#environmental themes

[recsspecs]

[psitrend]

Interview with Minor Conflict on their Upcoming EP Parallels

Robbie Warin and Josh Smyth discuss Minor Conflict’s origins and new EP Parallels. Minor Conflict is a Bristol-based musical group that combines post-punk and leftfield folk influences. In their music, they address significant themes such as urban life, human relationships, and environmental concerns. The group consists of Natalie Whiteland on harp and vocals, Josh Smyth on bass and vocals, and…

[fathersonholygore]

Uncanny Terrors & Landscapes of Grief in ENYS MEN

[joncronshawauthor]

How Final Fantasy Has Shaped Modern Fantasy Literature

Final Fantasy, the video game series that’s been anything but ‘final’, has made a considerable impact not just on the gaming world, but also on the pages of contemporary fantasy literature. So, how exactly did a bunch of pixelated characters hopping across our screens wield such influence over authors and their hefty tomes? Chocobos to Giant Hawks? The first, and possibly most important,…

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Promoting Literacy through Nature: Building Sustainable and Peaceful Societies

[synchodai]

Another thing season two completely shelves was season one's commentary on ecological apartheid. The closest we get is the enforcers' weaponizing The Grey, but after that? Nothing. Also, Caitlyn weaponizing The Grey should have been a bigger point of contention between her and Vi. Vi could have leveraged her knowledge and experience of The Lanes to convince Caitlyn that they didn't need to use a bioweapon, something that she *knows* firsthand is a form of slow violence that poisons innocents. Their relationship would have then degraded when they keep failing to capture Jinx (maybe because the Zaunites keep helping her hide) which leads to Caitlyn busting out the gas because her view of the Undercity transitions from "innocent" to "complicit." But no, why have two characters interacting in real time when we can have another MV with flashy transitions and symbolic art?

[adolin]

All your TLT posting is making me questioning if I should try it.. The only thing i'm worried is that I don't want to start a series and then finding out in the third bookthat the author made the antiheroic genderbent mao protagonist throw the metaphorical atomic bomb on the japanese because the author is an american descendent of a Chang Kai Shek general and wanted to absolve the yankees to grant herself a career (it worked greatly). So should i still try TLT as an olde commie? Love your blog btw, please continue reblog all those TLT fan art they look great! Thanks!

whew lowkey glad I couldn't get past the first book in that other series. anyway *clears throat*

If you like LESBIANS, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you. If you like BONES and FAILWOMEN and ARE ANGRY AT GOD, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you. If you like BAD JOKES and SHITTY MEMES, we have those in spades. If you love EXCELLENT FANART and DIVORCES that last TEN THOUSAND YEARS and LOCKED ROOM MURDER MYSTERIES, if you think EVIL COUGARS are SEXY, if you think PLUTO totally COUNTS as a PLANET, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you!!!!

[here's the rest of the tlt manifesto on ao3, podficced by @/wilfriede ]

On a serious note! I think TLT is definitely informed by leftist politics, and it has many themes that lend themselves to juicy interpretations on top of a really meaty worldbuilding and characterisation. Also the fanart SLAPS. And if you read the books you can check out my fics which, not to brag, are some of the weirdest I've ever written! featuring such tropes as: "bodyswapped man sucks his own dick" "vagina dentata" "ritual sex to have a baby during a mass death event" "in-universe academia" and "orphan girl meets her parents for the first time and they suck"

tldr please read the locked tomb <3

[saturnniidae]

Cripplepunk Modern Au Hiccup

[leohtttbriar]

Energy Transfer is one of the Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Texas, and Warren is its extremely politically connected co-founder. Warren is also one of the most generous donors in the Texas (and national) conservative political scene, and has funneled huge donations to politicians like Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Warren’s investments, unfortunately, seem to have paid off. In 2021, Energy Transfer and its execs profiteered $2.4 billion off of the February collapse of Texas’ electric grid, which resulted in the deaths of at least 246 Texans. Governor Abbott subsequently, and successfully, steered scrutiny away from Energy Transfer and other energy companies who were either responsible for or profited from the crash. Mere months later, Warren sent Abbott’s campaign a million-dollar check.

Warren and other Energy Transfer leaders and lawyers now seem poised to manipulate the system in favor of the pipeline company once again, this time in the federal courts. 

Prior to the recent raging pipeline fire in Texas, Energy Transfer was behind a very different disaster unfolding at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that often acts as a watchdog for labor unions and regularly fields and reviews complaints from union members nationwide. In 2022, an unidentified employee of Energy Transfer’s subsidiary La Grange Acquisition filed an unfair labor practice charge against the company, alleging that it had retaliated against him for complaining about unsafe working conditions, including “radioactive material and hazardous dust in work areas.” The NLRB opened an administrative case, investigating those claims and the subsequent allegation that he was fired in part for filing the complaint.

