#Iron Formation

[geologyjohnson]

Banded Iron Formation

Here's a photo of a beautiful 3.4 Ga banded iron formation from the Barberton Geo Trail, South Africa. It's heavily weathered, but there was still some green underneath the oxides. Exposure is ~3m high. #Geology

[cowboylikeyouu]

the stupid ass pwp car sex poolverine oneshot i wrote three days ago already has more kudos than the ongoing 14 chapters avengers twitter fic i dedicated two years of my life and way too much of my time to, and i really don't know how to feel about that

[americaisdead]

hawthorne, nev. november 2024

© tag christof

[cer-rata]

TW: racism

I think the way that comic book media has uncritically pushed anti-Arab racist propaganda (among other kinds) for decades upon decades is an important thing to acknowledge. Like it's not just a couple of bad apples here and there, it's always been pervasive. So many stories, so many villains, so many Arab coded fake evil countries. That kind of thing desensitizes people, dehumanizes entire groups. The politics of media designed for young men and boys (and not just them but for years that was the only audience that mattered, thanks sexism) has consequences.

Seriously, what was this:

As far as I'm aware this never even got an explicit retcon.

I was a little Muslim boy in the mid 2000s reading a Death in the Family because I wanted to know what happened to Jason Todd, and I didn't understand the depths of the propaganda that was being fed to me. I was so desensitized to hearing about terrible things happening in the middle east, and evil terrorists that I didn't question it. And my parents talked to me about what was going on and how it was wrong. But I was still a little kid and I loved Batman and I wasn't at the point where I could really look at the narrative critically, to realize that the authors have worldviews that are biased. I don't think I even grasped that different people wrote the characters. Iran electing known super-terrorist-serial killer-baby eating clown The Joker to represent them because he understood their values is yes, notably crazy, but most of this stuff isn't so loud and obvious, and we didn't leave it in the 80s. Just look at what happened to the depiction of Talia and Ra's post 911 and how they progressive became less human. So just think about the generations of kids reading this crap who had no counter messaging at all. Where does that leave their empathy?

I'm not saying that everything we're seeing is the fault of comic books, that's stupid and reductive and insulting to the complexity of the reality. But what I'm saying is that a lot of these narratives are actively complicit in the kinds of inhumanity we're seeing. Marvel thinking it's appropriate to throw Sabra into a movie in current day is a glaring transgression but it's not some kind of strange outlier. Lots of those films are actively funded by arms of the American military, just look at Captain marvel and Iron Man. And if anyone likes imposing an agenda onto the narrative, it's the military. A lot of this is baked into the fiction, and we owe it to ourselves and others to actively contend with what that means.

I dunno I'm just mad, and disappointed and maybe a little guilty that it took me this long to really realize the full state of things. I spent a lot of time blindly consuming. Like these books were created to be aspirational, to show good people trying to make a better world. But as always happens when art is completely beholden to money, they still serve the politics of the ruling class at the end of the day.

[teapetal44]

All For One should have stayed on the sidelines as a character after Kamino. His evolvement in everything after that significantly weakens the story. Building up Tomura as his protégé, framing him as the next symbol of evil, and then pulling the rug under everyone’s feet, is the worst writing decision Hori has ever made. In concept, All For One failing at passing the torch to Tomura is good, because it directly  parallels All Might and his mentorship to Izuku. Unlike All For One, Toshinori was aware the younger generation needed to take up the mantle. All For One is a selfish and controlling person, it makes perfect sense for him to be unable to give up his power to someone else. But in execution it falls apart the moment All For One continues to force himself upon the narrative, continues to serve as the big bad. All For One’s inability to pass the torch and Tomura as a main antagonist can co-exist without weakening the themes of the story.  

Like, imagine how cool it would have been if All for One was destroyed by Tomura after he tried taking control over his body and mind. Tomura realizes his master is holding him back from achieving his full potential and his goal, the thing he literally lives and fights for. Triumph over his master would be Tomura’s final step to becoming the new symbol of evil and his self-liberation. Then, he would truly be free of everything holding him back. AFO, the puppeteer, the man always one step ahead of everyone else, would be conquered by the very same person he molded – he planted the seed, but at last, what grows is out of his control. In a sense, he would be punished by the story for failing at passing the torch and Tomura would be cemented as the final antagonist, and his journey would feel satisfying.

All though, I see why Horikoshi didn’t write it like that – cause that would require giving Tomura actual autonomy as a character. Something he actively avoids doing every chance he gets. It’s easier to have a character who is crafted to be evil by one powerful bad man before he was even born, than to portray an abused child failed by a fundamentally corrupt society that values consumerism over actually helping those in need, who ended up in the hands of the powerful bad man because the child slipped through the cracks of said society. MHA conveys to the viewer that there are no bad systems, only bad people within the established systems.

