#district cooling system working

[farsanaashiq]

Emicool: Innovating District Cooling Solutions for Urban Areas

Emicool is a leading district cooling provider offering innovative solutions for efficient cooling systems in urban areas. Their district cooling systems consist of crucial components such as chillers, pumps, and distribution network to deliver chilled water for air conditioning. Emicool's working principle of district cooling system involves producing chilled water centrally and distributing it through insulated pipes to various buildings for air conditioning. With Emicool's expertise in district cooling, they ensure sustainable and cost-effective cooling solutions for their customers.

[reasonsforhope]

"Heat stored underground in caverns can be set aside in Finland’s summer months to be re-used during frigid winters thanks to a state-of-the-art ‘seasonal energy’ storage facility.

Slated for construction this summer near Helsinki, it will be the largest in the world by all standards and contain enough thermal energy to heat a medium-sized city all winter.

Thermal exchange heating systems, like those built underground, or domestic heat pumps, are seen as the most effective way available of reducing the climate-impact of home heating and cooling.

Their function relies on natural forces or energy recycling to cool down or heat up water and then using it to radiate hot or cold energy into a dwelling.

In Vantaa, Finland’s fourth largest city neighboring the capital of Helsinki, the ambitious Varanto seasonal energy storage project plans to store cheap and environmental friendly waste heat from datacenters, cooling processes, and waste-to-energy assets in underground caverns where it can be used to heat buildings via the district heating network whenever it is needed.

In Finland and other Nordic countries, the heat consumption varies significantly between seasons. Heat consumption in the summertime is only about one-tenth of the peak load consumption during the cold winter months.

Varanto will utilize underground caverns equal in space to two Maddison Square Gardens—over a million cubic meters—filled with water heated by this waste heat and pressure that will allow the water to reach temperatures of up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit without the water boiling or evaporating.

“The world is undergoing a huge energy transition. Wind and solar power have become vital technologies in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy,” says Vantaa Energy CEO Jukka Toivonen.

“The biggest challenge of the energy transition so far has been the inability to store these intermittent forms of energy for later use. Unfortunately, small-scale storage solutions, such as batteries or accumulators, are not sufficient; large, industrial-scale storage solutions are needed. Varanto is an excellent example of this, and we are happy to set an example for the rest of the world.” ...

“Two 60-MW electric boilers will be built in conjunction with Varanto,” adds Toivonen. “These boilers will be used to produce heat from renewable electricity when electricity is abundant and cheap. Our heat-producing system will work like a hybrid car: alternating between electricity and other forms of production, depending on what is most advantageous and efficient at the time.”

... Construction of the storage facility’s entrance is expected to start in summer 2024, while it could be operational as early as 2028."

-via Good News Network, April 12, 2024. Video via VantaanEnergia, March 10, 2024

[ilguna]

☼ the great war pt1 (Finnick Odair) ☼

summary; your relationship has been rocky with finnick lately, and each time you think you can let it go, it comes back full force. it isn’t until you’re injured on the way to storm the capitol, are you able to slow down and fix what’s wrong.

warnings; swearing, blood mention, ehh gore, weapon use, death/death mention, torture mention, emotional/mental abuse, cheating, use of derogatory names such as whore, slut, etc.

wc; 8.3k

notes; based off of the taylor swift song!!

part two.

--

Lately, you’ve spent a lot of your time reflecting on what could’ve been, instead of focusing on what is. It’s a process that you’re no stranger to. It’s a defense mechanism you turn to when you know a big storm is coming. And in this case, you’re facing two fronts, neither of which you actually want to look in the eye of.

There are a few events you’ve lived through that have permanently damaged the way you think and operate around problems. Which is why you like to hide in the past, hoping it’ll offer more comfort than the present, when it’s far from it. Your actions and life-changing decisions are usually made on a whim, done to inflict pain on another person after they hurt you.

Some of those times are obvious, starting when you volunteered for the Sixty-Eighth Hunger Games at seventeen, with absolutely no experience that would help you. It was done out of spite, hatred directed at your grandfather when he told you that you had no future working for District Four.

Your labor would have no real worth, because you’d be doing it for free beneath him. It was the ‘least you could do’ after he ‘rescued’ you from the group home, when he could’ve let you get lost in the system. He wanted you to work for him on the docks for the rest of your life, and you knew that if you agreed, you’d never get out.

So, you made a rash decision. When the Capitol escort asked for any volunteers following the original reaping, you jumped at the opportunity. You thought, ‘either I’ll die in the arena or I’ll come out a winner’. As long as you wouldn’t be working under that hateful man, you would accept your fate as it came.

To this day, you still call it one of your biggest mistakes. You’d been contemplating volunteering for weeks leading up to Reaping Day. Training had crossed your mind several times during that period, and you never got around to doing it. You got stuck on a fence, until your grandfather eventually pushed you to one side. You made the decision a couple weeks too late.

The Hunger Games went like they normally did, except nothing was in favor of Four that year. District Two had a distinct advantage from the beginning when it came to favoritism during the Tribute Parade, and for the longest time, you think their mentors were tipped off on what the arena would be, due to their costumes. 

While they usually dress for masonry—that year they looked like they belonged in a dust storm. A prophecy of what was to come. They proceeded to get the highest scores, the best audience reaction, and a perfect position when they came out of the tubes. One of the tributes from Two, the boy or the girl, were destined to win.

The arena was a sandy desert, and they had placed the Cornucopia right smack in the middle of it. There were cacti, tumbleweeds and rocks, but almost no coverage from the sun as far as the eye could see. You were a fish on dry land, and you were supposed to die.

The only reason why you won was because of a fight you had with the girl from Two, the only other surviving tribute after the twentieth day. You had suffered through strong and unwavering record-breaking heat, and shivered your way through terrifying thunderstorms that drowned everything in sight and left low visibility. The Gamemakers were going to extremes during the end, desperate for a quick winner.

Xanthe had run across you while you were trying to cool down in the shade of a cactus, applying aloe vera to your worsening sunburns. Your skin hurt no matter what you did to get some relief. You wasted two bottles of freshly cold water, donated by a sponsor to pour it on tender skin. The aloe vera worked for so long before your skin was just slimy. And no matter how hard you begged, sunscreen seemed to be off the table due to expense, or banned from being sent completely.

She tried to sneak up on you from behind, but you were ready. You knew that she had been tracking for a while, it was just a matter of time before she finally came across you. She swung her sword, you dodged, and then tore her apart with your knife. For a girl that had spent most of her life training for this very moment, she was too slow. 

And it cost her life. 

It took about fifteen minutes before you immobilized her. There was no coming back from an injury that severe. Once she was on the ground, you gave her a quick death, and then collapsed beside her. With your knees pulled to your chest, hyperventilating because of how hot the air was, you listened to the announcement of your win. 

The arena ruined the way you work entirely, especially after your district partner turned on you on the third day. During the fight, they claimed it was because you knew what you were doing, and it was scaring them. If they eliminated you, they’d be one step closer to the end.

It also taught you not to trust the people that surround you. The doctors that rescued you out of the arena had to strap you down because you were convinced they were going to kill you. When Finnick and Mags tried to gently guide you in the right direction with the interviews, you said that they were trying to control and silence you. 

And when you got home, it worsened. You were repeatedly told that you had to wait for your victor house to be ready, so you were instructed to stay with your grandfather in the meantime. He drove you crazy. Every single hour, almost on the exact same minute, he hounded you, claiming that you owed him part of your winnings. And if you didn’t pay, he would never leave you alone.

Between him and the Capitol cameras following you everywhere in District Four, you broke. Your complacency went out the window, as you threatened to turn your grandfather into a forgotten memory and told the paparazzi that you’d bring them to the wrong side of town if they didn’t get lost. 

No one took you seriously, of course. It wasn’t until you were in the middle of strangling your grandfather, did the district have to step in. Finnick was instructed to be on your elbow, no matter where you went, because you didn’t seem to mind him. He kept everyone at a distance, and ensured that you moved into your victor house five weeks before it was due to be ready.

By the time the Victory Tour came around, you’d begun to settle down. You cut contact with your grandfather permanently, and the mayor had him removed from your victor benefits, leaving him penniless. You begrudgingly went on tour, partially enjoyed the Capitol banquet, and then you were free.

Well, as free as you could be until the next Hunger Games came around in July, which is when another life-altering event took place. With you taking over for Mags, it opened new chances for President Snow. He let you have the first day, so the Tribute Parade went without a hitch, as you followed Finnick’s instructions while learning the usual protocol.

On the second day, the first training day for the tributes, you were pulled to the President’s Mansion, and told that you’d be joining the small group of victors that did his bidding. It was horrible news to receive, but you didn’t react that way, surprisingly. You took it and left. 

The whole situation alone was enough to kick up a lot of past problems. Finnick was apologetic, of course, telling you that he knew it was a possibility, but he thought that he would hear it first, at the very least. You didn’t blame him, it’s not like he was the one that suggested it to Snow.

Either way, for the longest time, physical touch gave you the chills. It didn’t matter who accidentally brushed against you, or put a hand on your shoulder. The fact that you didn’t know their intentions was getting to you. You never would have guessed that half of those Capitol citizens had the heinous thoughts they did.

