#delayed dash commentary

[luckykatstravels]

"So... Back when I fought the guy who was Champion before me, I started the battle pulling my punches. When he realized how easily I was keeping up with his pace, he yelled at me to go all out. So I did, and demolished the room. Afterwards, he told me the importance of always going all out in a battle to show respect for my opponent."

"Nobody wants to lose to someone who isn't trying."

[lovenpeace-pkmn]

Honestly, as someone who has lived with zorua since before most of you were born, a lot of trainers of zorua right now are obnoxious. Far too many internet trend-followers try to treat them like a lillipup or perhaps a teddy bear, and it ends up causing problems for the trainer, the Pokémon, and bystanders alike.

Zorua have, on a mental level, the high social needs of a canine, a feline's lack of respect for authority, extremely high intelligence and creative problem solving skills, and an instinctive fear of strangers. Physically, they have illusions they wield freely to gain a desired emotional response, very sharp claws, and the tendency to dig and scent-mark. They are not easy Pokémon to train.

Inexperienced trainers who get them because they are cute and trendy on the internet usually can't handle their needs, and the result is a stressed, understimulated, constantly fearful Pokémon that can be a danger to itself and others. And then their trainers will act like they are cool and edgy just for having a zorua and say that anyone who points out that there are problems is just perpetuating stereotypes against the species.

[twohundredpower]

"Man, what's with everybody 'n this big obsession with fashion? You'd save yourself a lot of trouble if you just wore the same thing all the time. That's why I've got seven of these jackets-- one for every day of the week!"

[auntie-browning]

"♫ Ты хотел быть один, это быстро прошло Ты хотел быть один, но не смог быть один Твоя ноша легка, но немеет рука И ты встречаешь рассвет за игрой в "Дурака" ♫"

"♫ Доброе утро, последний герой Доброе утро тебе и таким, как ты Доброе утро, последний герой Здравствуй, последний герой ♫"

"♫ Утром ты стремишься скорее уйти Телефонный звонок как команда "вперёд" Ты уходишь туда, куда не хочешь идти Ты уходишь туда, но тебя там никто не ждёт ♫"

"♫ Доброе утро, последний герой Доброе утро тебе и таким, как ты Доброе утро, последний герой Здравствуй, последний герой ♫"

[in-toxi-cant]

"So~... What was that about tits out fo' New Year's~?" While technically not part of the right crowd for this dose of shenanigans... And not doing himself any favors by playing into certain 'rumors' by going along with it-- That's not about to stop a certain spider from displaying his own helping of assets~♡

[lunarscaled]

-> The devils can trans your gender?

[charlotte-liddel]

// @lostusagis

She's perceived both the siblings for a while, and still is at a distance. It's just now she's stopped being so subtle about it and is out in the open. Respectfully, though, of course.

[take-ya-to-the-ghey-bar]

{it might take a hot minute before I can actually reply to it, but— I still feel the need to mention that both myself and Micchan have been ended by the ask redo which has graced the dash earlier 💀}

[desires-of-sin]

"It would be nice if I could get a body as fit and in shape as that...but that would require lots of workouts...."

[jackhasfallenx2]

It'd be cool to learn orb manufacturing at some point in the indeterminate future

[sillovain]

Its absolutely correct that the main theme of the Erdtree Age is the about holding life in stasis. I think if you internalize this idea, a lot of the views and aims of various characters become clear. There's this tendency to treat the Godskin stuff as just random violence in the past. But yah, if you think about what the Tarnished quest is about, then aims of Godskins becomes quite obvious.

GEQ being a dual figure of life-death cycle is absolutely correct.

For why she never became a god, there always this implication that whatever Marika has is unique, there can only be one at any time (the Ansbach + vengeful Hornsent dialogue). There's also how she pretty much has to die at the beginning of the Erdtree Age. Can try to split-hairs over exactness of timeline, but I think this is generally correct.

For Scadutree being both Gold and Shadow? In a vague sense, you can talk how the Land of Shadow continues to have living beings in it. In that sense, there is still gold (life) there.

Nothing explicitly called "lifebird", but there are golden/divine birds that are crucible linked.

Chad Scadutree vs virgin Erdtree or something idk let me explain

@val-of-the-north has been torturing me with prompts to talk about GEQ all day and my biggest frustration so far is that I have to delay fleshing out her design because Nightreign has a huge chance to give some lore on her (not to mention clarifying Farum Azula statue debacle)... like, that will have to wait

But just to bounce more ideas around. If Marika is Erdtree and GEQ is Scadutree, there is something curious! Rather than Scadutree and Death being just polar opposite of Erdtree and Life, it reflects the union. Erdtree is just Gold, but Scadutree is not just Shadow - it is "Gold accompanied by Shadow"!

