#Fly Ash Applications

[nnctales]

Exploring the Types and Properties of Fly Ash

Introduction: Fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion in power plants has gained significant importance in various industries due to its versatile properties and environmental benefits. This fine powder, composed of mineral particles, is collected from the flue gas during the combustion process. In this article, we will delve into the different types of fly ash and explore their unique properties…

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#Carbon Emissions Reduction #Chemical Composition #Class C Fly Ash #Class F Fly Ash #Class N Fly Ash #concrete durability #Concrete Strength #Construction materials #Eco-friendly Practices #environmental benefits #Fineness of Fly Ash #fly ash #Fly Ash Applications #Pozzolanic Activity #Properties of Fly Ash #Set Time Control #Strength Development #supplementary cementitious material #Sustainable Construction #Types of Fly Ash

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #ai #economics #business #hype #bubbles #bubblenomics #residue

[swilcomachine]

Overview Of Fly Ash Bricks

Fly ash bricks are increasingly being used in masonry structures today. The higher-quality fly ash bricks are created with an advanced fly ash bricks machine. Fly ash brick is the best red clay brick substitute. It is one of the elements that architects consider while choosing the best materials for their projects.

Indeed, these are widely known, and not only are they in demand in the market but fly ash bricks are also famous. There are many advantages of using fly ash brick over regular clay bricks. Such as fly ash brick leading to the protection of natural resources or the environment.

What is Fly Ash Brick?

Fly ash bricks are masonry materials that are widely used in the construction industry. The Fly ash bricks machine is an essential advanced machine that requires for making fly ash bricks. These bricks typically contain fly ash, sand, dust, and other materials. It is made using recycled materials, so these bricks are environmentally friendly. Also, it is cheaper than the traditional brick manufacturing process.

To see the applications and advantages of fly ash bricks, check our blog:  Overview Of Fly Ash Bricks: Applications And Advantages.

#Fly Ash Bricks #Fly Ash Bricks Applications #Fly Ash Bricks Advantages #Fly Ash Bricks Machine

[crybaby-bkg]

His Muse

Bakugou Katsuki x f!reader Warnings: Yandere Bakugou, Obsessive Tendencies, psychoanalyst therapist reader, smut, extremely dubious consent, stalking, kindapping (tagging to be safe), cunnilingus, unprotected sex, creampies, kitchen sex, strength kink, threats of violence (not to reader). please let me know if I missed anything! Word Count: 6.5k Notes: this isn't a more violent yandere fic, and has lots of bargaining and dub con, just as a warning!! but I can't believe I came up with this idea in November omg I move so slow when it comes to full fics. also I tried gradient style for the title and I love it lol it was so fun to try. anyway, please enjoy!! Minors/blank/ageless blogs DNI! Also available on ao3!

When Bakugou comes to you to be his therapist, you don’t think twice about it. He filled out his application correctly, he answered when you called, his insurance went through, his problems sounded legit. You had become wary taking on new patients in your field—dealing with criminals, those with hardened and extensive records, people with all kinds of issues that an everyday therapist wouldn’t be able to handle accordingly. But you did it all (someone had to), so your vetting process was a little heavier than usual, if the therapy wasn’t state mandated. 

But Bakugou Katsuki passed with flying colors. If anything, he sounded a little too normal for your line of work, but he kept promising that his issues would be better discussed during sessions. With a little hesitance, you agree and take him on. 

He’s…okay, for the most part. A little gruff, rough around the edges and snappy when you try to touch on certain topics of his life. But in general, he’s a great patient; he pays on time, shows up five minutes early, doesn’t linger when your next patient comes buzzing, doesn’t try to touch you or seek out personal information from you. 

If anything, he still seems a bit too strait-laced for you. That is, until he starts to delve into why he really wants to come to therapy—to deal with his tendencies of rage, lashing out, and obsession. You had told him that you didn’t deal much with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, but he had assured you that, no, his obsessions and compulsions weren’t about checking the locks a certain amount of times on a Wednesday, but instead about people. 

He obsessed over people, and when things wouldn’t go his way, his rage would rear its ugly head. He still hasn’t told you what his rage specifically looks like, especially with how he momentarily glances over at your little message pinned on your wall that warns people about admitting criminal acts that you’d have to report, damn the confidentiality. 

“When did these obsessions start?” You ask him, body tilted toward him even though your eyes and hands move to your open computer. You document what he says, take note of it all, skimming over previous notes from other appointments. 

“Maybe about eighteen months ago?” Bakugou’s voice is gravelly, deep and grating against the column of his throat. As he answers, he shoves his hands in his sweats pockets, scoots down a little further on your adjacent couch, looks around the room as if he hadn’t been in here a few times before. 

“So this is a more recent development?” You ask, humming under your breath and nodding when he grunts an affirmation. You type, obsessive tendencies over people started less than two years ago, could be trauma based, and you wonder if he can read the words through the reflection of your glasses when you look over to see his eyebrows screwed down. 

“Was it sudden for you?” You cock your head to the side, before shaking your head. “Let me rephrase; did these tendencies ever show their faces in other aspects of your life? Different time periods, situations? Or was it just a sudden thing that happened, something you realized once the obsession had already begun?” He starts nodding his head before you can even finish, his ash blond bangs shadowing his eyes for a second in such a way that sends a prickle of chills up your arms. You don’t know why, so you try to swallow the feeling down until it burns at the back of your throat, shifting a little in your cushioned seat. Bakugou watches you for a second before he opens his mouth to speak. 

“It was sudden.” He answers, plainly, doesn’t offer up much else until you cock an eyebrow at him, signaling for him to go on. He rolls his eyes and huffs under his breath, shifting again before he shrugs dramatically with his hands still in his pockets. 

“I dunno, I was fuckin’ normal until I wasn’t.” You chuckle a little at his tone, crossing your legs under the desk, watching how Bakugou’s vermillion eyes dart down to catch the sight of them, before they slide back up to your face. 

“You’ve been in a relationship before?” You state more than ask, eyebrows slid high on your face in question, watching Bakugou roll his eyes a little before he nods. 

“Yeah.” He offers, his mouth set in a thin line, obviously not wanting to offer up too much information on the topic. 

“How many?” You push. How the hell does he expect you to help him when he keeps giving you short answers, nothing to work with? Why even seek out your help if he acts like being here is such a nuisance to deal with?

“Two.” Bakugou says through gritted teeth, eyes cutting at the decorations you have hung on the walls. “What does this have to do with anything, anyway?” He spits, cuts his eyes at you once more as you narrow your own at him. 

“I’m trying to find a connection between your sudden obsessive tendencies with your relationships with people in the world.” You clarify for him, sitting up a little in your seat as his own irritation bubbling off of him starts to sink into your pores, too. 

“People rarely have sudden personality flips and switches with no leading causes beforehand. Did these tendencies start because of preexisting mommy issues that were suddenly uncovered after being repressed for years? Were you in a long and committed relationship, which ended in such a way that it wasn’t necessarily on your terms, even if it was ultimately your own call? Was it an accident you were in? Have you always been like this and never realized it? Do you understand what I’m saying, Katsuki?” 

…

Bakugou isn’t taking in a single word that you’re telling him. He wishes he could; he’s sure you’re saying some real shit that he should most likely take into consideration. But its so hard to focus when you look at him like that, when your neck rolls a little with every word, when your foot bounces under the desk, the way your lips curve just so. 

You’re the reason he’s even here right now. The bane of his fuckin’ existence, but also the  only thing that matters to him in the world. 

You are his obsession. His muse, his fantasy, his daydream turned reality. And it’s all your fucking fault. With how you prance around your home with your curtains open, wearing nothing but slutty little shirts and no bra, no pants, just panties that sink into the curves of your ass and thighs. How you just go about your life without a care in the fucking world, always so oblivious to everything around you. 

You hadn’t even noticed him, the months he spent watching over you. Didn’t catch his lingering stares, or how his ash blond head of hair always seemed to be at least ten feet behind you with every step you took. How your long time neighbor from across the hall suddenly disappeared, how a new tenant moved in when he knew you’d be out. How you forget entirely too often to lock your door, to put your used panties in the hamper. How you tease him with everything, how you’ve been fucking leading him on for over a year and a half now. 

So, he had to get desperate. Had to search you up and find what qualifications he needed in order to be seen by you, a psychoanalytical therapist for those who want to be reformed. 

But Bakugou had no plans on reformation. There was nothing for him to be reformed on. He just wanted you, and goddamnit, if he wasn’t going to have you. 

“I understand you, doc. Loud and clear.”

***

It was your day off, and you had plans on spending it in your bed, catching up on some reading and maybe finishing that one show you started a while ago. But, lunch time came around, and you were craving something specific and didn’t have all the ingredients that you needed. You figured you could go out to the grocery store to grab them, get some fresh air on the way there, and maybe stop at that book shop you had been eyeing for a while. 

You get ready quickly, closing your front door behind you, pausing for a second to stare at the door across the hall. You still can’t believe Ms. Hayashi had so suddenly moved out, especially after living in this complex since it was first built. She hadn’t even said goodbye, and you never got the chance to return the Tupperware she lended you. 

It wouldn’t have been as weird if someone hadn’t supposedly moved in the next day. You were a gossip with your landlord, a nice older lady, and she gave you all up the updates on the people who lived in the complex. She had said that he was a nice guy, kind of scary and intimating in stature, but respectful the whole time. Said that he didn’t even look at the apartment before giving her the first six months rent and despot in cash. She told you to ever call her if you smelled meth cooking from that apartment, as no one who works a regular job just has that kind of money laying around. 

You shrug to yourself, coming to the conclusion that maybe the new owner just needed to get out of town, away from somewhere or someone else. Everyone has their reasonings, and you can’t analyze every single move someone you haven’t even met before has ever made. 

You continue down the steps until you’re out of the building, unaware of the crimson eyes that follow your every movement. The walk to the store is a little longer than you’d like for it to be, but you figure that the exercise can do you some justice, and it’s always nice being out in nature. You stop and pick a flower that grows from a crack in the sidewalk, twirling it in your finger the whole way to the store, finally tucking it behind your ear when you have to grab a grocery cart. 

And still—and still—you don’t see the eyes that watch you. The figure that follows your every move, that disappears behind walls and aisles every time you turn your back. You feel it though, he can tell, because you move a little quicker and look over your shoulder more than usual. 

You go to the self checkout, trying to hurry now, as an uneasy feeling starts to wash over you. You get these often, especially working in the field that you do with the patients that you choose to take on—hardened criminals, fresh out of jail and still ready to harm society, people that just like to see the world burn for the fun of it. 

The therapist is typically one of the first few people to be taken out, after parents. You’re always too high on the list for your liking, despite loving your job. 

You keep trying to scan an item, but it’s not working, and that only makes your panic settle in deeper into your bones. You try to remember the techniques that you give people when they start to feel overwhelmed by their emotions and what goes on in their heads, but its hard when that sinking feeling only grows deeper and heavier by the moment until—

“Need some help with that?” You jump away quickly, eyes wide as you hold up the can of soup you were gripping tightly like a weapon. You let out a breath though, only in slight relief, to see that its one of your patients standing beside you—Bakugou Katsuki. He looks different than he usually does in your sessions together; he’s wearing a tight compression shirt that hugs his wide shoulders, navy blue in color, sweatpants that wrap around the thick muscles in his thighs, and plain running shoes. 

For some reason though, the panic in your stomach doesn’t fully quell at the sight of him. 

“No, I got it. Thanks though, Bakugou.” You tell him politely, smiling shakily. Why does the sight of him unnerve you so bad? You’ve run into patients before on the street, and they never make you feel like this, this uneasy, even when it was dark and you were dressed more scantily than you are now, with your baggy pants and too big shirt. 

