#Local Maintenance Infrastructure

[geoxx-carrboro]

Title: SUNKISS: A Solar-Powered Atmospheric Carbon Scrubbing Framework

Abstract: In an age where climate change solutions are often overengineered or underdelivered, we propose a refreshingly simple concept: use solar farms not to power cities, but to directly power large-scale atmospheric carbon scrubbers. We call this the SUNKISS model: Solar-Utilized Negative-Karbon Integrated Scrubbing System. The concept removes the middlemen—grids, batteries, and storage…

[j-esbian]

HOAs are fucking wild. you're telling me that even if i legally own this home, i still have landlord rules. who the fuck cares if i have pets in the house that i own. it's my problem to clean up after them.

and who the fuck cares!!! about the color of my curtains!!!!!!!

[townpostin]

Power Mishap Strikes Adityapur's Gumti Basti Market

Fallen tree branch causes short circuit, damaging electronics in homes and shops Early morning incident averts major disaster, highlights need for improved infrastructure maintenance. ADITYAPUR – A potentially dangerous electrical incident occurred in the early hours of Saturday near the Gumti Basti railway crossing in Adityapur, Saraikela-Kharsawan district. A neem tree branch fell on overhead…

[cselandscapearchitect]

Natural Turf vs. Artificial Grass: Battling the Urban Heat Island Effect in the Low Desert

The low desert region faces the challenges of the urban heat island effect, where urban areas experience significantly higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas due to human activities and the built environment. As we strive to mitigate this heat island effect, one key consideration is the choice between natural turf and artificial grass. Both options have their own advantages and…

[reasonsforhope]

"In China, a landscape architect is reimagining cities across the vast country by working with nature to combat flooding through the ‘sponge city’ concept.

Through his architecture firm Turenscape, Yu has created hundreds of projects in dozens of cities using native plants, dirt, and clever planning to absorb excess rainwater and channel it away from densely populated areas.

Flooding, especially in the two Chinese heartlands of the commercial south and the agricultural north, is becoming increasingly common, but Yu says that concrete and pipe solutions can only go so far. They’re inflexible, expensive, and require constant maintenance. According to a 2021 World Bank report, 641 of China’s 654 largest cities face regular flooding.

“There’s a misconception that if we can build a flood wall higher and higher, or if we build the dams higher and stronger, we can protect a city from flooding,” Yu told CNN in a video call. “(We think) we can control the water… that is a mistake.”

Pictured: The Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok

Yu has been called the “Chinese Olmstead” referring to Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of NYC’s Central Park. He grew up in a little farming village of 500 people in Zhejiang Province, where 36 weirs channel the waters of a creek across terraced rice paddies.

Once a year, carp would migrate upstream and Yu always looked forward to seeing them leap over the weirs.

This synthesis of man and nature is something that Turenscape projects encapsulate. These include The Nanchang Fish Tail Park, in China’s Jiangxi province, Red Ribbon Park in Qinghuandao, Hebei province, the Sanya Mangrove Park in China’s island province of Hainan, and almost a thousand others. In all cases, Yu utilizes native plants that don’t need any care to develop extremely spongey ground that absorbs excess rainfall.

Pictured: The Dong’an Wetland Park, another Turescape project in Sanya.

He often builds sponge projects on top of polluted or abandoned areas, giving his work an aspect of reclamation. The Nanchang Fish Tail Park for example was built across a 124-acre polluted former fish farm and coal ash dump site. Small islands with dawn redwoods and two types of cypress attract local wildlife to the metropolis of 6 million people.

Sanya Mangrove Park was built over an old concrete sea wall, a barren fish farm, and a nearby brownfield site to create a ‘living’ sea wall.

One hectare (2.47 acres) of Turenscape sponge land can naturally clean 800 tons of polluted water to the point that it is safe enough to swim in, and as a result, many of the sponge projects have become extremely popular with locals.

One of the reasons Yu likes these ideas over grand infrastructure projects is that they are flexible and can be deployed as needed to specific areas, creating a web of rain sponges. If a large drainage, dam, seawall, or canal is built in the wrong place, it represents a huge waste of time and money.

Pictured: A walkway leads visitors through the Nanchang Fish Tail Park.

The sponge city projects in Wuhan created by Turenscape and others cost in total around half a billion dollars less than proposed concrete ideas. Now there are over 300 sponge projects in Wuhan, including urban gardens, parks, and green spaces, all of which divert water into artificial lakes and ponds or capture it in soil which is then released more slowly into the sewer system.

