beetle knocked one out, and Wonder Girl got the other.

“Took you long enough,” Cassie said with a grin when she saw the trio returning.

Duke grinned right back at her. “You have any trouble?”

“If these two count as trouble,” She replied, kicking one of the goons.

“Sounds crash!” Kid Flash replied. “How about we get out of here before something blows up?”

Duke frowned. “Why would anything blow up?”

Everyone turned and gave him a look. “You'd be surprised,” Blue Beetle said.

“Better not jinx it, then.” Duke spook, and the team made their escape.

*****

“ - Complete insubordination! Do you know what you did?!”

Duke paused at the doors, looking in on the meeting room where he and the others were supposed to go for their debriefing. Turns out, the other part of the Team was already there, and being chewed out by Batman himself.

“This was supposed to be a covert mission, and you go and get the entire building blown up!” Huh, they weren't kidding about explosions, Duke thought. “You clearly disobeyed the mission parameters, opting instead to joyride with the robots you were sent to destroy! Do you know how many lives you put in danger?!”

“It wasn't our fault!” Tim Drake, better known as Red Robin (Though Duke thought Bart mention that he still went as Robin here? Boy, Damian was gonna be pissed!) told Batman. “The robots got activated remotely, and dragged us along. In the end, they self destructed!”

Batman sighed, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “I let Kaldur go one one vacation …”

“You can at least acknowledge we got the job done.” Tim said, and Bruce sighed once more. He looked so tired, and Duke could barely hold in a grin. From the scared faces of everyone else in the room, Duke gathered that no one else found it quite so funny.

“Yes, you got it done,” Batman conceded, “But your methods are far from acceptable! All of you need to reevaluate how you-”

“It's almost kinda funny when I'm not the one being chewed out!” Duke turned to find Jaime and Garth standing in the door beside him, the latter of whom had spoken.

“Oh it's definitely funny,” Duke replied. “I've had front row seats to these types of things since I joined the bats. I”m almost never the one in trouble. Surprised it's Tim, though. Usually Nightwing.”

Both of their eyes widened. “Nightwing is the one in trouble?”

“Yup. We – the other bats and I – have a running bet on how long the rants last. B's best record is two hours, fifty minutes, thirty-seven seconds. It was right after Nightwing spray painted the bat-suit glittery pink, though I'm pretty sure Spoiler helped.”

Jaime opened and closed his mouth for a few moments. “Wow.”

Just then, Bart and Cassie showed up. “Are we late for the debriefing?” The latter asked.

Duke shrugged and pointed into the room, where Batman had moved onto a rant about aerial combat and unneeded fuel. “Nope, There's is running late.”

The group turned and went back to viewing the scene before them. After another fifteen minutes, Batman said. “I have another team coming in soon for debriefing, so let's hope that they were at least partially competent.”

Duke thought that would be as good a place as any to make an entrance, so he brought his fist to his mouth and coughed a bit.

Everyone turned slowly to find the grinning group standing at the doorway.

“Signal,” Batman said, and Duke knew he was relieved, “Did you just get back?”

“We've been standing here for twenty minutes, B. Seriously, your lecturing skills have not gone unpracticed.”

Batman sighed, putting his fingers on the bridge of his nose, not a sight unfamiliar to Duke, but from the gaping mouths, Duke was pretty sure no one else thought anything about the exchange was normal. “Please tell me your mission went well?”

“Without a hitch,” Duke replied grinning. “We got in and out easily. Had a tad of trouble with hacking the safe, but we got it open.” Duke turned to Tim, “Thanks for those lessons last week, they really paid off.”

Tim grinned “Welcome. Wanna continue when we get home?”

Duke nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Were there any complications?” Batman growled.

“We took out three guards quietly, and avoided two more that I saw coming right before they turned a corner, but other than that, no.”

Batman glared suspiciously down at Duke, who only smiled. “Any explosions?”

Duke frowned. “What is it with this team and explosions?” Batman glared some more, “Calm down B, no explosions. Everything was quiet.”