(Ulcerated Tree Spirits of the Erdtree have just golden fire, without this black)

Scadutree is also actually two trees hugging each other (you know what I mean), Scadutree Avatar's stalk is also two stalks hugging each other... There is this "duality" theme going on; whereas Marika's Order resists the nature, GEQ's existence in shadow instinctively or deliberately tries to keep it!

Interestingly enough, the former manifestation of harmony of Life and Death in nature, the Twinbird, doesn't have any evidence of "Lifebirds" existing anywhere although she is implied to be capable of bringing creatures of both Life and Death. Only Deathbirds remained, and it was only Death that still existed alongside Life even as it was removed from the Golden Order... Marika, by straight up denying to do the same for Death, ironically choked something about Life it seems! Honestly it would be one of the most Fromsoft things ever to write in

There is also a situation with the serpents, like I've mentioned! Man-serpents born of Eiglay and Winged Serpent attached to Messmer have the same green eyes; it seems like Eiglay's eye color only changed to golden because she ate a Demigod! But whereas serpent is the enemy of the Erdtree, Winged Serpent was an "exception"! Marika had to have it to place on Messmer to begin with! GEQ is connected with the snakes inseparably, and I think they certainly were part of her body one way or another!

Eiglay and Winged Serpent are probably related, but I am not sure in which way... Siblings? Or maybe mother and child? Since serpent is not bound by the number (two Winged Serpents on Messmer, multiple Base Serpents summoned), I like to imagine that GEQ had two tiny Eiglays as a part of her body, a lot like what Messmer has now x) Slaying Gods, devouring Gods... they are not exactly concepts far apart from each other! Heck, if she was skinning Gods, maybe Eiglay with her used to eat the flesh that was left? XD

And seeing how allyship between GEQ and Farum Azula is implied, and how it is a Winged Serpent, I start to wonder if Winged Serpent is actually borne of GEQ and Eiglay.. It is depicted with bird wings under Volcano Manor (as in stormhawks) and appears with bat wings (as in dragons) on Messmer...

I don't know if she descended from Azula to embrace the serpentine nature in Eiglay, or if she ascended from the ground into accepting air element within her being (maybe to marry Stormlord?), but the point of Winged Serpent strangely representing this allyship stands! Bonus points: one of Godskin Apostles attacks is very whirlwindish and GEQ's sword is stored in the Divine Tower of Dragonbarrow! Don't forget the Godslayer Seal and Godskin Prayerbook are both found in Stormveil too. Bonus bonus point: there is Eiglay's shed skin near Bonny's Village! Like, both the settlement deep under Volcano Manor and Farum Azula seem to be her residences.... so, why not both? So, again: when she betrayed, Marika and Maliketh attacked GEQ, and Godfrey attacked Stormlord who stood by her maybe?

^^^ If Abductor Virgins allude to GEQ, another interesting detail here is the Miquella's arms situation; two normal arms and two much more small and frail arms beneath (the ones that hold the baby here). It might imply that she did walk through the Divine Gate too, but I for the love of me don't understand why only ever mention her as an Empyrean and not a Goddess then..

Maybe Nightreign will suddenly explain it? But the idea that I do like, is that whereas decorations she was inseparable from, or parts of her body, but the small arms were one golden arm and one black arm holding each other, still representing the "duality" that she preserves but Marika rejected until the bitter end.

In general I am getting an impression that GEQ is followed by a theme of acknowledging the duality of things in nature, in the contrast with Marika who was running from the "everything should die one day" sentiment kicking and crying. Maybe she was not even malicious per say, but acknowledged that whereas she was slaying Old Gods to clean the path for the new Erdtree era, it was only natural that said Erdtree era should also die one day, and new era will sprout in its place. It is probably the source of the conflict. My vision is that GEQ refused to help with the Fell God since Marika dealt with him and not GEQ whose job it is to kill Gods! But still, Scadutree including the Gold when Erdtree would never include the Shadow is so bittersweet and unless we get canon design for GEQ I think it should be represented in her design somehow

Even Melina is born with only one "Death" eye, and another is... again, reserved for the Grace of Gold. She repeats the trend of people Marika killed coming back to her; whereas Messmer was born with one cursed eye (like Fell God), Melina has "duality".... oh noooo it is coming together...