Last year, The Cultural Landscape Foundation awarded Yu the $100,000 Oberlander Prize for elevating the role of design in the process of creating nature-based solutions for the public’s enjoyment and benefit."

-via Good News Network, August 15, 2024

[probablyasocialecologist]

Humans are often inclined to build seawalls to protect coastal communities from encroaching oceans, but those require constant, expensive maintenance. And in fact, the way we’re changing land, rivers, and climate—and even the seawalls themselves—are undermining natural protections, such as tidal marshes, barrier islands, coral reefs, seagrass beds, dunes, gravel beaches, and kelp and mangrove forests. If left intact, these natural communities can slow fresh and tidal water, acting as a buffer, providing flexible and resilient protection for human communities. They provide multiple co-benefits, and even have the ability to sustain themselves. With these abilities, they can reduce by half the number of lives and properties at risk from storm surges and sea-level rise, according to a study in��Nature Climate Change. Unlike seawalls, tidal marshes have a superpower against sea-level rise. It’s not just that they are a buffer between the water and human infrastructure, sapping energy from storm surges and blocking the highest tides. Marshes can actually grow vertically, keeping pace with sea-level rise by trapping sediment in their vegetation, which decomposes and then regrows. To perform this trick, they need three ingredients: sediment, space, and time.

[...]

Broadly speaking, human development has erased many of water’s slow phases—floodplains, meadows, forests, and wetlands, such as tidal marshes. For example, humans have eradicated 87 percent of the world’s wetlands. What water wants, say the detectives, is a return of these slow phases, an approach I think of as the “Slow Water Movement.” Slow water approaches are unique to each place, work with local systems, are distributed rather than centralized, are socially just, and empower and engage the local community. They also provide multiple benefits beyond buffering us from flood and drought, including carbon storage and homes for threatened plants and animals.

29 November 2022

[prokopetz]

Ways your fortified points-of-light fantasy city with no discernible agricultural base supports itself that aren't "they eat the monsters":

There's no farmland spreading below the city's mountain fastness because all of the crops are above. Most of the mountain's surface area below the permanent snowline is taken up by a series of colossal hydroponic terraces fed by seasonal meltwater from the snow pack above. (Don't ask who built the terraces.)

The city's famed heaven-piercing towers are aviaries for millions upon untold millions of fruit and seed eating birds, which forage the surrounding countryside by day and roost there at night; their meat and eggs form the community's staple diet. In order to fend off ecological depletion, crack teams of combat-trained wilderness maintenance experts venture forth daily, escorting great cartloads of birdshit on targeted fertilising missions (though in truth they hardly need their swords, as the smell keeps the monsters at bay).

Those weird caverns that seem to be present under every random shed and outhouse are all connected. That's why the giant mutant rats in the basement of the local inn are such a big deal – they're not just annoying the guests, they're also obstructing the community's principal trade route!

For Reasons, the city's population is only about ten percent of its carrying capacity. The city's interior green spaces are presently sufficient for food production, and its citizens take turns dressing up as soldiers and manning the walls once a week to create the illusion of a robust military presence. Unfortunately, the ruse can't last forever, as they lack the manpower to maintain their crumbling infrastructure, nor will they be able to defend themselves when – not if, but when – the neighbouring city-states figure it out.

There's actually plenty of conventional farmland; it's just that the entire campaign takes place south of the city, and the farms are all to the north. Why don't the farms expand southward to claim the clearly arable land? Well, there's a funny story about that...

[kiragecko]

Story Idea

Telekinetic supervillain who REALLY loves historical architecture. Living in a superhero universe where heroes keep crashing through stained glass windows and leveling entire streets. As well as the normal corruption causing building to be demolished or “restored” in extremely destructive ways.

Kinda has Poison Ivy vibes, without any of the femme fatale trappings - her entire focus is preserving historical valuable buildings, and she doesn’t really care if humans that get in the way die. But she also isn’t going out of her way to kill people.

And the leader of the local superhero team can see where she’s coming from. And decides that just throwing her in jail every time she acts up is a sign they’re failing in their duty to protect the city. Instead, he starts trying to gain her trust. He doesn’t care that much about buildings, but he works on lessening his team’s collateral damage. He promises the supervillain that he’ll try to pressure the city government if she brings problems to him rather than taking them into her own hands. Eventually, he convinces her that she can protect the city’s infrastructure better by being on his team than she can on her own.

