#Human Interest News

[pinacoladamatata]

blink and you'll miss it moments around skyhold....

[finsterwalds]

The think tanks if they were synths in game (where's the mod @ fallout community!!!). I gave Mobius and Klein the scrubs you find for them in the Big MT, but the rest of the crew wears the standard mad scientist scrubs. I know Klein also wears glasses apparently, but my headcanon is that he only wears them when he's reading!

[nelkcats]

Ghost Train

It was no secret that the trains in Gotham were damaged, whether it was from all the explosions that flooded the city on a daily basis or the fact that the rails were broken wasn't completely clear. At that point, what was once a train station was nothing more than an empty place used by some homeless people to sleep.

Or that's what it was supposed to be, because while the station was damaged and underneath the city, it was actually active. It just had another kind of train, a slightly more interesting one.

In Danny's defense, he was extremely bored and there was an abandoned train station he could use to play with. All it took was calling in a favor from Technus and a fully functional ghost train connected the Infinite Realms to Gotham.

The ghosts, of course, used this for fun. Fighting each other, chasing each other, celebrating, having concerts. It was a way to go to the human world without anyone causing trouble for them, not that anyone was paying attention anyway.

Or at least, no one was supposed to be paying attention, because Waylon was dumbfounded at the sight. He had escaped to the old rails when he had no other choice, his sewers were compromised and he needed a way out. He didn't expect to walk right into a party, or be offered a sandwich with a smile instead of a shout.

He could also observe a clearly glowing train and the fact that everyone there was glowing. They could be metas, or another completely new creature, but Waylon didn't care, they gave him food and he wasn't a snitch.

[puppetmaster13u]

So if I were to hypothetically start a Project....

Would anyone actually be interested in it?

[reasonsforhope]

"When politicians unveil a new national park or wilderness area, it’s often accompanied by debates about what effect it will have on the livelihoods of people living nearby. In some places, it can be welcomed as a boon, attracting tourists and their dollars. In others, it’s booed as a job killer, squelching the chance for new mining, grazing, logging or other industries.

As nations promise to nearly double the amount of protected land on the planet, from 17% to 30% of the Earth’s surface, these debates are likely to happen more often. Now there is new evidence that it’s possible to have both land protections and a growing economy. But it’s not guaranteed. “Achieving both aims is more common than we previously expected,” said Binbin Li, an environmental scientist at Duke Kunshan University, a Chinese institution affiliated with Duke University. “But that balance depends on socioeconomic conditions near a protected area.”

It can be hard to tease out causal links between two things as complex as the changing condition of a landscape and the economy of a nearby city. Did a town flourish because of a nearby national park, or because an increase in remote work enabled people to move there? Did another town collapse because a forest reserve contributed to the demise of a sawmill, or was it part of a bigger downturn in the timber industry?

To try to clarify the effects, Li and colleagues at Duke University and Shandong University in China compared the fates of “twin” towns and cities, as well as comparable patches of land. They identified more than 10,000 protected areas in countries around the globe, then examined how economic activity changed in nearby settlements between 2013 and 2020, compared to similar settlements more than 20 kilometers from any protected land. They also matched the protected area to similar nearby unprotected areas, to see if they fared differently.

The scientists used satellite images to track changes on the landscape, such as forest turning to farmland. They also tracked changes in the amount of nighttime artificial light as a surrogate for economic activity.

The satellite images revealed that in many cases, more trees and grasslands stayed standing and the lights shown more brightly at the same time. In about half the protected areas, there was simultaneous progress in both conservation and economic development, the scientists reported on June 20 in Current Biology.

Land protection was broadly successful at reducing the loss of forest and grasslands – more than 90% of the protected areas either lost no natural land cover, or less than their unprotected twins, the researchers found. At the same time, 60% of neighboring communities had as much or more of an increase in nightlights than places further from protected land...

Land protection and economic growth went hand in hand most easily in wealthier countries, around smaller protected areas, and in places with some of the infrastructure critical for economic development, such as roads. In places without these features the ecological fate of the land and the economic fortune of nearby towns was more likely to diverge or decline together the researchers found.

“Conservation does not happen in a silo,” said co-author Stuart Pimm, a Duke University ecologist. “We must consider local development alongside biodiversity conservation to know where and how to protect areas to benefit both the environment and humans.” ...

