#The void can take the other two.

[gobstoppr]

first draft at a john design..

some design notes in the tags

[hastalavistabyebye]

I have an idea for a new ponds/bacara ficlet but it's a chatfic TT.TT Chatfics are so hard to write TT.TT why brain, why ??

[shadyhouse]

i keep getting rejected from job applications and i have no idea what im doing wrong. i wish they would just tell you WHY you're getting rejected and ways to improve. its a guessing game that ends up making me feel even more worthless than i felt before

[r1ngfinger]

I have brought the two halves of Spacehead back together. I now await my significant other to join me with glitter glue.

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

oughh......

[arolesbianism]

Some stuff I've drawn semi recently

[kuromi-hoemie]

nooo im all caught up on my manhwa and now i have to actually do something else

hell world

[transgenderfivepebbles]

science is an exercise in gratitude, i think

[void-kissed]

For that writing thoughts thing, the "taken life, given soul," do you have any thoughts you'd line to share about that? :D I loved it a lot! (dragonsmooch)

Ah yes, my most recent piece of writing!! I can definitely come up with some stuff to talk about from that one for you, friend!~

(source: this post by void-kissed - hey, that's me!)

Name a piece of writing that I’ve posted, and I’ll give you some thoughts and analysis of it! - Alright, let's see what comes to mind! This might get long because I'm not very good at being succinct, so I'll put it all under a readmore if that's alright.

The main thing about this piece is that it's essentially from Vanea's perspective more than anything, and it isn't always as easy to write my F/Os' perspectives compared to my self-inserts' (since, well.. my self-inserts are me, so that makes it easier). It also didn't help that I'm a lot less familiar with the overarching details of the first Xenoblade Chronicles game than I am with XC2 (which, as an aside, is not the second Xenoblade Chronicles game - X should never go unremembered!). But I tried to make it work!

For example, in the opening paragraphs to set the scene, I tried to portray the background events in the sort of way the Machina might be thinking of it, as opposed to the Homs and other residents of Bionis (for example, describing the attack on Colony 9 as "provid[ing] the Mechon with some valuable resources", not really detailing the fact that those resources largely consisted of human beings.)

I also tried to draw attention to the fact that Vanea is, at heart, a scientist, when you think about it! Hence her making sure to keep close tabs on all the parameters, and initially referring to Citri as an "anomaly" in the experiment, and the fact she took an interest in the memories she saw of Citri being a nerd and doing research and stuff with Shulk.

The other girl who got captured and brought to Vanea at the same time as Citri was Fiora, who is actually the one present for the cutscene my writing replaces in the game (although you don't find that out in-game for a while). She's also a childhood friend of Shulk, hence why she was picked out as a potential vessel for Meyneth.

The wound she had sustained was based on when Metal Face stabs her in the game, hence specifically using the phrase "clawed at her clavicle" because Metal Face's weapons are long sword-like claws. Him hitting Fiora's clavicle specifically was partially to provide some nice alliteration, but it also explained why she couldn't have worked as Meyneth's vessel here, because the soul component goes on the pilot's chest.

The section where Face Nemesis is actually assembled, and Vanea is saying lots of short sentences that are all on different lines, was mostly directly copied over from the in-game cutscene my writing replaces. This is how it actually goes, if you were curious:

In terms of differences from the in-game cutscene, I didn't really know how to add in Vanea spotting the damage dealt to Metal Face, so I sort of half-worked it into the "worrying news about a new wielder of the Monado arising" at the start. You can also argue that taking that bit out and moving the interruption about Egil to later on is because Vanea was distracted by how things went with Citri (because she was expecting Lady Meyneth to awaken, not Citri herself).

Another difference is that Vanea's dialogue is slightly expanded, and this is actually because this isn't the first time I've portrayed this scene. The extra lines added in are from the caption I put on a render I made last year showing Citri as Nemesis' pilot!