She’s incredibly helpful! She will keep burning buildings from collapsing until everyone can get out and the fire is extinguished. She’ll hold skyscrapers up while supervillains reign destruction down around them. She’ll deconstruct traps and grumpily direct her teammates towards the hidden mastermind who set them up. And when the crisis is over, she’ll see what can be salvaged and rebuild it if possible.

But she’s a PR nightmare.

Former Supervillain refuses to help people. She DOES NOT care. Your kid is trapped in the burning building? That is not her problem. Go bother someone else. Dude is holding a bunch of people hostage? It’s fine, he’s not causing any damage to the building he’s in.

People DO NOT like this attitude. People do not accept that she’s part of a team, and other heroes are capable of filling the “empathy” and “human rescuing” gaps.

And she’s high maintenance! The team frequently end up in situations where protecting lives is in conflict with protecting property. They take missions that mean very little to them, because they’re important to her. And the leader is constantly having to talk her out of rampages, pressuring the government to drop lucrative and unethical contracts, and making sure she’s sticking to the plan in the field. And she isn’t interested in interpersonal relationships or social niceties, so none of them are even doing this out of friendship!

-

Sometimes, you help someone not because they’ll be grateful, but because it will make your community better. Sometimes, you help the local drug addict not because he’s likely to turn his life around, but because he smashes less windows when he has a warm, quiet space to stay. And sometimes, keeping that community benefit takes a long term commitment.

I want to see a superhero team turn a villain as harm prevention and then willingly bear the cost of keeping that villain from causing harm. Not because it’s rewarding (though there are rewards) but because it’s more effective than any other method. And I want the villain to go along with it because the heroes actually found a more efficient way for her to reach her goals.

And it being messy for everyone, but I want them to make it work. And it to be worth it, in the end.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - October 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles on Patreon!

1. All 160 dogs at Florida shelter found homes ahead of Hurricane Milton

“[The shelter] offered crates, food and anything else the dogs would need in exchange for the animals to spend just five days with the foster parents if the human didn't want to keep them for longer. […A]fter about a day of receiving around 100 messages every 30 minutes, Bada said, all 160 were gone from the shelter and in safe and warm homes.”

2. Restoring Ecosystems and Rejuvenating Native Hawaiian Traditions in Maui

“[Volunteers] are restoring water flow to the refuge, removing invasive species, and restoring a loko iʻa kalo using ʻike kūpuna, ancestral knowledge. […] This human-made ecosystem will provide food for community members and habitat for wildlife while protecting coral reefs offshore.”

3. Solar-powered desalination system requires no extra batteries

“In contrast to other solar-driven desalination designs, the MIT system requires no extra batteries for energy storage, nor a supplemental power supply, such as from the grid. […] The system harnessed on average over 94 percent of the electrical energy generated from the system’s solar panels to produce up to 5,000 liters of water per day[….]”

4. Threatened pink sea fan coral breeds in UK aquarium for first time

“The spawning is part of University of Exeter Ph.D. student Kaila Wheatley Kornblum's research into the reproduction, larval dispersal and population connectivity of Eunicella verrucosa. […] Pink sea fans are believed to have been successfully bred by only one other institution, Lisbon Oceanarium, in 2023.”

5. Tiny 'backpacks' are being strapped to baby turtles[….]

““We analysed the data and found that hatchlings show amazingly consistent head-up orientation – despite being in the complete dark, surrounded by sand [… and] they move as if they were swimming rather than digging[…. This new observation method is] answering questions about best conservation practices,” says Dor.”

6. New California Law Protects Wildlife Connectivity

“A new state law in California will instruct counties and municipalities to conserve wildlife corridors when planning new development. […] This could entail everything from creating wildlife crossings at roads or highways, employing wildlife-safe fencing, or not developing on certain land.”

7. ‘I think, boy, I’m a part of all this’: how local heroes reforested Rio’s green heart

“By 2019, [the program] had transformed the city’s landscape, having trained 15,000 local workers like Leleco, who have planted 10m seedlings across […] roughly 10 times the area of New York’s Central Park. Reforested sites include mangroves and vegetation-covered sandbars called restinga, as well as wooded mountainsides around favelas.”

8. Alabama Town Plans to Drop Criminal Charges Over Unpaid Garbage Bills

““Suspending garbage pickup, imposing harsh late penalties and prosecuting people who through no fault of their own are unable to pay their garbage and sewage bills does not make payment suddenly forthcoming,” West said. [… The city] has agreed to drop pending criminal charges against its residents over unpaid garbage bills.”

