#other half comes from a current source and google

[ofnightshadeandthornyroses]

Hey there! I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on the lost boys and an s/o with an iron deficiency, please? How would they feel about their blood considering their lack of iron? Would they even drink from them considering how easily their s/o gets lightheaded? I'm very curious as to how you would give this.

Thank you! -🦝

They are definitely curious about your medical situation. Especially because it has to do with blood .

An aspect that definitely intrigues them is how it affects you blood.

A certain two boys are intrigued with the difference in shade, almost obsessively so. ( Marco and Paul)

They're all interested with the difference in smell though. Of course all blood has it's own smell, the metallic scent mixing with the hosting humans own, but this smell differs from them. The lack iron affects the smell and leaves more of you, and they can't find reason to dislike it even if they wanted to.

If for any reason they taste your blood they're once again taken by how it tastes more like you than anything else.

They wouldn't actually drink from you unless you practically force feed it to them for what ever reason (Marco getting a free impalement by the Frog bros.)

Other than wondering how your condition affects your blood they also were concerned on how it how it affects you.

Throughout their adventures on the boardwalk walk they soon find out one of the common side affects (fatigue) and though at first they may be a little down that they can't wreck havoc with you as much as they wanted (Marco and Paul(Dwayne likes to start shit from the side and butt in when he wants), they're more than happy to take you back to the cave or if you still want to stay around the board walk, take things at a slower pace.

If you're dizzy they're quick to find you somewhere to sit or lean, staying close to check if your doing okay or need any thing.

They keep snack and water on them just incase

Need a snack sweet thing? No problem, Paul's got you. Has them jam packed in the pockets inside of his jacket like a kid sneaking a boatload of candy into a theater.

Need a water? David has a few in side of his as well.

They make a game of hiding them throughout the cave so no matter where you are in it they just reach around and grab something out for you.

Random containers of peanut butter/fruits

Brittle nails, Paul, Dwayne and Marco definitely have nail painting sessions so you can put that can put that coat of protection on in any pretty color or haphazard/horrendous design they come up with. David has even been known to participate.

Sorry this took so long, tests and Tumblr being on crack. I hope you like this.

[avis-writeshq]

not me asking for it https://www.tumblr.com/avis-writeshq/744966259884556288/if-someone-asks-for-it-ill-write-a-fic-based-on?source=share

pairing: s9!spencer reid x fem!reader genre: fluff, established relationship, SMUT warnings: 18+ CONTENT; MINORS DO NOT INTERACT !! oral fem receiving, spencer reid is a munch, hair pulling, fingering a/n: a promise is a promise !! based off of this post <3 i hope this lived up to expectations !! first time writing fem oral ha h a ha wc: 1.1k

Honestly, if there’s one person Spencer can blame for the situation he is currently in, he blames himself. After all, he should have known that a ‘gathering’ at Rossi’s house that was planned by Penelope would only call for a lot of teasing, a lot of ‘get to know each other!’ games (despite the fact that he has worked with this same team for more than seven years. What else is there to know?), and a lot of alcohol. He didn’t quite realise that these games would be of the drinking variety. Alas, here he is, sitting on one of Rossi’s incredibly expensive leather couches and cringing at the horrid taste of whiskey. 

The game they’re currently playing is an alcoholic’s rendition of ‘who is most likely to?’, involving a thick stack of cards with different topics while each member of the team took turns reading out. Whoever ended up with the most amount fingers pointed in their direction was forced to drink.

Spencer hates this game. He has drank from his cup a grand total of six times, and he is not getting any more used to the spicy-poison-equivalent in his hand. 

“Alright, this is a good one,” Derek announces with a manic snigger. “Who here is most likely to be a munch?”

There is no hesitation in anyone’s answers, and all six fingers point into Spencer’s direction. His jaw drops at the betrayal, his head spinning from the sheer amount of shots he had to take but also what the hell is a munch?

“I don’t even know what that means!” He insists. 

“Oh–” Penelope wears a half delighted half pitying expression at his words. “We really need to get you onto the internet more. Reddit is probably up your alley.”

“Even Rossi knows what it means,” Emily cackles, gesturing to Rossi who looks all too pleased. “Hotch was my second option though.”

Aaron shrugs, sipping at his drink. “Guilty.”

A chorus of laughs and shrieks erupt from the group, leaving Spencer even more confused. “What?”

“Don’t Google it,” JJ chimes in. “Seriously.”

Spencer nods, and although he knows that he should have taken the warning seriously, the curiosity was getting to him and he had no choice but to search it up as soon as he got home. He gets the usual answers– the etymology of the word, what it means in the Oxford Dictionary, the popularity of the word since the early 1800s, and he really doesn’t understand what the fuss is. Does the team think that he eats loudly? Or that he chews with his mouth open? His brows furrow at the unsightly thought. 

His interest soon shifts to a different a different link, namely The Urban Dictionary. He blinks, clicking on the link without much thought and– oh. He does not get much sleep that night.

*** 

Your relationship with Spencer isn’t a secret. At least, it was never supposed to be classified as such. He is simply an incredibly private person that even his closest friends don’t know that you exist. It simply never popped up in conversation– or so he says.

The relationship isn’t necessarily new either. It’s nearing the one year mark and you have gotten to the point where the two of you have been more ‘experimental’ when it comes to sex. He finds it embarrassing. You find it unsurprising that he would. You find it even more surprising when he breaks a kiss halfway to lower you onto his bed, your head falling to one of his very expensive memory foam pillows. 

“I want to try something,” he announces softly into your ear, squeezing gently at your waist and looping his fingers into his shorts. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, body hot with anticipation as he pulls down your shorts. It’s only when he brings his face between your thighs do you realise what he intends to do. “Spence, you don’t have to–”

“I want to,” he repeats softly, his fingers running up and down the lacy fabric at your slit. “If you want me to stop, you can tell me.”

You shake your head immediately at that, your hands moving to his grip his shoulders. “No, I don’t want you to stop but– but Spence, this is the first time you’ve done this. It’s okay–”

“Let me do this for you,” he says, his breath ghosting against the sensitive skin of your thighs. “I’ve done my research.”

“What–”

You’re silenced as soon as he presses his lips to your cunt, only separated by your pretty lacy underwear. He groans quietly at the taste of your slick seeping through the fabric, and his hands hold onto your thighs to keep them parted. It’s so good, so good, but it just isn’t enough. He pushes the fabric to the side, watching the way it clings and sticks to your skin. 

All it takes is one swipe of his tongue on your pretty clit for his brain to grow blank. The grip he has on your thighs grow firmer and his fingers dig in hard enough to leave little marks. His nose bumps against your clit while his tongue travels against your folds. 

“You taste so fucking good,” he breathes against you, lapping at your dripping cunt. “Fuck, angel, you’re so beautiful.”

Then, he’s on you all over again. His lips wrap around your clit and he whines into you as he sucks at the bundle of nerves. Each one of his actions has your back lifting from the bed and your hands tugging at his curls, to which he responds with a quiet moan. Amidst the pleasure, your mind nags you to be gentle, and you loosen your grip despite it taking all of your self control.

“Do that again.” He says it as a demand, guiding your hands back into his hair. “Do it again, angel.”

His head is spinning and he craves for more of you, his tongue flattening against your clit over and over again. He brings his own fingers to brush against your entrance, coating them with your slick before slipping his middle finger inside. It’s only the first knuckle but it’s enough to have you squirming beneath him. He pushes further until it reaches all the way, and Spencer groans at the feeling of you tightening around him. He kisses your clit again at the same time he curls his finger inside you and it’s all too much. 

“Spence–”

You gush around his finger and he licks and laps at your pussy like he needs it to breathe. His finger curls open and closed inside you while you rock your hips against his face, your grip on his hair tightening as each second of your high passes. 

“So good,” Spencer moans, kissing your clit. “Taste so good. You can do one more, right, angel? Just one more, I promise.”

reblogs are always appreciated !!

tagging the people who commented on the original post: @mosaicbrokenherz @doigettokeepyou @goblinintheblog @cassioxpeiaxmgg @daddytenebra @lilliumrorum @matthew-gray-gubler-lover @lightreiding

[phoenixyfriend]

Calls for Action, Call Your Reps: 2/26/24

This is USA-specific, as that is the place I live and know.

Find your elected officials.

As usual, most of my information on what bills are on the floor comes from GovTrack. I am including some suggested listening/reading (you can find text versions if you google the title and 'transcript') at the bottom of the post. I am also including a current event that is likely to be a very powerful argument, with the right politicians. The event is prefaced with a red warning tag, and followed by event-specific verbiage.

Suggested verbiage and strategies for calling your elected officials.

GovTrack has said that there are still no votes scheduled, in this blog post from Friday: What's Next for Congress? (Feb 23, 2024)

In practice, that appears to mean that they are arguing over the budget to avoid yet another government shutdown. Given that the delays to the budget so far have been tied directly to the Israel/Ukraine/Taiwan military funding and Southern border.

Use this time to call their offices and tell them to vote the way you want them to.

The most immediate and pressing issue at this moment is the famine in Gaza. Widely reported today is that a two-month-old boy recently died of starvation, and the World Health Organization is declaring that it has become famine and a mass starvation event, no longer just a threat of one.

