#rain world runoff

[creativecapybara]

Easily my favorite runoff AU design so far

[no-passaran]

Genocide experts warn that India is about to genocide the Shompen people

Who are the Shompen?

The Shompen are an indigenous culture that lives in the Great Nicobar Island, which is nowadays owned by India. The Shompen and their ancestors are believed to have been living in this island for around 10,000 years. Like other tribes in the nearby islands, the Shompen are isolated from the rest of the world, as they chose to be left alone, with the exception of a few members who occasionally take part in exchanges with foreigners and go on quarantine before returning to their tribe. There are between 100 and 400 Shompen people, who are hunter-gatherers and nomadic agricultors and rely on their island's rainforest for survival.

Why is there risk of genocide?

India has announced a huge construction mega-project that will completely change the Great Nicobar Island to turn it into "the Hong Kong of India".

Nowadays, the island has 8,500 inhabitants, and over 95% of its surface is made up of national parks, protected forests and tribal reserve areas. Much of the island is covered by the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, described by UNESCO as covering “unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems. It is home to very rich ecosystems, including 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, and bryophytes, among others. In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area. It has one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world.”

The Indian project aims to destroy this natural environment to create an international shipping terminal with the capacity to handle 14.2 million TEUs (unit of cargo capacity), an international airport that will handle a peak hour traffic of 4,000 passengers and that will be used as a joint civilian-military airport under the control of the Indian Navy, a gas and solar power plant, a military base, an industrial park, and townships aimed at bringing in tourism, including commercial, industrial and residential zones as well as other tourism-related activities.

This project means the destruction of the island's pristine rainforests, as it involves cutting down over 852,000 trees and endangers the local fauna such as leatherback turtles, saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar crab-eating macaque and migratory birds. The erosion resulting from deforestation will be huge in this highly-seismic area. Experts also warn about the effects that this project will have on local flora and fauna as a result of pollution from the terminal project, coastal surface runoff, ballasts from ships, physical collisions with ships, coastal construction, oil spills, etc.

The indigenous people are not only affected because their environment and food source will be destroyed. On top of this, the demographic change will be a catastrophe for them. After the creation of this project, the Great Nicobar Island -which now has 8,500 inhabitants- will receive a population of 650,000 settlers. Remember that the Shompen and Nicobarese people who live on this island are isolated, which means they do not have an immune system that can resist outsider illnesses. Academics believe they could die of disease if they come in contact with outsiders (think of the arrival of Europeans to the Americas after Christopher Columbus and the way that common European illnesses were lethal for indigenous Americans with no immunization against them).

And on top of all of this, the project might destroy the environment and the indigenous people just to turn out to be useless and sooner or later be abandoned. The naturalist Uday Mondal explains that “after all the destruction, the financial viability of the project remains questionable as all the construction material will have to be shipped to this remote island and it will have to compete with already well-established ports.” However, this project is important to India because they want to use the island as a military and commercial post to stop China's expansion in the region, since the Nicobar islands are located on one of the world's busiest sea routes.

Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the Indian president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”. India's response has been to say that the indigenous tribes will be relocated "if needed", but that doesn't solve the problem. As a spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories. The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”

On 7 February 2024, 39 scholars from 13 countries published an open letter to the Indian president warning that “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”

How to help

The NGO Survival International has launched this campaign:

From this site, you just need to add your name and email and you will send an email to India's Tribal Affairs Minister and to the companies currently vying to build the first stage of the project.

Share it with your friends and acquittances and on social media.

Sources:

India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe, 7 Feb 2024. The Guardian.

‘It will destroy them’: Indian mega-development could cause ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’, says charity, 8 Feb 2024. Geographical.

Genocide experts call on India's government to scrap the Great Nicobar mega-project, Feb 2024. Survival International.

The container terminal that could sink the Great Nicobar Island, 20 July 2022. Mongabay.

[Maps] Environmental path cleared for Great Nicobar mega project, 10 Oct 2022. Mongabay.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: The Nightmare Foundry

Having trekked across the wilderness following the smell of acrid smoke and the distant screams of phantoms, you've managed to find the origin of the undead rising at last, standing like a blasphemous monument against the night sky.

Pulled from the depths of the shadowfell this grotesque tangle of iron and chimneys was made to siphon up wayward souls and smelt them down into a horrid new purpose. When transposed onto the material plane it has an even stranger effect, pulling errant spirits through the darkened places of the world and forcing them to manifest in the places of the living. Invariably these spirits take refuge in whatever vessels are at hand leading to a rash of possessions, hauntings, and spontaneous animations across the region.

After dealing with the symptoms and seeking out their source, the party is faced with the challenge of infiltrating the factory, shutting off whatever machinery has bent the mortal coil, and dealing with the foundry's soul devouring demon watchdog: Grodmaw

Challenges & Complications:

In order for the nightmare foundry to cross the planes it must first take root in an established forge or workshop, the seed of its malignant growth planted by some accidental tragedy or sinister ritual. This endless, burning, sorrow is then stoked to kindle the first of the foundry's engines, imparting each manifestation with a pervasive emotional palette and recurring iconography, which like any haunting may prove the key to banishing the manifestation for good. Consider for your own game what ghost or ghosts might burn at the heart of the founry's engine, which your party will have to unravel as they travel into its depths.

Any direct approach to the foundry is likely to be fought with peril as its great smokestakcs pollute the surrounding land with with varying degrees of smog, necrotic rain, and occasional bits of cursed industrial shrapnel launched like cinders from a volcano. This makes a ground-level approach preferable to any of the rifts or sluiceways it carves in the earth, which are filled with toxic runoff and fumes that can corrode the soul.

Many entities haunt the Foundry's cramped gangways and sprawling processing floors, from faceless undead drudges consigned to endless toil to nightmarish constructs burning souls to power their steam engines. Grodmaw eclipses all of these in threat, an unthinking beast with the temperance of a prison warden, blindly patrolling the structure's lower levels unless summoned by a triggered alarm.

Should such an alarm be triggered the party would do best to hide, though they may learn too late that the demon hunts not by sight but by sensing the presence of souls the way a reptile senses scents with its tongue. This ironically makes the best place to hide in the foundry's most haunted vaults, such where the raw materials of unprocessed souls are held in cages of haunted iron or the blasphemous blast furnaces.

Art 1

Art 2

[tophat-69]

Bonus Chapter: it's the good, defining itself

So, it turns out that even after spending 22 days churning out a chapter a day, I wasn't entirely done with this world. I don't know if I'll keep posting periodic chapters to this AU, but I did want to share something with Tumblr in honor of my joining you all here during this story!

So here's a bonus chapter of "it's the good, defining itself" as Viktor begins to outlive himself in their previous timeline.

The air of Viktor’s office smells of ocean and ozone, blown in ahead of an evening storm that will lash these upper floors of the College of Techmaturgy but will disperse by the time it reaches the sumps of Zaun. Previously it would have ended up in runoff ditches, catching in the mud of the Promenade and eroding the natural fissures, but moving little further. In the city above it would have become runoff, picking up the pollution of Piltover’s factories and following their own elaborate drainage to spill into the feeders for the river far below. 

He’s been working on that--a water capture system that will help to bring fresh, untainted water to their citizens, and that will then trickle down from their gray water to Claggor’s garden and struggling orchard. Instituting city-wide changes in infrastructure is a slow process though, no matter how quickly he can redesign it in his mind. 

Still, he can do all of this because the people who care entirely too much for him have given him this perch in the sky, an eagle’s nest above the city he loves. He can barely see the city, though--instead, his windows face the risen tower of the Academy and the glistening spires of Piltover across the river.

He should have insisted on being down among his own people instead. He always thinks that in the rare times that he uses his office. Usually for meetings, or to do paperwork while his children commandeer his workshops and labs on the floors just below him, or when they’re too rambunctious in the unofficial teacher’s lounge that makes up the floor beneath, where the haze of the Entresol begins to grey the sky before it disappears entirely the further down the tower one gets. 

He doesn’t like the elevated position they’ve given him. An irony, since he gravitated towards heights in his past life, teetering on the edge and looking down from Piltover. That was when he was still apart from them, though. Before he became ‘of Zaun’ again, somehow emblematic of a people he left behind for a life on the topside.

From here, he can stare at the council building as well. But he’s not at the exact right angle to face the window that his death came crashing through.

This week, and a lifetime ago.

The fact that it’s Powder who finds him shouldn’t really surprise him.

The universe does enjoy its ironies.

A locked door means absolutely nothing to fissure folk, but she doesn’t try the knob first anyway. No, she comes in before the rain can slick the roof or the leaded glass, as the line of clouds approaches from the west. Her boots make a truly grating squeal as they slide down the glass, before landing with a thump on the iron ledge that circles the entire upper floor. She grabs the opened shutter and uses it to slip herself inside before closing it behind her so that the rain doesn’t find him. 

Viktor sighs and presses the palms of his hands over his eyes, gathering himself so that he can try to be ‘on.’

“You are aware that there is in fact a door.”

Powder bounces up and makes herself comfortable on Viktor’s desk, perched above him there in a way that completely disregards the piles of paper he’s let build up, legs folding beneath her as she blows an errant strand of her bangs out of her eyes, looking a little windswept from her escapades outside. “Uh-huh. But somehow that door is locked, the lights are off, and you’re sitting on the floor behind your desk. Weird, isn’t it?” 