9. New Hampshire’s low-income community solar program finally moves forward

“The state energy department is reviewing seven proposals for community solar arrays that will allocate a portion of their bill credits to low-income households. […] New Hampshire’s strategy of working with utilities to automatically enroll households that have already been identified streamlines the process.”

10. The Future Looks Bright for Electric School Buses

“EPA has awarded about $3 billion in grants from the infrastructure law, which paid to replace about 8,700 buses. Of those, about 95 percent are electric. [… Electric buses are] cheaper to operate and require less maintenance than diesel buses and will soon be at cost parity when looking at the lifetime cost of ownership[….]”

October 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[wachinyeya]

Junior Brown- Thu 3 Apr 2025

With millions of solar devices failing, the African solar repair movement is training local technicians to extend their lifespan.

Africa’s solar energy boom has changed lives, bringing power to millions without electricity access. However, as solar equipment ages, a growing number of systems are breaking down. Without repair services, communities risk losing their only source of power.

A growing network of solar repair entrepreneurs is working to fix this problem. Known as the African solar repair movement, this initiative trains local technicians to restore broken solar devices, extending their lifespan and keeping power accessible in off-grid areas. Experts say this approach is crucial for creating a sustainable solar economy.

Solar energy has expanded rapidly across Africa over the past decade. In 2014, the continent had just 1.67 gigawatts of solar capacity. By 2023, that number had grown nearly tenfold to 13.48 gigawatts—enough to power 100 million lightbulbs.

Africa is an ideal location for solar energy. According to the International Energy Agency, the continent has 60% of the world’s best solar resources. In many areas, solar is already the cheapest way to generate electricity.

However, as more solar devices are installed, a new problem has emerged: maintenance and repair. Solar products such as home lighting kits and mini-grids are breaking down; without proper servicing, they become waste.

According to SolarAid, a nonprofit focused on solar access in Africa, over 250 million solar energy kits worldwide have fallen into disrepair. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 75% of all solar products—an estimated 110 million solar lights—no longer work.

Most of these devices could be fixed with simple repairs. However, because there is little infrastructure for solar maintenance, broken systems are often discarded.

This creates three major problems. One is the loss of access to electricity. Many communities depend entirely on solar power. When systems fail, families are left in the dark.

Two, electronic waste accumulation. Non-repairable solar devices contribute to Africa’s growing e-waste problem.

Finally, there is economic loss. Solar products are expensive for African households, and replacing them frequently is not sustainable.

To address this crisis, organizations like SolarAid have launched programs to train local repair agents. These entrepreneurs, often called “solar repair agents,” learn to diagnose and fix common solar equipment failures, such as faulty batteries, wiring issues, and broken switches.

Father Vincent Ngwira, a Catholic priest in Zambia, is one of these repair agents. He has been involved in solar energy distribution since 2017 and recently completed a three-day training program to repair solar devices in his community.

“In the past, people used candles for light, and that led to house fires,” says Ngwira. “Solar changed everything, but now many of these devices are breaking. Learning to repair them has been empowering.”

In September 2023, he fixed a faulty solar panel and a broken flashlight switch. The flashlight repair cost just 20 Zambian Kwacha ($0.75)—a price that makes solar maintenance affordable for even the poorest households.

The African solar repair movement does more than keep the lights on. It also provides economic and environmental benefits: Repair technicians and solar entrepreneurs gain new income opportunities. Repairing solar devices prevents unnecessary e-waste, and keeping money within communities instead of spending on new imports strengthens financial resilience.

In Zambia, 10 repair agents and 7 advanced technicians are now fixing more complex solar failures. SolarAid teams in Zambia and Malawi have repaired over 2,400 solar products in the past year.

“We’re creating a sustainable solar economy,” says Fred Mwale, project manager for SolarAid in Zambia. “Repairing devices instead of replacing them benefits both people and the planet.”

Despite its success, the African solar repair movement faces several challenges.

One is that spare parts are limited. Many solar batteries and components must be imported from China, which can take months. Manufacturers also limit access to repair information to protect their designs.

Two, repair shops must be centrally located in rural areas to be accessible. Some people still have to travel long distances to reach them.

Finally, Zambia alone has 72 spoken languages, making communication difficult for technicians working in remote villages.

Mwale believes that the movement can overcome these obstacles with better support. “We need manufacturers to make spare parts more available and governments to support repair-friendly policies,” he says.

Other renewable energy sources, such as wind power, also face maintenance challenges. However, large-scale wind and hydroelectric projects are usually managed by corporations with dedicated repair teams.

