#a bit rant about deforestation

[heavenly-kazee]

If you ever wondered where I have been yesterday the entire time just don't panic from this post.

Firstly, there was no electricity and secondly, there are no bar lines. It stayed like that until almost 5pm in the evening, it lasted 8 hours because I got up around 9:30 am at that time when it happened

Sooo yeah, just a typical village problem but it wasn't that severe in the past. Though I still blame people for moving in villages to retired in (I understand it's breathtaking but please stop lit garbages on fire, you're making my asthma worse)

Jeez, older people these days. I can't stand looking at the trees being chopped off just for the housing in villages ffs-

And by that, making the country more unliveable thanks to geographic placement in Southeast Asia (I found out Malaysia and other countries won't be able to survive so soon with El Nino getting worsen)

Makes my body wanting to crawl to my brother's place for help lol

[balrogballs]

okay now that we are mutuals (I have been blessed by the divine balls!! melian who? 😒) I can shamelessly come into your ask box to rant about elves.

OK. Here comes.

The elves that first awoke and their immediate children, right? From the information I've been able to gather, their society was tribal. More so than that, they basically didn't know... Anything. Like. At all. Presumably they woke up ass butt naked, in total darkness and with no language. Just ✨vibes✨

Some of these Elves had died at some point before they could invent anything, really, besides speech and maybe knives. Maybe. Eventually they got re-embodied and went to continue living on their merry way in Valinor/Aman.

Now, balls, I'm not a pervert. I'm an amateur anthropologist. Please keep that in mind.

Many years passed and Elves learnt many things from the Valar, and their babies had babies and had babies and so forth. So I'm thinking, some people just have that personality trait that they think it was better before. It doesn't matter how bad it was, but it was before and that means that it's better. It could be the black plague and they'd be wallowing the they just don't see people with sores anymore 😒🙄

So picture this. Thranduil, in all of his Bold Glamour glory, arrives in Valinor and eventually his daddy drags him to socialise (boy did the seclusion have a profound impact on his social skills, his mother says) with his extended relatives. And of course you have all kinds of people there.

But. By a lovely tree at sunset he meets his earliest known ancestor. Tall, probably, and squinting because the sun is too damn bright (it was better before, when it didn't scorch his face in the morning), and wearing absolutely nothing. Bojangles blowing on the wind. Just rawdogging it.

Balls. I have been thinking about this a lot. For historical reasons. Do you think Valinor has public indecency laws? Do you think accommodations are made for the neanderthal elves?

I need to let you know that I read this out to Mr Balls as he made dinner. I think I’ll be reading it out to most people. If I ever win a literary prize, I will read this out as my acceptance speech and attribute it to you.

I think “Now, balls, I'm not a pervert. I'm an amateur anthropologist. Please keep that in mind.” irrevocably changed something deep inside me. I don’t think I can ever, ever look at a tree without seeing a tall, noble elf standing by it, bits flapping in the wind. If I go and do some deforestation somewhere, it is entirely your fault.

[lambcow]

Mini Star Trek Discovery/SNW panic rant ahead

Ngl I highkey panicked when I found out that Michael was Spock’s sister and they just hekka inserted another sibling into his life in canon with no questions whatsoever for funsies. I was like- you can’t just do that???

But then. I finished watching all the original Star Trek movies and realized that they already did that with Sybok. So. It’s not like this would even be the first time that Spock never mentioned having a sibling to everyone in his life anyway, which, to quote Jim “gives me emotional security”.

I’m the kind of fan who both gets really excited about new content but is also really skeptical of it being made well. I just. Especially with this new Trek stuff being in universe supplemental to tos… like anything they do in the show is supposed to fit into tos canon and that makes me a bit wary… I just. I really really like Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner and DeForest Kelley and my OG crew. And I like my reboot crew too, but they are LITERALLY in an alternate timeline reality so they can exist in their Kelvin universe bubble and play with their toys and have Jimmy blue eyes and Vulcan actually destroyed… but this new stuff with Discovery and SNW? I want it to be good, and that terrifies me.

Anyway. Umm. So that’s all. I just really want them to do Gene Roddenberry justice and do the og Star Trek justice while obviously still having the space (haha) to be their own thing because it is it’s own show.

I just. Star Trek.

Star Trekkkkkk.

[justkeeptrekkin]

Prompt: Crowely tells Az he loves him by accident while going on a big long rant about (dealers choice) Az catches right away and just smiles and waits as Crowely comes to the realization of what he said

Anon. Anon. I love you for this. 

***

“See, thing is-”

Crowley’s words elude him- as they have a habit of doing, the sneaky buggers. He watches the white lines in the middle of the road streak by, feels the tarmac roaring beneath the car. It’s a rainy evening and they’re driving home from a restaurant north of Watford that Aziraphale has been banging on about for months. Since the world had ended- and then promptly not ended- the angel’s zest for food hasn’t lessened in the slightest. In fact, it’s only gotten bloody zestier, as if their near-apocalypse experience has made Aziraphale realise that life is too short. Even an immortal life such as his. 

Crowley loses his track of his thought entirely. “Thing is…”

“You were talking about-”

“KINDLES!” Crowley exclaims, taking his hands off the wheel to celebrate this eureka moment. Aziraphale straightens out beside him nervously and grabs a fistful of his corduroy trousers. Crowley slaps the leather of the steering wheel enthusiastically as he continues, “Kindles. Are not. Demonic! We didn’t come up with them- that was all you, I’m certain!”

“Why on earth would I invent the Kindle, dear boy? Do you even know me at all?”

“You-plural, not you-singular. Angels you, Heaven you.”

“Well, I certainly didn’t sanction it.”

“Alright but- listen- what’s the problem with kindles? Why’re- what’s the problem? I mean really, it’s a book, isn’t it. Just a book on a screen. What’s the problem?”

“The problem-” Aziraphale begins confidently, bordering aggressively. Then the wind appears to be knocked out of his sails. “Well,” he tries again, a little weakly. “The problem, the problem lies therein. In that. Well-”

“See! See, it’s clearly a good thing, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about- all these people going ‘oh, ho-ho, oh dear, books aren’t physical anymore, what a travesty! Let’s all- grab our pitchforks! And lament the loss of our children’s education’.” He adds a mocking, whinging voice to this last bit. 

Aziraphale tuts, stretches his legs out in front and crosses them. 

“No, you’re wildly misinterpreting the argument, Crowley.”

“You know it’s true, don’t deny it! People are only against them because humans don’t like change- they get all squirmy and anxious about it. As if, you know, as if the transition from a physical book to a little screen is the end of the world- and! Now that they’ve actually had a taste of the apocalypse, they really haven’t gained any more perspective, have they? I mean, you’d think they’d start worrying about global warming properly, but instead they’re just sad about kindles and- oh! That’s another thing, kindles aren’t paper! Less deforestation! Clearly- listen, come on, that’s got to be angelic work.”