At this time, the three greatest factors in that famine are:

Israeli bombardment (destruction of existing food stores and farming land)

Israeli blockades of the Egyptian border into Gaza, preventing aid trucks from places like the US from reaching people

The cessation of funding to UNRWA, which has been the lifeline to Palestinian civilians for decades, and is currently the best and possibly only chance to save the one and a half million dying civilians

This information is being reported by the WHO, UNRWA itself, UNICEF, and more, along with journalists that are in Gaza at this time.

The other issue, more domestically, is the rising tide of concern for US Reproductive Rights stemming from the IVF ruling in Alabama.

Both House and Senate:

Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, THEY are not well supported, and western officials did not do their duty in investigating the claims before cutting funding. This arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked. Many sources are also claiming that the evidence is flimsy at best.

Urge both Senate and House to refrain from funding Israel, or to at least put some strings on it. The IDF cannot be given funding without some regulations on what they can do with it. They have proven that they are unwilling to take steps to protect civilians.

Sanctions must also be placed on Israel for its continued impediment of aid intended for Gazans, including aid from the US.

Urge for the US to stop vetoing ceasefire demands in the UN. No, the suggested replacement written by the US is not an excuse.

Not directly related to Gaza: It looks like they’re gearing up for another push at KOSA. The canned email responses I’m getting are really proud of being in support of KOSA, which is… bad. It is also bad for people outside the US, including Palestine, apparently. VOTE NAY.

Not related to Gaza: Alabama's recent court decision has put IVF services in danger in the state, with multiple fertility clinics halting all related services for any pregnancy that is not yet in progress; there were implantation appointments for last week that were canceled with no knowledge of when they might be greenlit. Push for full spectrum reproductive rights protection (fertility services, family planning, birth control, abortion, and more), and if you have a pro-lifer as your elected official, cite the Alabama ruling as a cause for concern of how the lack of codified reproductive rights protection can impact even those who do want children.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed. Cite it as Senate Resolution 504 if your Senator is right-wing enough to react negatively to the mention of Sanders by name. NOTE: This resolution was TABLED by the Senate on 1/16, but it is being brought back in as conditions continue to escalate.

Passed in the House recently, so bother your senators about it, is H.R. 3016: IGO Anti-Boycott Act. Vote Nay. This appears to be intended to force US companies to do business with US allies instead of participating in boycotts. This appears, to me, to be an attack on movements like BDS. To Dem Reps, argue that this refuses the right of peaceful protest to US citizens. To Republican Reps, argue that this is a dangerous government overreach and that it is not the right of the government to force US citizens to purchase products and materials from specific foreign partners.

FOR THE HOUSE: Recommend that they support House Resolution 786, introduced by Rep. Cori Bush, Calling for an immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine. ALTERNATELY: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it.

Alright, now the current big news story.

Warning: Self-harm, public suicide.

I will preface this with an explanation of a recent event.

The big American news of this week that is being talked about on all political news sources, from BBC to NPR to Al Jazeera, is the self-immolation in DC. A US Air Force service member walked to the Israeli embassy in Washingon DC, set up a Twitch Stream, and stated that he refused to be party to the genocide being committed with the support of his country's government. He then doused himself in a flammable liquid, set himself on fire, and shouted 'Free Palestine' on repeat until the fire grew too great for him to do anything but scream in pain. The man was rushed away to a hospital, but has apparently died since. Twitch has understandably removed the video for ToS violations, but the video has been saved and reshared to other sites since.

To be clear, the airman, a 25yo named Aaron Bushnell, explicitly stated that this was an act of extreme protest, but not as extreme as the current lives of Palestinians in Gaza. Please do not allow people to convince you this was just a random act of mental illness. It was tragic, yes, but this very public, recorded, in-uniform, motive-declared suicide was by all appearances a calculated choice based on centuries of precedent.

If your senator or representative claims to be pro-military, bring this up. Even if they don't, bring it up.

"A service member, someone who presumably has access to more information on what is happening 'on the ground' than the average citizen, someone who has proven their dedication to America, is dying in agony to prove a point: that Israel's actions cannot be condoned, cannot be justified, and most certainly cannot be supported with fourteen billion in military aid."

The above is one possible verbiage you can use when you call.

Today, I would also recommend listening to NPR's Politics Podcast as the episode contains some good information on The Michigan Problem, and the Democracy Now podcast, which has some good interviews on the confirmed famine going on in Gaza. I will note that there are some claims being made in the latter about the US government, including comments by Biden himself, using law enforcement and college administrations to punish pro-Palestine groups, from Students for Justice in Palestine to even Jewish Voice for Peace (notable since one of the major arguments for these actions is that anti-zionists are antisemitic). I am saying 'claims being made' as I have not had time to corroborate this with other news sources, and the other casts I listen to have not mentioned it.

If you wish to support my political blogging, I am accepting donations on ko-fi.

Alternately, I would also suggest that you send any spare money to PCRF (Palestine Children's Relief Fund), UNRWA, or Save the Children Sudan, which has been undergoing an incredibly deadly civil war for a year or so now, but that the US has significantly less involvement in on a bureaucratic level, so IDK what any of us in the US can do to help in that regard. But many of us do have money! So there's that.

[archandshri]

23rd Feb '24 - [arch] OH RISO my beloved!!!!!! ft. cyberpunk hermitcraft soup group

A cliffhanger!!!! And now I have to wait a month for you to upload the second half?? How will I cope :’’0

For real, it’s so awesome to see your process and the sheer amount of inspiration you take! In particular, I thought ‘Sit on Two Chairs’ and ‘This Was Our Pact’ were particularly yummy. 

I think book covers are really hard. You have to sum up a book’s energy in one image, make it stand out and show just enough so people want more. Exploring the narrative through those full pages is really interesting - though this is something you did for fun, it could be a really useful technique for getting to know a narrative. When I’m designing my comic covers, I always do it last - that way I’ve had practice with the visual style and I’m thoroughly familiar with the themes, so I guess spending a bit of time with the characters and narrative in this way helps for standalone book covers too. Of course, it helps if you have the time for that XD

Okay!! Onto what I've been up to!!! [warning this is a beefy post I'm sorry for your poor reading brain]

The past two weeks have been really enjoyable! I’ve been playing a lot with slow world-building, in sketchbooks, google documents, and voice notes to friends. Letting myself really sit with concepts, think about the characters, let them play in my head with no expectations. With this relaxation and lack of pressure, some beautiful narratives and interactions have been developing. I’m starting to need a name for a world/ the story. I’m not quite ready to give them a full introduction to the internet - I know it doesn’t but it feels like there’s some accountability to *produce something* and this slow development is really important for the quality and my skill building. It’s really hard to take on, but we actually don’t have to make the perfect thing now! In fact, it’s impossible. Pressure on ourselves makes it so hard to make something good if we’re always grasping at the final result.  In the meantime, while those characters develop, I have been working hard on my basic skills. I wrote about characterization last post, but this week I focused on setting and colour. I was inspired (once again) by Hermitcraft. I’ve seen some really incredible illustrations of Minecraft builds in the fandom, and it seems like a great exercise.

Bdouble0's Season 10 Base illustrated by @applestruda [source] and The Red Zone, built and illustrated by Bdouble0 [source]

One of the creators on Hermitcraft, ImpulseSV, created this build in a recent episode. It takes inspiration from the last season of Hermitcraft, where he was part of the ‘soup group’ with two other players, and his current base concept - a cyberpunk city.  I also LOVE his new character design, so I wanted to place him in the scene.

Screenshot from Impulse's video and new impulse design by @maxx-doodles

Here are some initial thumbnails I did, trying to figure out the composition. I wasn’t sure of the vibe yet, so I tried some rough thumbnailing, and drawing on an isometric grid and other perspective techniques. I’m going a bit mad for characters at the mo, so I wanted to place some in the scene. I found the angle of the isometric grid steep to place characters comfortably, so decided against that.

Looking back at it, I love the second! But I believe I was struggling with the perspective. I decided on the last one eventually.

Now, I absolutely adore all of the players in the Soup Group, and I am BIG fan of redesigning their notable characteristics to suit different settings. So yes, I decided to put all of the soup group in the image.

PearlescentMoon (left) from my comic and GeminiTay's Hermitcraft Season 10 design [from this thumbnail] (right)

Here's the sketch of the final image. I really enjoyed coming up with cyberpunk versions of them all. I used the impulse design almost exactly, with a few extra interesting details since he's mostly viewed from the back. For PearlescentMoon (middle) I kept her fringe, dark hair and gave her a glowing moon symbol on her top. For GeminiTay, I kept her long ginger hair, antlers (but glowing!) and took inspiration from her new season 10 design - a dark blue jumpsuit to match her dark blue clothes in her new design, and the braids she is often drawn with. I also gave them edgy new hairstyles. And a robot arm. I don't have lore for that.

As usual, I filled each flat colour-to-be with black and lowered the opacity to play with the values. Then I added colours one at a time, aware might be riso printing it. Originally I stuck to trying to make it printable (making the colours out of ones I could make my layering 2-3 colours at different opacities), but as I went on, I decided to drop that and focus on the quality of the image in a digital format alone. I did keep the grayscale version above with all the separate layers in case I needed that if/when I came to riso printing it. Below are the main two digital colour schemes I tried out.

