#also i have to work out but it’s SO HOT IN THE SOUTHERN HEMIsphERE LIKE WHYYYYYY

[satoruzlove]

I WAS STALKING ONE OF MY FAV WRITER’S BLOGS N I REALISED THEYRE FOLLOWING ME GET OFF MY LAWN RUGHT NOW IS THIS WHAT BEINF IN A COMMUNITY IS LIKE

[elbiotipo]

your post about potatoes in fantasy worlds made me base my primary fantasy continent off sudamérica so i could use fantasy versions of andean and amazonian fauna/flora. I'm still trying to figure out how to change the geography enough to have the big desert i want in the right area(andes get an offshoot that encircles a rain shadow desert in the central north is the best idea i have) but actually being forced to consider how native wildlife works and needing to create trade routes if i wanted imported crops was fun. i was also trying to figure out why the southern hemisphere has more hot climates than the north and something said it's because the south on earth has less landmass so i think having the northern hemisphere above it be mostly tropical works if I have mostly archipelagos? also every time i see a european based fantasy have potatoes or tomatoes i shake my head and scowl.

The reason why the Southern Hemisphere seems to have more hot climates is indeed simply because the continental parts don't spread that far South to actually cold southern latitudes. The only place that really sticks that far south to have a truly cold climate is the Patagonia. And of course, Antarctica, which by coinicidence, basically surrounds the South Pole.

Here is a map of "temperate" latitudes, or rather, latitudes between the tropics and the polar circles (as someone who lives here, or indeed an Australian can tell you, many places there are not "temperate" at all but more on that below). What is important here is that the southern hemisphere has less places closer to the pole, except, again, Antarctica, while the northern hemisphere has lots of land near the poles. This is why we don't have our equivalents of say, Siberia, for example. The closest thing is again, Patagonia. Honestly an underused place for worldbuilding, with the steppe, the glaciers, the temperate rainforests, and the recently extinct megafauna, but I digress.

You could in fact have a tropical "north" if you keep most of the northern hemisphere's landmasses near the equator (here I'm picturing some kind of big Indonesia or Caribbean, an area where tectonic plates collide and there's lots of volcanic islands and lands), and you could place a big continent in the South to make it a cold South. Interesting reversal on the cold North/warm South of most settings.

This would bring some interesting effects, though. Placing a big landmass on any pole (not a small one like Antarctica) would lead to glaciation, as land is "colder" or rather less moderated by ocean (more on that later) and glaciers grow, and glaciers and arid land have greater albedo, reflectivity, that is, and so they reflect more sunlight, thus those place become colder, and the glaciers keep growing, and so on, until there is an ice-age. I don't have the link where I read it with me, but I recall that continents shifting to polar latitudes might have triggered ice-ages in Earth's past.

Deserts are very tricky to place. The standard worldbuilding recommendation is that the interior of the continents are drier as you get away from the sea, and that mountain chains and high terrain serves as rainshadows that stop rain from the sea. However, there is a lot more to it. A LOT more.

You can find deserts even next to oceans, in the so-called "horse latitudes", the meeting points of the Hadley Cells that circulate air from the Equator to the subtropics and beyond. The details are a bit technical, but what this means basically is that they create jet streams of circulating air at 30° South and North, keeping the climate sunny, warm and dry. This is indeed where many of the world's coastal deserts are: Atacama, Kalahari, and of course, Australia.

Meanwhile, in the equatorial zone, the "trade winds" (because they have regular wind patterns that have historical formed major sea trade routes, worldbuilding hint!) converge in the Equator, forming rainy areas... but not quite that simple.

The Intertropical Convergence Zone, where these winds meet, ocsilates during the year, creating monsoons, but as always, there are lots of factors involved. In particular, given our real life scenario of rapid climate change and global warming, a warmer temperature means more intense ocsilations. This makes monsoon events sharper (more droughts and floods in those regions) and more strong La Niña/El Niño events, which are their own thing, influenced by the Pacific which is a huge factor in global climate.

And this brings me to ocean currents. Usually, being close to the ocean moderates the climate, making it more rainy and warm, or at least stable. However, if the surrounding sea is cool, it means less evaporation and less rainfall, especially if it's influenced by cool polar currents (this is the case of eastern Patagonia, for example, with the cold Malvinas Current). The opposite is the case in, for example, Europe, where the warm gulf stream moderates climate, making it warmer and rainer compared to the same latitudes in the US and Canada. I'll admit I'm not very well informed on how ocean currents work, but the depth and salinity of the ocean have much to do with it. What basically happens is that dense salty water sinks and and this works as a "conveyor belt" for warm less dense surface water to flow over it and over great distances. These currents are slow, but since the ocean is so massive, they move extensive amounts of heat across the world. I will admit defeat here and just say I don't wholly understand how it works, but I can tell you this; if your world has a less salty ocean, your currents will be less strong, which means that the differences of temperature between the poles and the tropics will be sharper as there are no strong currents to overall moderate temperature. If this is all too complex for you as it is to me, the quick cheat is just looking at this map: warm water flows from the equator, and cold water flows from the poles, and they create "gyres" around the oceans and the Equator, and cold currents contribute to colder and drier climates (note the Canary, Benguela and Peru currents, the Malvinas current is not shown for some reason...)

