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casssmalefantasy · 2 months ago

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TAMPA NIGHTS & TROPHY HANDS

PAIGE BUECKERS x READER!

| parings: paige bueckers x reader

| synopsis: after watching paige lead uconn to a natty win, you’re stuck between pride and want. paige looks too good with that trophy, that net, and those whispers in your ear. back at the hotel, once the crowd fades, she shows you how she planned to finish it — just for you.

| warnings: smut / 18+ content, explicit sexual content, soft dom paige, making out, fingering (receiving + giving), suggestive dialogue, praise, slight alcohol mention, language

| word count: 2.6K

| author’s note: it’s my first story so be kind please! also request are open! comment if ya want <3

the arena in tampa was loud, but your heart was louder. there were less than two minutes left on the clock, and the game was already out of reach for south carolina. you were standing in the family section, surrounded by screams and chants and a blur of blue and white, but all you could see was paige.

geno had just called for a substitution. you watched as she walked off the court slowly, clear sweat glistening down her neck. he pulled her into a hug, and immediately you see her shoulder relax as she falls into them; all of her emotions hitting her at once. paige was never one to cry publicly, but it was more then just her winning the championship, it was the journey she went through to get here.

all those nights she sat in bed wondering if she’d ever win a championship. all of the injuries, every doubt, every headline that told her she couldn’t. watching her wrap her arms around geno, you felt like you were watching someone finally take a breath after drowning for years. you blinked back tears.

your girlfriend was about to win a national championship.

the buzzer hadn’t even sounded yet, but the victory was written all over her. in the way she walked, in the way she smiled. you thought as the clock ran out about the long conversations we had this season. late night phone calls while she was away for games about the pressure, she carried being “paige bueckers at uconn.” she didn’t just want this for the team. she needed this for herself.

the clock hit zero.

the crowd exploded. bodies flew off the bench, confetti rained down, and the team ran into each other’s arms, bringing kaitlyn down as they celebrated. you pushed your way down the seats onto the court, your chest aching with pride.

and then you saw her.

standing on the court with the trophy in her hand, jersey untucked, head tilted back laughing. her hair stuck to her skin in places, but she looked like something out of a dream. her hands gripped the base of the trophy so perfectly, you couldn’t help but stare. something about the way her fingers flexed around it, the strength in her arms did something to you.

and god did she look fucking good.

you knew you weren’t going to be able to go to her immediately, considering she was pulled away straight after to do an interview. while watching her do her interviews you saw that confident smirk on her face, that you had seen a million times before, but never like this. not as a champion.

finally, after what felt like forever, she made her way toward you. when she saw you, her whole face softened. like everything else melted away. she didn’t say anything at first, just pulled you into her arms and held you so tightly you could barely breathe. you buried your face into her shoulder, the smell of sweat, victory, and her cologne clouding my thoughts.

“thank you,” she whispered, voice thick with emotion. “for what?” you asked, already feeling tears build in your throat. “for everything,” she said, pulling back to look me in the eyes. “for believing in me when i didn’t believe in myself. for reminding me who the fuck i am.”

you cupped her face and kissed her forehead, slow and gentle. “you’ve always been one of the best players to play here uconn, paige. i just helped you see it.” her lip quirked up, eyes glinting with something darker now. “and now that i got this natty…”

her hand slipped down to your waist, fingers pressing into your hip. ��i need you to let me show you how grateful i am. back at the hotel.” “yeah?” you said, already feeling her thumb trace slow circles against the fabric of your jersey.

“yeah,” she said, eyes low. “you look good in my jersey, cheering my name. i’ve been thinking about you all game.”

“baby, you had a whole championship to win,” you teased.

she leaned in, brushing her lips against your ear.“and now i want you in that hotel room. legs shaking. calling my name.”

you swallowed hard, heartbeat pounding. “okay,” you breathed, already imagining how the rest of the night would go.

✦ ✧ ✦

later that night, the hotel suite in tampa was packed with people — teammates, family, staff, everyone there to cerebrate the win. someone had connected a speaker to a playlist full of old r&b and early 2000s rap, and half the room was offbeat dancing while the other half hovered around the drinks and snacks. the net from the basketball hoop after their win around paige’s neck, that she hadn't taken it off since they cut it down.

you were standing next to ice while she was live on instagram in front of the ping pong table where paige and sarah were locked in a dramatic-ass showdown. paige’s eyes narrowed like this was another title game. ice ends the live shortly after, afraid that paige might say something crazy.

“she really actin’ like this is the wnba finals,” ice said, “girl losing 7–4.”

you laughed, eyes locked on paige, watching the way her shoulders flexed under that blue t-shirt, a lil damp from the humidity and her postgame champagne buzz. the shirt clung to her stomach, lifting slightly when she moved, flashing a sliver of toned abs. her hat was still backwards, and the net swung every time she lunged.

“and you still staring,” ice teased, nudging you.

“can you blame me?” you said. “she got a whole championship ring and still talking shit like she in gym class.”

“baby,” paige called across the table after failing to hit the ping pong, not even looking at you, “don’t listen to ice. i’m warming up, trust.”

“the score is literally , 9–4,” sarah laughed.

“nah you cheating and i’m about to sweep you,” paige snapped back, tongue poking out as she served again.

and somehow, she clawed her way back point by point. sarah slipped up just once and paige pounced, scoring the last shot with a yell. she pointed her paddle right at us. “see how i won? i’m like that.”

“you were down the whole game,” you said, grinning as she strutted over. “ but i still won” she leaned down and kissed you, palm pressed to your cheek. “it’s just what champions do.”

the net bumped against your chest as she kissed you again, a little slower this time. you felt her fingers grip just enough to make your breath catch.

“you feelin’ me right now?” she murmured, too quiet for anyone but you to hear.

“always.” you reply way too quickly for your liking, but you didn’t care. she looked at you through her lashes, smirked. “then let’s go. right now.”

✦ ✧ ✦

she was a little drunk — not sloppy, just loose, glowy, but by the time you got back to your hotel room, she’d sobered just enough. the door closed and the air immediately shifted.

“come here,” she said.

you walked toward her, and she wasted no time. she slid her hands and kissed you like she missed you, like she hadn’t just been with you all day, like the win wasn’t enough until she had you too

“you’re still wearing this stupid net,” you whispered as she backed me toward the bed.

“and i’m not takin’ it off,” she said against your mouth.

her lips trailed down your neck, fingers pulling at your waistband, tugging until your shorts were on the floor. she dropped to her knees, hands hooked around your thighs, and looked up with those bright, focused blue eyes like she was about to go into game.

“lay down,” she said, voice low, already pulling your underwear down. you could barely breathe, watching her kiss the inside of your thigh, then drag her tongue all the way up. she didn’t rush— just teased you, her tongue circling slow, mouth hot and steady until you were arching into her.

“paige please” you say and that’s all it took for her to give in.

her hands gripped your hips, while she continued to eat you out.

“fuck, paige. right there—”

“mmh baby,” she whispered, licking deeper. “let me take care of you.”

you were already so close, already being wet from looking at her earlier. she kept pressing her tongue faster and deeper in you.

“paige i’m gonna-“

“i know baby. cum for me.” she says as she fingers you deep.

“fuck paige.” you moan as her name falls out of my mouth

“just like that mama.” paige says with a smirk on her face.

when you finally relaxed, she crawled up your body, her shirt was still on, damp with sweat now. you pulled it over her head and dropped it somewhere behind you.

“your turn,” you breathed, kissing down her chest, tracing every freckle, every scar, every inch of her that you missed while she was too busy leading the team.

“yeah?, go ahead baby.” she said, her voice breathless, body already grinding into mine like she couldn’t help it. you take off her sweatpants and slid your hand between her legs, felt how wet she already was, and smiled.

“who did this to you hmm?” you say as you slip two fingers inside her slow. she gasped, eyes fluttering.

“you already know who did baby.”

“do i?,” you teased.

“stop teasing me mama,” she moaned, hips meeting your hand.

you added more pressure to her clit, as you curled your fingers in her. you kissed down her stomach until it reached her pussy, already wet waiting for you. you eat her out as she tangles her fingers in your hair, her thighs shaking around you.

“fuck baby just like that” moans spilling like praise. you kept going as you started to play with her boobs.

“don’t stop,” she said, almost whining.

you didn’t. you kept flicking and sucking your tongue, while letting her grind against your face until she came hard, clutching the sheets.

“fuck baby. my god.”

she pulled you up after, wrapped you in her arms, you guys legs tangled, the net still brushing against your skin.

we stayed there for a while, breathing together, quiet and warm.

“you’re my everything,” she whispered.

“so are you,” you said, kissing her forehead.

outside, tampa buzzed. inside, she was yours.

#paige bueckers x reader #paige bueckers #paige bueckers smut #wlw smut #fem reader #uconn wbb #uconn huskies #uconn womens basketball #ncaa women’s basketball

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keirareidss · 1 month ago

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Sunday -> Day One

the team arrives and spends a quiet day at the lake house

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader warnings: MDNI, smut wc: 1.4k

“I can’t believe you only packed one bag.” You told Spencer as I set your second suitcase on the ground, closing the trunk.

“I only need one.” He says as he grabs your bag along with his. Your suitcase rolls behind you as the two of you walk to the house. A large, two story, brown cabin stood in front of you, facing out over the rippling blue water. You spotted a fire place in the lawn and a dock running out into the lake, a boat floating in the water next to it. There was a deck attached to the cabin that had fairy lights strung over it and cozy furniture. You were continuously finding it hard to grasp how ridiculously loaded Rossi was.

“That makes zero sense to me.” You deadpanned.

“I only brought the essentials.” Spencer says as you knock on the front door. “So did I.” You said and he glanced at you, raising his eyebrows. “Wha- don’t give me that look!” You exclaimed through a laugh, making him smile. The door swung open and Rossi stood in front of you, smiling.

"Welcome to paradise. There is one rule and one rule only, and that is-"

"To have fun?" You asked sarcastically. He leveled you with a playful glare.

"Stay out of the liquor cabinet." He stepped aside, making room for you to enter. You and Spencer shared a glance before heading inside. As you went into the living room, you spotted Penelope and Hotch on the couches. She cut the conversation off with a gasp when she saw you, shooting up from the couch to rush over and pull the two of you into a hug.

"The lovebirds are here! I’m so happy you made it! This is gonna be such a great week!” You chuckled as she pulled away and the three of you sat around the living room.

"Hey Hotch. Are you ready for a full week of no work?" You grinned.

"Definitely. I'm going to miss Jack, though."

"Why didn't you bring him?" You tilted your head, frowning at the thought of missing out on seeing your favorite little boy.

"I didn't think he'd want to spend a whole week with a bunch of drunk adults."

"Right, that makes sense." You laughed. Rossi came into the living room and the five of you lounged around the living room, chatting while you waited for the others to show up. Morgan came first, arriving around noon, then Emily, and finally, JJ.

"Why are we all cooped up indoors? Let's go outside, enjoy the breeze, smell the fresh air." Penelope suggested and the team all headed out into the yard. Derek dragged you along to a large shed at the edge of the yard, pulling the door open. You sneezed, three times in succession as a cloud of dust blew into your face.

"Alright, let's see, he's got corn hole, boccie ball, horseshoes, a volleyball net, Jesus, what does a 55 year old man gonna do with this many lawn games?"

"Who knows." You sighed. You both dragged out the corn hole setting it up in the yard. "Spencer, you wanna be on my team?" You called out to him where he sat on the deck.

"I'm okay over here." He declined, giving you a polite, tight lipped smile. You shrugged, waving Emily over to join your team instead, spotting Penelope having already hopped onto Derek's team. The four of you played corn hole while Spencer sat on the deck with his book, Hotch next to him, easing into the vacation mindset. Rossi and JJ went inside to make lunch for everyone like the mother hens' they are.

It turns out, Emily was insanely good at corn hole. Like insanely good. Your team dominated Derek's team, with not much help from you, and you celebrated with a glass of wine that Rossi brought out. You took a break from the game after three rounds of whooping Morgan and Penelope's asses to eat the lunch that Rossi and JJ so graciously made for everyone.

As the sun dipped down on the horizon, turning the ripples of the lake sparkly and golden, everyone headed inside. You grabbed Spencer's hand before he could follow, pulling him further onto the deck.

"What's up?" He asked, a furrow in his brow.

"Come with me." You grinned, pulling him further. You led him down to the dock standing on the edge as you started pulling your clothes off.

"Wha- what are you doing?"

"Going skinny dipping. Come on." You tossed your shirt to the side.

"We can't. The team is right up there!" Spencer's eyes were as wide as saucers but he did nothing to stop you from undressing.

"And?" You kicked off your shorts, standing before him in just your bra and panties. "Come on, Spence. Live a little. It'll be fun." You stepped forward, tugging up the hem of his shirt. He glanced worriedly back to the lake house but let you pull his shirt off.

