#Environment importance

[liones-s]

a big lesson for me was learning that most things are not as fragile as I’d believed. missing a class, or turning in a bad assignment, won’t instantly destroy your professor’s opinion of you. accidentally saying something harsh won’t make your friend want to end the friendship. it takes work to repair these things - it takes effort and research and sometimes a sincere apology - but you can do that because they’re not irreparably broken. what you’ve worked to build, in academia and in relationships and in life, is stronger and more enduring that your mind may teach you to believe. don’t let imagined fragility lead you to giving up

[proxycrit]

Linktober day 13, Skull Lake!

The trip to the lake’s thwarted by the weather. Oh well. We need more quiet moments of rest between action packed adventure, after all.

(Masterlist for this TOTK AU, Familiar Familiar!)

Plus patreon

[politijohn]

Read the full report here

Source

[mozzygan]

the wall between us

redraw of this illustration series i made back in 2019. i'd say i've improved lol.

[dryemiddi]

Every time I think about the Tree of Feelings I can't help but be a little underwhelmed at how the most popular depictions of it is just. the tree. on a hill. surrounded by miles of nothing but grass and maybe a few houses in the distance.

Yeah, no thanks. I'll just go with my own interpretation on this one

[pocketseizure]

Mineru's Library concept art

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay but it's super interesting how

Din = Power = Ganondorf

Naryu = Wisdom = Zelda

Farore = Courage = Link.

Because Din, in the hylian creation myth, created the physical world. Naryu then created the laws - gravity, time, etc. And Farore finally created life - plants and people.

Din created the body, naryu the mind, Farore the soul.

And the triforce and its wielders so perfectly reflect that.

Ganon is physical power, he is big and intimidating and he breaks things. He is cunning and determined, but that's not what he focuses on. He is might makes right.

Zelda is wisdom and cleverness. She is stall tactics and information and team work. She is a powerful mage with a spine of steel, but that's not how she'll win. She is the pen being mightier than the sword.

Link is courage and persistence. He is the wild card sneaking behind enemy ranks, always moving, plunging into terrifying situations head first. He's a phenomenal fighter with a keen wit, but that's not what will get him through his challenges. He is bravery not being the absence of fear but the triumph over it.

They sit in perfect parallels to each other.

And ganon is reborn through his body - his resurrection is immortality. No matter how low he is cast, as long as he has a body he can claw his way back. He can cling to his power, build it ever higher.

Zelda is reborn through the magic of her bloodline. It's the accumulated knowledge handed down for generations, the unique power she must master, the skills she must develop to survive and get her kingdom out the other side intact. Even her name, the knowledge of herself, is handed down from all the way from the very first. Her ancestors knowledge of her future presence, her stability, is what gives her the edge.

Link is reborn in spirit. He is not bound by flesh or blood. Just like his wanderlust soul he can reappear in any time or place. His variation, his unpredictability, is exactly how he fights. It's what makes him so hard to pin down.

Ganons need to build strength means he can't chase after link. Links impulsiveness means zelda can outwit him. Zeldas stationary predictability means she's an easy target for ganon.

But the other direction?

Fire melts ice, ice redirects lightning, lightning burns fire.

And that's the very essence of the triforce.

[dreamsy990]

you know i used to think it was weird how sora and roxas have such different personalities for supposedly being 'the same person' but after playing a few games i sort of realized that they do have similar personalities, because roxas acts how sora does when he's under extreme stress.

compare roxas to sora in, say, kh1. that's where a lot of peoples idea of sora's personality comes from. sora is generally very upbeat and optimistic in that game. not very similar to roxas, right?

but let's switch the game and talk about a game where sora is ABSOLUTELY GOING THROUGH IT. chain of memories.

sora's resting state is melancholy in com. he only ever cheers up in short bursts, usually when he's joking around with friends. just like roxas.

he's quick to anger, and tends to lash out at the organization members. best example of this is when larxene makes him 'remember' namine, and he swings at her repeatedly, even after she's gone. he only stops when jiminy is able to snap him out of it.

you know what scene that resembles?

sora, while a bit more on the angry side and less sad, continues to act like this in kh2 when he's in stressful situations. (he also has a tendancy to insult people which, while it's not very related to the point, is very funny and sora saying 'gonna cry?' to xigbar is great.) i cant comment any further than that about kh2 off the top of my head.

so, roxas acts like sora does when he's stressed, right? but why is roxas always acting like that? to which i say, he isnt!