Batman nodded. “Good job, Signal. You dropped off the target with Nightwing, I assume?” At Duke's nod, he continued, “You get head back to Gotham, then. Finish your report in the cave, and finish up your patrol if you want. I'll make a note on the file if we ever need you again.” He paused, and looked critically at Duke. “Would you?”

Duke looked back at Garth, Jaime, Bart, and Cassie, who were all nodding their heads furiously. “Sure,” Duke said, “Why not?”

[theangrycomet]

The Tartakovsky 3, other wise none as the Boys by their fam, Peter, Tony, and Bruce at the triplet powerhouses of the Tartakovsky household. With heart of gold, these troublemakers still find ways to make the days more... Interesting. 

Details Below the Cut...

Tony

Personality

Sarcastic

cool headed

Analytical

mediator of arguments between his siblings

Sassy but classy 

Easy for him to see weakness, in both people and machines

OCD

Prideful

Flirty

Quirks:

Shoelaces have to be done or interesting ways that are perfectly symmetrical

LIkes: 

Mechanics (anything with an engine in it)

Cars

Action Figures

Mystery novels

Chess

Puzzles

Dislikes:

When his brothers make a mess of their room

Bruce getting them into fights that have been completely avoided

Jerks

Injustice (like will grate against his nerves until he does somethig)

rule breaking

that’s what loopholes are for

chosen ignorance

Appearences:

Height: 4′8″ (he’s only 11)

Hair: Curly red hair

Eyes: Powerpuff eyes: light violet/blue (depending on lighting)

Skin: lightly tanned

Flight Streak: Violet

Notes:

He takes his role as leader very seriously, and sometimes has to be knocked off his pedastel by his siblings

Powers: 

flight

Super strength

Sonic Shout

Most analytical in a fight

Bicon (and quite the skilled flirt, much to his mother’s horror)

Peter:

Personality

Comedian of the three (can even get Zelda to laugh in one of her “moods”)

Pacifist

Curious

Outdoorsy

Finds how to get in anywhere anytime

Reckless

Kind

People pleaser

Quirks

Inadvertant Masochist

pain sensors get mingled up and release endorpins instead of alerting the body that it’s injured

does not mean that normal things that make a person feel good make him feel bad

Dexter’s working on a way to fix this

but this problem leads him to getting extremely reckless in fights and him getting injured a lot more

Likes

Biology

Camping

Exploring (especially when he’s not allowed)

Pow Cards

Shirts that last

Dislikes

there’s really nothing he doesn’t like, aside from Mean people and other obviously horrific things.

Appearances

Height: 4′7″

Hair: Wavy blonde hair

Eyes: Powerpuff eyes: peridot green (thx grandma)

Skin: lightly tanned, marred with battle scars, most notably on across the bridge of his nose and up across the right side of his jaw.

Flight Streak: mint green

Notes:

Powers

flight 

Super strength

X-ray/laser vision

Fastest in mind and body

Sometimes more of a blur than a boy

The only outdoors man of the family, Dexter has been dragged along for fishing trips, camping trips, hiking expeditions, all of which Peter loves, but Dexter hates. But he loves his kid so he sucks it up and waits it out. Eventually he learns that Mom’s the better route to go here. 

His dyslexia has also led to an enormous problem pertaining to a demon contract (Bonnie)

Tends to have some injury almost at all times from stitches to casts/

Peter Pansexual (yes he loves this joke)

Bruce:

Personality

Though incredibly intelligent by normal standards, he is the least intelligent of his siblings 

He personally thought he was an idiot until he went to public school

Finds the best method to create most effective strike

Impatient/ intolerant with stupidity

Short tempered (picks fights occasionally.

