#regulations to control use of all resources

[ivesambrose]

PAC: WHAT WILL BRING YOU JOY

Something we all could use a little more of 💕

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Picture 1

You may have felt a sense of helplessness of late. As though certain events and circumstances have genuinely been out of your control. Might have gone through some betrayals that led to certain necessary endings or have been dealing with loss that may have impacted your mental health too. Certain things have been necessary and whether you're fully aware of it or not, you do feel lighter. You will feel much lighter in the coming months eventually. For most of you, I'm seeing dancing, performance arts as well as a retreat to somewhere open and green will bring you joy. You really really need to fill your lungs with fresh air. Some of you have been on the edge or rather anxious and sleepless too. You need to breathe. Being around or tending to animals will bring you joy too. Learning about health and wellness will also do you well. Some of you will find joy in painting with water colors or taking quiet walks late at night (stay safe please) some of you could also use a swim or take up swimming for yourself. You need to pause and appreciate the things you don't really pay attention to. Maybe even listen to your subconscious more and block the external noise out this could also mean decluttering your room and/or surroundings as well.

Picture 2

You may have felt out of place or felt as though you have lacked community or resources for yourself. You're very protective of yourself and your energy as well as whatever you've accumulated by yourself be it in matters of wealth or any other accolades. You have a creative fire within you that is supposed to burn bright enough to illuminate the way without burning you out. Writing, communicating, journaling, learning, nurturing yourself and others will bring you joy. Celebrate yourself and the smallest wins in your life. Your thoughts, ideas, words, your voice especially and your mere presence is immensely powerful and this mere gift that you possses will inevitably turn your life around when you least expect it. Explore the world ahead, you do posses the ability to manifest it. The only reason you think it's denied to you is because you're afraid of taking the leap of faith. But rest assured, when time comes, it will feel right and you wouldn't have to overthink it. Till then, work on channeling your emotions into something creative that feels meditative at the same time. You don't require external validation for this. Learn to regulate your nervous system and self soothe too. You may also end up being a part of or building a community of people who feel like family too.

Picture 3

You may have felt severely isolated and it's not a new emotion, it's been lingering on and off for quiet some time. You've gained necessary wisdom however and learned to feel safe and welcome in your own company. You've likely also felt extremely defensive and at wits end with the people you've encountered as well. You're craving change and will invite a major one soon enough. For you, self expression of any form be it experimenting with your aesthetic or even transforming yourself completely be it your physical body, the way you look or the way you see the world will bring you joy. Some of you are also born entertainers some of you might really be into makeup or cosplay too. Others of you simply need to blatantly romanticize your existence and life for your own sake, treat it as cinema and watch your plot unfold. You're meant to make an impact of some sort, use your influence well and wisely. You have massive will power and perseverance. But that doesn't mean you need to treat every day like an active battle field that you need to survive. Some of you need to know that, even if the past feels familiar you can't live there if you seek to expand your horizons. The world is waiting for you as much as you're waiting for the world. Erase the mental and emotional distance you have put between you and what you desire.

[tlbodine]

So, Things Are Terrible and You Want to DO SOMETHING

The election is over and, ah...did not go well. While a lot of folks are doing a post mortem of the campaigns and trying to understand what happened with the vote and fighting over who shoulders the blame, we've gotta turn an eye toward the future and figure out, okay fam, where the fuck do we go from here.

I don't have all the answers on this, and I'm not an authority by any means, I'm just a horror author with a blog. But I've been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to share my thought process with others who might want to DO SOMETHING but feel they're spinning their wheels.

Buckle in. This will be a long one.

Step One: Understand the actual risks and stakes.

I think it is very easy to start panicking now about the worst possible case scenario -- jackbooted military busting into the door to disappear everyone who ever said something mean about Trump or bought a banned book or something -- and let fear turn into inaction.

I'm not saying things can't get that bad, and I'm not saying that it won't be absolutely terrifying right out the gate for some particularly at-risk groups -- but the distance between "now" and "V for Vendetta" is long and filled with a lot of intermediary steps. There will be so many opportunities to prevent the worst case scenario.

I say this because, if your mental image of "Bad Things Happening" is The Purge, it will be easy to wake up on inauguration day, look outside to see that the world is not on fire, think, hey, maybe things will be okay after all, and then completely disengage. Alternatively, you might feel so frozen with terror at the possibility of persecution that you do nothing. This is why people are saying: don't obey in advance.

It is essential for those of us with more privilege to use it to take care of those who are more vulnerable.

So. Who is most vulnerable? What does that vulnerability actually mean? What are the most likely risks of Trump's presidency? Here's a Guardian article that I think does a good job of summarizing some of the main issues. Go read that, then come back here.

Step Two: Take steps to protect yourself

You've gotta put your oxygen mask on first, right? So before you start getting involved in other causes, figure out what risks YOU are at, immediately, and do as much as you can to secure yourself. Some potential action steps depending on your circumstance may include:

Renewing your passport (helpful for leaving the country, but also for gender/name change purposes)

Getting vaccines / boosters

Securing birth control

Ensuring your necessary papers (birth certificates etc.) are where you have access to them.

Drawing up legal paperwork for spouses/partners (always a good idea, a helpful safety measure in case you lose marriage rights)

Bolstering your data privacy and online security. Here's a step-by-step guide I found that could help with that.

The specific steps you need to take here depend on what risks you, personally, face. You'll want to do some more research into this for your particular scenario.

No matter who you are, though, it's probably a good idea to start saving money and being a little more conservative with your spending and/or pay down debts to free up some cash. You don't know what kind of emergency may befall you, and having spare money for an emergency is never a bad idea.

There is a possibility that the cost of many things you rely on might go up, if Trump goes through with his tariffs plan. You will want to plan for that.

Food costs may also rise due to tariffs (we import a lot of food from Mexico and Latin America for example) as well as a loss of immigrant labor. There is also a possibility that food safety standards could fall due to overturning regulations. Now would be a good time to look into local food resources like farm share/CSA, community farms, etc., and to stock up on a few key staples like rice and beans.

Okay. Now that YOU are reasonably safe...what can you do to protect your community?

Step Three: Get Involved

Here is your mission: You need to stay engaged enough to know what's going on, without burning yourself out or exhausting yourself, and to take actual decisive actions instead of wasting your energy arguing on the internet.

Got that? Okay. Good. Here are some action steps:

Support independent journalism. Subscribe to local papers, donate to and watch public broadcast programming. I signed up for news from ProPublica, for example, as well as the news-roundup service What The Fuck Just Happened Today. The goal is to stay informed without falling down an endless rabbit hole of upsetting information.

Share news and resources with others in your circle. This can be a good use of social media. It's what I am doing right now!

If it is safe for you to do so, challenge and educate your friends/family members/neighbors/coworkers. Only if it is safe for you to do so. Do not put yourself at risk doing this. And do not waste your time arguing with people who are unlikely to change. But if you have well-meaning people in your life who you think could be won over, look for opportunities to do this - the right way. I've had some success with this, I will probably write a guide about it in the future. In the meantime, here's a good article that can help.

Join local grassroots activism groups. You'll have to do some work to decide what groups to join and which causes you want to support, because you cannot do everything. But there are tons of organizations taking direct action in all kinds of causes. Search "grassroots [cause] activists in [where you live]" to start finding things. Once you get involved in one group, you might meet people who can introduce you to other groups and causes. Yes, this means you will have to go outside and meet people. I'm sorry.

Join direct action groups. Same concept as above. You'll have to search in your area but once you know people it'll be easier to find more opportunities. Some of these groups may overlap. You might find direct action opportunities by engaging politically and vice versa. GO OUTSIDE AND TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THINGS TO HELP.