he only ever acts like that when he's also in fucked up and stressful situations, which happens to be a CONSTANT in his life. but when he's hanging out with axel and xion, a decidedly NOT stressful situation, he's a lot more like sora. he's teasing his friends and insulting his coworkers and joking around and acting like a normal kid. not really important, but unless i misremembered some sora lines which is VERY possible, both roxas and sora respond to friendly insults with "oh thanks!" a lot. just a funny little detail that felt relevant.

the biggest differences between roxas and sora boil down to environment and... i dont know how to put it besides volume? roxas is very quiet and tends to keep most of his thoughts to himself, while sora is very loud and expressive in comparison.

there is one other huge difference i noticed, which is less character based and more story. sora wanted to get off destiny islands and explore with his friends, but roxas just wanted routine. sora wants adventure, and roxas wants things to stay the same, for days where he gets off work and eats ice cream with his friends to last forever, to keep having conversations about nothing and watching the sunset. roxas wants normalcy, sora wants excitement. it's just interesting seeing their contrast.

not sure if this is very well said or anything i just wanted to talk about my boys

[charlietheepicwriter7]

Danny and Damien are twins au, but a slightly redeemed vlad makes Danny the CEO of Vlad Co and DALV and all his other shell companies. Danny is danny, he got pushed into this against his will and is very overwhelmed by CEO duties, so he reaches out to one of his father's sons, Timothy Drake-Wayne, for advice

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

So, danny definitely knows his heritage in this au. He was the spare to Damien's heir, and while their relationship was strained by the constant competition, they still love each other, even when Danny started to show more proficiency in infiltration and subterfuge than assassination. Damien and Danny have a huge fight before Danny leaves, with Damien swearing to never forgive Danny for his betrayal, while Danny is like "what betrayal??? I just cant bring myself to kill someone outside of self-defense??"

(One of the things I hate about Danny and Damien Twin AUs is this depiction that, just because (usually) Danny is unwilling to kill, that makes him weak and a traitor. You think the medical staff in the LoA are assassinating people? Or the lawyers? He's not useless, he's just not good as an assassin)

He was sent to the Fentons at like... seven? eight? to study how the Fentons are purifying lazurus waters from Jack and Maddie, both of whom are partly sponsored by the League of Assassins. He's also learning more about spying from Jack, surprisingly, because no one would expect him of being a top tier spy. He has the occasional mission as a child, but it's mostly shadowing Jack to learn how to spy.

Danny sends letters to both Talia and Damien regarding updates on his training and the Fenton's research, but after a year of no reply from Damien, it's only to Talia. He's feels super hurt by this, and abandoned by the LoA, but the Fentons are kind and familial, and Talia visits once a year. She's unwilling to risk visiting more often, lest she risk getting the JL or the Spiders attention, but sometimes she even manages to visit on his birthday!

(Meanwhile, Talia starts sending birthday assassins to kill Damien so she can spend their birthday with Danyal. She's a really hot and cold mom.

Talia: You can choose me, and have a birthday dinner. Or you can choose your father and have a birthday assassin. You're choice. )

When Slade blows up the LoA, Danyal is given permanent orders to remain as Daniel Fenton until Talia, and only Talia, brings him back to the League. No missions and only one letter every six months. But when Ra's comes back to life and the League is back in power, Talia... never tells Danyal. Because she's seen how happy Damien is being a normal child with their father and wants that for Danyal too. Plus, she wants to continue to have a good relationship one of her children, sue her bruce.

So Danny is completely convinced that the League is mostly gone other than his mother, her zealots, and knows that his brother is living with their father. and he's... relieved. His brother is safe, and his mom told him their grandfather was avenged, so Danny can just enjoy his life. Which he does.

He sends out his six month report days before the portal accident.

Canon stuff happens until Danny is sixteen and Vlad, the fruitloop, steps down as CEO and strong-arms Danny into becoming CEO in his place. Jack and Maddie (who at this point know [or have always known in Jack's case, adn Danny didn't appreciate his dad using his his poker face against him like that] about Phantom) are thrilled.

Vlad is using his "foster son" (Dark Danny, but in this idea, he's Dante Masters) as an excuse as to why he's stepping down, since Dante needs all the attention he can give as a "troubled youth". Danny secretly hopes Dante kills Vlad in his sleep, but signs the papers away.

And there's so much work.

Danny has some idea of what he's doing (Vlad co is a tech company and DALV is weapons manufacturing, plus vlad gave him a crash course on CEOing). Sam and Tuck even help! But he wishes there was someone who could understand the pain of being a CEO while still a teen. But... his father's son, his brother, is one such person. And even though the other would never know, he really wanted to get to know his other siblings. So Danny reaches out for advice to Timothy Drake-Wayne.

Tim is immediately on guard when this Damien clone walks into his office claiming to be the new Vlad Co CEO. The clone acts nothing like Damien, but he still thinks this Danny Fenton is a league plant.