“You sure?” He grunts, cocking his head at you as he gently pries the can from your still tight grip. “I watched you struggle with it for like, two minutes. Let me.” He tells you, never taking his eyes off of you as he scans your item easily enough. He only looks away when he bags it for you, and starts to scan the rest of your things as if you weren’t standing there. 

“Oh no, it’s okay, I can finish that myself.” You wave him off him with a shaky smile, finally breaking out of your stupor when he’s damn near finished. You reach out to stop him, but Bakugou only waves you away with a grunt. 

“’S alright. It’s the least I can do for you helping me figure my crazy out.” Bakugou shrugs at you, a joke you’re presuming, as he glances over at you with a tiny lilt at the corner of his mouth. It calms you, only for a second, before something ever so slightly changes in his eyes, in the way he looks at you and takes you in, makes you feel like something sinister is sinking deep into your bones. Your stomach tightens again, and you have to force a smile when he finishes, before it drops when you see him reaching for his wallet. 

“Oh, I really can’t let you pay for my groceries.” You tell him, stepping up to him before pausing when he looks at you out of the corner of his eye with an expression so terrifying, that it makes stone drop into the pit of your belly. 

“Let me.” Bakugou tells you more than asks you, and you nod slowly, swallowing the thickness that has settled into the back of your throat. You can only watch as he pulls out a wad of cash, counting through it before inserting it into the machine, mouth set in a thin line all the while. You try to take him in, figure out where his own groceries are to be in this section, where all this money is coming from, if his address that he put on the file is even anywhere near this area. 

It’s not. 

“Cmon.” Bakugou snaps you out of your trance, big veiny hands holding all of your groceries as he nods his head to the exit. You’re stuck there, wondering if this is really happening, if these are just boundaries being crossed or a crime about to be committed. You feel tears stinging at your eyes as you try to blink them away, hiccuping slightly as you slowly shake your head. 

“Please give me my groceries, Bakugou.” You don’t even recognize your own voice, soft and shaky and purely terrified. Bakugou fixes you with another deadly expression but this time—this time he smiles at you, and its everything but friendly. All big white teeth and too sharp incisors, all falsely charming and all weaponry, all threat with no escape from his drooling maw. 

“I think we should go home, now. Don’t you?” He asks you with a cock of his head, body still turned to the exit, his stature eery with how the veins in his neck throb with every second you stay rooted in your spot. “Before something happens to these nice people in here, right? Before they have to bear witness to a massacre, all because you don’t want to walk home with me.”

You have to bite back your sob that bubbles up in your throat. You’re terrified of what will happen to you, but you’re a caretaker first. You have to put yourself before these people, put yourself before the monster that wants you as a sacrifice before he burns an entire village down for you. 

So you nod, and take the hand offered to you as he switches the groceries to one hand, just to squeeze yours in the other. 

You leave out of the grocery store with tears muddled in your eyes, a quivering chin that you try to conceal, hope no one wants to be a hero and find themselves hurt, or worse, because you can’t school your expressions. 

This was taught in a psychology course you took in college, you remember. One of your classes after you started working on your highest degree—what to do in real life situations as a psychologist. How to avoid more conflict when a patient is erratic. How to deescalate. How to survive. 

Everything you’ve ever learned has gone out the window now. 

You and Bakugou walk down the street hand in hand, looking like a normal couple for the most part, besides your trembling jaw and shaky steps. You glance up to him, watching him squint in the sunlight before he glances down at you, squeezing your hand gently, as if to comfort you, as if he weren’t the cause of your panic. You notice that he’s walking right in the direction of your apartment, as if the route were memorized. 

“How do you know where I live?” You ask shakily, mouth full of cotton as Bakugou keeps his head forward, grinning. He glances at you again, eyes bouncing between the delicate flower tucked behind your ear, and the terrified expression your eyes carry. 

“I should be asking you the same thing.” He shrugs nonchalantly, doesn’t offer up anymore information until you stand outside of your building. “You know, for you to be a therapist to fuckin’ weirdos, you don’t watch your back good enough for my liking.” 

You didn’t think your stomach could sink any lower, but it does. It does when the realization settles, when his words kick in—that he’s been watching you, but for how long? How could you not have noticed? Did he even contact you because he needed help, or was this only a way to grow closer to you, to his obsession?

Before you know it, Bakugou has walked you up the stairs until you reached your floor. Your body turns to instinctively to your door, but you’re pulled in the other direction. 

“Wha—” you go to ask Bakugou, before you notice he’s set your groceries down to fiddle with the key to…to the apartment across the hall from you. You feel the tears flood again, letting them flow this time since no one is around to try and save you and put themselves in harms way anymore. 

“It’s been you? This whole time?” You ask slowly, starting to pull away when Bakugou opens the door to Ms. Hayashi’s apartment, still decorated the same before she mysteriously disappeared—you don’t think its so mysterious anymore.

“Of course it’s been me.” Bakugou scoffs as he grips your hand tighter, pulling you closer until you near the doorway. “I had to watch  over you—do you know how careless you are with everything? With your life?” He snarls, whirling around on you when you plant your feet and try to keep him from pulling you into his lions den. Bakugou is all snarls and teeth, invokes such a deep fear within you that you can’t help but shrink under his gaze. 

“Now come on. I’ve been waiting for this for entirely too long.” His voice is downright salacious, eyes turning sharp and hungry, and in a way that makes you feel like nothing more than hunted prey. 

Bakugou damn near drags you within the apartment, despite your whimpering and pulling at him—he’s just too strong. He walks you a few feet inside before he dumps the groceries on a coffee table, finally letting go of your hand so that he can lock the door, emerging a key from his sweatpants pocket to one of the many, many locks, an insurance policy of you never leaving him unless he allows it. 

You try to put on your therapist boots for a minute, swallowing your fear as you try to reason with him, swallowing thickly when he turns around and takes your trembling form in. 

“Bakugou,” you start shakily, “this doesn’t have to end bad for us. You can just let me go, and we can pretend this never happened. I won’t report you, or anything. Please, please, PLEASE!” 

He comes rushing at you before you know it, on you in seconds, despite trying to turn and outrun him before he pounces. But it’s too late and he’s too big and too overwhelming, and he grabs you up in his arms, shushing your screaming with his mouth pressed against yours. 

So this is what he wants, you think to yourself, terrified to say you’re slightly relieved. You’ve worked with men who liked to torture women for fun, and you were scared that he was secretly one of them, but it looks like he just wants—

“You.” Bakugou whispers with a swallow against your mouth, hot and breathy. “I want you so fuckin’ bad, wanted this for so long, fuck.” He’s wrapping you up within him in seconds, arms crushing your ribs, tongue sneaking into your mouth, hands grabbing handfuls of whatever he can reach. 

You’re stunned, mostly. Finally putting the pieces together of everything that is Bakugou, his coming to you about his obsessions, his secrecy despite needing your help, the way he always looked at you, how he devours you now like a mere schoolboy. It all makes sense now. You pull away from him, eyes round and wide as you take in his lowered ones, how he dives back in to nip at your jaw and chin and cheek. 

“I’m your obsession.” You whisper shakily, hands on his shoulders, despite them making no moves to move the large man back. Bakugou groans at that, damn near sinks to his knees at your realization, wraps you up even tighter as he buries his face into the skin of your neck. 

“Fuckin’ finally. Thought you would’ve caught on sooner by now, dumbass.” He scolds you, licking up the expanse of your skin as you shiver and try to back away. But Bakugou only holds you tighter, and you whimper at the bulge that nudges your hip. 

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve—could’ve worked on exposure therapy, had someone there to monitor you for our safety, could’ve—”

“Too much work. I just want you.” Bakugou moans, nipping at your skin, grabbing handfuls of your ass when you squeak. He walks you backwards until your back meets a wall, the breath being knocked out of you as you gasp, eyes wide when he finally pulls away from your skin. 

You’ve never seen him like this, all fucked out and relaxed and even a little excited. Always saw him with a bored or irritated expression, one of indifference. But now, Bakugou looks high on euphoria, with kiss swollen lips and low eyelids as he takes in your still shocked expression. 

“Let me taste you,” Bakugou rushes out in a quick breath, diving in once more to lick at your mouth before he pulls away, big hands squeezing at your waist and ass excitedly. He’s like a dog with a bone, like a pup with no master, waiting for you to give the command, the permission to go. 

You wonder if you have more control of this situation than you originally thought. So you try your hand, see how far you can push before you can wiggle your way out of this entire thing and get the chance to call the police. 

“Bakugou,” you start, quickly being cut off by him with a sharp nip to your chin. 

“Katsuki,” he corrects. You nod. 

“Katsuki, if I—if I let you do this, this one thing of…of tasting me, will you promise to let me go?” You try to reason with him, cupping his cheek when his eyes wander over your form instead of your face, leaning into your touch instinctively. 

“We can,” you pause with a swallow. “I can do this. I can create a therapy plan for you, for your obsession over me, and it can be fully consenting and healthy, but you have to let me help you and let me take control.” You try to reason with Bakugou, hope he understands what you’re saying, that he won’t catch on to this just being a trick. But he only groans and turns his head, sucking your thumb into his mouth, eyes fluttering shut at your gasp before he releases you with a pop. He turns half lidded vermillion eyes to you, frowning as he rests his heavy head in your palm. 

“Whatever you fuckin’ say, just let me taste you, goddamnit.” He mutters petulantly. You can only hold your breath, wonder if what you’re agreeing will hurt you in the long run before you nod. 

“You can—you can taste me, Katsuki.” 

You think you might’ve sealed the deal with a devil, with the way you can practically see horns protruding from his forehead and a tail flickering behind him when he drops to his knees. Bakugou is too quick for your liking, yanks your pants around your ankles too fast, hurries you out of them, rips your underwear away from your skin until it tears and falls limply in a pile on the floor. 

You squeak when his face is suddenly pressed right against your cunt, his nose buried into your pubic hair, the sound of a big sniff echoing throughout the room. You can’t help but cringe, but don’t dare push him away—people need to be exposed to all aspects of things in order to overcome them, even if those things are sniffing what lies between your legs. 

“Fuck, smells so good.” Bakugou grunts under his breath, huffing a few times before he forces your legs further apart until you can accommodate the wide expanse of his shoulders. You grunt from the stretch, trying to make yourself comfortable, but Bakugou picks up on it quickly, and grabs your knee to hike your leg over his shoulder to rest on. 

It creates a better angle for him anyway, with your lips glistening with your arousal—you were aroused. Turned on by him just as much as he was with you. You were wet, even if it’s not as much as he would prefer, as he would get you to that amount in only a matter of time. 

You throbbed when his tongue traced the hood of your clit, of your lips, your folds. You twitch hard against his mouth when he keeps licking and licking at you, until your slickness and his spit mingle and he doesn’t know where you end and where he begins. Until it makes a mess of his mouth and chin and the floor below him, and you, with your pretty moans and grabbing hands. 

Bakugou has waited for this moment longer than he can really care to remember, at this point in time. Waited to worship you on his knees, be able to look up from between your soft thighs and see the scrunch of your brows when he sucks your clit between his lips and runs over it with the flatness of his tongue. 

It’s an addictive feeling, really. Makes him feel higher than any drug could ever take him, makes his eyes roll back and his cock throb so hard that he has to grab it from beneath his sweats to keep from busting his load already. 

