#major post

[cmaidaartworkblog]

This video showcases my Blender model of the planet that the Scud aliens call home, the fourth and final world I've mapped out for @jayrockin's "Runaway to the Stars" project. A *lot* of maps were created in service of this final render, and also in service of presenting the special qualities of this planet. I intend to show you as many of these as I can under the cut, and also in subsequent posts focusing on some of the more interstitial, ancillary maps and figures that played a part in producing the primary maps you'll see in this main post.

Before I show the first maps I made for this project, what you see below are the satellite-style maps for the Equinoxes and Solstices, in order of (Northern) Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, the latter serving as the texture for the Blender object you saw in the video.

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With that matter covered, our next focus is this project's foundation: Geology. While I didn't spin as elaborate a tectonic history for this planet as I did for the Ayrum commission, I did work out as much detail as I could for the more recent geological activity, to set the stage for the elevation data - including a narrower focus on the coastal shallows that host the Scud populations.

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Once I could move on to climate, my first step was finding this planet's relative Insolation, which I managed thanks to @reversedumbrella's code and coaching. With an obliquity of only 16 degrees, this planet's yearly maximum Insolation levels stick close to the equator, compared to pole-to-pole oscillation we see on Earth

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Having a rough sense of where heat would concentrate seasonally and how the landmasses would deflect water in light of the planet's retrograde spin, I was able to set down the bi-annual ocean currents (Northern Summer above and Northern Winter below), then the monthly water temperatures pushed around by said currents, and finally -after factoring in many other considerations- the monthly land temperatures as well (combined in the second gif)

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Next came the seasonal air pressure maps and subsequent wind patterns (my first time creating those from scratch), which later factored into the precipitation maps. The incredible temperatures at the largest continent's interior make a desert of most of it, and the other interiors are fairly dry too, but all that heat on the equatorial ocean generates a *lot* of evaporation which ends up coming down elsewhere.

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With temperatures and precipitation mapped out for each month, I was able to find how the accumulation and melt of ice and snow played out, too. Given such a hot equator it's surprising to see freezing temperatures hold out in some places, but low obliquity and high elevation shield what areas they can, it seems.

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All this monthly data was then painstakingly combined and compared and plugged into equations to produce maps of discrete climate zones, using both the Köppen (left) and Trewartha (right) classification systems. The higher latitudes see some overlap with Earth's conditions, but the Tropics...

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I never really finished the map I wanted to make with my own loosely customized classification system, but I *did* get as far as this breakdown of the areas that sometimes surpass 56.7 degrees Celsius, Earth's record for highest surface temperature ever directly measured. And as you can see, that earthly record is broken by a *significant* fraction of this planet's surface, and far exceeded by the equatorial continent's deep interior

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The final phase of this project dealt with creating satellite maps of this planet's surface (which you saw at the top of this post), which started with a map of dry and submerged substrate, then a density map of the vegetation that sits atop it, then the colors of that vegetation under annual average conditions (demonstrating how they would appear in-person, rather than the area's appearance from orbit), and finally plant colors under seasonal conditions (same conceit as previous). In concert with the seasonal ice and snow maps, it was the four maps in the last sequence which were overlaid on the Substrate map, using the plant density map as raster masks, to produce the final Satellite-Style maps.

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This planet's sophonts being a marine species, it was then worth focusing on the conditions underwater, which included monthly seafloor temperatures (first gif), annual discharge of sediment from rivers (magenta in the 2nd gif), and seasonal upwelling of nutrients from deeper water (blue in the 2nd gif).

The creation of all my maps seen in this post was possible thanks to Photopea, which has been my go-to for several years now. The resolution kinda got crunched when I uploaded these here, so when I share them on Reddit later I'll add those links under this. These have also already been posted on Twitter, which you can see here if you like. Thanks for scrolling all the way down here!

[stopwatchclockwatch]

Hello! I'm Stopwatch! I'm (currently) new around these parts, and I'm an artist that enjoys making designs, and also anything Kirby!

I'm around here mostly to just share art, get to know a few people, and just hang around my corner of the internet. Come along if you're especially interested in waddle dees, Headcanons, and Storytelling!

I also like kirby OCs! And I love to see the little guys people make and bully be incredibly kind to! Fanfic writers are also (usually) cool, and y'alls stuff is usually interesting to read. Not going to lie, I just like anything that's creative, that's why I'm here, really. I'll probably interact with your stuff if I like it!

Speaking of interacting, go ahead and use that askbox! I love to answer questions others have about my stuff, or theories, or discussions, or anything else Kirby related! I'd be happy to yap about that stuff all day long. Along with drawing other people's OCs! They look pretty fun to draw... The only times I won't interact is if you're proship, MAP, or if you just say anything discriminatory.

See you around!

[allofthel1ghts]

T h e P r o m i s e

PRINTS.

[vamprisms]

i feel like a lot of the 'i hate kids' crowd would be more tolerant if they understood that due to a kid's limited experience of the world that 4 hour flight might just be the longest they've ever had to sit still for or that trapped finger might literally be the most pain they've ever felt in their short life or they might not have ever seen a person with pink hair ever so of course they want to touch it or nobody's told them yet that they can't run around the museum and they only just learned cheetahs are the fastest animals so of course they want to put that to the test. how were they supposed to know etc etc.

[shesnake]

full offence but I do NOT watch movies so I can "turn my brain off" I take this shit so seriously

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I love you Safety Wizard.