I settled on the one on the left, with the blue tones - the foreground characters really pop. I put a few details in Gem's hair, colour variations etc, and cropped it for Instagram. I actually much prefer the cropped version - it sits better in a rule of thirds.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for :'')

RISO!!!!!!!!!!!

I returned to Cardiff after a couple of months away and was delighted to spend my first day back at The Printhaus, an awesome shared print studio where I have basically made my home. A few of my awesome friends happened to be there, so I spent the day playing around with this image with their help! (please check them out they're very cool - Gavin helped me a lot (we hung out at Thought Bubble, remember? and Rhi gave good crits too!!)

For those who don't know, risograph is basically a shitty photocopier that can only print one colour at a time. However, you can play with gradients and opacities, and layer colours really nicely to combine. I've done a lot of single-colour tonal work with riso but this is my first go really layering.

First, Gavin showed me how to separate the channels in Photoshop, using the flat image uploaded to the 'gram. We copied and pasted these layers in grayscale and added blending modes to each layer to replicate what they might look like when printed.

With blending modes, the digital mockup looked like this!!

This bit goes into technical details for replicating what the print might look like for those who might want it - feel free to skip :)))

I copied and pasted the Cyan, Black and Magenta layers as greyscale (as you can see above)

I made all of the greyscale layers multiply layers since risograph ink is transparent and we wanted to see how it layers. The ink usually comes out a bit lighter than you think, so it's good to bear that in mind. I used a clipping mask over each greyscale layer and a blending mode. WHEN YOU PRINT, PRINT IN GREYSCALE, NOT COLOUR.

Here's how I split the colours from CMYK to the riso colours, their hex codes and the blending mode I used to replicate the colours:

Cyan - Mint [HEX#82D8D5] Screen Magenta - Fluorescent Pink [HEX#FF48B0] Screen Black - Blue [HEX#0078BF] Overlay Yellow - scrapped for colour scheme purposes

Blue, Mint and Florencent Pink layers in greyscale in Procreate.

Riso printed Mint and Florescent Pink layers on separate paper, followed by the two layered together.

We always start with the lighter colour inks first, because sometimes the rollers can pick up the ink and cause extra marks where you don't want them. The first two colours came out great!

The first time we printed the blue, it came out very dark (left, first image). I have had this issue before - my last book, Winter Wellbeing, came out much darker than I wanted. Now I realise that the blue ink is super sensitive. All the 'white space' that is covered by a low-opacity blue on the left is only 2%, and yet it has come out pretty strong. We tried printing it on one of the misaligned images just to see, but it took all of the brightness out of the neon soup sign at the top of the image (second image). So I changed the values and pushed them way lighter, so it just pushed the values of the darker bits slightly, and brightened some of the lineart (right, first image)

And this is the final riso printed version!! I'm so so happy with how this came out. It's so different from the original digital version, and I actually love that.

I didn't create new colours in the way that I intended to - I wanted to play with overlaying purposefully to create specific colours eg. orange for the hair etc. But!!! I'm really happy with how it came out. That will have to be a project for next time.

Also, many copies are slightly misaligned, so in future I think I'd do flat layers for the colours a more blobby style with the linework on one layer only so there's less of a chance for obvious misalignment. design for the riso, rather than riso the design.

Overall though, this feels like a super cool step up and a milestone for me. Super happy with how it came out!! And I'm excited to play with colour some more. Can't wait to see the rest of the Lionheart brothers! Enjoy your weekend :)))

Archie 🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺 <3

[boreal-sea]

Gentile here with a good faith question. But also, please feel free to dismiss. Take care of yourself first. Sorry for the coming wall of text.

I’m shooting this your directly because I find your blog thoughtful and informative, and I infer you might have some pertinent knowledge based on your posts.

I see a lot of my (also gentile friends) engaging in activism that concerns me. I understand the desire to do something — anything — to help those who are suffering in Palestine, but their rhetoric is antisemitic, almost cult-like, and as several Jewish tumblrs have pointed out: is that activism actually doing anything to help Palestine, or is it just hurting Jews?

And, I’m not immune. Yes, there are avowed and self-aware antisemites and that’s not me, but I feel like a lot of us are getting swept up into it without realizing it. A wave of a wand, call it anti-Zionism instead, use rhetoric that resonates with leftists. Like, I’m very worried that some of that thinking has infected my own world view, even as I try to unpack and dismantle my own antisemitism.

Which is to say, I don’t know how to trust my own gut right now.

I want to DO something that helps those who are suffering, and doesn’t harm Jews. Ideally I’d like to find good aid organizations to donate too, I’m really not sure what else I CAN do.

But which organizations, that’s the rub.

Take Medical Aid for Palestinians, which I was looking into because I stumbled across a itch.ion bundle supporting them.

On a google search, most of the hits seem to indicate they’re legit. A notable exception was the NGO monitor, but as I looked into that site, according to some sources NGO monitor is a right-biased Israeli organization with links to the current Israeli government. Since they’re the only source I’ve found so far decrying MAP… does that mean I can disregard their complaints and safely donate to MAP? Or, is my reluctance to trust NGO Monitor unfounded, and routed in my own ingrained antisemitism?

And to make matters worse, hey this is all just text on the internet, fake sites can look very official, and ever robots are writing half of this shit now so what’s a queer to do?

So, how do I sift through the legitimate organizations that are providing aid and/or working towards peace, from the ones that are just fronts for terrorists?

More than just a list of ones you already trust. I mean, I won’t turn that down, but I want to learn how to figure this for myself to so that when I encounter things like this bundle, I know whether it’s safe to donate or not.

Thanks for reading this. If you’ve got some wisdom to share I appreciate it. If not, or if you don’t have the energy to spare, again, please take care of yourself first.

So I always preface these asks with the fact that I am only a convert-in-process, so I am still learning and I don't know everything. There are some things I will never know, not being a Jew from birth, not being Israeli, etc.

To your first question: does the antisemitic rhetoric employed by some pro-Palestinian activists help Palestinians? No, it does not. Being bigoted towards one marginalized group cannot benefit a different marginalized group. All it does is add more hatred to the world. The only thing antisemitic "pro-Palestine" rhetoric does is hurt Jews. Hurting Jews does not benefit Palestinians.

As for MAP... my advice is first to look at what NGO is saying is untrustworthy about MAP, and compare that to what the other sites say about it. Then you need to consider NGO's motivations and political leanings, which you've already started doing. Think about what reasons could they have for discrediting MAP. Do they have any Palestinian aid organizations they do support? What do the other sites you used have to say about those other organizations? If you're still not sure, it's generally good advice to go with what the majority of the charity ratings sites say. If NGO disagrees, and you've found reasons it might have its own biases, then you treat it like an outlier and depend on the consensus of the other sources.

There are right-wing organizations and people in Israel who hate Palestinians. There are organizations in Israel that are biased. There are Arab organizations that are biased. Country of origin means nothing. If multiple other sites are calling a particular org out, there's probably a reason. You will unfortunately have to put in the effort to double-check everything.

For searching news sources specifically, the MediaBias/FactCheck website is highly regarded.

Note that no source you use is ever going to be free of criticism; even MB/FC has detractors. Reliable sources can sometimes make mistakes. No one is perfect.

Media literacy is a huge problem right now and you're not the only person struggling with it. My best advice is to do exactly what you've done: read multiple sources, compare that information, and then make your decision. It is not your fault this stuff is difficult to navigate.

[kitkatrix]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @jazwritesalot. Thank you! 🥹🫶

1. How many works do you have on A03? 120!!

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 497,454. I have over 25k I haven't posted on A03 though so tack that on and I'm looking at roughly 520k in total.

3. What fandoms do you write for? I currently write for BNHA/ MHA. I used to write for Durarara, HP, Fruits Basket but that was a looooong time ago when I was in my teens lol

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Fair warning: most of them are NSFW. 1) Take a Bite of Me, 2) Another Day, Another F*ck, 3) more than a learning curve, 4) Need Your Touch, 5) Wrong Size

5. Do you respond to comments? I try to, but I get extremely lazy after a bit and then months later, I respond.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? It would have to be my MCD KRBK fic that I never posted on AO3. It's on Twitter in full but both of them end up dying in the end, one earlier than the other.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Almost all my fics have a happy ending but the happiest one I have thus far is "more than a learning curve". It's completely self indulgent so I wanted it to end in a cute way 🥺

8. Do you get hate on fics? I've only thankfully gotten it once and it was on a collaboration fic. I don't let that stuff bother me though 💜

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Absolutely. Almost 3/4 of my fics on AO3 and Twitter are explicit. I have the most fun writing them.