You can only stand there and take it—take the incessant licking around your hole, and the dipping of his tongue inside of you, and the sweet little kisses he plants on your clit. You try to reason with yourself, convince yourself that this is an improvised session with a client that needed your help so badly that you decided to take him on your day off. Try to tell yourself that this is all apart of the therapy that he needs in order to get over you. 

You only hope that the taste of you doesn’t become so addictive, that your plans for him will go flying out the window the moment you try to reason with him. 

But its hard to reason even with yourself when Bakugou is sliding a thick, middled finger inside of your dripping hole as he noisily sucks your clit between his lips. You cry out at that, knees wobbling, but he’s there to catch you with his free hand, his shoulder. Holds you up steady like a pillar as he lashes his tongue against you, twists his finger, curves it slowly, before he’s adding another one before you can even register what’s happening to you. 

“Shit, Katsuki,” you moan out, cursing yourself for letting him make you feel so good, for getting so wrapped up in this ‘therapy’. You can only hope that the board doesn’t take your license if they were to ever find out about it. 

“Thats it, baby, ride my fingers just like that.” Bakugou breaks you out of your trance with his groan. You hadn’t even realize how your hips were moving against him, grinding down on his digits that curl up inside of you, that slide against that swelling spot that makes your knees weak and your eyes cross.

“Gods, you’re so fuckin’ sexy.” Bakugou whispers against your mound, trailing spit from his mouth down to your clit once more, eyes never leaving the pleasured look on your face. 

Did you know he imagined this, in damn near every session he’s ever had with you? While it wasn’t plenty of sessions (he had only started seeing you about six months ago), it was all he could think of. Every Tuesday at 2:45pm, in office number 218, first door on the right, the mint green office—all he could think of was you. Even when you asked him questions with a professional and friendly smile, even when you were covered head to toe, even when you ripped him a new one for his shitty answers and responses. 

This was all he wanted, all he craved to see. The way your mouth dropped open when he starts damn near directing you in how he wants you to ride his fingers. How your hips move and swivel and tremble when he keeps bringing his fingers close to his face, inside of you. How you grip so tightly at his hair and pull when he won’t stop sucking and licking and messily kissing your clit. How he damn near makes out with your hole, tongue drooling and smacking against your soaked skin until he feels himself about to burst in his pants. 

This was all he wanted, and Bakugou always gets what he wants. Even if its you—especially if it’s you. 

“I’m—oh, I think I’m—shit!” Your brain is damn near fried when you start to orgasm, an earth shattering moan slipping from your throat as you throw your head back, hips bucking against Bakugou’s face and hands. He has to hold your entire body up steadily, fears that you may fall from how hard you’re coming, how you shake in his arms. 

His fingers are steady inside of you, and only slows when you start to finally come down from your high. Bakugou kisses the inside of your thigh sweetly, nibbles at it when you groan and complain about feeling too weak from the intensity. But that’s not a problem for him at all. 

“Hey—what are you—” Bakugou cuts you off with a wet kiss pressed to your mouth when he stands to his full height. His tongue slides against yours and you can’t help but moan when you taste yourself on him. He doesn’t give you a chance to step away and try to slink back to your own apartment, instead hoisting you up quickly in his arms as he starts to walk to a room behind you. 

Before you can protest, you’ve been dumped on the kitchen table, Bakugou pressing you down with a hand to your sternum when you try to sit up, shooting you another one of those eery looks from earlier. You still instantly, before slowly lowering yourself back down on the table, eyes wide again when he levels you with a stare for a beat longer before he steps back to yank his shirt over his head. 

“I thought,” you mumble, trying not to stare at how well built Bakugou is, how his biceps might literally be bigger than your entire head. “I thought that we agreed for you to only, um, taste me, and then you’d stop.” Its hard finding your voice when Bakugou stares at you like that again, not scarily, but hungry like before. Hard to fight back and push him away when he grabs your shirt in two hands and rips and pulls until your torso is exposed, like the fabric meant nothing to him. 

You clench your thighs at the display of strength and hope that he doesn’t notice. (He does). 

Bakugou shrugs at you, pulls your bra down until your tits are on display, grabbing a handful of each and massaging them in warm, sweaty palms. He ducks his head down and gives a sweet kiss to both of your nipples, licking one crudely before he stands back up to his full height, your breasts still in his hands. You think he must’ve forgotten what you said, or simply didn’t care to answer, but he surprises you when he squeezes your tits tightly and speaks, 

“Think I need a little more exposure before I have to be reduced to doses only, doc.” Is all Bakugou gives you, squeezing your chest one last time before he pulls away. You try not to show the panic on your face when he reaches to pull his sweats down until they bunch around his corded thighs, cock damn near bursting from its confinements. 

Bakugou reaches inside of his boxers, biting at his bottom lip when he touches it directly for the first time since he’s gotten you, groans a little at your gasp when he fully exposes himself. He’s thick, curved a little to the side, his head a dark flushed color, a fat vein forking up the side of his shaft. He rests his cock over you, makes a soft little noise in the back of his throat when the precum slides from his tip and pools in the dip of your bellybutton. 

“Shit, I love you so fuckin’ much,” Bakugou mutters under his breath as he positions himself at your entrance. Your eyes bulge at his confession, but before you can even touch on what he’s said, he’s already sliding his way inside of you. 

Your head falls against the kitchen table, the dull pain quiet compared to the overwhelming pleasure that settles low in your pelvis. You groan, thighs hooked around Bakugou’s waist as he fucks his way inside of you, a moan on his tongue as he watches the way your lips split and suck him inside so, so sweetly. 

“Sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t wait anymore,” Bakugou mutters against your mouth. As he soon as he settles inside of you, he’s pulling out until his tip kisses your entrance, before he fucks his way back in. You shudder, his cock warm and heavy inside of you, his tip brushing against your sweet spot with every stroke until you start to cling to him and ask for more, more, more. 

And Bakugou gives it to you, with feral growls, hiking your legs up higher until they rest on his shoulders, hunching over you with every wet slap of his balls against your ass. The position forces him even deeper, makes your feet dangle entirely too close to your face, Bakugou leaning over to kiss you sweetly on the ankle. 

“So, fuck, what’s the diagnosis, doc?” Bakugou taunts you, grinning down at you when you blink bleary eyes up at him. He’s sweaty and golden and has a halo of light behind his ash blond hair from the overhead light. He’s prettier than you want to admit, but its hard trying to keep a face of professionalism when his cock keeps kissing your sweet spot and his chest pressed against yours makes your nipples harder than rocks. 

“Huh? What happened to that fucking smart ass that would lecture me in our sessions?” He teases, smile wide and feral as he holds your cheeks tightly between his thick fingers. He forces your mouth into a pout, kissing it, when you blabber nonsense up at him. 

“Fucked you dumb already? All those years of college right out the door, huh, baby?” Bakugou’s so mean, makes you whine and claw at his shoulders and nape. You could answer him, give him your professional opinion—not like you even had one in the first place—but he makes it so hard to think. When his cock is balls deep inside of you, when he looks at you with his teasing and yet adoring little grin, when he keeps shaking your face at him with a taunting coo, when he sneaks a hand between your bodies to circle your clit. 

“It’s okay; I can think for you. You don’t have to use that pretty little head even once when you’re with me.” Bakugou’s coos sweetly, reaches down and pecks your forehead and mouth when you whimper pathetically up at him with teary eyes. 

“Gonna cum? Yeah?” He asks you, hips never faltering as he fucks you into the table, his mouth pressed against yours as you grab him tightly, feeling the oncoming orgasm starting to flood your system. 

“Yeah,” you whine softly against his mouth through your puckered lips, making Bakugou groan as he fucks you through your orgasm. You tighten up around him so deliciously, sound so pretty with your fucked out moans and hoarse voice, look so gorgeous all high out of your mind and pliant on his kitchen counter. 

How could he ever remember to pull out?

You try to protest when Bakugou holds you tight and starts to cum inside of you, but your complaints fall on deaf ears. He only holds you tighter against him, groaning loud in the skin of your neck as his cock spurts his hot seed deep inside of you. When he finishes, he collapses on top of you, breathy and sweaty, and you’re in no better position. Its quiet for a while, despite your legs and back aching, and the cooling feeling of his cum starting to spill from around his softening cock still buried inside of you. 

“So,” Bakugou starts, and you’re almost fearful of what he might say next. “Can you start scheduling my appointments to your apartment instead of your office now?” 

You’re at least a little thankful that he has plans to let you go back to your life, even if he’s forcing himself to be apart of every little aspect of it. You nod tiredly, wondering how and if you’re going to tell your boss. 

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

#—new treat in the streets! 🍫 #bakugou treats! 🍬 #tw: yandere #tw: stalking #tw: dubcon

[carionto]

Someone has to clean up our messes...

George Rhoedigher and his team had the most unenviable of jobs - investigating, reporting, and cleaning up (in legalese) any "oopsies" Humanity "accidented". Barely over a year among the star civilizations and our rap sheet is longer than some million year old empires. Good job us.

This latest incident he's been dispatched to is the biggest yet - a whole planet-wide fire. In a sense, also the simplest and most straightforward - three dinosaur lunes shot lasers at an oxygen overabundant planet and then logic caught up.

The problem George has with any of these is that he has to try to make it less damning in the eyes of the Coalition. If he and fellow investigator-lawyers just reported the facts as is, Humans doing science outside Sol would be banned in a heartbeat, which the Government is very insistent we retain the ability to do, without utilizing our superior fleets. We'd rather avoid outright becoming the "Bad Guys" if we can, "Crazy Deathworlders" is enough.

Anyway, planet Ramforinkus was pure ash on the surface and what's left of the atmosphere was toxic as hell. Supposedly there's still plenty of bio activity below ground, so it should recover in some form or fashion over time, but still, the before and after images are grim - lush, clear green and blue, now hazy gray and brown.

The statements from the three scientists in charge aren't helpful either:

Everie Jackobson: "I was working on reversing the evolutionary tree of these peacocks, I'm pretty sure they'll become pterodactyls if I push them the right way! Hmm? So what if it caught fire again, it does that all the time. [George points him to the view port] Oh, that's a bit more than normal. Anyway... [George leaves after a minute of Everie rambling to himself]"

Henrietta Fink: "There comes a time when life must adapt to its surroundings. But this damned planet kept changing its environment all the time, none of my babies could survive the swift changes in air composition! I asked Gieverne to help me figure out a way to stabilize the planet."

Gieverne Drostierne: "At first I misted an area with a mutating chemical compound to get the plants to produce less Oxygen, but the change didn't last more than a generation, so I did the next best thing: injected a genetic catalyst into a swarm of flying ants we keep around and let loose several colonies around the planet.

For whatever reason, the ants instead mutated [George visibly shudders hearing about mutant ants again] and started replacing the flora of the planet. Look, I even got a few queens before torching the planet and seeding it with the original flora. The ants turned green and have little leaves just behind their wings and can theoretically survive perpetually anywhere with a bit of air! Look at those leaves flap, ain't they cute?"

...

George sighs. Getting the truth is always pretty easy from these science folk, but it's always something blatantly stupid like that. He's gonna have to do some serious mental gymnastics to make this incident not be another clear-cut example of "Irrefutable Proof Humans Are Not Allowed To Do Science Anywhere!"

Hmm... In cases like these the best way around fines and sanctions is to provide results that arise from these "accidents". What researches take via creating the most catastrophic disasters, they give back through thorough data recording and analysis for practical applications.

Here's hoping there's enough Aliens who are as big fans of dinosaurs as many Humans are.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #humans are deathworlders #humanity fuck yeah #carionto #story #dinosaur planet #science fantasy #for science

[hella1975]

Who knows if you’ve already fielded an ask like this but I just listened to my tears ricochet and Touya Todoroki himself popped out of the lyrics to punch me right in the face. Like yeah the song’s written kinda romantically (“babe,” “diamond rings”, etc) but actually it’s not romantic at all because it’s about Touya and Endeavor!!!