Well, there was one person you didn’t mind, and that was Finnick. He was a year older than you, going through the exact same thing. He taught you some trade secrets that he’d gotten from the other prostitutes, and told you to use it to your advantage. If you wanted money, jewels, clothes or expensive and exotic foods, then you should press for it, because they would give you anything you wanted. 

It’s the only reason why Finnick has survived as long as he has in this industry. If he wasn’t getting what he wanted, he would’ve found a way out by now. 

Three years after you won, you went through a rebellious phase, and you got a boyfriend. By then, Annie had already won, and failed to take the attention off of you, like you’d hoped. She wasn’t stable, at all. The Capitol refused to focus on her, which meant no cameras, a short Victory Tour, and then she was swept under the rug. She wasn’t even recommended to take over mentoring.

It drove you up the wall. You understood why they did what they did with her, but it wasn’t fair. You wanted her to be your relief, the key to your freedom, and you would’ve had it, too, if she was just a little stronger than she is. 

When you first started dating your ex, Vaughn, it was perfect. He isn’t a victor, just one of the many district workers from the boats. He worked early morning shifts that ran into the evening some, but left his nights open so that he would have free time outside of work. 

You met him one night by accident at the market. You were running an errand for Mags before it got late, because she was going to host breakfast for all the victors at her house to discuss the upcoming Quarter Quell the following morning. It was four years away, but she wanted everyone to be prepared for the worst. Anything could happen. 

Vaughn had bumped into you as you were taking a step, almost knocking you over, if he hadn’t caught you first. He apologized profoundly, said that he hadn’t seen you next to him, and helped you straighten out your canvas bag with the goods inside. 

You don’t remember exactly what sparked the conversation. You think he may have recognized you as a victor, asking why you were on this side of town. Everyone knows uptown goods are more expensive and only slightly better in quality, which is why you don’t mind going downtown to shop for groceries. Especially since you know the people better.

You two got to talking, surprisingly had a lot in common, and agreed to hang out in the near future. From there, you hit it off, and quickly became attached at the hip. You vaguely recall Finnick getting uptight about it, but if he had something to say, he swallowed it, because he never told you.

Now, looking back, it’s obvious that he didn’t want you to date Vaughn. You’re sure that’s one of his own many regrets. If he had just told you how he felt back then, you wouldn’t have been put through two years of hell that have ruined your brain chemistry. 

Like you said, Vaughn was perfect. He knew you had victor responsibilities in the district and never held them against you. You’d usually take care of it in the morning, that way you could spend as much time with him as possible at night. And when the Hunger Games came around, he kissed you goodbye and wished you a good trip.

When you came home with no winner, he wasn’t there to greet you at the train station. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen. You spent three days looking for him all over District Four. And it took you waiting at the docks during shift change for you to catch him.

He was livid.

Vaughn started screaming at you in front of everybody, causing feet to slow, as men and women stood conflicted on whether or not to intervene. While his voice became louder and his motions more aggressive, you never flinched. Your expression didn’t change from confusion, as he called you every name off the top of his head associated with infidelity.

He called you a cheater, a liar, an adulterer, a whore, a slut.

It wasn’t until he started advancing on you, face turned a deep shade of red, did you place a hand on his chest to keep him back. You told him if he stepped a foot closer he would regret it, because you’d teach him how you like to solve problems when they appear violent.

That got him to snap out of it. He finished what he was doing on the dock, several passersby asked if you were okay, and you brushed them off. Your threat to injure him wasn’t a joke, you were fully capable of doing so if there was a need to. 

When he was done, you found a private street that was dead and dim. You told him that if he tries screaming at you, you’d walk and that’d be the end of it. So, he needed to explain to you why he was upset because you couldn’t understand the allegations. You were loyal. You are loyal.

You don’t know who did it, maybe one of the other victors in the village, or maybe it was speculation from someone in town, but he was informed that you had more than just mentoring duties in the Capitol. They didn’t use the word prostitute, they called you an escort. Which is almost the same thing, but it’s not exactly.

You were quiet for a while, trying to figure out who sabotaged you this way, and repeatedly drew up blanks. When you tried to tell him that you had no choice in the matter, and it was ordered by President Snow and you couldn’t just back down, he wouldn’t believe you. No matter how many times you explained it to him or if it was done in different ways, he thought it was bullshit. 

Even after you told him that you weren’t the only victor put in this position, he was insistent that you were cheating. The fact that you didn’t tell him of your duties beforehand solidified it in his mind. As long as you were a prostitute, you’d be cheating on him, and he wouldn’t see it any other way.

He wouldn’t hear you out, so solving the problem wasn’t even an option. You were forced to let it go, assuming this would be the last you’d hear about it, and it’d be brought up again in a year when the Hunger Games came around again. 

It’s clear it affected your relationship. For a while, he was distant and quiet, and he wouldn’t engage with you if you were in the mood. He stopped spending as much time with you after work, it didn’t matter if you had made plans, he’d bail and apologize later on. Although, none of them seemed sincere.

The more time grew on, you were sure that you’d be breaking up. When you tried to get him to talk out his feelings, he brushed you off and told you that he was busy. By November, you were getting ready to tell him you’d rather be single than be waiting on him everyday. 

He changed one weekend, and the two of you went back to normal. Vaughn went right back to hanging out with you, treating you to dinner, spending the night at your house. It was like the past four months didn’t happen at all. It was weird, and you were hurt by it, but chose peace over answers.

Which wouldn’t matter in the end, anyway. The Victory Tour came around for the most recent victor in January, and conversations came back full-force. He wanted to have a discussion about everything that happens in the Capitol, and got increasingly upset by the details. You were trying to be honest, and all it did was make things worse.

And then he scared you. Vaughn took a deep breath, the red in his face slowly diminishing as he told you it was okay. He’d already spent time making it even between you two, and he’d do it again next year when you went to the Capitol. He said that he’d repeat the process as many times as necessary until President Snow changed his mind.

In the three weeks you were away, he met a girl and slept with her. And then he proceeded to have a relationship with her for the next four months. He was moody and distant because he was ‘managing’ two girls at once, and he couldn’t handle it. When he came back to you in November, it was because he’d finally broken it off with her, believing that he’d made things right.

You didn’t know how to react to that information. You’re pretty sure you lost a little bit of yourself, going back on years of emotional progress. You couldn’t trust him anymore, and you made the mistake of telling him that. Vaughn promised you he’d do better, that he was all-in from then on, and he’d never touch another girl.

It seemed like it from the outside, and you even believed it. The truth is, for the next year and a half, he subtly tortured you. He didn’t do better, he was worse. Instead of cheating, he threatened to do it whenever you made him angry. He held the fact that he had no issue doing it at any time if he truly wanted to, and you wouldn’t be able to stop it. He dangled that girl above your head to keep you in place, and for some unknown reason, you let it work.

He made you miserable, but you didn’t want to leave him. You wanted it to work out with him. Besides, you were starting to see Capitol citizens back off when they realized that you had a district boyfriend. To them, you weren’t in pristine condition. You were dirty, you were being touched by someone that wasn’t like them. 

You hoped that if you held on for a little longer, President Snow would retract the agreement, and everything would go back to normal with Vaughn. Before he found out that you’re a prostitute.

When you came back from the Capitol after the Seventy-Third Hunger Games, you found out that he’d begun cheating again. It was the final straw with him. You thought he didn’t mean what he said about doing it every year, especially when you had been in a good spot. He warned you, though. He told you exactly the type of person that he was going to be, it was your fault you didn’t want to take his word for it.

The good news is that you’ve learned from this experience. Unfortunately, you learned from it in the exact same way you did with everything else you’ve lived through. 

You can’t trust the surface.

The breakup with Vaughn was messy and irritating. It took two weeks for him to finally understand you weren’t kidding when you said that you weren’t going to work it out with him. You didn’t want to put up with his bullshit. You were sick of feeling ashamed and upset all the time. You had to move on.

Of course, during the process of him accepting this, he never left you alone. It didn’t matter what time it was or what you were doing or where you were. He always found his way to you. You could’ve been in the middle of the district with Mags, you could’ve been at home with all the lights off or with Finnick in his house—he would come knocking on the door to talk to you.

It wasn’t to beg, either. It was to reason, which made the situation a hundred times worse. You might’ve entertained the idea of him apologizing and getting on his knees and telling you that he was stupid and he didn’t know what he was thinking. Instead, he fed you the exact same lines that he had before about getting even with someone else.

He was persistent. And it wasn’t until Vaughn showed up at Finnick’s house for the fifth time, demanding to see you, did Finnick snap and get the message through your ex-boyfriend’s skull. You didn’t want to be with him anymore because he was scum. You had better things to spend your time on, and he wasn’t on that list. 

Finnick was a lot meaner when he explained this to Vaughn, cursing like a true resident of District Four would. You remember standing behind the door, watching Finnick lose his patience, his tanned skin turning a deeper shade of red with every passing minute. 

Finnick had made you feel safe and seen.

Lately, it seems like you and Finnick can’t see eye to eye, anymore.

A lot has changed in regards to your relationship over the past year and a half. For a while, Finnick had been dating Annie when you’d been together with Vaughn. He broke up with her shortly after he stood up for you that night. And then for the longest time, the two of you were single, pouring your energy into the upcoming Seventy-Fourth Games.