10. Do you write crossovers? Nope. I don't watch/read enough or have enough creativity to do something like that.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Once. I was very young and found it when searching for my fic title online. It was under a different name and everything. I was so upset that I deleted the fic on my end and stopped completely.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nada. But I would be over the moon if it ever happened. I would need to give approval first before anything, though. I don't want to come across it one day and nothing was said to me, y'know?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! I've done several actually. Some haven't ever been posted publicly but I have a few on AO3 like "Challenge Accepted" and "Pain and Pleasure" that I did with some mutuals on Twitter. It was very fun and I adore doing it 🥰

14. What's your all time favorite ship? KiriBaku! They have my heart in a chokehold. I'm trying to get into others from different fandoms but this one is hard to top.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Hidden Behind a Whisper. I loved loved writing this one when I started and I do go and add some from time to time but I've lost half the motivation I had when I first began. It's sad 😭

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue and action scenes. The way I write is like imagining a movie scene, and I write each movement someone makes and go from there. In example, Kirishima putting a hand around Bakugou's waist, Izuku kissing Ochako's forehead, things like that.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Repetitiveness. I tend to say the same thing over and over and have to copy paste my document into a website to see which words are used more than they should. Half the time it's either "that", "just", or "but".

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? If you feel it would add more to your story, speak to someone that knows and is fluent in that language and can read over the dialogue to be sure it is correct. Do NOT use Google translate. It's hardly accurate and a terrible source for translation.

19. First fandom you wrote for? HP. It was a Dramione fic and I was I think 14? It's still up online to this day 💀

20. Favorite fic you've written? "more than a learning curve" if we're talking mildly mature. "Need Your Touch" for Explicit.

I tag whoever sees this and would like to participate! 🫶🫶

[gacha-stims]

Intro/pinned/BYF post!

Gacha-game-specific blog for stim boards, moodboards, doodle requests, and music requests (outside of the original songs/OST of the source material)!

About us:

We are a polyfragmented, polyplex, traumagenic system of over 50+ headmates and fragments (mostly semi-introjects).

Right now our current fixation is Hypnosis Microphone, or Hypmic. We are also into Food Fantasy and Love Live! ! Currently we’re trying to get into SENGOKU A LIVE and Ensemble Stars!

Our collective name is Melvin, and also collectively go by (he/they) pronouns.

This blog is for requesting stimboards, moodboards, doodles (sketches), and music recommendations (outside of source material)! Anon is on and asks are encouraged! We will keep the request acceptance status up on our description/bio as timely as possible!

More info, BYF, Reblog and Usage Creiteria, DNI, and more below the cut ☆～（ゝ。∂）

Reblog and Usage Criteria:

Please refrain from posting any moodboards or drawings on any other platform without due credit (i.e. a direct link to the blog in the caption)! I also ask that when reblogging; if the original asker is not anonymous, meaning their blog is visible, please do not tag with kind/ID/system terms unless express permission is given by the asker!!

BYF and DNI:

BYF: I identify as a transmasc mlm, I prefer to consume male-centric media, therefor my knowledge and interest lies within that form of media. I apologize if my effort and enthusiasm levels are evident in the media or request i create or fulfill when in reference to masc vs. fem media. Not to say I can’t or won’t consume fem media, but my knowledge is limited. Google is my friend for most requests.

We are traumagenic, and believe that systems are formed by moderate to severe childhood trauma and CPTSD. We are also schizoaffective, so posting frequency may not be consistent; it may be sporadic. Stim boards are particularly hard to make, so they take the longest. First come first serve; we will go in the order we receive requests.

DNI:

Please do not follow if you are:

- transmed

- TERF

- anti-self diagnosis

- anti-introject

- fakeclaimer

- ableist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, things I shouldn’t have to say but some people don’t get the hint

Please don’t send:

- gore

- nsfw media (suggestive is okay)

- hate or “you’re faking/this isn’t a real disorder/too many headmates and introjects” comments

Frequent Fronters (and sign offs):

• Ramuda Amemura (hypmic introject) -🍬

• Lawrence Oleander (btd introject) -🪴

• Melvin (host) -🐱

• Sunny (non-introject) -🌸

• KK (animal crossing introject) -🎧

• Kuko Harai (hypmic introject) -📿

• Tetsuya Watanabe (non-introject) -📓

• Sal (sallyface introject) -📰

• Guy (half-introject (inspired by a lot of characters)) -🍥

• Ichiro Yamada (hypmic introject) -🎤

Thanks if you’ve read this far!! We plan on making original content alongside fulfilling requests, so be on the lookout!

Have a good day !!

チュウ~(´ε｀~ )♡

[hylianengineer]

Okay I'm done with the film review for my sociology class, now you can all have my rant about it, and it's LONG so it's going under a read more:

I'm watching that new Netflix documentary about dirt - Kiss The Ground. For context, I'm an undergrad researcher in biogeochemistry and I study the carbon cycle, particularly a very specific type of decomposition that occurs in waterlogged soils - methanogenesis.

I'm so thrilled that something this mainstream is talking about soil carbon, soil microbes (my beloveds), and carbon sequestration. They're talking about root exudates and mychorrizhae and agriculture as part of an ecosystem! That's exciting. There's also a really excellent dose of climate hope in this documentary - and I am really excited to see that concept getting out of niche environmental circles and into things that regular people might actually watch.

On the other hand, parts of this documentary tick me off. I do not consider Tom Brady, nor his wife, to be a reliable source about the importance of organic agriculture. I know you're trying to interest the non-science types but come on, that is a classic appeal to irrelevant authority fallacy. And they should have said the thing about how we do still have to stop using fossil fuels and reach net zero emissions IN ADDITION TO sequestering the carbon we've already emitted more than one time in the whole film, because I just know people are going to take the rest of this message and run with it in the wrong direction. And they are really hammering home the appeal to emotions in the first half, to the point where I think the core of their argument suffers for it. Are you trying to explain this thing to me or are you throwing around buzzwords and pictures of sick children in hopes I'll get distracted?

Also they keep introducing guests with credentials like "ecologist from the Rodale Institute." You know nobody knows what the fuck that is, right? (It's an NGO dedicated to organic farming, for the record, but I did have to google it, and they had multiple guest speakers from this group.) Come on, you have no credibility if I can't tell where your info's coming from, and most people are not going to do background research as they watch a documentary.

Overall, I agree with their main points but I'm annoyed with how they made them. They're right about the ability of soil to sequester carbon, they're right that it could play a big role in climate change mitigation, and they're right that helping the soil is also better for people, ecosystems, and the planet. They're right about no till farming, permaculture, and crop diversity. They're even right about the bullshit that is the US industrial agricultural system, and they dug into how it came about in the post-WWII era, which isn't something I see talked about much. Kind of baffled how they managed to talk about soil degradation in the Midwestern USA without getting into the unique ways prairie soil and roots work, and instead went down a weird rambly path about how plows are bad (true, at least here - I cant speak for ecosystems I don't know as well - but explained poorly) and cows are good because this system evolved to have bison in it (sort of true, but incomplete. Cows aren't bison and the differences do matter.)

Also, reduced meat consumption is a very common thing that a lot of experts say is needed for climate change mitigation, and don't think I didn't notice how you sidestepped the issue just to say 'cows are good actually, stop vilifying cows.' I call bullshit. Just because cows work well in some ecosystems on a certain scale does not mean that it's possible to farm meat sustainably on the scale we currently do - factory farming and feedlots (CAFOs, if you want to get technical) are what allows us to make this much meat in the first place. You just admitted we need cows spread out on a lot more land to making ranching sustainable, and then failed to address the fact that this idyllic system doesn't really mesh with a world in which everybody eats multiple servings of beef per day. I see that decision and I know why you made it, because asking people to make sacrifices for the climate tends to make them ignore you, I don't even necessarily disagree with that decision because I know you're trying to persuade normal people and not environmentalists, but don't think I didn't notice.

Okay, fine, NOW they're talking about eating less meat and how what meat people do eat needs to come from more sustainable agricultural practices. Good. Better.

Oh look at our free range eggs, they're orange and that means they have more nutrients. Do they? Please back up this claim with scientific evidence. Of course the farmer says his eggs are better, he raised them. It's plausible, but I am pedantic and a scientist and I want data. You have to prove things to me.

Overall not a horrible documentary but ticks me off in several ways and tries to cram too many different subjects into like an hour and a half. Also, visiting the film's website makes me MORE ANGRY because they say even STUPIDER things about how they think climate science works. They make it sound like carbon sequestration in soil is THE solution which is BULLSHIT. There is no THE solution, there's gotta be a bunch of em stacked on top of each other - according to basically every climate change mitigation plan I've ever heard of (Project Drawdown is a good example). There's this metaphor I like to use to explain this to people - there's no silver bullet, but there could be silver buckshot. I read that somewhere once and cannot remember where but I'll never forget it.

Anyways, if you want a good intro to soil health directed at non-scientists/environmentalists, Kiss The Ground isn't bad, but you gotta think critically about some of the claims it's making because some of them are bullshit.

[yukihime242]

It is that time of the year where I start to do my annual review of the games I have played for the year. I made it sound like I have tons of annual reviews but in truth, I only did one which was last year...

(GIF Source: Imgur thru' Google Image Search)

Ahem, anyway, unlike last year where I categorised my games according to the platform which I played them on, I am going to categorise them as Completed, Currently Playing, and Anticipating. It makes more sense this way, doesn't it?

Obviously, I won't be putting all into one post because that would make it too long. I have also linked the two other posts to the respective titles above so you can just hop over to the other posts if you don't wish to read this one.

Now that's settled, on to the Completed list of games for 2023!