"Just for a bit." He ceded, undoing his pants and pulling them down. You both stripped off your undergarments and Spencer's eyes lingered on your body as you jumped into the lake. Spencer quickly jumped in after you, not wanting to be caught naked on the dock of his co-workers lake cabin. "It's so cold!" Spencer shivers when he comes up for air. You chuckled, swimming closer to him and putting your arms around his shoulders.

"Let me warm you up." You grinned, leaning in to kiss him. He wraps his arms around your waist, greedily kissing you back as your legs wrap around his waist. You start to slowly grind your hips down onto him and he moans into you mouth.

"What are we doing?" He asks breathily, almost to himself.

"Having fun." You answered, kissing him again. He began to rut back into you until you decided you needed more. You reached down underwater, taking his hard cock into your hand. He whimpered and you lined it up with your center.

"We- we should be quick so we don't get hypothermia." Spencer stammered.

"You got it, genius." You teased, inserting him into you. You started moving almost immediately, chasing that familiar feeling and Spencer moaned. Too loud. You quickly kissed him again to shut him up as you rolled your hips. Spencer kept the two of you steady, his feet planted firmly in the sand underwater and his arms wrapped tightly around your waist. Your fingers dug into his wet hair as you sucked his bottom lip into you mouth.

You grew closer and closer to the edge, moving your hips faster as the water rippled around you. You finished with a cry, your hands gripping Spencer's shoulders, nails digging into the skin and Spencer was not far behind you. He buried his face into your neck, stilling in the water, his length twitching inside you. You pulled off of him, catching your breath before swimming back to the dock. Spencer followed and you both climbed up, toweling off before redressing.

"I can't believe we did that." Spencer whispered, as if speaking louder might alert the team who were up in the lake house, oblivious. You pressed a kiss to Spencer cheek as he pulled his shirt down.

"Come on. We should head back." Spencer trailed after you, his hair dripping small water droplets onto his shoulders. You stepped inside, noticing everyone in the living room, cuddled in chairs and under blankets. "What are we watching?" You asked as you sat on the couch. Penelope flinched and JJ gasped and then cursed. Spencer huddled on the couch next to you.

"We're watching some horror movie that Emily picked out. Where were you two?"

"Went for a swim." You said nonchalantly as Spencer's cheeks flushed. You grabbed a blanket, getting comfy on the couch, shifting to lay on your back. Spencer laid down next to you, the two of you squeezed into the small space. He laid his head on your chest, the blanket thrown over both of you. You finished the movie and Penelope queued up another one and eventually everyone fell asleep in the living room. It felt like a little sleepover with your best friends and you smiled at the thought. You never wanted this night to end, your boyfriend cuddled in your arms, snoring softly into your neck, your family all around you, enjoying the night and winding down in a peaceful way.

If only you could stay here forever.

Taglist: @totallynotabuckybarnessimp, @perfectgoopfishuniversity-blog

#criminal minds #♡ keira's fics #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid smut #keira's paradise #spencer reid fic

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ratbastardz · 5 months ago

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BLOCKY 90s COMPUTER – NPT / ID PACK — ★

System names: The Error Codes, The Windows, The Personal Computer, The Hard Drive, The Glitches, The Cursor Collective, Screen Death, Core Dump, Fatal System Error, Hardware Reset, The Computer Collective, The Dialup System, The Internet, Collective Digitality

Names: Cirrus, Colossus, Sia, Athena, Raven, Ditz, Crash, Syntax, Static, Glitch, Error, Digital, Digi, Pixel, Exe, Megabyte, Terabyte, Gigabyte, Byte, PC, Com, Cube, Cubic, Cubix, Internet, Net, Data, Cyber, Google, Alexa, Siri, Linux, Mac, Apple, Cloud

Pronouns: they/them, it/its, zero/zeros, one/ones, 0101/1010s, voi/void, glitch/glitchs, error/errors, block/blocks, bluescreen/bluescreens, byte/bytes, tech/techs, windows/windows, 365/365s, PC/PCs, mouse/mouses, computer/computers, data/datas, tech/techs, tech/technical, internet/internet, net/nets, web/webs, disc/discs, .exe/.exes, exe/exes, 404/404s, ctrl/ctrl, shift/shifts, alt/alts, del/dels, caplock/caplocks, .com/.coms, .org/.orgs, .net/.nets, hack/hacks, HTML/HTMLs, JPEG/JPEGs, PNG/PNGs, ZIP/ZIPs, key/keys, hardware/hardwares, software/softwares, RAM/RAMs, 🌐/🌐s, 🔌/🔌s, 📀/📀s, 💽/💽s, 💾/💾s, 🖱️/🖱️s, ⌨️/⌨️s, 🖥️/🖥️s, 💿/💿s, 🖨️/🖨️s, 🔈/🔈s, 🔉/🔉s, 🔊/🔊s, 🔇/🔇s, 🖲️/🖲️s, 🛜/🛜s, 📁/📁s, 📂/📂s, 🗃️/🗃️s

Titles: The windows shutdown, The task manager, It who controls the cursor, It who cannot backup your information, It who has 1GB of brain space, It who runs games, It who whirrs when powered on, It who needs a cord, It who feeds on electricity and laughter, It who makes others smile, It who glitches, It who is disconnected, It who processes, The blue screen of death, It who is completely digital, It who has infinite functions, It who is limitless, The sentient computer

Labels: ancianaldern, computypen, robotthing, glitchlexic, techbodiment, aiwarix, cyberthing, bytegender, virtulonogia, techthing, Y10Kglitchic, technarian, phostechial, oldwebcitian, techrobai presentations, mechakeyboardic, keyboardsoundic, HTMLgender, hackgender, guy.exeic, genderprogram, gendercodex, errowebic, webot, webicoded, edgywebaesic, compuvior, compuvesil, computerredacted, computergender, computerkin, computergender², comphonum, codestelic, virtualexic, digitalexic, glitchsilly, 🌐💾emojic, virtualthing, webirus, webcorething, digiminalwebic, computergender³, webcoric, abstratechgender, techrobai, gendersoftware, gendervirtual, genderhacker, artificial intelligence, glitchgender, androidgender, youareanidiotvirusic

System roles: database, techie

Requested by: anon

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happygirl2oo2 · 17 days ago

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Some More Queer Sports Romance Books For Pride Month 🌈 (all are books I've read/currently have on my own tbr list)

[another year another one of these lists 'cause I wanted to see how many new queer sports romance books I've added to my tbr list since I posted part 1 last year]

Hockey

Zero Pucks - E.M. Lindsey [mlm]

Power Forward (Chicago Thunder Book 4) - Jodi Oliver [mlm]

Like a Power Play - Elle Sprinkle [wlw]

Final Breakaway (For Puck's Sake #11) by Crea Reitan [mlm]

Skating to Him - Christie Gordon [mlm]

Puck Love - Lane Hayes [mlm]

Gross Misconduct - A.J. Truman [mlm]

Rule Breaker - Ava Olsen [mlm]

On the Edge (SCU Hockey Book 3) - J.J. Mulder [mlm]

Crossed Sticks (Buffalo Warriors Hockey #1) and Net Bet (Buffalo Warriors Hockey #2) - Ryan Taylor, Joshua Harwood [mlm]

The Shots You Take - Rachel Reid [mlm]

Pucking Strong (Jacksonville Rays #4) - Emily Rath [mlm]

Breaking Through the Doubt (Espen Jetties #4) - Haven Hadley [mlm]

Love Pucked - Emily Silver [wlw]

Voices - Joey Parker [mlm]

Call It Home - Catherine Cloud [mlm]

One-Time Shot (Smithton Bears #1) - Lane Hayes [mlm]

Zone Entry (Camrose U book 1) and Off the Boards (Camrose U book 2) - Maia Kinley [mlm]

Speed (Railers Legacy book 1) - R.J. Scott, V.L. Locey [mlm]

Bar Down - Stef C.R. [mlm]

Marriage of Ice-venience (The Crawford Family Playbook #6) - Kendall Hale [mlm]

Crossed Lines - Sierra Bennett [mlm]

Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3) - Brigham Vaughn [mlm]

Spinning to the Goal - Christie Gordon [mlm]

The Puck Contract - M.M. Phoenix [mlm]

Cold Front (Michigan U Hockey #1) - Denver Shaw [mlm]

Figure Skating

Kiss and Cry - Keira Andrews [mlm]

Soccer

Playing The Field - KC Leonard [wlw]

Hits Different - Joel Rustin [mlm]

Futbolista - Jonny Garza Villa [mlm]

Always on My Mind - Kelsey Painter [wlw]

Volley - Crea Reitan [mlm]

The Other Team - Felix Fowler [mlm]

Two Left Feet - Kallie Emblidge [mlm]

Lacrosse

A Bit of You (Farewell Fairwood #3) - Hannah Ellie [wlw]

Football

The Brotherly Shove - Emily Shacklette [mlm]

Changing the Play - Morgan Sloan [mlm]

Trick Play (Playing the Field book 4) - Ajay Daniel [mlm]

Most Valuable Player - A.M. Woody [mlm]

The Kings of Beacon - Mike Jakubowski [mlm]

Cross-country

Out of Step, Into You - Ciera Burch [wlw]

Rowing

See you at the Finish Line - Zac Hammett [mlm]

Swimming

Poolside (Southeastern Alumni #2) - Taylor E. Weston [mlm]

Field Hockey

All's Fair in Love and Field Hockey - Kit Rosewater [wlw]

Baseball

Switch Pitching (Off the Bench Book 1) - S.J. Crawford [mlm]

Honeysuckle (The Hornets Nest #3) - Aubrey Taylor [mlm]

Totally Opposed (Love In Play #3) - Becca Jackson [mlm]

Rounding for Home - Fallon Brown [mlm, trans MC]

Crew (Comeback Duet #1) - Kimberly Knight, Rachel Lyn Adams [mlm]

Wrestling

Dropkicks and Dandelions (Titan Wrestling #2) - Val Simons [mlm]

Sucker Punch (Wrestling Girls #1) - Kayla Faber [wlw]

MMA

Hits Different - Joel Rustin [mlm]

Roller Derby

Learning to Fall - Peach Morris [wlw]

Rink Rash - Santana Knox [wlw]

Leave It on the Track - Margot Fisher [wlw]

Car Racing

Crash Test - Amy James [mlm]

Speed (Railers Legacy book 1) - R.J. Scott , V.L. Locey [mlm]*

Rugby

Every Move You Make - Sloan Spencer [mmf]

Summer Breakdown (Training Seasons Book 2) - J.S. Jasper [wlw]

The Fly-Half (Lincoln Knights #2) and The Scrum-Half (Lincoln Knights #3) - Charlie Novak [mlm]

Volleyball

Double Hit - Katie Steele [mlm]

Smash or Pass - Birdie Schae [wlw]

Karate

The Silver Dragon - Ellis Colton [mlm]

Tennis

Backhanded Compliments - Katie Chandler [wlw]

From the Courtroom to the Court - Eva Gonzay, Julia C. Brown [wlw]

Basketball

Tip In - Josie Mae [wlw]

Scoring the Player (Chasing Rings book 2) - Kit Grey [mlm]

Play You For It - Samantha Saldivar [wlw]

Deeply Loved Bayou (The Baton Rouge Bayou #2) - Aricka Alexander [wlw]

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probablyasocialecologist · 1 year ago

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Consider the ways oil and gas are already entwined with big tech. The foundation of the partnership between Big Tech and Big Oil is the cloud, explains Zero Cool, a software expert who went to Kazakhstan to do work for Chevron and chronicled this in Logic magazine. “For Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as a few smaller cloud competitors like Oracle and IBM, winning the IT spend of the Fortune 500 is where most of the money in the public cloud market will be made”—and out of the biggest ten companies in the world by revenue, six are in the business of oil production. What are oil companies going to do with the cloud? Apparently, Chevron—which signed a seven-year cloud contract with Microsoft—generates a terabyte of data per day per sensor and has thousands of wells with these sensors. They can’t even use all that data because of the scale of computation required. “Big Tech doesn’t just supply the infrastructures that enable oil companies to crunch their data,” explains Zero Cool; they also provide analytic tools, and machine learning can help discover patterns to run their operations more efficiently. This is another reason why Big Oils need Big Tech; they have the edge when it comes to artificial intelligence/machine learning. “Why go through the effort of using clean energy to power your data centers when those same data centers are being used by companies like Chevron to produce more oil?” Zero Cool asks, also noting that one of the main reasons oil companies are interested in technology is to surveil workers.

Holly Jean Buck, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough

#fossil fuels #Ending Fossil Fuels #big data #big tech

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mariacallous · 30 days ago

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AI’s energy use already represents as much as 20 percent of global data-center power demand, research published Thursday in the journal Joule shows. That demand from AI, the research states, could double by the end of this year, comprising nearly half of all total data-center electricity consumption worldwide, excluding the electricity used for bitcoin mining.

The new research is published in a commentary by Alex de Vries-Gao, the founder of Digiconomist, a research company that evaluates the environmental impact of technology. De Vries-Gao started Digiconomist in the late 2010s to explore the impact of bitcoin mining, another extremely energy-intensive activity, would have on the environment. Looking at AI, he says, has grown more urgent over the past few years because of the widespread adoption of ChatGPT and other large language models that use massive amounts of energy. According to his research, worldwide AI energy demand is now set to surpass demand from bitcoin mining by the end of this year.