Unfortunately, all effort was wasted, as it was a relatively short mentoring trip. The boy died during the bloodbath, and the girl was gone when Katniss Everdeen dropped the tracker jacker nest on the Career camp while they were sleeping. Your distractions were gone in the matter of a couple weeks, when you’d been hoping to have them for a little while longer.

Even worse, President Snow refused to allow you and Finnick to go home, despite how early your tributes had died. So, the idea of going back to District Four and rotting away in your house was out of the question. The only good news was that the clientele was slow, most likely enamored by the girl from Twelve that was defying the fate of those who came before her.

It left a lot of freetime, which you mainly spent on the couch with Finnick, watching the Games slowly roll on. There’s not much to do inside of the apartment, and it wasn’t like you could leave the Tribute Center, as much as you wish you could’ve. Snow had you on lockdown unless you were going to an appointment. 

It was boring at times, but you never felt lonely. You and Finnick were close—best friends, even. Although, it seemed as if you perceived each other differently, because being locked in a place together sealed the nail on a coffin you didn’t know you were laying in.

Finnick decided that he was going to ask you to be his girlfriend. However, he didn’t act on it until months later, during Katniss and Peeta’s Victory Tour, when he was sure that you’d had enough time to heal from the wounds that Vaughn inflicted. It was perfect timing, too, because you were beginning to think the same thing. 

Now, almost a year into your relationship, you’re starting to doubt whether it was the right choice to say yes to him. Especially since there seems to be unresolved feelings on both of your sides.

“Jackson, set up a two-person, round-the-clock rotation on Peeta. I need to have a word with Soldier Everdeen.” Boggs suddenly barks, sliding his communication device back into his pocket. Judging by the look on his face, the conversation with President Coin must’ve gone in the wrong direction. Or he didn’t hear what he was hoping to hear.

If you had to guess, it’d likely be the fact that Peeta shouldn’t be here with Squad 451—also known as the Star Squad—because he tried to kill Katniss. A few short weeks back, he, Annie and Johanna had been rescued from the Tribute Center in the Capitol. Following the abrupt ending of the Quarter Quell, half of the victors that were left alive had been split between District Thirteen and the hands of the Capitol.

Luckily, you, Finnick, Katniss and Beetee had been rescued out of the arena. Those remaining were taken and tortured, and in some cases, not. For example, they let Enobaria go completely because of her affiliation with District Two. And they never bothered to lay a hand on Annie, much to Finnick’s relief.

In all honesty, it’s probably not a great idea that Peeta’s here, but not much can be done about it, now. What Coin says, goes. You found that out when she told you that she was assigning you to this mission. Haymitch informed you that she was tired of listening to you and Finnick squabble all the time.

You’re not sure how your arguments have been affecting her, considering that you have spent maybe an hour with her, out of the months you’ve been in Thirteen. At the time, you were just thankful you were being let out of the cement tomb.

Boggs and Katniss begin to walk away from the Squad, leaving you with Jackson, the second in command. She makes a list on paper, pairing people together in silence, before announcing it aloud. To no one’s surprise, you’re made to be with Finnick. 

He wastes no time turning to you, “I wonder what made them decide on Peeta.”

“It’s not like they can send Johanna, she failed her final test.” You tell him, looking off at the train station. “I’m sure she’s feeling really useless right now, but they can use her elsewhere.”

“That’s not who I meant.” Finnick says, causing your face to twist.

You turn your head to look at him, finding his eyebrows pushed together. You squint at him, watching the distant look on his face grow. You clear your throat, “What? You think Annie would do better?”

He looks at you, the expression on his face fleeing, “This again? Really, (Y/n)? We’ve been fighting about this for weeks.”

“You’re the one that’s been talking about how worried you are about her state of mind. Of what she’ll do without you nearby.”

“I already explained to you what I meant, I thought we agreed to not bring it up again.”

You shake your head at him, “I didn’t agree to anything.”

“Well, I remember telling you that I wasn’t going to argue about it, because it seems like you just want to be upset by it.”

“I’m upset by a lot of things when it comes to you and her.”

“I know.” Finnick closes his eyes, sighing. “Can we please not talk about this right now?”

“Fine, if that’s what you want.”

“I want you to trust me.” He says, taking a step to walk away. “And for the record, I was talking about Haymitch, (Y/n).”

He leaves, heading for your shared tent. You cross your arms over your chest, looking at the ground, pushing the dirt around with the top of your shoe. When Jackson announces that she needs a couple volunteers to help Peeta set up his tent, you’re the only one that willingly agrees to it, wanting to keep your hands busy.

Leeg is ordered to help you. The two of you work together to shove the poles through the thin fabric, being careful not to puncture it. Peeta stands nearby, hands at his sides, watching you do this, expressionless. Behind him stands Messalla and Mitchell, guarding him.

It isn’t long before Katniss and Boggs return, both sporting the same unsatisfied look, meaning that conversation must’ve gone sour, too. Katniss’s face screws tightly, “What time is my watch?”

Jackson looks up from her paper, eyes narrowing into a squint as she stares at Katniss for a long second. “I didn’t put you in the rotation.”

“Why not?” Katniss asks.

“I’m not sure you could really shoot Peeta, if it came to it.” 

Katniss raises her voice, “I wouldn’t be shooting Peeta. He’s gone. Johanna’s right. It’d be just like shooting another of the Capitol’s mutts.”

You can’t help the way your lips curl with disgust. You stomp the last stake into the dirt, securing the tent to the ground to keep the winds from blowing it away. Leeg gives you a nod before she goes to talk to Messalla and Mitchell.

“Well, that sort of comment isn’t recommending you either.” Jackson says back.

“Put her in the rotation.” Boggs tells her.

Jackson blinks, shaking her head. She writes on the paper. “Midnight to four. You’re on with me.”

The dinner whistle sounds, cutting off the conversation from proceeding any further. In silence, you all follow Boggs to the canteen. For the first minute of the walk, you’re by yourself, until Finnick shows up. Nothing is said between you two, but it’s clear the annoyance is still present.

One by one, you collect your dinner, which looks more appetizing than what you were eating in Thirteen. There, all food was calculated to give you the most amount of nutrients without feeding you too much. You can’t say that you were hungry after dinner, but the portions were disappointing.

The squad gathers together in a circle to eat, you sit on the ground with your legs crossed to make it easier to hold the tray. Finnick starts by standing beside you, picking at the food. Eventually he crouches down, offering you part of his tray.

“I’m good.” You murmur.

Finnick lets out a sigh, “(Y/n)...”

You abruptly get to your feet, not wanting to listen to a lecture. You take a few steps away, dropping the partially empty food tray into a bucket that’s already halfway filled with other squads’ trays. 

While avoiding eye contact with Finnick, who’s gotten to his feet, you look at Boggs. “I’m turning in for the night.”

“Goodnight, (L/n).” Boggs nods.

You give him a smile that’s weak at best, and then turn to head to the tent that you share with Finnick. You flip the fabric open, step inside, and almost zip it completely shut behind you. And even though it’s late, and the pillow feels nice after a long day, you can’t force yourself to fall asleep.

In fact, you can’t sleep at all.

You spent the hours waiting for your shift to guard Peeta tossing from side to side, recycling the same thoughts you’ve had since you were sent on this mission; if dating Finnick is the best idea. Or rather, if Finnick is actually in love with you.

It seems like a ridiculous thought on the surface, but every time you go over what’s happened this past year, and compare it to what you already know about relationships, it becomes serious. The way Finnick acts reminds you of someone you try hard to forget.

You felt secure with Finnick in the beginning—for maybe the first couple of months—but as soon as the Quarter Quell was announced in the winter, it was like the center of his world shifted. Where you had just begun to hold the key to his heart, it was suddenly taken and regifted.

Finnick was worried about how Annie would react to the news and the possibility. He wanted to preserve her feelings and her mental health, so he began to work to get her on the same level as you and Mags, at the very least. Except, it was clear he had other expectations in mind, when he constantly brought up the idea of volunteering because she’s so fragile.

In the end, you let him win. When reaping day rolled around, you took one for the team and volunteered for Annie so that Mags wouldn’t have to. You cherished Mags far too much to let her go back, and you were hoping that Finnick would finally shut up about it. 

There was no gratitude from Annie, there was barely any acknowledgement from Finnick. Due to this, the loathing started, but can you really be the one to blame for it? You did something selfless for someone that had started to pull away the person you’d just begun to call yours.

The Capitol praised you for your act, you were quickly overshadowed. You weren’t the only fan favorite victor that was coming back this year. Cashmere, Gloss, Enobaria, Brutus, Beetee, Wiress, Finnick, Johanna, Chaff, Seeder, and Katniss and Peeta? Not to mention some of the lesser known but touched the hearts of the older Capitol citizens like Blight, Cecelia and Woof.

It was surreal, being thrown back into activities you hadn’t touched in years. You’d gotten so used to mentoring your tributes, that it wasn’t until you touched some of those weapons or life saving stations did you realize you were rusty. Or they had new protocols that could save a tribute faster than your old school techniques.

Either way, you knew you were in frigid water with Finnick during the interviews. You had poured your heart out, telling the citizens that you had found new meaning to life, and you were excited to see it through. You wanted the opportunity to grow old like Mags and have children like Cecelia. And you were hoping to do this with Finnick, under the assumption that he loved you the same way.