1️⃣ A Little to the Left

(Picture Source: Nintendo thru' Google Image Search)

A Little to the Left is one of the top cozy and organising games during the Covid period and it has excellent reviews on Steam. The only complain many players had with the game is the "unjustified" price tag for the game.

The game revolves around a couple attempting to organise and keep their house tidy but their cat, being a cat, would mess things up. Each level in the game will give you some form of satisfaction after re-organising or solving the puzzles. Of course, you will have their cat coming to mess things up occasionally.

The levels are doable but there are some that are really tricky. Many of you who may wish to play it would definitely want to solve the levels yourselves, but trust me, there are some that are so tricky that I had to google the answer.

But if you are insistent on trying to solve it yourself without any help, then here are a couple of tips. First, you can skip the level you are stuck at and go back to it at the end. I am not sure what is the control function on Switch, but if you are playing on PC, you can open the menu by pressing the ESC key and select the "Let It Be" option to move on to the next level. There is no time limit, so you can take your time to try and solve those puzzles at your own time.

Second, observe every single feature in the level, especially for those which has multiple solutions. Some are easy to solve, such as arranging it into ascending or descending order, or by colours and the like. But it is usually starting from the second solution that is tricky. The tip here is to observe every single feature in the level. Take for example, the leaves at the bottom picture below.

(Picture Source: A Little to the Left Wiki Fandom thru' Google Image Search)

At first glance, you would have guessed that the solution is by the colours. Congrats, you got your first solution, but there are more solutions to discover in this level. You will need to observe every thing in this level. Since the first solution is by colour, what else can you do to solve it? Is it by the leaf shape? Or by the length of the stems?

This is just one of the many levels that is designed as such. It may be liberating for some but there are those who may rage at not being able to figure out solution. My suggestion is to not be afraid to google the answer.

If you like to watch the gameplay of A Little to the Left, I have uploaded some videos onto my YouTube channel. The link will direct you to the playlist of the gameplay I have recorded and uploaded.

2️⃣ Death's Door

(Picture Source: Nintendo thru' Google Image Search)

Death's Door took me almost half a year to complete though the game system said that I only spent slightly over 20 hours to complete...

Anyway, this game talks about this crow that just got a job at the Reaper's Commission, and was assigned his first job. He successfully completed it but got his assigned soul stolen by another crow who has been trapped for years. Our crow chased after the older crow only to witness him sending our assigned soul to a long and large black door, to which the older crow explained that he had to do it in order for him to get his own assigned soul back. Unfortunately, the door did not budge and the older crow asked our crow for help to reap three other large souls to be used to open the door. Our crow reluctantly agreed to help.

The story of Death's Door is simple to follow as long as you pay attention to the dialogue. If not, you can just go google the story. Otherwise, the game mechanics, the UI and controls are all very simple. The only thing that may have you pulling your hair roots out is the battle.

Now, I am more of a casual player but am willing to try such games. I thought it was probably because my dodging skills was horrible but the online guide which I follow has a disclaimer at the homepage of the game guide that said you will die in battle a few times before achieving victory. Alas, it wasn't because of my dodging skills (it still sucks) but that the game was created in such a way.

Of course, it is not impossible to win the battle on the first try, but that the chances of it is quite low; I guess you could say it is a once in a blue moon effort.

If you are interested in trying the game, here are a few advice, not exactly tips, that if you allow me to give.

Firstly, don't be afraid to experiment. The thing about this game is that although the game mechanics and controls are the same for all, there are different playstyles that each player is accustomed to. Some probably swing their weapon like a maniac while some do it with a strategic calculation. Apart from that, there are also weapons you can collect throughout the gameplay, each with varying degrees of damage output. I have seen a player on YouTube use an umbrella to battle. That umbrella's damage output is only 0.5 (the sword assigned to you at the start of the game is 1). However, it seems to work for him, which kinda emphasizes my point here.

Secondly, and those most important advice here, is that surviving is more important than attacking. The boss battles, be it mini bosses or final bosses, including the Avarice, can be frustrating. It is at those points in the game where you will die countless times. Often times you may see an opportunity to attack but it could also be your demise. My suggestion is to dodge more and attack less. Sure, the battle will be dragged longer but it will increase your chances of survival better.

(Picture Source: EIP Gaming thru' Google Image Search)

Thirdly, you don't need necessarily need to achieve 100% completion rate to complete the game. The 100% completion rate is by levelling up your spells, visiting every shrine, and making sure that all pots are planted with a life seed.

While power ups and having a handy potted life seed is good, it is not necessarily needed to complete the game experience. It is possible to complete the game without any of those. Even so, I would still suggest trying to go for it because it will make your battle a tad bit easier to deal with, especially the fire spell (levelling up your fire spell will make your enemies experience continued burning damage after you throw a fire ball at them).

Final advice is to explore every nook and cranny of the map. There aren't any treasure chest with loads of goodies for you to collect, but because there may be some mass souls that you can pick up and exchange it at the vault in the Reaper's Commission for levelled up attack power.

While Death's Door was fun, I don't think I would go back to play it again because of the battle mechanics. It is really very frustrating which could prompt you to lose your interest in the game. However, it is also quite worth losing a few hairs.

3️⃣ Pokemon Scarlet

(Picture Source: Nintendo thru' Google Image Search)

I'd be honest here. At the time of writing, I have yet to complete the game. I am very confident that I could get past the Area Zero with ease but it is the Pokemon League that has me worried. My sister who completed the Violet version a long time ago advised me to level up as many different types of Pokemon as possible before I tackle the Pokemon League.

I have a feeling that this game would very well run over into 2024, but I am not willing to put this game under the 2024 annual review since I am currently near to the end of the story. Moreover, I won't be able to play DLC because my country strangely does not support the e-shop.

Anyway, just like any other Pokemon game (to my knowledge because this is the first of such for me), you are an aspiring trainer ready to take your first big step into the world of Pokemon like Ash Ketchum, except in the Scarlet and Violet version, you got to attend the Pokemon Academy. But, of course, the whole purpose of a Pokemon game is to go out, explore, and catch Pokemon, which will be given to you after a few semesters in the Academy (time skip).

There are three quests for you to take (not optional). The first is the usual Pokemon League quest where you need to tackle the gyms located throughout Paldea. The second quest is helping Arven with his Mabosstiff by battling Titan Pokemon and acquiring some mystical herb. The third quest is to help Cassiopeia take down Team Star. All three are important quests to take on because they are located all over the Paldea region. If you are unsure of the order to go with, you can refer to this guide.

However, if you don't wish to tackle all at once, that my suggestion is to go for the Titan Pokemon quest first. The reason being is because after defeating each Titan Pokemon, your Koraidon, or Miraidon in Violet version, will acquire important skills beneficial to exploring Paldea. Afterwords, you can tackle both the Gym and Team Star together if you wish.

One thing I did to make my game experience smoother is to level up my Pokemon as high as I could. That's because I needed stronger Pokemon to battle the tougher Titan Pokemon. In order to do so, I went Tera Raiding, but that can also prove to get boring very easily.

(Picture Source: IGN thru' Google Image Search)

The big headache for this game is trying to find which Pokemon is best to keep and which is best to release. Of course, the usual strong Pokemon like Garchomp, Dragonite, Tyranitar and the like, are the top choices. But you will still need a wide selection of different types of Pokemon. The easiest way is to get hybrid types, such as Dragonite being a Dragon and Flying type.

Another way is to get the tera types. So, for example, you may encounter a Vaporeon (water type) with an electric tera version. However, the disadvantage of it is that in order to utilise the tera version, you will need to terastalize your Pokemon which has a long cool down between battles.

Overall, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet can be quite addicting, but it can also get boring soon. I'd say that it's a double-edge sword. Still, being my very first RPG Pokemon game, it is quite an experience to behold. I do look forward to other similar games like this.

[seewetter]

Fact-Checking All I Post Since Dec 12, 2023

Hi.

This is a pinned post that explains my current ideal method of verifying information.

Firstly: I will always state what work I did (or didn't do) to fact-check a post.

This post will be pinned to remind me how to do my due diligence.

What to do to verify information?

Step 0: Notice suspicious aspects of what I'm reblogging

Calls to Action (can cause people to act without thinking first)

False sense of urgency: use of ALL CAPS as if people weren't going to read it otherwise indicates THEY ARE WRITING FOR AN AUDIENCE THAT THEY DON'T EXPECT WILL READ EVERYTHING including the fine print?

Judgemental statements: somebody is describing something by using insults, loaded language.

Factual errors

Jumping to conclusions

Step 1: Read beyond the Headline

If there is embedded articles, did I click through to read it?

How much did I read?

Who is the source? Do I know the source?

If I trust the source: why? What makes them trustworthy?

If I don't usually trust the source but am sharing anyway, why?

Step 2: Find a Credible Source

Did i check the web address (URL) to make sure the website is not impersonating another source?

Find other sources. I read in a magazine once that its recommended to have at least 3 separate sources confirm something. That way there is likely expert consensus and not a rogue editorial board or a compromised source.

Sometimes 3 sources agreeing might mean they are colluding, so the goal here is to document who is saying what and get a picture of where the information is coming from and how it's being shared.