Get involved in local politics. Here are some quick tips. A lot of things are affected at the city level - stuff like book bans and bathroom bills are often battled first at local libraries and schools, and you can be part of those conversations! Sheriffs are elected and can have a big influence on local policing. Local elections affect how tax dollars are spent, how homeless populations are treated, and lots more. Don't snooze on local elections. Get involved and stay involved.

Look up your representatives. Get in the habit of calling, emailing, and writing letters. Figure out what legislature is being passed and then call your reps and harangue them about it - both to support bills you approve of and shoot down ones you don't. Sign petitions. Join email campaigns. Here's one you can go sign right now from the ACLU. See? Not that scary.

I think a lot of people figure that getting involved in politics doesn't matter or that it's all small potatoes but...man. The president is not god, no matter what he thinks. The sitting administration is not the sole power in the universe. There is an entire machine of government we can lean upon and act upon.

Finally, some general safety notes:

Some forms of direct action are not legal. Take steps to be safe if you choose to partake. Follow the lead of more seasoned activists for what forms of communication to use and so forth.

If you're not willing or able to put yourself at legal risk to act, you can help others by donating to bail funds and legal defense funds.

We've already seen this in some areas, and it will only get uglier - some bad actors are feeling emboldened by the change in regime and will misbehave. It's a good idea to learn some self-defense skills, in whatever way is comfortable to you, and brush up on some tenets of victimology that can help you stay safe. I'll write more about that in the future.

All right. That's all for now. It's by no means comprehensive...but should hopefully help you get started taking the next step. Stay safe out there.

[taikeero-lecoredier]

Chat Control in a nutshell (please reblog this, US people)

Find out more about Chat Control here TAKE ACTION HERE ! OR HERE Calling is much more efficient ! The latter link will redirect you to the official websites of your respective reps. Under the "read more", you will find what you need to say/write when contacting your reps. You will also find an alternate format of this comic,and I give explicit permission for people to translate it and spread it anywhere for awareness. Credit really not needed, I don't care about that rn Even if this is a EU proposal, I am urging Americans to also share this, since it goes hand in hand with KOSA. DON'T FORGET TO JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER AGAINST CHAT CONTROL ! https://discord.com/invite/e7FYdYnMkS

(Latest update on Chat Control was the 12 september 2024) This is a little long, so feel free to shorten it as you wish : Subject line: "2022/0155(COD) Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to express my grave concerns regarding the proposed introduction of "Chat Control" This measure poses a serious threat to the privacy and fundamental rights of all EU citizens and stands in stark contradiction to the core principles that the European Union seeks to uphold. The proposed Chat Control contravenes Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which guarantee the right to respect for private and family life and the protection of personal data. The indiscriminate surveillance of private messages without specific suspicion or cause directly violates these fundamental rights. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out stringent rules for the processing of personal data. The proposed indiscriminate surveillance and scanning of private messages before end-to-end encryption is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation enshrined in the GDPR. Specifically, Articles 5 and 6 of the GDPR, which govern the lawfulness and principles of data processing, would be violated by the introduction of such measures. The implementation of Client-Side Scanning (CSS) on devices means that all messages and files are scanned on the user's device before being encrypted and sent. This effectively nullifies the protection offered by end-to-end encryption and opens the door to misuse and additional security vulnerabilities. Moreover, the technical capability to scan such content could be exploited by malicious actors to circumvent or manipulate surveillance mechanisms. Such far-reaching surveillance measures not only endanger privacy but also freedom of expression. The knowledge that their private messages are being scanned and monitored could significantly restrict individuals' willingness to freely express themselves. Additionally, trust in digital communication platforms would be severely undermined. I urge you to take a strong stance against this disproportionate and unlawful measure. The privacy and digital rights of EU citizens must be safeguarded. It is imperative that we protect our fundamental rights and ensure transparency in the decision-making processes of our leaders. For more detailed information on the proposal and its implications, please refer to the following resource: Link to Netzpolitik article. https://www.patrick-breyer.de/rat-soll-chatkontrolle-durchwinken-werde-jetzt-aktiv/ Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. Sincerely, [Name] Art. 10 GG , Art. 8 & 11 EU Charta , Art. 8 EMRK (Alternate comic here V)

[pluckyredhead]

Hey, I don’t blame you if you don’t want to respond right now, but I just wanted to acknowledge that you were completely right to insist that people should have voted for the Democratic candidate if they didn’t want Trump, regardless of if they completely agreed with the Democratic candidate or not. We wouldn’t be in this situation if more people thought like you. And I hope more of the “both sides are just as bad” people remember this for next time.

I appreciate the thought, and you're right that we need every vote, every time, all the time.

But that's not what swung this election. There was a big shift to the right among men, particularly low information voters. And exit polls show that the economy was the biggest driver of those votes. It was not the very small number of extremely online leftists who abstained from voting or voted third party who caused this. It was people who absorb Fox News uncritically and/or fail to understand that Trump was terrible for the economy and will be terrible again, that Biden pulled us out of a recession, that prices are high because of greedflation and not inflation.

And, you know, fascists. But mostly people who are so under-informed and actively dis-informed that they think Trump deporting thousands of people will magically make gas cheaper.

I don't know how to reach those people. Our media landscape is so fractured that they are literally living in a different reality than I am, where the things I see as so obvious and self-evident don't exist to them, or exist only as lies. A second Trump presidency with its inevitable rolling back of regulations about social media disinformation and equally inevitable threats to honest journalism is only going to make it harder.

But here's what I know:

We're going to remember to eat, and drink water, and sleep. We are going to hold our loved ones close.

Lock down your birth control. Get your vaccines. Know where your important paperwork is.

Read On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. Read Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit.

Check for misinformation and disinformation before you share something.

Posting online is not activism. Fighting online is not activism. Share resources, yes. Otherwise, block and move on, because...

Infighting didn't save us this time, and it will never save us. We are going to have to build coalitions. I'm going to get involved in my local progressive politics. I urge everyone who can to do the same. You are going to meet people who are not exactly like you, who disagree with you, who you don't like. If they believe in democracy and equal rights and justice for everyone? Then they are your allies in this fight and you need every single one of them.

America has never lived up to her ideals, but I still believe in them: that we are all created equal. If we never get there, it will still always be a fight worth fighting.

So let's fight.

[memories-of-ancients]

Just curious, why do you think Rome fell?

OMG do you really have to ask such a big question right before I was going to bed anon? Well, here are the primary reasons IMO as a Roman history buff.

Lots of Civil Wars --- The Romans going way back to the days of the Republic were constantly fighting over who was going to be boss. Sulla fought a civil war and took over Rome and declared himself dictator, ditto Julius Caesar, and of course Octavian did the same and became the first emperor. During the empire there were many civil wars over who would be emperor as the Imperial system often lacked rules for succession resulting in dynastic struggles and civil wars. Not that it would have mattered if they did, as they probably would have just ignored the rules. In the 3rd century the empire underwent a 50 year period of near constant civil war known as the Crises of the Third Century. Constantine became emperor after killing all his opponents in a civil war. The later half of the 4th century had more civil wars. Even in the 5th century factions were fighting each for control of an empire that was collapsing all around them. No side wins a civil war because they are bloody, destructive, there are no spoils of war. There is only self destruction, they are about as helpful to a country as would a person shooting himself in the foot. All the money and resources that went into fighting civil wars and rebuilding after the war was money and resources not being used to maintain infrastructure, maintain public works, regulate the economy, defend from outside threats, and maintain the government.