Solar, on the other hand, is often distributed through small-scale systems to individual households. This makes community-based repair models like the African solar repair movement even more essential.

The future of the African solar repair movement looks promising. With better policies and funding, experts predict that solar repair could expand across the continent.

Innovations like 3D-printed solar components and community repair hubs could make repairs even more accessible. Governments may also introduce policies that require manufacturers to provide repairable designs and spare parts.

With Africa’s demand for solar energy increasing, a strong repair network will be essential to powering the continent.

The African solar repair movement is proving that renewable energy isn’t just about installing new systems—it’s about keeping them running for generations. As Africa pushes toward sustainable and affordable energy for all, repair initiatives will play a crucial role in shaping the future.

[redd956]

Worldbuilding: Cold Climate

Worldbuilding things to think about for cold climates :D

Not Freezing To Death

One of the main things to think about when worldbuilding a society in cold climates is how exactly people don't freeze to death. Of course we could easily knock out some factors, such as nonhuman creature of ice, but what about everybody else. Even creatures that live in arctic level climates are exposed to the dangers of too much cold.

Extremeness

First things first, decide how extreme the cold is in the climate. Another thing to think about is whether or not it remains this freezing all year long, or if a more stable temperate climate is nearby (usually south).

This will decide how difficult it is to not freeze to death. If we're talking arctic or colder, it will be surprisingly easy to freeze to death, but locals would be wiser.

Architecture

Keeping heat in is going to be the most important function of homes and shelters.

How are homes heated?

How do homes keep heat in?

Think about these two questions of course.

Insulation is a major factor as to why warm housing in cold climates is possible, just look at igloos, which rely entirely on insulation using your own body temperature to heat the indoors.

Next is a heating source. There are so many many different ways to heat a house in such a cold environment. Homes in Siberia use methods such as masonry stoves, central heating, and communal boilers. In many areas the cultural aspect of putting carpets on the walls also aid insulation.

The more facilities and technology a building holds, the more maintenance it needs. Sources like water and electricity are much more difficult to obtain and upkeep. In many arctic circle settlements, they rely on bringing back pure blocks of ice for drinking water. Wells are most often dug, and pipes need to be very closely cared for, due to pipes freezing and exploding.

Snow is heavy too. Roofs need to be sturdy, and allocated so that snow doesn't build too heavily. If temperatures change during warm seasons, most often people will go on their roofs to clear the snow before it melts, because the wet moisture will find its way inside the home and destroy the infrastructure.

Clothing

Warm, windproof, waterproof, and proper fabric. These are four things to consider for clothes that keep people alive. Clothes alone, unless supplemented by magic or technology, cannot guarantee survival in the coldest environments. However a person in winter gear is going to take a lot longer to die of hypothermia compared to someone in casual summer wear.

Fabrics and materials like fleece, wool, leather, and fur are very warm and reliable. Cotton is frowned upon though for not being water or wind proof.

Things like gloves, masks, scarves, hats, boots, and padded armor will be more common, especially to protect against frostbite on extremities like fingers, toes, ears, and nose.

Biology

I'll go further detail into this later down in the post, but biology plays a major role. Many different creatures have different adaptations to help them survive the cold. Humans do too, a good thing to think about for messing around with humanoid populations in cold environments.

People on average tend to have larger builds, and sometimes shorter limbs in colder climates. Larger bodies mean more cells, which means more heat. Limbs help dissipate and disperse heat, so when they're shorter they hold more warmth in. Also generally being more fat or chubby keeps one warmer compared to someone with lower fat and muscle distribution.

It's also important to realize that as humans we adapt through more than just physical ways, we adapt through innovation and culture as well. Take for instance the snow-blindness goggles or ski goggles.

Food Sources

Populations are often aligned towards the coast in cold environments, due to the easiest food source, fish. Fishing is not only much easier for populations, but less dangerous than searching for potentially sparse wildlife in the middle of the arctic.

Hunting is still an option, and so is farming in a way, but it will not be as big of a provider for diets as fishing.

Agricultural animals, such as cows, chickens, etc, need heated shelter and food as well. Low temperature crops are essential too. Of course we all know about potatoes, but also other root vegetables. Leafy green vegetables are also good at surviving.

Everything else would require some form of advanced greenhouse, and of course the labor to take care of everything.

Animal-Life Things

Alright, back to biology. Animals!