Did I forget something? Oh, yes. A colder climate of course, means less rainfall, because there is less evaporation and there is much water "trapped" in glaciers and snow. Which seems to be the case during the last ice ages. Rainforests and forests in general retreated as deserts expanded. In fact, the few forests that remained served as refugiums for species that only expanded again once the ice age was over. Some especulate that this might meant a 'weakening' of megafauna, as they were trapped in those refuges with lots of interbreeding and weakened populations when humans arrived on the scene. Here is a very interesting map:

Now, there are some contradictions here and there, some researchers have said that the climate wasn't that dry and while I'm not an expert I tend to agree, many parts that are "extreme desert" there might be scrubland instead. But overall, it seems that colder times bring drier times too.

I'm still not done, but I'm almost done! According to the Biotic Pump theory, forests might also influence the climate and rainfall in a big way, basically, evapotranspiration (plants sweat, a lot, 90% of water through a plant evaporates to the atmosphere) in forests might actually create by itself the rainy environment where forests thrive, so for example, the Amazon is a rainforest BECAUSE of the forest there. I think with the increasing droughts here in South America we're seeing that theory proven in practice, as deforestation of the Mata Atlantica, the Chaco and the Amazon is causing less rainfall in the centre of the continent. Forests and plants also have a cooling effect, since they fix carbon dioxide, and also a bit of a warming effect, since they have darker albedo and so absorb more sunlight. I'm going to be very lazy and instead of reading a thousand papers say that they overall have a "moderating" effect.

Well, I could go on and on but I think I've already written way too much, so I'll leave you this to munch on a bit. It might seem like a lot, but when in doubt, you can always "eyeball" it by comparing real regions of Earth, and it will help you to create more interesting world than the omnipresent "spring-summer-fall-winter" temperate standard in so many settings.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Oh, and also, if you found this helpful or interesting, I would appreciate a tip to my ko-fi!

[forgeofthenine]

When you said you can't drink hot drinks rn because it's hot for a moment my dumb ass was like "huh, they're so into the characters, they're straight up writing from Elturel down in Avernus". And then I remembered the southern hemisphere exists....

Anyway as a countertenor, I wonder how the Bachelors would react to someone serenading them. And also how they'd feel about someone serenading them. (Also kind of about countertenors since a loooot of people are weirded out when hearing my low speaking voice and then very high singing voice, if that's not too ultraspecific...)

(Also also, I feel like E Lucevan Le Stelle from Puccini's "Tosca" is such a Zevlor song. Imagine you're getting closer to him, flirting here and there, then during the party getting close. You promise to see each other again. And then everything goes to shit. Now he is trapped in the pod, unsure how much longer he has, terrified of turning into a mindflayer any second now. And he thinks of you...)

These headcanons are a combination of the above request and the anonymous request 'I like to sing, I sing when I get the chance alone. Now I wonder how the three tiefling bachelors react to a singing love interest?'

As for the hot drink thing, this ask and the hot drink one came in after multiple days of 27/28 degrees Celsius as the daily high and I actually felt like I was in the hells lmao. Sometimes I also wonder if people can tell where in the southern hemisphere I'm from by the way I write...

The song you suggested is beautiful and absolutely gives big Zevlor energy, I recommend any Zevlor fans check it out on youtube :)

The bachelors with someone who sings

Dammon

There's nothing Dammon likes more than coming inside from his forge and hearing your singing filling the house

If you sing specifically to serenade him that's even better

Dammon loves to both praise you and be praised, and there's hardly higher praise than someone singing about their love to you

Blushes so much if you sing him a love song, flushes even more if you sing a song that has innuendos

He could honestly listen to it all day

I feel like when the two of you are having spring cleaning days around the house he'd ask if you wouldn't mind singing

It makes working inside so much more pleasant for him

When you're singing while doing stuff he'd absolutely join in, though I feel like his singing voice isn't bad but it isn't anything special either

Dammon just loves getting to hear your voice, especially if you happen to be singing

Zevlor

Please sing for this sad tiefling

He hardly knows what to do with himself when you serenade him

Zevlor loves it, but suddenly doesn't know how to stop his face from flushing or his tail from swishing

Absolutely gives you the sweetest kiss when you finish

It's such a treat for him to hear you sing, nevermind the fact your singing your love for him

He loves it

I feel like Zevlor is good at shanty style singing, the hellriders definitely used to sing while working or on long rides

Sometimes he still softly sings some of his old work songs

He'd absolutely melt if you decided to join in and sing with him

It soon becomes one of Zevlors favourite pastimes

Rolan

Rolan loves to hear you sing

Even better, he loves when he's the only one to hear you sing

For you, in private, to serenade him with a love song is almost too much for him to handle