2. Political Instability --- Most emperors did not die of natural causes, most emperors were murdered, or committed suicide, or died in battle, or died in a prison cell. Roman government was chalk full of power hungry psychopaths who were willing to murder their way to the top. Sometimes emperors could come and go quickly, with reigns lasting 2-3 years or less in the 3rd century.

Roman political history was rife with intrigue, assassinations, and coups occurring all the time. It was like Game of Thrones except instead of lasting 8 seasons it lasted 500 years.

3. The Army Became a Powerful Interest Group --- If you were a Roman emperor the army was a double edged sword. They were good in that they maintained peace and order in the empire and protected it from invaders. They were bad for you in that they could revolt and murder you, replacing you with someone they liked more. Even your own guard, the Praetorian Guards, couldn't be trusted as they could easily slit your throat in your sleep and declare someone else as emperor. To make sure the army was happy, you gave them big pay bonuses called donatives. Basically official bribes paid to keep the soldiers of the army loyal and happy. With each successive emperor the annual donative became bigger and bigger and thus a greater strain on the Imperial Treasury. If an emperor didn't pay up, he could be murdered by his own soldiers. Thus a lot of public money was paid just to keep the army happy so they didn't end up starting another civil war.

4. A Fucked up Economy --- Maintaining a large standing army to defend a large empire is expensive. Fighting civil wars is expensive. Rebuilding after civil wars is expensive. Constant regime change is expensive. Political intrigue is expensive. Eventually it got to the point where there just wasn't enough money to pay for all that. So emperors just minted more money, decreasing the silver content and minting more copper coins until eventually Roman money became worthless.

Today Roman money is still worthless. Go on ebay and find the cheapest Roman coins you can buy. Except for rarer collectibles Roman coins are still very plentiful and thus very cheap to collect. Worthless money made trade and commerce difficult, and thus the economy suffered. Not to mention constant bloody and destructive civil wars were damaging the economy. Political instability also damaged the economy.

5. Growing Disparity in Wealth --- Over time with civil wars and political instability the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Eventually wealth became so concentrated in the upper class that the middle class disappeared entirely by the late 4th - 5th century. By then the average Roman was in a bad way. They had no opportunities and most Romans were forced to live as tenant farmers, essentially sharecroppers.

6. A Corrupt Tax System --- Meanwhile the wealthy became so powerful that they were able to wield that power so that they did not have to pay taxes. They could exploit loopholes, manipulate laws in their favor, or bribe their way out of paying. To try to make up the revenue, tax collectors attempted to squeeze the lower classes, which of course, didn't have any money. Thus by the late 4th - 5th century the empire was severely underfunded. This resulted in the degradation of infrastructure, public works, the army, the weakening of the government, and less investment in the economy and commerce.

7. Patronage --- By the 5th century the average Roman was out of opportunities and the middle class was gone entirely. More and more the lower class Roman was being squeezed for tax money, money which they didn't have. So in order to survive, Roman lower classes sold their services to a wealthy patron. The patron would house you and protect you and take care of your tax problems. If you were lucky and had special skills like a craftsman or artist you could make a good living under a patron. If not, you probably ended up a tenant farmer tied to the land of the patron, essentially a sharecropper, a serf, or a peasant. Due to this change in the socio economic system power was drawn away from the Imperial government and was redirected to the wealthy patrons. Thus the empire was becoming decentralized.

This would become the basis for medieval feudalism.

8. No One Wanted to Join the Army --- Why would you? You're dirt poor and have no opportunities. If you joined the army you may not even get the opportunity to defend the empire, as you're gonna get killed in a stupid civil war fighting a fellow Roman who is also dirt poor and has no opportunities. Your government is corrupt, your emperor is a snobbish entitled incompetent dipshit who was out of touch with reality, the tax man is trying to squeeze you for money you don't have, you have no rights, you've been forced to become a peasant to a proto-feudal lord, and it is clear the empire is dying. By the mid 5th century most Romans were like, "let it fucking die". As a result, the army suffered severe manpower shortages. Right at the time when Goths and Franks and Vandals and Huns are going to start swarming into the empire.

These to me are the primary reasons for the fall. Anyone have anything else to add in addition to this?

[twisting-roads]

Iterator Spec Bio (Part 1)

I'm probably going to upload each one in it's own post, but here's an introduction to what this is going to be.

See, I've been trying to explain how iterators synthesize nutrients for a while, and have FINALLY started properly developing it. All this stuff from now on is just words I've copied from my existing master document of the subject at hand.

FOREWARNING

The definition of organ that I will use for iterator is a region or room within the structure of the iterator designated to a specific purpose. The Memory Conflux is an organ. This does not define the systems that connect them, however, such as the areas between RTA, MC, and GSB within Five Pebbles. I will also use node, organ, and colony interchangeably. Many organs are hidden away in other areas or even within the walls. These are the more “dangerous” ones. Rather, the environments within these organs are so extreme that no standard living creature could survive in them, or that being closed off is integral to their functioning.

Primary Chemosynthetic Node (PCN)

The Primary Chemosynthetic Node is the most integral part of iterator metabolism, and acts as the starting point. Hence the name “Primary” PCNs are sponge-like cubes which intake boiling fluid filled with noxious chemicals, such as many sulfur compounds. They are rather small. Within the lining of this manifold are many many colonies of small worms (referred to as “Tube Worms”) filtering the chemical-filled water. These worms work with symbiotic microbes in order to produce usable organic compounds, which flow into a central cavity to be used by other organs. This mimics conditions near hydrothermal vents, though it requires a constant source of heat powered by electricity in order to function. These nodes are often lined in rows, and may be very long. An iterator will contain multiple PCNs. There may be multiple tanks for intake and for outtake.

As demonstrated in the image, there are 3 distinct organisms within the colonial structure of the node. - The insulating membranous layer, which stores excess nutrients and helps regulate conditions. - A tough epidermal layer, with individuals containing a flagellum which controls waterflow through the manifold. - Tube Worms, which anchor to the epidermal layer.

Small, shelled organisms pick off dead Tube Worms. They’re extremophiles, and will die once taken out of the PCN for an extended amount of time. This is used to an advantage, as these organisms will travel to other organisms to decompose and reuse resources when near death, or when commanded to through chemical signals distributed in the node. However, I will be exploring this more on a different post elaborating more on the organisms specialized in decomposition and the disposal of dead or dying matter.

[mariacallous]

Next year will be Big Tech’s finale. Critique of Big Tech is now common sense, voiced by a motley spectrum that unites opposing political parties, mainstream pundits, and even tech titans such as the VC powerhouse Y Combinator, which is singing in harmony with giants like a16z in proclaiming fealty to “little tech” against the centralized power of incumbents.

Why the fall from grace? One reason is that the collateral consequences of the current Big Tech business model are too obvious to ignore. The list is old hat by now: centralization, surveillance, information control. It goes on, and it’s not hypothetical. Concentrating such vast power in a few hands does not lead to good things. No, it leads to things like the CrowdStrike outage of mid-2024, when corner-cutting by Microsoft led to critical infrastructure—from hospitals to banks to traffic systems—failing globally for an extended period.

Another reason Big Tech is set to falter in 2025 is that the frothy AI market, on which Big Tech bet big, is beginning to lose its fizz. Major money, like Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital, is worried. They went public recently with their concerns about the disconnect between the billions required to create and use large-scale AI, and the weak market fit and tepid returns where the rubber meets the AI business-model road.