Did I do a cursory check of the Tumblr user sharing the source?

Step 3: Verify Online Source is Authentic

I use startpage.com (a search engine that Google's things for me so Google doesn't know who is googling & thus won't tailor content to me)

As an IT student, I know that when links show up in purple in search engines that is a feature offered by my browser history, not by the search engine. So if I follow a link on Tumblr, then check with Google or Startpage (or Yahoo or Bing or DuckDuckGo), I can see if the website can be found normally through a web search.

I can also use Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) to check older versions of a story. So far, I don't know of any case where the Wayback Machine has deliberately censored or removed information.

Step 4: What else can I do?

read full article of each source

return to the article weeks later to see if corrections have been posted

check the website. Under "Contact" there should be information about the source. Who are they? I can look them up on Wikipedia to see if the source is known to have issues.

Step 5: Offer my followers some info on how they could improve on my work

Articles I haven't fully read can of course be improved by reading the whole thing

Sources can lie.

Read different opposite perspectives (use search engine to look up keywords that might pop up an opposing perspective)

Read primary sources. Did I reblog about a law being passed? Find the official government website where the law is posted.

If a story seems obviously favour one partisan group, then: A basic question for opposing groups or individuals is (A) did they read critiques of themselves (B) do they have a response (C) does their response contain a kernel of truth or is it appealing somehow (can it be steelmanned?) of maybe even they are more right than they seemed and (D) does their response feel sincere? (E) do they have a sense for what might go wrong with their counter-proposal (F) does their response need a better counter-response?

Step 6: Justify sharing things that I half-research.

For example: I shared this because the idea (perhaps mistaken perception / fantasy) of an internet censorship bill scares me.

Reason: My followers get an idea for why I think the information is valuable and can critique me better.

Step 7: Explain: Will I share more on this story or do more research?

In many cases, I reblog things and not think about them any further unless it circulates around and generates more conversation.

As a person with limited financial means and little interest in policy discussions, I want people who read my blog to like...know about (possibly) serious developments, but I'm convinced the main point of reblogging is to increase the statistical chance that it reaches people who are keenly interested and more dedicated than I am to doing something.

That's unfortunate of course (I always worry about how wars and other nightmarish things exit the media cycle even while still ongoing!) but I don't run this blog to be a downer blog and I also don't run it to be discussing topics that only interest me in that I'd like to see people (including myself, when that is feasible) work together to solve them.

Hopefully (if anyone even reads this) people can relate and won't think the worst of me. Not like I'm the best person anyway. Uh, thanks for reading.

[squishmallow36]

I experienced a thought on the bus this morning and I don't know why so uh yeah let's talk about elvin agriculture.

But first I must establish my credibility. As you see, Perry the Platypus, I got third in state for agricultural science for science olympiad and I may very well might have forgotten the vast majority of it.

Now we don't have an exact figure for how many elves there are and iirc Sophie said there was a meeting with a representative from every family but considering they don't interact with their family after they're, like, 18 I don't see how that makes sense but whatever.

The Elvin population is going to be constantly increasing at an exponential rate. Granted, it will be a slow exponential but birth rates will increase and death rates will remain near zero, resulting in population growth. This makes it so that the environment doesn't have a set carrying capacity for the number of elves and while the population growth may be slow enough in the beginning to adjust without much of an issue, eventually it's going to increase fast enough that it is an issue.

This population will require more food, causing current agricultural lands to deplete their nutrients faster. While in the past, a crop rotation schedule where half a field is used and half is fallow might shift to a more mediaeval era (in human terms) rotation of three sections.

And now this is where we go off on a tangent. First of all, I don't know where they would have space for growing food because they've got estates and they've got cities and nothing in between (or at least that's what it sounds like canonically). Now a place like Rimeshire yeah sure they've got gnomes why can't they have a garden but a place like Everglen idk if this is my fedex brainrot speaking but they seem like they'd be too snobby for that kind of thing. And foxfire has to get food somewhere and i sure as exile wouldn't trust level threes in an agriculture class.

Okay my real thought was "what about fertilizer?" Most of prev was just justifying that so uh sorry. Using my deep wild kratts knowledge, I know that bat guano is a good fertilizer. Commercially, other types of manure are used more often i'm sure. Google says manure has been used for 8000 years as a fertilizer...a time when the human population would've been fairly close to the elvin one today...so it is plausible.

...except elves don't keep livestock. Well. I guess that ends the train of thought.

But if elves still have a need for nutrients in their soil, there's a couple of options out there. The first is "don't worry about it, gnome songs are ~magic~ and avoid the need for chemistry." The second is, "don't worry about it, something something alchemy."

-> which does have its merit. The haber-bosch process--(3H2 + N2 -> 2NH3) which produces ammonia for plants to grow because nitrogen deficiency is less than ideal--was invented/discovered/verbed in the early 1900s which would have put it during the human assistance program.

Another option is bird poop islands, which is what the humans used before Haber went and Bosched the process and I found that thought entertaining until I realised the gnomes would be in charge of that and i don't think those little photosynthisizers deserve that.

But finally we get to my real point and i don't know how you made it this long. Another source of nitrogen is CH4N2O / NH2CONH2 (depends on who you ask on formula. Organic chem is like that sometimes.). But well this compound is commonly known as urea. Now, for extra credit, can you name something else that comes from the same origin? If you said urine, you win! Urea is found in urine!

Which means that if you as a gnomish farmer were really really really desperate for nitrogen and, of course, the chemical composition is the same technically you could pee in the fields to solve your problem.

[lucyvaleheart]

reblogging this direct from source cuz it's such a long post but I got tagged by a bunch of people for this one!!

Thank you @black-eyed-seas, @cynthjam, @alicethebard, and @ladyofspoons for the ping <333

Last song: Technically speaking, last playing when I got out of my car was:

Just cuz it was running through my liked songs on spotify 👀 but the last one I listened to that stuck in my head (from the same drive this morning to work) was:

cuz I fuckin love this guy and I wanna learn the lyrics to this well enough to sing it by memory I'm SO CLOSE BUT HE'S SO FAST

Favorite color: Purple!! Probably a decently common answer, but it is SO FUCKING GOOD..... though there's also this specific shade of magenta I love, hang on I have a hex code for it: #FF3AF8

and here's a quick slice of it so you don't have to google that:

Last movie/TV show: Mmmm.... Again on a technicality, I watched casino Royale the James bond movie the other night 👀 my wife jade put it on the TV hehe

But the last one to stick in my memory as the actual "what have I watched recently" is probably Jujutsu Kaisen; me and jade got through all of season 1, the movie, and then more than half of season 2 (that's currently out) before taking a break and forgetting to go back to it LMAO

But it's so fucking good omg I'm such a sucker for good quality fighting animation and shit dude I love it

Sweet/spicy/savory?: All definitely have their place!! I think I lean most heavily towards sweet, with savory coming in at a close second; and I DO very much enjoy spicy (as long as it's flavorful and not just pure heat) but I am white and as much as I'm pushing my spice tolerance higher and higher I'm still pretty low on how much I can tolerate 😔

Relationship status: Poly as hell!! Married to @jadedkitteh, @ginny-erinschild is my girlfriend (!!!!) lots of gay kinky sex with like 18-30 other people; and fuckin.... I'm sure there's more on the way I've yet to meet 💖

Last thing I googled: another answer with a technicality; the last thing I googled was leather for leather working cuz I'm.

.....I'm meeting up with a friend soon and they do leather working projects and stuff and I kind of wanted to get them a gift but I cannot fucking tell what is good quality leather or not qwq so I'm thinking I'll go to a store irl instead

The thing I last REMEMBER googling is Minecraft server hosts, so I could check into the current market of them (over saturated and riddled with bots, just like I remember) and see how expensive decent hardware was so I could maybe set one up for my discord server 👀

Current obsession: ......aside from my lifelong obsession with swords (see #swordposting), rocks, and Minecraft?

... Probably a game called Spiritfall :3 holy shit I've been running it over and over and over it's SO fun

Still in early access, but it's like.... A fuckin.....

... I'll link a post by one of the people working on it in a second here, but it's like a platform fighter roguelite 👀 combat is so goddamn fluid and fun and enjoyable, the roguelike elements are VERY hades so if you're a fan of smash or whatever and also hades I heavily recommend it! I've put like..... Easily over 100 hours into it in the month I've had it, they're constantly updating it with more shit, there's so many cool weapons (except a sword..... ;-; there's technically twin blades on a string but I would give my damn soul for just a proper longsword with close-combat style moves, like fuckin. Uh... I dunno, claren from rivals is a pretty good base? 👀👀👀 Marth/lucina? That kinda stuff, yknow?)

... Anyway here's a post by @ayeforscotland with some of my tags ranting about it :3

Tag nine people: oh boy. uh...... let's see here.

@ginny-erinschild @junk-thunder @naughtyshucklebuck @jaxspades @genderless-slave @puppygirlcassie @puppygirlarson @sparklefawx @penelopix @irlactualhuman @kaitiekat @boyphrodite and also any mutual who sees this on their dash and manages to read this far. Love you :3

Nine people I'd like to get to know better

Tagged by @meghawhopp <33

Last song: Down by the River by Borislav Slavov from the Baldur’s Gate 3 Soundtrack (or more specifically the cover of Down by the River by Nerissa Ravencroft)

Favorite color: Blue and purple!