He feels like his heart is going to burst with love for you

Just think of all the sweet things he murmurs between kissing you after you sing for him

But, such affections should be only in private

Speaking of in private, when it's just the two of you ask him to sing with you

Out of all three of these men he's definitely the best singer

His voice almost sounds magical-

Rolan will reluctantly agree to sing, and after a while would get much more into it

The type to lead you in a very simple dance while the two of you sing

Just a very affectionate boyfriend that loves hearing you sing

[skullaton]

cold hands, warm hearts

Wally Darling / Gender Neutral Reader oneshot

Rating: G Genre: Fluff, friends to lovers Summary:

It's a chilly autumn evening and the neighbours are hosting their own fall festival! You decide to partake, enjoying the time with your friends. It just so happens that one of your friends is also your biggest crush.

Ao3 link: Here Welcome Home belongs to Clown a/n: It's autumn in the southern hemisphere, so I wanted to write a cute, fluffy one shot for the season! Enjoy!

Read Below ↓

Your boots crunch into the dry, crispy auburn leaves as you make your way through the small town of Home. It was this year's autumnal festival and you couldn’t wait to see what hijinks your friends planned!

The road was covered in an array of leaves, muting the already colour rich town in a blanket of yellows, reds, and browns. You marched up a hill, seeing the outline of the festival’s banners from a distance. You huffed, exerting yourself as you trekked, seeing your breath poof up in a cloud of smoke. The cold nipped at your bare fingertips, but you didn’t mind.

You can finally hear the commotion of your friends scrambling around and having fun. You tilt your head to read the banner - clearly in Howdy’s handwriting - ‘Home’s Fall Festival’. There were some elegantly painted designs, as well as some crudely decorated ones. It was definitely a whole town effort to make it.

“Don’t keep starin’! Come on in!”

You break out of your thoughts to look at the towering caterpillar who stood behind a food stall, beckoning you over with one of his long limbs. You happily skip over, grinning, “Hey, Howdy! Nice handwriting!”

“Oh, that thing?” He glanced up at the sign before waving dismissively, “Shucks, I write so often, it’s really nothin’.”

You chuckle, shaking your head. “If you say so, Mr. Pillar.”

He leaned forward on his elbows, looking down at you with big eyes, “Say, you reckon you want some food? We got hot popcorn, hot chocolate, hot dogs, hot peppers, you name it!”

Being around him was so amusing. He always made such amazing pitches. How does he keep having endless stock? And hot peppers ? Who’s ordering that?

You could only assume Barnaby.

“Maybe later!” You waved him off as you started to hop away.

He simply waved back, “Alright, I’ll be here if you change your mind!”

You went to see what your other friends were up to.

A crackling bonfire lit up the centre of the festival, its fiery warmth emanating throughout the tiny faire.

You could see Sally atop of a makeshift stage, playing out a dramatic scene from a play. Her monologues were emotive, filled with passion and drive. In this scene she was holding a plastic… skull?

Wait, was this Hamlet?

You decide not to question.

Julie sat next to Frank in the audience, arms linked as they watched in awe of the brilliant star’s performance.

Looking on, you can see Eddie and Poppy sitting at the arts and crafts tent. Eddie was gently trying to instruct how to make the perfect leaf wreath. But… Poppy would often glue her fingers together and cuss a little ‘Oh, feathers me!’

Eddie, as sweet as honey, would insist she was doing amazing.

Finally, you see Barnaby next to a wide oak barrel. A crudely painted sign stuck next to it, saying ‘Bobbin’ fer Applez.’

Then you see him. The perfect deep navy blue hair, the lazy smile and half lidded eyes of the guy you’ve totally been crushing on since you moved here.

Wally Darling.

He was casually picking up the crimson apples from the chilly water, all while flatly remarking, “See, I’m bobbing.”

Barnaby released a booming laugh, practically barking, “I’m gonna bob you on the head in a second!”

Wally just tilted his head, offering a confused smile.

The giant canine cracked his neck, positioning his hands on either side of the barrel’s opening. “Watch the professional at work!”

Then he dunked his head down into the frigid liquid, splashing it like a tidal wave onto the unsuspecting Wally. When he finally emerged, two whole apples were in his toothed maw.

Smug, he looked over the shorter man. Then his expression immediately dropped.

Wally stood, blank faced, the front of his puffer jacket absolutely drenched.

Barnaby popped the apples out, “Oh, shoot, Walls! Didn’t mean for this to be a Wet n Wild ride! I’ll be back!” He hurried his way off to Howdy’s stall, probably in hopes for something to help.

You took the opportunity to duck closer to Wally. “Looks like you’re having a splashing good time.”

You internally cringed at yourself. Damn that Barnaby!

“Ha ha. Ain’t it so?” Wally held his kind smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

You decided to unbutton your jean jacket.