In 2024, Energy Transfer sued the NLRB, seeking to halt the administrative proceedings and joining SpaceX, Amazon, and other corporations in basically arguing that the board’s foundational structure is unconstitutional. That argument threatens the basic function of the NLRB (and other agencies like it) and could have sweeping consequences for its ability to conduct investigations or engage in basic enforcement actions for violations of labor rules and regulations. 

That suit ultimately landed in front of Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown of the Southern District of Texas—a Trump appointee—who issued a preliminary injunction against the NLRB’s investigation into Energy Transfer in order to allow the company’s suit against the NLRB to proceed. 

Though the NLRB has nearly 90 years of case law supporting its structure and administrative court reviews, Brown’s ruling cited instead a recent Fifth Circuit ruling, Jarkesy v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which held that the SEC’s structure and enforcement procedures were unconstitutional. In July of this year, the Supreme Court partially affirmed Jarkesy, but remained silent on the Fifth Circuit’s ruling on the (un)constitutionality of the SEC’s administrative law judges, a structure that the commission shares with the NLRB—and many other federal agencies. 

When the Supreme Court does not affirm nor reject an aspect of a ruling issued by a lower court, the lower court’s ruling is functionally left in place, which now poses a serious threat to the basic functionality of the SEC and other federal regulatory agencies that are mandated to act as watchdogs over unscrupulous corporations and in defense of the public interest. Contradictory rulings on the issue from other federal judges have highlighted the conflicting precedents that have allowed the Fifth Circuit to activate an issue that had been deemed settled for decades. 

[...]

An NPR investigation just this year found that he, along with two other Southern District of Texas judges, had failed to file a required form disclosing his attendance of a privately funded seminar. 

The case is far from settled, and it will now be heard by the Fifth Circuit with the NLRB’s appeal of Brown’s earlier ruling. What happens next is yet to be seen, but with the foundation of the government agency that historically has protected labor union members’ rights in the hands of a notoriously partisan court that previously attacked it, the outlook is not promising. 

[aroaessidhe]

little free library cat led me to the little free library this morning...... and I found a good book there!

[recsspecs]

[punksatawney-phil]

Fully convinced that the lack of promotion around Strange World was not just because it had amazing representation (though that is, as usual, part of it)

It was because it’s cli-fi that had the potential to reach mainstream audiences on a massive scale.

Changing societal priorities to adapt to catastrophic environmental change?? Shifting from industrial to biodiverse agriculture??Ecosystems as living things?? Degrowth as a necessary and messy step before sustainable regrowth?? They didn’t want anyone getting any ~ideas~ about environmental justice

[lucabyte]

Elder Scrolls 🤝 Homestuck 🤝 Snapewives

i have a connection to make here but im not telling you

[skrunksthatwunk]

jsjdkdbjsskh this fucking movie man

^^destruction caused by a fight his boys and some randos got into

[itstimeforstarwars]

Me 🤝 jude watson 🤝 half the star wars visions writers: when the main character commits ecoterrorism that is a heroic action.

[go-go-devil]

For the unpopular ask game! 💔 and 🖤 (black heart for the morally good question) ((^for the Soulsborne games you've played; I have yet to try out Hylics + Pathologic, but this blog has me considering getting into those :p))

💔 If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

That's actually a REALLY hard question to answer! Even with all of the soulsborne characters I find the most uninteresting, I can't really think of any that I find so pointless to the narrative that they should just disappear from it entirely...

In terms of minor characters though, I can name all of six of the most useless bastards in the series right here: Blue Smelter Demon, Lud & Zallen, the Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah. These fucking shit bosses contained in the most infuriatingly designed areas in the entire goddamn souls series add nothing lore-wise and have no reason to exist other than to make 100% completionists like myself hate being alive. Every day that I think about them is a day splotched with misery and I hope one day a mod of DS2 can exist that removes them entirely. If you can't tell, I don't like these bosses >:-(

🖤 Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

Reah of Thorolund. While I do think she ultimately tries to be a good person, I will die upon my hill that she is not NEARLY as innocent as the fandom often makes her out to be!

That fact that she's not only the leader of the cleric gang's expedition to find the Rite of Kindling, and thus a high ranking member of the very shady Way of White religion, is already a huge red flag to me. Though even more than that is the fact that she has more physical humanity on her than both Lautrec AND Patches, who are two characters heavily implied to have killed people in order to hold that much humanity on them. Even if Reah doesn't like killing and didn't kill for her humanity stash, somebody did kill for her to be able to have that much on hand. Probably Vince and Nico, and maybe even Petrus too, as they don't have much for themselves despite being her bodyguards. Yet even still a lot tend to forget that she's the one holding Wrath of the Gods on-hand to sell to you, so she certainly has the Faith to cast frighteningly powerful miracles if she wanted to.

Honestly at the end of the day I think too many people just assume Reah's this innocent little maiden solely because she's a young woman. I'm not saying everyone is intentionally being misogynistic in their assumptions, but frankly I can't see why so many would ignore her very clearly stated leadership in her group alongside her 1-uping Petrus in the power of the miracles she carries unless some internalized bias is at play.