“If I’m on fire you’ll be made of ashes too?” “I swear I loved you ‘til my dying day?” “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace, and you’re the hero flying around saving face?” “If I’m dead to you why are you at the wake (see: my shrine)?” “Cursing my name, wishing I stayed?” “And I can go anywhere I want, just not home?” “You [have] to kill me but it [kills] you just the same?”

I’m never going to be able to listen to this song the same way ever again.

LITERALLY YOU'RE SO RIGHT like sometimes when i apply a very popular blorbo song to a blorbo it is literally just because it's one of the popular blorbo songs but this is TRULY his song. every single lyric is applicable i want to tear my hair out

#ive also always liked the title of this song bc 'ricochet' implies violence despite tears not really being capable of HURTING #they're only capable of SHOWING hurt yet bc of the wording of the title it's like. no. im hurting and it's your problem #im gonna make you hurt too #and that's sooooo touya #YOU'RE THE HERO FLYING AROUND SAVING FACE. PUNCHING MYSELF #ask #touya todoroki

[cupoftrembling]

The first thing Vera noticed was the flies.

Mariposa was not a particularly humid city, despite what its place on the coast of the Screaming Seas might lead you to believe. It was often cooler, even into the summertime, with wafting breeze coming from across the rocks on the Butterfly Bay. In fact, it is that cool breeze that allowed the city to become something of a mercantile hub, with the tradewinds stretching far across the continent, from the Coalition of Eastern Regencies to the Empire of Night. The air does not stick to the lungs, sweat does not coat the back of your head when you toil.

And yet, there the flies were. In the sticky, sweet air in Manor Tyra, just in the corner of the room, she saw them buzzing around a vent in the wall, flying in and out of the metal opening. They almost seem to dance, their humming almost melodic in its grating. They disperse across the room as they leave the air vent, maybe three, maybe four. One lands on a blood red chrysanthemum, one lands right on the cheek of the large painting of Rosalind Tyra, one lands on the brow of the head butler.

“Why do you want this position, Miss Hershal?” The head butler asks. If he notices it, if his brow twitching is in response to the little bug, Vera does not know. She did not quite get his name, with the introductions having been drowned out by the flies' incessant din. 

Vera responds, but not in any way she can really articulate. Something about dreams, as if every moment in Vera’s life was leading to her dusting and cooking. The buzzing of the flies has turned musical almost, as if their wings were harmonizing with the dust in the air, in the oscillation of the light coming from dim bulbs, in the growl of her stomach. Work was hard to find in Mariposa, but the corporate lords pay well.

The head butler coughs again, this time with less politeness and more hoarse. It is stern enough to bring Vera back to herself, as if he knew she was somewhere else. “So, Miss Hershal.”

Vera looks back towards the butler, still straining one ear to listen to the buzzing. “Please, Vera is alright I think.”

Behind the head butler, Rosalind’s daughter taps her finger just once. Enough to be almost imperceptible, save for the fact that she had not moved this whole conversation. The head butler scowles just slightly. “We prize objectivity here, Miss Vera. We may be a family, but we need to keep things courteous.”

Vera nods, a slight, warm and red blush creeps across the bridge of her nose. “Oh, then yea, um. Miss Hershal works.”

Rosalind’s daughter smiles. Besides her foot is a hunter’s ax. It leans against her leather boot. And even at this distance, Vera smells something of ash. The head butler continues. “Out of all the applicants, you’ve been selected for Rosalind’s personal aide. You must feel honored.”

Vera nods. “Oh yes! Very, very.” Her voice is dripping with faux sincerity.

“Technically, you’re the personal aide for the Tyra family as well.” The head butler rejoined. “Including Crimson, here. You serve at their pleasure. Tyra Logistics and Transportation welcomes you.”

The woman behind the head butler smiles and raises a single finger in recognition. Her grin is plastered in red rouge. She opens her mouth to say something, her teeth are pearlescent, almost clear. A single smudge of the lipstick marks her canine. “Charles.” Her voice is soft, lacking in any of the formality that the head butler prided himself in. “I might be getting ahead of myself, but-”

Vera’s face dropped, her hands fidgeted in her lap. The fabric of her dress was threadbare and hand hewn, her boots, which were still tapping on the ground in tune with the fragrant buzzing, were had nails driven through the sole. “A-Ahead of yourself?” Vera manages to get out. She brings her hands to her mouth in shock at the interruption. Tyra smiles.

“Really, Miss Tyra?” The head butler nods, refusing to look over his shoulder at the corporate lord behind him. 

“Oh of course I’m sure.” Crimson rejoins. She looks back towards Vera. “I think I’m ready to welcome you to the family, my attendant.”

Vera looks back at the woman. Crimson’s face is unreadable. It has a smile on it, and narrow eyes. But no actual emotion is anywhere to be found. She reaches over to her discarded glass of wine on the end table beside her. It is red and full bodied. One of the flies has landed on the surface, struggling to break the surface tension. Tyra brings the glass to her lips as the fly thrashes, as if she does not notice. A single drop of the bordeaux lands on her cheek. Her skin is like cotton, it absorbs the wine just as fast. 

“There are, of course, responsibilities to the task.” The head butler rejoins. Crimson brings the wine glass just below her lips. The fly has stopped thrashing. Its buzz still rings, maybe even a bit louder. “An important position such as this can’t just go to anyone.”

“If you don’t mind me being so bold.” Vera asks, fighting back a smug smile. “If it's so important, why me?”

Crimson looks back towards the portrait behind her. Her mother’s kind face. It’s eyes are locked on Vera. Wine drips from the edges of Crimsons’ lips. The edge of Vera’s body was thrumming in time with the gnashing tune on the fly’s wings. She looks back up towards the vent in the corner of the room. A maggot falls out between the metal slats. Vera licks her lips slightly. Behind her, a single petal falls from off the chrysanthemum. The sound it makes while falling is the exact same note as the buzzing of the fly’s wings. Crimson scowles at the painting.

“Call it a mother’s intuition.” 

A pen click. The butler coughs. “Are you still interested?”

Vera turns towards the head butler and smiles. “Yea, I am, I think.”

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

The servants quarters were surprisingly large. 

The last place Vera worked at, a home of a minor ambassador from a foreign land, was little more than a broom closet with a gas range. The air smells like sulfur and blood, laiden so thick that you could taste it on the back of your tongue.

The Tyra Manor did not smell like sulfur and the quarters had their own kitchen attached to it. Vera counted six additional bodies in the communal space. One was smoking a cigarette, one was playing chess with another. Each were young, attractive types, like Crimson Tyra was. Hard bodies, pretty hair. Obsessively clean, as well. One held a glass up to the light, his fingernails were bitten to stumps with not a speck of dirt or grime underneath them. That melodic buzzing could still be heard here, yet it didn’t seem to bother anyone in the room. Each of them were conversing, rapt entirely in their companionship. Vera could have been a fly on the wall for all she knew. She placed her bag on the ground next to the door, enough to be out of sight from the hallway, lest any of the Tyra’s see her belongings.

It was the man at the window between the kitchen and the common area who noticed her first. His teeth were perfectly aligned, and only slightly yellowed. His eyes had a slight band of copper between the iris and the sclera, and his eyelashes were long and inviting. He extended his hand up to beckon her further. It was at that moment, the other’s in the servants quarters turned to look at her. Not all in unison, mind you. But with a noticeable, almost deliberate delay in their towards her. Not unlike when an actor knows he is to be cut off in the script.

“New girl, right?” The man with the pretty eyes said as if they were waiting for her. Vera began walking towards him before he had even called her over. Yet when he spoke, when the words dripped from his mouth, she stopped, acutely aware of her movement. She felt them watch her and felt almost comforted by it. To be the center of their obsession, if but for a moment. The man continued, his smile still wide and boisterous.“Come come, get a drink in you.” 

She walks up to the window to the kitchen, as if this room was repurposed from some entertaining space. There were no stools next to the window, so Vera opted to stand. She wants to tell them she doesn’t drink, but can’t find it in her to lie. “Are we supposed to be drinking on the clock?” Vera asks instead.

“Bit of a teetotaler, hey?” The woman next to her responds. Her hair is auburn and she has long, slender arms. Her fingers are marred with scratches, each appearing now to only just be healing. Burrowing scars mark the length of her forearm. She sees Vera eyeing her and flashes her a coy smile. “Daphne.” She extends her hand towards Vera and she takes it. Her grip is delicate, and they hold for what seems a moment too long. 

“Vera Hershal.” Vera says almost off handedly. She still has not let go of her hand.

“You from Mariposa, Vera?” Daphne asks as the man with the pretty eyes fills a pristine glass with a slightly brown liquid. It sloshes around as if the consistency of syrup. 

“Who is?” The man with the pretty eyes chuffs, as if it was some grand joke.

“No, actually.” Vera smiles and takes her hand from Daphne’s to the glass. There is no discernible change in warmth between the two of them. “I’m from up north. Hinterlands. Near Verak.”

“You miss it?” Daphne asks, rolling her finger around the rim of her drink.

Vera takes hold of the drink in both of her hands. She rubs the ridge of the glass absentmindedly for a moment. The man with the pretty eyes leans forward a bit too far. So does Daphne.

“Do any of you actually hear that?” Vera finally asks. That buzzing, that droning, that gnawing sound. It was all Vera could do to actually pay attention to the two of them. It was at once melodic and dissonant, not altogether unpleasant. But its ever presentness, its continuity, flowed around hallways and into the rooms of Manor Tyra. There weren’t even any flies here, nor had she seen any in her walk down to the servants quarters. This place had looked scoured and clean, with hard pressed wood, treated with any sort of preservatives, and paneling placed at odd angles with secant points. The whole of the manor seemed to converge on what? All the pointing lines that focused on what? 

Daphne smiles. “No, not really.” Her thumb is pressing deep and hard into the ridge on the bottom of her drink. Vera furrows her brow. Her eyes dilate, her throat feels thick and full. Daphne looks over to Vera and nudges her with her own shoulder. “Not a lot of people regret moving to Mariposa, so I don’t blame you.”

Vera sighs and brings the cup to her lips. It is sweet, whatever is inside of it. Like rosewater, or hibiscus. Absolutely no discernable taste of alcohol. Like drinking liquified potpourri. Whatever grain or fruit the spirit was made from, this mixer almost fully masked its flavor. Vera, for a moment, closes her eyes, ignoring the frustration of being misunderstood building behind them. It does not taste like Verak. She is almost certain of it. But it doesn’t taste like Mariposa, either. She has had plenty of drinks in her stay here, and this certainly was not one of them.

“I’m Adrien.” The man with the pretty eyes finally coughs out. Vera opens her eyes and realizes just how long she had been drinking. The glass in her hands was half gone. “I’m the entremétier in the Tyra kitchen.”

“Which means he also cooks our meals too.” Daphne gesticulates towards the kitchen, glass still in hand. It was a small, cozy thing. Still unheard of in Mariposa, a kitchen for use only by the help staff. But the size of the Tyra manor almost required such atomization of labor. “He’s only typically on call when Tyra is hosting the Queen.”