“Tradesies!”

He gave a flat “Huh?”

You slid off the fabric, offering it to the shorter man. The chill bit at your skin, causing a ripple of goosebumps to run up and down your body.

He blinked slowly. “You’ll get cold.”

You shivered, offering a sweet smile, “So will you!”

He reluctantly unzipped his jacket, tugging it off to replace it with yours.

It practically engulfed him. His fingers barely peeked out from the sleeves. You wish you could take a picture of him. He looked absolutely adorable.

You held onto his puffer in the crook of your arm, feeling the wetness seep into your bones.

Another chill ran up your spine, causing you to exhale another puff of smoke.

Then in a split second, a giant wool mass would plop over you, encasing you in a tent of darkness. Wiggling out of your wool chamber, you peeked out to see Barnaby grinning above you.

“Didn’t expect ya to switch with Wallers! You can’t catch a cold now, ya hear?”

You fixed the oversized blanket so it was slung over your shoulders. You stuck a tongue out to the giant canine. “I’ll be fine! ”

“Just wait! Your tongue will be frozen like that!”

“Will not!”

“Will too!”

“Will not!”

Wally popped in, copying Barnaby, “Will too!”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to side with him!”

He gave his signature cat-like grin in response.

***

It wasn’t long until night cloaked the town in darkness. Stars twinkled and danced overhead, with the moon showing half of its beautiful glowing face.

Everyone was gathered around the bonfire, enjoying the crackling warmth on this brisk night. Julie and Sally were playing with rainbow sparklers, twirling out a magical light display. Frank and Eddie sat cuddled next to each other, staring dreamily into the snapping wooden flames. Howdy was passing out hot apple cider, while Poppy was instructing Barnaby how to make the perfect roasted marshmallow.

That only left you and Wally, sitting next to each other on a wooden bench.

You sipped on the hot cider, allowing the toasty beverage to heat you up.

You both let the snaps and crackles of the logs fill in the silence, simply enjoying the sweet moment with friends.

That is, until you could hear a soft mumble leave the puppet’s felt lips.

“I wish I could paint you right now.”

Your heart skipped a beat. You glanced over to Wally, watching as the flames danced shadows across his face. It casted an orange hue, accentuating his soft, plush features.

A pink blush tinted your cheeks. You definitely wanted to blame it on the bonfire for licking at your exposed skin.

But you knew it was because this silly little artist was staring at you with this most love drunk expression. His adoration filled gaze made your stomach twist in happy knots.

You found yourself inching closer to him, your spare hand just barely brushing against his fabric one.

“I wouldn’t mind that.”

A blissful sigh escaped the man. He reciprocated the gesture, scooting closer. You could feel his knee bump against yours playfully.

It wasn’t long before you both tentatively laced your chilly fingers together, basking in the heat of eachother’s flesh.

“Maybe we should schedule something?”

“That sounds wonderful, Wally.”

A quietness lulled between you as you enjoyed the moment. Despite the silence, you could feel your limbs tingle with exhilaration as your tummy burst with millions of fluttering butterflies.

You may have cold hands, but at least your heart is full and warm.

[bigplaceexchange]

Shenko Summer Exchange 2023 Schedule and Intro

Do y'all like shenko? Do you ever think "man, I need more shenko in my life"? Well, what's a better way to spend summer 2023 (or winter for our southern hemisphere frens) than with your favorite smokin' hot biotic boo?

The following is the schedule for Shenko Summer 2023:

Signup begins: April 3, 2023

Signup ends: April 17, 2023

Assignments: No later than April 24, 2023

Assignments due: June 5, 2023

Assignment reveal: June 12, 2023

Creator reveal: June 19, 2023

Mark your calendars!!!

I'll be opening the official exchange discord up at a later date, but in the meantime, here's some Hot Facts:

The exchange will take place over at AO3, so you must have an AO3 account to participate. If you need an invite, please reach out. Between me and my admin team, I think we can snag you one.

Signups will work similar to rare-pair exchanges like Spec Reqs or The Black Emporium, but with 3 total options: fshenko, mshenko, or just shenko. (For these purposes, shenko is a catch all term for those that don't have a Shepard gender preference and/or would like a nb!Shep).

HOWEVER, in the spirit of spreading the shenko love, you'll also be able to request more niche content (for example, and OT3 with Shepard/Kaidan/[whoever]).

Additionally, you will be able to share information on your custom Shepard with your gifter if you're cool with them writing your OC.

In the case of OT3s or custom Sheps, the gifter CAN but doesn't HAVE to write/draw these requests. That's why you need to also include a signup for one of the flavors of shenko.

Yes, art is allowed and encouraged! You will be able to request art and/or fan fiction in your signup, and participants will be allowed to sign up to do one or the other. (or both!!)