“One might be led to believe that I was avoiding company.” 

“Wow, don’t be too subtle, there, Prof. I might miss the hint.” Powder, of course, has even worse ideas of boundaries than any of the rest of his intrusive little family in Zaun. Because she can see a boundary and still slips right past it because they don’t apply to her, her voice cheerful and completely irreverent. He’s blaming Vander for this behavior. Or Silco. Or Violet. He obviously would never have raised such a disrespectful child, and Jayce has proper manners so he’s clearly not responsible. Though Viktor did hire her on for his College as soon as she graduated despite basically everything about her being an invitation to bring chaos into their lives, so he supposes that he has himself to blame for that much. 

“Your Piltie has been wandering all around campus looking like a kicked puppy all day between classes. I think he’s the only person in Zaun that the ‘no one’s home’ act worked on even though his office is literally next door. Everything okay between you two?” Since she was eleven, Powder’s been torn between teasing Jayce incessantly for being irredeemably Piltovan, and being invested in their relationship as if there was any chance that their arguments might push them apart and leave Viktor hurt and alone. But insultingly enough, for all that her loyalties are inevitably with Viktor, she sides with Jayce in the majority of their disputes.

Because like Jayce, she centers ‘her’ people over any reason or any cause. And for all that Viktor works to keep all of the children out of their arguments, it’s as if Powder lives in the walls. She is an eternally meddlesome teenaged menace who—like literally everyone else in his adoptive family—has decided that she knows better what he needs than he does.  

That part is definitely Vander’s influence.

“We’re fine. It’s nothing like that.” Viktor sighs and straightens slowly, trying to ease the perpetual ache of his spine by forcing his shoulders square against the drawers of his desk even as it strains his back against the brace. Rainy days hurt the worst. It’s fitting, that today should be among them. “The fact that he would be held back by locks on the door of a Dean’s office is slightly insulting, though. I broke into Heimerdinger’s office to rob it for him within a day of meeting him.”

“Hah! I guess you can take the nerd out of the trenches, but not the trencher out of the nerd. That’s some top tier sump rat flirting there, Prof. Who knew you had it in you.” Powder’s voice is merry, teasing, and she reaches down to poke Viktor in the back of the head repeatedly to harass him into movement, getting her hand swatted away before he grabs for his crutch and uses it to leverage himself up reluctantly. If he stays on the floor, she’s going to try and braid his hair again. “Can’t believe that was too subtle for him to catch on to, since it took you guys coming down here to make it all official.”

“Seven years I flirted with that man and he missed it each time. Do not ever let my husband convince you that he is a genius.”

Right now, in another life, he would have been running along a pier as the storm rolled in. Running. For the first time in his life running without pain, the pigeon-toed twist of his leg straightened out into perfect mechanical symmetry. Now it’s the brace that keeps his leg from buckling beneath him given the stiffness of the position and the barometric pressure of the storm, forcing him to put more of his weight on the crutch as he finds his balance. An hour from now and a lifetime ago, he would have been carving runes into his skin in the shifting glow of the Hexcore. Two hours from now and a lifetime ago, he would have watched in horror as Sky Young’s human form dissolved into ash as she clung to him, trying in vain to pull him away from a danger that he created himself. He wonders what Sky’s life has been like without an obsessive madman to try and wrangle into obeying deadlines, stuck organizing his messes and deciphering his notes.

It should be a better life, he hopes.

In this new timeline, her closest counterpart in his life is the traumatized teenager who murdered him, but in this life is a dearly obnoxious gremlin smirking at him as she sits on his desk with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She waits as he settles into his chair without trying to interfere because for all of her invasiveness, she’s still a trencher and understands that a person should be allowed a little pride to do things for themselves. But only to an extent.

“Yeah, so speaking of stupid geniuses.” Reaching into the pouch on her hip, Powder pulls out a vial and dangles it between her fingertips, waving the glass back and forth in front of Viktor’s face so that the serum inside of it sloshes, just viscous enough to cling to the sides. “You skipped your treatment. You don’t get to skip your treatment.”

And there’s this routine. 

“Someday, I am going to find where the two of you keep your calendar, and I am going to take great pleasure in shredding it into very small pieces, then setting fire to them.”

“Uh-huh. Laser claw, burner in the lab, right into the forge. Heard it all. You’re a very scary crazy criminal mastermind, now drink your disgusting sludge already.”

Viktor sighs and takes the vial from her, popping the top and letting out a deep breath before he downs the entire thing in one shot as if to do so will make it less horrendous. He hates it. It glows poisonously green and tastes like he imagines licking the interior an active power core would—metallic and electric, burning as it coats his throat. The acidic crawl through his veins will stay for a few hours, now, spreading all the way through him. He's still dying. These are treatments for a disease, not a cure for the gift that is mortality. But even as the acid sinks into his blood and leaves him pained and exhausted and nauseous for the rest of the night, he knows that his family has clawed him just that little bit further away from death's door. 

He resentfully offers the empty vial back to Powder, trying not to pull a face even though he knows he’s long since lost any semblance of the “coolness” he had in her eyes when she was young. Oh, Powder and the others still are entirely too fond of him, but apparently the mystique of being a mysteriously appearing unknown mad scientist who stole everything that topside could teach him and started a revolution wears off once he actually becomes family. For Vander’s children, he’s the man their fathers have bullied relentlessly for the past seven years, and now they feel empowered to do so as well behind closed doors. 

And none of them moreso than the girl who was one of his first two students and has now since spent more time in Viktor’s company than anyone but his husband.

Thunder rumbles in the distance and the rain begins. A patter for now, gentle against the glass. It won’t remain that way for long.

Dropping the vial back into her pouch, Powder leans back and kicks her feet up onto the arm of his chair, ankles crossed so she can prod him in the shoulder with the toe of one of her boots. “Now, what are you two being weird about? Because you’re both being weird this week.”

A lifetime ago and hours ago, Jayce came up with the mad idea to go raid a factory in the undercity, enraged by the very girl who sits here in the office with him. Viktor never found out if it was this former factory of Renni’s, specifically. He doubts if Jayce even knows because the undercity was completely unfamiliar to him at the time. Jayce killed a child this week, and yet the boy is one of many that shows up to the library to learn from Viktor in the mornings. Jayce has as much difficulty looking at the child as Viktor does at Vander, but he recognizes that the boy being a part of Viktor’s youngest pupils is something of a balance in the universe: Viktor has helped to improve the life of Renni’s son, and Renni has kept children--including her own--out of her factories.

Viktor murdering Chross and his men for keeping Isha and the others in the mines probably had something to do with that too, though. That is a thought he has to lock down on most days. Today should be one of the days he’s allowed to feel it. If this week is not one for reflection, when is?

“This will be a… difficult week for Jayce and I.” Viktor looks out for a moment as water ripples down the window, flowing down the waves of the surface of the glass that reflect the Zaunite advanced technology and yet how they do not search for perfection in their creations. Architecture is as much an art as a science, and it was one that Viktor left to others. Viktor can feel the different textures and depths of the glass with his fingertips, and in some ways the imperfections are a comfort. Imperfection is human. And in a life where he’s struggled for that, he embraces it when he can. 

“Yeah, no shit mister cryptic. I caught that much. I asked why.” 

Turning his eyes away from the storm, Viktor lets himself look at Powder in the half-light of the dusk sky, the flashing that illuminates storm clouds. He can almost see her in the crack of lightning--the girl who found him in the commune, never knowing that he was one of her victims. He never wanted her to know. It was irrelevant at that point, either way. It’s irrelevant now, too.

But he does owe her answers that aren’t just… fortune cookie. He can’t tell her the full truth, but he can tell her a semblance of it.

“This is the week I was supposed to die.” Powder sucks in a breath, eyes widening, and Viktor tips his head slightly with a faint smile. “Perhaps this is why you shouldn’t ask impertinent questions to your elders that you don’t really want the answer to.”

Seven years, Viktor always says. He and Jayce both do--focusing on the time they spent side by side, as if it was their entire life after they met. But there were eight years. And this week begins the start of that cursed final year, where he died and rose as something no longer human. The year when time and reality fell out from beneath Jayce’s feet, and then Viktor…

This will be a difficult year. And it begins tonight. They both have their demons for this week, but they only really intersect at two points: the ledge where he planned to kill himself and the council room where he actually died. They’d already drifted so far apart by this time, driven from each other by secrets and ambition and grief and pride. 

Now they’re tied inextricably together, mind and soul, but that comes with its own challenges. They’re in a feedback loop again, as happens sometimes on their worst days when Viktor’s turbulent emotions trigger Jayce’s own, building and building, until one of them overloads. 

The reasonable answer, Viktor knows, would be for the two of them to simply pass the time together--to dampen the way their souls scream at each other by just curling up in bed and weathering out the storm. But some pains need to be felt. And Viktor deserves to feel the pain of tonight.

“Pretty sure doctors don’t go week by week with predictions like that but are you… okay?” Are you going to die, she doesn’t ask. But she’s thinking it. He can see it in her, that fear of losing another loved one. Viktor pats her on the ankle, reassuring. 