When it came to Finnick, he took his interview down a completely different path, destroying the idea of love you set up between you two. You were hoping if the tribute lineup had another set of lovers, they’d protest harder. He didn’t care for this. He went on to talk about the most important people in his life, where Annie was mentioned by name, and you were implied in there somewhere.

The seeds of doubt that were planted in the winter finally began to sprout in those three minutes. You were reminded of Vaughn, who took that girls’ feelings into consideration when he was cheating on you. You didn’t matter at all, because you were already in a relationship with him.

And there you were, going through the same process again.

The problem just continued to snowball, getting bigger by the day. The arena was fine for the most part, but as soon as you were rescued from the arena and brought to Thirteen, you never heard the end of it regarding Annie. It was the topic of every conversation you had with him.

How cruel it was that they took her from Four and brought her to the Tribute Center. They better not be torturing her because she can’t handle it. How could they use her as a weapon against him. What he would do if he ever got his hands on the doctors that touched her.

You were relieved when they finally sedated him and medically induced him into a coma because he was driving you crazy. Even Haymitch saw it, and while he tried to offer his own words of wisdom, it was useless in the situation that you’re in. You know that Snow took the people he loved, but you watched your ex-boyfriend take matters into his own hands to get back at you. 

You repeatedly got cheated on, managed to get out of the relationship, only to get with Finnick to watch the same warning signs start. 

He was worried sick when they sent the volunteers on the mission to retrieve the victors from the Capitol. He was restless waiting for them to land. He ran to her in the hospital.

And you watched from the corner of the room as they slammed into each other in an embrace that was not appropriate for exes. Between then and now, there have been dozens of fights you’ve had with Finnick over her and their uncomfortable friendship. He thinks that you’re exaggerating, and of course, you think that there’s something else going on there.

He won’t even hear you out anymore, acting like you enjoy having this fight every other day. The truth is that you’re tired of bringing the topic up and not seeing an ounce of change in his actions. It makes you question whether or not you’re making the right choice by staying with him.

It would be so much easier to let go than to continue to waste your breath.

Finnick must decide that it would be better if he slept outside tonight, because he never comes inside to join you. You feel a little guilty for this, but only because he only has the fire outside to keep him warm. He’s a grown man though, so he can make his own choices.

“These last couple of years must have been exhausting for you. Trying to decide whether to kill me or not. Back and forth. Back and forth.” Peeta says, breaking the recent silence. 

You’ve been listening to one of the soldiers cry since you decided to go to bed. If you had to guess, you think it’s Leeg. She just lost her twin sister yesterday or the day before, and Peeta has been sent as her replacement. It was a mislabeled pod that sent out blades instead of insects. The good news is she died quickly.

“I never wanted to kill you. Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as… an ally.” Katniss responds.

“Ally.” Peeta says the word slowly, like it’s foreign on his tongue. “Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancee. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I’ll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out.” He spits. “The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.”

Some heavy breaths have been taken in the surrounding tents, as they accidentally disrupt those who have managed to fall asleep.

“Then you should ask, Peeta.” Finnick’s voice is nearby, practically outside of your tent. “That’s what Annie does.”

“That’s what Annie does.” You mock quietly, which is most definitely heard by him, because you can see the way his head turns to the side briefly, before focusing back on the fire in the center of camp.

“Ask who?” Peeta says. “Who can I trust?”

“Well, us for starters. We’re your squad.” Jackson tells him.

“You’re my guards.” Peeta points out.

“That, too.” She agrees. “But you saved a lot of lives in Thirteen. It’s not the kind of thing we forget.”

A silence follows as he digests this. You roll over in your sleeping bag so that your back is facing the light from the fire. You close your eyes, feeling your eyebrows push together as the annoyance washes over your body at the mention of Annie coming from Finnick’s mouth.

You just want to be done with this.

The following day is agonizing to get through without picking a fight in everything that Finnick does. It’s partially caused by the fact you didn’t sleep much. You were able to doze off sometime after Katniss and Peeta’s conversation came to an end, but awoke shortly after from a nightmare you had regarding Annie and Finnick.

With it being time for you and Finnick to take over for Katniss and Jackson, there was no time to fall back asleep. You spent four hours staring into the flames, brushing off Finnick every time he tried to get you to talk to him. At eight, Boggs woke everyone up for breakfast, and you were released from your duty of guarding Peeta.

Still, there was no time to sleep as Gale, Finnick, Katniss and you were swept away by the camera crew to shoot the glass windows of buildings for their clips. It didn’t last long, you were out there just past eleven. By the time you came back to camp, the soldiers from Thirteen were sitting with Peeta, playing a game called “Real or Not Real” where Peeta would ask a question and they’d have to answer whether or not it happened.

This went on for a while, until Jackson broke everyone up into a different watch, splitting you from Finnick. She does this so that Peeta has access to a soldier and someone that knows him relatively personally. You get paired with Messalla, who is thankfully more talkative than you are, because you can feel yourself shutting down more by the hour.

Unfortunately, you get stuck in your head for the rest of the day, lips almost completely sealed. If you pretend you’re not bothered by how close Annie and Finnick are, it’ll eventually become true, right? If you don’t let conversation about Annie get to you, then you won’t get fired up enough to get in a fight with Finnick. You two will be okay.

However, the only downfall of pretending was that every time Peeta had a question about District Four or what happened with Annie, you quickly deflected it, forcing Finnick to answer it. Which only continued to rub you the wrong way, despite the fact you had to remind yourself that it’s your fault.

It’s spineless, but it’s better than having an argument. It was clear in your actions that you were angry or at the very least upset, yet you never verbalized it. You let Finnick’s mood dampen until he could hardly stand to be around you except for dinner. And even though you sat side by side outside the tent, and it was pretty obvious you had something to say to him—you never did.

This time, you want to take another approach. All those arguments have brought you nowhere, and you’re tired of going in circles. If you try to talk about this with Finnick again, he’ll get defensive, you’ll get angry, and once again, you’ll be back where you came from.

So, you’ll just shut up and be quiet.

The next afternoon, Boggs informs the whole squad that you’re all needed to stage a propo a few miles out. Peeta claims that it’s because Coin and Plutarch are unhappy with the footage, and he’s right. It’s no one’s fault except for Thirteen, though, for practically wrapping everyone in bubble wrap. 

You’re not actually on a mission, you’re behind the front lines. You move camp every couple days to be close, but you’re never in real danger. Except for when pods are mislabeled and accidents happen, like with the Leeg twin. 

Nothing changes today, though. On the way to the area to film, Boggs tells everyone the block they specially set aside for you to play with is relatively out of danger. There’s even a couple of active pods they left behind for you to trigger. One of them should spray gunfire, and the other releases a net to trap the invader.

The group of you are made to suit up in heavy armor just for precaution’s sake, including the camera crew. Cressida talks to Boggs about how she’s planning on using more smoke bombs and adding gunfire as a sound effect to please those in Thirteen. Each person is given a gun, or allowed to take their specialty weapon, including Peeta. Boggs makes sure to tell him that his gun is loaded with blanks. 

Peeta shrugs. “I’m not much of a shot anyway.” He says, and then spends most of the journey in silence. Katniss and Jackson seem to keep a close eye on him, afraid that he’ll fly off the handles. At the halfway point, he finally speaks with irritation. “You’re an Avox, aren’t you?”

You glance over your shoulder to see that he’s talking to Pollux, face screwed tightly. “I can tell by the way you swallow. There were two Avoxes with me in prison. Darius and Lavinia, but the guards mostly called them the redheads. They’d been our servants in the Training Center, so they arrested them, too. I watched them being tortured to death. She was lucky. They used too much voltage and her heart stopped right off. It took days to finish him off. Beating, cutting off parts. They kept asking him questions, but he couldn’t speak, he just made these horrible animal sounds. They didn’t want information, you know? They wanted me to see it.”

When he’s finished speaking, he looks around and notices that everyone has stopped walking, staring at him. No one knows what to say, he asks, “Real or not real?” Silence. This upsets him more. “Real or not real?!”

“Real,” Boggs says slowly. “At least, to the best of my knowledge… real.”

Peeta’s shoulders fall. “I thought so. There was nothing… shiny about it.” He sighs, wandering away from the group, talking to himself. 

It’s quiet for a while while this information is settled in your mind. Only the sound of glass crunching beneath your boots fills the still air. Until Finnick clears his throat slightly, looking over at you.

“They must’ve done the same thing to Johanna.”

You hum, giving him a quick shrug. You wouldn’t say that. What they did to Johanna was completely different because Peeta and her are far from similar. Johanna has no one she loves, and she lacks the same compassion that Peeta has. She’s strong mentally, which is why they waterboarded and electrocuted her. It’s why they shaved her head to take away her individuality.

With Peeta, he cares more deeply about the people around him. He has a driving character. It was more meaningful to show him people that were familiar and to take away the ability to help them. Peeta’s the type of person to save others first, sometimes over himself. And he’s very memory-reliant, he likes to reminisce, which is why they made it hard for him to do without getting confused.

“Don’t you think?” Finnick asks, once he realizes you’re not going to respond without being prompted.

“No.”

“No?” His face twists.

“They’re different people. It’s clear the Capitol took different approaches.”

Two different people. You and Annie. You and Finnick.

“What about Annie? Do you think they—”

You sigh through your nose. “They didn’t have to do anything to Annie because being in the Capitol was torture enough. She can hardly leave the house without having a meltdown—something that you coddled. Snow didn’t have to lift a finger. You know this.” You snap.