Aziraphale pouts and averts his gaze, brows slightly raised in indignance. 

Crowley snorts. He notices the lines of the road streak by a little slower, presses down on the accelerator. 

“Aha!”

Crowley flicks his gaze over to Aziraphale, who’s turned his whole body towards him in his seat eagerly. A smug finger pointed in his face. 

“What? No,” Crowley shakes his head. “You- don’t try and argue with me on this, I’m absolutely certain-”

“Amazon! Kindles are owned by Amazon, notoriously corrupt!”

Crowley scowls, rolls his head wearily. “No, angel, they weren’t always bad, we only got to them a couple of years ago. You can’t argue that-”

“Amazon. Invented. Kindles! Thereby, kindles are evil. The end, full stop. Fin.”

“That’s just- you’ve been around long enough to know that’s not how it works.”

“And you can’t honestly argue that books are bad just because they’re made of paper. Books are knowledge! Books are the weapons against the armies of ignorance! Righteous tools-”

“Righteous tools,” Crowley snorts.

“Against the dark forces of evil!”

“Not this bollocks again. Look, books are fine, books are all well and good, but not everyone’s into them, are they? Times are changing, angel, you can watch things like Netflix or whatever it’s called and, listen to podcasts and- the way people share knowledge is different now. Listen, I love knowledge, love the stuff. You know I do, I was the one who got Eve to eat the apple after all, but even then, even then I’ve never really read books, unless I really have to, the only reason I read Pride and Prejudice is because I love you, and admittedly, yes, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever put myself through- actually, I think trying to read A Tale of Two Cities was what really did it for me, Charles Dickens- Christ alive, did you ever run into Dickens, angel? Miserable sod.”

Crowley drums his fingers against the steering wheel expectantly. The road side lights cast an orange glow in the car- brightening and darkening, brightening and darkening as they drive past one after another. Aziraphale is silent. 

And it’s only then that Crowley realises his mistake. 

It dawns on him the way a glass fills up slowly with water in the washing up bowl and sinks to the bottom. Slowly, then a sinking feeling. And then hitting rock bottom. 

He keeps his eyes on the road. His fingers tight on the steering wheel. 

“You…”

“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t. Just don’t. Alright?”

“But Crowley-”

“I said don’t.”

Quiet fills the car. There isn’t even the sound of Freddie Mercury to assuage the nauseating pain in his stomach, the feeling of his throat closing like he’s having an allergic reaction. He wants to cry. He wants to cry for the first time in a very, very long time. He blinks away the feeling, and holds himself together with pure will power, just like he held together this car a few weeks back. 

Only, he’s been holding himself together for roughly six thousand years. It’s getting close to too much. His metaphorical knees are buckling. Atlas only wishes he were as resilient as Crowley. 

Aziraphale exhales- a long, shaky breath. Crowley doesn’t turn to look, can’t bear it. 

Besides, he’s known him- loved him long enough that he can see him in his mind’s eye easily. Eyes sometimes dreamy, brows sometimes pulled together in concern. Lips sometimes twisted in disapproval, sometimes beaming with so much unreserved joy that Crowley has to tease him. Just so he doesn’t end up gazing, bathing in the brightness of that smile. 

And then Aziraphale huffs to himself- a determined little noise that sets Crowley on edge. And he’s already too close to the edge to handle. He’s only just got a hold of himself as it is, hands shaking on the wheels and knee bouncing. The threat of tears still there, threatening to make him choke on his breath- it gets stuck in his throat. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. So gently. 

That’s almost what does it- it’s almost what makes Crowley lose control, teeth grinding painfully and eyes stinging. The motorway stretching out in front of them, empty. Time stretching out even further. 

Then the angel speaks again. “You can go faster, Crowley.”

The words trickle through his brain slowly, like drops of water building at the rim of a tap. Then- drip. Understanding. Crowley’s throat clicks as he swallows, painfully. 

“That is- of course, only if you want to,” Aziraphale rushes, waves his hands desperately, “You can- drive- go- uh, you can go as slowly as you like, only, don’t feel obliged to go slowly on my account. Anymore.”

The angel clears his throat. And Crowley turns to look. 

He’s smiling. He looks absolutely bloody terrified, eyes a little wide and watery just like that day-

You go too fast for me, Crowley. 

-except now he’s smiling. A quiet, wobbly smile to himself as he stares out of the rain streaked window. Crowley watches the way the orange street light passes through his silver hair, making it appear more like brass. He watches him bite his lip, then continue.

“We could. Oh, I don’t know. We could do that picnic we talked about. Or, perhaps a walk through Wimbledon Common. Together. Or.” He pauses. “Or, if you wanted to, you could drop me off and come in for a night cap. I have some rather nice port hiding somewhere in my office.”

Aziraphale turns to meet his eyes. A look filled with welcome and kindness and understanding. Light catching his face like a Vermeer painting. And Crowley lets himself stare. 

“Eyes on the road, my dear.”

He only realises that his mouth is hanging open when he tries to forumlate his next words. He shuts it, then says, “What?”

“Eyes on the road, Crowley. Before we both get discorporated.”

It takes another moment to register. But then his head snaps forwards and he looks ahead again, the road continuing into the dark towards London. He can feel all the air rush out of him like a balloon. And then something else replaces it- something lighter than air, something that makes his mind feel like it’s drifting to another plane. Something weightless. 

“Picnic,” Crowley eventually says, nodding to himself. He scratches his chin nervously. “Picnic then walk. Or, walk then picnic.”

Because- and Crowley can’t quite believe himself for this- he thinks a night cap might be a bit too fast for him. 

“Lovely,” Aziraphale says. The word comes out in a whisper. “You can pick me up at midday tomorrow. If that’s-”

“That’s.” Crowley stalls. Nods his head compulsively like a nodding car-toy. “That’s. Yeah. Midday’s good. Midday it is.”

“Crowley?”

“Angel,” he replies seriously, business-like.

There’s a moment of hesitation. Aziraphale breathes deeply beside him, like a man stepping off the train from London to Cornwall, taking in the countryside air for the first time in years. 

“I do love you. An awful lot.”

Crowley continues to nod. But he can feel the facade slip. He can sense his bottom lip wobble, so he clamps his jaw tight shut. To no avail. He continues to drive them down the M25, although at this point he could be in St James’ Park, or in the middle of a desert, or on another planet- his mind is entirely elsewhere. 

It’s not a conscious decision to stretch out his hand over the gear stick towards Aziraphale. It’s something desperate in him, something needy and disbelieving. He feels Aziraphale take it without pause, his clasp warm in his own.