“I’m not going to die on you this week, Powder. I’m not…” there yet. He’s still got time, both he and Jayce can feel it. Viktor just hasn’t wanted to admit it because in some ways everything after this is uncharted territory. He can’t prepare for it, can’t brace for it. There’s no definite timeline any longer, he has to just… live in uncertainty. Like every other human, he supposes. “But when you asked me, when you were small, this was the week I was thinking of. And I was right, you’re old enough to…”

“‘Torment the next generation of Zaun scientists.’” Powder finishes from memory, and she’s watching him in so much concern, with an edge of genuine fear and preemptive grief, and oh. The poor girl. He shouldn’t have teased her. Sometimes his ‘not funny’ quips genuinely aren’t, and he knew that she is among the only four people to know for certain that he is dying. It’s why she’s worked alongside Jayce despite her interests in science being aligned elsewhere, like Jayce’s own. For him, they both moonlight as alchemists now. “I didn’t think you were putting me with the little kids because you were trying to fulfil some sort of… of… prophecy you made me about you dying. I’m not that ‘grown’ yet!”

Viktor’s hefting himself to his feet, clutching the edge of his desk as he pushes a stack of papers aside so he can haul himself up to perch on the edge of it with her. His back is going to hate him for this, but he’s never been able to turn away a crying child. She falls into his side as she did that night seven years ago when she was just confronted with the idea of his mortality. This time he’s far more comfortable wrapping an arm around her shoulders to comfort her.

“Hush. I’m not dying yet. You and Jayce and your truly vile serums have seen to that.” He lets his disgust for their medicines color his words, playing into the ongoing tease about how much he hates them, but it just gets him lightly jabbed in the side. So gently, compared to how he knows she could hit him. Her eyes are angry when he looks over to her. 

“Have you been trying to die on deadline? We have to hunt you down to get you to take the stuff, and you knew that it was…”

With a sigh, Viktor tugs at her shoulder again and reels her back in, resting his head on top of hers when she slumps back into him. She and Isha are absolutely going to contribute to him going prematurely gray this time around. Daughters, he is finding, are even more troublesome than husbands. He can at least read and understand and soothe Jayce’s emotions. Powder’s are all over the place, and he can merely guess at them. 

“Ridiculous girl. You try drinking battery acid and tell me if you enjoy it, I am obligated to inconvenience you both for that experience. But do I ever actually miss it?” He doesn’t. And he won’t. Not just because Jayce and Powder force it on him every week, but because he does have so much more he can still do with his life. He still finds it… difficult. To stay in the present and to try and look towards the future. But for them, he grabs hold of his tattered sanity tightly as he’s able in his wavering grip. For them, he tries.

He expected to be buried in the past right now. It’s why he isolated himself, why he hid himself in the office to let himself just feel it. To let himself drown in it. But instead he’s here, present, trying to be what Powder needs from him because that is the man that he should be in this timeline. 

So he presses a kiss against the top of his daughter’s head, just as he would against Isha’s despite how much Powder has grown, and he squeezes her shoulder.  “I told you then and I tell you now, I do what I must to be around for you as long as possible. …And I put you with the children because you are good with them. You have been ever since Isha joined us, and you know that. ‘Prophecy.’ Tch.”

Powder laughs a bit wetly, and that’s good. He can sit here and watch the rain for a while and then let her cajole him into taking better care of himself.

Then he’ll go find his husband, and try to be present for him, as well.

He has three choices: to look at this extra time as a curse, as a fluke, or as a gift. If it is a gift, it is from his family. And it should be for his family, too. 

****

Now that she’s not a student herself and has a small dedicated staff apartment above the dorms, Powder sneaks Isha in with her half of the time and has a bunk bed set up for the two of them. She lives where she can look over all of the students and make sure they don’t get into any of the trouble that she would have when she was one of them, but that doesn’t mean she feels that the rules apply to her any more than they ever did. 

Isha will come find her when the bar really starts to pick up, sneaking out in the crowd even though everyone involved knows that Vander is not only aware he allows it to happen and enables it, and that Viktor will just pretend like Isha’s an early riser when she inevitably tackles him in a hug as soon as he walks out of his house just after dawn. 

So Powder stays just long enough for Viktor to turn her mood around into nagging him and bullying him, as teenaged daughters seem to do, and then he sends her off to take care of her little sister. He sneaks her a bit of money for her to grab them something special to eat, knowing that the conversation had a toll on her too and that a night of fun with her little sister will do her good.

Sometimes that companionship is what’s needed. It’s not… always what Viktor wants. It’s rarely what Viktor wants. He prefers to push himself on his own through rough nights. 

So while Powder might be his daughter when it comes to science and genius and creativity and the brush of insanity that comes with all of it, she got her sentimentality from a different role model.

And Vander isn’t the only one who carries that sort of attachment to people.

It’s not hard to find Jayce when he goes looking. Taking the descender all the way down requires him to put his mask back on halfway, clasped on as the drop takes him back into the Entresol and then below the street level, to the depths of the factory that helped contribute to his own eventual death. Jayce has filters and ducts that run through these levels, dispersing the Gray before it can pool on the floors here as it used to in his basement, but that’s not what makes him need the mask any longer.

It’s the heat haze that gets to Viktor down here and makes it hard to breathe. It’s the smoke of the fire, and scorch of molten metal.

Hammer on anvil, Jayce is working his stress out in the way he has through two lifetimes now. Viktor lingers near the descender, watching his husband from behind where he’s outlined by the blaze of fire, how with every swing the light licks across bare shoulders glossed with sweat.

He’s been at it for a while now, if it’s starting to show. Even if the long line of tools he’s forged for his engineering classrooms spread across the workbench to the side wasn’t sign enough of that. 

Jayce is lost enough in his head that he doesn’t hear Viktor coming, doesn’t know that he’s there until Viktor rests his crutch against the workbench and slips his arms around Jayce, one around his waist and his human hand pressed against Jayce’s chest over the heavy beat of his heart. The cool metal of his mask and brush of unruly hair coming to rest against Jayce’s back combined with the sudden soothing of the emotions he’s doubtless been dumping on Jayce all evening make his partner slump immediately, hammer coming to a rest between his feet as he presses his arms over Viktor’s own, holding him there so he can’t pull away.

“I’m sorry,” Viktor offers, the mask making his voice echo mechanically, though he’s barely loud enough to be heard over the heaving of Jayce’s breath anyway. Jayce understands regardless.

“You needed your space.” Ah, his poor sweet Jayce. He sounds wrecked, as if Viktor shredding his sanity has torn into Jayce’s own. They both have their demons, but Jayce ripped his soul in two and shoved half of it right into the worst of his own. Now he deals with the consequences of that selflessness every day. 

“And you needed your husband. So we find a compromise position. Requests?” Heat and smoke be damned, he wants to kiss Jayce’s shoulder. As if he can hear Viktor’s thoughts even like this, Jayce links both of their hands together and refuses to let him reach for the mask. Meddlesome man. They’re going to struggle with Viktor’s self-sufficiency and Jayce’s need to coddle him for the rest of their lives. However long that may be, now. 

“Can we take tomorrow off? Stay in. Put our kids on figuring out who will TA each of our classes.” If Viktor weren’t reliant on the work to keep him moving some days, he would have thought of it already. In this life, their college is his dream, and while Jayce shares it he doesn’t have the single minded obsession that consumes Viktor in every life. But for Jayce… 

“That is… not unreasonable. I can go in tomorrow morning for the children’s class, and see Powder there and ask her?” A compromise. He cannot let down the youngest children, who come to him before the day begins for the university itself. From the ones small enough to literally climb Powder for her dramatically presented storytimes, to the preteens who want to learn so much that they come to Viktor to absorb every bit of mathematics and introductory sciences and then take home the books he recommends to them based on their interests, to the teenagers who show up for food and an assignment before heading to the mines or the factories or the refineries to support their families… they need that consistency from him. 

And Viktor needs the proof that his College doesn’t only benefit those who push “progress” for Zaun. That he doesn’t leave others behind for not being a born scientist. It makes his days exhaustingly long, but Zaun needs so much more from her people than just scientists. If as a teacher he can help their people feel empowered to bring their own dreams into the city… isn’t that what he should do?

He wouldn’t be able to sit through a day off from that any more than he allows himself an “off” day for the children. Jayce understands that. With a squeeze to his hands before releasing them, Jayce turns in Viktor’s arms and coils around him in turn, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

“Yeah. I’ll come with you and I’ll take the teens.” Jayce doesn’t normally interfere in the mornings, but tomorrow morning a lifetime ago he found Viktor just as he was going to step off of the ledge and let himself fall, and then by tomorrow night he was left with Viktor’s broken body and a terrible, desperate decision. So. Compromise. “Then we stay in for the weekend, except for…”

Viktor sighs regretfully as Jayce tugs his shirt back on, both at the unfortunate (but thankfully quite temporary) shrouding of such a masterpiece, and because there really is no escaping his weekend obligations. Not anymore.

“Except for Sunday when I am contractually obligated to socialize with the undercity gang who call themselves my family, or I will be dragged unceremoniously from our bed by whichever one of you brutes wins a coin toss.” Jayce is not-so-subtly stealing Viktor’s crutch from him and positioning himself to take its place, but he’s been so good for Viktor all day even when Viktor was literally driving him mad. So he can have that just this once. It’s also pouring rain, so even the short trek from the college to their home is going to be miserable. “Vander and Silco are going to be insufferable. Powder pressed me on our behavior until I admitted that this is the week I’m meant to die.”

