#Energy & utilities

[azuremist]

I’m seeing a lot of stress from Americans about AO3 being down! If that’s the case for you, gentle reader, then may I advise you to take action against KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act)?

This act threatens to allow the government to censor what they decide what they deem “obscene content” online. Given Rupublicans’ very recent history of deeming all LGBT+ content of any type “too obscene for kids”, this can very possibly result in restricting access to any sort of queer resources and queer content online, for the sake of ‘protecting kids’. Which includes your favorite gay fanfics!

For more information, and a very easy way to contact your representatives, click HERE!

[karmathenightowl]

The one and only Shlabethany, along with the other npcs that appear in the Passion's Cove arc!

[spitblaze]

If you guys could talk about the existence of generative software and nerual nets without suggesting artists nuke their portfolios off of the Internet for their own safety (the datasets have Already Been Scraped btw so that won't even help) that would be very nice. Thanks

[lala-blahblah]

I will never make this because it would be for an audience of one (me) but ever since reading "If we Were Villains" (story about serious drama kids in college who perform shakespeare and deal with a murder) I have been entertaining the thought of a crack fic crossover with High School Musical The Musical The Series where the staff decides they will no longer put on shakespeare after the tragic accident that happened at Thanksgiving, because Shakespeare plays would only increase the tension and drama. So they hire Ms. Jen who decides their spring play will actually be High School Musical (which exists in the 90s in this universe) and it ruins the vibe so much that everyone gives up on being dark and mysterious because they're universally pissed at Ms Jen for making them learn choreoraphed basketball dancing.

[calciumyum]

Empirestober 2 Day 13 - Shulker! Featuring the shulker kid themself!! (prompts)

[kokokokuro]

��� Melo's notes about Monster Crops 🌞:

※Part 1: Slime Berry ※Part 2: Void Root ※Part 3: Monster Fruit ※Part 4: Monster Mushroom

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

the high prices of fucking Everything is so exhausting i stg

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[andy-clutterbuck]

8x01 | Mercy

[trustinisms]

*trips and falls and izzney pictures fall out of my pockets*

i love izzney .. theyre so cute snd one of the only occasions i actually actively multiship. heathney is my favorite courtney ship and thats never gonna change but her and izzy are WAY up there also … <3 . such a robbery that they wouldve been on the same team 3 times but were separated every time (izzy was on bass initially then volunteered to switch to gophers, izzy rejoined on the gaffers and was eliminated right before courtney also joined on the gaffers, and the izzy-sierra team swap took izzy off the amazons in world tour)

ough.. the . yeah

[orangedodge]

A year on, one thing I would have liked had TotK handled it differently was Zelda's general sense of uncertainty.

There were specific areas where I think it made sense and was explicable for her to be unsure of herself. The time travel can be easily forgiven, of course. Having ancestral time powers was news to her, let alone understanding how to use them. And, up until the moment Ganondorf became the Demon King, the whole situation could theoretically have been one giant coincidence (as players participating in a narrative we know otherwise, but she didn't know she was a character in a story, so her trepidation there all checks out).

Having her struggle in Rauru's court was a good place to center her arc. It's been a long time since she's had to perform being a princess, and her father, the king, did a not-so-great job of preparing her for it. We know she's been functioning in a leadership role since BotW, but to the greatest extent, she seems to be working primarily through her Sheikah friends while being a recluse off in Link's house. She hasn't really been acting as The Crown. So having her take advantage her her time travel adventure to observe Rauru and Sonia, letting them correct her father's mistakes a little via example, bringing the story eventually to a close on her returning home and accepting the allegiance of the sages is a good, satisfying, direction for a sequel.

What detracts from it, though, is where Zelda's scenes specifically--and perhaps this is a consequence of how few of them there really are, necessitating as much economy of film shorthand as possible--tend to broaden her uncertainty in a few understandable areas into paralyzing uncertainty in all areas. Maybe she doesn't feel ready to jump right in to ruling all of Hyrule in the wake of BotW, but one thing she really should have down by now is the whole "sealing evil" thing. She's been doing THAT for over a century. And there were plenty of times where remembering that she had those powers would have been extremely useful. (If anything, maybe they could have made her a little too comfortable on that end? Ganondorf's whole thing was using trickery to take advantage of the complacency of more powerful foes. She's just sealed away Calamity Ganon, and Ganondorf himself is just... some guy, in comparison).

It doesn't diminish the game for me or anything, but effectively we do have a scenario where a 100+ year old woman has received two separate coming of age arcs, where the second one would have been more effective if imagined more as a time of healing and recovery now that her war with the Calamity is over. It's still very effective as an outright do-over of BotW, but as a sequel I hope they do better next time.

[directactionforhope]

"There is a small panel of regulators in every state that holds a similar power over electricity generation and, by extension, an enormous segment of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet. By setting electricity prices, they also have a substantial impact on most people’s lives and pocketbooks. Yet, in Georgia and elsewhere, these groups — known as public service or public utility commissions — get little attention or scrutiny outside of energy wonk circles. Their hearings and documents tend to be long and jargon-heavy, covered in the media by a small group of specialized reporters, making it hard to engage with the process. 

This year, Grist and WABE will try to demystify energy regulation in Georgia and beyond. We’ll bring you stories on not only how your power gets made, but how those decisions happen — and how residents who vote and pay electricity bills can get involved."

-via Grist, March 5, 2024. See link for more details (especially in Georgia) and more ways to get involved.

[petrichorium]

pluvi i impulsively pulled for jiaoqiu and i don’t know how to build him (and don’t even have acheron) do u know what works for him team wise and artefacts wise?

I will point u over to my beloved guoba’s vid on him if u want an in-depth discussion but for a tl;dr of that:

He slots decently well in any team where Pela does, so he’s good as a Dr Ratio support if ur hurting for debuffs w his team. Hes also an okay dot support (better w eidos so most wouldn’t bother at e0) and he’s pretty good in pure fiction due to ult spam—in general, probably think of him as a debuffing ult support, so he’s good w chars that need debuffs like Ratio and/or whose damage primarily comes from their ults like Argenti or Yunli BUT w the caveat that you’ll probably want Tingyun on there w them as a battery.

Here are the important graphics guoba gave wrt relics

Obvi his sig is his best lc but in lieu of that apparently eyes of the prey is good bc it gives ehr, and tutorial mission (the event lc from way back when silver wolf was introduced, im sorry if u don’t have it) or the Herta shop cone r both very good for ult spam, w the Herta shop cone especially good for pure fiction.

Hope that helps!!!

[kaybaeisgay]

something tells me nami won’t be in that marine base for long (neither will their money)

ref photos:

[meulia]

does anyone else have unproductive mania/hypomania? like ur thoughts are racing and jumping from one thing to the next and u can’t focus and ur so overwhelmed that u end up doing nothing?

[kissingagrumpygiant]

wakes up pissed in the middle of the night about things outside my control that had nothing to do with me . passes out again