[acti-veg]

hey! i hope you are doing well! so, i’m from latin américa and vegan. here’s a few indigenous groups who hunt animals for their meals, and every time i say im vegan some liberal be like: but this indigenous person i know eats meat and they respect the land etc etc!!!! or if i’m talking to an actual indigenous person they get so defensive all the time when i only mention i’m vegan and i’m like okay??? i condone the meat industry and i know that a lot of indigenous ppl buy meat at the supermarket as same as y’all so it depends a lot on the context for me. i don’t agree with hunting, but i know it’s a cultural thing and if i say this ppl are gonna think i’m prejudiced. the same goes here with some african religions that have animal sacrifice. you can’t criticize it bc it’s an african descended religion and black ppl suffer a lot of racism, and people look with disgust or make prejudice comments or are even violent when ppl say they practice african descended religions. it’s religious racism in fact. i’m black myself and i get it, but i don’t agree at all with the sacrifice thing. and i once said this and ppl looked at me like i was a racist monster. i know i’m ranting but one last thing about the indigenous ppl: where i live a lot of them are being murdered and hunted also bc of agribusiness so i always say that the meat industry is ALSO killing them bc plenty of their land ends up being land for cattle, owned by the white rich men who owns everything. i wanted to share all of this with you and know what’s your thoughts on this topic! how to respond to religious people who make sacrifices and all of this cultural speciesism? i’m sorry for the lengthy message. i hope it’s coherent

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences on this, it is valuable perspective.

Personally, I think that part of the problem in conversations surrounding indigenous issues and veganism is how much indigenous suffering is being tokenised and to some extent weaponised against vegans and in defence of eating animals. The fact that animal agriculture is one of the key threats to indigenous sovereignty and the most significant driver of deforestation is almost always conveniently overlooked, whereas the harm caused by plant products never is.

Many indigenous communities have a complex relationship with the meat industry, both knowing how much harm industrialised animal agriculture has caused them and simultaneously being dependent on it, or, just like everyone else, not knowing or not caring. Many indigenous people exist in consumer cultures, so of course are subject to the same propaganda that everyone else is. Similarly with practices like religious sacrifice and slaughter, you can recognise that it is a significant practice for the groups concerned and be sensitive about that, while also holding a personal moral objection to it. This is very different to subsistenance hunting communities, where killing animals is a necessity, but where cultural practices are concerned they are as open to critique as any other freely chosen behaviour. The key consideration is whose place it is to do critique, and who is best placed to be having these conversations.

My view has always been that indigenous cultural practices which cause harm to animals should be discussed and challenged by indigenous activists themselves, not outsiders. That work is already being done in many places, and there are indigenous people promoting veganism in their own spaces, which is wonderful to see. I just hope that outside of those spaces, the conversation surrounding indigenous issues and veganism just... grows up a bit, because right now, 99% of the time these issues are raised as little more than ammunition in poorly considered anti-vegan arguments.

[thealmightyemprex]

Star Trek 5 is a baffeling movie for a lot of reasons.Not the worst Star Trek movie but the worst one starring the TOS crew . Now the TOS films for the most part tell a coherent story.....But 5 has nothing to do with said story (Neither does the Motion Picture but that at least sets up the characters for a new audience ),heck the 6th film ignores it andgoesright back to the story they were telling .Now I dont hate the Final Frontier ,there is actuallly quite a bit I like about it :Deforest Kellley gives possiblly his best performance as Bones ,Laurin Luckinbill does a fantastic job as Spocks brother Sybock,I reallly likethe moment when the Human,Romulan and Klingon ambassadors see Sha Ka Ri and each calls it a holy place from their culture ,and of course the immortal line "What does God need with a Starship"......Which leads to the big problem :Lofty goals and incompetence .See the film is about the search for God but instead finding something else .First of all it's an interesting concept done poorly ,not reallly delved into beyond the surfacelevel and all it amounts to is Kirk being chased by a flying Santa Claus head that goes "OOOOOOOOOOOOO".Also the film is both an exploration of the spirtual......And a slapstick comedy ......These things dont mesh .Not to mention little moments of stupidity like the dancing naked Uhura to distract the bad guys (Gonna steal Linkaras point ,cause it's a good point ,What if those guys were gay or from an all male species ,was plan B to have Spock dance naked ,or to add to it ,what if they were asexual ? Why was Kirks first plan "Have someone dance naked).Reallly the biggest issue is while Nimoy when he directed got why People liked Trek .....Shatner understood his characte rand litterally nothing else ,as a large portion of the film is to have the crew turn against Kirk and Kirk be the lone hero......Which makes absolutely no sense if you have seent he previous movies.....Or the fucking show .One of the movies is literally about the unbreakable bond the crew have ,they are practicallly a family .Also David Warner is in the movie on a technicality .H e does nothing except hook upwith a Romulan I think

Yeah I dont knowwhy I'm ranting ,I havent watched it recently or anything,I just started thinking about how bonkers this movie is

@ariel-seagull-wings @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark

[inspector-montoya-fox]

#13 - Menace from the North, eh!

Setting part 1: i mean......... whatever, right? at this point, India got 2 levels and Prague got 2 levels so i’m like ok, let’s get this over with. and i genuinely believe this and Anatomy for Disaster are the game’s two weakest episodes, despite the great conclusion. look, SP... they fucking delivered. they served absolute excellence with episodes 2-4, but it’s getting redundant and Menace from the North, eh! is just Menace from the North, meh? (please forgive me Lord). the game takes a weird environmentalist turn, which i fully appreciate but am ultimately confused by, seeing as He Who Tames The Iron Horse had absolutely nothing to do with Jean Bison’s pollution aspect. it feels weird to return to a Canadian outing after the gang had such a successful run in the previous episode, which felt like a conclusion even with the absence of a bossfight. like, SP could have easily inserted a Bison bossfight at the end of He Who Tames The Iron Horse in order to add another Klaww Gang member for an extra episode or maybe replace Menace from the North, eh! with the lost Monaco episode. it sounds like i’m bitching a lot, and i actually am. what really takes me aback every single time i play this game is that after you complete the Rajan/Contessa saga, it all becomes so anticlimactic. and i can’t comprehend why. by the end of this episode, the stakes are so high but the drive just isn’t there. and it’s not because the gang is demotivated. Sly has been having so much fun throughout the game, even with Neyla’s backstab being a huge obstacle. so getting down, dirty and serious is a much needed mood change. but i feel like i speak for all of us when i say that episodes 5-7 are overshadowed by episodes 2-4. with a few alterations to the order of the episodes and some changes to the script, i really think we could have had an awesome Contessa vs Clock-La final showdown episode and have Bison come right after Dimitri. because, honestly, Canada feels like ‘second episode’ material.