“Don’t… don’t say it like that.” Jayce visibly flinches, and Viktor sighs and links his arm through Jayce’s, leaning most of his weight into his husband’s side as he takes the first limping steps towards the descender. 

“You may not have the right, but I am allowed to call them a gang, just as I am allowed to refer to us as sump rats and…”

“Viktor.”

It wasn’t his best piece of redirection, granted, but he really has no other defense against the relentless sincerity and pleading stares Jayce fixes on him. Viktor sighs again and turns to face Jayce as they step inside the car for the hydraulic lift, resting a hand against Jayce’s chest for balance. He’d be tipping his chin up and demanding a kiss if the damned mask weren’t a sticking point. So instead he lets his fingers scratch gently into the soft thatch of Jayce's beard, petting him as he might the kicked puppy that Powder compared him to. “Compromise. Let me be miserable tonight while you decide how I’m allowed to phrase that. And then tomorrow we have incredibly life-affirming sex essentially all afternoon and evening.”

Jayce still flushes at the mention of sex and glances at the descender doors as they open onto the street level like someone is going to be waiting there to judge them. Truly, this man is too sweet for him.

“We’re doing to duke it out on the ‘miserable’ thing.” Of course they are. But Viktor knows that if he keeps Jayce close, his husband will be spared the worst of the second-hand madness. So he’ll crowd into the shower with him when they get back and will curl into the couch with him, aware that Jayce will know why he’s doing it but is incapable of pushing Viktor away. In return Jayce will do his level best to distract Viktor out of the melancholy that’s trying to consume him. 

Compromises are the basis of any healthy marriage. Particularly, it seems, between a bullheaded dreamer and a fanatical madman. 

They’ll make it through the week.

Then through the year.

And then determine what happens from then on.

[sirenjose]

Facts and Theories related to Fool's Gold and Norton

Part 1: Facts and Theories about Pyrite aka Fool's Gold

TLDR - Facts:

comes from the Greek word for fire

the dangers of pyrite oxidation (sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide)

pyrite can contain small amounts of real gold, called “invisible gold”

TLDR - Theories

Pyrite containing real gold parallel to Norton being good deep down

Fire connection to Infernal Sin

Pollution in Lakeside water and soil as well as cause of fish and plants dying because of Golden Cave?

Part 2: Facts and Theories about how Norton escaped Golden Cave

TLDR:

Norton didn't just simply dig himself out

Facts about mines, mine collapses, dangers, potential escape routes, etc...

Part 1

Facts

Pyrite (aka fool’s gold) comes from the Greek word ‘pyros’ meaning ‘fire’, and will create sparks when struck against metal or a hard surface.

It is capable of scratching glass while most knives won’t be able to scratch it.

In the presence of moisture and oxygen, pyrite oxidizes, releasing its sulfur content as sulfuric acid.

Pyrite rich waste from mining operations can increase acidity of surface water. This can harm downstream ecosystems, animals, and even pose a risk to humans.

Sulfur dioxide is produced by burning the pyrite in coal, which can combine with moisture in the atmosphere to create acid rain.

Pyrite oxidation is sufficiently exothermic enough to produce heat, and as the temperature rises, the coal heats up and in some cases cause it to self-ignite and cause fire. This is called spontaneous combustion, a very real problem in coal mines. Pyrite dust can burn even with only a little oxygen, and it burns well due to its sulfur content. Sulfide fires can burn for years.

Despite its reputation, pyrite can sometimes contain small amounts of real gold, although it is notoriously hard to extract. This gold is sometimes referred to as “invisible gold” because it isn’t observable by the naked eye or standard microscopes (you need sophisticated scientific instruments). It can come in different forms: either as particles of gold, an alloy where the pyrite and gold are finely mixed, and in defects (imperfections created when the pyrite crystals are forming) in the crystal structure . With the latter form, the more deformed it is, the more gold there is in the defects.

And the discovery of new gold deposits declining world wide, with the quality of ore degrading in parallel to the value of precious metal increasing.

Invisible gold is primarily found in pyrite and arsenopyrite, and this is now a common resource for the gold mining industry.

Theories

I really wanted to bring up pyrite having some real gold (even if the amounts are very small). Especially as I can draw a parallel with that to Norton, who may normally seem suspicious, but he isn’t entirely bad. He may seem unapproachable, but you may make progress if you dig deep enough and try hard enough. He isn’t completely “worthless”.

Pyrite coming from the word for  fire connects well to Infernal Sin, while pyrite being a fire starter in the fast due to its ability to create sparks fits well with Norton’s how we see Norton causing the explosion in Golden Cave in his trailer.

Then regarding the sulfuric acid, this actually made me wonder if the contamination in Lakeside, revealed in Yidhra’s letters, could be related to or from Golden Cave.

Ground water is water that seeps into the ground via rain or snow melt. As it makes its way underground, it can collect or react to the minerals and rocks down there, including pyrite, which can eventually result in the oxidation (and all its problems) I described earlier. This can percolate to form sediment at the bottom of rivers with mine drainage, which is water drained from mines. Acid runoff further dissolved heavy metals into water, and acid mine drainage can be increased by the action of certain bacteria (aka, sulfuric acid from pyrite can leech heavy metals from rock, and the acid can be worsened by bacterial action, resulting in this drainage becoming highly toxic).

Problems with mine drainage include contaminated drinking water, disrupted growth and reproduction of plants and animals, and corroding effects of acid on structures.

In general, sulfide rich and carbonate poor materials produce acid drainage. In contrast, alkaline rich materials, even with significant sulfide concentrations, often produce alkaline conditions in water.

Abandoned mines can fill with water (flood) because there’s no pumping occurring (the steam engine was 1st invented to solve mine flooding). This results in unabated chemical reactions, potentially making it very toxic, and this water can even discharge into lakes and streams, killing aquatic life and polluting the environment.

Further acid drainage can result from waste rock, which is material that must be removed to reach the ore. It is often deposited in piles close to the mine, and as it is exposed to air and moisture, it causes weathering, which can generate acid drainage.

Yidhra’s 3rd letter does mention “microbial deposits” in the water and soil as well as the soil’s “acidity and alkalinity”. So maybe it could be connected…?

Part 2

Thoughts regarding specifically how Norton escaped Golden Cave

Norton’s 3rd letter states the police report claimed Norton “dug his way out through a mountain creek a few dozen meters away from the mine”.

It is unlikely Norton simply dug himself out from the mine.

Golden Cave’s backstory states it was “hundreds of meters” deep at least. Mines back in that day (late 19th century) were already 1000s of feet deep (1 was 700-900m = 2300 – 3000ft). Prior to the 1850s, miners could simply walk in to a mine to get where they needed to go, but later on, the mines became so deep, they had to use steam elevators to enable access to deeper seems.

We know Norton was trapped in Golden Cave for some time after the mine collapse considering we know he came out with meteorite chunks. Based on what we see on the lowest level of Golden Cave in game, this likely implies the meteorite was potentially at the bottom, meaning there’d be quite some distance to dig himself out.

The other issue is most miners don’t simply dig themselves out after a collapse. There’s nothing to support the roof and sometimes little space to put the material you remove, not to mention usually a lack of suitable tools. Trying to dig yourself out of a collapsed mine may even weaken the area near the collapse, potentially causing further collapses. This is why most miners usually have to wait to be rescued.

It is possible that Norton was able to access an alternate escape route. Mines were required to have more than 1 shaft following the Hartley mine disaster in 1862. If it or a raise (vertical or inclined passage) had a safety ladder, it’s possible he could work his way back up. During the Barnes-Hecker mine disaster (the mine was flooded), the sole survivor saved himself by climbed 80 stories (around 800 feet) in just about 14 minutes.

Another option is via an intake airway (or downcast shaft), which brings fresh air from the surface into the underground mine. Miners could feel the air to figure out a way out of the mine, and this was breathable air, free from fumes and dust in the case of a fire or explosion. A return airway (upcast shaft) is also an option, but not as nice of one due to the fact it carried air out of the mine to the surface, and this air could include dust, toxic fumes, and such. But miners have escaped via vents before (such as in the Quecreek Mine disaster, which they did to escape the mine as it started flooding).

And if acid mine drainage is potentially related to the pollution and dead animals/plants in Lakeside (Yidhra’s 3rd letter, Grace trailer/deductions), maybe that means there was drainage or some other hole into or out of the mine around there that Norton could’ve used to escape. Norton’s deduction 9 does make it sound like police didn’t expect anyone to survive, which could imply the normal entrances or exits were inaccessible following the collapse, meaning using an alternate, less known route might make sense. We know Norton was knowledgeable, and in the trailer we see him with a map, though based on how his coworkers in that scene look like they might take it from him, he might not have had that, but he may have at least memorized the different ways in and out, and thus how he could manage to escape (especially as explosions can damage the lifts they use to normally get down to the deeper levels).