It doesn’t help that the public and regulators are waking up to AI’s reliance on, and generation of, sensitive data at a time when the appetite for privacy has never been higher—as evidenced, for one, by Signal’s persistent user growth. AI, on the other hand, generally erodes privacy. We saw this in June when Microsoft announced Recall, a product that would, I kid you not, screenshot everything you do on your device so an AI system could give you “perfect memory” of what you were doing on your computer (Doomscrolling? Porn-watching?). The system required the capture of those sensitive images—which would not exist otherwise—in order to work.

Happily, these factors aren’t just liquefying the ground below Big Tech’s dominance. They’re also powering bold visions for alternatives that stop tinkering at the edges of the monopoly tech paradigm, and work to design and build actually democratic, independent, open, and transparent tech. Imagine!

For example, initiatives in Europe are exploring independent core tech infrastructure, with convenings of open source developers, scholars of governance, and experts on the political economy of the tech industry.

And just as the money people are joining in critique, they’re also exploring investments in new paradigms. A crop of tech investors are developing models of funding for mission alignment, focusing on tech that rejects surveillance, social control, and all the bullshit. One exciting model I’ve been discussing with some of these investors would combine traditional VC incentives (fund that one unicorn > scale > acquisition > get rich) with a commitment to resource tech’s open, nonprofit critical infrastructure with a percent of their fund. Not as investment, but as a contribution to maintaining the bedrock on which a healthy tech ecosystem can exist (and maybe get them and their limited partners a tax break).

Such support could—and I believe should—be supplemented by state capital. The amount of money needed is simply too vast if we’re going to do this properly. To give an example closer to home, developing and maintaining Signal costs around $50 million a year, which is very lean for tech. Projects such as the Sovereign Tech Fund in Germany point a path forward—they are a vehicle to distribute state funds to core open source infrastructures, but they are governed wholly independently, and create a buffer between the efforts they fund and the state.

Just as composting makes nutrients from necrosis, in 2025, Big Tech’s end will be the beginning of a new and vibrant ecosystem. The smart, actually cool, genuinely interested people will once again have their moment, getting the resources and clearance to design and (re)build a tech ecosystem that is actually innovative and built for benefit, not just profit and control. MAY IT BE EVER THUS!

[reasonsforhope]

Hi. Do you have any good news on water conservation efforts? I'm very troubled by how much power AI data centers are using up and the alarming amount of water they use.

Sure thing!

"After years of deliberation, California water officials have adopted landmark rules that will guide future water use and conservation in the state.

According to officials, the Making Conservation a California Way of Life framework will help save 500,000 acre-feet of water annually by 2040 — enough to supply more than 1.4 million households for a year — and apply to the state’s largest water utilities, not individuals or households.

Under the new regulations, roughly 400 urban water suppliers will need to meet individualized water-use targets and conservation goals, among other directives. Some agencies will be required to cut water usage by more than 30% within the next 16 years.

The measures are intended to help preserve water supplies as climate change drives hotter, drier conditions. The five-member State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously Wednesday to adopt the rules, which stem from two 2018 bills that called for the creation of new standards.

“As we think of the Colorado River, the Bay Delta, the stressed watersheds from which much of the urban supply comes into our cities and communities, we need to show — for other states and for ourselves — that we’re taking steps to ease that burden,” chair Joaquin Esquivel said during the board meeting. He added that such efforts are needed “especially in dry times, but through all water year types, in order to ensure that we all continue to have ample supply and thriving communities.”"

-via Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2024

[ssbooks]

A world-building list. Enjoy! :)

1. Geography & Environment

What is the physical geography of the world: (continents, oceans, mountains)?

Are there any unusual natural phenomena or landmarks (e.g., floating islands, glowing forests)?

What is the climate like, and does it vary across regions?

How does the environment affect the lives and behaviors of the inhabitants?

Are there specific resources the world is known for?

What's the weather like?

2. Culture & Society

What are the main cultures or civilizations in the world?

How do people express their cultural identity (e.g., clothing, festivals, music)?

What are the major languages or dialects, and how do they influence communication?

What are the social hierarchies or class systems?

What role do gender roles, traditions, or taboos play?

3. Politics & Government

What are the dominant forms of governance (monarchies, democracies, councils)?

Who holds power, and how do they maintain it?

How are laws created and enforced?

Are there any significant political conflicts or alliances?

What role do religion or philosophy play in politics?

4. Religion & Beliefs

What are the dominant religions or belief systems?

How do they explain the creation of the world or existence?

Are there gods, spirits, or other supernatural entities worshipped?

What religious practices or rituals are common?

How do belief systems shape daily life, morality, and culture?

5. Economy & Trade

What is the primary currency or barter system?

What industries or trades dominate the economy?

How do people make a living?

What goods are exported or imported between regions?

Are there economic disparities or poverty?

6. Technology & Innovation

What level of technology does the world possess (medieval, steampunk, futuristic)?

Are there any unique inventions or discoveries?

How has technology shaped warfare, communication, or travel?

Is there a reliance on magic, science, or a mix of both?

Are there limitations or dangers associated with technology?

7. Magic & Mysticism

Does magic exist, and how is it accessed or controlled?

What are the rules or limitations of magic?

Are there magical creatures, artifacts, or phenomena?

Who can use magic, and is it regulated or feared?

How does magic influence politics, economy, or daily life?

8. History & Mythology

What are the major historical events or turning points?

Are there legendary heroes, villains, or mythical stories passed down?

How do different cultures interpret history or myth?

Are there ruins or relics of past civilizations?

What lessons or warnings do people derive from their history?

9. Inhabitants

What species or races inhabit the world?

How do different groups interact or coexist?

Are there unique traits, abilities, or traditions among species?

What challenges do they face in their environment?

How do they adapt or evolve over time?

10. Conflict & Change

What are the major sources of conflict (political, religious, resource-based)?

Are there ongoing wars or rebellions?

How do natural disasters, diseases, or other calamities shape the world?

What changes or innovations threaten the status quo?

How do ordinary people perceive these conflicts?

11. Transportation & Communication

How do people travel (roads, ships, airships, portals)?

What is the fastest or most efficient way to get around?

How is information shared across regions?

Are there any special navigational challenges (storms, voids, magical barriers)?

Do certain regions remain isolated due to transportation limitations?

12. Food & Daily Life

What is the staple diet of various regions?

How do people prepare and share food?

What is a typical day like for different social classes or species?

What sports, games, or hobbies are popular?

How is leisure time spent, if at all?

13. Art & Literature

What forms of art are celebrated (painting, music, dance, poetry)?

Are there famous artists, authors, or performers in history?

How do different cultures view or value art?

Are there shared myths, epics, or tales that unite people?

How is history or knowledge recorded (books, oral tradition, carvings)?

14. Science & Medicine

What is the state of medical knowledge or healthcare?

Are there known cures for diseases, or do plagues persist?

How do people approach science—curiosity, fear, or reverence?

Are there ethical debates surrounding scientific progress?

How do medicine and science interact with magic, if at all?

15. Relationships & Identity

How do people define family or community?

Are marriages, partnerships, or unions celebrated?

How is identity expressed (names, clothing, tattoos)?

Are there rites of passage marking maturity or status?

How do people honor their dead or remember ancestors?

[thedupshadove]

Would Batman Rogues Tamper With Halloween Candy?

Joker: Plants just enough evidence to make it look like maybe 1 out of 100 pieces of candy will have Joker toxin in them, watches Gotham whip itself into a frenzy and deny itself and its children their Halloween fun, then hijacks the news the next morning to reveal that he hadn't spiked anything at all--the reveal ends with a play on the two meanings of "sucker".

Riddler: The stubborn pervasiveness of such a blatant falsehood annoys him so much that he refuses to dignify it by making it true.