If you have any questions about the exchange, please don't hesitate to DM me here or send an email to shenkosummer@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you all there!!

| A Guide to Letters | FAQ | Rules | Sign-Up Guide | Exchange AO3 | Shenko Summer Discord Server |

[poisindonottouch]

Queer Reads: NR Walker

Continuing our Pride Recs, we have another author from the Southern Hemisphere. 

N.R. Walker is an Australian author with quite a bit of range, and a solid backlog of books to read. Featured in the little graphic are EWB (Enemies With Benefits), Private Charter, Tallowwood, Three’s Company, and The Men From Echo Creek. 

EWB, Private Charter, and Three’s Company are all contemporary romances. The first two are set in Australia, and the third is set in Florida. EWB is an enemies-to-lovers book that really did it for me. It’s emotional and funny, and Walker really pulls off the “I hate you, but sure I’ll fuck you” thing it has going on. Private Charter is about an executive who plans a romantic vacation with his boyfriend, who dips out last minute and wasn’t really that serious anyway, and leaves the MC on a yacht with a super hot captain sailing him around for two weeks. Also, he only packed a white swimsuit. Three’s Company is MMM with a couple and a third who hook up for a fling, and then develop all the feelings. It’s very sweet. 

Tallowwood is much darker, with a serial killer, a detective, and a local constable. It’s definitely romantic suspense, and I was up late into the night finishing it, because you can’t go to bed half way through a serial killer book. Seriously. 

The Men From Echo Creek is Walker’s first foray into historical fiction, but it’s Australian historical fiction, which was fun. Like, it reads like a pretty standard western setting (for US readers), and then suddenly they’re eating wallaby for dinner. It’s sweet, and soft, and both of the MCs are absolute cinnamon rolls who deserve lots of hugs. 

Walker has lots more contemporary fiction, some more romantic suspense, and hopefully in the future some more historical work, so go enjoy some good writing. 

And folks, read queer all year.

[sky-squido]

Where in the World is the Kindgom of Hyrule?  PART ONE

Alright buckle up, friends—this one’s gonna get absolutely, utterly, wildly out of hand very quickly.

 Section One: The Dream

So recently, someone made the mistake of teaching me how to navigate celestially and we were talking about all the differences between how the sky behaves in the northern and southern hemispheres and I, proudly having absolutely nothing inside of my brain except for LinkedUniverse for almost two and a half years now, thought to myself: hey! Wouldn’t it be funny if one of the LU boys was from the southern hemisphere and all the others had never left the northern hemisphere? The first boy to pop into my head for this was Wind because he, being a sailor, would almost definitely have the best grasp on celestial out of the whole gang and that way he could use a bunch of nautical navigation terms when he freaks out and nobody would have any idea what he’s saying.

I mean, imagine, right, he gets to another Hyrule and he’s got this navigation stuff down pat and while you could do celestial navigation without knowing the earth is round (as far as I can tell, we have no indication the Mayans or Polynesians knew the earth was round, but they were epic celestial navigators), knowing the earth is round is really very handy and we’ve known the darned thing’s circumference for literal millennia. So, since Wind clearly has latitude and longitude lines on his map and those are defined by angles around the earth’s curvature (none of those lines are curved though, so smh my head Wind uses the Mercator projection (to be fair, most navigators do, too, because it makes drawing rhumb lines really easy, but I digress)), homeboy knows the earth is round. And also, I mean, have you seen the Wii U box art?

Anyway, my point is that a southern hemisphere Wind would know that a northern hemisphere exists he and could totally logically deduce how stuff would behave there, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t freak him the FRICK out, especially before he fully figured out what was going on, because supposedly, he’s still in Hyrule, just an earlier one, and he was right above Hyrule, so how the heck could this be in a different hemisphere?

It was at this point that I realized why my fun little idea wouldn’t work—they’re all from Hyrule. It’s the same place, just at different times, and so, if the Kingdom of Hyrule has any internal logic or consistency, it’s all just gonna be the same place so my silly joke wouldn’t make sense.

But then, I realized, the Kingdom of Hyrule doesn’t have any internal logic or consistency! Not only does the map’s basic geography change quite dramatically between games, but it’s full of locations that are quite explicitly meant to be the same ones from prior games, yet their relative positions to each other vary wildly (believe me, we are going to get to this).

Fortunately, we know a truly, insanely, staggeringly massive amount of time has passed between games. I mean, Wild’s Hyrule has lore that, ten thousand years ago, Calamity Ganon got yeeted by tech we don’t even remotely recognize from any of the earlier games, meaning all the other eras are far older than that. For context, 10,000 years from today humans were just starting to figure out how farming worked. If Nintendo is going to casually throw a ten thousand year long timeskip into their silly little timeline, then maybe we can account for all this wacky location shifting with some clever geographical wrangling. I mean, the kingdom of Hyrule is and always has been a big hot mess and if magic exists, ten thousand years is an acceptable amount of time to toss around between games, and *stares pointedly at Tears of the Kingdom trailers* then maybe we can reconcile all of this.