Setting part 2: i’m splitting it up because i don’t want my rant above to spoil the actual writing. the gang sticks around for another Canadian caper after some kooky stuff goes down with the environment and, mainly, the Northern Lights, which as we’ll soon find out, play a rather unexpectedly significant role in the grand scheme of things. and we’re treated to a log-chopping area, an off-the-maps secretive camp which really ups the ante, because Jean Bison is being such a jerk to nature. we’ve got deforestation, we’ve got melting ice, exploitation of wild animals, and Bison getting a raging red boner by literally destroying the environment in order to flex in the Lumberjack Games..... both the player and the gang have had enough of this dude, and i think SP used the fact that his only traits are being an angry idiot and a bigot to their advantage. instead of providing the necessary character development as they did with the Contessa and Rajan, Bison and his actions (especially his communication with the mYsTeRiOuS Arpeggio) are used as a prelude to Anatomy for Disaster. there’s not really a lot of dialogue apart from the final mission and bossfight, because the overall Klaww Gang plot begins to unravel, and particularly so by the time we find out about the lighthouse and its technological contents. in fact, if you think about it, Anatomy for Disaster starts with Clock-La’s shitshow and an info-dump at the beginning, which, if you’ve been paying enough attention to the details (i know that until i turned 12 and replayed the game as a young teen i hadn’t been paying attention to shit so it was all gasp!), is just the connecting of the dots. Menace from the North, eh! is essentially the last piece of the puzzle, before it’s all given to us in full detail by Arpeggio. i mean, apart from Dimitri serving dishes with drugs in them (i still can’t get over that at the age of 21), the rest is all things the player could pick up. and that’s this episode’s main focus. trying to prevent the inevitable under countdown, before Arpeggio’s blimp arrives to collect the Northern Lights energy. so it feels very anticlimactic and strange to put in all this effort without purpose. if you’ve played it before, you know it’s all for nothing since all the parts will be gone by the end of the episode. and it’s even more anticlimactic (although hilarious in tonal shift) to see how the gang scrambles under the pressure of preventing the Klaww Gang’s doomsday by hacking boats and having all these grandiose plans involving the lighthouse, just to then resort to taking part in the Lumberjack Games, without even a clever scheme but actually just cheating, and finally have Bison, an idiot, foil their plans by finding out where they’ve been hiding. and the bossfight is fine, but again, meh... i mean, woohoo Bentley! or whatever the fuck.

Characters: let’s talk about Jean Bison and his mistreatment as a character. we first meet him at Rajan’s ball, where Bentley introduces him as a Canadian shipping baron and says that he owns half the trains in Canada. later on, during the introductory cutscene for He Who Tames The Iron Horse, we get his backstory and how he’s risen from being practically dead, frozen since his time, and back with a vengeance against the environment. in my previous #episodeproject entry i said: SP plays up Bison’s savagery and gruesome nature by spotlighting how his plans affect the environment and even going so far as to call his house ‘the lair of the beast’. this is all true but is never put into practice. like, Jean Bison is all tell and no show, y’know? even the cutscene that plays when Sly gets caught in Bison’s cabin during He Who Tames The Iron Horse’s first mission shows Bison getting angry, but hunty, that’s about it. apart from the Lumberjack Games and his bossfight, it’s all oh Bison will get angry and oh Bison will kill us with the talons. well, where is it? where’s the fucking Canadian shipping baron with a vengeance against the environment? my baby heart was legit quivering when we had to steal Rajan’s blueprints as Bentley, and the Contessa was such a grand sleazebag of a woman, like what a douchebag - and you see that, although i’m often flamboyant in my writing (!!!), the way i describe these moments with these villains is both effective and relatable, because they showed up and lived up to their descriptions. Bison was written to be a ferocious beast of a villain but never showed that. and that’s on SP. whatever... let’s talk about the gang. now, despite the gang looking seriously badass in the opening cutscene for this episode (image below), they’re actually in a pretty good headspace. they’re only missing the talons and whatever Clockwerk parts Arpeggio had before collecting all of them. so it’s only natural for them to feel a bit cocky, and that’s actually gonna be their demise. before that, i just wanna mention that almost all the missions here (as with He Who Tames The Iron Horse) are group missions: Sly and Murray infiltrate the moose club in RC Combat Club, all three of them work together in Lighthouse Break-In, Boat Hack, and Old Grizzle Face. what really stood out to me every time i played this episode, is how, at the end when they take down Bison and they rush to the battery, each member has a different way of entering it, which is a small detail but important nonetheless. this further reinforces how united the gang has become since the Contessa levels and how their bond has strengthened. now, lemme circle back to how they’re cocky. i mean, apart from Jean Bison, Menace from the North, eh! doesn’t present any immediate danger or like trouble, seeing as both Neyla and Carmelita are absent. without any interference, the gang had lots of breathing space to plan ahead, even under countdown before Arpeggio’s blimp arrived. and they kinda wasted the opportunity because, as i’ve already mentioned, the operation was an absolute train-wreck. there’s no plan b, or like something clever or whatever. and usually, the operations tend to get disrupted by third parties, such as Carmelita or Neyla, but here, it failed because it was never smart. and it’s only natural for them to fall hard (by losing all the Clockwerk parts) after feeling all cocky (maybe i’m being too harsh). and all this directly leads to some more Bentley character development.... again. look, i’m all for character development, but the turtle already faced his demons when he busted Sly and Murray out of jail. i know we got Murray vs Rajan, but i don’t know, Murray was always kinda just there throughout the game. the hippo had his ups and downs (face-off with Rajan, imprisonment, losing the van), but not a fully realised story arc. that’s why, when Sly 3 starts off with his enlightenment and return, that story arc is instantly so iconic. i could go on about how Bentley gains self-confidence after defeating Bison, but um, we’ve already done that sis.

Themes: He Who Tames The Iron Horse and Menace from the North, eh! should have been one episode and i truly believe that. they could have shared the same themes. for the former, i said there’s the speed theme, and that applies here too because the gang are under pressure. the countdown lights a fire under their asses and it’s all very destructive. again, there’s an antithesis between the calm Canadian atmosphere and the chaotic energy of the missions. but it’s not just speed theme anymore, it’s more like theme of ferocity. everyone’s kinda on edge??? Old Grizzle Face is a motherfucker and we get up close and personal with the eagles, lasers destroy huge ice pieces, there’s a mammoth, the destroyed oil manes create fiery air drafts... chaos. and it all results in the disastrous events and outcome of the Lumberjack Games, which make Menace from the North, eh! the straightest episode in the game. yuck. it only makes sense for the missions to become less sneaky and more destructive as the stakes get higher and the gang is in a hurry, and that kinda embodies the pollution motif/ environment motif. it’s less of a theme and more of a motif because it’s so story-centric, but that’s the other things the comes into contrast with the calm environment. saws, the buzzing, chopped-up logs flowing down the river, tree stumps spread across: these embody the pollution and the harm Jean Bison has been doing even though it’s a forced storyline in my opinion. and finally, size theme. it’s not major, but it feels like everything’s bigger in Canada... Sly feels so puny in this episode, like especially when climbing the lighthouse. the wild animals are huge, the structures are huge, Jean Bison’s house is huge. it’s just lots and lots of nothingness. if you took absolutely nothing and enlarged it by 10 times, you’d have this episode’s hub. and this is also seen in the bossfight when tiny Bentley takes on Jean Bison. so yea.