Easily bored

smart aleck

Protective

Honorable

Quirks

Probably the most socially awkward of the three, he tends to let his brothers do the talking and inadvertanly broods

He might be the toughest of the three, but he’s also the most sensitive to teasing, leading him to lash out a bit

Likes

Physics

Tennis

Architecture

Botany

cooking

racing

Dislikes

Being bored

Being dubbed the dumb brother 

Groundings

Sweets (he doesn’t get it)

Appearances

Hieght: 4′7″

Hair: Straight strawbery blonde hair, shaved sides

Eyes: Powerpuff Eyes; pink to orange depending on the light

Notes:

Powers

flight [burnt orange]

Super strength

Frost/fire breath

Strongest willed and muscle power of the three

He’s a bit of a loner, but he does have his select friends, notablly Penny, outside of his brothers.

They like to blow stuff up together (it’s fun, but his mom doesn’t aprove)

Baby Gay

Their Friends:

Penny

Jenny

Glitch

Conner

Ellie

[starlordsandrockets]

Gold Dust Woman: Ch. IV

semi-warning: soon to be smut

summary: (Star-Lord x reader) You stand your ground against the beautiful Sovereign with Peter by your side.

a/n: Gold Dust Woman only has one more chapter update. i appreciate all the support it has gotten. i may write some one shots based of the GDW universe in the future if that is something you would all like to read. 

i split the ending into two shorter chapters instead of one longer one, i hope you enjoy!

Ch. I | Ch. II | Ch. III | Ch. IV | Ch. V | Ch. VI | GDW masterlist

GDW: the compendium

You fell right into her trap and into Peter’s arms. You were nothing more than a sob story to him and a thief to her.

The golden woman stood before you as you exited the Milano, her hair sat against her shoulders like entangled, golden thread, “I can’t help but get the idea that you’re following me,” you quipped as she slightly lowered the large blaster that rested on her glowing shoulder, “I’m flattered,”

“Y/N,” the sound of your name from Peter’s lips made your eyes roll. Peter’s heavy boots cracked the planet’s dry surface as he came to a halt at your side.

With a quick and irritated glance to your right, you made Peter cower. Covering his nose with his sleeve, he feared another hard blow from your small fist.

Locking eyes with the woman your brows furrowed as she began to raise the large blaster towards you, “I really fell for it, didn’t I,” you admitted as you approached her, “this elaborate plan,” you gestured, “you retreating and letting him lead my back to his ship,” the woman stared at you from behind the immense weapon, “eventually, I’d let my guard down and you’d have no trouble handing my ass to me,” your turn of phrase made her golden nose wrinkle.

“Not at all,” she spoke, almost sounding disgusted by your praise, “I left that mutt in the dust back at the bar and I have no intention of working with it again,” her claim made her pearly smile peek through her parted lips.

Moments ago you were about to leave Peter behind just as she did. So why did her claim make your blood boil?

Shaking your head, a curse fell between your pursed lips. Bumping the sensor of your blaster, the material manifested in your grasp. Absentmindedly you pulled the trigger, sending the woman stumbling backwards, her sharp heels unstable against the dry ground. Your eyes located your necklace floating against her chest as your hand extended towards its shimmering chain.

Without a word, you watched as Peter flew past your extended grasp, his blasters firing. Shouting his name you watched as his shots hit the fallen Sovereign’s chest. You watched as her shoulder blades pinched behind her strained posture.

Quick to her feet, she met Peter’s threatening gaze, “Remind me not to mess with your girl,” she spit, inches away from Peter’s lips. Her sly smile fell as Peter’s fist closed around the perfectly cut moonstone, the surface was cool and smooth against his rough hands, “You’re unhinged,” she hissed through her teeth as Peter’s sudden pull on the chain burned against her skin. Her claim only made his next movement a little less gentle, snapping the broken, golden chain.

Opening his tight grasp, Peter studied the stone in his possession, allowing his guard to fall. A swift, golden movement passed before his eyes as he watched the woman knock the chain and pendant to the dry ground. A small blaster had been pulled from a hidden pocket and activated on the delicate stone.