“So it means, Miss Hershal, you’re stuck with me.” Adrien smiles and leans on the kitchen windowsill. His arms are toned and sinewy. He looks as if he’d be stringy, chalky in any sort of long standing soup. A thin, bristly mustache covers his upper lip, as if he was proud to be sporting it. “I hope the other’s like you just as much as the miss does”

Daphne snorts, undignified and beautiful. She is still shoulder to shoulder with Vera. “I think they will, yea.” She takes another drink. A fly, small thing with beady, crimson eyes, crawls from behind Daphne’s ear. Its wings harmonized with that buzzing that Vera could not get from out of her mind. If anyone saw it, no one made mention of it. The rest of the servants in the quarters were each obsessed with their conversational partners, enraptured with each other. The air was warm and sickly sweet. Like the potpourri that was at Vera’s mother’s wake.

“You’re so sure, huh?” Vera slightly bumps back into Daphne, separating the two of them for a moment.

“Yeah, you’re so sure, huh?” Adrien begins to pour himself his own drink. “You said that about the last girl, too.”

“What happened to her?” Vera asked.

“Rosalind liked her a little too much, so Crimson let her go.” Daphne sighed wistfully, as if she liked her just as much. As her mouth opened, that same buzzing came from inside Daphne. As if her lips were not making the same movements as they were before, like they were simply opening up for the noise to come out instead of forming the words themselves. “Our employer is a bit of a meticulous one.”

“Heard she works down near Le Marc street, in the lower wards.” Adrien lifts the liquor to his mouth and drinks it greedily. Liquid spills from the sides of his lips, his mouth open too wide for the mouth of the glass. His tongue lulls out the side.

“Nice one, too.” Daphne sighs, her voice almost drowned out by Adrien’s drinking. Like a pig drinking from a trough, guttural and wet. Vera looks at Adrien, at his bulging throat and his ragged breath when he takes the drink away from his lips. “Sweet girl, ya know? She brought a little basket of treats to introduce herself. Cared a bit too much. Cute little thing.” Adrien places the glass back on the table a little too forcefully, fills it again from the brown bottle, and then begins drinking again. The liquor spills around his hand, as if the act of pouring is foreign to him. He catches his breath. “Like, ah, you.”

“Is he-” Vera looks back at Daphne for a moment, then back at Adrien. His glass is on the table, he has resumed his previous position, resting against the counter. The glass is empty. It is dripping with condensation. A pool of liquid has formed from where he spilled the drink in haste. His hands are dripping wet. The words die in Vera’s throat.

Daphne raises an eyebrow. “Is he?”

Vera puts her own glass down.

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

“If you ask me, I think she has the Scarlet Song.”

The light is dim in their shared bedroom. Vera had, by chance, been assigned to the room that Daphne had been staying in. Two queen beds, facing each other on opposite sides of a room. In many of the workhouses of Mariposa, servants were assigned twin beds, as if to keep from any impropriety on company time. The walls were dark, with painted and stained wood paneling along the lower half of the wall. Vera had retired to bed some time ago, her arms behind her head as she stared at the ceiling.

When Daphne started to talk, Vera almost instinctively looked over to the corner of the room, on the side of where the door was. A single, budding chrysanthemum sat on an end table in that corner. It's leaves having all fallen off long ago, yet regrowing new ones outside of their budding season. She watches as a maggot crawls along the stem. Vera swears she sees it look at her.

“Scarlet Song?” Vera asks after exchanging glances with the maggot. She sits up in her bed, her nightgown feeling a bit too thin in the chill of the night’s air.

“Yea, Rosalind.” Daphne had already been sitting up, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her hair was up in a bun, her makeup had been removed. She had no wrinkles, at least less than she had during the previous day. Her hands were still immaculate, palms red from her repeated washing. “She goes out for a hunt in Blackvien years ago, then traps herself in her room.”

“Did you meet with her when you were hired?” Vera tilts her head to the side somewhat.

“Yea I did. We sat in the rose garden with her wife.” Daphne looks towards the dead chrysanthemum in the corner of the room, a plant she had been meaning to get rid of for some time. Its leaves have long wilted away. “She asked me some weird questions, then said congrats.”

“Oh,” Vera sighed. “Crimson and the head butler did my interview.”

Daphne sits up a bit higher. Her voice is still hushed. “See! That’s exactly what I mean.” She leans forward in the bed. “She goes on some hunting trip just before the last outbreak happened there. Comes back and locks herself in that room.”

“Or Crimson locks her in that room.”

“Might be.”

“Might be?” 

“Maybe she wants to keep Mariposa safe, or her mother safe.” Vera sighs and looks back towards the blooming plant. “It’s the disease of undeath, right?”

Daphne takes her arms from off around her knees and moves towards the edge of the bed. “Scarlet Song is a psychosocial illness. You don’t just catch it by being near someone who’s sick.”

“That wasn’t how I heard it spread.”

“Well obviously, if you’re around someone who’s sick, you might get sick.” Daphne rolls her eyes. Her iris glowed in the dim of the room. The way the stray light came in through the window, it almost made Daphne look like a cat you shined a light at. Red, like a photo caught mid flash. “But that’s only because you’re caring for them, because you pour so much into them.”

Vera brings her knees to her chest. The maggot begins to sing, harmonizing with the buzzing that had been blaring in her ears. “How do you get it then?”

“It worms its way into the parts of your mind that care.” Daphne finishes moving, sitting on the edge of the bed now. She was no more than a couple feet from Vera, but Vera could feel the warmth of her breath, the sickly, floral flavor on the tongue. Her lips were scarlet, her arms were slender and inviting. “Poisons your thoughts into obsession and infatuation. Makes you an object of desire, makes your vices just that much more apparent. Gluttony, lust, wrath.They call it the undead disease because of conservation of energy. All that obsession can’t just disappear once you die.”

Shambling corpses, replete of any desire but what was core to them.

“You hear voices, you see things, you misattribute motivations and feelings towards someone else.” Daphne gets up from off the bed. She is standing now, in naught but a night shirt. Her skin is translucent in the moonlight, like still water. Her eyes red and beautiful. “You could be infected, and just not know. It creeps into your mind, makes a vice of your heart.”

There is little now between their two beds, with Daphne standing square between them. Vera traced the lines of her shoulders, of her chin, of her lips. The edges of Daphne hummed and thrummed, as if their component parts sang with the maggot. Like a lichtenberg figure, Daphne seemed all secant lines. Convergent points, each inviting further study and obsession. Vera closed her eyes.“It almost sounds nice.”

Daph leans forward, towering over Vera on the bed. She raises a hand and, for a moment, Vera worries Daph might strike her. Her hand is now on Vera’s cheek, fingers finding themselves resting on her cheekbone. Vera, instinctually, bites Daphne’s palm. Daphne grips her head a bit tighter, blood running rivulets down into Vera’s hungry mouth. It is sweet, like the potpourri at her mother’s wake. Her other hand rests where Vera’s neck meets her shoulders, thumb placed gingerly just above her adam’s apple. Vera leans into the embrace, not sure whether Daphne will choke her or kiss her back. She would beckon either, readily and happily. Her skin was hot, roiling chaos. The cells across her body a throng of music, a veritable choir of blissful immolate. 

Daphne gasps, the heat proving too much for her. She opens her eyes and sees Daphne there, sitting on the edge of her bed, now seeming so far apart. Vera didn’t even notice her moving. Her skin was flush, her hands trembling, hand dripping blood onto her white gown. Daphne will not look her in the eyes, but a blissful smile is plastered on her face. She is shaking. “Yea, it does sound nice.”

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

Rosalind Tyra had a portrait of her wife on the bed stand next to her.

This was the first thing that Vera noticed when walking into the magnate’s room. Not the flowers that should have rotted months ago, not the empty plate picked clean of bones, not even the unmoving, veiled form that lay on the bed, covered by a single, white sheet. It was a simple photo, and the lights in the room had long been burnt out. A golden leaf frame surrounded the photo, with no glass covering it. The photo was yellowed and sour. Mary Tyra-Dayshaper was a young woman again, her hair it's natural blonde instead of the gray it was now. In the background, one of Rosalind’s kills at their chateau near Blackvien. Some grand reptile, head severed and blood dripping into a nearby patch of chrysanthemums. Mary was smiling, with a kind set of eyes. In her hair, a little flower pin. Sitting beside her, a child. Scarlet red hair and a bearded ax next to her. She was not smiling and she was staring a hunter’s stare at Vera.

The portrait was facing Rosalind’s bed, where she lay under a perfectly white sheet. No stains, like Vera had expected. No grime or muck or even dust. The room looked well kept, the room looked as pristine as the rest of the house. This is what Vera would be hired to do. To keep Rosalind company, to keep where she lays. Rosalind seemingly did not notice Vera’s entrance, even if the maid wasn’t particularly keen on staying quiet. As soon as she entered the small room, however, she felt almost reverent. As if her breaths must be measured as not to take too much oxygen, as if her feet must be kept in check lest it squash some beast underfoot. The stained glass window let in multi-colored light, trickling in and catching dust in its delicate beams. It was midmorning after a fitful night. The sky in Mariposa had that post-dawn haze, with nary a cloud in sight. Vera entered and shut the door.

The second thing that Vera noticed was the incessant, beautiful melody that had suffused the entirety of Tyra Manor had ceased as soon as she shut the door. It had become so much that Vera had almost tuned it out entirely by the time she woke next to Daphne this morning. And yet, in shutting it out, Vera had missed it in its absence. The walls vibrated, like being trapped in a room without air, like being stuck in the center of a storm. The silence rattles the wood, it rattles the bed frame, it rattles Vera’s bones.

“Good morning, Mrs. Tyra.” Vera says in a cloying affect like she was instructed. “Have you been sleeping well?”

The body does not respond. There is no rising and falling of the chest. Vera crosses the room gingerly. The tray in her hands rattles somewhat. The hem of her skirt rises with each step. Vera waits for a response that will never come. She places the tray down on the end table, next to the photo of Mary Tyra-Dayshaper. It is dried ham and it costs more than Vera will make that day. Mary is stout and elegant. Her sun kissed skin catches the Blackvien light just so and her hair smells of seabreeze and salt. 

“I have your meal.” Vera continues in rote repetition. Do not deviate, she tells herself.. “Will you eat it here or should we be expecting you down today?”

The body does not respond. Vera sits on the edge of the bed next to her in a fit of compassion. She was a nurse, before she was a maid. Back when money could be made in healing. She places her hand on the sheet almost absentmindedly, breaking the script. Perhaps she is just sleeping a bit tighter, perhaps she is just too cozy in the warmth of the morning. Vera creeps a smile as her hands reach the hem of the bedline.

“It’d be nice if you’d join us, I’m sure your daughter would-”

And that is when she hears it. The song. Not the disjointed choir of the maggots, not the single-noted sludge of the servants. But the whole of it. Every note, their counterplay, the harmonies, the sharps and the flats. It is like a cacophony of angels, like every tragedian of Mariposa was caught alight in a single, raptorious song. It is like screaming. It is like pain. It is like the crackling of ash and the dripping love of slavering mouths. It is incineration of the stars in the sky.

It is pure beauty and it drives Vera to tears. 

It drives her to the floor.

Sorrow was now burning into her cheeks. Her tears sublimating in time with the harmonies that now echo in her ears. She brings her hands to her face, as if she were to sob. A choked, painful note comes out of Vera’s mouth as the song stops, as she leaves Rosalind Tyra. She thinks she hears the whole manor scream.

The body does not respond. It sits there, mocking what obvious love Vera had felt come from her touch. This was not Rosalind as she knew Rosalind. Rosalind was the violent song that now dripped from her open mouth, not the meat sitting ripe and raw under the sheets. The song crawls from Vera’s pours like maggots. They stain the hem of Vera’s dress, mixing with the blood and bile that were pooling from her screaming, singing mouth. They are slick and inviting.