What I Like: gliding off the lighthouse and throwing fish onto already stinky guards before Old Grizzle Face rips them to shreds. also, those cute lil catfish-lookin viruses in Bentley’s hacking! they’re so adorable.

What I Don’t Like: erm... it’s not that i don’t like this episode, but i find it kinda boring? apart from interacting with the wild animals, the missions are meh. and i hate the Lumberjack Games...

Quote: Get too close and old Grizzle Face will be eating barbecued raccoon for dinner.

[trek-tracks]

If you receive this you make someone's heart burst with love and appreciation for you. Send this to 5 people you think might need a boost of confidence or just a bit of uplifting affection. Someone who makes you feel happy to be on tumblr and see their posts on your dash.

Thank you! <3 <3 Right back at you!!

Here’s to:

@aishahiwatari for listening to me rant about Trek today

@fireinmywoods for her brilliant tagging and equally-brilliant manipulative abilities (she got me with her headcanons and she’ll get you, too)

@apathetic-revenant for very thoughtful and funny writing, and excellent Trek recaps

@peridotsarelongterm for blessing us with rare DeForest Kelley GIFs

@logicheartsoul for opening the Roddenberry vault and making the footage look its best

[pearls-and-love]

61 . 66 . 83 👀

61. either tangled or the little mermaid

66. the only studio ghibli film that i’ve seen is ‘my neighbor totoro’ but i loved it

83. rant: if we don’t do something soon we’re literally all gonna be dead in like the next 20 years and idk about y’all but i’d kinda like to live a little bit longer on this planet. also tired of the corporations trying to blame the people for climate change and all the destruction to the land from deforestation and litter when it’s their greed that caused all of this first. like yeah you should be doing what you can to help protect the planet but we can’t do anything unless corporations actually make change to the way that they’re run. i’m currently working on a degree in environmental science and every day i learn more and more about what we’re doing to the environment is irreparable and how it’s literally gonna kill us sooner than we think.

[axaustralis]

(in english below the cut)

pour ceux qui ne seraient pas au courant, le projet d’exploitation de mines d’or profondes en Guyane censé être “arrêté” est de nouveau sur pied ! les gars, ce n’est pas parce que vous renommez “montagne d’or” en “espérance” (surnommé avec justesse “montagne d’or bis” par les médias) qu’on ne va pas voir que vous essayez de nous la mettre. le programme reste le même : déforestation, rejets de CO2 et utilisation de produits chimiques hautement toxiques en plein milieu d’une partie préservée de la forêt amazonienne

le projet est en train d’avancer super discrètement, partagez svp !

si vous voulez signer la pétition contre le projet de mine d’or industrielle : https://www.sauvonslaforet.org/petitions/1084/non-a-la-mine-dor-industrielle-en-guyane?t=361-12-6296-1

si vous voulez soutenir le collectif Or de question : https://www.helloasso.com/associations/maiouri-nature-guyane/formulaires/1

si vous voulez en savoir plus sur le projet et les actions menées par le collectif Or de question : http://ordequestion.org/

in english now if you’re interested:

a few years back there was a huge gold mining project in french guiana called “montagne d’or” which would have led to deforestation, chemical pollution with highly toxic products and CO2 emissions in a well-preserved part of the amazonian forest. obviously people weren’t very happy about it and the project was “stopped”.

this year (because 2020 sucks and keeps on sucking) a “new” project was approved: it’s called “espérance” (because “gold mountain” was a bit too in-your-face. “hopefulness” is better at not making them look like “greedy and unscrupulous bastards” as Maxbird says so well in this video) but apart from the name it’s pretty much the same project.

they’ve been very discreet, i hadn’t even heard about it before seeing the vid. it looks like they’ve been trying to get it started sneakily while we were all distracted with other stuff, so i’d really appreciate it if you could share this video around so that as many french people as possible can see it and react

i don’t know if non-french people can or would even be interested in protesting against this, but here are some useful links:

if you want to sign the petition against the project (there are also some news on the project’s progress, available in english & other languages): https://www.sauvonslaforet.org/petitions/1084/non-a-la-mine-dor-industrielle-en-guyane?t=361-12-6296-1

if you want to learn more about the project and what’s being done to fight it, here is the website of the association Or de question (sadly only available in french but i’m always willing to talk about this if you have questions): http://ordequestion.org/

if you want to donate to said association (available in english): https://www.helloasso.com/associations/maiouri-nature-guyane/formulaires/1

Sorry for the long rant (longer than i expected but damn i’m mad about this), and thank you so much for reading this. hopefully we can put a stop to this

[chicagocityofclans]

Hollis Sony → Thandie Newton  → Deer

→ Basic Information 

Age: 302

Gender: Female 

Sexuality: Straight 

Born or Made: Born

Birthday: January 2nd

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Religion: Christian

→ Her Personality (one to two paragraphs)

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Real Estate Broker and Board Member

Scars: None

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Classic Architecture and Grocery Shopping

Two Dislikes: Driving and Bombastic People

Two Fears: Car Crashes and Her children dying before her

Two Hobbies: Quilting and Indoor Gardening

Three Positive Traits: Elegant, Competitive, Nurturing

Three Negative Traits: Uncooperative, Old Fashioned, Tactical

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Harry Foster (Father): Harry was always a romantic thinker and influenced his daughter’s personality heavily. She loves nostalgia and love, finding the simple pleasures derived from it makes life worth living. 

Rose Foster (Mother): Rose is where Hollis got her backbone. She taught her daughter that no one should or could talk over or belittle her if she didn’t let them. Hollis is well aware of her worth and looks to bring that trait out in other heavies that she mentors.

Sibling Names:

None

Children Names:

Erica Carter nee Sony (Daughter): Erica and her husband both work for Hollis as Realtors, as do their children. She and Erica are so much alike that she can entrust her with any aspect of the business, and when she retires Hollis expects her daughter will step up both as a council member and as the head of her real estate business. 

Sigrid Sony (Daughter): Erica’s twin is much more like her Edmund; quieter and more reserved, always looking out for the greater good. She left Chicago in the 90s to work in the Clan’s charitable arm, helping with beach clean ups and working to fight deforestation. She’s recently met another deer shifter in Japan and Hollis thinks they may mate soon. She prays they’ll come back to Chicago, however, and that she won’t have to fly across the ocean. 

Romantic Connections:

Edmund Sony (Husband): Edmund was a quiet but strong man. He didn’t rant or rave, simply stood his ground and said his piece. He tried his best to leave a better world for his daughters and wife. Unfortunately he began to succumb to hypershift at the end of his life. Both he and Hollis knew it and she was the one to kill him. She saw it as her duty to him as a wife and life partner. 

Platonic Connections:

Angelina ‘Anna’ Johansen (Potential Employee): Riley has asked her to consider hiring Anna on as a secretary or associate while she gets her degree. She’s a sweet girl, but Hollis is concerned about potential hurt feelings if they begin to date. 