Tomura couldn’t own his conception, nor his heroic goals, not even his abuse. Nothing ever happened to him because of society as a whole or because life is cruel and merciless. It happened because Anime-Satan said so.

[spark-river]

MC: You know, I'm feeling weirdly distracted today.

Belphegor: You're supposed to be dead!

[ishimondoevents]

Here are the prompts. Thank you to everyone who contributed ideas to this! The list will be written down below the cut with some ideas for those who want a little elaboration, a little help brainstorming, or simply understand how loosely prompts can be interperted!

Please make sure to check out the RULES AND F.A.Q. so we can have a smooth week.

July 14th: Family / Dates

July 15th: Promise / Sickness

July 16th: Roleswap / Seasons

July 17th: Competition / Future

July 18th: Talentswap / Gifts

July 19th: Confessions / Soulmates

July 20th: Free Day*

* For the Free Day, you are free to use a prompt that you hadn't used on one of the previous days if you would prefer a specific prompt to follow.

Remember— these are just ideas to help with brainstorming, you are not limited to interpreting the prompts in just these ways. 

Family: You could choose to interpret this as being in relation family members (canon or head cannoned) for a scenario like meeting the in-laws; or them building one of their own (with pets, fan kids, v3 kid AUs, etc). Another angle could be a reflection on their own childhoods, with a focus on their family life/dynamics to tie it back to the prompt.

Dates: Quite a few options to go with, off the top of my head: first dates, blind dates, double/group date, fake dating, or even a study date lol. This could also be interpreted in the sense of important dates like birthdays, anniversary, etc.

Promise: This one might be a tad bit easier on the writers since all you'd need to really do to meet the prompt is throw in one 'promise between men', but you can definetly get creative with it. You could go a more canon route of 'I'll build your house bro' or 'We'll get out of the killing game alive' to anything else you could think of, big or small— perhaps even broken promises (as serious or silly as you'd like, e.g. 'you promised you'd stop speeding')

Sickness: Just a few ideas besides a literal cold— lovesickness (figurative or more literal like a hanahaki AU), a despair disease scenario, or a mental health day.

Roleswap: Anything that generally swaps the canon role would apply here. So Protagonist AUs, Mastermind AU, Survivor/Future Foundation AUs would all be applicable here. Remnants of Despair AUs may also apply, see the elaboration given in the Talentswap section.

Seasons: Take this as liberally as you'd like. Focus on one season or all; focus on seasonal activities like going to the beach, a seasonal school vacation; or a seasonal holiday/festival, just to offer a few different ways you could try and meet this prompt. 

Competition: With how competitive these two are, hopefully this won't end being too restrictive. Be this between the two of them, one rooting for the other for sports/other extracurricular activities, or a double date scenario with someone as competitively spirited. You could also stick to more canon moments for reference like the Sauna Scene or the race between Mondo and Daiya.

Future: You could do something with Futuristic themes like cyborgs/androids/etc. Or more broadly approach the prompt with discussions of the future (v3 talentplan style), or in settings where they're older (be that 30 or 80, however you wish to interpert it). 

Talentswaps: The difference from the roleswap Is that the former implies the talent isn't changed, just the role within the story. A talentswap may change several factors, but most notably the talent. So whether you're swapping just the talents between the THH cast or swapping game premises as well (e.g. v3 au with SHSL Inventor Oowada), all of that would be better suited here. Remnants of Despair AUs could go here if it's a talent swap that includes SDR2's general premise, but if the talents were to remain the same AND the concept to be (for example) that Junko chose Class 78 over 77 to brainwash, then that could fall under a Roleswap instead.

Gifts: This should hopefully be easier to achieve as a prompt, but this could be around any kind of celebration involving gifting (birthdays, holidays, etc.), or just a general occasion of wanting to get a gift. Maybe focusing on having difficulty with finding a present, etc.

Confessions: This could be anything from a love confession, or a completely innocuous thing like— oops, I’m the asshole that has been in your parking spot bc I’m dyslexic and thought it was mine meet cute(?). Perhaps it could be one of them receiving a love confession and the reaction around it.

Soulmates: Since I know there are quite a few ideas people have come up with over the years for soulmate AUs, I think this one should also not be too difficult (hopefully).

Here are four lists I got just from googling, should you need a few ideas about what you might do: 

https://www.tumblr.com/r-evolve-art/144380748003/

https://www.tumblr.com/ausforsoulmates/190255248494/

https://www.tumblr.com/thegeminisage/94680598838/

https://www.tumblr.com/creativepromptsforwriting/647547186533531648/

You could also go more straightforward with red string of fate concepts for soulmates as well, or just the idea of soulmates, not necessarily a soulmate AU if none speak to you!