Last movie/TV show: Seinfeld, I’m currently on season four!

Sweet/spicy/savory?: I have a huge sweet tooth, so sweet things

Relationship status: Single

Last thing I googled: I searched up the show “Arthur” because I was trying to find that one meme where Buster was like “You really think someone would do that, just go on the internet and spread lies?”

Current obsession: Fragaria memories and tears of themis mostly^^

Tag Nine People: @kyaruun @xinieeee @deadmansbistro @florapot @hunita812 @scuffle-with-spirals @rexonalapis @maxellera @manicpixiedoomedgirl

[molsons112000]

So meteorologist can have sample collections of the rain end of snow end of the atmosphere. Then they can break down these samples to figure out the chemical content of each. Here, below is how to do a water sample of the rain. Now, this is just to take natural water Samples of lake water or any water source, but rain is a water source.

Here do you see the eastern third of the united states is affected by acid rain. Now, where this asset rain moves is over the Atlantic and towards Europe. Remember the golf pushes up the atmosphere northern. Then you have the jet stream which goes from west to east. So we are not getting acid rain from the east coast. But we can give acid rain to the east coast. So they would be a receiver from everything from the west and remember the pacific is the most polluted ocean in the world. So that means we get rain from the Pacific at certain times of the year.Other times we get it from the Gulf and atlantic. This is what people in california and on the west Coast their rain is very polluted. We get most of our moisture from the gulf which is from the atlantic side which is much better. But we have a problem because the East Coast is dumping unbelievable amount of toxins from their rivers. Cause the rain comes down, goes into their waterways and those waterways go to the Atlantic feeds. The Midwest, mostly with its moisture and so if we don't take care of things on the East Coast we can have a serious problem. The Pacific is not as much of a worry for us. But definitely the atlantic.... And thank God the canal is only one way, but the Panama canal can take ships 2 ways and that's where they make a mistake. Because if we could move goods coming from california through the lock to the atis thick faster to asia. Faster to the East Coast, so a problem with the system. Is we don't have something going from the Pacific to the Atlantic, only from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Is the lock only goes in one direction. So the second lock that is more towards mexico can be the reverse lock so they don't compete. It takes goods from the pacific like this would help hawaii as well. So they can ship out things to the East Coast of America and to Eastern or what you would say.Western europe are east their west..... So that second lacter building they can reverse the direction not going the same way as the panama but going the opposite way from the pacific to the atlantic and this way they don't compete...... So this is better for Latin America than Panama continues to get its revenue.And the new one creates its own revenue ships returning..... So yes we need a new canal going to opposite direction....

Affected areas. Places significantly impacted by acid rain around the globe include most of eastern Europe from Poland northward into Scandinavia, the eastern third of the United States, and southeastern Canada. Other affected areas include the southeastern coast of China and Taiwan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki

Acid rain - Wikipedia

The worries from asia is more the water current that goes to the east coast and this is why the pacific is the dirtiest ocean.

Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki

Kuroshio Current

Similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the Kuroshio is a powerful western boundary current that transports warm equatorial water

So you'll see with the wave pattern.It moves the top half of the water from asia towards california. And the evaporation from the ocean comes from the top half of the ocean. Now the bottom half runs the opposite way away from California. Yes, the ocean runs the undercurrents.Run the opposite way of the winds.Remember the winds bring the waves in while when they wash in they wash back out. So when the water reaches California, it turns around and heads back. So depending on the particle weight of the matter going into the ocean. And atomic particles are very light. This is my nuclear waste from japan ended up in california. And so the fish that are at the higher level eat the nuclear waste. Now whatever california is dumping into the heavier particles come back towards california and end up going and polluting the atmosphere of california and going westward. But the heavier particles that go deeper into the water those go eastward. So we're both playing a role in hurting each other. It just depends on the type of waste that's being dumped and who's getting more of what type of pollution....

This is why I tell you.You have to go down in the ocean and grab the sediment samples at the bottom of the ocean. This is what's heading back towards asia from the united states. And if any of the shipping Is dumping heavy waste while that waste is going back towards asia ... It will initially move westward until it gets deep enough and then it will move back eastward. Remember this was the problem with finding the plane.They don't understand at different levels.The current moves at different directions. So yes there's a middle park that's moving and it's own direction as well.

The direction of an undercurrent is typically opposite to that of surface currents, and the strength of the undercurrent varies, depending on the situation and the circumstances.

https://waterhappy.net › the-power...

THE POWER OF UNDERCURRENTS

How does the ocean change with depth?

Conditions in the ocean change with depth: pressure increases; temperature and light decrease; salinity, oxygen, and micronutrients all change as well. There are five different Pelagic layers encompassing all open waters beyond the coastal regions.

https://www.globecomposite.com › ...

Exploring the Ocean's Depths - Globe Composite Solutions

So the high tide and low tide affects the speed of the undertow of the water of the ocean.....

How many times does the depth of the ocean water change per day?

Because the Earth rotates through two tidal “bulges” every lunar day, coastal areas experience two high and two low tides every 24 hours and 50 minutes. High tides occur 12 hours and 25 minutes apart. It takes six hours and 12.5 minutes for the water at the shore to go from high to low, or from low to high.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov › tide...

Frequency of Tides - The Lunar Day - Tides and water levels

Ocean water moves in horizontal and vertical directions, so it's turning. So, yes, it does bring up matter from the bottom of the ocean.

National Geographic Society

https://education.nationalgeographic.org › .

Ocean Conveyor Belt - National Geographic Education

Oct 19, 2023 — Ocean water moves in two directions: horizontally and vertically. Horizontal movements are referred to as currents, while

WIRED

https://www.wired.com › story › t...

The Physics of Scuba Diving

Nov 26, 2022 — Since the pressure is greater the deeper you go, the water underneath pushes up more than the water above it pushes down

And I told you the ocean has a natural divide.

University of Michigan

https://glisa.umich.edu › NCAPDF

Historical Climate and Climate Trends in the Midwestern USA

by J Andresen · Cited by 167 — Average summer rainfall exceeds 12 inches across

So if you see the area of tornado ally from the coast of Texas and then upward, this is the jet stream movement through the United States, which is very valuable to us in the Midwest.It protects us both from the east coast and the west coast. But if texas and others are polluting like in mexico are polluting into the gulf heavily then we're screwed..... So Is protecting the gulf is very vital for the midwest of the united states.... So remember our rivers flow into the Gulf.And so what we do with our rivers affects us because what goes out comes back.... So if we don't make sure our rivers and waterways flowing in like the Mississippi into the Gulf. Are good nutritional, healthy pollutant. Free water, then we're f***** in the Midwest. So that means from texas all the way up to canada because they get snowfall in their midwestern from the gulf as well. Yes, warm dry warm.I should say cold dryer comes down and then it meets the water from the Gulf.A gulf goes all the way up into canada and beyond actually.... So depending on the gulf depends on snowfall up north..... So as we've been polluting the Gulf, we've been devastating our ecological climate in the Midwest.All the way up and this leads all the way up obviously the north pole or arctica.....

The current flows northward into the Gulf of Mexico, then loops southeastward just south of the Florida Keys (where it is called the Florida Current), and then just west of the westernmost Bahamas. Here, the waters of the Loop Current flow northward along the U.S. coast and become the Gulf Stream.

https://www.wunderground.com › l...

Gulf of Mexico Loop Current Explainer - Weather Underground

Warm, salty water is carried by the Gulf Stream from the (much deeper) Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean. This warm water collides with cold water east of Svalbard where the seafloor rises steeply, making this warm water come to the surface.Jun 11, 2015

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com › g...

Gulf Stream brings ever warmer water into Arctic Ocean

[kammartinez]

About two-thirds of the world's population experiences severe water shortages for at least one month each year. By 2030, the situation is expected to worsen, with almost half of the world's population facing severe water stress.

This prediction was made in a report published a few years ago by the United Nations Environment Programme. To avoid this fate, the report said, water use must be "decoupled" from economic growth by developing policies and technologies to reduce or maintain consumption without compromising performance.

The authors mentioned a few water-intensive sectors, such as agriculture. What they did not imagine, in 2016, is they should have added another source of consumption: artificial intelligence.

So far, researchers and developers have mainly focused on reducing the carbon footprint of AI models. However, a crucial aspect that has often been overlooked is their water footprint. In "Making AI Less "Thirsty": Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models," a new paper that has yet to be peer-reviewed, researchers from the University of Colorado Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington fill this gap by shedding light on the significant water consumption associated with training and deploying AI models in data centers.

Using public data sources, they estimate that "training GPT-3 in Microsoft's state-of-the-art US data centers can directly consume 700,000 liters of clean freshwater", which they calculate could be used to produce 370 BMW cars or 320 Tesla electric vehicles.

Furthermore, ChatGPT 'drinks' the equivalent of a 500ml bottle of water for a simple conversation of 20-50 questions and answers. Which may not seem like much... until you consider that the chatbot has more than 100 million active users, each of whom engages in multiple conversations.