Ezra Schultz (Best Friend): Hollis has known Ezra for centuries and their friendship has never faulted. Both helped one another after the death of their spouse, and she feels like he is her most solid connection to the pack.

Riley Anderson (Employee): Hollis knows she was lucky to snatch up Riley before Sam tried to hire him. He has an earnest, excitable way about him that endears clients and pushes through sales. 

Taye Black (Friendly): Hollis tried for years to set Clara and Taye up, but it was never meant to be apparently. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, even if he’s a bit gruff in his delivery. 

Asa Fields (Unsure): Asa is a bit of a puzzle to Hollis, she met him, Clara, and Sam when they were in their 50s and even then it never really seemed like he knew what he wanted. She thought he might have straightened his life out in the military, but he seems just as lost now to Hollis, as he did then. 

Clara Fields (Good Friend): Clara gets done what she needs to done. She has sacrificed much of her own life for the needs of the pack, yet everyone and their brother thinks they could have done it better. She’s backed Clara’s decision with the vampires and with their new entitled guests, and she’d do it again. 

Michael Johansen (New Friend): Hollis is curious about Michael. It takes a lot for a leader to split their clan and move them across the globe. He has brought a lot of new input to their clan but Hollis would like more one on one time with Michael.

Jo Floyd (Client): Jo and Hollis have had a long standing relationship. Whenever one of her rats wants to open a new shop, Hollis is the first call to scout out locations. She is discrete and keeps many listings to the side for Jo when she needs them. 

Scorpius Getta (Business): Getta has kept their deal strictly business-like. Hollis has recently started talking to the older gentlemen and has found his history very interesting. Hollis now looks forward to visiting the Underground.   

Fi Marz (New Friend): Fi and Hollis have formed an unlikely friendship. Fi is always pleasant to be around when Hollis goes Underground. Hollis doesn’t personally have the time to expand on their friendship but wouldn’t mind getting to know Fi. Hollis now looks forward to visiting the Underground.

Eliza Meyers (Unsure): Hollis was close to Eliza’s mother Anita and was like an aunt to Eliza. Since Sam has taken a liking to Eliza, her relationship with Hollis has been rocky. Hollis has been trying to give Eliza space but has been finding it harder then she originally thought it would be.

Hostile Connections:

Sam Thompson (Despise): Hollis and Sam's relationship has taken a turn for the worst when Hollis voted that Mattie had to die. Hollis knows that Clara is the best choice as the leader of their clan and doesn’t want to see Sam in control. 

Latasha Mist (Dislike): Hollis and Latasha were on friendly terms before Latasha and her daughter found out about animal shifters. Latasha has been nothing but an annoyance. Hollis is worried that Latasha will somehow reveal them to the world. Hollis also dislikes the thought of reimplementing accepting payment for changes. 

Pets:

None

→ History (paragraph(s) on background)

→ The Present (paragraph(s) on how the character connects to the plot)

→ Available Gif Hunts (we do not own these)

Thandie Newton (Hollis Sony) [1][2]

[what-the-hell-bob]

Also lavender and poetry

Lavender- I absolutely love doing my makeup, like way to muchPolaroid- so technically I'm not allowed to post pictures of myself but I'd be happy to send you one?? (You probably don't really care but I can just leave it up to you)Poetry- Okay so I absolutely love poetry so my 2 favourite poems at the moment are 1. "Deforestation" by Ben Wenzle (I think that's his name)2. "This is not the end of the world" by Neil Hilborn Both poems are super impactful. "Deforestation" talks about how lgbt people are abused to give a short summary. (Bit of a trigger warning cause there's a line about a father pinning his son to a closet door and then implied abuse). And "this is not the end of the world" is about how mental illness can make it seem like you are alone and how there is safety in not isolating yourself. It gave me these lines which have helped me so much on my road to recovery."But isolation is not safety –It is death.If no one knows you’re alive,You aren’t.If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it,It does make a sound, but then that sound is gone.I’m not saying you will find the meaning of life in other people.I’m saying other people are the life to which you provide the meaning."So I went on a huge rant about this and I apologize but please look at these poems! Any other neil hilborn or Ben Wenzle poems are really awesome. Button poetry is really the best so go check them out!

[apathetic-revenant]

So today was DeForest Kelley’s birthday, and also the day of something happening in my country that felt a lot like the point where we entered the mirror universe or something? So it felt like a good day to draw fanart of a book where Bones awesomely rants at an entire planet. 

I’ve had Spock’s World, aka The Best Star Trek Novel Ever (tm), on my mind a lot lately over the past year with all the crap that’s been happening. I mean in general it’s just a fantastic book that I am always happy to think about, but at the risk of making it a specific metaphor about anything-which I don’t mean to do because it isn’t, so far as I know-a lot of it hits pretty close to home lately. 

Spock’s World alternates between two main perspectives. The primary one concerns a vote going up on Vulcan about whether to secede from the Federation, which results in Kirk, Spock and McCoy all being called to speak as part of the deliberation process. The other is a history of Vulcan, from the creation of the planet to the days of Surak and finally the story of Sarek and Amanda. While the Vulcan storyline contains plenty of physical conflict, Vulcan history being what it is, it’s worth noting that the primary storyline features none whatsoever. The action is pretty much 100% composed of characters talking to each other and at no point does this feel boring or empty of conflict or tension. That’s not really relevant to my main point, I just wanted to point out that, y’know, you can do that.

I love Star Trek and it has some amazing things to say about the human condition, and frequently I find its idealistic outlook about toward the human race to be very comforting when I don’t otherwise feel very hopeful about anything, but like anything it has its flaws and-aside from cheesiness and poorly choreographed fight scenes-one of the most prominent is its tendency to get a bit lazy with all this and fail to actually dwell at all on what caused humanity to develop as it did in favor of just establishing that Future Humans Are Good and Past Humans Suck (That Means You, Audience). Given that I find it interesting and commendable that from the get-go (the get-go being TOS here), Vulcans were established as having this long history of war and strife that they had to work to overcome, rather than just being inherently superior space elves that existed to give us an example of how to be Advanced. (Not that the series didn’t forget this occasionally itself-remember that TNG episode where they were all like “this intelligent, peaceful religion-less race is just like the Vulcans!” except at their equivalent period of history the Vulcans were still killing the shit out of each other?)

But Vulcan or Human, Spock’s World isn’t having any of that. It doesn’t pull any punches about the nature of Vulcan’s history: not about exactly how violent and desperate it was, not about why it was so violent and desperate, not about the fact that throughout it all there were always people who were, basically, just people, and had dreams and hopes and loved ones and were just trying to get by in their own way and sometimes that way involved killing a lot of people, and not about just how damn hard it really was for Surak to do what he did. Spock’s World makes it clear that the Vulcans didn’t magically evolve into anything; the path to where they were by the time we got to know them was long and hard and bloody.