Basically GEQ was doing this all the time:

[king-scourge]

"Very funny blue.."

[mahoushoujoumonster-x]

She’s just going to keep quiet for the rest of the day.

Sigh. At least she has plenty to consume as she watches the day go by.

[saveahorserideaneddie]

Sorry to bug you but i am unfortunately very nosey but tend to not get drama on my dash(i block a lot of people) but I was wondering what your most recent post was about if you dont mind me asking or talking about it?? I dont need to know so no pressure but I am curious!!

basically it’s just people trying to weaponize queerness as a way to perpetuate fandom conversations that is just thinly veiled anti-buddie sentiments

like it’s conversations that, if they had been had a few seasons ago, might have held more weight/importance, but at this point in the show and the characters’ storylines it just comes across as:

it’s just the same old making a mountain out of a molehill in this fandom because they take for granted that the show is finite, it won’t go on forever, and asking for the show to further delay development for buddie as a potential romantic pairing on canon is practically just asking for them to never do buddie at this point-

as well as implying that buddie monoshippers are in some way homophobic? just bc they want to see buddie together….? bc they want to see the (canonically) intentional buildup and subtext finally pay off after 8 years of dragging it out rather than wasting time by even more forcing “stepping stone” relationships that will never be able to lead anywhere satisfying bc they’ll never be able to shake the buddie shadow? (which- the idea of stepping stone relationships to me is homophobic seeing as the implication that queer people need to be “taught” how to be queer is a disgusting notion but what do i know- apparently commentary on queer rep doesn’t matter unless you are willing to settle for subpar content in the name of “woke”)

ANYWAY rant over- sorry for using your ask as a springboard lol i already ranted about it to sarah and addie in our gc but i’m still annoyed (but what’s new when i continue seeing random 911twt screenshots bc twitter is hell)

[lykofxs]

Confused BORK?!?

Inhales.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Charting the Exceptional, Unexpected Heat of 2023 and 2024

In 2024, global temperatures for June through August were the hottest on record, narrowly topping the same period in 2023. The exceptional heat extended throughout other seasons, too, with global temperatures breaking records for 15 straight months from June 2023 until August 2024, according to scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

Although this spell of record heat fits within a long-term warming trend driven by human activity—primarily greenhouse gas emissions—the intensity of the heat, which reached a crescendo in the last half of 2023, surprised leading climate scientists. In a commentary in Nature, Gavin Schmidt, the director of GISS, used words like “humbling” and “confounding” to explain just how far temperatures overshot expectations during that period.

The charts on this page show how much global temperatures in 2023 and 2024 diverged from expectations based on NASA’s temperature record. Roughly a year later, Schmidt and other climatologists are still trying to understand why.

“Warming in 2023 was head-and-shoulders above any other year, and 2024 will be as well,” Schmidt said. “I wish I knew why, but I don’t. We’re still in the process of assessing what happened and if we are seeing a shift in how the climate system operates.”

Setting Expectations

Earth’s air and ocean temperatures during a given year typically reflect a combination of long-term trends, such as those associated with climate change, and shorter-term influences, such as volcanic activity, solar activity, and the state of the ocean.

In late 2022, as he has done each year since 2016, Schmidt used a statistical model to project global temperatures for the coming year. La Niña—which cools sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific—was present for the first part of 2023 and should have taken the edge off global temperatures. Schmidt calculated that average 2023 global temperatures would reach about 1.22 degrees Celsius above the baseline, putting it in the top three or four warmest years, but that it would not be a record-breaking year. Scientists at the UK Met Office, Berkeley Earth, and Carbon Brief made similar assessments using a variety of methods.

This chart shows Schmidt’s expectation for how much monthly temperatures from January 2023 to August 2024 would differ from NASA’s 1951-1980 baseline (also known as an anomaly). The expectation (represented as the dashed line in the chart) was based on an equation that calculates global average temperature based on the most recent 20-year rate of warming (about 0.25°C per decade) and NOAA’s sea surface temperature measurements from the tropical Pacific, accounting for a three-month delay for these temperatures to affect the global average. The shaded area shows the range of variability (plus or minus two standard deviations).

“More complex global climate models are helpful to predict long-term warming, but statistical models like these help us project year-to-year variability, which is often dominated by El Niño and La Niña events,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. Hausfather helps produce the Berkeley Earth global temperature record and also generates annual predictions of global temperature changes based on those data.