Catowman: That is simply not her M.O.

Penguin: Representative of the "Drugs cost money, why would I hand them out to people with no money who won't be able to identify or trace what they got high on?" camp. That said, he might squeeze in on a technicality, because any candy manufacturer that he owns is definitely breaking all the FDA regulations.

Poison Ivy: Maybe dosing the children of high-level corporate execs with the illnesses their waste production sets loose on third-world countries? But more likely she's shoring up her resources to combat the Yearly Evergreen Massacre.

Mr. Freeze: Would this advance research into curing Nora's illness? Would it bring in money he could use to keep the cryo-chamber running? Then why would he do it?

Mad Hatter: Yes, absolutely, no question about it. But not for any of the more sordid reasons that one might suspect. No, this is a showcase for his skill with hallucinogens, rather than outright control, as well as his misapplied sense of whimsey. The very city of Gotham itself is going as Wonderland for Halloween...whether it likes it or not.

Scarecrow: Contrives to lace every single piece of candy in the city with a highly diluted form of fear toxin, that raises your pulse and tickles the back of your neck and makes the shadows looks a little deeper, in the name of fostering the "Halloween spirit".

[brucewaynehater101]

Deep down, Tim knows that they are at fault. Deep down he knows that Jason and Damian attacking him like that *isn't ok*. But that's a truth he can't bring himself to face because even if he did, would Anyone believe him? If he told Bruce or Dick that the attacks still happened, that one of them tried to take his life at least once a month still, that neither of them would do anything. Tim doesn't know if they would defend him and punish Jason and Damian, or if they would just say, "you need to be more careful Tim, they can't always control themselves." And if the answer is anything but the first he knows his heart wouldn't be able to take it.

Instincts are there, but they are easy to over come. They very from shifter type to shifter type and usually fall into groups by Animal Type. Such as a Tiger and a Housecat will have similar instinctive problems but they won't be the same as a Wolf or Dolphin's. As a snake Tim 100% has the urge to nap in warm places and does get slower when cold. His suit has special heaters in it that the others don't have due to his inability to regulate his own heat. Damian insists that Tim being unable to function without "a bunch of hand warmers" I'd proof that he shouldn't be in the field and should be fired. Tim bites his forked tongue to stop himself from screaming that if Damian can't not give into his instincts and attack Tim anytime he sees him Shifted then he shouldn't be in the field because he's gunna attack a civilian.

Also for now Bruce has no idea how shifters work. But this is Good Dad Bruce. He's going to put in Effort. He's *going* to find the resources he needs to parent this New Tim because he doesn't think he can bring himself to send any version of any of his children to a home that could hurt or likely kill them. Until then, Bruce is going to insist on New Tim (he gets called TJ thanks to Duke. After all, they can't call him Drake, he hates Timothy, Tim would be confusing, and neither Tim likes the idea of being called "Jackson") takes one of their spare rooms and gets a full 8 hours of sleep every night/day and 3 full meals a day. TJ was Visibly Confused by this due to the fact he hasn't been staying in the manor at all for almost a year due to Damian and Jason. He only sleeps in his nest which has Beyond Batlevel Security to keep them out.

Also, I can't decide. Would a healthier version of Damian and Jason stay away like Tim wants them to or would they go "no *fuck* your bastard excuses for Brothers we will teach you what it's like to actually trust and have us have your back."

Tim not seeking an answer or help is very angsty. He chose his emotional/mental health over his physical well being. Part of it may be him knowing how to navigate the murder attempts but not knowing how bringing this up would change the status quo (in possibly worse ways).

I like what you've added about Tim's instincts. A good milestone for that batfamily is if they find Tim napping on a window seat. This would be a huge show of trust by him and an indication that he feels safe.

I think a healthier version of them would give Tim space and communicate boundaries with him, but they would also try to bond with him.

For Damian, this is a lot of parallel bonding. The kid will find wherever Tim is in the Manor and sit in the same room with him doing something different (like drawing or doing his homework). It is an effective way for Tim to get used to his presence and stop seeing him as a threat. Of course, Tim is nervous or on edge the first 10 or so times this happens. Eventually, he starts to lower his guard enough that Damian can make a comment or two. They slowly work up to full conversations and Tim seeking out Damian's presence himself.

For Jason, he'd try to read in places near Tim as well. His main strategy, though, might be favors or gifts. He'd learn what foods Tim likes, what activities Tim wants/needs to do that Bruce won't let him (like sneaking out), and generally just helping Tim out in small ways. It at first freaks Tim out, but they work up to Tim himself asking Jason for favors.

[cinnamonest]

For your mmau, you mentioned that the brothel workers didn't get any form of birth control and it got me wondering about the Fatui's lower ranking girls. Would they get birth control? Does any form of birth control even exist? I love your writing so much <3

The availability of birth control depends on the region and culture. It exists, but it's highly frowned upon and always regulated, requiring physician approval on a case-by-case basis, and in some nations, hormonal forms are outright illegal. They want to ensure high birth rates. Most guys won't want it either, because the more kids you have, the more you're essentially tethered to him.

It's seen as a waste of resources, and incredibly selfish — you only live so long, so all the time you spend not having kids is basically pointless, empty existence. Some cultures will at least allow it provided your owner approves it, particularly for young couples, as most assume it's a very temporary thing until he becomes a little more financially stable to better support kids. But more traditional cultures outright loathe the idea — even if you're not financially well-off, the community and extended family can just pitch in to help you.

That only applies to the very young adults though. If your age begins with the number 2 or higher, you can forget it, no professional is going to approve that.

God *forbid* you get higher than that and don't have at least one kid by that point. It's seen as a complete bizarre anomaly. At that point you'll have to compensate by ensuring you have back-to-back kids with no rest periods in between, so you can catch up. Complete with mandatory fertility treatments.

Of course, there's probably some available through illegal sources, there's a market for everything, but that comes with its own set of risks if you get caught, whether by the law or by your own husband… the latter of which is bound to happen eventually if you're not getting pregnant despite the effort. It won't go over well.

As for the Fatui, they could always use more numbers, and you’ll be instructed on how to specifically raise sons that will have ideal traits they want, so you can just be a future-soldier factory :)

[theculturedmarxist]

>Would a party that declares independence from the culture war even be possible?

I think so. We have to remember that the "culture war" is itself just a proxy for the class war being waged against working people.

For example, in my state a few years ago there was a bunch of bullshit over the "bathroom bill." Dem-controlled Charlotte passed a bill saying that people can use the bathroom of their presented gender, and then Rep-controlled Raleigh countermanded it with a bill of their own saying the opposite. There was a lot of gnashing of teeth over the assault on trans rights and so on, but all of this was in service of covering up what the bill was really about. The second half of the bill not dealing with bathrooms dealt with preventing municipalities from setting minimum wages, safety requirements, and other such things for contract workers.

Another example is this recent shit out of Florida and other places attacking what books school libraries are allowed to have on their shelves, generally having to do with LGBTQ&c content. It's really such nonsense, because how many children are actually being "exposed to" that kind of thing from their school libraries to begin with? But recently I saw an article that tallied up the amount schools have spent having to fight these regulations or the evangelical groups suing them into the billions of dollars. Once again the trans issue is just a cover for reactionaries to attack working people, this time by draining public schools of resources and covering them in acrimony.