Your y/e/c eyes found the woman’s menacing gaze that burned through you, “Next time you take from my planet, I’ll catch you,” she spoke, her voice monotoned and tired, “and I’ll kill you,” retiring the small metal blaster, she turned on her heels, leaving you and Peter in the kicked up dust.

Peter silently studied the broken pendant that sat in his large palm as his other hand attempted to pick up the tiny remnants that hid within the dust. The gold metal that once held the shattered moonstone was a ruffled oval. The chain met the pendant behind a daintily sculpted golden flower and leaves; what was once delicate and beautiful was now broken. It reminded him of you.

Rocks crunched under the tread of your boots, creating what seemed like the only sound around the two of you. Your cracking voice added to the silence as you spoke softly, “Quill, look it’s fine, really,” standing over him you watched as his large fingers shook, attempting to piece together the tiny remains, “thank you,” you attempted a smile, “for trying,” Peter Quill was desperately searching the ground for anything that was left behind, his body tucked tightly in attempt to get as low to the ground as his large frame would allow him, “Peter,” you spoke, his desperation worried you.

Peter’s blue eyes hopelessly looked for golden rays against the dull, desaturated dust. In the corner of his eyes he watched as you knelt before him. You tucked your disheveled hair behind your ears, allowing him to see just how many cuts and bruises kissed your skin. He longed to place his lips over them, to melt them away with heated lips. As if you read his mind, he watched as you leaned closer to him, your hands fell against his neck. Your index fingers sat flush under his jawline as your thumbs ran against his short, rough beard.

Your heart pounded in your ears and you were convinced Peter heard it as you inched closer and closer to his cut lips. Peter’s blue eyes stared back at you with familiar, dilated pupils. Taking in a sharp breath of dusted air, you leaned in, pressing your lips against Peter’s with a small amount of force. His lips were dry and he smelled like cologne as your lips melted against his own. You felt your stiffened shoulders relax, allowing your hands to trail down his neck. Your touch coaxed a small groan to pass through Peter’s lips.

You allowed a hand to fall, closing his grasp around the pieces that sat in his palm. Pulling away from his lips, you met his eyes, “I want you to keep this,” you told him, as your brows furrowed. You restrained the tears that attempted to blur your vision, “I need to go,” you lied to Peter. His lips parted as he searched for persuading words, “I should go,” you almost immediately corrected yourself. Your eyes pleaded with him, knowing in your heart that you would stay as long as he asked. Rising to your feet you attempted to elude his pleas, but his voice stopped you in your tracks.

“Just for awhile,” Peter spoke, quoting your claim. His heavy boots steadied him as he left the dry ground, plants and stars shone above his head. Suddenly you both realized how late it really was, “Y/N it’s late, at least let me offer you a place to sleep,”

Your eyes studied the stars as your heart longed to stay by Peter’s side, “Okay,” you breathed out into the night air.

[alexander-clifford]

Understanding the role of R&D in the software development industry

Businesses are increasingly utilising and expanding their technical activity to keep up with the pace of digital transformation, provide a competitive edge, streamline operations, and reduce operational costs. R&D in software development is transforming the capabilities of the information technology industry. Whether you’re fully focused on developing software or you created a tool to help you with a project and therefore it was only a part of what your business does, you could receive a financial boost from R&D tax credits, a reward for your innovation. Let’s find out more about the role of R&D in the software development industry.

What is R&D in the software development industry?

Research and development is a core component of software development. Software is made to address specific business challenges such as effectively managing data to speed up decision making and prevent human error. The activities involved developing software meet the criteria of R&D tax credits:

Innovation and advancement

Software development often involves creating new or improved products, services, or processes, which align with the goal of R&D incentives.

Technical uncertainty

To qualify for R&D tax credits, a project must address technical uncertainties. Software development projects frequently encounter challenges and uncertainties related to complex algorithms, coding, system architecture, and more.

Experimentation

Developing software often includes trial and error processes with various approaches and iterating to find the best solutions to complex problems. These efforts could entail experimenting with different algorithms to find which one increases performance at the best rate.