[crowned-clown-rising]

You either die young or live long enough to become married by the power of fanon, a tour:

Murder husbands

Iron husbands

Superhusbands

Ineffable husbands

Space husbands

Time husbands

Heartrender husbands

Honorable mentions:

Space boyfriends

Pirate husbands

Missed opportunities:

X-Husbands

Please?? The pun?? You know because they are x-men?? And they have a beach divorce?? Then they remain married while archenemies their whole lives??

[charmac]

I love how Glenn talks about his journey with Dennis in this episode in TASP, specifically inspired by this scene:

"Season three really was the year where I feel like I found the character... Just sort of letting myself be a little bit more insane and crazy and unhinged and just weird. Just making weird choices... Let's just see how despicable and egotistical and awful and narcissistic and predatory can we make this character and still have it be funny.”

This scene has always felt so purposefully strange, predatory in Dennis’ language yet absurdly dismissable in Ingrid’s reaction and response. Clearly Glenn’s getting weird with it (in delivery) to make the scene funny.

So what’s crazy interesting to me is this claim in TASP that Glenn improvised the majority of the predatory language here (8:34-9:40 if the timestamped embedding doesn't work):

Which, by the way, is a complete lie (okay, fine, let’s say.. misremembering):

Because it’s scripted almost word for word. RCG speak about how they were scared to really go there knowing how it would come off, they claim they were nervous and uncomfortable “improvising” the lines the day of shooting, yet they clearly scripted it that way, intended language going into the scene (scripted by Charlie and Glenn, I might add).

Sunny is written as a comedy, intended to be funny, and it worked because it was funny despite the lines Glenn had to deliver. And why is that?

In some way, it is partly how they scripted (/directed) Ingrid as unfazed by Dennis’ words. She doesn’t see him as a threat and therefore his words bounce off as pathetic and strange, even when they’re alone in an office; she's not threatened so the audience isn't alarmed. But obviously the reason for her responding like this (notwithstanding her knowledge of Dennis from high school) is the way Dennis holds himself and the way he speaks.

His mannerisms are clearly misaligned, he’s saying words he knows(?) are threatening, but coming out of Dennis' mouth with these inflections, with his intent being to sell her his dress designs, it's almost nullified. He's just saying what he thinks gives him power, but his words mean nothing when Ingrid can clearly see through them. (And Meg speaks on this, too, which is awesome)

But they didn't just throw in Dennis speaking like a predator on the day of filming, thinking "ok let's do one take like this to push it," they wrote Dennis very clearly (knowing the payoff of the episode), with Glenn likely having a good idea of how he was going to play it. How (and I'm sorry but I really cannot find a better word to describe it) faggy Dennis comes across here is what disarms everyone, and since this predatory language was scripted, that is what was needed in Glenn's intention, or it just wouldn't be humourous.

And Charlie very helpfully assures something foundational here,

This is playing hard on Dennis' insecurities.

And, all that considered... When they're talking about Glenn getting weird with it, when they're talking about the choices he made in this episode to make the language he's using funny as opposed to straight-up scary, he says:

This is where Glenn found the character—insecurities included. In order to minimize the impact of the words Dennis is using, in order to make the predatory language creepy yet easily dismissable to Ingrid, it had to be funny in some way. And he achieves that by deciding to write/play Dennis clearly, insanely flamboyant.

Ironic, isn't it?

[seathernycolors]

rock pikmin doodles :3c

[betterbemeta]

not to Girls und Panzer or anything but I think a WH40k Chimera tank that's been taken over by some 13 year old girls would be very funny.

[geologyjohnson]

A cute little billion year old coated grain that looks like a sprout. The grain is made of layers of Fe-clay that grew on the sea bed. Normally these grains are smooth but mine have unusual textures. I'm trying to figure out how these things formed. This little grain is about 1 mm across and is hosted in a shadow water sandstone.

[goatwithaplan]

SMT 2005 posting carries on

[americaisdead]

riviera. torrance, calif.

© tag christof

[geologyin-blog]

Tiger iron is a banded iron formation (BIF) that has alternating layers of black and brown hematite/magnetite, red jasper and chatoyant golden tiger eye. Photo: Australian Outback Mining

[asurrogateblog]

[jigsaw voice] hello pink floyd fan. you have ten minutes to draft a post speculating about what happened to syd in a way that neither exaggerates nor dismisses the role of mental health and/or drug abuse in his departure from the band while simultaneously acknowledging his personal agency without reverting to either unfair blame or ableist infantilization. if you fail to write something sufficiently nuanced that does not ultimately contribute to his unsolicited martyrdom this brick I've tied on a string to the ceiling fan above your head will swing around and probably kill you eventually idk give it a few rounds