His paranoia doubles when Damien freaks out and confesses that A) Danny is apparently his twin brother and B) that he's been with the League of Assassins this whole time. Damien, who really doesn't want to admit that the reason he forced himself to forget his brother was because said brother didn't want to kill people, says "Tch. I didn't want to associate with the likes of him, so I put him out of my mind." Tim now believes that he's dealing with a master assassin with a huge grudge against Damien and Danyal showing no signs of malicious or aggression in their meetings only convinces him that Danyal is a master actor too.

Which, Danyal is a master actor. But all that other stuff is just Tim reaching.

[folklorespring]

Ukraine, photo by Volodymyr Petrov

[bechdeltested]

why do people keep repeating this when it literally isn't true. i'm all for seasonality and reducing food miles but transport generally makes up a pretty small proportion of a food product's carbon footprint

[politijohn]

Some alarming climate news as of June 2023

Antarctica, which is in the dead of winter, has unexpectedly failed to reform its winter sea ice. This is an exceptional deviation from the norm that has left scientists dumbfounded.

The entire NE Atlantic Ocean is experiencing its most significant marine heatwave ever…by far. That area had never been a full 1°C above the 1951-1980 average. It has suddenly jumped to 1.7°C above that average.

A powerful heatwave has overtaken southern North America for weeks on end, with places like Texas and northern Mexico breaking daily record high temperatures.

In the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, sea surface temperatures are extremely high. Water temperatures are in the *90s* by the Florida coast, Miami keeps breaking daily record heat index values, and a major coral bleaching event will soon be underway.

The Canadian 2023 Wildfire Season will not let up, with nearly all annual records falling before we even reach the midpoint of the season. No Canadian wildfire season had ever produced 12 terawatts (TW) of fire radiative power. 2023 has produced 18TW.

Dramatic flood events have begun striking various countries around the world simultaneously this week.

El Niño has rapidly developed in recent months as sea surface temperatures across the equatorial east Pacific skyrocket. As of yet, El Niño has not impacted global weather conditions. That will change in a few months.

All of these events have culminated in June 2023, easily being the hottest June in Earth’s recorded history. Likely the hottest June in 115k-120k years when Earth was last this hot.

[byler-alarmist]

Do people know most paper receipts are harmful to their health?

I'm going to get up on my soapbox for a minute, but do people realize how pretty much everyone is being overloaded with endocrine disruptors like BPA/BPS on a near-daily basis??

I don't think many people understand that ever since most of the world transitioned to thermal paper receipts (cheaper than ink), almost every receipt you handle from the gas station to the grocery store to the Square terminal printer at the local co-op is coated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) or its chemical cousin Bisphenol-S (BPS).

These chemicals have not only been proven to cause reproductive harm to human and animals, they've also been linked to obesity and attention disorders.

Not sure if your receipt is a thermal receipt? If you scratch it with a coin and it turns dark, it's thermal.

BPA/BPS can enter the skin to a depth such that it is no longer removable by washing hands. When taking hold of a receipt consisting of thermal printing paper for five seconds, roughly 1 μg BPA is transferred to the forefinger and the middle finger. If the skin is dry or greasy, it is about ten times more. 

Think of how many receipts you handle every day. It's even worse for cashiers and tellers, who may handle hundreds in a single shift. It is also a class issue, since many people who work retail and food service are lower-income and will suffer worse health consequences over time from the near-constant exposure.

Not only that, receipts printed with thermal ink are NOT recyclable, as they pollute the rest of the paper products with the chemicals.

People don't know this and recycle them anyway, so when you buy that "green" toilet paper that says "100% recycled"? Yup, you are probably wiping your most sensitive areas with those same chemicals (for this reason, I buy bamboo or sugarcane toilet paper as a sustainable alternative to recycled paper).

This page from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has some good links if you want to learn more.

As consumers, we need to demand better from our businesses and from our governments. We need regulation of these chemicals yesterday.

If you are a buyer or decision-maker for a business, the link above also contains a shortlist of receipt paper manufacturers that are phenol-free.

If you work at a register, ask customers if they want a receipt. If they don't and you can end the transaction without printing one, don't print one!

As a consumer, fold receipts with the ink on the inside, since that's where the coating is. Some more good tips here.

And whatever you do, DO NOT RECYCLE THERMAL RECEIPTS

[dialovers-lover-xoxo]

[wachinyeya]

From water-testing polluted rivers to measuring radiation levels, ordinary people are taking environmental research into their own hands.

[todaysbird]

anybody here who farms insects for human consumption and would be willing to participate in a interview for a (positive) article around insect farming? please dm me with your email and i’ll reach out!