In the writing, the mechanical hands that Citri should have been fitted with weren't able to be properly fixed, which is why Vanea decides to risk keeping her biological ones instead. This is actually based on something that happened out-of-story - namely, the fact that the mechanical hands that were meant to go on Citri's reference model wouldn't fit typical MMD bone structures properly, so I ended up keeping her base hands instead. So they did quite literally break both in and out of the game, haha! But I like to think it works out, because the fact that the only "organic" parts of Citri left are her head and her hands gives moments like holding hands with Vanea much more significance ^-^

Overall, I also kind of tried to convey the fact that all of this interaction that Vanea ends up having with Citri was not supposed to have happened, at least not according to Vanea's calculations. This is why I made such a thing of Vanea being surprised she remembered Citri's name - she's not supposed to have ever gotten to speak with her, really, yet she finds herself wanting to know more about her anyway. And she does, with time! And that eventually leads its way into the beginnings of a romantic relationship! Because I love Vanea! ^-^

Okay, this is about all I can think of for the moment. Please take a picture of Face Nemesis itself from the game for your troubles, and thank you very very much again for giving me this opportunity, friend ^-^

(For context to give a sense of scale: Citri fits in the torso part of Nemesis, sitting down! So.. yeah, it's pretty enormous.)

[wheelercore]

Lays in bed at night and thinks about "Mike is the key" "two keys" "two man job" the "todfather" car and I just [REDACTED]

[akkivee]

so i’ve been thinking about how the mixed up divisions got decided and:

ichiro🤲➡️jiro/saburo: ichiro gave his brothers to the only adults he trusts lol since sasara and jakurai took care of him in the past 🥺

samatoki🤲➡️juto/rio: rio i think volunteered to check out the known chuuoku spy. juto i think got stuck with kuukou because samatoki suggested it and probably followed it up with ‘if you can handle me then he’s nothing that you can’t handle’ lol

ramuda🤲➡️gentaro/dice: paired up with the guys who forgave ramuda for fcking them over pretty much instantly 🥺

jakurai🤲➡️hifumi/doppo: i think hifumi volunteered to go to ramuda. idk how doppo got stuck with samatoki lol but i wouldn’t be surprised if sensei suggested it because he knows samatoki is a nice person and therefore a safe person for doppo

sasara🤲➡️rosho/rei: both i think volunteered. rosho probably still thinks about his little showdown with ichiro at sasara’s behest. rei was the one who brought up sasara’s past with samatoki so maybe he had something he wanted to suss out in secret from samatoki

kuukou🤲➡️jyushi/hitoya: gave jyushi to the best man he ever knew (kuukou’s words not mine) to give jyushi an ideal and told hitoya to get his crap together with jakurai lmao (tho it can also be hitoya himself trying to get his crap together)

[bisexualpackrat]

.

[etherealvoidechoes]

Aye, what are friends for when sick(I wish intense muscle pain on no one. -.-) Dumb meme-ing to cheer me up using reaction images of how the Commander crew woke up in their own verses . And if I have bruised ribs I'm going to beat y'all later.

Jynn

Thaddeus

Kamon

Elli

[baycitystygian]

am I using etsy to look at vintage outfits A) to get inspo for drawings/past headcanons or B) am I just giving myself more body dysmorphia? the world may never know

[benevolentvampire]

.

[reasonsforhope]

No paywall version here.

"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...

In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.

Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.

But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.

I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.

In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.

For the first time in my career, I felt something strange: optimism.

And that simple realization was enough to convince me that releasing yet another climate report was worthwhile.

Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate. State, local and tribal governments all around the country have begun to take action. Some politicians now actually campaign on climate change, instead of ignoring or lying about it. Congress passed federal climate legislation — something I’d long regarded as impossible — in 2022 as we turned in the first draft.

[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]

And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.

The conversation has moved on, and the role of scientists has changed. We’re not just warning of danger anymore. We’re showing the way to safety.

I was wrong about those previous reports: They did matter, after all. While climate scientists were warning the world of disaster, a small army of scientists, engineers, policymakers and others were getting to work. These first responders have helped move us toward our climate goals. Our warnings did their job.

To limit global warming, we need many more people to get on board... We need to reach those who haven’t yet been moved by our warnings. I’m not talking about the fossil fuel industry here; nor do I particularly care about winning over the small but noisy group of committed climate deniers. But I believe we can reach the many people whose eyes glaze over when they hear yet another dire warning or see another report like the one we just published.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me."

-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.