Norton likely survived due to being some distance from the blast. Some of his coworkers likely died from the initial explosion. The others potentially could’ve succumbed to lack of oxygen, potentially aided if any fires started as a result (which could further weaken supports or cause more collapses), or due to potentially high concentrations of firedamp further down. Afterdamp (choking gas) is a mix of toxic gases (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen) after a methane explosion, and it is just as deadly as the actual explosion. Symptoms include head swimming/disorientation, feeling very tired, difficulty doing anything or exerting yourself, and a desire to just close your eyes and go to sleep (followed soon by death from the lack of oxygen).

[hoboblaidd]

"you can go back to sleep. it's safe."

Rare was the time Solas fell asleep without realizing it. It was a trick he'd pulled on countless others in the past, drawing someone unwillingly into the Fade while their waking body slumped into an unnatural slumber.

He'd been subjected to it precious few times in the past, and then only ever at the hands of an evanuris. The loss of his control was disorienting, and the Fade for a moment felt as unfamiliar to him as modern Thedas. It was an emptiness Solas felt with a tight grip of fear on his heart.

Confusion here led to danger, and an emotion like fear even moreso. Already wisps gathered around him, inquisitive and, as yet, harmless. At the edges of his mind, he felt more powerful spirits take notice of a lost dreamer.

But this was still the Fade, his natural home and as part of him as breathing. Solas may walk its disparate paths now with heavy feet or as a shade of the Wolf, rather than, how had the Iron Bull put it? 'Flap your arms and zip around in there?’ Amusing, and closer to the truth than Bull had realized. But no matter his shape, Solas could bend its paths to his will, and call on spirits to guide him as he traversed the channels he made.

If this forced dream was some Venatori somniari’s doing, it would be a very short-lived victory.

Before he could effectively investigate this, he needed to ground himself. He'd guided enough unwilling dreamers through it in the past, when the evanuris used it as a tool of control. Or even in the intervening years since when he was exhausted and traveled as barely more than a lupine shade, stumbling across mortals ensnared by Tevinter dreamers. The process was the same, mortal or otherwise. If they could manage it, so too could that which was once called Wisdom.

He went through the process methodically.

Where was he when he fell asleep? The Storm Coast of Ferelden, in an Inquisition camp atop a rocky outcropping, with unrelenting rain and cold air from the sea battering their tents. He pushed on the Fade to take that shape. The wind whistled around him and he tasted salt in the air from the ocean's runoff.

Was he alone when he fell asleep? The others were around them. His Inquisitor laughing at some cryptic observation Cole made about Dorian and the Iron Bull. Varric and Cassandra bickering as she helped raise his tent. He focused on that noise, and the sound of Varric's wry retorts echoed around him, the sound of his Inquisitor's unflattering snort of laughter, Cole's stuttering confusion at a joke he did not realize he'd told.

What was he doing when he fell asleep? He...could not remember. Confusion, fear, and more spirits congregated around him. He pushed past the emotions once again, firmly sticking to the logic game he forced himself back into. What was the last thing he did remember doing? Sitting with little Nanna Amell. He let out a slow exhale, and the Fade softened around him, as she so often softened him. Sitting with Nanna, sharing a rare fond memory from her days in Ferelden's Circle. A smile that reached her eyes, and one he always returned. Asleep in a place of peace, then.

Grounded, he held out his hand. The Fade shimmered as he called forth stone over the memory of the muddy ground of Ferelden. He set foot before foot, and the wisps became guides rather than curiosities. The spirits at the edges of his mind calmed as he did, and the path winded through the amalgamation of the Storm Coast back to the waking world.

Solas.

He started, and his careful reconstruction and control of the Fade slipped. The salty air of the Waking Sea soured on his tongue. Varric's voice distorted into a tremble of the earth he had not felt since they first took these bodies, the Inquisitor's laugh rose into a cry as Andruil crushed a village in retaliation for his actions. The soft look in Nanna's eyes blackened and her fond memory was choked by the blight.

But so, too, did the wisps around him flee, and the push of the greater spirits dissipated. He was in the presence of something that far outshone them. Something he had not thought to feel again, because he had run from it. One of them. The greatest of them. And his instinct was to run from her.

It was not her voice, or at least, not as he remembered it. It had been so long that even the shape of her felt distant. But he felt her as readily as when they'd simply been Wisdom and Benevolence. The press of her arm against his as they watched his first sunrise. A voice guiding him to the Titan blood he would shape into their dagger. The hand on his face as she admonished him for betraying her but declared that her steadfast love and friendship had never waned in spite of it. The ripple of her murder echoing across the Fade to the Lighthouse.

"Mythal?" His voice was small in the sudden, vast nothingness around him. There was no ground or sky. He could not force a path, or call on spirits to guide him. He had no control, and in the emptiness there was now only him.

Why have you not looked for me?

He had, once, when first he'd woken. He'd felt her impossible presence in the world and sought her out in the memories of the Fifth Blight. From Kinloch Hold to the Korcari Wilds he'd searched for her. He'd found the memory of something like her, a human woman in a swamp who spoke with two voices. It had morphed into a memory of a pendant given to another human to take to the same Waking Sea he now slept before. Asha'bellanar, it had spoken to him, and beckoned him to cross the ocean for her.

And he hadn't.

I have waited for you. Why have you not come for me?

Because he did not recognize her in that human woman. And perhaps, it was because when he'd first woken into a world without any evanuris, a small part of him had rejoiced before the full extent of the calamity of the Veil became known to him. They were free. He had won. His work was at last done.

I wait for you. Why do you not come to me?

"I can't," he whispered.

Ever you make the wrong choice, old friend.

Solas started awake with a gasp, quiet and contained, but there, and lurched upright. His heart pounded and his breath stuck fast in his throat. He reached beside him with a shaking hand for Nahele's arm. She was always there when he woke, the smell of her hair against his face, softly snoring where her nose pressed into his neck, and her eternally cold feet laced below his legs for warmth.

But she was not there.

He dug his heel into the sand, feeling its damp sharpness cut into his skin. He gazed sharply above, like a beast cornered and looking for escape, but though there was no sky, a red tarp flapped overhead with the wind. The air tasted of salt, gulls called to each other. Night had fallen outside, the fires doused and heating runes glowing beneath each tent. The pale light of a waning moon cut through some of the dark clouds carrying the storm.

Awake, he thought. Most likely awake.

He felt a light touch on his arm and he turned sharply

"You can go back to sleep," said Nanna. "It's safe."

It wasn't. It could not be further from the truth. His fist clenched tightly until his knuckles whitened, and he used the slight pain to ground himself, even as his chest tightened and his breath came unevenly. He felt a spirit congregate just outside the tent, but he recognized Compassion. Cole had felt his distress, and he felt a slight softening of the tension stealing his voice.

"I apologize, Nanna," Solas said as if nothing had happened. But usually he called her da'len. Saying her name made her feel more real. "I must have drifted off." Judging by the height of the moon in the night sky, it would have been hours. "I would...prefer to stay awake awhile instead if," he paused. It had been so long since he asked for something like companionship that it felt foreign. Solas smiled to disguise his hesitation, but it did not reach his eyes. "If you would like to continue your story." Easier to put the onus back on her instead of admitting that he desperately needed to hear someone else talk, to chase the voice from his dreams and keep him here. His hands still shook. "You were telling me of your friend, Evune. I’d like to hear more.”

[highly-important]

Stoned and watching original Fraggle Rock when I clean. Some observations:

1. One episode Red talks about being afraid of death. I’m kind of glad the internet doesn’t know about it because people get so weird about any darkness or real discussion in a kids show. I don’t think kid’s media should completely insulate kids from serious issues. Our media should reflect our reality and our real thoughts, even if it is fantasy or surreal or absurdist or for children.

2. The ecology theme is incredibly well-thought out and fun. Fraggle Rock is a well connected system where changes to one element can throw the system out of wack. The wise and knowledgeable sage is a compost heap, the industrious bug-like dozers that make food for the fraggles.

“Educational” also doesn’t have to mean teaching facts and memorization. The point of Fraggle Rock is to get children to see their world and their connection to it in a different way.

2 B. It puts Doc in a strange place because he can only pass things down from the surface. In one episode, Doc turns off his water while he fixes a pipe, and the Fraggle’s cave and the Gorgs go without water until the Fraggles do a traditional rain dance pipe-banging ritual, the sound which gets Doc to turn back on the water.

Another episode Doc seriously considers taking 100k$ as payment for dumpling industrial runoff in the limestone caves under his property.

3. I accidentally hit the Mudbunny episode/ AIDS allegory. Going to go cry now

I have more to say but this is enough for now

[cognitivejustice]

A 2,000-year-old Sri Lankan hydraulic system uses natural features to help harvest and store rainwater. In a rapidly warming world, it is providing a lifeline for rural communities.

Each April, in the village of Maeliya in northwest Sri Lanka, Pinchal Weldurelage Siriwardene gathers his community under the shade of a large banyan tree. The tree overlooks a human-made body of water called a wewa – meaning reservoir or "tank" in Sinhala. The wewa stretches out besides the village's rice paddies for 175-acres (708,200 sq m) and is filled with the rainwater of preceding months. 

 Tank cascades are receiving new attention as climate change is projected to increase both Sri Lanka's drought and flood risk (Credit: Zinara Rathnayake) 

Siriwardene, the 76-year-old secretary of the village's agrarian committee, has a tightly-guarded ritual to perform. By boiling coconut milk on an open hearth beside the tank, he will seek blessings for a prosperous harvest from the deities residing in the tree. "It's only after that we open the sluice gate to water the rice fields," he told me when I visited on a scorching mid-April afternoon.