“The money that bitcoin miners had to get to where they are today is peanuts compared to the money that Google and Microsoft and all these big tech companies are pouring in [to AI],” he says. “This is just escalating a lot faster, and it’s a much bigger threat.”

The development of AI is already having an impact on Big Tech’s climate goals. Tech giants have acknowledged in recent sustainability reports that AI is largely responsible for driving up their energy use. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, have increased 48 percent since 2019, complicating the company’s goals of reaching net zero by 2030.

“As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging due to increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute,” Google’s 2024 sustainability report reads.

Last month, the International Energy Agency released a report finding that data centers made up 1.5 percent of global energy use in 2024—around 415 terrawatt-hours, a little less than the yearly energy demand of Saudi Arabia. This number is only set to get bigger: Data centers’ electricity consumption has grown four times faster than overall consumption in recent years, while the amount of investment in data centers has nearly doubled since 2022, driven largely by massive expansions to account for new AI capacity. Overall, the IEA predicted that data center electricity consumption will grow to more than 900 TWh by the end of the decade.

But there’s still a lot of unknowns about the share that AI, specifically, takes up in that current configuration of electricity use by data centers. Data centers power a variety of services—like hosting cloud services and providing online infrastructure—that aren’t necessarily linked to the energy-intensive activities of AI. Tech companies, meanwhile, largely keep the energy expenditure of their software and hardware private.

Some attempts to quantify AI’s energy consumption have started from the user side: calculating the amount of electricity that goes into a single ChatGPT search, for instance. De Vries-Gao decided to look, instead, at the supply chain, starting from the production side to get a more global picture.

The high computing demands of AI, De Vries-Gao says, creates a natural “bottleneck” in the current global supply chain around AI hardware, particularly around the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the undisputed leader in producing key hardware that can handle these needs. Companies like Nvidia outsource the production of their chips to TSMC, which also produces chips for other companies like Google and AMD. (Both TSMC and Nvidia declined to comment for this article.)

De Vries-Gao used analyst estimates, earnings call transcripts, and device details to put together an approximate estimate of TSMC’s production capacity. He then looked at publicly available electricity consumption profiles of AI hardware and estimates on utilization rates of that hardware—which can vary based on what it’s being used for—to arrive at a rough figure of just how much of global data-center demand is taken up by AI. De Vries-Gao calculates that without increased production, AI will consume up to 82 terrawatt-hours of electricity this year—roughly around the same as the annual electricity consumption of a country like Switzerland. If production capacity for AI hardware doubles this year, as analysts have projected it will, demand could increase at a similar rate, representing almost half of all data center demand by the end of the year.

Despite the amount of publicly available information used in the paper, a lot of what De Vries-Gao is doing is peering into a black box: We simply don’t know certain factors that affect AI’s energy consumption, like the utilization rates of every piece of AI hardware in the world or what machine learning activities they’re being used for, let alone how the industry might develop in the future.

Sasha Luccioni, an AI and energy researcher and the climate lead at open-source machine-learning platform Hugging Face, cautioned about leaning too hard on some of the conclusions of the new paper, given the amount of unknowns at play. Luccioni, who was not involved in this research, says that when it comes to truly calculating AI’s energy use, disclosure from tech giants is crucial.

“It’s because we don’t have the information that [researchers] have to do this,” she says. “That’s why the error bar is so huge.”

And tech companies do keep this information. In 2022, Google published a paper on machine learning and electricity use, noting that machine learning was “10%–15% of Google’s total energy use” from 2019 to 2021, and predicted that with best practices, “by 2030 total carbon emissions from training will reduce.” However, since that paper—which was released before Google Gemini’s debut in 2023—Google has not provided any more detailed information about how much electricity ML uses. (Google declined to comment for this story.)

“You really have to deep-dive into the semiconductor supply chain to be able to make any sensible statement about the energy demand of AI,” De Vries-Gao says. “If these big tech companies were just publishing the same information that Google was publishing three years ago, we would have a pretty good indicator” of AI’s energy use.

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em-prentiss · 4 months ago

Text

went looking for a creation myth (ended up with a pair of cracked lips)

----

“Hey. Stay with me, Hotch.” Emily says sharply.

His eyes snap open. The latex of her gloves is entirely coated in his blood; she digs her hands further in and draws a wheeze from him, her brows set in firm, dark lines that say you won’t die on me today.

Or, Emily and Hotch weather a tornado.

Word count: 5.7k

For @leavemurph :D happy (belated) birthday!! <3

Ao3

----

The walk from the car to the porch is enough to drench him in icy rain. Hotch feels it saturate his hair and tries his best to ignore the way his slacks stick to his legs as he peels the crime scene tape off the door, twisting the knob and letting Emily in. The tape immediately slaps against the wall, tossed around by the wind as she steps in—also soaked, rainwater pooling on her shoulders where her hair lies—and frowns slightly, eyes narrowed at the gaping mouth of the house.

It’s almost entirely dark. The heavy, charcoal gray clouds press up against the windows and stifle more light than they let in, shrouding Amy Hammond’s house in shadows. Thunder rumbles almost constantly, rising above the downpour.

Emily reaches out to flick the light switch. Hotch steps further inside, leaving the door open behind him when the darkness prevails.

“Power’s out.”

She flicks it back closed. “Think that was the unsub or the storm?”

“He hasn’t done it before,” Hotch says, pulling out a mini flashlight from his breast pocket. “Doesn’t seem likely he’ll start now.”

Rain mists heavily over his back as the wind blows it inside. Suppressing a shiver, Hotch shuts the door and briefly eyes the way it shudders in its frame, uneasy. Even in November the chance of tornados never dips down to zero. He’s been hyper aware of the weather, trying his best to stay prepared for whatever Oklahoma might bring, but there’s only so much he can do with an armed killer running around abducting women from their homes. He shines the flashlight past the foyer and follows the click of Emily’s boots deeper into the house; the faster they get out of here, the faster they can get back to the precinct. It’s a false safety net, he’s well aware, but with the tornado watch issued hours ago he’d been hesitant to split up the team, even more hesitant to pair off without a local officer.

Hotch swallows everything down and focuses on the task at hand. Emily bounces her phone flashlight off Amy’s room, shedding more light on her rumpled bed, the imprint of her head still shaping her pillow.

“She took melatonin just like the others,” Hotch glances at the tablets on the nightstand.

“By now it’s definitely not a coincidence,” Emily murmurs. “So they were insomniacs, that must be part of his victimology.”

Hotch picks up the strip of tablets. “20 milligrams,” he frowns, “it’s a high dose, could be harmful. Doctors don’t rec—”

“Hey Hotch, do you…?” Emily’s voice comes from deeper in the room. “Is that a—shit, it’s a fucking tornado!”

His head snaps up. Emily is standing near the window, gaping at the nearly black clouds. They’ve loomed closer, roiling just outside the glass. With a flash of lightning, Hotch can just barely see the outline of the funnel.

“Get back.” He grabs her arm, pulling her away from the window. Emily stumbles but she rights herself before she loses her footing, his hand on her back pushing her to the door. “Go.”

A loud roar rattles the walls as they run down the stairs and through the house, vibrations under Hotch’s feet and in his ears. He can barely tear the door open—it rattles in its frame, slamming back into the wall the moment he cracks it an inch. Hotch ducks his head against the storm, immediately soaked again, the rumble of the tornado intensifying.

“There’s a shelter here!” He yells to Emily. “Backyard!”

The wind tears at them as they run out of the porch, practically dragging them back across the wet driveway. Hotch doesn’t know how, but they manage to cross to the grass, the jutted angle of the shelter poking out through the heavy rain. They almost make it, dodging flying debris and branches, when white-hot pain rushes up his thigh.

Hotch stumbles, crying out.

“Woah!” Emily catches him before he faceplants onto the ground. They slip on the wet grass, her hand like a vice around his arm. “Hotch, what—”

Tears sting his eyes, running parallel with the rain. The icy downpour pelts down into the open seam of his flesh, sharp needles pricking a gash running from the apex of his thigh to his knee. Hotch grits his teeth and gingerly presses his hand to the cut. It comes away slippery with blood; he only gets a glimpse of it before the rain washes it clean.

The tornado roars behind them, drowning out the weak rumble of thunder.

“Move!”

Emily strong-arms him to the shelter, throwing his arm around her shoulders and gripping him by the waist, dragging him to it. The searing pain shoots up his leg with every drag of their feet, nausea curling his stomach from the continuous intensity. She lets go of him to open the shelter door and he doubles over, throwing up on the grass. He thinks she’s cursing next to his ear, he doesn’t know. He’s barely done heaving before she’s dragging him again over the stairs, holding him upright.

“S-Stop.” He pants, pausing on the third step, eyes screwed shut. Fire pulses at his side, buckling his knees. He trembles all over, his grip on Emily’s arm probably tight enough to bruise, but he can’t feel sorry.

“Come on, Hotch, we’re almost there. Just two more.” Emily says, her voice strained. “We’re almost at the bottom.”

The rain still pelts down on them, howling wind tearing through his eardrums. They need to close the door. Something clangs in the distance, metal on metal.

Jesus Christ.

They’re able to manage the last two steps without him blacking out. Hotch forgoes the folded camping chairs stacked in the corner and slides down the wall, clenching his jaw against a groan when his leg bends. Emily finally shuts the door with a heavy clang; darkness smothers them, and the deafening roar goes muffled. Their heavy breaths echo, ragged as the dark bends under her phone’s flashlight. She shines it around the space and Hotch shuts his eyes, opening them again when he hears a rough clatter.

Emily is rummaging through a storage container one handed. She finds a lamp, clicks it on, and drops her phone when white light floods the claustrophobic box, grabbing a kit as Hotch sits and watches her, pain and uselessness pulsing through his body in equal measure.

He turns his eyes to his right leg, hazily cataloging the gash soaking his thigh with blood. It leaks steadily, already forming a shallow pool onto the floor. Even under the bright fluorescent light, it’s hard to see where it bleeds into his slacks.

The grim puddle on the floor catches Emily’s attention. “Shit.” She mutters, mouth pinched as she shrugs her coat off. It falls to the floor with a heavy splat. “Do you know what cut you?”

Hotch shakes his head. There was no small amount of debris flying around.

Emily curses again as she kneels next to his thigh, popping open the first aid kit and grabbing a pair of gloves. Hotch’s vision blurs; his heart pounds in his fingertips, the piercing, knife-sharp pain taking root in the tear of his skin.

It bursts white-hot again when Emily takes out a square of gauze and presses it to the gash.

“Fuck.” Hotch groans into his mouth, his head thudding back against the wall. Emily mutters a breathless apology but continues to press harder, the gauze getting wetter with blood as it pools out of the wound. The breath gets punched out of his lungs as she layers more strips across his thigh, pressing with both hands and digging the fibres into his open flesh. Hotch barely hears the rage of the tornado above his own panting, the shrill ringing in his ears that says you might just fucking die today.

He’d never imagined it could happen this way. Not by a natural disaster. He’s expected guns, biological weapons—hell, even plane crashes. Not a fucking tornado.

“Hey. Stay with me, Hotch.” Emily says sharply.

“H-How—” His tongue is heavy, numb. Hotch can barely get it to move. “How deep is it?”

Emily shakes her head once. “I can’t tell, the bleeding won’t stop.” Her voice is unusually jagged, sharp with tension. “It’s not on the inside, so it didn’t hit the femoral artery. Right? I’m not sure, fuck—”

A sudden ringing makes him jerk. Another groan slips out of his throat, the heat of the pain making his muscles lock. Emily’s jaw ticks.

The noise is coming from his pocket. Hotch pulls his phone out, almost dropping it with the way his hand shakes. Somehow, he’s able to accept the call.

“Garcia—”

“There’s a tornado! Sir, you need to get to a shelter right now, there’s one—”

“We’re in one,” Emily interrupts. “Garcia, Hotch got his thigh cut, he’s bleeding, I need you to help me.”

“Jus’ put pressure on it.” Hotch mumbles, his words running together into one big lump.

“It’s not working.” She snaps. Her jaw is tight, a vein poking through the glistening skin of her throat. He stares for a second, briefly stunned. The fear in her eyes is unsettling. He should be more scared, he thinks, but seeing it on Emily is a whole other thing.

“Hotch got hurt? Oh, god, is he okay? What happened, did the—”

“We need to stop the bleeding, Garcia.” Emily bites out. “I’m applying pressure but it’s not stopping. I need your help.”

“Okay, okay.” Garcia’s voice is frazzled. “How long have you been putting pressure on it?”

“I don’t know, 5 minutes, maybe. It’s big.”

Hotch looks at his watch. The face is cracked, numbers blurring beneath spiderwebbed lines of shattered glass.

“Uh, okay. Okay.” Keys clack in the distance. “I’m patching—”

Her voice cuts off. Silence lapses, though the call is still running. Emily’s eyes flick up to his, wide.