 Section Two: The Little Adventure

I really like that phrase, “little adventure.” I’ve started using it whenever something mundane goes wrong or unexpectedly somehow, like “I’m going to have to walk a whole mile to get back home and it’s raining and I forgot my umbrella? Welp, guess it’s time for a little adventure!”

Yeah, that’s an apt phrase to use here, I think.

Because, like, okay, I know 10k years is like no time at all, geologically, so mountain ranges aren’t popping up and scooting away willy nilly, but we’ve gotta account for canon-typical shenaniganery. So generally, we have Hyrule castle in the middle, a volcanoes somewhere up, a sand somewhere left, and a woods somewhere right (I refrain from using such terms as north, east, south, and west because while the maps all have little compass roses on them and there are compasses in the games, magnetic-true variation is a very big deal, the magnetic poles wiggle around and even fully reverse sometimes, and I have my reservations about trusting Hyrule’s royal cartographers too much. Very soon, you will too). Because even that basic outline of Hyrule is subject to change. Take Twilight Princess, for example. Even if you use the GameCube version, where Gerudo Desert is to the left of the castle, like it should be, Death Mountain is to the right of the castle, not up. Since the forest is straight down, though, we could just be like “oh lol whoops guess the magnetic pole took a hike, let’s just rotate the map an entire forty-five degrees because the Kingdom of Hyrule decides to make all of its maps using magnetic north for some unholy reason.” And I mean, that’s fair game, right? Sure.

This strategy doesn’t hold up for very long.

I mean, I’m looking at broad trends here, right. I’m already assuming nothing is drawn to scale (and they clearly aren’t to scale even when the maps are literally rips of the world like for Legend’s games because I refuse to believe that Hyrule Castle and Kakariko village account for one-quarter of Hyrule’s land area). We’ve all seen those ridiculously inaccurate old maps from ages ago in our own history—there’s a lot of room for error here. I’m already assuming every distance and position and landform is an artistic abstraction and I’m also generously overcompensating for hardware limitations and the fact that Nintendo did not know they were going to try and connect all of these games decades later and was just focused on making fun, interesting, stand-alone adventures. You can keep building your one town in different locations with completely different architectural styles but give it the same name every time just to be cute. You can rebuild your castle regularly in all sorts of different spots without leaving any trace of the original. The Lost Woods can just grow legs and run around wherever they want to because the whole point of the Lost Woods is that the rules of space and object permanence don’t apply to them. We can throw around ten thousand years like it’s nothing. I’m trying to be as charitable as humanly possible. I literally do not care about the minutiae I literally just want the barest, vaguest outline of what the heck this landmass is doing on only the broadest of scales. I want this to work. I’m ignoring virtually everything about the terrain at this point, only using the locations that are canonically the same ones as from other games and allowing for incredible amounts of drift in where these things physically are.

But like—Breath of the Wild insisted on being cute and having that statue of Hylia that ended up in the Sealed Grounds in Skyward Sword be buried in the Forgotten Temple. Nice! Why is it in the top-left corner of the map?! What’s that, Hyrule just expanded out in a different direction and most of Skyward Sword takes place farther to the left than this map shows? Cute, but the Sacred Springs, clearly designed specifically to be the same ones from Skyward Sword, are all along the right side of the map! Like, sure, maybe the Skyview Spring being the Spring of Courage in Faron Woods all checks out and the second spring is in Eldin and Akkala is pretty close to Eldin, so fine, Spring of Power gets a free pass. And, again, we can fudge stuff—Skyward Sword’s map is for artistic purposes, not navigation, so maybe it’s only vaguely accurate. There’s some nebulous unmapped space between Faron and Eldin and we can just… assume there’s mountains there and that whatever pre-Skyward Sword civilization was kicking around building these things tossed a spring up there and Zelda just ~didn’t have to go there~ to get her Goddess powers back because we never saw the Spring of Wisdom in Skyward Sword. Fine.

Maybe the massive Goddess Statue and Sealed-Grounds-looking temple up in Tabantha are just a different temple in a similar style. Fine, okay, and Breath of the Wild and Skyward Sword are the most incomprehensively far apart of any of these games—clearly the only reason the springs survived this long was the fact that they’re sacred.

[Digression time! It’s time for a little adventure where I ramble about the Sacred Springs! It’s not really relevant, but it sure is neat!]