Remember also that this "culture war" is happening in a more or less vacuum of working class material interests. Both parties use it as a scapegoat to prevent having to offer working people anything. In either case, if a voter isn't offered something positive to vote for, they'll at least vote against something negative. The average person probably doesn't know a trans person or deal with them in such a substantial way to really have to think about them at all, but when used as a means to threaten their child, either in the sense of "you don't want some DEMOCRAT to trans your beautiful girl into an ugly MAN do you?" or "you don't want some REPUBLICAN to KILL your beautiful trans child do you?" then it becomes a serious issue.

For the most part I really don't think the average person gives much of a shit. Returning to my state's circumstances, right now much of the Western portion is still devastated by hurricane Helene. If a trans person showed up on the remains of someone's doorstep, home destroyed, no power, no heat, no water, no food, with clothes and food and water for them and their children, do you think they're going to turn their nose up? Maybe a few, but I think most people would kiss the feet of the person that kept their children from starving.

And I think that's what we see pretty regularly—people are more concerned with having their material needs met over the ideological source of having those needs met. The average American voter isn't represented by either party because neither one materially meets any of their needs and they have no interest in trying to. In fact, I think if you described the ideal socialist program to the average American they would unequivocally support it.

To provide one such example, when the Amazon Union had its first organizational success after several failures, the union rep was interviewed and talked about what made this time succeed after all the other times failed. Basically he said that the union DID for the workers in the lead up to the vote, providing them with food and weed in addition to their ideological aspirations.

Contrast to the interview with the worker from (iirc) a failed unionization attempt at an auto plant in Kentucky. Ideologically she backed the union 100%. She wanted the union, thought it would be a tremendous help to herself and the other workers there, yet she voted against it. Essentially what she said was "I wanted the union, but I have cancer and the employer threatened to cut our healthcare if we unionized, and that would kill me."

And that's the major stumbling block for the socialist movement in the US right now is that it lacks the ability to materially provide what it ideologically aspires towards. It isn't a defect in theory or lack of zeal, it's just materially unable to. So in spite of a lot of theoretical support for socialism and its ideals, that support hasn't translated into success for the movement, in large part because even when socialists are successful at the polls, the political system as a whole is designed to make translating that success into the sort of material changes which would threaten to unseat the bourgeois parties.

One such example is that the socialists actually did win in Nevada a few years ago. Socialists within the Democratic Party managed to unseat the bourgeois party representatives, and the party responded by basically robbing and starving them of resources, and all the experienced bureaucrats the party's representatives rely on to function all quit. The result was that last year all the elected socialists got unseated in turn by Democrat regulars because they weren't able to parlay their electoral success into actual material gains.

In my opinion the threat of actual material improvements for the working class and what that would entail is what freaked the Democrats out so badly about Bernie Sanders. As much as they squealed and cried about Trump, Sanders actually terrified them. It wasn't his label as a socialist, because to Americans the "Socialist" label is meaningless, just a stand in for whatever scary Bad Thing. What horrified them was a socialist politician getting within spitting distance of having the power to actually provide people with material improvements to their lives. The Democrats aren't afraid to promise or "fight for" a $15 minimum wage or "access to health care," but they are deeply terrified of someone actually providing it.

And I think that is shown both historically with groups like the Black Panthers and the violent reaction generated by their childhood lunch programs, but more recently with the success of the Amazon Union.

The real impediment to socialist political success is that political success itself is insufficient to materialize concrete gains for the people that vote for them, and getting bogged down in "culture war" superficialities exacerbates that. That isn't to say that trans people or their needs should be abandoned, but rather that they need to be a) put in the proper context and b) can't be combated on bourgeois terms.

In 2020 and 2024 both, the Democrats offered trans people nothing except the threadbare hope that by voting for them, they'd be spared the worst predations of the Republicans. The proper socialist position would be that merely being spared from harm isn't enough. Trans people suffer particularly from poverty for example, so merely keeping their circumstances from worsening is insufficient, but that they needs must be improved.

In the current calculus of the American political system, this is theoretically appealing to the average voter. As long as helping trans people doesn't come at their own expense, Americans would generally support such a thing. The problem is whether explicitly known or not, voting for a socialist proposing such a thing would be a losing proposition even if they won. I frequently hear people that they intellectually support third party candidates for example, but "they can't win." Even if a socialist were able to win election to legislature, they would be hamstrung by the fact that they're an enemy of "both sides" with a material interest in seeing them ejected in short order. There are some exceptions like Sawant or Sanders, but that's the general rule.

What I think this means is that at this stage there's an overemphasis on winning political power and trying to beat the bourgeois parties at their own game. I think the social and political organization of the working class is too immature for that at this stage. Rather we must develop the sort of ecosystem of material benefit and support which solves people's problems outside of a hostile electoral system. This doesn't mean electoral politics should be abandoned completely, but rather than winning elections as an end in itself must be de-emphasized.

Returning to the problem of trans poverty for example. I think what would enhance a socialist party's success would be starting a program of partnership with amenable unions to secure trans people positions within them and their industries. This would solve multiple problems at once by providing this theoretical union with members that have incentives to participate and support it, if only out of their own self interest. They'd be indebted to the party for the assistance and if not ideologically converted at least incentivized to support the party in turn. Ideally this would also help the union and the party foster a mutually supportive relationship which would further the goals of both.

The point being, as long as socialist orgs are focused primarily on political contests they can't win, the development of broader working class organization is going to remain retarded. All the small, disparate working class elements existing in the US have to start developing networks of mutual aid and coordination, pooling their resources to in order to provide actual material support to workers outside of whatever crumbs they're able to wrest from the bourgeois state, because otherwise we're resigning ourselves to a Sisyphean political struggle we're unlikely to win.

[lionheartapothecaryx]

PROTECT YOUR NECK ! Lyonessa’s Speedy Tutorial for Sharp Shootin

Protection, Uncrossing & Curse Freezin in a Traditional Hoodoo style.

A good practitioner eventually has the good common sense to be diplomatic and avoid a witch war. Avoiding drama, means avoiding headaches. It’s easy until it isn’t. Smoothing sailing isn’t always a guarantee in this world. Stay vigilant and well prepared.

Knowing how to protect, defend, uncross and cleanse yourself is a basic but crucial part of the Hoodoo practitioners spiritual hygiene.

Now this is a quick basic tutorial, to set you straight and keep you right.

⚔️ - KEEP YOUR HEAD SHARP & CULTIVATE COMMON SENSE

Hot heads, I’m talking to you. Emotional self control can save you from the stress of unnecessary witch battles with other practitioners. Be respectful, be mindful but take no shit. Try your best to avoid witch wars with other practitioners. I’ve seen these things be drawn out for years and it’s a huge colossal drain of energy and finances, usually over something very petty. Usually the person with most financial backing and resources wins but I’ve also seen clever maneuvering outweigh more powerful players.

It’s so easy to get caught up in drama in the spiritual community and have it spiral out of control. As your developing relationships, try to avoid warring and argumentative personality types so you don’t get caught in their crossfire. Committing all of your energy to constantly defending yourself from petty attacks is a waste of your energy. Cultivate social discernment & wisdom. This is not an invitation to live fearfully but smart. This is also something that takes time and practice.

On the other side of the spectrum, as you gain experience do your best to not become mad with power & trigger happy.

Constantly throwing jinxes, hexes or curses takes it’s toll mentally, energetically & physically, in some cases it can cause serious physical health problems further down the line. Don’t develop a god-complex. Stay grounded. Now I can’t tell you where to draw the line in the sand when it comes to certain situations, because every practitioner has their own code of ethics.

I’ll use myself as an example. On my spiritual journey I’ve acquired and invested in vast amounts knowledge and other resources which have made my defensive and offensive skills pretty extensive. Some of the things, rituals, and spirits that I have access to would be overkill depending on the circumstances. Coming into a massive powerful spiritual inheritance so early was hard.