By releasing water into irrigation canals below, the tank supports the rice crop during the dry months before the rains arrive. For nearly two millennia, lake-like water bodies such as this have helped generations of farmers cultivate their fields. An old Sinhala phrase, "wewai dagabai gamai pansalai", even reflects the technology's centrality to village life; meaning "tank, pagoda, village and temple".

But the village's tank does not work alone. It is part of an ancient hydraulic network called an ellangawa, or "tank cascade system". As such, the artificial lake at Maeliya links up with smaller, man-made reservoirs upstream in the watershed. Together with their carefully managed natural surroundings, these interconnecting storage structures allow rainwater to be harvested, shared and re-used across the local area.

Constructed from the 4th Century BC up to the 1200s, these cascade systems have long helped Sri Lankan communities cope with prolonged periods of dry weather. "As most of the country is made up of crystalline hard rock with poor permeability, it induces runoff, " says Christina Shanthi De Silva, senior professor in agricultural and plantation engineering at The Open University of Sri Lanka. "Our forefathers built tank cascades to capture this surface runoff," she explains, preventing it from being washed away into rivers and, ultimately, the sea.

Such knowledge has since been passed down the generations. In a laminated box file, Siriwardene carefully safeguards a map his father, the village head, drew of Maeliya's cascade. There are nine tanks in this particular cascade, his father writes. A copy of another handwritten booklet documents the tanks' history and the folk poems that villagers sang in gratitude for its continuous water resource.

[kaladinsspear]

Dumb Epiphany

You know how everybody is always like 'cold showers are amazing! They make you feel so refreshed and good and ready to take on the world! Cold showers are good for your nervous system!"

Well, I just realized that taking a cold shower does not mean turning the water to the coldest setting it gets and stepping straight into glacial runoff. I can, in fact, start the shower with warm water and slowly bring the water cooler until it is a comfortably cool like spring rain. I don't even have to make the water particularly cold, just cold enough to feel refreshing.

Turns out I do like cold showers.

[eccentric-nucleus]

i'm really approaching being 'done' with engine-level concerns for my game-thing (still have to do: houses & interiors; redoing the shader in general to handle interior spaces including caves; npcs; npc schedules. i'm not counting ui screens for game mechanics or stuff like biome simulation w/e as 'engine-level' since they'll mostly be game logic) and so now i'm having to think about actual Game Stuff like setting and plot and the like

i think i've posted about it before, but there was this moment when i was first getting into kenshi and really enjoying it. like, okay there's this squad rpg system, and you can roam around the world and eventually settle down to build your own town anywhere you want. and i was like, hmm, are there any other games like this? and looking it up people were like: mount and blade! medieval dynasty! and to me so much of the appeal of kenshi was this bizarre world it was set in, these horrible failing racist slaver states you bounce between, the old robot empire ruins, the one area that's just constant laser bombardment during the day. weird bugpeople with pheromone issues. and all the games would were saying were 'like kenshi' were just, medieval europe. and i was like: god i am so sick of medieval fantasy. there's nothing wrong with it, it's just so so so oversaturated. and i like the desert as a setting. so.

(when i was writing the new hive i was really thinking about how like, there's trigun influence there and there's gears of war influence there. and like any shooty game post-2001, the desert in gears of war is meant to evoke the middle east, iraq, afghanistan. meanwhile trigun's deserts, the whole of planet gunsmoke is obviously much more of a western. it's the american southwest. very different kinds of desert!)

anyway currently i'm drawing references from the todra river gorge in morocco and the aïr mountains in niger. the aïr mountains in particular have been interesting b/c they do actually match the geography i had been thinking of: oasis-village fed by mountain runoff. when clouds come, the colder mountain air wrings out the moisture so you get rain on the mountain, and the mountain is mostly impermiable rock so the rain all sheets off into gullies and turns into torrential flooding. hence all the arroyos surrounded by vegetation and farmland on the satellite imagery

so that's neat, but now i'm thinking about the process of actually procedurally generating that kind of landscape and it's pretty intimidating. watersheds are always complicated to generate b/c they're fundamentally non-local, since they require knowledge of how all the local elevations come together into a flow network. aaah

[creativecapybara]

Cult vulture designs for my Runoff AU

[useless-englandfacts]

Is the sewage problem also climate related?

yeah, that’s definitely part of it!

overflow happens when there’s heavy rainfall, so in a world where freak storms are more likely there will also be more overflow. heatwaves are equally bad because it dries up the soil so that it’s less able to absorb water, which then leads to more rainwater pouring down the drains into the sewers.

population growth is a contributory factor (simply more people flushing), as is urban creeping (when people convert gardens into built-up surfaces like driveways and patios so that we lose permeable surfaces to absorb rain, increasing runoff).

but yes our sewage system, like most of the uk’s infrastructure, is poorly adapted for extreme weather conditions. which makes sense, because hypothetically we shouldn’t experience extreme weather! but. here we are.

[beardedmrbean]

For too long, California and other states have viewed stormwater as either a threat or an inconvenience — something to be whisked away from cities and communities as quickly as possible.

But as traditional sources of water face worsening strain from climate change, population growth, agriculture and other factors, those unused gallons of rainwater pouring across asphalt or down rain gutters are starting to be viewed as an untapped resource that can help close the widening gap between supply and demand.

In a report released Thursday, researchers with the Pacific Institute determined that every year, 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater go uncaptured across the United States — or roughly 53 billion gallons per day. The amount is equivalent to 93% of the water withdrawals for municipal and industrial uses in 2015, the most recent year for which national data were available.

"The numbers are clear. It's time to elevate the role of stormwater capture in the national water conversation," said Bruk Berhanu, the report's lead author and a senior researcher with the Pacific Institute, a California-based water-focused think-tank.

Of the 10 states with the most "untapped potential," California ranks ninth with approximately 2.27 million acre-feet of urban area runoff each year. (An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons — enough water to supply up to three homes for a year).

What's more, Los Angeles represents the urban area with the greatest stormwater runoff potential in the West, ranking 19th in the country. The census-defined urban area includes L.A., Long Beach and Anaheim, and experiences approximately 490,000 acre-feet of runoff each year, or roughly 437 million gallons per day.

It would not be feasible or desirable to capture every drop of that missed water, as some stormwater is needed for environmental use, ecological health, recreation and other purposes, Berhanu said. Yet the sheer volume indicates that far more could be done, and that stormwater could become a significant supply alternative in communities across the country.

Texas was the state with the most untapped potential, 7.8 million acre-feet of urban area runoff each year. The analysis accounted for the size of each urban area as well as its historic annual rainfall, the researchers said.

The findings come at a critical moment. In California and many other parts of the world, traditional water sources — including underground aquifers and fresh water from rivers, streams and snowmelt — are becoming less reliable.

The Fifth National Climate Change Assessment found that the American Southwest can expect extended periods of reduced precipitation in the years ahead, which will be interrupted by bursts of extreme rainfall and flooding. The Colorado River — a water lifeline for 40 million people across the region — is projected to see flows reduced by as much as 30% by 2050.

In response to tightening supplies, urban water managers are turning to strict conservation measures and alternatives such as desalination and recycled wastewater to help keep taps flowing. But stormwater is also an asset, and a growing number of cities and states are beginning to implement projects to take advantage of rainfall when it comes.

For years, stormwater "was seen as a problem, as a burden you've got to push somewhere else, whereas today, we're looking at it more as a resource," said Seth Brown, executive director of the nonprofit National Municipal Stormwater Alliance. "That's the big paradigm shift that's been going on in the stormwater sector."

Despite this growing interest, the report found that greater uptake of stormwater is hindered by a lack of comprehensive data characterizing the national volumetric potential, as well as the lack of a nationwide framework for stormwater capture, treatment and reuse, among other barriers.

Water rights and public health codes governing use and pollutants are also challenges, Brown said. Funding can also be a hurdle because stormwater efforts often require long-term thinking and investments.

But the payoff is worth it — particularly as the limitations of past unsustainable practices become clearer, he said. While stormwater likely would not replace all other supplies, it could be a key piece of a city's or region's water portfolio.

"What we're going to see in the future is going to be an all-of-the-above kind of thing — it's going to be water recycling as well as stormwater capture and reuse," Brown said. "It's going to play a significant enough role where we should talk about it, and think about it, and start addressing it now."

In California, officials are working to achieve this through a number of projects. During the 2023 water year, state agencies permitted more than 1.2 million acre-feet of groundwater recharge — including nearly 400,000 acre-feet that were recharged after Gov. Gavin Newsom temporarily lifted regulations to allow more floodwater from storms to be diverted into areas where it could percolate into the ground.

The state is also moving forward with plans for a proposed tunnel that would capture and move more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta during wet years. Had the tunnel been operational this winter, the Department of Water Resources could have captured about 481,000 acre-feet of stormwater between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22, or enough water for about 5 million people for a year, officials said.

"The recent winter storms have brought a lot of water that has the potential to be captured and stored underground to replenish groundwater basins," said Margaret Mohr, the DWR's deputy director of communications. She noted that since 2019, the state has invested more than $160 million in projects that help urban areas capture, store and reuse runoff.