Because if the same springs are in both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, that then implies that they were lurking around in every other era but, acknowledging real life chronology issues, obviously these springs weren’t in the previous games. If we’re willing to ignore cold hard canon to pretend this is a world that really exists, though, which is way more fun, then those springs should still exist and that would be a really fun thing to have the boys stumble upon! Just in case any enterprising fic authors were looking for neat ideas I can tell you where they are, but where they all fall depends on how you decide to line up the maps. As previously established, there’s buckets of drift and inaccuracy, and I’ll get into my own mega-compilation-map after this digression is over, but if you want to just vibe and just stick to the general area and biome (like Nintendo themselves) here’s how you do it:

Courage goes in any forest in the bottom or right, power goes in any hot mountain at the top or the right, and the center of the rightmost part of a Zelda map—the part between the volcano and the forest—is always either unmapped somehow or contains at least one significant area of higher elevation, so just slap the Spring of Wisdom there. It even works for Minish Cap! If you wanna play really fast and loose with exact locations of things and the border of the kingdom and also completely ignore the castle, as I’ve been doing, Minish Cap’s map is just the righthand side of Hyrule rotated like forty-five degrees. Hot mountain up, water to the right, green in the middle and the bottom right. Works out nicely with Skyward Sword to have Lake Hylia there in the forest on the right instead of at the center bottom, and Veil Falls and the Cloud Tops could fall right in that unmapped space between Eldin and Faron, so that’s totally a valid spot to put the Spring of Widsom. (there’s actually a lot of unmapped space in Zelda games once you start looking for it and having fics take place in those areas where the boys can then stumble upon relics of older eras would actually be so badass I’d actually love to see that happen in fics).

For Ocarina of Time, the Spring of Courage would be in the Kokiri Forest or Lost Woods, up to you, Power goes up on Death Mountain, and Wisdom’s in Zora’s River/Domain. For Wind Waker, you can put Courage in the Forest Haven, Power in either Dragon Roost or Fire Mountain, and Wisdom can go on any island between the two or just end up underwater for a hot minute (it’s not like that’s gonna ruin it—it’s supposed to be wet). For aLttP/ALBW, Courage goes down by Lake Hylia, Power’s up on Death Mountain again, and if you don’t want to use Zora’s Domain, we can retcon that the Spring of Wisdom wasn’t in Zora’s Domain in Time’s era, it was in that little unmapped sliver between Zora’s Domain and the foresty area, so now we can slap the spring of Wisdom somewhere around or just past the right side of the Eastern Palace/Eastern Ruins. Isn’t this fun? For Twilight Princess, we already have sacred springs, but these are different ones—by now it’s probably been a few geological epochs since Skyward Sword, so they’re allowed to make some new springs. The old ones still have to be kicking around, though, and Twilight Princess’ map has a delightful amount of uncharted territory so we can toss them in Faron, Eldin, and that mysterious space directly between the two of them.

[Okay, digression over!]

I mean, this is fun, and if the vague suggestion of similar biomes is all we needed to line up all these maps into one cohesive Hyrule, that would be great. But it’s not. There are a few locations that absolutely must line up across games, and they ruin everything. Like, okay, I’m going to start sounding completely feral with rage, but I’m not actually mad at Nintendo. They’re making good games and I’m trying to do something very silly to their games and I knew it wouldn’t work out before I even started. I’m just so incredibly theatrically frustrated by how close it is to actually working until some random detail gets thrown in and it’s always exactly the one thing that would break everything.

Let’s start with some neat ones that do kind of work, though. Positivity! We know that, in Wind Waker, Hyrule Castle and the Deku Tree are the same ones as in Ocarina of Time. If we overlay the maps so these two points line up, we see that Wind Waker is so much bigger than Ocarina of Time and I love that. The ocean should be huge, way bigger than the kingdom, and that means we can end up playing with some navigational stuff, it’s just that Wind won’t be the one freaking out, everyone else will be, because if they go to the right spot in his era, they’ll be dealing with weird latitudes they’re not used to (yeah, remember when this essay was about celestial navigation? Me neither). The only problem here is that to get them to line up, you have to rotate them. So yeah, magnetic north can just trek forty-five degrees to the right and everyone will ignore this fact and continue to make maps in magnetic north for some reason. This is fine.

Honestly, the most consistent feature of Hyrule is the volcanic hotspot. There’s always one there, it’s almost always in a comparable spot, and unlike deserts, which can totally change over pretty short periods of time, hotspots are very reliable and locationally stable irl. I mean, even as the continental plates shift, the hotspot doesn’t. That’s why Hawai’i is shaped the way it is—the hotspot sprouts a volcano, the plates move, it sprouts another, rinse and repeat until you’ve drawn a little line of lava across the ocean. So if we line up all the volcanic areas over the Hylian Hot Spot and do only the minimal amount of rotation necessary to get everything else to roughly align, we can draw some cool connections.