I had to learn by trial and error to be more respectful of my own power. I was an overpowered baby witch shooting lightning bolts, while burning my own hands. Learning to practice emotional regulation allowed me to hone my skills better. I had to do shadow work and confront my traumas.

Cultivating a respectful working relationship between yourself, your own power and your emotions can save your life.

⚔️ - PRACTICE GOOD OFFENSE

A good practitioner will use various methods of divination to spiritually strategize before moving to attack. Attacking blindly without any knowledge, can cause all sorts of problems, especially if you’re dealing with someone who has strong spiritual or ancestral protections or a higher rank then you, worst case scenario you’re going up against a coven.

Excellent offense means doing recon. Good Reconnaisance skills means gathering information about your target, through various means of surveillance. Gather as much information about your enemies or targets resources, spiritual force or power, protection and activities. You should approach this like a military operation. Once you’ve got enough information, then you can strategize, prepare and do divination on what your next move should be.

This isn’t always easy either, depending on the skill of your target. People can cloak, shape-shift, even have guardian or monitoring spirits or ancestors to alert them. When in doubt, always use stealth. Always make sure to cloak and protect yourself when surveilling your target. It’s the most practical form of offensive protection. I’ve seen practitioners attack folks just for doing surveillance. Don’t get caught out here lacking, put on your damn armor.

All Power is intoxicating and life altering. Without self control you can seriously injure yourself and others. Ego often makes many people in this community think they are invincible, until they get humbled, tale as old as time. Respect your powers & yourself. Cultivate self control & discipline. Resist wild impulse. Build habits that protect you in the future.

Our plant allies are crucial to our practice and connection to spirit and the earth.

ASSORTED TOOLS & HERBARIUM

🌿 Mint- protection, cleansing, mental clarity refreshing, brings vitality and a fresh start. This herb is perfect for regular cleansing or removing negative energy, hexes, evil or crossed conditions

🌿 Angelica Root - strength, protection, warding off evil, safety, creates a happy home. This incredible ally is associated with Archangel Michael and said to be blessed by him in angelic lore.

🌿 Lemon Grass - clears out negative stagnant energy, breaks blockages, rejuvenates and brings positive vitality, breaks curses, uncrossing.

🌿 King Solomon’s Root - Protection, Wisdom, Wards off All Evil & Negativity

🌿 Red Brick Dust - creates an protective energetic shield around your spiritual and physical being.

🌿 White, Black, Sea or Kosher Salt - Cleansing, Purifying, Protective

🌿Rosemary - Cleansing, Purifying, Stabilizing, Protective

🌿 Camphor - Cleansing, Purifying, Protective, Wards off Chaos, Negativity, Evil Spirits, Hex Breaking

🌿 Cayenne Pepper - Speedy, Fiery Protection, Cursing, Hexing, Jinxing

Redbrick dust, Solomon & Angelica Root can be sprinkled along your widows or the four corners of the house to create a protective house space. This same blend can be mixed with holy water, an a petition and frozen as a defensive protective ward to temporarily freeze the effects of a curse, until you can remove it. This same mix can be used in a bowl, outside the freezer as regular defensive ward from any potential threats.

Lemongrass and mint can be used to make a cleansing spiritual bath to remove jinxes, crossed conditions and break blockages, while rejuvenating your spiritual energy. Angelica Root can be added to this bath for extra protective effect.

These herbs can also be used in candle magick, mojos, poppets and more.

Traditionally our Elders used beeswax, oil lamps, bonfires or cookpits, utilizing whatever the resources available, to conduct pyromancy. Color correspondence was utilized in other ways, with herbs, scarves & many other things but can also be used with candles etc

COLOR MAGICK

🕯White & Blue - cleansing, healing, purification, innocence

🕯Purple - increased power, strength, protective, the mind, wisdom, spirit

🕯Red - increased energy, protective, offensive attacks

🕯Black - energy removal, protection, reversals, hex breaking

It’s important when practicing candle magick to practice fire safety.

Place all glass & tin candles on plates, pans, aluminum foil or fire safe surfaces to prevent damage, burn marks or wax on surfaces, like wood and linoleum.

Never leave candles unattended for long periods of time or overnight without attendance, remove nearby flammable hazards, hanging debris + keep a wick & fire extinguisher on standby.

⚔️ - PROTECTION, UNCROSSING & CURSE FREEZING TIPS

- Salt & Lemongrass, on a black candle can assist with uncrossing and cleansing yourself from negativity or hexes

- Cayenne, Angelica & Brick Dust on a black candle can create a decent protection spell.

- Cayenne, Rosemary, Mint & Angelica Root on a blue candle can assist with protected healing, quick recovery and rejuvenation especially when one is under attack, or restoring their energy.

- Holy Water, King Solomon Root & Red Brick Dust Boiled and prayed over, bottled & frozen in the refrigerator can freeze or slow down the effects of a hex or curse, without alerting the magician, it’s also an effective ward against curses and hexes.

- Bathing in Solomon Root, Rosemary & Mint regularly assists with good spiritual hygiene cultivating a protected aura and promoting spiritual health & wisdom, cleansing out negativity or gunk, purifying and stabilizing your soul.

- Solomon Root, Mint & Rosemary on a purple candle, cleanse and protect your mind from chaos psychosis & confusion, an give you protected mental clarity and inner stability. This is handy for curses, jinxes that are designed to make you go crazy.

- Four Red Bricks, with Psalms 91:3-4 written in sharpie, washed in holy water, placed in the four corners of your property creates a spiritual hedge of protection for you & your home against violence, evil and chaos.

- Rosemary Plants Potted are natural spiritual wards of protection, stability and purification and are great herbal ally, to have planted in your garden or keep in your home. You can tag lock these plant to alert you of any curses or hexes, sent your way & they will naturally filter and cleanse the energy of your space.

- A mirror washed in holy water & smoked cleansed with solomon root, angelica, mint and rosemary, can be commanded to be spiritually locked & sealed with Psalms 147: 13.

⚔️⚔️⚔️

Hopefully this speedy guide, has been ultra helpful for y’all. This is just a quick guide to wet your whistle and provide a good foundation of protective magical knowledge. As you grow in experience and power, your skill set and knowledge, about protective magic will grow even more.

Be smart. Be strategic. Don’t be a dumbass

xxx

Lyonessa Hart.

[huellitaa]

౨ৎ ⋆｡˚girly girl's guide to journalling 🩰 ๋࣭ ⭑

˚₊‧꒰ა benefits of journalling ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

• helps to regulate emotions

• understand yourself better

• a fun pass time! ♡

• analyse you, your habits, thoughts, etc

• de-stresses, relieves & relaxes

• productive & away from social media

• gives you control over something

• a way for you to get everything out, big or small, good or bad ♡

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ chapter 1: beginnings

ok! so journalling is mentioned a lot in the girlblogger, wonyoungism, self growth, loa etc etc side of tumblr but when i actually took that advice started it was really really daunting and i procrastinated it for aaaages. so this is here to help you start a fun girly hobby that will help you out on your journey 🩷🎀

♡ the most important thing when beginning ur girl journal is figuring out its purpose. is it to plan, is it to document, is it for healing, is it for personal development, is it for manifestation, is it to glow up, is it for creativity, is it just to have fun? it makes it a lot easier to think of ideas once you have a set purpose in mind, but obviously it can be anything you want, any combination of these, or something other than these. i personally do a combination of emotional healing, personal development, manifestation, glow up, gratitude & just having fun, but its whatever u want bae. <3

♡ okay! first plan of action; get a notebook. obviously. lined or plain, black or white, big or small doesn't matter. anything you feel most comfortable and most drawn to. ♡

♡ second, establish a range of pens, pencils, colours, etc. you're going to be using so you can keep consistent (if thats your thing) and make it all pretty! you can tailor this to you in any way; said range doesn't have to be big, you can literally just use the same biro and 2 colours, pencils, all the colours, one colour, or none if you want; its all yours! ♡

♡ lastly, i'd suggest to gather a bunch of stickers and materials and fun cute things ur gonna add in the pages of your journal, as it makes it pop off the page and look more visually appealing and layed and feel more interesting overall. i use stickers, coloured paper, ribbons, receipts, doodles, print outs, logos, labels, gems, sticky notes, and things i find from my daily life too. you don't have to do that much or any at all if you don't want to, but i highly recommend it! just for ur personal enjoyment ♡

one thing i'd suggest is trying not to keep a strict schedule on it, like "i have to journal every day etc" because i did this and it demotivated me sooo much. don't do that! just do it when you feel you want to! it's supposed to be fun, not a chore!