Arctic animals often rely on winter coats and/or blubber. Blubber isn't always seen as the outer layer of an aquatic animal like seals, but can also be a layer of skin on a furred animal. Fur is often multilayered too, and of course adapted to seasonal camouflage. Their bodies are their insulators. For feathered creatures we see fluffed up feathers.

Huddling together, digging icy dens for insulation, and sometimes relying on local hot springs are other tactics seen.

Some creatures, on the more cold-blooded side, have a natural antifreeze in their blood.

Of course one of the most important factor is fat reserves. Bulking up in preparation for winter is a must, especially if an animal is planning on hibernating.

Many arctic creatures have dark or black skin, as it helps them absorb as much light as possible as the sunlight is out. As for why humans don't replicate this trend is not fully known. There are many theories, but most of it simply boils down to the magic of diversity.

Travel

Last, but not least, is travel. Traveling around in a snowy environment isn't as easy as it seems. Frequent breaks are needed to maintain one's heat if traveling out in the open, and vehicles need to be specially constructed to overcome the rough terrain.

Water transport is often the main group of transport utilized in such cold environments. Railways are common too. Engineering techniques and lots of resources plus manpower keep things like railways functioning in arctic climates.

Things like sleds, and sleighs, often animal-pulled are seen culturally and historically. This is because other animals simply have an easier time clambering over snow, compared to humans.

[mirthfulmoonshine]

LoZ: Ternary Ages △ Royal Siblings

𓅓 Dahri | Royal Architect

The eldest of Rutimala's children, Dahri is the glue. She is artsy, compassionate, feels deeply, and has an eye for design. She is good at delegating tasks, but is not very charismatic, preferring intimate, quiet moments with those she treasures rather than rallies or crowds.

As the royal architect, Dahri oversees all artistic and infrastructural endeavors in the Empire. From actual architecture, irrigation, beautification, festivities, maintenance of statues and locales, and the encouragement of the arts (gems, painting, weaving, etc.)

Dahri is a talented dancer, partaking in any cultural or festive dance she can! Dancing and weaving are her favorite past times.

She is great with children. Gerudo culture lends to a 'it takes a village' mentality so children are the responsibility of the whole people - a calling Dahri takes very seriously. In her lavish royal gowns, she is often asked to spin or twirl by admiring young vai.

Her glowy and gentle nature allude to her sheltered life. Dahri has rarely left the Fortress, being the most sheltered out of the three children.

Dahri is the least magically inclined of the three as well - she continues to practice in hopes of getting a glimmer of lightning from her fingertips. Tangibly, Dahri is a menace with a bow and arrow should she join her fellow sisters in combat.

Once becoming chieftain, Dahri nurses the Gerudo Empire back to health. Her endeavors to tend to the Gerudo people and her calm approach to the devastated Hyrule earns her the title of Heroine of Gentleness/Compassion.

She continues the Dragmire family line. Dahri meets a Hylian historian and they end up with three children and a loving, long distance relationship. Dahri's middle child, Padora, becomes the next chieftain.

𓃦 Pashato | Captain of the Guard

Second born is Pashato, the brave and tempered captain of the royal guard. In and out of her capacity as captain, Pashato is steadfast, organized, justice-oriented, and a people-person. Pride, occasional arrogance, and an inability to think like the enemy weaken her but luckily she rarely makes decisions on her own, leaning on her siblings for wise council. She is also easily flustered.

Less artsy than her sister, Pashato thrives in conflict and risk, keeping a relatively level head amidst it all. She thrives in Molduga hunts, fast-paced border patrols, and high-tension and stakes missions that creep beyond the protective Highlands.

Her swordsmanship with her two-handed sword is near unmatched. In terms of magic, her lightning cleaver are impressive but require conduits (a sword, an item, etc.)

Pashato's position as Captain puts her in charge of all military endeavors such as missions, border patrols, delegation/diplomacy guards, general security, training, and weapon inventory (arms, armaments, artillery, etc.)

She loves to spar, both with those in her guard and especially her brother. Though she always orders no magic, lightning strikes when they take each other on.

In the Tricernary War, Pashato is wounded and killed by one of Zelda's light arrows in the Gerudo's final attempt to the besieg the castle/castle town. Her right hand and best friend, Keliyan, takes up the mantle. Pashato is left to fade away in Gerudo history, another Gerudo falling in battle.

𓃵 Ganondorf | King of the Gerudo

Last child and only son of Chieftain Rutimala.