“Garcia?”

Static crackles. Garcia’s voice fades in and out, a blur of quick words—none of them recognizable. The pressure on his thigh increases.

“C-Cell towers,” Hotch grunts.

“I know.” Emily levels him a look. “Stop talking, Hotch.”

“—911.”

“What?”

“911, what’s your emergency?”

The voice turns to cotton in Hotch’s head. It floats away, drowned out by the ringing in his ears as his leg pulses beneath the heel of Emily’s hand. She’s relentless as she follows the operator’s instructions, layering square after square of gauze across the length of his thigh.

“It’s slowing down,” she says after a while. The phone is silent—Hotch doesn’t know if it’s because of the storm or otherwise. The room is spinning, everything dimmed in a hazy blur. He thinks the bleeding stops, because Emily snaps off her bloody gloves and drops them on the floor. She turns back to the storage container and rummages through it, brows furrowed.

“There’s no water,” she mutters. “Not much of anything, actually. Thought these were supposed to be well stocked year round.” He’s pretty sure she’s talking to herself at this point, because he’s well beyond hearing. Eyes falling closed, Hotch tries to ignore the searing pain of his thigh. The wet stick of his clothes is not a much better thing to focus on.

“Here.” Emily offers him a granola bar. It’s crumbled and formless.

Hotch declines.

She frowns but tosses it back. As she does, he sees the shiver that rocks her body.

“These clothes,” he rasps. They can’t stay in them.

Emily chews on her lip. “The alternative isn’t much better. But you should maybe take off your jacket.”

He doesn’t even have time to shrug it off. Her hands are there, stripping it from his shoulders. Truthfully, he’s grateful. He can barely move his arms for the tremble in them, every movement somehow shooting more pain down his leg.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Emily tosses it on top of her own coat. She slides the container under the stairs and sits on his good side, thudding back against the wall with a damp squelch. “I don’t get a gold star until we get you out of here alive.”

The corners of his mouth twitch. Emily presses her lips together in a weak curve, barely more than a grimace. Something clangs above them, a deafening collision, and they both instinctively look up. The rage of the tornado is somewhat buried under steel and concrete, but the ever-present rumble remains, shaking the earth. Hotch’s eyes begin to droop, his vision going hazy.

Emily places her hand on top of his. He looks down at it in surprise, but doesn’t say anything. She intertwines their fingers and he lets her, offering a weak squeeze when she presses her shoulder against his.

He doesn’t know how long the tornado wreaks havoc above them. He’s barely holding on, his vision going weak at the corners, not really aware of anything but exceptionally loud bangs and roars. Even Emily’s hand in his begins to feel weightless. Despite the hard, frigid floor beneath him and the still-throbbing pain of his wound, Hotch’s eyes begin to drift shut.

“I think it passed,” Emily says abruptly, shivering.

Hotch starts, watching blurrily as she gets up and opens the door. He sees her push, palms flat on the door, but it doesn’t give. She tries it once and twice, redoing the lock and undoing it even though they both realize it’s useless at the same time.

“Something’s blocking the door.”

Shit.

____

Hotch startles awake. His body jerks, leg shifting. A hiss whistles through the gaps in his teeth.

“S-Sorry,” Emily whispers. “Did I wake you?”

His head is spinning. The room turns on its axis, a blur of concrete and clinical fluorescent light. Hotch closes his eyes and inhales sharply, trying to ignore the feeling of cold, sticky gauze and dried blood on his skin. The scent of it makes nausea roil in his gut, but he knows there’s hardly anything for him to throw up. Mouth open, he tries to breathe through it.

“Time’s it?” He rasps through his pounding heart.

“Uhh…almost five.” Emily’s voice stumbles, strangely unsteady.

Two hours.

Hotch opens his eyes, blinking to get rid of the hazy film shrouding his vision. Emily comes into view, pale and shivering, her lips tinged blue at the corners. Cold water runs down his spine; Hotch straightens back against the wall, his head losing some of its fuzziness. “Hey, are you—?” His hand hovers over her arm. “Emily, you’re shivering.”

Her lips pull in a grimace. “It’s these—t-these clothes.” She slurs, the jumble of words buried beneath her chattering teeth. Her arms are crossed over her stomach, fingers twisted into the still-wet fabric of her sweater. The tint of her skin has gone gray.

Panic sparks in his chest. His pulse picks up its punishing pace, each beat pressing right under his throat.

“Come here.” He pants, extending his arm. It’s heavy, so heavy. Leaden with cement in his veins instead of blood. Before it falls to his side, he wraps it around Emily’s back and tugs, fingers digging into the freezing curve of her side. Hotch can barely pull, but he doesn’t have to; Emily moves with him.

“You’re wet too.” She stammers, her head thudding on his shoulder. Her breath is the only warm thing about her.

“Body heat.”

His hand is warmer than her skin. It’s not by much, but anything is better than nothing at all. Hotch palms the curve of her neck, hoping he’s doing some good. Emily shudders into him. She trembles like a leaf.

“God, Emily. How long have you been like this?”

Her next exhale is all but a sob.

Hotch’s throat burns.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m sure they won’t be long now.” He murmurs. And if his lips graze her hairline, Hotch will pretend it’s for the sake of warming any part of her he can.

____

He wishes he hadn’t declined the crumbled granola bar she’d offered earlier. Neither of them are in the shape to move now, and the gaping hole in his stomach only intensifies the nausea that surfaces each time he stifles it. He really shouldn’t have skipped lunch, today of all days. Or breakfast for that matter. His head is gauzy, both weightless and unbearably heavy, pressing down on his neck. The stench of blood still hangs thick, damp on his clothes and on the floor, flooding Hotch’s tongue with its metallic taste.

He suddenly realizes that the weight on his shoulder has gone heavier. Looking down, he finds Emily’s lashes threaded together, her arm looped through his and her fingers curled around his wrist. She’s not shivering anymore, but her whole bottom lip has gone blue. Hotch can’t see her chest moving.

Foggy alarm bells go off in his head.

“Emily, hey,” he tries to shake her. When she doesn’t stir he grips her harder, raises his voice. “Emily. C’mon, get up. You have to stay awake.”

At the flutter of her lashes he goes limp with relief. It takes countless sluggish beats, but she manages to look up at him with blurry eyes, the depth of her pupils gone cold from the white light.

“Hotch,” she mumbles, her mouth barely moving. Her eyes flit around, darting over the small space and four concrete walls before coming back to rest on his, deep brown shrouded in a thick fog. “…What’re we doin’ here?”

He can barely understand what she’s saying. Her words slur together in a chewed mess, trapped between her bottom lip and her teeth. Hotch manages to pull them apart into something understandable.

“We’re waiting for help,” he says. “There was a tornado. Remember?”

Emily’s brows dip into a frown. “’S it gone?”

“Yes.”

“We should get out, then.”

The drowsy slip of her voice wraps around his chest in a vice. Hotch feels a tremor rock his bones, something deeper than the cold burrowing into his marrow. Stay calm. Emily’s fingers are freezing on his wrist. He covers them with his hand, squeezing and trying not to flinch at the ice stiffening her skin.

“The door’s blocked.” He says gently.

Emily’s lashes beat in a slow blink as she shudders. “I’m so…” her voice trembles in time with her shoulders, cracking and turning brittle. “So cold, Hotch,” she mumbles, eyes dampening with tears. “Can I have a blanket?”

“I’m sorry,” Hotch whispers. He ignores the ache in his back and leans down, pressing his cheek to hers. Letting go of her wrist, he wraps his arm around her waist and tries to drag her onto his good thigh, but his muscles are liquid. Their lower bodies become entangled; her legs dangle over his, the press of their slacks making him shiver. “I’m sorry, I don’t have one.” Hotch cups the back of her neck, kneads his fingers into the stiff skin.

Her hand tangles weakly in his tie.

“Why…why’re we hugging?”

The itch in his throat is hard to swallow. “To keep warm, sweetheart. Just for a little bit, I promise. Help is coming.” He rubs as hard as he can, forcing whatever small measure of warmth he has into her skin.

Emily makes a little sound next to his ear. “I like huggin’ you, Hotch.” Her head nestles under his chin, the cold press of her hair against his pulse. Then the tip of her nose against his collar, her hand slipping down his chest and curling around his waist.

Hotch draws circles between her shoulder blades. “Don’t sleep, Emily.” He says quietly, his voice a frayed thread.

“Mmm, w’not? ’M tired.”

Because I’m scared you might never wake up again.

____

Hotch almost cries in relief when sirens ring through the shelter. Every part of him throbs, dull and cold and numb, head fuzzy and limbs heavy. Emily is mostly curled on his good thigh. Their fingers are laced together, connected palms producing fragile heat too useless to chase away her shivering. His other hand is under her sweater, protecting a small patch of skin from the damp fabric.

“They’re here, Emily,” he whispers into her hair, eyes falling closed. Finally.

She stirs, fingers briefly tightening around his, head shifting under his chin.

“Who?”

“Paramedics.” He hopes.

He turns out to be right when the door cracks open and an EMT pokes his head in, yelling, they’re okay! Hotch dimly guesses okay means relatively alive. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care to think; his brain switches off before the EMT climbs down the stairs and drops in, some wire buried deep snapping now that someone else is here to keep them alive. A sharp gust of wind sweeps down and he shudders, tightening his grip on Emily as she trembles, too.

The EMT may be talking. Hotch doesn’t know. He just knows Emily is being eased off of him because she protests weakly and he goes cold without her, shuddering at someone’s hands on his body.

The gauze gets peeled off of his thigh; it tugs at the edges of the wound, fresh pain blooming hot. Hotch grunts at the sticky pull. He jerks away instinctively, jolting and bending his knee. More pain races up his leg, the blunt throb of it sharpening to a pointed edge.

Fuck.

He bites down on his cheek, but it doesn’t stop the groan from escaping.

“Don’t—what’re y’doin’ to him?” Emily rasps. “Stop that, he’s hurt!”

Sweat soaks Hotch’s hairline. “S’okay, Em,” he huffs through his teeth, shaking. “They know what they’re doing.”

Palms at his shoulders, hips. Somebody grabs both of his legs, hands under his knees, and lifts.

His vision goes black.

****

Hotch wakes up to someone touching him. The back of his hand stings; he looks down at it and blurrily sees a needle being pulled out, thin drops of blood landing on his skin. He closes his eyes again, suddenly noticing the oppressively warm blanket that lies over most of his chest.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Hotchner?” A nurse asks quietly, wiping the blood away and securing a bandage over his hand.

Hotch blinks at her.

“Would you like some water?”

Swallowing, he finds his throat fuzzy. Hotch nods slowly. She helps him with it, elevating his bed and pressing a bottle into his shaky hands.

“You lost a lot of blood.” She says as he guzzles the water down. “We gave you a transfusion, so you should be just fine now. It’s lucky you were able to stop the bleeding. Hypothermia was beginning to set in.” She informs him, taking the bottle away when he drains it. Hotch listens to the words but doesn’t quite focus on them. “We had to give you some fluids, too, you were pretty dehydrated. Want more water?”

He shakes his head. The dimmed lights of his room make it hard to properly make out the nurse’s face. Hotch squints. “My…my partner. Emily.” The words scrape against the back of his throat, gravelly. “She’s here too. Is she okay? Can you take me to her?” He rasps.

The nurse is apologetic. “She needs her rest too, Mr. Hotchner. It’s late now, you can see her tomorrow.”

Hotch closes his eyes. “Is she okay?” He presses.

The nurse hesitates.

“Please.”

She relents with a slow breath. “She’s okay. Stable. You got the worst of it—which is why you should rest up now. Your body needs it.”

“What room is she in?”

The nurse shakes her head, lips pressing together to hide a smile. “Get some sleep, Mr. Hotchner.”

That proves to be impossible. His whole body aches like it’s one giant bruise. The gash throbs dully beneath its bandage; Hotch can barely shift his leg without it screaming at him. He huffs into his pillow, thoughts drifting to Emily as he closes his eyes. Moving is impossible—and even if he could somehow manage it, he could hardly go around knocking on doors in hopes that he’ll find hers.

He’ll see her in the morning, he tells himself.

His skin itches at the thought of waiting until then. He keeps seeing the gray tinge of her skin, her glassy eyes and slurred words. The confused fog in her gaze, her brittle voice—why are we hugging? Eyes flying open again, he reaches for his phone, squinting into the bright light that assaults his vision. His stomach sinks at the 12:38 on the screen, restlessness gnawing at his insides.

He thumbs Dave a message—Emily’s room number?—and pulls up his contacts, scrolling until he reaches her name. His finger hovers above it.

Dave: You’ll see her tomorrow. How are you feeling?

Hotch tosses his phone back on the bedside table, Dave’s message unanswered. He knows on some level that he’s behaving irrationally, but he can’t bring himself to care. He needs to see her. The last few hours play in a loop; the chaos of the storm, the bone-deep cold of the shelter. Emily’s chattering teeth and the pile of blood soaked gloves on the floor.