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ chapter 2: setup

♡ okay so! once you've got all the basics set up, i feel it should be pretty self explanatory from here onwards, but since this is a guide i'm not gonna leave u by yourself. this is optional, but if you're planning on making journalling a hobby or a regular habit, i'd say the first thing you wanna do is enhance & expand. find some plastic folders to attach or create paper pockets or little sections where you can put resources to stick in in ur journal so you have more space, customise, and so on. i feel this is very overlooked but its sooo fun and its really creative and and makes it so unique to you <3

♡ one thing i'd suggest too if you're doing this especially or just for any type of journal really is looking on pinterest for inspo!! this is for everything really. covers, layouts, page inspo, page ideas, customisation, journal prompts, shadow work, titles, doodles etc. i keep a board of these on my pinterest & it really helps <3

♡ one of the first things i did when i set up my journal a few months ago was do one page just an index of pages to make so i had a basic structure to go off of. this went from basic journal pages you see everywhere like about me pages n all that to the most obscure shit you could possibly imagine. this is helpful because it gives you a frame to work off of when you're at a loss for what to do in ur journal. i already have a post on this so i really recommend that if ur looking for ideas cus there's LOADS <3

another thing on pinterest; don't force urself to stick to a specific theme you've found or try and avoid doing or writing certain things in ur journal cus you wanna stick to a specific aesthetic! again, it's supposed to be fun, not a chore, and it's supposed to be completely unique to you, like a physical version of your inner world. its perfectly fine to take inspo, just remember its yours. you are your own person & you don't have to show it to anyone, it doesn't have to make sense to them, just have fun 🩷

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ chapter 3: resources

links ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

@prissygrlsorority's beauty binder

journalling index by yours truly <3

shadow work prompts for literally everything

@prettygirlmjmjmj's personal journalling prompts

@honeytonedhottie's diary guide

inspo ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

lots of love! <3

[chaotic-zora]

Silvyr Art Dump - Extended lore for them and their Domain below the cut.

Diplomat of Volica and Advisor to the Usurper King, Silvyr is a former captain who aided the current King in dethroning the previous royals and banishing the corrupt council/nobles. They were the strategeist behind the coup.

With the previous council gone, and subsequent shortage of expertise, they duel wield roles to keep the Domain running. Sharp in mind and calculative by nature, they leave nothing to chance.

Volica is currently experiencing a food shortage due to over harvesting of nearby reefs by the former nobles & council, who were exporting all their food for profit. They are thus pursuing trade negotions to secure more food.

The Domain itself is located on a cliff that borders the ocean. With a dormant underwater volcano somewhat nearby to mine from, their Domain is rich in minerals and metallic ores commonly used in the production of weapons/accessories.

Volcano ---> Volica (Domain name is derived from the nearby Volcano, their most valuable resource, and the reason for the Domain's existence, as it was founded by a small group of zoran miners! Mining is the largest profession in the Domain, and is integral to their livelihood. They love that fckin volcano so much.)

History:

The former Lead Captain and strategist of Volica's royal zoran knights and warrior faction. On the battlefield they were a force to be reckoned with, fighting exclusively with ice magic.

With fighting occupations being the least favored in the Domain in terms of enrollment, and the Domain itself in a difficult location to guard (cliff face), Silvyr made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure they could protect their home from land based monster attacks (see Silvyr's Chosen Giant - Lifespan sacrifice).

This resulted in them feeling especially slighted when the zora of Volica began to suffer beneath the corrupt royals/nobles. Nyvor's sentence, Thresh's departure (both of whom were close friends), and the lack of improvement after the corrupt noble was slain (who was initially thought to be the source of the problem), brewed such contempt within Silvyr's heart they began planning the coup.

Ice Magic (Origins):

Silvyr descends from a long line of prideful water magic users. Yet unlike their predecessors, Silvyr struggled during their youth with their abilities. Ever flowing, always changing, the flexibility of understanding required to control water was something Silvyr lacked. This came as a devastating blow to their family.

Yet determined to succeed, they endlessly practiced, pushing themselves to their utmost limits. In an attempt to make the water more structured, they began to fix it in place, unknowingly all the way down to the molecular level, until suddenly, it turned to ice. Thus unlocking ice magic.

Silvyr's Ice magic abilities are dampened when in water, which is why they feel better in underwater environments!

Volica & The Termania Giants:

Many in Volica worship the Giants of Termania. Though Termania is located in a parallel world (per Majora's Mask lore), it is said you can contact the giants during sleep, when the veils between realms are the thinnest. If you sacrifice something of yourself, the giant may grant you amplified abilities. The origins of who brought the legend of the giants to Volica, and the zora who established first contact, is unknown.

Silvyr's Chosen Giant:

Silvyr is favored by the Goron Giant. To protect their Domain, they self sacrificed 100 years of their lifespan to the Giant in exchange for an insane magic amplification.

Side Effects:

Excessive use of powerful ice magic may result in adverse side effects, contact your healer if you experience any of the following: Migraines, muscle aches, lowered body temperature, inability to regulate said body temperature, low sanity episodes, lock jaw, fin cracks, excessive consumption of spicy foods, dizziness, shortened life span, chills-

Nowadays, due to the above side effects, Silvyr only uses ice magic during times of need or for petty retributions (such as freezing the feet of someone that pissed them off to the ground, worth the subsequent headache).

Hand Symbols:

Started using hand symbols during their youth while wielding ice cause they thought it looked cool. Now it genuinely helps them concentrate and they're super embarrassed about it.

Voted Best Cuddler in Volica:

Due to their lowered body temperature Silvyr feels perpetually cold when on land, and (to a lesser degree) in water. As a result they can ALWAYS be found cuddling other zora(s) for warmth while sleeping. Everyone in the Domain loves it, no complaints.

When around strangers, Silvyr will initiate contact with a gentle touch to the arm, silently requesting the others companionship. If accepted, that zora WILL be cuddled till morning.

Additional Facts:

-Overheated zoras fresh from the volcanic mines often seek Silvyr out for a hug cause they feel so cold to the touch. Results in a dog pile (fish pile?) sometimes.

-LOVES spicy food. Will straight up eat a bag of RAW ghost peppers and be completely unbothered.

-Commonly seen wearing a fur lined cloak for warmth when on land.

-Doesn't overly emote unless exasperated, stressed, or during low sanity episodes. Zoras in Volica have an ongoing scoreboard of who has gotten Silvyr to smile the most. Thresh is currently leading (and is very smug about it).