My doodling mostly focused on McCoy’s speech because McCoy is awesome and also really fun to draw, but it also struck me because it contains some of the same notes: that all this is hard. That you don’t just automatically become inclusive and enlightened once you accumulate enough Light Side Points or whatever; that understanding and accepting another culture, a radically different viewpoint, an Other, is really hard work and also really, really frightening. He specifically calls the Vulcans on, basically, freaking out and wanting to back away and give up on having to deal with the humans because it’s too damn hard. From a less skilled writer this would come across as human superiority but here it doesn’t; it comes across more as him simply stating a truth, that getting along with each other is hard, and this time it might be you having trouble with it but at various other points it has and will be us, or someone else.

Spock’s World is, I think, the sort of canon and worldbuilding that Star Trek needs, and deserves. It retains the idealism and hope that the series centers around; it doesn’t mock that or diminish it. But it also makes it clear that you don’t just magically get there, there’s no natural evolution to a higher state of being or any of that shit. You have to work at it. You will make mistakes, and screw up, screw up really, really royally, but if you’re willing you can come back from that, and keep going forward. 

One of the scenes that always strikes me in this book is the moment of Surak’s revelation. He’s an ordinary, pretty much happy working guy, until one day he turns on the news and suddenly really sees all the devastation and horror going on in his world, and he’s completely shattered by it. How can there be any hope, anything good left? How can anyone keep going? 

I have thought that a lot over the past year. 

I have found Star Trek to be comforting in times of stress and anxiety, usually just because it gives me silly feels and distracts me from my immediate problems. Sometimes it goes a bit deeper. This book, right now, makes me feel better. I have no friggin’ idea what’s going to happen next, I am terrified of the future, and I don’t want to pretend that this one Star Trek novel somehow makes our circumstances any better. But we have to take our comfort where we can get it. It’s easy to look at the circumstances of the future that Star Trek portrays and think, “We’re never going to get there, look where we are now”, but because this novel doesn’t take the easy way out it gives some strength to that idealism. 

If nothing else, I am always a little cheered by the image of McCoy screaming “COWARDS!” at the entire planet of Vulcan. 

[chicagocityfclanspromoblog]

Hollis Sony → Thandie Newton  → Deer

→ Basic Information

Age: 302

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Born or Made: Born

Birthday: January 2nd

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Religion: Christian

→ Her Personality (one to two paragraphs)

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Real Estate Broker and Board Member

Scars: None

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Classic Architecture and Grocery Shopping

Two Dislikes: Driving and Bombastic People

Two Fears: Car Crashes and Her children dying before her

Two Hobbies: Quilting and Indoor Gardening

Three Positive Traits: Elegant, Competitive, Nurturing

Three Negative Traits: Uncooperative, Old Fashioned, Tactical

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Harry Foster (Father): Harry was always a romantic thinker and influenced his daughter’s personality heavily. She loves nostalgia and love, finding the simple pleasures derived from it makes life worth living.

Rose Foster (Mother): Rose is where Hollis got her backbone. She taught her daughter that no one should or could talk over or belittle her if she didn’t let them. Hollis is well aware of her worth and looks to bring that trait out in other heavies that she mentors.

Sibling Names:

None

Children Names:

Erica Carter nee Sony (Daughter): Erica and her husband both work for Hollis as Realtors, as do their children. She and Erica are so much alike that she can entrust her with any aspect of the business, and when she retires Hollis expects her daughter will step up both as a council member and as the head of her real estate business.

Sigrid Sony (Daughter): Erica’s twin is much more like her Edmund; quieter and more reserved, always looking out for the greater good. She left Chicago in the 90s to work in the Clan’s charitable arm, helping with beach clean ups and working to fight deforestation. She’s recently met another deer shifter in Japan and Hollis thinks they may mate soon. She prays they’ll come back to Chicago, however, and that she won’t have to fly across the ocean.

Romantic Connections:

Edmund Sony (Husband): Edmund was a quiet but strong man. He didn’t rant or rave, simply stood his ground and said his piece. He tried his best to leave a better world for his daughters and wife. Unfortunately he began to succumb to hypershift at the end of his life. Both he and Hollis knew it and she was the one to kill him. She saw it as her duty to him as a wife and life partner.

Platonic Connections:

Angelina ‘Anna’ Johansen (Potential Employee): Riley has asked her to consider hiring Anna on as a secretary or associate while she gets her degree. She’s a sweet girl, but Hollis is concerned about potential hurt feelings if they begin to date.

Ezra Schultz (Best Friend): Hollis has known Ezra for centuries and their friendship has never faulted. Both helped one another after the death of their spouse, and she feels like he is her most solid connection to the pack.

Riley Anderson (Employee): Hollis knows she was lucky to snatch up Riley before Sam tried to hire him. He has an earnest, excitable way about him that endears clients and pushes through sales.

Taye Black (Friendly): Hollis tried for years to set Clara and Taye up, but it was never meant to be apparently. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, even if he’s a bit gruff in his delivery.

Asa Fields (Unsure): Asa is a bit of a puzzle to Hollis, she met him, Clara, and Sam when they were in their 50s and even then it never really seemed like he knew what he wanted. She thought he might have straightened his life out in the military, but he seems just as lost now to Hollis, as he did then.

Clara Fields (Good Friend): Clara gets done what she needs to done. She has sacrificed much of her own life for the needs of the pack, yet everyone and their brother thinks they could have done it better. She’s backed Clara’s decision with the vampires and with their new entitled guests, and she’d do it again.

Michael Johansen (New Friend): Hollis is curious about Michael. It takes a lot for a leader to split their clan and move them across the globe. He has brought a lot of new input to their clan but Hollis would like more one on one time with Michael.

Jo Floyd (Client): Jo and Hollis have had a long standing relationship. Whenever one of her rats wants to open a new shop, Hollis is the first call to scout out locations. She is discrete and keeps many listings to the side for Jo when she needs them.

Scorpius Getta (Business): Getta has kept their deal strictly business-like. Hollis has recently started talking to the older gentlemen and has found his history very interesting. Hollis now looks forward to visiting the Underground.  

Fi Marz (New Friend): Fi and Hollis have formed an unlikely friendship. Fi is always pleasant to be around when Hollis goes Underground. Hollis doesn’t personally have the time to expand on their friendship but wouldn’t mind getting to know Fi. Hollis now looks forward to visiting the Underground.

Eliza Meyers (Unsure): Hollis was close to Eliza’s mother Anita and was like an aunt to Eliza. Since Sam has taken a liking to Eliza, her relationship with Hollis has been rocky. Hollis has been trying to give Eliza space but has been finding it harder then she originally thought it would be.

Hostile Connections:

Sam Thompson (Despise): Hollis and Sam’s relationship has taken a turn for the worst when Hollis voted that Mattie had to die. Hollis knows that Clara is the best choice as the leader of their clan and doesn’t want to see Sam in control.