The door opens. Hotch squints at the figure that walks in. When he sees it’s her, hospital gown to her shins and a blanket around her shoulders, air rushes into his lungs. He’s almost dizzy with relief as she walks up to the side of his bed, fingers twisted in the fabric of her blanket. She’s still pale, but her eyes are alert.

“Hey.”

One small word, and the world rights itself. His throat itches.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“I had to come see you.” She says quietly. Her eyes drag hot over his face, scanning and examining with a small wrinkle between her brows. Hotch feels as well as sees his face being inspected—then down his body, the bandage on the back of his hand. The obscure outline of his right leg under the blanket. Her intense scrutiny smooths out the restless jitter of his bones. “You scared the fuck out of me.” She says after the silence has stretched, and he’d done his own inspection on the pallor of her skin, counted the beats of her breath. Her low tone is out of place with the bluntness of her words.

Hotch inhales a careful breath, feeling his lungs expand with the size of it. His heart slowly drums faster. “You scared me, too.”

Before he can talk himself out of it, he reaches out and grabs her hand. When he meets warm skin, his fingertips finding the dampness of sweat along her palm, he exhales softly—just for himself, a huff of breath through his nose, his chest practically collapsing. Hotch curls his fingers around hers and gently tugs until she sits on the edge of his bed. The mattress dips beneath her weight, the bed creaking in the silence, and still he doesn’t let go. Through her blanket, the curve of her hip almost blurs into the line of his thigh. Almost.

She’s level with him now, breathing quietly with her lips parted; this close, he can see the shine in her eyes, glossy tears pooling on her waterline and catching the weak light. Hotch cups her cheek without thought or hesitation.

“Emily,” he breathes, stroking short lines on her cheekbone. “Hey, we’re okay.”

Emily presses her lips together. Her throat bobs as she swallows tightly, once, twice. “You could’ve died.” She rasps, her voice cracking. The tears remain stubborn above her bottom lashes, wobbling precariously when she blinks and looks away, jaw working under his palm.

Hotch breathes out quietly and tugs her into his chest. She follows just like she did before—somehow even more limp and defeated, her head pillowing on his shoulder. He swallows, lungs itchy from what he’s certain is the glint of her tears.

“I’m okay. Because of you. You know that, right?” He whispers.

Her fingers dig into his side. His hospital gown rustles under her unforgiving grip, crushed in her palm. Those hands saved him today. Emily shakes her head—once, twice, three times, the movement rubbing against his collarbone. “It just—it wouldn’t stop. I didn’t think it ever would.” She whispers into his chest. Hotch closes his eyes. His hand finds the path between her shoulder blades; he rubs circles above her skin this time, his heat sinking into the fibers of her blanket. “God, Hotch. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you…”

Her voice wobbles.

“We’re okay,” he says again, lips to her temple. “We’re okay, Emily.”

Finally a wet heat soaks his gown. Hotch cups the side of her head, tightening his hold around her back. Emily shifts closer into him, eliminating any space that could’ve existed between them.

“I was scared, too. When I woke up and you were…” he blows out a breath. “I knew what was happening to you, but I couldn’t stop it. I felt so useless.”

It’s a feeling he’s well acquainted with. One he’s spent his whole life trying to outrun. And god, every time he thinks he has, he trips and it catches him with all the warmth of a loving mother’s embrace.

His throat goes heavy, a lump weighing it down. Hotch speaks past it. “But you don’t give up on the people you love.” He whispers, burying it in her hair.

He’s thought of saying it a few hundred times before, but never like this. Ironically, he imagined it over case files and shitty cups of coffee, but the hospital rooms they so often frequent never crossed his mind. It’s not quite the unambiguous wording he wanted, but whatever way Emily takes it, it’ll be true. He loves her as anything she could be, anything she’ll let him have her as—god knows they haven’t properly learned how to be friends yet, so coworkers, okay, fine, he’ll live with that. She took over his heart anyway, bit by unassuming bit, until it beat to the sound of her name. He discovered halfway through that he couldn’t stop it; and after another chunk of his heart surrendered he found out he didn’t want to, not really.

He hasn’t loved anyone like this in a long time.

There are hands on his face. Beautifully warm hands, light scrapes of calluses on Emily’s fingertips that send goosebumps down his arms as she tilts his head down, forcing his eyes to meet hers. Her lashes are wet and clumped together, a shade darker than the deep brown of her irises.

“No,” she whispers. “You don’t.”

Hotch holds himself still. His heart hammers in his throat, his back aches from bending to meet her, his hands have displaced and are now resting on her hips, buried beneath the blanket that slipped down her back to pool at her waist. Their exhales thread together in the small distance between the tips of their noses, and still he waits until Emily’s mouth seals over his to reciprocate.

For a second, they’re still. Emily’s lips are salty, ridges of dry skin cracked into her bottom lip. He revels in the heat of it, the stinging press of her mouth and tongue and teeth. When he moves his hands, gently squeezing and warming, Emily liquidizes against him.

Hotch never imagined her soft. Not in the way she kisses, not in the way she loves, not in the way she so carefully tangles her fingers into the threads of his hair and pulls. It’s not a hard pull, hardly a tug. A you’re here and I’m making sure.

I’m here, he tries to tell her. We both are. His lips find her forehead after they’ve parted; he can’t get enough of the warmth of her skin. Words are deemed useless after that, and so are kisses. She curls up against his side, on top of the covers, his hand in her lap. Running her thumb down the side of it seems to bring her as much solace as it brings him.

When Emily shivers, Hotch lifts up the edge of his own blanket. She hesitates but doesn’t fight him for long, ditching her hospital issued slippers and gingerly getting in next to him, eyes trained on his face as he shifts to make room for her. His thigh screams at him, somewhat dulled from what he guesses is painkillers he’d been given; Hotch fights to keep his face straight as he makes room.

Emily must see something in his expression. She hovers above the bed, still half out of the blanket. “Tell me if it hurts.” She says quietly.

“Okay, honey.” Hotch murmurs, gently tugging until her head is on the pillow. He can’t guess what she’s thinking, the depths of her eyes still unknown to him. They’re still hot on his face—they always are, that never changes—as he grabs her discarded blanket and lays it over her. “Are you warm?” He asks, rubbing his hand up and down her arm.

Emily nods. She curls into his side, their legs tangling under three layers of blankets, her sock rubbing against his ankle. The sudden intimacy is all at once overwhelming and soothing. Just 24 hours ago he wouldn’t have dreamt of holding her hand, and now they’re sharing a bed, his lips to her forehead. Her chest rises and falls against his side. His pulse beats under her ear. Hotch feels the tickle of her hair on his fingertips, still damp and curling. He doesn’t even know what she does on the weekends. What her grocery list looks like. And he’s in exactly the right place.

It’s so, so strange.

Emily rubs his hospital gown between her fingers. “Thanks for keeping me warm, Hotch.” She whispers.

Hotch feels himself smile. He squeezes her arm, going along with her facile wording, the forced lightness of her tone. Today’s been too heavy; they’ll still have tomorrow for whatever comes next. “Don’t mention it. Still warm?”

Emily hums. “Close to boiling, actually.”

“Do you want—”

“No. Keep them.” She mumbles, raising a blanket—one of them—up to her chin.

“Okay.” He waits until she settles again, going quiet as he rubs her arm. “Thanks for saving my life, by the way.”

Emily huffs softly into his neck. “Don’t mention it.”

#emily prentiss #aaron hotchner #hotchniss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #hotchniss fanfiction #aaron hotchner fanfiction #emily prentiss fanfiction #hotchniss fic #hotchniss fics #hotchniss drabble #hotchniss blurb #hotchniss fanfic #criminal minds fanfic

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askviktor · 3 months ago

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for mun: I'm so sorry, I have dyscalculia so I don't know this but, what kind of math is Viktor using to calculate possibilities? how does he do it?

(Viktor is using previous values from an earlier story in which he was deciding whether or not to start a relationship with Jayce. Please note that my math is questionable, but I wanted to demonstrate that Viktor turns to emotionless decision-making methods when overwhelmed by feelings. As we can see, he doesn't always heed the results. L is, after all, too large. MCDA and risk-assessment equations inspired his computations. A more in-depth explanation lies beneath the cut.)

R(J): Represents the "rationality" of Viktor's decision regarding his relationship with Jayce. A higher value indicates a more rational decision, while a lower value suggests emotional influences are overpowering rational thought.

A(t): At any given time t, this is Viktor's attraction to Jayce.

C(t): This measures how compatible Viktor feels with Jayce.

P(t): This denotes the perceived risks Viktor associates with the relationship.

D(t): This quantifies any emotional distance Viktor feels from Jayce.

T: The total duration over which we're assessing the relationship.

L: Viktor's longing or intense desire for connection.

First Integral: ∫ from 0 to T of (A(t) + C(t)) dt

This calculates the cumulative (total) positive feelings Viktor experiences over the entire duration of the relationship.

Second Integral: ∫ from 0 to T of (P(t) + D(t)) dt

This computes the cumulative negative feelings (risks and emotional distance) Viktor perceives over the same period.

By subtracting the total negative feelings from the total positive feelings:

Net Positive Influence = [ ∫ from 0 to T of (A(t) + C(t)) dt ] - [ ∫ from 0 to T of (P(t) + D(t)) dt ]

This gives us the overall positive influence Viktor perceives in the relationship after accounting for both positive and negative factors.

The denominator, `lim (L → ∞) L`, represents Viktor's longing. As his longing increases indefinitely, the denominator grows without bound.

R(J) = [ Net Positive Influence ] / L

As L becomes very large, R(J) approaches zero. This models the idea that when Viktor's desire for connection is overwhelmingly strong, it may overshadow rational assessments, leading him to act more on emotion than reason.

When Viktor's longing (L) is moderate, R(J) reflects a balance between his positive and negative perceptions of the relationship. As Viktor's longing intensifies, the denominator increases, causing R(J) to decrease. This suggests that strong emotional desires can cloud rational judgment. If Viktor's longing becomes infinite, R(J) approaches zero, indicating that his decisions are entirely driven by emotion, with rational considerations being negligible.

#ask viktor #viktor #arcane viktor #viktor arcane #viktor league of legends #viktor lol #arcane rp #arcane roleplay #arcane #askviktor #viktor rp arcane #viktor roleplay #viktor rp #arcane ask blog #viktor arcane rp #arcane rp blog

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thebirdfantasy · 3 days ago

Text

The Holiday House - Ch8

"Alan! The winch broke!"

"The what!?"

"The winch broke!" John watches as a helpless holographic figure falls from the sky.

"What the hell do you mean the winch broke!? Our winches don't break!"

"Thunderbird One hasn't been maintained in weeks! We should have seen this coming." Two seconds ago, the rescuee was perfectly secured in a harness, being raised into the 'Bird just as it sped off from an exploding radio tower in the alpine mountains.

"I'm gonna try to grab him with the net." Alan sets the 'Bird to vertical dive, target locked at the flailing victim until-

"-Except that there is no net: It hasn't been reinstalled, it's back at the hangars for maintenance."

“Damn it!” Alan rushes out of the cockpit and to the hull, dunking his helmet over his shoulders. “Well, I’m open for ideas!” Echoes of locker doors slamming travels through the rocket-plane until Alan finds the one with magnetic grapple packs stocked in silver gauntlets. Without hesitation, he dons the gauntlets before rushing to the top hatch of Thunderbird One.

“This is gonna sound absolutely insane, but you’ll have to trust me.” John throws his hands to the side, setting up commands with a persevering look in his eyes. “I need you to jump for it. I’ll remote pilot Thunderbird One to catch you, as long as you just catch him.”

Unbeknownst to John, Alan had already jumped out the second the word “trust” had been mentioned. He launched up into the skies with immense speed until finally reaching a velocity of zero — His arms sway into the motion, outstretched and loose. He sighs at the breathtaking view of the golden-red horizon that collides with the glowing pink clouds. Migrating dots flutter among the distance beyond yonder, flapping their wings as they set course for the sun. A quiet stillness, envelopes the atmosphere — before beginning his accelerating freefall decent. “How high?”

Time moves fast. The sky screams past. Alan determinedly sets himself headfirst, arms firmly pinned to his sides with the intent of hastening his fall. His eyes firmly lock onto the flailing figure before him who screams in panic. Within due time, the blueness of the ocean glimmering orange with sunshine beneath them makes itself known.

From far up above, Thunderbird One hums a flaring change in its engine. The rocket-plane darts further down — faster than the rescue operative's terminal velocity — until its hull finally meets at eye level with the rocket boy who smirks at the metal face of the hull, he readies the silver gauntlets for their first shot with a steady click and aims his aims for the hatch.

"I've matched Thunderbird One to your descent speed, Alan." John claims.

"Good." Alan shoots. The line fires, slicing through the wind until it connects to the hull with a clang. He hooks his end of the line to his scarlet harness and starts the automatic reeling; it whips him through until his gecko gloves and boots cling to the silver of the outer hull. "I'm connected. Increase acceleration." He orders.