And then the discordance creeps back in.

Vera shoots her eyes towards the door as the incessant and beautiful song of the maggots is in her ears again, eyes burning from between her stained fingers. Red petals flow down her cheeks. And her mouth tastes only of song. In the doorway stands Crimson Tyra. Her boots are muddy and on her shoulder is a worn rifle. Its barrel still hot from the hunt. In her other hand, her dominant hand, her killing hand, was a hunting ax. It was bearded. It was dripping with ash.

“Did you do this to her?” Vera manages to get out as the song creeps behind her now fractiline eyes.

“I knew you’d break.” Crimson smirks, then quickly scowles. “What did my mother say?” Her voice is lacking any of the congeniality she once had. She takes a step forward, tracking the mud into the sickly sweet room.

Vera choked again, maggots spilling from her lips. She pulled herself forward. If only she could share this love with Crimson, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Crimson brings her boot down on what once was Vera’s hand, skin now splitting, unable to contain the flowers anymore. “I hired you for this reason, Miss Hershal.” Her voice was cruel, spitting and cutting. “Now, what did my mother say?”

“Sorry!” Vera sings, her bones breaking and eating away at her skin. “She says she’s sorry!”

Crimson sighs and frowns. She places the rifle on the floor. She hefts her hunting ax with both hands now. Its blade is dripping with blood. “That’s what she said the last time.” Crimson rejoins.

If Vera could just get to Daphne, just show her how beautiful this was when everything could be better. What once was Vera’s lips are replete with words and notes, some begging, some hateful, some pleading for violence. “I can make you! We can feel better!” Vera manages something coherent. “You need me! Love!”

Crimson smiles. She brings the ax above her head. Everything could be better, if she just opened her heart to the song. “I only needed you for this, Miss Hershal.”

Then, the body does not respond.

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

“We are in need of an entire new staff, Miss DuBois.” The head butler asks. Anne sat in front of him, her legs crossed at the ankles. Behind him, Crimson sat in her thick, leather chair. Behind them both, a painted portrait of Rosalind Tyra. “So, let me ask you. Why is it you want this job?”

Crimson smiles and taps her finger just once.

And the flies begin crawling from the vents.

#creative writing #cup of trembling #fantasy #writing #mariposa #fantasy horror #fantasy story #dnd #crysanthemum

[xiaolumi-love]

which aspects of the Sacred Forest are you being called to?

Sacred Forest is a deck that i use regularly to enter a Higher Dimension and seek spiritual guidance. it's proven to be a beautiful, gentle and kind place just to the left of the grounded Earth that teaches me about all sorts of things. i hope this reading helps you.

to connect with this pick-a-pile, meditate on the collage and choose as many of the images as applicable. then read the corresponding pile. have fun! 💚

pile 1 - pile 2 - pile 3

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

pile 1.

you are being called to Air Spirit for knowledge. this spirit represents communication, friendship, knowledge, thoughts and intelligence. Air Spirit is welcoming you into their arms to let you know that you can think things through before communicating. use your deep well of wisdom to speak your truth. Phoenix is also nearby, for transmutation. Phoenix is indicating that you're undergoing an evolution of one element to another, like it rises from the ashes into a firebird. this repesents Creation, creativity, life, and energy. with Bear Spirit for healing, remember that you have the power within you to both heal yourself and others -- you are deserving, you are worthy. you have a great capacity to bring this light into the world. Foggy Bog for patience indicates that right now, it's okay to admit you're stuck. rather than trying to talk yourself out of it and sinking into the mud, be as the stalk as he waits patiently for his catch. you will be rewarded. with Bluebell Fairy for gratitude, you're called to a beautiful garden of bluebells. ring the bluebell and welcome this fairy into your life, for when you feel from the heart that you are grateful, happiness blooms. try thinking on all that you have gained in life, all the things you have learned or will learn, all the connections you have made or will make, all the light and love that the Universe graces you with. allow a shower of light to rain on you, and live in gratitude of all that you have rather than comparing yourself to others.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

pile 2.

your Soul Tribe calls to you with Wolf Spirit for family. your Soul Tribe doesn't have to be biological relatives -- who your family is, is based on trust, faith and connection. some people's Soul Tribe are those in Spirit. sometimes it's people's friends, or the community at large. whoever you Soul Tribe is, be as the loyal, social, protective wolf and communicate with them from the heart. with Rainbow Waterfall for miracles, you are called to a serene place to remember the story of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- after a storm comes the reward. remember to welcome the miracles as they come, no matter how small they may seem. miracles are everywhere, even in you. Pine Spirit for purification calls on you to cleanse your spaces and your life. leave all that doesn't serve you, whether that be mindsets or physical objects. pine is an anti-bacterial and anti-septic substance, and it's used in rituals and ceremonies across the world in native traditions. adopt this mentality of cleansing now. with Hummingbird Spirit for joy, you are reminded of the way hummingbirds live in joy. they spend tremendous amounts of energy to visit thousands of flowers everyday, so they need plenty of rest to recover their energy. when you generate light for others, remember to take care of yourself too. with Dragon for power, you are safe and treasured. Dragon encourages you to take back your power once again. have you been letting something run your life, or given your power away? remember that true power doesn't dominate or manipulate. you deserve to run your own life.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

pile 3.

pile 3, you're being drawn to so many aspects! with Dragonfly Spirit for change, embody the way dragonflies fly in all directions! make your own traditions! embrace unpredictability! sometimes you need to go backwards to move, and you don't owe anyone anything to do it within reason. Daffodil Fairy is bringing you new beginnings with one of the first flowers to bloom in spring. she brings you blossoming opportunities and energy, so seize the day! with Frog Spirit for renewal, consider the evolution of the frog. it grows from an egg to a tadpole to a full amphibian, and symbolises rebirth, regeneration, and even good luck. many good things are coming your way. Wolf Spirit encourages you to communicate with your Soul Tribe, whether they be in Spirit, your friends, or your blood relatives. your Soul Tribe is whoever you have trust and faith in and connection with. be as the loyal, social and protective wolf. Starry Night for acceptance encourages you to look to the stars and see yourself reflected back at you. you are made of the same stuff as those shining beauties, and you are just as important and gorgeous. embrace all of yourself, the shiny stars and the dark of the sky, in all of your iterations. you don't need to accept any wrong deeds in the world, because some things are just wrong. but if you can accept yourself, you can find peace. with Stag Spirit for leadership, be as the noble stag and step up to be the leader you are called to be. true leaders are commanding, inspiring and empowering, and you are worthy of this. Secret Spring for success reminds you that when you feel as if and behave as if you are already wildly successful, more success will pour into your life. heroes were said to burst forth from springs, and water is the element of intuition, emotions, and spirituality. embrace these things. Aspen Spirit for courage reminds you that just like the aspen tree stretching its roots across the ground interwoven with other trees, you are connected with a community. ask for their help, because you are not alone and you deserve to reach heights you couldn't reach on your own. and finally, Wild Rose Fairy for love is here to tell you that when you release fear, love warms you. your heart is opening deeper and wider to welcome in more and more love, and capacity for love. in matters of romance, healing is occuring. if only you could see yourself how those in Spirit see you, and you would know how deeply loved, cherished and treasured you are.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

if you enjoyed, a little appreciation goes a long way!

#alice the witch #witchblr #tarot #witch community #pagan witch #witch #advice #poc witch #lesbian #aro #ace #aroace #queer #pride #spirituality #positive message #text #alt text available #timeless pick a card #pac #timeless pick a card reading

[vonnuvellevillanelle]

Fire Emblem Three Houses Art Resource Masterpost

this is just a neat compilation of all the resources i’ve found/compiled about Three Houses/Three Hopes to use in projects/art, enjoy :)

also go play those games if you haven’t they’re really good

also also this is a live post so if i find more stuff/am shown more stuff by anyone i’ll add it to here with a changelog

CHANGELOG

Edit 1: Added class sprite art

Generic male blue unit sprites for characters (couldn’t find female unit sprite for the ones with big differences like Mortal Savant, sorry :/)

Male/female sprites for Dancer

Sprites for Commoner utilize M!Byleth and F!Byleth’s sprites

Sprites for Noble and Lord utilize Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude’s sprites

Sprites for Death Knight utilize both the enemy variant (masked) and the player unit variant (unmasked)

Sprites for all monster classes included

FE3H Icons Google Drive Folder

A compilation of icons from Three Houses/Three Hopes. Note that the icons are generally low definition since they’re ripped from the game, where they’re meant to be small (except the general combat art icon which is terrifyingly high quality for some reason). Includes:

Skill icons (personal skills, class skills, mastery skills)

Skills that have the same icon (eg. Leonie’s Rivalry and Sylvain’s Philanderer) will be named after all of the names the icon has (eg. [Rivalry, Philanderer])

Includes skills that are enemy/boss exclusive, like Infinite Magic, Barrier, or Manifest Phantoms, as well as unused skill like the three unknown skill icons 

Weapon icons (sword, lance, axe, bow, gauntlets, black magic, dark magic, white magic, crest stone)

Includes broken, normal, sacred, relic, and agarthan variants when applicable

Equipment icons (ring, shield, gem, staff, dragon sign)

Includes normal, sacred, relic, and agarthan variants when applicable

Item icons (healing item, key, bullion, certification seal, stat booster)

Combat Art icons (sword, lance, axe, bow, brawl, non-weapon)

Unit type icons (infantry, cavalry, flying, armored)

Also includes battalion variants (normal, silver, golden icons)

Unit effectiveness icons (armored, cavalry, flying, monster, dragon, all)

Crest icons

Gambit icons

Includes ranges for both enemy-centered gambits (like Ashes to Dust or Group Lightning) as well as self-centered or ally-centered gambits (like Onslaught or Stride).

Includes gambit categories (offensive, support, staggering blow)

Skill strength icons (bane, boon, hidden talent)

Large Portraits with Expressions Google Drive Folder (credit to u/CyanYoh on reddit)

Technically these aren’t game assets. Instead, they’re edited mashups of the units’ expression portraits (neutral, happy, sad, shocked, angry, blushing) and the neutral large body portraits that appear in the files.

This one only includes stuff from Three Houses, since people haven’t been able to datamine clean images for the new Three Hopes portraits to my knowledge (won’t namedrop because of spoilers).

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem three hopes #fe #fe3h #fe16 #art #fire emblem art #fe art #fe3h art #three houses #three hopes

[tobiasdrake]

Mewtwo Strikes Back - IV. Mewtwo is a Rude Host

Beating up that pirate guy causes Mewtwo to take notice of Ash. He sends a Dragonite messenger (Dragonitetwo?) to deliver an invitation from "the strongest Pokemon Trainer". Bold way of self-identifying, but it's Mewtwo so yes. Absolutely. Ego well deserved.

All sorts of Trainers gather to take the ferry to Mewtwo's castle on New Island. However, Mewtwo uses his telekinesis to whirl the goddamn atmosphere and manufacture a hurricane out of sheer telekinetic muscle strength. Holy fuck, we are not messing around with depicting Mewtwo's power.

(Though it's funny that such a feat will become mundane in Gen 3. Mewtwo invented Rain Dance! He is not gonna be happy when Pikachu starts firing off Thunders.)

So now we have a lot of angry Trainers who want to go meet "the strongest Trainer", threatening to Surf or Fly to New Island. The wharf master insists that it's too dangerous and Officer Jenny drops another bombshell: The local Pokemon Center's been shut down because Nurse Joy's missing. So no free heals if the trip goes bad.