Schmidt’s statistical model—which successfully predicted the global average temperature every year since 2016—underestimated the exceptional heat in 2023, as did the methods used by Hausfather and other climatologists. Schmidt expected global temperature anomalies to peak in February or March 2024 as a lagged response to the additional warming from El Niño. Instead, the anomalous heat emerged well before El Niño had peaked. And the heat came with unexpected intensity—first in the North Atlantic Ocean and then virtually everywhere.

“In September, the record was broken by an absolutely astonishing 0.5 degrees Celsius,” Schmidt said. “That has not happened before in the GISS record.”

The chart above shows how global temperatures calculated from January 2023 to August 2024 differed from NASA’s baseline (1951–1980). The previous record temperature anomalies for each month—set in 2016 and 2020—are indicated by the red dashed line. Starting in June 2023, temperatures exceeded previous records by 0.3 to 0.5°C every month. Although temperature anomalies in 2024 were closer to past anomalies, they continued to break records through August 2024. The global average temperature in September 2024 was 1.26°C above NASA’s baseline—lower than September 2023 but still 0.3°C above any September in the record prior to 2023.

To calculate Earth’s global average temperature changes, NASA scientists analyze data from tens of thousands of meteorological stations on land, plus thousands of instruments on ships and buoys on the ocean surface. The GISS team analyzes this information using methods that account for the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and for urban heating effects that could skew the calculations.

Investigating Possible Contributors

Since May 2024, Schmidt has been compiling research about possible contributors to the unexpected warmth, including changes in greenhouse gas emissions, incoming radiation from the Sun, airborne particles called aerosols, and cloud cover, as well as the impact of the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption. However, none of these factors provide what Schmidt and other scientists consider a convincing explanation for the unusual heat in 2023.

Atmospheric greenhouse gas levels have continued to rise, but Schmidt estimates that the extra load since 2022 only accounted for additional warming of about 0.02°C. The Sun was nearing peak activity in 2023, but its roughly 11-year cycle is well measured and not enough to explain the temperature surge either.

Major volcanic eruptions, such as El Chichón in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991, have caused brief periods of global cooling in the past by lofting aerosols into the stratosphere. And research published in 2024 indicates the eruption in Tonga had a net cooling effect in 2022 and 2023. “If that’s the case, there’s even more warming in the system that needs to be explained,” Schmidt said.

Another possible contributor is reduced air pollution. A research team led by Tianle Yuan, an atmospheric research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has found a significant drop in aerosol pollution from shipping since 2020. The drop coincides with new international regulations on sulfur content in shipping fuels and with sporadic drops in shipping due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sulfur aerosol emissions promote the formation of bright clouds that reflect incoming sunlight back to space and have a net cooling effect. Reducing this pollution has the opposite effect: clouds are less likely to form, which could warm the climate. Although scientists, including Yuan, generally agree that the drop in sulfur emissions likely caused a net warming in 2023, the scientific community continues to debate the precise size of the effect.

“All of these factors explain, perhaps, a tenth of a degree in warming,” Schmidt said. “Even after taking all plausible explanations into account, the divergence between expected and observed annual mean temperatures in 2023 remains near 0.2°C—roughly the gap between the previous and current annual record.”

Grappling With Uncertainty

Both Hausfather and Schmidt expressed concern that these unexpected temperature changes could signal a shift in how the climate system functions. It could also be some combination of climate variability and a change in the system, Schmidt said. “It doesn’t have to be an either-or.”

One of the biggest uncertainties in the climate system is how aerosols affect cloud formation, which in turn affects the amount of radiation reflected back to space. However, one challenge for scientists trying to piece together what happened in 2023 is the lack of updated global aerosol emissions data. “Reliable assessments of aerosol emissions depend on networks of mostly volunteer-driven efforts, and it could be a year or more before the full data from 2023 are available,” Schmidt said.

NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite, which launched in February 2024, could help shed light on these uncertainties. The satellite will help scientists make a global assessment of the composition of various aerosol particles in the atmosphere. PACE data may also help scientists understand cloud properties and how aerosols influence cloud formation, which is essential to creating accurate climate models.

Schmidt and Hausfather invite scientists to discuss research related to the contributors of the 2023 heat at a session they are convening at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C., on December 9–13, 2024.

NASA Earth Observatory map and charts by Michala Garrison, based on data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Climate spiral visualization by Mark SubbaRao, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio. Story by Emily Cassidy.