The rocket-plane declines in angle and Alan surfs its hull fearlessly, his sight sets downwards on the flailing victim once more. He prepares another grapple pack from his brother's silver gauntlets and trains the line of fire towards the rescuee.

As soon as the said rescuee is within range, Alan fires. It whips through the thrashing air, accelerating until it reaches the IR issued harness that has been wrapped around the victim from the hours previously.

"Bullseye!"

John takes the exclamation as a signal, he begins to boot the horizontal thrusters. At the feel of this, Alan jumps once again. He twists at the taut rope between him and the rescuee, forcing himself to cut through the sky and reach the other faster, the shape of the victim grows larger as their distance shortens.

Suddenly, Alan is grabbing the man mid-air, redirecting both of their falls into a controlled spin. With a strained yell, Alan hits the remote winch on his silver gauntlets, that of which reels him and the rescuee back towards the turning hull of Thunderbird One with a sharp force. They slam together onto the hull and tumble through the hatch — which had been opened by John whose perfect timing Alan must compliment for later — and into the cargo bay.

The rescuee lands hard on top of Alan, practically crushing him. However, adrenaline takes over the young Tracy who scrambles to force his shoulders over his knees and sprint into the cockpit, his eyes widen at the altitude level on the monitor. "Thunderbird Five! Ascend faster!"

From the space station, John grits his teeth and twists his wrists further inward. "There's not enough thrust to pull up!"

"Fire the landing thrusters!"

"FAB!"

The landing thrusters provide just enough force to push the red nose upwards. With a bellowing roar, Thunderbird One yanks itself into level flight just as ocean spray kisses the underside of the hull.

Alan lets out a breath of relief, he falls loosely back into the red chair. "Thanks, John." He sighs.

"It wasn't easy." The spaceman replies. "How's our rescuee holding up? The nearest hospital should take five minutes; I can set her on autopilot and let you rest."

At the simplicity of the suggestion, Alan shifts in the pilot seat to sit up straighter. "Won't be necessary." He reassures. "I can take her."

"You sure? That was quite the save."

"I'm serious, John." His quivering hands settle over the controls like second nature, a motion that he's practiced several times in simulation rigs for the past many years. "I have the energy to do it. Promise!"

"That's not energy, it's called adrenaline, Alan." John would facepalm if it weren't for the fact that his eyes keep straying towards the silver gauntlets making themselves known on his baby brother's forearms. "Alright, but you're not allowed on missions until you get at least two hours' worth of rest, understood?"

Alan cranks the horizontal thrusters. "FAB." Then radios in to the cargo bay: "Hey, how you doing back there?"

There's a short groan of a response, a slurring collection of words akin to "I'm okay", as far as Alan can make it out to be.

"Hang in there, gonna get you to hospital."

And the rocket plane fires into the distance.

Chapter 9: "What the hell?" Scott squints at what he can only assume are tiny ripples in the water.

Since this fic is set post Season3, I decided to try make some new parallels between Alan’s character and Scott’s.

I wanted to use Scott’s grapple pack gauntlets as symbolism to show a form of resemblance between Alan and Scott, which is why i repeatedly mentioning them being silver.

That and also the mission itself is pretty Scott-like… Alan didn’t even have a jetpack, let alone a parachute and he just… went for it.

#scott tracy goes on an unwarranted vacation #alan tracy #john tracy #scott tracy #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds are go #next chapter is fishtank duo smotherhenning Alan

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thoughtlessarse · 2 months ago

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The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate. The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments. Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company’s investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management. The core business of the insurance industry is risk management and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024. Zurich said it was “essential” to hit net zero by 2050. Thallinger said: “The good news is we already have the technologies to switch from fossil combustion to zero-emission energy. The only thing missing is speed and scale. This is about saving the conditions under which markets, finance, and civilisation itself can continue to operate.”

The only thing missing is the political will. The right wing the world over are abandoning their pledges, and kicking the can down the road, when it will cost much, much more to fix. Governments would rather spend trillions on wars, trillions that could be used to fix the current climate crisis.

But Yay!! Capitalism is killing itself. Every cloud has a silver lining.

#world #climate crisis #late stage capitalism #environment

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homestuckreplay · 11 days ago

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Recap 1 of Recap 2 of Homestuck Act 4

(page 1988)

Okay I lied this is the real last update before act 5. I was surprised to get another recap just 300 pages after the first one, which covered over 1600 pages of content. This one is shorter, though now by as much as you’d expect. I guess it’s been a busy 300 pages.

Like the last recap, I was interested to see what clarifications and new information are presented here that haven’t actually been revealed in the main story. There are definitely fewer than before, and I noticed that most are from flash updates, which are great for powerful, dramatic moments, but less good for small details or for understanding character motivations. In contrast, something like John’s ectobiology sequence is very clear in the text – so the recap might be helpful for casual readers who don’t pore over every detail, but to a close reader it doesn’t add new information.

Clarifications

These are small details which were already implied, but not stated outright until now.

- Dave and Rose’s dark timeline is referred to as a ‘doomed alternate reality’.

- It was Rose who threw Lil Cal out the window of Dave’s dream bedroom.

- The gods of the Furthest Ring play the same role for Derse dreamers that the cloud visions on Skaia do for Prospit dreamers. These gods saw the MEOW genetic code as dangerous, which is why they asked Rose to burn the journals.

- Dave didn’t need to do anything to break open his egg entry item; it ‘simply needed time to hatch’.

- ‘Skaia defends itself, in a way, by sacrificing Earth’. Implication: Earth doesn’t technically need to be destroyed for Sburb/Skaia to achieve its ultimate purpose, and some successful sessions might be able to avoid their planet’s destruction if they can win before the Reckoning begins. It’s just collateral damage.

- 100% confirmation that Nanna and Grandpa’s other guardian/Colonel Sassacre’s husband was Betty Crocker, not a coincidental and different baked goods baroness.

- Bro and Jack’s duel was a stalemate until Bro cracked the record platform, which ‘released a mysterious energy from the cracks’.

- An unknown third party convinced Jade and her pen pal to begin Project Bunny and gift it to John.

Brand New Information

- Both kings’ scepters contain prototyping information, but the Reckoning only begins when the Black King captures the White King’s scepter. It’s not stated whether or not the White King could, in theory, begin the Reckoning himself.

- John’s ectobiology session was set up for him by the guardians when they passed through the lab. (Mom and Grandpa are qualified for this. Dad presumably used the time to bake his cake).

- The exiles travel to Earth on meteors, just like the kids and guardians. They arrive ‘years after its apocalypse, but years before they found their respective command stations’. I have been wondering about this for months, and am personally very glad to have a definite answer.

- The bunny’s weapons are matched to the names on the note. The broken sword is the Royal Deringer, the needles are the Quills of Echidna, the rifle is Ahab’s Crosshairs, and the hammer is the Warhammer of Zillyhoo. This is the first time the Zillyhoo name has appeared in Homestuck – putting this in a ‘recap’ basically assumes that readers have also read the Problem Sleuth bonus content where the hammer originates, or will interact with other fans who have, for example on the forums.

Net Zero Information

- At two separate points the recap makes it clear that Jack’s motivations are unknown, presenting this as an intentional artistic choice instead of an accidental oversight. ‘Only [Jack] knows’ why he chose to spare WV while slaughtering the other revolutionaries, and why he was happy to uphold PM’s bargain and give her the green package in return for the crowns.

#homestuck #reaction #disappointed but not surprised that the horse painting is in the scribble version of AH’s study.#chrono

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tagarilaghost · 2 months ago

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thinking about what you said about zero isle au and how nobody truly wins here and it fucks us up completely even now for all the reasons. darkrai has been subjected to what is essentially a "timeloop" of forced isolation, cold comfort and the agony of the only person that dared to approach him succumbing to the very flaw that's engraved into his existence or through the dreadful passage of time, furthering his plunge into the darkness he laid in for so long, and in a world that resents him and everything he stands for, he is alone. alone to stew in his flayed nerves, alone to accept the reality he is forced to endure, forever overshadowed by the better duo member, forever forced to watch as his shadow turns into something more twisted, more wretched, more unrecognizable that the mockery that lays by his feet becomes his very being, forced to simply. be. and even when he'll bring the ruination of all times, even when he'll bring the very darkness he forced to lay and die in by the world, even if he'll even feel the slighest tinge of pride that he for his control that he never got to have for himself for eons, what will he do next? what else is there for him to see, what else is there for him to look forward to? that he proved everyone right, yet again? that in the end, he managed to completely isolate himself of life by creating a world that will be shrouded in darkness so that it'll give him a pedestal to stand on and feel the sun he never got to feel on his own skin? he did it time and time again, but the result all ends the same. he is, by definition, alone. and always will be.

and krako. oh, poor poor krako. for all the faith in the world that she has in that no-good doing swindler, for how much she carries a heart three times her size that wants him to feel what he deserved to feel for so long, for all the sweet pleasantries and intentions she can bring up to warm his beating, rotten heart, she truly knows that whatever she is doing is only delaying a disastrous inevitable. darkrai is a completely different net of nerves, each imbued by raw agony of what he had endured, what she doesn't know of and what he will never tell so long as it'll kill him. maybe it's her better judgement clouding the reality of it all, but she knows that a pokemon that tries to strike the world thrice has bound to be filled with something so terrible that it may as well be the drive that kept him going. she may not dig deep into it yet, but she knows how much darkrai, for whatever he is even worth, will not simply cease just because she was nice to him. not because she saw him as someone normal, just as those before her did. she knows that what hurts him cannot be smothered and healed with "maybe if i helped you"s or platitudes that exist solely to rub salt on his many wounds. she knows that it'll take all the effort in the world for darkrai to reconsider his wrathful endeavours if he'll ever get out, and even so, he might just stick to the same path that he and fate carved with his own flesh and blood. she cannot save him from it all, and neither will he ever try to imagine a world where he can be that person, not for her, never again.

tl;dr au's dope but fuck man.

Welcome to my Zero Isle AU, as you can see you have many paths to chose from :)

This unhinged guy is 6 feet deep into whatever he dug himself. He is so far gone that even the attempt to rescue him seems so far out of reach, but Krako tries anyways, cause what other choice does she have?

There are no other options besides his death and his healing to stop this cycle from happening.

Even trying to heal him during the memory loss didn't change his ways, so why should talking to him with his memories change anything?

...Right?

Turns out one needs the memories of the bad things one has done to reconsider their choices in the first place.

We'll see how this turns out for them :) <- words of an author who hasn't written the end yet and doesn't know herself. I really hope I pull through with this one, I still gotta illustrate over 9000 words of only dialogue (it's getting more with the second) with 3 major plot arcs, but maybe in the future I'll just write some things out if I don't want my hands to fall off. There's a lot of dialogue which technically doesn't need illustration.

I think it's neat that this AU will also bring some characters into play who I never see people talking about. One in particular I was like wow that would be so cool if they get more importance in this. But the others are a group which I haven't seen anyone but 1 person talk about. The group will also play a major role in the second arc, but that occurs really late in the comics. I think it'll happen some months maybe even one year or two after Krako starts visiting Darkrai. So a loooot of visits. They also kind of warmed up to that point and both got into a routine.

Anyways thank you so so much for the ask!!! Literally made my day <3

#zero isle au #HOARFROST TOWER. WHEN I CATCH YOU LOT. WHEN I CATCH YOU ALL. GRAAH #uuuuuuARGH you all are SOOO GOOD with finding the right words like how do you keep doing this #I'm biting my hands and jumping up and down like grovyle hopping through treeshroud forest !!!!!!#So so so excited for every ask i get.#Also now that I post it I already got another ask which I will get to soon. Don't worry if other things come inbetween I try to make posts #ready for when I feel like posting. But I really wanna draw a little something to that. And that takes a little time XD #I love thinking about things and making decision and then someone jumping in my ask box and asking exactly that !!!#rubbing my hands together like an evil mastermind. You have walked right into my trap... more content be upon you.#ask #rolling through words #darkrai #krako | totodile #pmd hero #pmd #pokemon #pokemon mystery dungeon

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fuqnia · 6 months ago

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Powdered Sugar Skies

craig tucker x tweek tweak

(❁´◡`❁) | [A/N] hii, this is my third oneshot that's apart of my ficmas! this is also on ao3. ❤️❄️🎄

(❁´◡`❁) | Warning(s) : none

(❁´◡`❁) | Synopsis : Craig and Tweek’s cookie-making plans are derailed by a blizzard, leading to flour fights, cozy moments, and heartfelt reassurances.

The blizzard outside was unrelenting, wind hammering the windows like a banshee and snow piling so high it was practically a second wall. Inside the Tweak family kitchen, things weren’t much calmer. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Tweek skittered around the room like an over-caffeinated squirrel, arms flailing and breaths coming too fast.

“This is a nightmare ! An absolute nightmare ! Gah , why does this always happen to me?!” Tweek’s words spilled out in a rush, his voice cracking like a vinyl record stuck on the wrong speed. His grip on the whisk was so tight, Craig wondered if the metal might snap.

