#well water system

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

[halorvic]

"Do not let anyone convince you that you need to get sick to be healthy."

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Thinking about Mass Effect, as you do, and how I'm kind of sad that the way it's been engraved in pop culture has more to do with the way internet reacted to it at the time than what the actual game is about. Yes sure, it's about romance (and not that much all things considered) and it's pulpy (but not solely because of hot lady aliens), but it's also intricate worldbuilding that touches on a lot of sharp ideas, and a complicated tug-of-war between a genuine and vulnerable belief in reconciliation and community VS post 9-11 US military propaganda and steadfast belief in heroic exceptionalism, and the melancholic yet energizing mood, and the daring narrative systems, and so so much more than the 'We'll Bang OKs" and the "There's No Shepard Without Vakarian" and the whole ME3 ending situation

It's all there, but I'm sad the impact of the series is often reduced to (what I think is) the least interesting parts of its sum

[aspiringjester]

i relate to yue qingyuan bc i too am fundamentally hardwired to act like a sobbing wet kicked puppy around shen jiu and pitifully crawl away when he insults me and demands i leave and then drag my sopping wet pathetic self back for more time and time again and maybe this time he'll even hit me with his fan--

[muzsmoux]

Constructive Criticism for the Black Water Arc

Now, I am still shocked and angry but something has been bugging me. The plan might've been hundreds of years in the making but If Black Water actually put his whole He Xussy into this he wouldn't have used those shit tier skeleton fish. They look like what you'd find if you kicked over a cartoon trash can, along with a banana peel and a liquor bottle. Some more creative suggestions:

A) Orcas. Scary alive, even worse when dead. Bite force over 4 times that of a white shark's.

B) Dunkleosteus. Late Devonian fish that sans flesh looks like an underwater tank with massive saw blades embedded in it's mouth. Horrifying.

C) Megalodon. Would look no less stupid than the trout remains Mr. He has going on but I just imagine huge shark jaws flapping about trying to attack like a dumb flock of toothy butterflies. It's an aesthetic.

If you're going to ruin the It Girl's life at least put some thought into the minions. Because what are you serving? Cold, bloody revenge? Or yesterday's leftovers? Thank you for coming to my TED-talk.

[toxooz]

SURGERY WENT WELL apparently my appendix did rupture overnight so its hella good I got it checked out when I did😬 I just feel a lil bloated and like I got shanked but that's better than before🤘

[illgiveyouahint]

2 years since the full scale invasion. 10 years of war. We stand with you, Ukraine

[blankieisablankie]

I think I’m having an episode yes it’s the beach episode/ref

[metalic-sky-sprite]

Slates, Stars', Roary, and Ferns' house (at least a very bad rough draft of it)

[silverskye13]

As someone who has raised goats... godspeed. Also I'm curious if you know what breed they are?

Absolutely no idea. I know they get to be about waist height to me, but that's not saying too much. They are white with brown spots? The males have long horns that make a T-shape? They have beards and wattles?

I feel like this describes many goats.

[caution-we-bite]

This is your sign to make yourself some food.

This is your sign to drink water.

This is your sign to take a break.

This is your sign to care for yourself.

This is your sign to keep living.

[aq2003]

there comes a beautiful time in life where i have to ask myselg th question, "did i accidentally project too hard onto the character that i only relate to a little bit and in doing so hugely missed this one entire aspect/interpretation of the characters . am i stupid"

[fated-normal-767]

love my irls to death but sometimes it’s like looking into a mystical pool to see me 2 years ago. and sometimes I think ‘if I could give me from 2 years ago some advice I’d know exactly what to say to him’ and then I give said advice to my irls and they go ‘no im not doing that lmao.’ I am trying to help you here. I am trying to help you skip 2 years of incredibly difficult realisations and recovery. and yet they all continue to refuse any help I offer. Well Fine. not my job I guess.