Ganondorf is meticulous, cunning, and an opportunist. At best, he is diplomatic, listening to those he trusts most (even if it followed with a rebuttal) and has a soft spot for his people. At worst, Ganondorf is arrogant, prideful, and full of wrath. Though he never makes a rash decision if he can avoid it, he can fly off the handle.

From birth, according to his male status, Ganondorf was often isolated from his people and family, making brief appearances to the fortress at large and mostly getting to see his sisters during meals. Most of his time was engorged with training, learning the arts, strategy, diplomacy, languages, cultural tradition, and fighting/magic.

His isolated upbringing cultivated mischief. Ganondorf would find and navigate all the secret passageways in the Empire, using waterways and towers, promenades, and balconies to stealthily navigate the labyrinth of the Fortress. During his escapades, he would often sit and reflect in holy places, at the feet of depictions of divine beings he felt drawn to.

Early into his life, Ganondorf began having intense bouts of rage and delirium, breaking things and screaming as if in pain. Canines became tusks, breathing would become huffing, and the elder witches and Va'Qai were called in immediately to tend to the young prince's ailment.

While Kotake and Koume nurtured his talent for magic, Va'Qai Palu taught the young prince how to manage his beastly form and bouts of what she called 'Malice's affliction.' He was never hidden from the dark reality of his powers and divine connection. He tried to embrace it.

His magical repertoire is extensive. Lightning, illusions, phantoms, astral, and dark magics atop sword and archery proficiency. Kotake and Koume teach him how to call upon another being to strengthen his own magic, that being Demise. His dual wield swords are both for basic fighting and as magical conduits.

After Rutimala dies, Ganondorf is made king. His rule is painted in conflict, unwavering to the peace attempts from Hyrule and permits Gerudo retaliation. Though he had the Va'Qai as his wife, Gerudo oral tradition is in agreement that he did not have children.

His left arm has a tattoo on it, as does his back and hands.

[gynandromorph]

So Jessie dissolved every single government, nation, and municipality when she became god and as you might imagine this would cause issues down the line since governments are often responsible for like. Citizen welfare. Infrastructure maintenance. etc.

When she did that though a reactionary polity formed (Boglia) centralized around opposition to Jessie pretty much immediately, and she has a hard time getting rid of them as an entity, because a different group functionally identical to them will just reemerge again with the same goal of opposing her sovereignty. Boglia doesn't necessarily have a LEADER, although Jessie does make at least one aside about assassinating high profile members when they were convening while not expecting her to be active (during her usual morning routine with Shiloh). They also don't have a specific territory, although they initially tried to establish one. Other attempts to form structured government and monopolies on violence seem to be stamped out by Jessie very quickly or integrated into... Well. More Boglia. This leads to a network of micro-governments of possibly only a dozen individuals working within localities and I think through those micro-groups it comes to function as a surrogate regulatory body. So things like transport (fixing roads, powering transit, etc.) or certification or disease and food supervision and so on would all be handled by people affiliated with Boglia who said wow someone should do something about that, or by people directly subsidized by Boglia.

Anyway all that to say I bet they have anti-jessie PSAs on the boglia-sponsored radio network and Jessie safety tips on the Boglia-sponsored monorails--

[ladyshinga]

I wish like hell I could drive this point into every American head: you CANNOT have Constant Uphill Progress while ignoring the ongoing maintenance of infrastructure

Like oooo your little AI bot is sooo cool, how are you maintaining those servers? Is it sustainable? Is it causing local problems with power and water?

Ooo nice fancy new military jet, did we spend 8 billion dollars to make it and then will let it slowly rust in a hanger bay while you rush to make a NEW 12 billion dollar jet?

Nice new highway lane, how are the potholes on EVERY other road in your city?

Nice new football stadium, local college, wow! Did you notice your science and art buildings are falling apart?

Interesting house design, Random Architect hired to make cheap housing that costs too much for anyone to buy anyway, is it CLEANABLE? Did you make annoying high windows people can't reach, did you build closet shelving with cheap little nails because you don't care that people actually have to LIVE IN THIS HOUSE and TAKE CARE OF IT and actually PUT things on the shelves you built so they need to handle ACTUAL WEIGHT, do you think about that at all? Or is all that thinking "annoying" and it "stops ~innovation~"

It feels like a constant uphill battle just to get Americans to think further than one goddamn year into the future. How will this be maintained? How will you fix it, keep it running, how can OTHERS fix and maintain it after you're gone? How will this road look in 10 years? How will this website function in five years? Why are we designing this war machine we claim we have no use for because we're "not at war", after all?