"As we face a hotter, drier future brought on by climate change, we are going to continue to see less snowpack, meaning we can't rely as heavily on snowpack for future water supply as we have in the past," Mohr said. "California must continue to invest in water management strategies like stormwater capture, groundwater recharge and recycled water to ensure that our water supply remains safe and reliable and to provide continued flood protection for communities."

Los Angeles too is taking steps to improve its stormwater capture capabilities. In 2018, Angelenos passed Measure W, a tax aimed at capturing and cleaning more stormwater before it reaches the ocean. The program, which allocates about $280 million annually to stormwater projects, has seen some success, although a recent assessment found its progress has been slow.

The work often includes removing concrete, asphalt and other aspects of the built environment to create more opportunities for stormwater to seep into the ground, where it can recharge the aquifers that feed the city's supplies.

The program's ultimate goal is to capture 300,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2045. On average, L.A. County now captures and infiltrates about half that, according to Vision 45, a report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Heal the Bay and Los Angeles Waterkeeper last year.

That report provides a road map for a more sustainable water future in L.A. and includes several recommendations to improve stormwater capture. Among them are newly constructed regional projects; better use of existing projects; and the implementation of projects at the parcel and neighborhood scale.

"[E]ach year, whether we have above- or below-average rainfall, billions of gallons of stormwater flow over paved surfaces, through the storm drain system, and out to the ocean without the opportunity for infiltration because we do not yet have the infrastructure to capture all the rain that falls in a single rain event," it said.

The Pacific Institute's assessment also outlines a number of recommendations to improve stormwater capture, beginning with more detailed quantification of opportunities at local, regional and state levels, as well as the creation of national guidelines.

Other recommendations include expanded funding and financing opportunities for stormwater capture; enhanced regional approaches and collaboration between agencies; and reduced restrictions on how stormwater can be used. Public-private partnerships can also make a big difference since "runoff is generated on privately owned land just as much as publicly owned land," said Berhanu, the lead author.

That could mean rain barrels or rain gardens on front lawns, or increased interest from corporations with large real estate portfolios. San Francisco, for example, now requires large new developments of 100,000 square feet or more to install onsite reuse systems, such as graywater or stormwater systems, for irrigation, toilets and other nonpotable uses.

"We definitely don't want to point to one particular strategy over another, but it is very clear that there needs to be a mix of strategies involved," Berhanu said.

Heather Cooley, director of research with the Pacific Institute, noted that stormwater capture has other benefits as well.

"Urban runoff into waterways is a major source of pollution," she said. "Metals, nutrients, chemicals, pesticides — all sorts of things we're using in our urban spaces and discharging those into waterways. So it not only helps to avoid downstream water supply impacts, but it can provide water quality benefits as well."

Stormwater capture is also a key component of flood control, as channels such as the Los Angeles River help to prevent water from flowing into neighborhoods during heavy storms.

But all of those needs and uses could be better addressed through improved stormwater capture capabilities and making sure more drops are saved, the report says.

"This research shows it's a lot of water," Cooley said. "It could be a significant component of our water supply, and could help to fill that supply-demand gap in communities across the U.S."

[socialfakes]

start to finish- milo manheim

[milo won the poll so here it is. also, this social media thing is runoff from a fic i was working on back when i had my iphone so the'y/n' in this situation is 'abby'. enjoy! ps; reads better on desktop]

Liked by megdonnelly and 199,207 others

milomanheim | we like dancing in the rain 🕺🏻

view all 548 comments

megdonnelly this > anything 😊

defaultedabby wow the timer finally worked for you? | milomanheim yeah, finally 🤣

jspencermac she’s a keeper 😉 | defaultedabby you’re a keeper ❤️

fanuser1 who is this, milo? We need to know 😫

fanuser2 NEW RELATIONSHIP ALERT?!?!

curlysuede you and who? Who is this?  | milomanheim my best friend, of course

Liked by milomanheim and 312 others

defaultedabby | celebrating a special day today so i thought y’all should get to see the most adorable photo in the world milomanheim happy birthday bubs. i looooove you 🥰

view all 17 comments

milomanheim so happy i get to celebrate with you every year. you’re the best 😊

fanuser3 he’s a cutie

milosbiggestfan milo my love. you’re luckyto be his friend. i’d give anything for that

manheimfan wow what a cutie

megdonnelly he used to be cute. What happened? 😂 | defaultedabby he became handsome  | milomanheim yeah. and now i’m sexy, right? 😉

jspencermac that’s the face of someone who certainly knows how to get what he wants 😂  | milomanheim well who could say no 😂😂  | defaultedabby ^ 👍🏻

Liked by jspencermac and 714 others

defaultedabby | 🍕🥰 milomanheim

view all 38 comments

milomanheim rather have pizza with my squid than with anyone else 🥰

megdonnelly the greatest duo there ever was 😂  | defaultedabby i disagree. i believe you and i are superior 😉  | milomanheim rude ^  | megdonnelly awe i think you hurt his feelings

fanuser4 how is he so cute???  | defaultedabby 🤷🏻‍♀️

jspencermac this trip was fun  | defaultedabby still got lots of pizzerias to try 😊

Liked by milomanheim and 412 others

defaultedabby | quite literally the most perfect person in the world & an even more perfect prom date 🥰 milomanheim

view all 37 comments

fanuser5 are you guys dating or something? it really seems like it 🤔  | milomanheim no we are not. i can assure you  | defaultedabby no we are not. i can guarantee you

megdonnelly perfect prom AND prawn date 😂😉

milomanheim why did you crop yourself out of the pic?  | defaultedabby needed to focus on the perfection here and i looked weird in the pic  | milomanheim false. you never look weird  | jspencermac i agree with milo  | defaultedabby ❤❤

fanuser6 well hello there 😉

zaddisonforlife damn

fanuser7 hottie alert!

Liked by defaultedabby and 214,508 others

milomanheim | christmas with squid 🐙🥰 defaultedabby

view all 946 comments

jspencermac she’s a beaut, my friend 😉 | defaultedabby ❤🥰

defaultedabby love you, puff 😉

megdonnelly the cutest :D  | defaultedabby love you ❤

peytonelizabethlee you guys went for coffee without me?!?!? I am offended 🥺  | defaultedabby tomorrow?  | peytonelizabethlee yes!

fanuser8 so this is your girlfriend? wow. way to go, milo. she’s so pretty  | milomanheim i know right? but she’s not my girlfriend 😊  | defaultedabby not his girlfriend but thank you 🥰

fanuser9 you guys have gotta be dating 🙃

Liked by jspencermac and 914 others

defaultedabby | christmas with puff 🐡🥰 milomanheim

view all 72 comments

milomanheim the best present 😉

camrynmanheim puff and squid, together again. makes my heart happy 😊  | defaultedabby i love you ❤  | milomanheim ❤

fanuser10 hes cute  | defaultedabby the cutest 😉

defaultedabby before anyone asks, we are NOT dating

jspencermac you’re welcome for getting him home 😊  | defaultedabby forever grateful for you 🥰😊

fanuser11 as much as i want you two to be dating, i’m actually convinced the actual couple is you and jspencermac  | jspencermac nope  | defaultedabby deffs not 😂  | jspencermac ^ ouch 😢

fanuser12 are you sure you guys aren’t dating?

Liked by peytonlist and 10,413 others

defaultedabby | so proud of Puff 🐡🥰 wally couldn’t have been more perfect & that jacket? wow 🔥😉🤤 milomanheim paramountplus

view all 173 comments

peytonlist best scene partner, obvi 😊

milomanheim the jacket is coming home 😉  | defaultedabby good 😉  | fanuser13 mhm definitely not dating 😂

addisonraee 🔥🔥  | defaultedabby ^👍🏻

megdonnelly oh milo i miss you ☹  | milomanheim miss you too meg ☹  | defaultedabby you don’t miss me? man i sure feel offended 😭  | megdonnelly of course i miss you. i miss you the absolute most 😯❤  | defaultedabby we come back home soon. can’t wait to see you 😊

fanuser14 did you go with him to film? that’s some couple behavior right there  | milomanheim no it’s best friend behavior. plus it was a surprise  | defaultedabby his mom couldn’t be there so she sent me to support him, just like i always do 😊

Liked by milomanheim and 9,847 others

defaultedabby | who knew that a slytherin & a hufflepuff would have such a great friendship? Ps; the only slytherin i like 🤗

view all 912 comments

fanuser15 ‘friendship’ my ass. you guys are totally dating 😂

milomanheim you are the only hufflepuff i like 😊 | defaultedabby ❤❤

fanuser16 he looks good in glasses

jspencermac never seen a better friendship  | defaultedabby so what do you call ours? 😂  | fanuser11 i believe it would be called a relationship | defaultedabby you again? 🙄

wizardingworld he could be harry potter if he wanted to 😊  | milomanheim if he was a slytherin 😂

megdonelly slytherins suck. ravenclaws are the best  | milomanheim you take that back. we do NOT suck  | defaultedabby slytherins do suck but milo is the ONLY exception ❤  | milomanheim i’ll take it 😊