[comfortabletogether]

I LIE, You know that I love you very much and that you are a sweetheart 🥺

i love you too!!

sorry every time I crash, I fall back in love with Kinjo it’s a problem.

[sunlitmiracle]

smashes my current interest together with my old interest (aka yet another "what Dungeon Meshi but Gamers?" AU)

Once when I was a child I had a complete crying meltdown over Creatures, because the manual insisted that the complicated AI of the Norns made them truly alive and 10-year-old me was freaked out at the idea of being solely responsible for making sure these real animals wouldn't die. The funny part was that this was the Playstation version of Creatures, which has no biochemistry and very basic AI compared to the PC/Mac games where players actually were debating whether or not it was true artificial life. A PSX manual gave me existential dread and it wasn't even telling the truth.

Anyway, kid!Marcille would also have a meltdown over the Creatures series, especially if she had the computer games and got to see how vastly different some breeds' lifespans are. Like in C2 where you have Norns that live for around 5 hours and Norns that live for 10, both of which are vastly more than Ettins who don't even live for 1.5 hours (and usually less due to radiation or starvation).

Lucky for her, having the computer version means she could download modified genomes made by other players that make creatures live longer or even outright remove certain death triggers. However I think she'd have more fun learning to read and edit the genomes herself, to get a better understanding of how the game works and how to change it to suit her own tastes. And because she could pretend she's one of the mysterious ancient Shee who created the Norns, Grendels, and Ettins and then vanished, leaving behind relics of their old society.

(Speaking of Grendels, she would unfortunately dislike them because they're the Designated Evil Species and she'd hate how they harass and attack her Norns. I think she'd also pity them though, because they get sick a lot and have short lifespans. Likely she'd just end up downloading/creating a genome without the aggression towards Norns. Ettins she'd like except for in C3 when they dismantle her meticulously-placed gadget setups, so she might mod out their hoarding compulsions too. Both of them would of course also live for however long her Norns would live.)

Also. While standard creatures' lifespans are counted in hours, if you modify the half-lives in the genome editor you can increase it to centuries. Or even just over a millennium if you set the half-lives to their max length (assuming you also leave the old age death trigger at its vanilla value).

and I like to think that elven Creatures players would pass around copies of what they consider a template genome that's appropriate to their own lifespans. Something that would make their creatures live for weeks or months of continuous play. I also like to think the Creatures DS Warp is still active in this AU because of the hilarious frustration when these long-lived Norns travel to worlds run by short-lived players whose Norns have vanilla lifespans, and vice versa.

(Most of the time in Creatures, offspring of parents with different lifespans will just have one or the other, but there's a chance the genes cross over right in the middle of the various age triggers and cause unstable aging rates. Like a Norn that goes through the childhood stages in hours but then has a very extended adulthood. Or a days-long childhood followed by suddenly dropping dead of old age once the vanilla adulthood genes kick in. Or, if the child has one parent's half-life decay rate and the other parent's age triggers, all sorts of odd things could happen. I once had hybrid Norns who lived for 20 hours and would die of organ failure before reaching the old age threshold!)

(Now that I think of it, Marcille would absolutely hate fast-agers. The first time she watches a creature hatch, turn old, and die in just one brief minute of life, she would be sobbing for days. One of the first things she'd learn to mod out would be mutations that cause the Ageing/Life chemical to decrease unusually fast.)

On a lighter note, while I don't know what her favorite designs would be I think she'd love choosing cute breeds to use in her world. Once she figured out how to give her creatures the comfortable life she wants them to have I can see her redirecting all her gene-editing efforts into changing color expressions. She might even learn to sprite or model her own custom designs.

[nansmenagerie]

Bori and Lokee (@eldrxtch) thought it'd be a good idea to help in a fight against a Leviathan. Bori's done it before, right? He can do it again. This can't possibly be as traumatizing as the first time, right?

It was worse. Bori lay huddled on the floor for a good ten minutes, and Lokee was nonverbal for hours.

They got better eventually, but at the same time, they are Not Okay.