I love that they hung a missing persons poster up with a picture of her on it, like she doesn't perfectly resemble every single other Nurse Joy NPC in the entire game world. XD

Unfortunately, despite having eight Badges to his name, Ash has never picked up a single HM. He's pretty much a master of sequence-breaking, but that leaves him without a means to reach New Island. Fortunately, he has something just as good: Reliable stalkers whose Sunk Cost Fallacy flares up whenever it looks like he's about to fail.

So, not for the first time, Team Rocket uses their unsavory methods help Ash overcome a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Which they do by stealing a boat. That's. Um.

Trying to cross waters unsafe for boating through the genius application of a boat goes exactly the way you would expect it to. Fortunately, they get close enough that Squirtle and Staryu can carry the group the rest of the way, minus the Rockets who they leave behind to drown. They learned their lesson from the S.S. Anne.

At last, they've arrived at New Island. Let's see how many others made it here alive.

#pokemon liveblog #pokemon #mewtwo strikes back

[ailingwriter]

So I just watched a youtube video that showed some types that Ash Ketchum has shown a resistance to.

(For those who don't want to watch the video, Ash has shown a notable resistance to Poison, Fighting, Fire, and Electric type moves.)

So I got curious. Was there any type combination that showed a resistance to all four types shown?

Yes there was! In fact there were two, but one of them I'm not counting since it would give ash an immunity to fighting when he still clearly takes damage.

So what is this type combination? Surprisingly, it isn't ground type! That only accounts for Electric and Poison, and there aren't any types that resist both Fighting and Fire. No, the only type combination that shows a resistance (but not immunity) to all four types is...

Poison-Dragon!

For those who want a more in-depth process, I'll put it under the read more.

First off, we can eliminate any type that are weak to any of these four types, since the only one of these types Ash could be immune to is Electric, and as established Ground type is not an option (abilities notwithstanding). So that takes out Normal, Water, Grass, Ice, Flying, Bug, Rock, Dark, Steel, and Fairy.

Next, while ash shows resistance to all of these types, he still takes damage from them (excepting electric, as even though Ash has been hurt by electric moves early on, Pikachu has been known to successfully harm ground types with electric type moves.) That eliminates Ghost, as Steel was already eliminated.

From there its rather simple. There are only three types left that resist two of the types shown, and two of these types just so happen to slot into each other perfectly – Dragon resists Electric and Fire, while Poison resists Fighting and itself.

So problem solved right? Not so fast. There may be some doubt around the Fighting type resistance. Both times cited, Ash is being shown taking a punch from a Primape. The thing is, the moves used on Ash are never specified to be fighting type moves, and there are a decent number of applicable Normal-type moves. In fact, the second case is implied to be a usage of Thrash, a normal type move.

Taking this into account, there are now many more possibilities for type combinations.

Starting with the type weakness system, we still can eliminate Water, Grass, Ice, Flying, Bug, Steel, and Fairy. Also, since Ghost is immune to normal type moves as well, we can disregard it for the same reason we disregarded Fighting type.

Now things are a bit more complicated since we now have a good number of types to work with. First, it should be noted that no single type resists all four types we are now working with, so we can eliminate any type that does not resist any of these types. That would include Normal, Fighting, Psychic, and Dark. The remaining types are now Fire, Electric, Poison, Ground, Dragon, and – most importantly – Rock.

Rock is resistant to three of the four types on display – Fire, Normal, and Poison. In fact, in the anime Rock type also seems to be mixed up with Ground type quite often, and are erroneously granted resistance to Electric type, but we will disregard this. This means that all we need to do to cover all of Ash's resistances is to give him any one of the three types that resist or are (normally) immune to electric. So now we have three options to choose from: Rock-Electric, Rock-Ground, or Rock-Dragon. Personally, of these i find Rock-Electric the most fitting.

But let's say that this doesn’t satisfy you. After all, it's unclear whether Ash is resisting Fighting-Type moves or Normal-type moves. What if he can resist both? Well if you're willing to allow immunities – perhaps Ash doesn’t get full immunities due to still being mostly human – then there is one possibility that resists or is immune to all five types: Ghost-Dragon. Dragon still resists Electric and Fire, while Ghost resists Poison and is immune to both Fighting and Normal.

Now obviously, one might ask where Ash could have gotten the ghost typing from, but remember that Ash's first encounter with a Primeape (and, more importantly, its fists) happens right after he is forced into an astral projection stint by Lavender Town's ghosts. It is entirely possible that the experience rubbed off on him in some way, granting him the Ghost typing on top of the Dragon typing that he apparently already had.

So there you have it! Five different type combinations you can apply to Ash Ketchum! Unfortunately, none of them have Fighting type, but Pokémon have been known to know moves outside of their type. If you really want to give Ash the fighting type, remember that the Anime tends to erroneously give Rock type resistance to Electric-type moves, so if you really want to make Ash a fighting type and you want to abide by his exhibited resistances, you could make him Rock-fighting type.

Or you could just ignore type effectiveness altogether. It's what Ash does, after all.

#ash ketchum #pokemon #analysis #shitpost #long post #i put way too much thought into this

[nnctales]

An In-Depth Analysis of Brick Typology: Composition, Characteristics, and Technical Applications

Bricks, a fundamental component in construction, have traversed millennia of evolution, transforming from rudimentary structures to a diverse spectrum of sophisticated building blocks. This discourse will meticulously unravel the technical intricacies of various brick types, elucidating their compositional nuances, inherent characteristics, and precise applications in contemporary…

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#aesthetic bricks #Architectural Elements #brick applications #brick design #brick manufacturing #brick technology #Bricks #building industry advancements #common burnt clay bricks #concrete bricks #Construction materials #eco-friendly bricks #engineering bricks #environmental impact of bricks #facing bricks #fire bricks #fly ash bricks #hempcrete bricks #innovative construction materials #Load-Bearing Capacity #modern construction materials #paving bricks #perforated bricks #structural bricks #sustainable building materials #thermal properties of bricks #types of bricks

[augment-techs]

Tom Oliver

Zane

Scorpina

favorite thing about them: This is largely speculation, but apparently that he has less inclination for immediate violence than his genetic source. Also the fact that his entire being is the result of Zedd and Rita being the pettiest little bitches to ever walk the galaxies. least favorite thing about them: The fact that he was available for such a SHORT amount of time and never mentioned again. favorite line: ...If we’re being truly honest, the only quotations of note I can think of come from YOU. Everything else is just...90s filler. brOTP: Well, in obvious acknowledgement of canon, him and Tommy make a lovely combination, but nothing else springs to mind. OTP: Not applicable; his is not in the right place for that, thank you. nOTP: Self-cest goes without saying. And due to your fandom contributions, him and Drakkon, Kim, and Jason.  random headcanon: While he was stuck in the Wild West, he ran aground of multiple generations of incarnations of other Rangers and their allies. Kanoi Watanabe’s second reincarnation was a doctor that came in on the railroad and took the stranger in--though his medicine practices were often hindered due to the bigotry of people that came in on the Gold Rush, Tom was quick to put that to rest. unpopular opinion: …Are there actually popular opinions about this child? song i associate with them: The Circle of Life

favorite thing about them: That he is quite possibly the softest, most charismatic Ranger that has ever been onscreen and in panel and he has never seen fit to give up on the most stubborn Red Ranger to ever exist. It is true that he gave Andros time to himself, to cool down, to do what he thought was best even though he hurt him, but Zhane is in danger of having Mary Poppins’ motto tacked to his skin. least favorite thing about them: Him dating Astronema was fucking weird. A light in the dark as their ever was one, but I think it was just the writers trying to get around the queer bashing that ran rampant at the time. favorite line: “What have you lost that I haven’t?” brOTP: Hrm. I have this strange feeling that Cassie and Ashely are his secret shadows to get his wings aloft so his can fly over to Andros and admit his gd feelings already. OTP: Somebody dig a hole and put him and Andros into it with enough food to keep them comfortable. Then toss in a how-to guide on sex and relationships and put a tarp over the hole.  nOTP: Even the IDEA of him kissing Karone post-Astronema gives me a bout of nausea. random headcanon: He misses his parents terribly, he misses them every day. But growing up with two mommies really was the best thing that could have happened to him; it cut any exposure to toxic masculine inklings off at the root and added to his need to show love and affection. unpopular opinion: For some reason, his being a Silver Ranger with no contact to any other metallic Colors feels a little bit like a cheat to me. And his possession by the Gold Omega fucker was felt more disgusting than it should have because of it. song i associate with them: They Stood Up For Love

favorite thing about them: She is a shapeshifter and she is a sarcastic little goddess that lives largely by her own terms--but she cares about people, too. least favorite thing about them: Trying to prove that she’s just as blood thirsty as the monsters she is constantly surrounded by in order to give off the impression that she is the most dangerous being in the room. favorite line: “I don’t have a stinger. That’s offensive.” brOTP: I’m actually quite fond of her and Black Sentry!Adam and their soft getting to know each other in Drakkin New Dawn (though I hated what happened to him). Also her and Coinless!Trini burying the hatchet and becoming frenemies that kiss and bang is a nice thought. OTP: Scorpina/Goldar. They fucking kissed in OG, and if that wasn’t enough that Annual comic made me FALL in love with them being in love~ nOTP: I could vaguely see her being suitable for a relationship with Sentry Adam, but I don’t like the idea of her with OG Adam. Also I don’t like her paired with Slayer Kim; it’s too...catty. random headcanon: When Sentry Adam died in the Coinless universe, she ended up trying to do better by both the other sentries and the Coinless--by making herself available to Bulk, because he’s basically the only member of the Coinless that wanders the palace and isn’t instantly an asshole to her; and to Skull, because...well she heard about the broken neck and got curious about whether or not there was anything to hear about death. unpopular opinion: She is more than a Sexy Lamp, but holy fuck the writers are terrible about using her to her full potential. song i associate with them: Strangers Like Me

#ask fill #prompt fill #playlist #Scorpina #Zhane #Tom Oliver | Clone Tommy Oliver #boom! comics power rangers #mmpr #world of the coinless #drakkon new dawn #power rangers zeo #power rangers in space #Power Rangers Unlimited: Countdown to Ruin

[thehalfbloodprinc3]

In Which Albus Dumbledore Ruins Severus Snape's Life.

Where: Madam Malkins

Who: Open//

Severus tipped his head back against the nicotine stained wall and zapped a couple flies that were buzzing round the ceiling. It was 3AM and his insomnia was hitting him hard. A migraine was throbbing right between his eyes. They crossed as a fly buzzed particularly close to his hooked nose and he raised his wand- zap!

The more things change, Severus thought, the more they stay the same. He'd been sat on his poor excuse for a bed with it's poky springs and thin, stained, mattress since he was a boy zapping at flies in the summer. He watched a couple of them land along the edge of a brown water stain on the ceiling. They started to fuck. Severus sneered at them- little perverts. He thought about zapping them too but then he decided to have a shred of mercy and at least let them finish first. He thought also about fixing the water stain but then- why? The house was a piece of shite with all of it's piece-of-shite memories. It might as well stay that way. It's wasn't worth his effort or his magic to improve it.

Severus laid his wand aside on his leaning bedside table. The ashtray there was a chipped avocado green relic from the late '60's and was positively overflowing with cigarette butts and ash. Severus reached for his pack and his lighter. He hung a cigarette between his frowning lips and lighted it with the cracked plastic Bic. He could have well lit it with his wand but there was something more satisfying about clicking the Muggle lighter. He continued to click it idly as he smoked and grew bigger, more purpley, eye bags just for the hell of it. He blew the smoke in rings up towards the fucking flies.

Just then a tapping noise came against his window.