Finnick doesn’t speak for a couple minutes. “That was unfair of you to say that about her.”

You roll your eyes and turn your head away from him. Maybe if you’d stop speaking to me about her, you think bitterly. Every conversation you have, she’s brought up. The doctors at Thirteen have told you two that she’s fine, and the memories she’s recounting are from when she was rescued out of the arena. Which was five years ago. 

They know this because the technology she’s recalling has been discarded. They use different machines now. And the medical team they used then have since retired, because there’s a strict contract on how long they can work for. Finnick doesn’t want to believe this, he just wants to listen to Annie because she’s the victim.

You’re not blaming her for being traumatized, you’re blaming him for enabling it. Again.

The air is tense, but you’re right around the corner from the residential building the prop will be taking place in front of. Boggs pulls out the Holo to show you a projection of the street. The gunfire pod is about a third of the way down the street, above an apartment awning. Bullets should be enough to trigger it.

When it comes to the net pod, it’s at the far end, almost around the next corner. This makes several people perk up, everyone volunteers to set off the pod, except for Peeta, who doesn’t seem to be interested. Katniss gets skipped, and she’s sent to Messalla to fix some blemishes on her face.

Boggs takes this time to direct everyone, Cressida sets up Castor and Pollux to capture the perfect angle. Messalla throws a couple of smoke charges to set the scene, with Cressida calling, “Action!”

Together, you walk down the purposely hazy street, which vaguely reminds you of the Block back in Thirteen. You blow out a couple of windows as you were told, but Gale has been assigned the real target. When he hits his designated pod, everyone ducks for cover. You settle for crouching behind a pale green wall with white florals painted on. 

A hail of bullets sweeps back and forth. As soon as it’s finished, Boggs orders you forward. Before anyone can move, Cressida declares she needs close-up shots, meaning you’re forced to reenact your reactions one-by-one. Thankfully, your position was fairly captured, so she excuses you, but tells you not to move a muscle.

The others have to fall to the ground, dive into alcoves and grit their teeth. Katniss presses her lips together in discontent, yet she participates anyway. The good news is that there is one terrible actor in the squad, and that happens to be Mitchell. Castor plays back the new footage of Mitchell grinding his teeth and flaring his nostrils.

It turns mostly everyone into a giggling mess. Even Boggs, who firmly orders, “Pull it together, Four-Five-One.” Only to turn away and smile to himself. 

You watch as he pulls out the Holo, checking the location of the next pod to be safe. He lifts the device in the air to get a better look at the projection. He takes a step back on the orange paving stones.

An explosion splits through the air.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Ripping up concrete sidewalks and parking lots and instead planting urban forests and using less cars can all help to decrease indoor and outdoor air temperature. In cities with an abundance of water, “soft cooling” techniques using fans and pools can also greatly reduce extreme temperatures.

Many architects today are also changing how they design buildings: only providing AC in specific rooms instead of through a central heating system. This way, people can choose to open or close their windows if they want, while reducing the energy needed to cool the hallways and lobby areas.

If you face photovoltaic panels westward, you can time the peak electricity production from solar energy with peak electricity demand for cooling. Using better glass on buildings, external shading, increasing air movement and installing ceiling fans—all of these further reduce reliance on AC.

In the longer term, we can cool our streets by narrowing them, using less dark colors that absorb heat, and aligning streets to prevailing winds. There are also ways we can overhaul the way we do air conditioning itself.

Many cities already provide air-conditioned public spaces as a public health services; we could also redesign apartment buildings with social spaces for people to hang out, by, for example, transforming the much cooler basements into lounges.

We could build cooperative housing that is ecologically and efficiently designed, so that people can together manage their energy use and decide on their own innovations to lower temperature. Toronto has a district cooling system that uses cold water from the bottom of Lake Ontario, and then uses the warmed up water for the drinking water supply.

[ratlesshonret]

Was thinking about Ace Attorney x Project Moon and wondering how that'd even work. The City seems like a very "fend for yourself," "might makes right" type of place. There are definitely laws, and jail-type locations are shown (mainly in Limbus Canto 6.5-1,) but we never see any kind of "due process." It usually just seems like people are arrested as soon as they're suspected of something, and thrown in jail forever unless they're rich.

We do come across some kinds of "lawyers," such as the Fixers you encounter in the Reception of Mirae Life Insurance, but those are insurance lawyers/collectors. Really, the only types of law ever covered are insurance law, contract law, and patent law. We never see anything about civil disputes or criminal law.

They take care to stress that laws don't apply during the Night in the Backstreets, when the Sweepers come out, which means that there are laws and punishments surrounding violent offenses, at least within the Nests, and possibly in the Backstreets outside of nighttime. Property damage is highlighted as an especially heinous offense, and if my memory serves right, the only offense that you can still be punished for during the Night in the Backstreets.

Overall, we get info on insurance, contract, and patent laws, but very little on criminal and civil law. Those last two seem to only be viewed in the lens of "you'll get punished by someone if you violate them" but it seems heavily dependent on which District you're in. A lot of Districts seem to just be "shoot the violators" while some, like T Corp, do seem to have an imprisonment system, at least for Time Tax Evaders. But we never see any due process.

I do think it'd be cool, though. Ace Attorney style trials in the high-tech City environment, allowing both interesting new tricks in the crimes, and cool new ways to investigate them. Maybe a Fixer Office specializing in defense law, who is hired to defend people accused of crimes in court, using expensive technology to investigate crimes in more detail when the actual police force of The City just doesn't feel like doing their job.

[raapija]

Strollonso au, but I actually wrote something...

Lance and Fernando's night out in Sendai OR a very drunk tall Canadian being carried back home by a not-so-drunk short Spaniard.

This is very short, so give it a quick read ! ✨

Fluffy to the point of almost throwing up ❤️

"I'm tired..." Lance groaned from across the table and slid down a little further in his seat. Fernando chuckled at him and called for the total to pay the bill for their drinks.

"No wonder," the Spaniard started as their bartender brought the bill. "You drank enough beer for the whole of Canada tonight."

"Hah..." Lance huffed and waited for the man to pay. Fernando always paid, every single night out or dinner for the past five years, the man was insistent on it and Lance had long ago decided not to bother.

"Come on, vamos." Fernando got up and offered Lance a steady hand to grab onto and heave his lanky body up from the leather covered seat. The younger man weighed heavy on his side as they said their good byes to the nice staff at the little Kokubuncho bar.

***

"Oofff... My feet don't work?" Lance muttered as he struggled to keep up with Fernando's strides in the chill night air. It was pretty quiet,only a few people passing them in the usually bustling bar district.

Fernando glanced behind to see Lance had stopped a little back and was looking back at him helpless.

"Ay, let me." the Spaniard walked over to him and motioned him to hop onto his back to carry him.

"You're not gonna CARRY me back, stupid." Lance exclaimed but Fernando kept his cool. The drunk Canadian was easy enough to convince. "Fine. But carrying a man half your size is YOUR problem."

"Yeah, you are my problem..." Fernando muttered under his breath in Spanish. "Giddy up."

"Giddy up? Hah, you're insane." Lance laughed at the sudden expression. He tried jumping up a few times and almost toppling them both over before Fernando could finally catch a proper hold of his legs and Lance wrapped his arms around the older man's shoulders.

"Onward!" the Canadian yelled and pointed towards the general direction of their hotel. Fernando carried him with surprising ease and garnered a couple of entertaining looks from the people passing by. Not very often do they see two foreigners in such a ridiculous situation.

"My strong man..." Lance hummed into Fernando's ear and nuzzled his neck. He sounded so content with the whole thing and Fernando could feel the weight increasing as the man relaxed. Or was he falling asleep?

"Anything for my princesa." the Spaniard said and earned one last chuckle from the younger man before he was completely out. Steady stream of warm, beer scented breath against his neck.

Hey... This might be absolutely dogshit bc I just woke up, but I HAD to get this out of my system 😭

[jovial-thunder]

More IRL Lego Lancer!

We played the Tomb of Delios one-shot by Katherine Stark. Some NPC comp / sitrep spoilers ahead.

I used the backs of old trivial pursuit boards for grids, egg cartons, poster tubes, and a big Roomba box + insert for terrain.

I coated the cardboard with this flour and glue paste recipe I found on youtube.

I found a bunch of cheap-ish large lego octogons and walls online for the modular buildings, then greebled them with misc urban details I collected from my local bricks & minifigs bulk by-volume bins.

Our PCs were a Swallowtail artillery (callsign Bandit; an SSC plant in the union auxilliaries), Störtebeker striker (callsign Roadkill, silver-nanite kintsugi'd mechromancer), and Black Witch support (callsign Egret, disgraced princess (gotta be one of my favorite genders)).

The elite cataphract ended up playing trapdoor spider for most of the game; hiding in a magical healing forest (thank u support o7) and grappling PCs back into the forest with it.

Its scariest turn was popping out, structuring the Bandit and destroying his siege stabilizers, and lassoing it back into the forest. Egret came to the rescue and finally did the cataphract in with perimeter command plate/impact lance/crit thrown tactical knife overwatch combo.

The Swallowtail never took any voluntary movement after deploying its siege stab round 1, but between rainmaker knockback, the aforementioned trapdoor spider incident, and allied ferrous lashes, and a few rams, it was pingponged around the map pretty significantly.