American individualism = "who cares about what happens in the future to other people, all I care about is how good I feel about this right this second and asking me questions about how to manage this stuff in the future is buzzkill loser behavior, hdu"

[probablyasocialecologist]

The industrial world is aging, and the sheer quantity and geographic extent of transportation, water and energy infrastructure presents an unprecedented challenge at the exact moment that climate change forces us to rethink material use. More robust maintenance practices could help preserve modernity’s finest achievements, from public transit systems to power grids to insulated homes. But first maintenance has to be valued outside of austerity, and right now it’s unclear if our current economic system is capable of that.  Maintenance could serve as a useful framework for addressing climate change and other pressing planetary constraints that, if left unaddressed, could recreate on a global scale the localized austerity of a cash-strapped transit agency. Indeed, maintenance as a concept could encompass both the built environment and the so-called natural world. Perhaps maintenance, rather than sustainability, is the more useful framework for a green transition, because it can account for how human infrastructure is now deeply entangled with the environment in the age of the Anthropocene. 

[...]

Maintenance is about keeping things — sometimes large, intensively built things like skyscrapers and subway cars that might be difficult to imagine in the biodegradable utopias of the most gung-ho environmentalists. Ultimately, reduction is prioritized. We must not hold onto things. We must let go like good Buddhists, as industrial civilization becomes merely a painful, transient phase in human history, passing out of us like bad karma.  There is tension in the question of whether to build objects more intensively, so that they last longer, or to recognize that some things cannot endure and thus should be designed that way. There’s no hope for a paper plate in the long run, for example. It’s designed to enter the waste stream as cheaply and easily as possible. Conversely, a toaster could last for decades if maintained properly, assuming the manufacturer hasn’t built obsolescence into it (as is often the case).  More complex objects and built environments, like a transit system or a housing development, compound questions over what should last and what cannot. How do we create systems that can address these questions on their own terms? 

[phoenixyfriend]

Soka Takes a Terrorist: Chapter One

The latest fic in Anakin and the Jedi Babies. Three chapters total.

Sokanth Skywalker makes a friend, all on her own! He is in Death Watch. She's going to save him, just you wait!

Read on AO3

About two thirds of this fic were written by hand on the train while in Japan.

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Most planets have their own, smaller ‘nets. Sometimes, they extend to the whole sector, if it makes sense to do so. Sure, there’s the ‘galactic’ holonet, but it really just makes more sense to have a faster, local holonet, too.

Mandalore has been trying to consolidate fragmented ‘nets for ages. Some of that has gone better than… well…

Skyguy’s been helping, at least?

Soka knows some of the issues. Krownest has environmental restrictions regarding the weather, something about constructing infrastructure to withstand low temperatures, which can impact servers and wiring. Concord Dawn is prone to geologic instability, so burying transmission cables isn’t an option given the earthquake risk. Kalevala is getting on okay, making good progress, and so is the moon Concordia; that’s why they’ve been offered up as hosting for the hyper-relays. Manda’yaim itself is stuck trying to decide on the best way to protect transmission lines from sandstorms, which could uncover lines buried at a standard depth, and burying them deeper would make them harder to access for maintenance. It is where a lot of the ‘host’ servers and stuff are going, mostly in their own separate domes a few kilometers out in the desert.

And that’s all before the politics and coding and other non-infrastructure, non-environmental-y bits.

“I don’t understand why you’re even involved,” Ben complains, “you’re a droidhead, not a slicer. Aren’t there other things more in line with your specialties?”

Skyguy gets that look on his face, the one where he’s not sure how to think or feel about one of them referencing, or forgetting, something from the Before.

“Well,” he says, “a lot of the maintenance and repairs are going to be done by droids, and I’ve got a decent experience in weather-proofing to boot, especially in deserts. Besides, I need something to fill the time.”

Because Mereel’s been weird about Skyguy since the Jedi visit.

“Can I help?” Soka pipes up.

“Probably a bit out of your skill range,” he says, a touch apologetic.

“But I want to be involved,” she whines.

(And she is not embarrassed to admit that.)

He laughs, and rubs at her head between the montrals, just like when he ruffles Ben’s hair. “Fine, how about I get you some specs on what we’ve already got hooked in, and you can do some beta-testing?”

“Works for me!” she half-cheers. “Ben, what about you?”

“I’ll pass, thank you very much,” he says, “but let me know if you find you need some help with the diplomacy.”

“Not my department,” Skyguy says, “but sure.”

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