Liked by defaultedabby and 387,126 others

milomanheim | surprise 😯   ive learned a lot in my teenage years but the main thing is to never let anyone you truly love get away defaultedabby is not only my best friend but she is also the squid to my puff and i honestly could not love her more ❤

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defaultedabby i love you way more than i could ever EVER express milo ❤♾

fanuser 3 I FREAKING KNEW IT!!!

fanuser12 I knew this the entire time 😂 but congratulations

jspencermac my favorite couple  | megdonnelly x2  | peytonlist x3  | peytonelizabethlee x4  | defaultedabby I love you all tremendously  | jspencermac but obviously not as much as milo 😉

fanuser14 anyone want to talk about that ring she’s wearing? 🤔  | camrynmanheim it means nothing…yet 😉 maybe in the future though

camrynmanheim 21 years in the making 😉❤

Liked by jspencermac and 68,752 others

defaultedabby | love of my life, platonically 😊 just kidding. milomanheim ;the love of my life, literally. ever since we were in diapers, i had a feeling this loser would hold the biggest piece of my heart forever. Not only my best friend, but my person entirely and the puff to my squid. milo has taught me so much and i could not love him more ❤

view all 912 comments

milomanheim we said puff and squid forever when we were 6 and we truly meant it, huh? ❤

peytonlist omg you two are seriously too cute 😊 can’t wait for the wedding 😉  | milomanheim relax, dude. we are just dating rn  | peytonlist for now 😉

megdonnelly never saw anybody cuter than you two 😊  | defaultedabby we love you ❤  | milomanheim 😊

camrynmanheim i am so thankful for you 😊  | defaultedabby i am so thankful for you too & thank you for giving me the opportunity to love your son ❤  | camrynmanheim thank you for making him so happy ❤

fanuser11 my favorite couple 😊

fanuser9 i really knew about this the whole time & nobody believed me 😂

[coldshrugs]

💖 🖊 for the fic questions? <3

💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

i mentioned some other things in a different ask, but i like how i set scenes?? idk!! i think i do a decent job of establishing setting and mood, and giving enough context that most people can just jump in without prior investment.

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

this is what i've been dabbling with lately, idk!!

Ksiroda is a river in name only, except for a few reliable months each year when the island of Thavnair is overwhelmed by rain. A blessed season, according to locals from whom Io takes her education, where all is washed clean, back to the ocean. The rains nourish the already-rich soil of the tropical forest and in the weeks after they’ve gone, people from every corner of the island flock to the lowlands in search of all manner of flora. Medicinal herbs, just-sprouted mushrooms, roots exposed in the runoff, and treebarks softened by the storms—treasures gifted by the Mrga to aid their people. Io only wants a handful of flowers. It took hours to find them. She left the city at midday, but time is easily lost beneath the shrouded canopy, moving as slowly as the now-trickling Ksiroda. A bell or so ago, she removed her shoes, pinned her shirt to her waist, and waded to the opposite bank, deciding this side had been picked clean by gatherers who had the sense to come foraging before she did. Her luck changes on the less-worn paths south of Palaka’s Stand. Cradled in forked, low-hanging branches of an unassuming tree are the white blooms she seeks—jasmine. Nonexistent in Eorzea but abundant on this side of the world, and one of her favorite flowers. A reminder of a time when her life was smaller, simpler. As she gathers the flowers, the heavy, green sweetness of their scent carries Io back to another time, and to a place she can never forget. Her mother was fond of jasmine too; she tended to trailing vines around their home. Though her hands were slender and refined, her true love was betrayed by the line of fresh soil beneath her nails. The scent followed her around their home as she dropped blooming bunches into vases or hung them to dry in windows. Io’s hands could be the double of Marit’s, down to the meticulous way she preens the little bunches from their vines. She wonders if her mother would approve of her now. If she would forgive her for the things she’s had to do during the last sixteen years. And would she be amused that after all of that, her daughter is still compelled to trek through a jungle to pick jasmine for a man who’s never smelled it? Marit’s teasing smile assaults her from the past. Gods, she needs to stop thinking of her mother.

[cl0udy-wolf]

price of freedom

part one: fate and destiny.

during his years as a fire nation soldier, lee has faced much strife. but now he must realize the true price of freedom.

tws?: character death.

In the back of a carriage, Lee sat covered with a cloth, camouflaged with the sacks and crates of vegetables. Aito sat next to him, alert, an arm around Lee's shoulder, pulling him in and keeping him steady. The wheels would hitch every now and then from the debris on the path.

They were both extremely lucky to find Aito's relative where they were stationed. He was willing to bring them back to where they belonged after they strayed from the rest of the division during battle.

Aito peered down at Lee, who seemed out of it. He placed his hand on Lee's forehead and was disappointed to find he was still burning up. He removed the cloth so he could get some air, then took a deep breath himself. 

For a moment, he allowed himself to be calm and thankful that they had made it this far. 

He gently shook Lee by the shoulders. No response. 

"Hey, you doing okay?"

No response. Lee continued to stare blankly at the floor of the carriage. 

Aito snapped next to Lee's right ear, and the younger turned his head slightly. He snapped next to the left ear, and once again received no response. 

He retrieved his water skin from his pack and poured some on a smaller cloth, then placed it on Lee's forehead to hopefully reduce his fever.

The rest of the trip was spent changing Lee's cloth and watching the endless rocky landscape pass by. Aito stole an apple and offered one half to Lee, who held it loosely in his hand. He took a small bite after a while.

It was quiet, save for the hooves of the ostrich horses clacking against the road, and the sound of Lee's breathing as he napped on Aito's shoulder.

With a bit of childish curiosity, Aito asked the sleeping boy, "We're friends, right?"

He was interrupted by the clang of small, bullet-like rocks ricocheting off the carriage. Aito dodged, then shouted to his cousin. "Hey, park us over by the rocks!" He threw Lee over his shoulder. "Lee, ride's over!"

The carriage left them behind, and Aito brought Lee to cover behind large rocks. The enemy army rapidly approaching, Aito tried to wake Lee from his dazed state, and still, nothing. He groaned.

Gently, he tucked away Lee's messy hair, then placed his helmet on his head. He stared at him for a moment. 

Eyes closed, Lee could've been mistaken for an angel. In these few seconds, he was away from the world that had caused him so much strife, instead dreaming about a place where he found peace.

He couldn't dream for long, Aito knew that, and he shook him. Lee woke up, a soft groan of pain leaving him.

"I'll be back soon," Aito said. "If I don't come back in-" He glanced behind him at the enemy. "-ten minutes, then leave without me."

Lee gave him a confused look. He barely registered the words, in his groggy state.

Aito sighed. He shifted to Lee's right side. "Listen. Wait ten minutes, and if I don't come back, save yourself."

Aito turned and began to walk away. Lee reached out for him, his hand shaking, but Aito didn't look back.

Lee waited five minutes before gathering all his strength and rising from his seat. He stumbled several times before regaining his footing. He trudged forward, watching the dust settle from their attackers, shuffling until he hit the dirt. He crawled on his stomach. 

He was covered with mud and dirt and soaked with rain by the time he reached Aito, lying on his back with his arms and legs spread out, a knife just barely out of his grasp. The sight of his blood, being carried by the runoff, made Lee pick up his pace, though not by much.

Aito was still alive, but...

Lee plopped himself in the dirt next to Aito, sitting over him. His lips parted, and he didn't speak until a few seconds later.

"Aito."

Aito stared back at him. His lips slowly curled into a soft smile. He struggled to see over the blood in his eyes, yet he knew Lee was safe, for now.

"For the...both of us..."

"Both of us?"

Aito grabbed Lee by the shirt and brought him in for a hug. Lee rested his head on Aito's chest, feeling his arm wrapped weakly around him. He was slipping away, out of his grasp.

"Live," Aito breathed. 

He chuckled softly. "That's right...you're gonna...you're gonnna..."

Lee sat up, coming back with his face coated in a layer of Aito's blood. He returned Aito's gaze, seeing his smile grow as he turned his head to the side and watched the rain sprinkle down into a small pool.

With his other hand, Aito ripped his dog tags from his neck and placed them in Lee's palm.

Aito. Fire Nation Army. 41st Division. 

Lee tried to shake his head in protest. As if that would stop the hands of fate. 

Aito let out a soft breath. And that was it.

Lee held Aito's tags close to his chest. He looked up at the sky, gray clouds blocking the sun. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he squeezed the tags a little tighter.

His heartwretching scream turned sob echoed for miles. He threw himself down into Aito's arms, holding his hand so tightly he felt it would break. 

Letting the rain wash over both of them, Lee remained unmoving. He peered up at Aito.

Eyes closed, he could've been mistaken for an angel. He was far away from the world that had caused him so much strife, instead floating up in the clouds above. 

The seconds stretched into minutes that stretched into hours, and yet Lee didn't seem to notice. He felt like he did back in the carriage, dissociated, out of it, his illness wrecking havoc on his body and weakening his spirits further.

This would be a nice place to die, he thought.

But then the face of someone dear to him, waiting for his return in Capital City, flashed in his mind. A fire was lit in his heart. 

As the storm cleared and sunlight poked through the clouds, Lee rose. Aito's tags in his hand, and their final conversation repeating in his mind, Lee's determination burned like raging flames.

He forced himself away from Aito's final resting place and took his first few steps that would lead him back home.