Latasha Mist (Dislike): Hollis and Latasha were on friendly terms before Latasha and her daughter found out about animal shifters. Latasha has been nothing but an annoyance. Hollis is worried that Latasha will somehow reveal them to the world. Hollis also dislikes the thought of reimplementing accepting payment for changes.

Pets:

None

→ History (paragraph(s) on background)

→ The Present (paragraph(s) on how the character connects to the plot)

→ Available Gif Hunts (we do not own these)

Thandie Newton (Hollis Sony) [1][2]

[scraaaaaam]

i can't  be the only one who wants to buy a lot of land for preservation reasons right???

ok so like i live in the country on family/indian land and like a lot of the woods surrounding us is getting sold by the kids of 2nd and 3rd gen natives and old famers who died and more and more people are moving out here, tearing trees down and like building roads and houses and it stresses me out.

 I used to be able to go outside and see the stars and now its gets harder by the year. i used to not be able to hear the highway about 6 miles away but now i can, more and more hunters come out here during the fall and i'm afraid to go outside because of the gunshots and possible stray bullets.

 Acres of trees keep getting bulldozed down on the main road going towards the highway and getting burned down ( the guy who bought the land is planting pecan trees but it's still tough to look at every day) and is trying to block the streams that run through the area and is pumping for well water into his pond but then drains the pond for no reason.

 more and more people are moving out here and tearing shit down and it pisses me off. especially i know most of this land was owned by natives but once it gets to the 2 and 3 generation they start selling it.i have a cousin, aunt and uncle waiting for my great grandma to die so they can get their share and sell it, like what the fuck are you doing grandma and grandpa did not fight to get this back from the state just for you to sell it away to people who are just gonna destroy it. 

and it just makes me so upset because i know that once a few more of my neighbors die their kids who don't even like it out here are just gonna sell the land and soon enough it'll all be paved and gone. trashed to hell and back or deforested. over hunted by people who just want a trophy. and i know dam well there's and old indian cemetery out here somewhere that will eventually be found and dugged up for “ historical reasons” like i don't care why you want to dig up the graves of people who were forced to move to oklahoma i don't fuck off we didn't tell you where its at for a reason.

  i never really put it into words or tried to even think about to much cuz it just fills me with sadness and rage but more and more land is being sold closer to me  and now just down the road the land sold and its some random white folk and they were already out here driving their four wheals and a go cart and came down my road like they own everything out here. 

sorry this turned into a rant, but i got really interested in cottage core for a bit because it reminded me  of what me and my grandma used to do when i lived with her down the road and made me think about how i can try to live like how my great grandma always talks about and how she miss having a garden,

  but then i realized that a lot of the people moving out here sorta want that same dream of “ getting away from it all and living off the land” but in the end NEVER FUCKING DO LIKE I SEE YOU DUMPING TRASH IN THE DITCH BY YOUR HOUSE, I SEE YOU AND YOUR GUNS GOING OUT INTO THE WOODS AND COMING OUT WITH DEER AND COYOTES, I FUCKING SEE YOU GETTING TIRED OF ALL THE DAM TRESS AND NATURAL GRASS AND TURFING IT AND CUTTING IT ALL DOWN!!! 

AND I FUCKING SEE YOU GETTING ANIMALS LIKE CHICKENS AND HORSES OR COWS OR ANY SORT OF LIVESTOCK AND THEN REALIZING THE COST AND EFFORT IT TAKES TO KEEP THEM ALIVE INSTEAD OF JUST BUYING IT FROM THE STORE AND THEN LETTING THEM STARVE AND CAGED

[newluddite]

Carbon Neutral Cows.

I have no doubt about global warming so that side of the raving lunatic hordes please stay quiet.  It is happening and my house is only a few feet above high tide which is a five minute walk away from my front door.

One of the big claims made by some people (vegans I think) is that cows produce huge clouds of methane and raising cattle is a major contributor to global warming.  I just looked at a site that claimed one kilogram of beef creates as much carbon as a car driving 250 km.  Cows are fairly heavy so that is a lot of miles.

In several other rants I point out that you can say or present things that are false, while quoting figures that are absolutely true.  The wise man said figures don’t lie but liars can figure. A study said this and a study said that.  I like to do the math.  Clarity is a wonderful thing.

One source of carbon emission or imbalance is deforestation.  Clear cutting forests to grow cows does remove the carbon sink of the trees.  But that is not happening everywhere.  In fact it is mostly the Amazon basin and Indonesia where it is not for ranches but for palm oil plantations.  Palm oil is a nasty thing used to make food products you really should not be eating. Margarine for one thing. In North America there never were forests on the great plains in human time scales.  That is where our cows grow.  So our beef is not deforesting.

So cows fart and belch and all that.  That is in the form of CO2 and Methane.  Methane is the bad one apparently.  By the way you humans out there also exhale CO2 and fart Methane.  Oh and the sewage plants that treat your solid exhaust generate methane that they use for heating and power by burning it. I do not know if the numbers are available, but humans create those gasses directly AND indirectly in large quantities too.  Even Vegans.

But where does the carbon come from?  Cars and thermal power plants use petroleum products and coal from the ground.  That is carbon that was locked in the ground by geological processes.  The source of that was originally plants and animals (mostly tiny bacteria) that pulled carbon in the form of CO2 from the air and used it to make their bodies.  Put another way ALL the carbon on this planet was at one time CO2. The carbonate rocks from sea creatures and the coal and the oil from living things. It is called the carbon cycle in science class.

The source for ALL carbon for plants is the atmosphere. That is why we like trees as they suck CO2 out of the air in huge quantities.  Animals that eat plants are drawing carbon from the atmosphere indirectly. 

This is not disputable as no cows eat coal or drink petroleum.  For that matter neither do humans. So all the carbon that goes into the air in either cow farts or burps first came from the atmosphere by growing the plants they ate.  Again this is not disputable. ALL global warming gasses that come from cows were first drawn from the atmosphere in the form of CO2 to make the plants they ate.

Living things do not generate carbon or carbon compounds they only convert it.

Cows are carbon neutral.

They get a bad reputation as the dweebs count the carbon output, but NOT the carbon input.  That is just as important and a bit dishonest.

If the cow was raised its whole life on grassy meadows it is actually a net carbon absorber.  The amount it absorbs is proportional to its weight.  Apparently about 18% of their weight is carbon. For a 1500 lb animal that is 270 pounds of Carbon. That equates to 1200 pounds of CO2 held in a living cow.

If it is raised industrially then some fossil fuel is burned to generate power for the processors and for trucks and equipment to grow and move the feed and the meat around. If there are no vehicles or refrigeration or power tools then cows are carbon neutral.  All the carbon in them either in the meat or the emissions from life processes originally came from the air. QED.

A process that draws carbon from the air and then returns the same carbon is carbon neutral.  Any animal that is made with carbon or emits carbon in any form originally got it from the air.  It is as simple as that.

I really like the idea of sustainability and I like meat.