Severus rolled off the creaking bed and walked lazily to the window. It was the distinct tapping of an owl but who would be owling him at this time of night? Or rather, morning. Severus rubbed his eyes once and then opened the window. It wasn't an owl- it was a phoenix.

Severus was immediately on high alert. He intercepted the letter from the phoenix's ankle and motioned for it to perch on the edge of his desk while he read its offering.

My Dear Boy,

It's been quite a long night and I was just having tea before bed when I remembered I ought to owl you. I was curious if you'd seen that job opening in the Daily Prophet today. I have attached a copy of the posting and I suggest you consider it very strongly. The war may be over but the battle between Light and Dark is an ever continuing theme in the wizarding world, and in many of our lives- yours especially, I think. I really would hate for you, Severus, to get into any trouble after I've gone to such lengths to spare you from Azkaban for your original affiliations during the war. If there is any way that you might repay such kindness, dear boy, it is by keeping your nose clean. I think it would do you well to have Minerva looking after you- keeping you on your toes as it were. I believe you must grow, and you must learn, Severus, from the foolish mistakes of your not-so-distant past. And what better place to grow, and to learn, than at Hogwarts?

-Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Minister for Magic

Severus sneered at the letter. What was the old man on about? Hogwarts? And how dare he suggest that Severus needed someone- Minerva McGonagal- to mind him as though he were a child?

Severus' black gaze darted to the Dark Arts tomes that were currently stacked, one of them opened, on the edge of his desk. Fawkes was, in fact, perched upon them as if to further highlight his perceived misdeed of studying something that most people simply misunderstood. Severus rolled his eyes and sighed.

He unrolled the copy of the Prophet which had been sent with the letter and pawed through the pages until he reached the jobs postings.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is currently accepting applications for the following positions: Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Potions. Experienced and interested persons may owl Headmistress McGonagal if interested.

Severus' migraine pounded harder.

Severus knew this 'suggestion' of Dumbledore's for what it was: an instruction. A demand. Severus wasn't meant to think it over, to ponder it and reject it because he would never, ever wish to teach a classroom full of eleven year old dunderheads. Severus, who had recently completed his Mastery in potions- and was now the youngest qualified potions Master in England- was expected to apply for the potions position, to be awarded the position, and to take it with a smile on his dour face all so Headmaster McGonagal could keep a bloody fucking eye on him.

Severus paced his little room in a seething rage.

The old man was deciding his path in life for him and he hated it. He stubbed his cigarette too hard in the ashtray, grabbed his wand, zapped the fucking flies with far too much force and blew a small hole in his ceiling.

Then, dutifully, because obviously he had no real choice in the matter, Severus sat down at his desk and using a ball point pen and a scrap of paper from a composition book, Severus wrote a quick letter.

Headmistress McGonagal,

It is I, Severus Snape. I am, against my will, applying for the Potion's position. I'll have you know that I am mean, nasty, and completely unfit for teaching. I will gladly eat quaking first years for breakfast. Do not hire me. I'm one knut short of becoming a mad man. If forced into this position I will assuredly snap.

-Severus Snape

P.S. If the old man insists that you hire me then at least consider me for the DADA position so that I might be cursed and die within the year. It will be a great relief for me and half the wizarding world can throw a real rager that that slimy, awful, Ex Death Eating scum Severus Snape has met his demise. The prat had no business teaching children anyway.

Severus practically threw Fawkes, letter attached to his ankle, out his bedroom window and into the night.

-x-

Severus got the fucking job- for Potions. His life was officially over.

Talk as he might about eating children for breakfast he was really quite full of dread at this idea of his new life as a bloody teacher. He knew from experience how horrible school children were and he was barely older than the seventh years. As it were there were students who would still remember him from school- would remember how horribly he'd been bullied and humiliated, and Severus had no desire to try and teach the little urchins especially when they'd have absolutely no respect for him. Imagine teaching a room full of Gryffindors as a known ex-Death Eater.

Severus Snape hated his life.

He came into Madam Malkin's glaring and half expecting her to throw him out- to refuse to work with 'his lot'. His black eyes practically bored holes through the kind Madam Malkin who did not throw him out on his bony arse after all.

“Teaching robes?” she said, while taking his measurements, “Merlin, but you're thin. Eat a sandwich, dear.”

Severus ignored the comment on his scrawniness.

“Teaching robes, as impossible as that is to believe,” Severus snapped, “me- they've hired me.”

“I'm sure you'll do fine,” Madam Malkin said.

“I'd like to be dressed as though I'm attending a funeral,” Severus said, rather dramatically, “my own, specifically. I want to make sure the little snots are intimidated by me. Merlin knows there won't be any other way to cow them into obedience. Brats, all of them.”

Except his snakes, of course.

“I want to look like death itself,” Severus said, still on a roll with the dramatics.

“That won't be difficult with your complexion,” Madam Malkin said, “are you sure you're well?”

“Not at all,” Severus quipped. He thought about how short he was- and how the older students would find him someone easy to run over if he doesn't nip that right away. He would need to purchase boots with heels, possibly spelled to make him appear a bit taller, and then he would learn to loom. Height be damned.

He was in a very foul mood and stewing over all of these things as Madam Malkin continued to measure him. It was then that the bell over the shop door tinkled and someone else walked in.

#Severus Snape #I took too much joy in ruining his life even in an au

[egotisticle]

@capt-yn​​​​: ❝  anything can be a cage.  ❞

♚ -------------------- MAGNOLIA CASTILLO prompt

     ❝  indeed, but some are more  effective  than others. confinement has a  unique  utility, one that most tend to  neglect.  ❞

     AURAL DISCORDANCE  amplified as the entity’s velvet tone clashed with the accompanying ringing, weight resting against the main control panel’s edge without regard to the  strained  cry of beeping buttons and angry red light defining their features. the emergency protocol’s spiel had become a  mangled  mess of syllables and  abrasive  noise, convincingly human with its intermittent sputtering and gagging if not for the fact that it was still unquestionably the main computer’s voice. there were distractions  aplenty  but in spite of their sights and sounds, the being’s presence  DROWNED  it all out of courtesy for the captain. their encounters were so few and far between as it was; nothing less than the captain’s full attention was  necessary,  and nothing less would be accepted.  

     ❝  consider a  caged bird,  always vying for  freedom  beyond its bars and the world outside. it wants to stretch its wings and soar even if it means leaving its caretakers behind. it prays every day for the opportunity and as soon as the chance presents itself, it  seizes  it to fly away without regret. no longer is it  shackled  to one place and it can finally exist as it was always meant to ---- independent and liberated from captivity. after such a  daring  escape, where is it destined to end up ? what  wonders  await a creature who has just begun to know the pleasure of the fresh air passing through its feathers ?  ❞

     with  unbroken  scrutiny did the unearthly being lift a glass of champagne to eye level, seemingly manifested from thin air and starkly familiar as it was gestured forward towards his counterpart. for an extended moment was the pose held, stilled in a tableau of  celebration  for the captain and gleefully  disregarding  the chaos unfolding around them before the champagne flute was drained in one drink. if there was any inkling of  doubt  before, it was no longer applicable; the pause alone was enough to testify that its  resemblance  to the crew photo at the beginning of the voyage was wholly  intentional.  

     ❝  death in the form of a  predator  that it was never privy to, death in the form of  starvation  when it finds that there is no longer a readily available supply of bird seed, death in the form of a  sudden  impact  against a spotless window as it  fruitlessly  tries to return home ---- lamentable, but we must all face the  consequences  of our choices.  ❞

     reality succumbed to a expansive  ripple  and both of the being’s hands were suddenly free, one tending to the opposite cuff while the being’s sights turned to the front of the ship. had it not for the  blinding  cosmic light nearing the ship and gradually overtaking their field of vision, the stars would have surely attracted an audience of  awestricken  admirers; for now, only  one  would have to suffice.

            FROM THE ASHES OF AN ENDING SPROUTS FORTH THE SAPLING OF A NEW BEGINNING !

             ❝  imprisonment can be a  curse,  yes, but take care not to overlook its  blessing  as well.  ❞

#captyn #┊♚┊ − ❛ ᵃᶰˢʷᵉʳᵉᵈ ❜ #┊♚┊ V; i. MAIN #animal death mention cw #((thanks for attending his ted talk. captain))

[linoconcreteau]

Building Tomorrow: The Role of Concrete in Sustainable Architecture

Concrete, often referred to as the backbone of modern construction, has long been synonymous with strength and durability in the architectural world. However, its reputation has also been marred by concerns over its environmental impact. 

As the world shifts towards sustainable practices, architects and engineers are reimagining the role of concrete in construction, recognising its potential to be a cornerstone of eco-friendly architecture. In this article, we delve into the evolving landscape of sustainable architecture, and the pivotal role concrete plays in shaping the buildings of tomorrow.

Redefining Sustainability: The Environmental Impact of Concrete

For decades, concrete has been criticised for its significant carbon footprint. The production of cement, a key ingredient in Exposed Concrete Adelaide, accounts for a substantial portion of global carbon dioxide emissions. 

Additionally, the extraction of raw materials and the energy-intensive manufacturing process further contribute to its environmental toll. However, advancements in technology and innovative practices are paving the way for a more sustainable concrete industry.

Innovations in Concrete Production: Towards Greener Practices

One of the most promising developments in sustainable concrete production is the integration of alternative materials. By substituting traditional cement with supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash, slag, or silica fume, researchers have been able to reduce carbon emissions while enhancing the performance of concrete. 

Additionally, the use of recycled aggregates derived from construction waste helps mitigate the environmental impact of concrete by diverting materials from landfills.

Designing for Durability: The Longevity of Concrete Structures

One of concrete's greatest strengths lies in its durability. Unlike many building materials that deteriorate over time, well-designed concrete structures can withstand the test of time, requiring minimal maintenance and reducing the need for frequent replacements. 

By prioritising durability in architectural design, architects can significantly reduce the lifecycle environmental impact of buildings, ultimately contributing to a more sustainable built environment.

Energy Efficiency and Thermal Mass: Harnessing Concrete's Thermal Properties

Beyond its structural benefits, concrete Adelaide also possesses excellent thermal mass properties, making it an ideal material for energy-efficient buildings. 

By incorporating concrete into the design of structures, architects can leverage its ability to absorb and store heat, reducing the need for mechanical heating and cooling systems. This not only lowers energy consumption but also enhances occupant comfort, creating healthier indoor environments.

Towards Net-Zero Construction: Carbon Capture and Concrete

As the urgency to combat climate change grows, the concept of net-zero construction has gained traction within the architectural community. Integral to achieving net-zero carbon emissions is the implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies in concrete production. 

By capturing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes and storing them underground or repurposing them for other applications, concrete manufacturers can mitigate their environmental impact while supporting the transition to a low-carbon future.

Conclusion

In the pursuit of sustainable architecture, concrete emerges as a versatile and indispensable building material. While its environmental impact has historically been a cause for concern, ongoing research and innovation are reshaping the narrative surrounding concrete, highlighting its potential to be a catalyst for positive change in the construction industry. 

By embracing greener practices, leveraging technological advancements, and prioritising longevity and energy efficiency in design, architects and engineers can harness the full potential of concrete to create resilient, environmentally responsible structures that stand as testaments to sustainable living.

As we look towards the future, it is clear that concrete Adelaide will continue to play a vital role in shaping the built environment. By reimagining its production, design, and application, we can harness the inherent strengths of concrete while minimizing its environmental footprint, paving the way for a more sustainable and resilient tomorrow.

Source: Building Tomorrow: The Role of Concrete in Sustainable Architecture

#Exposed Concrete Adelaide