"Come out Rainmaker, I just want to talk."

The final threat to the objective was when a bastion clambered up onto the pipeline to contest them. The Störtebeker (whose mini was having trouble standing up on the pipeline) pulled an indiana jones and just shot it down.

For the pre-battle narrative section, I made two 4-step clocks out of lego and a minimap as the party visited various districts of the city. Both were totally unnecessary but I think added a lot to the IRL experience.

All in all, it was a lot of fun! Things that worked well/could be improved on:

The aforementioned mini stability. I should add more baseplates to the minis to making moving and standing them up less finicky.

As cool as the egg carton bottoms are, having flat surfaces is just better. Going to stick with the tops going forward.

The grid ground floor worked great. I should trace more grids onto the egg cartons and larger boxes. I also made a few measuring sticks out of dowels and that was super handy.

Witchdice on phones continues to work well for PC character sheets.

I made a handful of status tokens that we could put next to mechs. They were handy for consumable statuses like lock-on, but less so for memorable ones like exposed and hidden.

We needed more little indicators for misc systems like Javelin Rockets and Iceout Drone.

It was fun to be able to follow up "how do you want to do this" with "you may now destroy the mini".

[lalalian]

I always think to myself, "I'm out of ideas... I'm out of actually cool, creative ideas, will I have to shut all my shit down? How am I supposed to continue posting if I've got nothing..." but then, the next second I'll come up with something that genuinely could be a whole ass dr

...

here's a dump of some of the drs I've been wanting to make into filled scripts for awhile now, but I haven't even started designing the scripts for them yet.

Some of them are literally just titles, but idk I just know I can work with it yk?

since I finished some prototyping hw today, I'll put in a little more effort sectioning this post

some of the ideas in question

cloud catcher: steampunk reality based on a cloud city, you've got a job as a cloud catcher, your job is to catch and sell different kinds of clouds, have a cloud shop

inedible edible cafe: inedible things here (in our OR) would be edible in this dr.. Initially I only wanted to include slime as a dish, but now I want to make dishes with different ingredients, like puffy sticker cereal or sum shit

shifting school dr: okay so this actually was a trend on shifttok for a sec, it was called a 'mysterious school' idk why. anyway, this school was supposed to be it's own dr, but I think i may include it in my dreamscape dr

magitech engineer dr: ngl this idea was in the fucking basement of my mind-- ain't nobody gonna wanna shift here besides for someone that actually likes crafting things. idk i just feel like it’s a niche idea

number magic: uh so no, that's not the title for this dr-- I just really wanna make a dr with this kind of system. idk I was just in world lit class and I realized the poem I was reading was repeating the number 5. we were supposed to analyze the poem, but my dumbass just started daydreaming... anyway, next idea

fantasy cosmetic makeup maker dr: so like imagine handmaking make up with like... mermaid pearls or like ground unicorn horns (sourced ethically of course-- unicorns will shed their horns like baby teeth throughout their lifetime. I cannot imagine depriving a unicorn of its horn... imagine doing that... what a psycho😨) you could make like a mermaid line, a sky beauty line, IMAGINE THE PACKAGING. STOP. WAIT. FLOWER KNOWS. AHHH.

guardian flame: I have so little down for this DR lmao 😭😭 essentially like you're some sort of being that's been assigned to protect another, probably someone who isn't as strong as you. the kinda oddball part about your drself in particular is that you have to go to school to train how to be a good protector, but like you've already got a person you need to protect. nobody is assigned to protect anyone until affffftteeerrr graduation, but ur stuck with an idiot

futuristic skater/futuristic biker: self explanatory! I also wanted this to be in a high school setting. this idea stemmed from me just wanting a high school futuristic dr, cuz like yk I was curious about what high school students would need to learn. what would be considered important to learn about? would all students be taught about how to make technology we would find difficult to make today? what about psychology class? what new theories would arise? what would students think about our generation (in our CR) today? would they think we're stupid, crass, or selfish? anyway, initially I just wanted to go to school and walk around... but, I had a dream about living in the future, more abt that in the next idea (this idea is getting long). Instead, I think I wanna deviate a bit from what I would usually do here and in literally every other school dr I have-- I want to experience what it'd be like to be a... deliquient? idk, growing up i kinda just was just that quiet girl that listened to her parents... soooooooo why not do smth different? I'm still not gonna drink or do drugs tho, boooooooo ik so boring 🙄🙄 oh also I was gonna have a group of friends that were also skaters or bikers and compete in definitely legal biker/skater competitions

futuristic entertainment district: anyway more about that dream, essentially everyone was wearing these levitating rocket boots that looked a lot like roller skates (they had those wheels at the bottom of the shoes). the city was like a huge pot hole filled with stores on the side, but like it seemed like parts of the land was broken apart and floating around-- even those had advertisements and people singing and dancing on them. like this pot hole city was filled to the brim with advertisements, shops, stores, entertainment places, literally I remember that there was a huge section of like idol shit. there were a lot of people darting around the place using those levitating boots I was wearing, but there were also futuristic floating cars. imagine cyberpunk but if it was located in a big ass pot hole. yah, that. idk i just wanna explore

dystopian futuristic dr: similar to cyberpunk in the fact that it's a world dominated by companies; I want to join an underground group that wants to overtake the gov and make the world less ass

singles inferno - introvert ver: I actually have all the contestants scripted + designed a script for this DR, but I haven't worked on this script in a whiillleeeee. I wanna be song jia. not literally, but like I want to have her charm, yk? ok so the introvert part-- a lot of the game will take place in a group chat room. you do challenges in-person and in this chatroom to get a date, sometimes it's a random date, but most of the time it's like your choice. very heavily inspired by a game called picka!

a minecraft roleplay dr: I know at least one of yall cringed so hard at this, trust me, I knooowwwww-- but I really want to be like the next aphmau or smth. oh except I don't want to make kid vids, tho I'm sure yall knew that right. I want to recreate aethergarde academy in minecraft (ALSO ALRUNA TOO OMFG) but then I also wanna do other things that aren't dr related. idk I just know that this DR's gonna be sooooo fun. I haven't even decided on a channel name yet 😭😭

...

uh so I prob got more, but these were just the ones that came to mind

I'll prob make a part two when I'm lazy with posting

if anyone wants to use these ideas, please do credit me! if one of yall see someone using my ideas without credit, plz plz tell me, ty!

[centrally-unplanned]

Wonders are definitely cool in the Civilization series and I think a game that has that mechanic should exist, but still I think they aren't either what I would want from wonders or what players instinctively conceive of them as being. In most modern Civ games wonders are caches of unique abilities, and often the most powerful abilities in the game. Its quite common to "blitz" to a wonder, like how Petra was literally required for desert starts in Civ 5, or how any heavy coastal nation wanted the Great Lighthouse in Civ 4. And other times its like a plug gap, like okay I have unhappiness problems lets go for the Civ 6 Colosseum for that bonus amenity stacking on my entertainment districts.

The problem for me is that this really stops wonders from being what they are, a regular building but "better" in some symbolic way, and instead are very strategically load-bearing magitech. Someone beating you to Petra in Civ 5 can be a game restart moment, "well fuck now this city will suck". And in a simulation of humanity, that doesn't make sense right? Whatever *thing* you were going to build to give you food in the desert you should obviously still be able to build, someone else building it really breaks immersion that way. Everyone is scrambling to race for divine favor, essentially. And its still weird for less load-bearing cases, like why can my attempt to build happiness buildings for my people be "poached" by an enemy civ?

To just spin something off you can instead imagine systems where you just build regular buildings, and then you accumulate "wonder points" via organically doing well in the game, which you can spend to enshrine one of your buildings as a wonder. Maybe wonders pretty much all play into the culture game and you get culture bonuses for that, or "number of wonders" can make you progress along an unlock path, a lot of ways to go. I personally think Civ stumbled into its wonder mechanics, never really considering if something that was "fine" for Civ 1 works well for later versions, but its just how it works now. As the "ur" nation-building game, it's an area where a bit more intuitive fidelity would be appreciated.

[thr0wnawayy]

Just HOW corrupt is Hero Society?. Pt 1.

At this point in MHA's timeline, it's no secret that Hero Society is beyond saving. In my time lurking in these tags, I've seen the occasional post tackling some aspect of this corruption, all of which I found insightful. Today I'd like to share some of my own tidbits and thoughts regarding the sensationalized hellscape that is MHA's Japan.

Hawks' Origins:

Something that always bugged me was the timing, It seemed to good to be true. Hawks' dad gets caught, ENDEAVOR of all people is the one to do it and the Commission just happens to arrive.

Well, no. Let me ask you this, why would they send in the Number 2 hero to deal with a petty thief turned murder. A hard hitter like Endeavor would have been the WORST possible person to send as opposed to like, Eraserhead who would have been able to dissarm Takami quietly.

It's not like Mr. Takami was particularly dangerous either, his feathers at best could make for decent lockpicks or shivs but that doesn't justify Endeavor's appearance nor does it make sense given his arrogance. To him the situation would be small fries.

It just doesn't make sense when you assess the risk, it's not like Endeavor has ever been good at restraint (See: Hero Killer Arc) and the possibility of collateral wasn't exactly zero when you consider Mr. Takami got caught jacking a car (additionally not a major or dangerous crime). So he gets arrested, the seeds of Hero worship are planted in a young Keigo's mind and Hawks + his Mother flee and become homeless. Hawks eventually goes looking for the police and returns with:

Well they aren't police.