The results underscore the ways in which poverty and environmental degradation can be bound together. If poverty isn’t dealt with, creating protected areas could set the stage for both loss of biodiversity and economic development, the researchers warned. The flip side is that with careful planning, conservation could help set nearby towns on a path out of poverty. As an example, the scientists pointed to Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park, which has become a hub for ecotourism on the country’s Pacific coast.

“We need to get to a win-win outcome more often, especially in the most biodiverse regions that can ill-afford losing out on economic development or biodiversity,” said Li. “We cannot address biodiversity loss without addressing local development issues.”

-via Anthropocene Magazine, June 26, 2024

[suntails]

reflection

[barghest-land]

it's always been difficult for me to make new friends, and now that i'm almost 30 it seems just impossible. unless it's a 40yo geologist i know. then it all goes back to the childhood method that always worked: "hey look at the cool rock i just found"

[quadrantadvisor]

Alright new Jason Todd headcanons in a dpxdc setting:

Danny is a "liminal" ghost, rather than a "half" ghost. He's alive and dead at the same time. (He's like Jesus Christ (in the church denomination I grew up in), fully ghost and fully human.) Danny, in human form, can go through a ghost shield, because he IS a living human.

Jason, however, is a reanimated corpse. He isn't a ghost, wouldn't have a ghost core, etc, he has a normal human system that runs ON ectoplasm. Jason CANNOT go through a ghost shield, because he is always an ectoplasmic entity. Danny can go through the Fenton Ghost Catcher and be split into a ghost and a human; if Jason went through the ghost catcher, he would straight up die.

(For my purposes I'm gonna say that Jason became an ectoplasmic entity upon his resurrection, but wasn't very stable. Dunking in the Lazarus pit stabilized his system but also poisoned his ectoplasm.)

I do think that Jason could learn certain ghost abilities if he learned to harness his ectoplasm, especially if they detoxed him off the Lazarus waters. He's probably already enhancing his stealth and strength in ways he hasn't really noticed. I think he's held back by the amount of physical matter he's lugging around, so maybe he couldn't fly, but I'm imagining temporary invisibility, or intagibility of like, a limb at a time. Maybe he can't walk through walls, but in a fight he can dodge by instinctively making the targeted part of his body intangible.

[mythalism]

cannot stop thinking about a romanced Lavellan being the default world state. it seems like no big deal at first until you realize that it’s the world state that all new players to the franchise will use. it is the world state they chose for people who are brand new to the world and its characters. it’s the world state they chose to get new people invested in the world. whatever happens in that world state isn’t just for us, who have been eagerly waiting, but is significant enough that they want every single brand new player to see it, to experience those scenes. i need to lay down

[troythecatfish]

[nebuladreamz]

The voices are loud and I am WEAK

[ironunderstands]

ship so good it makes me interested in omegaverse bc tell me why I now want to write omega Ratio who’s pretending to be a beta but gets found out by alpha Aventurine 😭😭

[sysig]

So much experimenting to be done, where to even start (Patreon)

[starleska]

i see this opinion echoed across the Doctor Who fandom: that we really enjoyed Maestro, and love the idea of The Devil's Chord, but feel like the episode was lacking a little something in the writing department. so here's my suggestion: they shouldn't have killed off Timothy Drake 👀🎶 hear me out:

from the start, we're introduced to Timothy Drake as a deeply talented individual, and one disgruntled with his position in life. his passion and genius have been squandered, and he's been relegated to teaching his craft to disinterested schoolboys. but we learn he has a darker interest...Timothy is a scholar as well as a composer, and he decides to spice up his day by telling his pupil about the lost Devil's Chord. and then, Maestro erupts onto the scene...and they are everything that Timothy has never been able to be. Maestro is loud, and flamboyant, and unreservedly powerful: every glittering gem on their body screams you will look at me, and you will listen. and while Timothy's polite-society conditioning and time-typical bigotry are his initial response, we can tell that Maestro intrigues him. in return, Maestro doesn't just talk to Timothy, oh no. Maestro all but seduces the man, by speaking aloud all of Timothy's most private thoughts: that he's a misunderstood genius, and that it isn't his fault he never got that break. in this way Maestro manifests as a Devil figure, luring Timothy into an unspeakable Faustian bargain. here he is, wasting his life and talent and songs away in some stuffy school...when he could have so, so much more. like Maestro, he could be powerful. he could be who he wants to be. and most importantly: he could make people listen to him. i would've loved a version of The Devil's Chord where Maestro manipulates Timothy Drake into drawing out the music of others, thereby killing them, and feeding Maestro in the process. perhaps there could have been a caveat to Maestro's power: as the Essence of Music, it could be that Maestro has to operate through a living being, much like a demonic muse. not only could Timothy get all of the attention he ever wanted, finally being recognised for his musical brilliance...but he could exact revenge on those who said he'd never make it. wouldn't this have been a fascinating parallel with The Beatles? what if we'd seen an increasingly power-mad Timothy Drake, rising to stardom in an alternate timeline where everyone is devoid of musical inspiration, leaving him as the sole musical genius in the world? what if the Doctor and Ruby's horror at a devastated world included the theme of creation for creation's sake, as opposed to the manic pursuit of adoration which Timothy so clearly desires? perhaps i have lost my mind. perhaps i am reading far too much into the way Timothy looks at Maestro in the latter half of the clip above. but i think the terror of Maestro would have come through even more if they'd kept Timothy Drake around, and trapped him in a Phantom of the Paradise-esque doomed narrative with Maestro whispering in his ear and helping him take control of his destiny 🎶🔥