And it's not just Microsoft: when it comes to water consumption, Google is second to none. In 2021, its data centers in the US alone will consume 12.7 billion liters of freshwater for on-site cooling, about 90% of which will be potable water.

Overall, the combined water footprint of US data centers operations was estimated at 626 billion liters in 2014. To give credit where credit is due, it's not as if the big tech companies are doing nothing to tackle the problem. Many of them, such as Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft, have pledged to become "water positive" by 2030 - meaning they will refill more water than they consume.

Unfortunately, as the study's authors point out, there's often a trade-off between carbon efficiency and water efficiency.

This is due to the fact that current approaches to achieving sustainable AI predominantly center on engineering solutions, such as enhancing the efficiency of data center cooling towers. While these supply-side solutions conserve water, they fail to address the demand-side management aspects tied to the timing and location of AI model training and use.

"For example, AI model developers may want to train their models during the noon time when solar energy is more abundant, but this is also the hottest time of the day that leads to the worst water efficiency," researchers write, using LaMDA’s training in sun-drenched Nevada as an example.

In other words, using renewable energy can sometimes get in the way of saving water.

The challenge, then, is to find a way to balance carbon and water efficiency, which will require new and holistic approaches to sustainable AI.

One potential solution lies in exploiting what researchers call the 'spatio-temporal diversity' of water use efficiency. In short, by scheduling AI model training and inference in different places and at different times, developers can reduce the water footprint of their AI models.

As the paper has yet to be peer-reviewed, it’s possible that some of its arguments and conclusions may need to be re-evaluated. Still, the researchers’ findings are impressive, and it’s hard not to agree with their final assessment: "AI models’ water footprint can no longer stay under the radar — water footprint must be addressed as a priority as part of the collective efforts to combat global water challenges."

[kamreadsandrecs]

About two-thirds of the world's population experiences severe water shortages for at least one month each year. By 2030, the situation is expected to worsen, with almost half of the world's population facing severe water stress.

This prediction was made in a report published a few years ago by the United Nations Environment Programme. To avoid this fate, the report said, water use must be "decoupled" from economic growth by developing policies and technologies to reduce or maintain consumption without compromising performance.

The authors mentioned a few water-intensive sectors, such as agriculture. What they did not imagine, in 2016, is they should have added another source of consumption: artificial intelligence.

So far, researchers and developers have mainly focused on reducing the carbon footprint of AI models. However, a crucial aspect that has often been overlooked is their water footprint. In "Making AI Less "Thirsty": Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models," a new paper that has yet to be peer-reviewed, researchers from the University of Colorado Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington fill this gap by shedding light on the significant water consumption associated with training and deploying AI models in data centers.

Using public data sources, they estimate that "training GPT-3 in Microsoft's state-of-the-art US data centers can directly consume 700,000 liters of clean freshwater", which they calculate could be used to produce 370 BMW cars or 320 Tesla electric vehicles.

Furthermore, ChatGPT 'drinks' the equivalent of a 500ml bottle of water for a simple conversation of 20-50 questions and answers. Which may not seem like much... until you consider that the chatbot has more than 100 million active users, each of whom engages in multiple conversations.

And it's not just Microsoft: when it comes to water consumption, Google is second to none. In 2021, its data centers in the US alone will consume 12.7 billion liters of freshwater for on-site cooling, about 90% of which will be potable water.

Overall, the combined water footprint of US data centers operations was estimated at 626 billion liters in 2014. To give credit where credit is due, it's not as if the big tech companies are doing nothing to tackle the problem. Many of them, such as Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft, have pledged to become "water positive" by 2030 - meaning they will refill more water than they consume.

Unfortunately, as the study's authors point out, there's often a trade-off between carbon efficiency and water efficiency.

This is due to the fact that current approaches to achieving sustainable AI predominantly center on engineering solutions, such as enhancing the efficiency of data center cooling towers. While these supply-side solutions conserve water, they fail to address the demand-side management aspects tied to the timing and location of AI model training and use.

"For example, AI model developers may want to train their models during the noon time when solar energy is more abundant, but this is also the hottest time of the day that leads to the worst water efficiency," researchers write, using LaMDA’s training in sun-drenched Nevada as an example.

In other words, using renewable energy can sometimes get in the way of saving water.

The challenge, then, is to find a way to balance carbon and water efficiency, which will require new and holistic approaches to sustainable AI.

One potential solution lies in exploiting what researchers call the 'spatio-temporal diversity' of water use efficiency. In short, by scheduling AI model training and inference in different places and at different times, developers can reduce the water footprint of their AI models.

As the paper has yet to be peer-reviewed, it’s possible that some of its arguments and conclusions may need to be re-evaluated. Still, the researchers’ findings are impressive, and it’s hard not to agree with their final assessment: "AI models’ water footprint can no longer stay under the radar — water footprint must be addressed as a priority as part of the collective efforts to combat global water challenges."

[whywouldiknow-that]

Okay so normally I wouldn't be bothered with posts reminding people that Hamas is still a terrorist organization and to be careful. But some of the wording of this post made me really uneasy. From trying to claim that this is a war instead of a genocide (this numbers even halfed are a horrifying amount of casualties, that's almost 13 thousand people, that's almost 8 thousand children, these numbers are still proof we're seeing of Israel's cruelty), and especially that last quote, "For Israel, every civilian casualty is a tragedy" didn't seem right at all, after seeing photos of Israelies sitting and cheering as they see the bombings in the background and after seeing so many videos of the pain of innocent people... I just don't trust OP after reading that. Nothing against OP, I know nothing about them but it did encourage me to look into this article's sources.

And sorry maybe I'm just not familiar, but I kept finding strange things, all the 3 links inside it just go to another article within the same site, which isn't unusual, it's the norm from other news sites I've seen, but when I clicked on a link to what I thought was going to be the UN reports it lead to this article, which is an opinionated piece as shown in the title.

So already it seems that this site is very pro-Israel and this along with these type of titles really takes away a lot of my trust on the site. Not only that but the badly cropped graphs OP is using comes directly from the article they sourced, so the relaiability of someone who can't even crop an image properly to me is low at best. Moreover, OP's wording feels misleading, yes the casualty reports are coming from Hamas, but that's because the Gaza strip is under Hamas goverment, what I mean is that these numbers are being reported by Gaza's Ministry of Health. (this is even explained in the article they used as source, as shown below)

Of course this isn't to minimize the possibility that Hamas could be skewing the numbers, but it feels very scummy to claim unreliability of the information when it's Israel who bombed the city and the reason why the only sources available are currently Gaza's Ministry of Health.

So after all that I googled "Gaza UN death toll report" to try to research for myself and what do I find?

It has been debunked. Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN secretary-general, stated on Monday that the number of fatalities from Gaza “remains unchanged.”

The UN doesn't have it's own report yet, as Haq said they can't yet because of both the still ongoing "combat" and the sheer number of casualties. What actually happened is that the Ministry of Health in Gaza updated the number of fatalities for identified bodies. Of 34,622 reported deaths, 24,686 have been fully identified, including 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men. That still leaves 9936 bodies to identify and add to those numbers.

You can literally see it on OP's article's own graph:

Those numbers are clearly from the 24686 identified in it.

When asked in this same video if the UN had any reazon to doubt Gaza's Ministry of Health's numbers, Farhan Haq said "Unfortunately, we have the sad experience of coordinating with the Ministry of Health on casualty figures. Every few years, for large mass casualty incidents in Gaza and in past times, their figures have proven to be generally accurate." Now of course this means the UN has proof of the Ministry of Health's accuracy in the past, but personally I am far more disturbed at the fact that there seems to be mass casualty incidents every few years.

I'm not going to look into these tho because I'm already horrified enough by all these numbers.

TL;DR: Gaza's Ministry of Health released an updated count of the 24686 identified bodies out of the 34622 reported deaths, the smaller numbers of dead women and children comes from this identified people.

This is probably the most important stuff you won't see on social media, or even mainstream news.

First, the UN (without making any declarations, so it would fly under everyone's radar) has cut the estimated number of killed women and children in the war in Gaza by half. Israelis, Jews and our allies, we've been saying for months that Hamas' reports are unreliable, now the UN implicitly admits to the same, even though it's currently only applying it to the women and kids, while still repeating Hamas' reported number of total deaths (begs the question why is the UN doing that, if it has been admitting all along that Hamas' figures can't be verified independently, and now, after 7 months, something has made them admit they can't continue to blindly repeated Hamas' number of killed women and children).

Wanna see it for yourself?

On May 6, the UN published the following figures on the Hamas reported number of total fatalities in the war, as well as the number of killed women and kids:

Just two days later, on May 8, the UN published revised numbers... While they still quoted the Hamas figure on the total number of fatalities, which has increased over those 2 days, the numbers of kids and women were about half the previous ones:

On top of that, this is Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas (who lives in a luxury hotel in Qatar and is not paying for the crimes of its organization) calling upon Palestinians in Gaza NOT to evacuate to safe zones, as Israel is asking them to do, because Hamas' terrorists "need this blood," the blood of the women, kids and elderly. Every time someone brings up the number of dead, with an emphasis on the women and children, and uncritically blames everything on Israel, remember this speech!

This is how I saw it being summarized:

(for more of my posts regarding Israel, click here)