So, your telling me that these Commission agents just so happend to be around Hawks, here in some backwater cranny. What interest would the HPSC have in this dregg of a family (How do they even know their names). They shouldn't. Not unless they knew something before hand.

(I find it funny that the scene parallels how Tomura was found, down to their respective "saviors" having their own agendas)

We know Hawks used his quirk as a sort of motion detection system to alert his father of any intruders. Mind you, we don't know how far or accurate he was prior to the HPSC's efforts (minus being able to reach the city). So it's possible the HPSC avoided detection by watching from a distance and avoiding certain areas where Hawks could sense them.

Just how long was the Commission watching, how long did they allow the abuse to continue. How long did they watch the Takami's starve on the streets from afar before acting. So many questions, yet no answers.

"Cool but how does the HPSC tie to Endeavor?" You may be asking.

Well, sometime before the arrest happened Hawks had actually left the house and ventured into the nearby district woth his mother.

And came home with an Endeavor plush. Funny how that works huh?. It's not implausible to assume that the Commission simply requested Endeavor to handle Mr. Takami, possibly adjusting his schedule for their convenience.

I'm not suggesting that Endeavor knew of the Commission's scheme here, nor am I suggesting he (intentionally) helped. (Enji's cruel, yes. But he's also an idiot in anything not hero/celebrity related.).

Something I ask myself is, were there other candidates?. Children stuck in situations like Hawks', what happened to them. Were they abandoned to either die or become villains, killed to eliminate potential threats, or perhaps they were just born "unlucky".

Some final notes:

Hello, I apologize for the amateur nature of the formatting, I'm still getting used to the sites formatting options, as well as trying to figure out my "style" so to speak. Regardless I hope you found something in this post and look forward to your thoughts and opinions regarding the content above.

Yours truly,

Thr0wnaway.

[thelostbaystudio]

The Lost Bay comes to life!!!

Hey folks, in the next few weeks I'll be launching the crowdfunding campaign for The Lost Bay, a dark fantasy tabletop RPG set in 199X.

I've been working on it for years, and thanks to the feedback and support of the numerous folks who played the early access version, the game is now ripe to go to print.

But what is it exactly?

The Lost Bay is a dark fantasy tabletop RPG. It’s set in alternate 199X. The Lost Bay is also the name of the game setting, a small coastal suburb, both familiar and uncanny, where the mundane and the magical mix inextricably. Living Saints, rituals, blood curses are part of the characters’ daily life alongside console games, VHS tapes, and phone booths.

The Lost Bay is a set of three booklets. It contains everything you need to play: character creation, core rules, advanced tips and toolkits, detailed setting and bestiary.

The cool thing is that you get to play powerful characters, roaming in a weird and at times dark world.

The system in a nutshell

Three attributes, and a d6 dice pool for all your Action Rolls or Saves.

One resource to fuel your Powers.

Powers always succeed but can get you a Scar.

Scars can hurt you, make you more powerful, or change you. They are specific to each Vibe.

If you get all the Scars and you manage to survive them, you become a Living Saint, an immortal roaming the Bay. YOU become the Lore of the Bay.

What’s in the books?

User Guide: character creation and core rules, ten playable classes, three post-death special classes, custom character growth, Scar tables.

GM Guide: tips and toolkits, advanced rules, adventure building frameworks, examples and designer commentary.

Travel guide: extensive ready to use setting, exploration procedures, pre-gen point-crawls, six full-fledged districts featuring: locations, NPCs, Bosses, complications, rumors, treasures, adventure seeds.

If this sounds cool to you stay tuned for more updates about the game, or follow the Kickstarter page to be notified on launch

If you have any questions about the game feel free to fire them, I'd be happy to answer. And if you want to try it come and say hi on The Lost Bay server, we play the game regularly, and I even do 60minutes intro to it for folks who just want to give it a quick try https://discord.com/invite/37XBQVr7eP

Cheers

Iko

[farsanaashiq]

District cooling systems offer several advantages over traditional cooling methods, such as increased energy efficiency, reduced maintenance costs, and lower environmental impact.These systems work by centralizing the production of chilled water in a central plant and distributing it through a network of underground pipes to cool multiple buildings in a district efficiently.

[f1llory]

i know a lot of people think it's not that deep but idk, the constant desire for more gory stories of past hunger games rubs me the wrong way. don't get me wrong, i'm all for fanfics exploring that, but there's a reason there will never be novels detailing that.

the reason people want spinoffs for finnick and johanna is the fact that we love them. there is nothing that would be added to the universe if we had an official/canon account of their games. they're typical games and typical victors--which i think is the point of their character. they're different from each other in some ways, but their stories are so common among victors--because that's simply what the capitol does to people.

i'm not sure i agree with the people who think it's inherently bad for people to be interested in that. there's a reason people are interested in that. the characters and worldbuilding in the hunger games are so beautifully done that there's always something to notice, theorize about, explore, and expand on. i just think that having novels on things like this would be pointless--and detrimental to the message of the series. the point is not to show violence for violence's sake, the point is to show what it takes for people to become who they are, and how the choices they make can lead to either oppression or liberation. that being said, i'm all for exploring them in fanfic. i think fanfic is an incredible thing, i love reading and writing it, and there are so many things that fans of the series can explore and create.

i'm also all for new novels if they happen! i just think they would have to add a hell of a lot more to the world of panem than the gory details of a typical hunger games to satisfy people's curiosity. here's some things that i think would be cool to see:

-the life of an avox in the capitol. this would give a totally different outlook on life in the capitol, since we've only seen people who benefit from the system and not those who are punished by it. this could be some random unknown avox but because i'm me, i would LOVE to have a full pollux spinoff i'm literally in love with him

-a victor we've never seen and their life after the games. it could show their life after returning to their district, how they're viewed, how their view of their district has changed. this could also be an interesting way to see a little more of the mentoring process and the toll it takes

-something exploring life in any of the districts we haven't gotten to see. this could also be part of the previous idea, i just think it would be interesting since our knowledge of so many districts are limited. although maybe that's the point? all we know of panem is through the eyes of two deeply unreliable narrators

-the first rebellion, or anything set before the hunger games were created. how was panem different back then? and how did things get to the point of such a big rebellion?

-are there people living outside the bounds of the districts? obviously people like lavinia have been caught trying to escape, but there very well may be people living out there. i wonder what they'd think of what was going on, or if they'd come into contact with people escaping to district 13. and no i do not want this to involve lucy gray i never want confirmation on what happened to her

basically, there's so much more of panem i'd like to see explored, but there are some things that i don't want to see, or expect to see, in any offical continuation. i absolutely love fanfics exploring those things, or anything other fans find interesting. i just think that there are so many things that could be added to the canon and i don't understand the focus on the idea of novels that would really detract from the way suzanne collins approaches her work.

in conclusion i am simply losing my mind over tbosas and i’m using a blog i never use to yell into the void thank u for reading

[mindstriker]

I'm on my like tri-monthly random Borderlands fixation tirade tonight, and one of the things I've really got kicking around in my head at the moment isn't a character- but rather, Helios station in its entirety.

A corporate satellite hub orbiting the moon of a major planet, the size of a city or larger- shaped like an H, the pinnacle of egotistical, over-the-top design. Too *good* to grace Elpis or Pandora's surface, keeping a cool professional distance from everything and everyone below it. Allowing the people on-board to monitor the lives of those below on both sides, and to oversee all of Hyperion's endeavors from a distance. Built to give Hyperion express access via moonshot to anything that falls within its Eye's field of vision. If the Eye can see it, Hyperion can send people to it- or annihilate it from a thousand miles away in space.

Hyperion does surveillance really well. It's not something they ever really emphasize throughout the series, to my awareness, but it's fascinating. The first major time we're introduced to the concept of an ECHOeye connected to a Hyperion database, it's through Rhys- a character who can use his eye to see all the bizarrely specific information Hyperion's database has held over the years. Hyperion knows the names, faces, and life details of a stunning amount of people, when you really think about it. (I know this is just because the ECHOeye thing is a fun info-gathering mechanic in Tales, but hey- if I think it's fun to assign it narrative meaning, I'm gonna do it.)

But that's a bit of a tangent. Asides from being an enormous eye in the sky and Hyperion's very own hand of God as far as terrestrial punishment is concerned, it's also fascinating on an internal level.

It's design allows for so many fascinating choices. It isn't a company building alone, it's a city with a PA system. There are rooms you walk into in the lines of the 'H' that are so tall vertically that the endless expanse above you as you walk almost registers to you as the sky. Lines of vegetation- fake or not is anyone's guess- and paved paths make regular hallways feel like courtyards. There are countless windows that face the night sky, and some of them have been given a holographic sheen that makes them resemble a blue sky. People don't commute from Helios to the celestial bodies below on either side- they live here, work here, buy here, and more. There are commercial centers, office districts, laboratories, and more. A person could spend their entire career- hell, their entire life up there, cloistered away from the unruly truth of life on the ground, inventing weapons to fuel the fire of constant conflict outside their company doors. It's fascinatingly huge and terrible, and I wish we'd gotten more time to explore its insides and find out more about what life on Helios really looked like for Hyperion employees.