[dykedvonte]

i ADORE how you describe benny! why do you think he slept with the courier AND left without killing them the morning after? i know the game designers had to have that happen but with almost every other option (unless you're able to convince him you'll stay away) ending with him attempting to kill you, i don't see why he wouldn't at what could be a perfect opportunity.

Benny is not at messy and petty as people portray him.

His “cowardly” or stupid actions are really pragmatic when you actually take the time to think about them from his point of view instead of “Omg he’s so goofy what a loser this is obviously a discussion a loser makes.” Before I get to sleeping with Benny I think explaining his other weird moves helps.

The first is by far him waiting for you to wake up before shooting you in the head. It’s an odd thing to do as it holds him up, gives you a glimpse of your attackers and doesn’t match the less than noble things he does like abandoning the Khans and how he took care of the singer in the all roads comic. But it makes sense. Benny has a rather strong sense of personal morals, skewed and contradictory as they are.

If it is a detriment to him and the Chairmen he becomes cold and calculated, he will leave you for dead or make sure you can’t get to him or them. It’s why he tries to kill you at first, per your contract you will hunt him down and that is very bad for a man trying to be discreet. But you seeing his face? Him apologizing about you being in the middle? He expected you to die, to never be found and in a way he puts your loose end to rest. He buries you in one of the few places that is specifically for a dead body. Benny doesn’t want unnecessary collateral and what he deems necessary/unnecessary really just depends of how he accesses you as a risk. It’s the same reason he leaves Emily Ortal alive. It’s very unlikely a Follower is gonna stop a plan for an independent strip even if they’ve been cheated.

It’s why he leaves the Khans. He already dislikes them but the Khans are still raiders/tribals like him and the other casino families. A rose by any other name and all that. Even if they made it and he paid they have such incriminating evidence against him that he’d never be able to stand up to them if they decided to hang it over his head. Yeah he’s making more unnecessary enemies but in his mind it’s that or having another very real threat over his plans.

Benny makes these assessments very quickly. It’s not that you’re some silver tongued charmer when you get him alone but that he genuinely thinks it’s better at this point to keep you alive and get you on his side than kill you. Of course, this is if you can convince him of that and not have him set a trap for you. When you sleep with him he basically thinks you’re fucked in the head, outside of the two bullets he put in there, and more curious and vengeful. It’s quick fun and he dips after because whether you mean to help him or not he’s now on crunch time as it’s impossible House won’t notice his Courier showing up sans one platinum chip.

Most of Benny’s actions towards other people is dictated by if he sees them as a liability. It’s very odd to think deeply about because it clashes with the cool cat persona Benny puts on but it’s very in line with his raider/tribal roots he keeps trying to erase. He gets vulnerable and drops the acts and gets with the Courier because there was no perceived threat, it’s like how Caesar invites you to the Fort even if you like are vilified thinking you’d just like listen.

It’s less the sensible thing to do and more the comfort of your playing field and not feeling threatened in the moment.

[ebbpup]

How does Peri prevent magical backup?

Well, being in the more human form like, 24/7 does use a good amount of magic but he does do a lot of minor things just to get all the magic out every morning before his roommates wake up/evening after his roommates go to bed. However this isn't always enough, so like once a month he just goes to the middle of nowhere and does as much magic as possible, very dangerous to be in the vicinity of but man is it beautiful! if he causes any damage he'll always fix it but if you look closely, you can tell something strange happened.

might change this slightly once i actually see the final but this is what's been in my mind for a while