(Inspired by @keroascrazy)

[monorayjak]

Schedule Minor Alteration

After some thinking, I decided that I’m going to make a small change to the schedule: Magic Mondays – Remains the same. Off-Topic Tuesday – Remains the same. Worldbuilding Wednesday – Instead of having a “major post” each Wednesday, I’ve decided instead to have a “Building Nelvauris” release each week. Topical Thursday – This will largely remain the same as it is, that meaning a day off. I’m…

[theshadowrealmitself]

I like to think that Vulcans who come to understand that Humans just can’t try to process emotions the same way as them, it’s just healthiest to let it out in harmless ways, decide that venting and stuff should be taken just as seriously as Vulcan’s meditation time, and will encourage the Humans around them to complain about what’s upsetting them

People who are used to aloof Vulcans who avoid Humans at all cost running into one comforting a Human

“-and then they said my cheesecake was subpar, and they didn’t even bring a dish!!!”

“The purpose of this event was that every participant brings a food item of sorts, correct?”

“Yeah!!”

“And they did not follow this rule while insulting dishes that were brought?”

“Mostly just my dish but yeah >:(“

“How illogical”

“That’s what I’m saying!!!”

[sunlit-mess]

randoms

[burquillos]

POV Izuku still has a lot of unaddressed, pent-up emotions after the war and he catches you being a Kacchan hater on main

[stjohnstarling]

Do you have any advice for writing romance in general? I can't figure out a plot without making the romance a background idea :/

Come up with a pair of people who contrast in a pleasing way

Make them really really really want each other

Give them a great reason they must not, under any circumstances, fuck

Write about the consequences

[cmaidaartworkblog]

I finally got around to compiling some of the extraneous, in-service-of-the-main-feature maps for the "Runaway to the Stars" Scud-planet commission that I thought were also worth showing, some because they reveal something unique about this planet's qualities, others because they're pretty, and mostly both. There's a good handful of those and a *lot* of explanatory text, so that's all below the cut.

First we have the maps that bridge the gap between wind data and precipitation. This pair of animated maps demonstrates, first, the Orographic effect that would theoretically result from winds blowing in each of the eight cardinal directions across the planet's whole surface, and, second, the Orographic effects which are actually produced by the local prevailing winds for each season. For both of these, darker values mark where the topography prevents moist air from precipitating (a rain shadow, on the leeward side of a raised terrain feature) and lighter values show where the topography catches most of the airborne moisture before the wind blows over it (a rain-highlight, on the windward side of a raised feature).

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The first static map, looking like a meticulously customized Jawbreaker, roughly represents the inland distance over which air has to travel from various bodies of water (also accounting for vertical distance in the form of mountains and the sizes of the bodies of water providing the moist air), which is another factor in where rain is able to fall.

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Another static map, included entirely for aesthetic reasons, demonstrates (in white) where at least ten times as much rain falls in the wettest month of summer as in the driest month of winter. The cyan end of the gradient represents where only 3 times as much rain falls, in that comparison. This was a step in figuring out what areas would qualify as Dry Winter (climate type Cw) in the climate zone maps, which ended up being completely nonexistent once all the other requirements of that climate type were measured for. All of the areas marked in white (meeting that 10x ratio requirement for Dry Winter) ended up falling under Arid or Semiarid instead.

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For comparison, *this* map shows (in cyan through magenta) where there is at least three times as much precipitation in the wettest month of winter as in the driest month of summer, one of the requirements for Mediterranean climate (or Dry Summer, climate type Cs). Not all of the marked areas ended up meeting all requirements for the final climate zone map, either, but at least *some* did, falling just outside the Arid/Semiarid areas.

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Another precipitation-related map, this one instrumental in figuring out vegetation density, demonstrates the reliability of significant rainfall. Specifically, this represents how many months in a row a given area receives at least 60 millimeters of precipitation per month, with areas in white receiving this amount for every month of the year, areas in black experiencing no months with that much rainfall, and shades of grey showing where this much rainfall persists for anywhere from one to eleven months in a row. The second map attached here shows that data broken down for the exact number of months.

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Next, here is a map that helped me find where Upwelling would occur seasonally. Since material from deeper waters is brought to the surface by the general movement of water *away from* the coasts, and since water is moved in that direction by winds blowing *perpendicular to* the coasts (counterclockwise for the northern hemisphere on a retrograde-spin planet like this, and clockwise for its southern hemisphere), it was crucial that I first determine what directions the coasts themselves were facing, with red marking coasts that face north, yellow for coasts that face west, cyan for coasts facing south, and blue for those facing east. This particular map was produced by taking a blurred elevation map of the shallows, using it as the displacement texture for a flat Plane in Blender, and pointing different colored lights at it from the eight cardinal directions.

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One of the very last elements that I mapped out for this planet was the discharge of sediments from the rivers into seas and terminal lakes, which required a *lot* of steps. The first of these was to isolate the different major drainage basins that would deliver water to various sections of the coastal shallows, as seen in the first, multicolored map. In the second map, we see the surface areas of each of the drainage basins, in the third map we see the average density of vegetation within each basin, and in the final map I've combined this data to show the overall total amount of vegetation in each basin, which should roughly correlate with how much organic material ends up washing out to sea, since river discharge volume and vegetation density are both (largely) contingent on the same factor: precipitation.

All told this is only a tiny fraction of the maps that were part of the overall pipeline. On Reddit you should be able to see these images in higher resolution, so I'm including a link to the corresponding post here

[dragonpyre]

Reverse Robin au but the ages aren't changed. Just adoption order.

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[hoziersong]

rat…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ

[botanyshitposts]

confirming the Ethiopian wolf pollination hypothesis seems so straightforward in theory, like just erecting anti-wolf barriers around some of the hot poker plants and seeing if those get pollinated at the same rate as the other ones, but also I feel like it could be some lab’s 6 year long project that ends up in Nature and answers more questions about wolf dessert time than I could ever think to ask. and also it would give more beautiful photos of wolves between 3 seconds and 1 hour into passionate nectar indulgence. so hopefully with the media attention they’re getting they can do that