What we do get that I love is the vaguely haunting (or maybe I'm just way too sentimental) experience of watching Helios rise and fall over the course of a few games. Chronologically, we look up at the sky in TPS and see the half-built skeleton of Helios' limbs, still spindly and unfinished, rattle as the station rains hell onto the moon below. We see it again, finished and pristine in 2- a constant presence on the horizon far above us, completely untouchable from where we stand. Even when we explore it in TPS, Helios feels mostly untouchable. We have to stop the people on it, we know- but we never get the sense that the station itself is fallible or will somehow beget its own destruction. It's as much a part of the Pandoran solar system as anything else.

And then Tales From The Borderlands hits after Jack's death, as we visit what remains of Hyperion in Jack's absence- still putting along in the corporate world despite their retreat from Pandora's surface proper. Nothing's changed much. Nothing does change much, until the Jack AI begets the place's destruction.

Only in that first sequence of TFTBL's Chapter 5 (such an amazing musical sequence, imo, still- I've always loved it) does our perception of Helios as a fixed point in space ever get challenged. Watching it peel up at the corners and spout rubble into Pandora's atmosphere- drawn by the planet's heavier gravity to fall endlessly away from the moon- was enough to make me feel mildly dizzy the first time I saw it. As a pathetically tiny number of safety shuttles make their way away from the collapsing body of a city-satellite down to uncertain fates, we're reminded once again that Helios is an entire city and then some- supporting how many people exactly, who are now being violently spat out into the void of space, or worse, carried down to earth in a flaming wreck? Suddenly this impossibly huge display of corporate self-sufficiency, this giant throne they built in the sky from which to survey the world beneath, seems like a fatally hubristic project. They're not above the violence, chaos, and uncertainty of the world below anymore.

And when all is said and done, its skeleton sits there like a monument to the downfall of an entire corporation- carried to the grave by one man's foiled plans and replaced by a dozen other hungry mouths vying to profit off of intercorporate wars and upheaval. You look up at the moon, or down at Pandora, and feel ever so slightly wrong- like there's a star on the horizon now missing.

In a game series that doesn't often take itself seriously for long enough to deliver meaningful world-altering change as a result of past actions (in a way that isn't hideously underplayed or broken up by irony or a lack of care), Helios is a really subtle major world alteration that means a lot to me. It's a whole corporation we've come to know and despise taken out of orbit for the last time. There's no magical Helios 2. We never see a character turn around and try and make light of the situation with some shitty action-movie quip, or a joke about how 'that could've gone better'. There's just a flaming pile of rubble on the ground where thousands of Hyperion employees died on impact, and the knowledge that the Borderlands corporate sphere has been permanently refaced.

I wish we'd seen more visible change in the world throughout the games like that. It would have been a lot of fun. It's the little things- like a familiar location permanently destroyed, or a character we love dying in a way that actually begets grief and meaningful introspection (rather than just a wuh-oh, they're gone now, what's the next plot point again?) that could have really made the story of these games have a bit more punch. Because it's my opinion that when Borderlands actually *tries* to hit hard, they don't miss quite as often.

[whiteheartlight]

some disabilities that I think could exist in the Bionicle universe for character and world-building reasons:

under-active cooling systems that lead to fatigue and illness. these beings have to limit their physical activity or they will overheat and could cause serious damage to their other internal systems. some of them may go live in Ko-Matoran districts or other cold areas even if they wouldn't live there traditionally. Matoran with this condition may be more likely to use crabs or small personal vehicles to get around

since I headcanon that most beings are mass-printed or otherwise mass-produced, you can occasionally find someone who was simply printed wrong in some way, a production line error causing a deformity. some of these deformities would have been weeded out by quality control before everyone gained sentience, but not all

memory loss seems to be a built-in feature for many beings in the MU. some beings have this to an even greater degree than others, however, and they might lose their memories very frequently or even lack the ability to form memories

if a Toa is interrupted while in the middle of passing his power on to another Toa and becoming a Turaga, the new Toa can become trapped halfway between Matoran and Toa, sometimes not reaching the typical height or physical power of an average Toa, and possibly having limited control of their elemental powers

the different culture of the MU would create different possible mental illnesses. for instance, some Matoran could become overly-obsessed with the ideals of duty to the point that they almost seem at times to have lost their sentience again and only be capable of work. the existence of physic powers also means that there are a lot of ways in which someone's mind could be damaged by psionic powers like repeated hypnotism, confusion, or memory tampering

not to mention all the different ways mutation could cause disabilities and chronic pain

disabilities related to control over powers: these could be particularly common in Skakdi, who are given unprecedented and experimental powers by Spiriah. many Skakdi are permanently damaged by his experiments and may have extremely faulty control of their abilities

if the glass or plastic that makes up the eyepiece is damaged, that can be replaced, but if the wiring that connects the eyes to the brain is damaged, someone could have blindness or vision loss. the same goes for a lot of parts - maybe an audio receptor can be removed and replaced, but if the internal systems are damaged, it might not be possible to replace or repair those parts. it's similar to humans in that way

there could also be intellectual or cognitive disabilities similar to those of humans

damaged joints that have to be permanently locked or braced so they will not break... looking at you, lime-greens

I also think that there are already disabilities in the text! We know there's a concept of muteness because the Makuta wonder if Vamprah has mutism or if he chooses not to speak, there's the concept of being "cross-wired," and the Rahaga, Zaktan, and Nidhiki's mutations alter their powers and change their physical abilities in ways meant to be debilitating and horrifying. we have references to insanity, broken arms, amnesia, amputees, and more.

feel free to add on!

[tangerinetrees]

Hello! So sorry to bug you out of nowhere, but you added something really cool from the legal realm to a chain of custody post so I was wondering on your take on whether Harvey Dent could practice law in Gotham (even if he did get disbarred for criminal activities)?

hello! tysm for asking about harvey bc he’s very dear to me!! i do want to specify first that my legal knowledge is mostly limited to like a) criticizing the justice system in the us, and b) pretty vague in terms of the nuances to new jersey’s state system bc i don’t live there, so this is 80% headcanon and 20% personal research. also warning this got kinda long

like for one, regarding the state legal system, apparently jersey has “county prosecutors” (equivalent to new york’s district attorneys) who are appointed by the state attorney general instead of being elected. given it’s pretty much a staple for gotham to have a DA, we’re already throwing real world examples out the window

harvey getting disbarred is a really interesting point to me (<- intense focus on minutiae in world building), given that it’s already established in universe that gotham’s system is corrupt - which should include everyone from police to judges to prosecutors to prisons. which is kinda funny since most comics and adaptations don’t take the level of corruption inherent to police+prosecutors to nearly the depths they reach irl in the usa? and irl they rarely get disciplined or disbarred? i digress. because of the highly public nature of harvey / two face going on a revenge spree against gotham’s mob families, starting his own crime syndicate, and his arrest being published in the media, i think it’s safe to say he was disbarred.

while i’m not sure of how disbarment works as a process, i can imagine the NJ supreme court conducting an investigation into harvey’s crimes and run as DA to decide whether or not to disbar him - and all of the cops/ADAs/politicians/judges he pissed off while trying to reform gotham giving support for his disbarment. not to mention the actual criminal case that would be filed against harvey. disbarment in jersey is permanent (although apparently this might be changing recently?), so realistically, harvey can’t ever be reinstated. man crashed and killed his career so he could kill the maronis. which kind of explains harvey’s hopelessness about rebuilding his life

i mean mostly we see harvey offering legal advice, or sometimes just ‘holding court’ as a way for harv and twos to argue with each other. theoretically harvey could choose to represent himself in court. but even if they finish serving a sentence and try to build a non-crimey life, harvey’s disbarment would be his biggest obstacle to practicing law again. maybe given how convoluted gotham’s legal system is, ex con harvey would be allowed to practice in some but not all courts? like civil court and family court is fine, but as for criminal court... harvey can help with your divorce but he can’t defend you for committing robbery lmao

but honestly my preferred take is that two face and harvey have separate licenses. there was a scene in i think btas where they had a credit card with two face listed as the name, and in one of his runs with red hood he mentions their drivers license being out of date. so really i just think it would be hilarious if two face was not disbarred, or if he passed the bar as part of a rehab program (and i can definitely see a wayne sponsored convict higher education program existing in gotham)

(and relatedly, harvey and the other rogues being sentenced to arkham over and over again has fascinating implications? since traditionally it’s not a correctional facility the way a prison like blackgate is, not really. which would insinuate that despite being hella corrupt, gotham’s DAs don’t typically push for death penalty (illegal in NJ since 2007 btw) or even for life in prison, depending on the case. who knows? maybe harvey’s reform policies have kickstarted a lineage of more progressive DAs. well. unless arkham is being used as a jail+hospital for ppl with health needs, and that sentenced inmates are awaiting trial, bc then that would be more fucked up..)

anyway! sorry for this very long response lol, harvey and two face are my boys, and i could go on all night about them. tldr, whether or not harvey can practice law depends on 1) how closely you want adhere to jersey law, 2) whether he’s currently an escapee/avoiding arkham or an ex-con, and 3) how funny it is at the moment. there was a post floating around about how a reformed dent storyline should be harvey as a pro bono civil defense lawyer and two face as a personal injury lawyer which to me is the ideal state of things lol