Customisation

Eligible research and development activity doesn’t just include creating brand-new software. If you customise existing software to meet the needs of a different sector or improve the functionality of existing software by adding an integration, this would also count! 

Essentially, if you have spent money on software development for paying staff involved (including their managers), subcontractors, externally provided workers, cloud computing and data costs, or other eligible R&D costs, then you could potentially retrieve some of the money you spent back. The latest rate for SMEs are a cash benefit of 18.6% for loss-making SMEs, a 21.5% corporate tax reduction for profit-making SMEs under the SME scheme, and a 20% enhancement rate for larger companies under RDEC.

What does R&D in software development look like?

We have compiled some examples of advancements in software development that can be considered as R&D. The list is not exhaustive. Let’s discuss them one by one:

Develop software to test the functionality of machinery for your project

This involves creating custom software tools to assess and enhance the performance of specialised equipment, optimising processes, and reducing downtime, ultimately contributing to technological advancements and operational efficiency within your specific industry.

Integrating advanced technologies into software development

Improving or creating software that involves: 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

Cloud computing

Data processing and storage technologies

Internet of Things (IoT)

Augmented Reality (AR)

Virtual Reality (VR)

Developing advanced algorithms for medical image recognition

This would take place in the healthcare industry and allow for more accurate and efficient diagnoses from X-rays, MRIs, or CT scans.

Creating software for precision agriculture

This software would integrate data from drones, sensors, and GPS to optimise planting, irrigation, and harvesting for higher crop yields and reduced environmental impact.

Designing self-driving car software

This automotive software relies on machine learning, computer vision, and sensor fusion to improve safety and efficiency on the road.

Transforming gaming applications with software solutions

Creating immersive experiences and real-time interactions with cutting-edge graphics that have been developed with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). 

Improving fraud detection in finance

Taking risk analysis to the next level by building sophisticated algorithms that enhance the security and efficiency of financial transactions. 

These examples showcase how software development plays a crucial role in advancing various industries through research and development efforts. To see an example of a qualifying R&D software development claim and how an R&D tax credit specialist succeeded in retrieving the benefit, read our case study.

Who qualifies for R&D in the software development industry?

Any company engaged in software development may be eligible for R&D tax incentives, including:

Software development firms - Typically, businesses with teams of developers assisting other companies with their software projects.

Software companies - These entities may develop and refine software, offer Software as a Service (SaaS), business solutions, or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

In-house software developers - Any business undertaking customised software development projects in-house.

The scope of qualifying R&D activities is extremely broad so it’s always recommended to check eligibility with an R&D tax credit specialist to ensure you don’t neglect a worthwhile claim.

Takeaways

In conclusion, R&D plays a crucial role in the software development industry by driving innovation, addressing technical uncertainties, and fostering experimentation. This not only helps businesses stay competitive and streamline operations but also makes them eligible for R&D tax credits. Whether it's customising software, integrating advanced technologies, or developing algorithms for various industries, software development activities can qualify for tax incentives. Companies engaged in software development, including software development firms, software companies, and in-house developers, may all be eligible for R&D tax credits. To secure these credits, it's essential to prepare a comprehensive claim with technical documentation that meets HMRC's standards.

How to secure R&D tax credits for software development

To receive the financial benefit of R&D tax credits for software claims, you need to prepare an R&D claim for the scheme you’re eligible for. This involves presenting all your R&D costs as well as in-depth technical documentation that showcases your project. HMRC requires complete visibility into the methodology used for software enhancements, the encountered challenges, and the strategies employed to resolve them. It’s important to meet HMRC’s standards within the claim to keep the process simple and prevent any costly and time-consuming enquiries. 

At Alexander Clifford, we have extensive experience in R&D tax credits in software development, securing our client base with fantastic news time and time again. The structured processes our expert team follows have unlocked remarkable success in recovering overlooked R&D tax credits for our clients, and we take pride in assisting them in optimising their financial returns and obtaining the rewards they are entitled to. It’s your turn to benefit from R&D so get in touch!