Craig, perched at the cluttered table with a bowl of frosting, didn’t bother to look up. “You’ve said ‘nightmare’ like... what? Ten times now? Chill the hell out.”

“ Chill out?! ” Tweek whipped around, wild-eyed, the whisk flinging stray batter onto the floor. “Craig, how can I chill out when the cookies are burning, the batter’s lumpy, and there’s a fucking blizzard canceling everything? Gah! ” He tugged at his hair, one hand already twitching toward the oven like it might explode at any second.

Craig didn’t flinch. His finger dragged through the frosting lazily, and he popped it into his mouth. “If the festival gets canceled, nobody’s gonna give a shit about the cookies, Tweek. They’ll just assume you never made them.” His voice was deadpan, his delivery perfectly timed to make Tweek’s frustration boil over.

“That’s not helping !” Tweek shrieked, his voice rising so sharply that Craig was surprised the neighbors weren’t pounding on the walls. “What if they don’t cancel? What if the festival’s still on, and everyone expects cookies, and we don’t show up, and then everyone hates us?!”

“Not everyone,” Craig said blandly, scraping more frosting onto his finger. “Just the people who already hate us. Which is probably most of South Park. So, net zero.”

Tweek let out a strangled screech, the whisk trembling in his hand as he glared at Craig like he might throw it at him. “ Why aren’t you panicking?! This is a crisis! ”

Craig finally glanced up, his expression bored but his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah. A major crisis. Forget the national debt or global warming. Burnt cookies are the real tragedy of our time.”

“You’re the worst !” Tweek howled, flinging his arms in the air and spinning toward the oven just as the scent of charred sugar hit the room like a slap. His face went pale. “Oh no. No no no no no! The cookies! Craig, the cookies are BURNING! ”

Craig didn’t move from the table. He leaned back in his chair and watched as Tweek yanked open the oven door, releasing a cloud of thick black smoke that immediately triggered the kitchen’s smoke alarm. The cookies were an abomination—charcoal discs with edges so brittle they crumbled at the slightest breeze. Tweek stared at the tray in horror, his hands frozen mid-air.

Craig blinked slowly, then tilted his head. “Huh. Extra crispy. Nice.”

“ CRISPY?! ” Tweek spun around, his hair sticking up in wild tufts. “They’re fucking ruined! This whole night is ruined! Gah! I knew this would happen—I can’t do anything right! Why do I even try?! ”

Craig finally stood, brushing flour off his jeans as he crossed the room with a calm so casual it was practically insulting. He grabbed a dish towel and gave the smoke an unimpressive wave, like he was too bored to put in any real effort. “Tweek. They’re just cookies. We can make more.”

“But the festival —” Tweek’s voice cracked, his whole body vibrating like a live wire.

Craig raised an eyebrow, his voice laced with dry humor. “There’s a blizzard outside. Newsflash: nobody’s going to the festival. Unless Cartman suddenly develops a sled-dog team, everyone’s stuck at home. Including us. So quit acting like this is the goddamn apocalypse.”

Tweek buried his face in his hands, muffling a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan. “You don’t get it, Craig. Everyone’s going to think we’re failures. I’ll be the laughingstock of South Park.”

Craig let out a sharp, exasperated sigh. “Pretty sure Cartman has that position locked down. Lifetime achievement award.”

“That’s not the point ! Why can’t you just— ugh —freak out with me for once?!”

Craig grabbed Tweek by the shoulders and turned him around, holding him firmly but not roughly. His blue eyes met Tweek’s darting ones, and his voice dropped to a level of calm so infuriating it was practically zen. “Because I’m your boyfriend, not your panic buddy. One of us has to have our shit together, and since it’s clearly not you...”

Tweek froze, his breath hitching, his hands clutching at the edge of his apron like it was a lifeline. “But... but what if I screw up again?”

“Then we’ll fix it,” Craig said simply. “That’s what you do when things get fucked up, Tweek. You clean up the mess and try again. Welcome to life. It sucks.”

For a long moment, Tweek didn’t move. The tension in his shoulders slowly began to melt away as Craig’s hands stayed steady on him. The room still smelled like burnt sugar, the smoke alarm still beeped shrilly, and the blizzard still screamed outside, but somehow, Craig’s calm made it all seem less overwhelming.

“Okay,” Tweek mumbled finally, his voice small. “Okay. Let’s... let’s try again.”

Craig gave him a satisfied nod and released him, heading back to the table. “Good. And this time, try not to burn the house down. Or yourself.”

Tweek huffed, grabbing the mixing bowl again. “I won’t.” His lips twitched, a reluctant, almost shy smile breaking through as he started measuring out flour.

Craig watched him out of the corner of his eye, smirking faintly. In his world, seeing Tweek smile—even after a meltdown—was as good as winning the lottery.

Tweek gripped the measuring cup with both hands, his fingers trembling as he tried to steady his nerves. “Okay, okay, focus,” he muttered, staring down at the bag of flour like it was a live grenade. He took a shaky breath and dipped the cup in, muttering numbers under his breath. “One cup... one perfect, level cup of flour. I can do this. I can— gah! ”

As Tweek pulled the cup out of the bag, his hands jerked, sending a cloud of flour into the air. He froze as white powder rained down, covering the counter, the floor, and most devastatingly, Craig.

Craig blinked. His previously clean sweater and perpetually deadpan face were now plastered with flour. His bangs had turned white like an elderly ghost’s. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his hand and wiped his eyes, leaving smudged streaks of flour across his face. “Tweek,” he said, his voice dangerously calm, “what the hell was that?”

“I— gah! —it was an accident!” Tweek yelped, already reaching for a towel to clean up. His movements were frantic, and in his panic, he managed to bump the flour bag, sending another puff of white powder into the air. “Oh no! Oh no no no no no—this is worse, so much worse! Craig, I’m sorry! ”

Craig stood still for a beat, his expression unreadable. Then, very slowly, he dipped his fingers into the flour spilled across the counter, pinching a small amount. “You’re sorry, huh?” he said, voice flat but with a hint of something mischievous lurking beneath it.

Tweek didn’t notice. He was too busy mumbling apologies and swiping ineffectively at the mess. “I didn’t mean to—I just— gah , why does this always happen to me?!”

“Yeah, sure. You’re totally sorry,” Craig said, nodding solemnly. Then, without warning, he flicked the pinch of flour directly into Tweek’s face.

“ GAH! ” Tweek staggered back, coughing as the flour puffed over his face and into his hair. He blinked wildly, his pupils dilating. “What the hell , Craig?!”

Craig smirked, folding his arms. “I thought you liked chaos. Figured I’d help.”

“That’s not helping! ” Tweek shrieked, flailing his arms. His hand hit the counter, sending more flour billowing up like smoke. “You’re making it worse! ”

“Worse?” Craig grabbed a handful of flour from the bag, tossing it lightly in the air like a snowball. “Nah, this is worse.”

Before Tweek could react, Craig launched the handful at him. It hit Tweek squarely in the chest, leaving a white mark on his apron and dusting his collarbone. Tweek gasped, his jaw dropping as he stared down at himself, then at Craig.

“You’re dead,” Tweek said, his voice a low, dangerous growl.

“Am I?” Craig asked, unfazed, raising an eyebrow.

Tweek lunged for the flour bag, grabbing a handful and flinging it at Craig with all the precision of a feral cat. The flour hit Craig’s shoulder, spilling onto his sweater. For a moment, there was silence—Craig just stared at the mess, his lips twitching faintly like he was fighting a smile.

“Oh, it’s on,” Craig muttered, grabbing another handful.

The kitchen erupted into chaos. Tweek dove behind the edge of the kitchen island, crouching low as Craig hurled flour bombs with unnerving accuracy. “ GAH! Stop aiming for my face! ” Tweek shouted, peeking over the counter just in time to duck another volley.

“Then stop being such an easy target,” Craig shot back, smirking as he prepared another throw. “This is almost too easy.”

“You’re a jerk!” Tweek howled, grabbing a mixing bowl and hurling it—not the bowl itself, but the small mound of flour inside it—straight at Craig. Most of it missed, hitting the cabinets behind him, but some managed to dust Craig’s jeans.

Craig raised an eyebrow, looking down at his flour-streaked pants, then back at Tweek. “Really? That’s your best shot?”

“Shut up!” Tweek yelled, grabbing the flour bag.

“Tweek, don’t,” Craig warned, his voice deadpan but his eyes narrowing.

“I’m doing it!” Tweek shouted, and with a heaving effort, he turned the bag upside down. Flour rained down everywhere—on the counter, on the floor, and all over Craig, who now looked like he’d walked out of an industrial bakery explosion.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of flour settling and Tweek’s panting breath. Craig stood perfectly still, his expression unreadable as he slowly wiped a hand down his face, leaving a trail of clear skin amidst the white powder.

“You,” he said finally, his tone heavy with sarcasm, “are so grounded.”

Tweek stared at him, his hands still clutching the now-empty flour bag. His lips twitched once, then twice, and before he could stop it, a nervous giggle escaped. It quickly turned into full-blown laughter, his body shaking as he doubled over. “ Gah! You look like—like a ghost! Or a powdered donut!”

Craig huffed, but there was a faint smile tugging at his lips as he brushed flour off his arms. “And you look like a lunatic. But at least you’re laughing.”

“I’m still mad at you!” Tweek wheezed, pointing at him with a flour-dusted hand.

“Yeah, sure you are,” Craig said, shrugging and grabbing a towel. He tossed it at Tweek’s face. “Here. Start cleaning up, Donut Boy.”

“Don’t call me that!” Tweek protested, but the smile on his face said otherwise. As he wiped his face, the tension in the room began to fade, leaving only the sound of muffled wind and the faint buzz of the kitchen lights.

The kitchen still looked like a disaster zone. Flour coated the counters, the floor, and even some of the walls, but Tweek was too frazzled to care. He darted around the space with a sponge, muttering under his breath as he scrubbed a random spot on the counter for the third time.

“ Gah! I can’t believe I made such a mess! What if my dad comes in here and sees this? He’s going to freak the fuck out! And—oh God, what if my mom thinks I can’t handle anything?! Gah! This is so bad—Craig, are you even listening?!”

Craig, sprawled on a kitchen chair with his phone in hand, didn’t look up. “Yeah, I’m listening. And I still don’t care.”

Tweek froze, glaring at him, the sponge trembling in his grip. “How can you not care?! There’s flour everywhere! ”

Craig finally set his phone down and raised an eyebrow at the room. “Tweek, your house already smells like burnt coffee and nerves. A little flour isn’t going to ruin the ambiance.”

“ Gah! That’s not funny, Craig!” Tweek shrieked, throwing the sponge at him. It missed, smacking the floor with a wet splat.

Craig sighed, standing up and grabbing a broom. “Alright, fine. I’ll help. But only because you’re losing your shit.”

“ I am not losing my shit! ” Tweek protested, even as he frantically grabbed another towel to clean a perfectly clean section of the counter.

Ten minutes later, the kitchen looked marginally less chaotic. Tweek flopped onto the couch, his body twitching as he grabbed his phone off the coffee table. Craig followed, dropping onto the opposite end with his usual lazy indifference.

Tweek’s phone buzzed, and he opened the text with a trembling hand. “It’s the festival committee,” he muttered, scanning the screen. His eyes widened. “Oh! Oh my God! It’s canceled! They said it’s because of the blizzard!”

Craig didn’t even glance at him. “Wow. Shocking. I definitely didn’t call that half an hour ago.”

Tweek ignored the sarcasm, clutching the blanket draped over the couch and pulling it up to his chin. “I guess that’s good... but now what the fuck are we supposed to do?”

Craig shrugged, grabbing the remote and flipping through the channels. “Not make cookies. Seems like a win to me.”

“Craig!” Tweek glared at him, but the fight had mostly gone out of his voice. Instead, he sank further into the couch, letting the blanket envelop him.

Craig landed on some cheesy Christmas movie and set the remote down. The screen lit up with a painfully perfect family scene: a grand Christmas tree, a roaring fire, and a group of actors grinning like they’d been paid per tooth shown.

Tweek watched for a while, his brow furrowing as his knee began to bounce. He clutched his mug of hot cocoa like it might save him from drowning. “Do you think other people’s Christmases are really like that?” he asked suddenly.

Craig glanced at him, then back at the screen. “Like what? Boring as fuck?”

“No, like... perfect,” Tweek said, gesturing vaguely at the TV. “Like everyone gets along, and all the presents are awesome, and nobody’s yelling or stressed out. Do you think people actually have holidays like that?”

Craig snorted, sipping his cocoa. “Not unless they’re on drugs. Or lying.”

Tweek frowned, his fingers tightening on the mug. “It’s just... holidays stress me out. There’s so much pressure to make everything good. To make people happy. And if you fuck it up, everyone’s disappointed. Gah! What if I ruin everything, Craig? What if I screw it all up again?”

Craig sighed, setting his mug down and turning to face Tweek. “Tweek. You didn’t ruin shit. The cookies sucked because you’re a spaz with the attention span of a goldfish. That’s it.”

Tweek gasped, his face turning red. “You’re such an asshole! ”

Craig shrugged, unbothered. “Maybe. But I’m right. And anyway, nobody gives a fuck if the cookies are burnt, or if the house isn’t perfect, or whatever other crazy shit you’re worrying about. It’s Christmas. It’s supposed to be chill.”

“ Chill? ” Tweek’s voice pitched up an octave. “Craig, my parents don’t even know how to spell ‘chill!’ If everything isn’t perfect, they’ll—”

“They’ll what?” Craig cut him off, his voice still calm but firm enough to make Tweek hesitate. “Throw you out? Yell at you? No, they’ll get over it. You’re the only one freaking out about this.”

Tweek swallowed hard, staring down at his mug. His leg twitched against Craig’s, a subtle but telling sign of his nerves. “But what if—”

“Tweek.” Craig leaned in, resting a hand on Tweek’s bouncing knee to still it. His voice softened, though his delivery was still deadpan. “I don’t care if the cookies burn, or if the festival’s canceled, or if this whole fucking town gets buried in snow. You know why?”

Tweek shook his head, wide-eyed.

“Because I’m here with you,” Craig said, his tone so matter-of-fact it felt more genuine than any flowery speech could have. “And that’s all that matters to me.”

Tweek blinked, his breath hitching. “You... really mean that?”

Craig smirked faintly, leaning back into the couch and grabbing his mug again. “Obviously. You’re a mess, but you’re my mess.”

For a moment, Tweek just stared at him, his cheeks turning pink. Then he let out a small, shaky laugh, leaning into Craig’s shoulder. “You’re such a dick,” he muttered, but there was no heat in his voice.

“Yeah,” Craig said, sipping his cocoa. “But I’m a dick with great taste in boyfriends.”

Tweek let out a shaky laugh, his face still half-buried in the blanket as Craig’s words hung in the air. His heart was racing, but not in the usual, chaotic way. It felt steadier somehow—warmer, like the flickering light of the Christmas movie on the TV.

“You’re so stupid,” Tweek mumbled, his voice muffled but tinged with something softer, something grateful.

Craig smirked, glancing down at Tweek as he leaned against him. “Yeah, well, you’re stuck with me. So deal with it.”

Tweek tilted his head up, his green eyes meeting Craig’s. There was still a little nervous energy in them, but it had dulled into something quieter, something vulnerable. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of the blanket, twisting the fabric as his lips parted slightly. “I don’t... I don’t mind,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Craig’s smirk softened into a small smile—rare, but undeniably real. He reached out, his hand steady as it brushed a stray strand of blonde hair away from Tweek’s face. His fingertips lingered for a moment, grazing Tweek’s cheek. “Good,” he said simply, his tone low and even. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Tweek blinked up at him, his breath catching. For once, the chaos in his mind seemed to quiet. He didn’t overthink it; he just leaned forward, his movements slow and unsure but deliberate. “Craig...” he started, but the rest of the sentence never came out.

Craig leaned in to meet him, tilting his head slightly as their foreheads briefly touched. The kiss came naturally after that—gentle and slow, like the two of them had all the time in the world. Tweek’s lips were soft and trembling, carrying the faint taste of cocoa and marshmallows. Craig’s were calm and steady, grounding Tweek in a way that words never could.

Tweek’s hands twitched at first, unsure where to go, before one settled on Craig’s chest and the other gripped the edge of the blanket. His fingers curled into the fabric of Craig’s sweater, holding onto him like he might float away if he didn’t. Craig’s hand, still resting against Tweek’s cheek, slid down slightly to cup his jaw, his thumb brushing over the edge of his ear.

The kiss wasn’t rushed or heated. It was deliberate—an anchor in the chaos of Tweek’s world. It said everything Craig couldn’t be bothered to say aloud: I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re enough.

Tweek exhaled through his nose, a shaky but contented sound, as the tension in his shoulders finally melted away. When they broke apart, their foreheads stayed pressed together, their breaths mingling in the small space between them. Tweek’s cheeks were pink, his wide eyes searching Craig’s face for reassurance.

“You’re such a jerk,” he whispered, though the corners of his mouth were tugging into a smile.

Craig’s lips quirked upward, his thumb brushing lightly against Tweek’s jawline. “Yeah, but you like it.”

Tweek laughed softly, burying his face in Craig’s chest this time. “Maybe,” he muttered, his voice muffled against the fabric.

Craig’s arm wrapped around him, pulling him closer under the blanket. “Not maybe. Definitely,” he teased, his voice calm but laced with that faint smirk.

Tweek didn’t argue. He just stayed there, curled against Craig, feeling safer and calmer than he had in days. The storm outside could rage all it wanted. Right here, in this moment, everything felt like it was exactly where it was supposed to be.

#holidays in hell #sp creek #tweek tweak #craig tucker #fluff #craig x tweek #south park oneshot

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the-outer-topic · 3 months ago

Text

Battletech: Mira planetary report

Mira Planetary Report 3025 year

Recharging station: none

ComStar Facility Class: B

Population: 3 million

Percentage and level of native life: 15% mammal

Note: These refer to land life, like most colonized worlds, native life is replaced with Terran species, nobody bothers with ocean life, unless is relevant somehow. In Mira case, algae are vital to the ecosystem but this means commercial fishing is not practicable as it clogs nets.

Star System Data

Star Type: F6III (subgiant)

Position in System: 4th planet (Mira IV)

Distance from Star: Approximately 3.16 AU (within the habitable zone of an F6III star)

Travel Time to Jump Point: 10 days at 1G acceleration

Mira orbits an F6III subgiant star, larger and brighter than Sol (a G2V star), which extends the habitable zone farther out and increases dropship travel time to the jump point compared to Terra’s 6-8 days. The 10-day journey reflects the standard BattleTech transit model: dropships accelerate at 1G for half the voyage, perform a turnover, and decelerate at 1G to arrive at zero velocity.

Planetary Data

Diameter: 12,000 km (comparable to Terra)

Gravity: 0.9g

Atmosphere: Standard, breathable; slightly thinner than Terra’s but enriched with oxygen due to abundant oceanic algae

Hydrosphere: 85% water coverage

Natural Satellites: Two small moons

Population: 2.8 million (as of 2975)

Government: Part of the Capellan Confederation (liberated by the 1st St. Ives Lancers in 2975)

Mira, the fourth planet in its system, orbits an F6III subgiant star at approximately 3.16 AU, placing it within the habitable zone. Its diameter and gravity (0.9g) are close to Terra’s, making it comfortable for human habitation. The atmosphere, though thinner than Terra’s, supports life with a higher oxygen content due to widespread algal blooms in its vast oceans, which cover 85% of the surface. Two small moons influence tidal patterns, while a strong magnetosphere shields the planet from stellar radiation. In 2975, Mira was liberated by the 1st St. Ives Lancers, integrating it into the Capellan Confederation.

Year Length: 1300 Earth days (3.55 years), with ~325-day seasons, orbiting at ~3.16 AU around a ~2.5 solar mass F6III star.

Axial Tilt: ~23.5°, supporting southern Russia/Crimea-like seasonal cycles.

Latitudinal Climate Gradient:

Temperate Zones (20°–50°N/S): Southern Russia/Crimea-like (5–25°C, 400–800 mm rainfall), with coastal resorts and agriculture.

Mountainous Regions: Caucasus-like, cooler (0–15°C), with snowfall.

Equatorial Zones (0°–20°N/S): Warm, humid (25–35°C, 800–1200 mm rainfall), supporting algal blooms.

Astronomical Quirk: Strong magnetosphere shields against F6III radiation; two moons stabilize orbit and tilt.

Oceanic Nature: 85% water coverage drives albedo, cloud cover, and precipitation, moderating climate for habitability.

Stellar Characteristics and Perception Mira’s parent star, an F6III subgiant, differs significantly from Sol (a G2V star) in ways that shape the planet’s environment and how its sunlight is perceived:

Luminosity: The F6III star is far more luminous than Sol, emitting approximately 20–30 times more light. This increased output pushes the habitable zone farther out, allowing Mira to sustain life at 3.16 AU despite the star’s intensity.

Apparent Size: From Mira’s surface, the star appears larger in the sky than Sol does from Terra. Given the F6III star’s larger physical size and the adjusted distance of the habitable zone, its apparent diameter might be 1.5–2 times that of Sol as seen from Earth, creating a striking visual presence.

Light Temperature: With a surface temperature of 6,500–7,000 K (compared to Sol’s 5,772 K), the star’s light is bluer and more intense. This higher color temperature results in a harsher daylight compared to Terra’s warmer, yellower sunlight. The bluish tint could require adaptations for human comfort—such as tinted visors or specialized architecture—and might influence plant photosynthesis, favoring species adapted to bluer wavelengths.

The sunlight on Mira is indeed harsher due to its intensity and blue-shift, contrasting with Sol’s gentler glow, altering the planet’s aesthetic and environmental dynamics.

Impact of Oceans and Cloud Cover Mira’s extensive oceans, covering 85% of its surface, interact with the star’s intense sunlight to moderate its effects. The brighter, more energetic light drives higher rates of evaporation compared to Terra (which has 71% water coverage), leading to increased cloud formation. This thick cloud cover acts as a natural filter, reflecting a portion of the star’s radiation back into space and diffusing the remaining light. As a result, the harshness of the sunlight is lessened, softening its impact on the surface and contributing to a more temperate climate. This interplay between intense stellar output and planetary water creates a balanced, livable environment despite the star’s power.

Geography

Mira is predominantly a waterworld, with oceans covering 85% of its surface. Its limited landmass consists of archipelagos and small continents, many featuring mountainous terrain. These islands, often volcanic in origin, exhibit active tectonics, akin to Terra’s Oceania region. Volcanic activity is moderate rather than absent, as waterworlds with fragmented landmasses typically experience tectonic movement due to thinner crusts and mantle convection—though less intense than on continents with massive tectonic plates. The scarce flat land is reserved for agriculture and settlements, while the mountains yield coal and metallic ores, though not in quantities sufficient for major industry. Offshore platforms exploit hydrocarbons (oil and gas) from the ocean floor, as the mountainous land lacks significant sedimentary deposits typical of flat terrains where fossil fuels accumulate.

Climate

Mira’s climate is moderated by its extensive oceans, which act as a heat sink to prevent extreme temperature swings. The temperate zones on larger landmasses resemble southern Russia—warm summers and cool winters—while coastal areas and islands enjoy a milder, Crimea-like climate, ideal for resorts. The mountains, similar to the Caucasus, experience cooler temperatures and seasonal snowfall. Despite orbiting a hotter F6III star, Mira’s water coverage balances the climate, making it more pleasant than Tikonov (a harsh world orbiting a G8V star). The temperate zones align with the Kuban and Crimea, offering a respite for Tikonov nobles accustomed to continental rigors.

History

Mira was settled in the early 22nd century by Russian colonists from nearby Tikonov, who named it “Mira”—Russian for “world” and “peace”—reflecting its tranquil appeal. Initially an independent colony, it was annexed by the Marlette Association by 2306. In 2309, the Tikonov Grand Union, under General Diana Chinn, captured Mira after a 23-week campaign, integrating it into their domain. Its proximity to Tikonov (a single jump away) and pleasant environment made it a resort planet, with its continent parceled out into luxury estates for Tikonov nobility.

During the Succession Wars, Mira’s strategic location transformed it into a contested frontier. In 2829, the Bloody Suns mercenary unit invaded, expecting an easy victory over the Third Chesterton Cavalry. The defenders resorted to chemical weapons, prompting Duke Hasek of the Federated Suns to order a nuclear strike, followed by the Eighth Crucis Lancers’ ruthless mop-up. This brutal conflict left a lasting mark. Mira changed hands repeatedly between the Capellan Confederation and Federated Suns, serving as a staging base for attacks on Tikonov. In 2975, it was liberated by the 1st St. Ives Lancers, integrating it into the Capellan Confederation.

Economy

Mira’s economy is modest, shaped by its sparse population and limited resources. Its textile industry, producing high-quality fabrics, has earned it the nickname “clothiers to the galaxy,” with exports reaching across the Inner Sphere.

Sea mining of hydrocarbons via offshore platforms in the shallow waters sustains some light and heavy industry, compensating for the lack of easily extractable mineral resources and fertile arable land, which has prevented major industrial or agricultural development.

Notable Features

Molotosky Water Purification Process: A Mira innovation, widely adopted for its efficiency in water purification.

Luxury Estates: Historic resorts of Tikonov nobles, blending Russian and Asian architectural styles, now cultural landmarks.

Textile Industry: Renowned for craftsmanship, a cornerstone of Mira’s identity.

Cultural Heritage: Reflects its Tikonov settlers’ Eurasian roots, evident in architecture and traditions.

Military Significance

Mira’s proximity to Tikonov makes it a strategic linchpin. Its ports and spaceports support military logistics, and its history as a staging base underscores its value in conflicts between the Capellan Confederation and Federated Suns.

#battletech #inner sphere

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