For example, we established how Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time’s Hyrules align. But then in Wind Waker there’s a side quest where you plant a bunch of new Deku sprouts to help spread the forest. If we line up the volcanic hotspots between Breath of the Wild’s map and Wind Waker’s, we can scoot and pivot around and match up all the seedlings to see which one most likely started the line that Breath of the Wild’s Deku Tree comes from (because again, ten thousand years). It’s the Deku Sprout on Eastern Fairy Island! That… actually works out shockingly well. North is the same between Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild and even Hyrule castle is in the right spot! I also love how Breath of the Wild’s world is only a little bigger than Ocarina of Time’s and Wind Waker dwarfs the both of them—that’s absolutely correct; you cover so much more ground sailing than on foot. Why the magnetic pole shifted more in the few centuries between Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker (so much of Old Hyrule is still alive so I refuse to believe it’s been more than a thousand years between the two of them) than it did in the canonical OVER TEN THOUSAND YEARS between Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild baffles me, but hey, maybe the magnetic pole yeeting across the earth’s surface is a side-effect of Ganon taking power, however briefly. But wait, then shouldn’t it have shifted again in Breath of the Wild, since he won for a minute there? Augh whatever.

Okay, you may be wondering why I’m making such a fuss about where north is on these maps. After all, directions are relative and constructs and it was convention to put south at the tops of maps for a lot of people at different times and places. Yes, that’s all correct and I really wouldn’t have the slightest problem with any which orientation if they didn’t say north ON THE MAP!! And locations have names like “east” and “west” and they’ll say “go south of—” and these are not abstractions! North means closer to one of the axes around which the earth turns, around which the stars and sun and planets revolve. Moving up and down along a given line between these two poles means you’re on a given line of longitude so the sun always reaches its highest point at the same time, east and west mean along lines of constant latitude, where the sun’s highest point on any given day is the same—these directions are not arbitrarily defined!! You can’t just decide to put north somewhere else! You can have true north (the direction to the geographic north pole, the place where all lines of longitude converge and the sun goes around the horizon in a circle on the equinoxes, making a 24 hour sunset, and the pole star stands still overhead) and magnetic north (the place where magnetic compasses point, which is different than true north and moves kind of a surprising amount, but is only really relevant because compasses point there and also the auroras are centered on them too, which is cool), and that’s it! Those are the norths!! Don’t make up new norths!!!

And I said magnetic north moves, and it does, like 25 miles a year, and if we’re dealing with the timescale of thousands of years, that’s gonna add up.

SO WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOUR MAPS USING MAGNETIC NORTH?! NOBODY USES MAGNETIC NORTH TO DRAW MAPS—magnetic north, as previously established, moves a lot and you don’t want to have to redraw all your maps every year! Why would you do that instead of using the permanent geographical constant that’s easier to calculate because you can use the definite motion of the stars that can be measured to a fraction of a minute (up to a half mile of accuracy anywhere in the globe!) and not a wibbly, imprecise compass needle that’s only ever accurate to about half a degree—which translates to thirty nautical miles when you start trying to figure out where you are with it (nautical miles are bigger than normal miles).

But anyway. Hylian royal cartographers clearly have no idea what they’re doing.

And this is when things start making even less sense.

Because why, why on earth do the two eras who are the most insistent on being canonical neighbors have the least compatible maps?! Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess want me dead in a ditch. The Temple of Time in Twilight Princess goes to great lengths to Be The One From Ocarina of Time. Great! Why the frick is it at the bottom of the map?! The Temple of Time couldn’t be any farther up on Ocarina of Time’s map. We could try just rotating the map because maybe it was that time of the geological epoch and the magnetic poles reversed, but now the desert’s on the right side and it’s always on the left side! If anything, the right side is either mountains or ocean! Definitely not a desert. Not allowed. But what if we used the other version of Twilight Princess’ map—the mirror image flippy one from the Wii version!!! Because this makes sense!!!—and pretend the magnetic pole just happened to invert between these two games and that Hyrule’s cartography division is smoking crack and convinced that orienting all your maps towards magnetic north with no indication that true north even exists is the best way of doing things. Fine. Now Kokiri forest ends up in either Zora’s Domain or Snowpeak and the Hidden Village, which is supposedly the Kakariko from Ocarina of Time, turns out to have once been Zora’s Domain.

And that’s not even the worst offender! I’m already ignoring the frick out of the Four Swords games, but the first two Zelda games?

Like, look, I know I said I was giving a pass for hardware limitations and the irl game chronology but come on—it’s the same guy, it’s the same kingdom, and you didn’t even try to make them match up! Like maybe Zelda 1 can be given a pass because it has that same basic scaffold of mountain up, desert left, forest right, but then Zelda 2’s map is just the biggest pile of mayhem and I wouldn’t be bothered if it wasn’t explicitly the same kingdom just a little while later! Like what?! And there’s no way to reconcile any of this even remotely with that volcanic hotspot location, which has been our one and only constant in this labyrinthine hellscape!

Look, guys, I tried. I tried to come up with a way to make any of this remotely make sense.

This was about how far I’d gotten before realizing I might not be using the right approach, here.

Because the whole point of this silly project is to make celestial navigation jokes! Maybe the Kingdom of Hyrule is on the back of a big massive turtle that crawls all around the world and bumps into other turtles sometimes! It doesn’t actually matter! What matters is how the sky behaves.

So why don’t we just do celestial navigation and see if we can’t figure out what latitudes these absolutely zooted turtles are at.

 But this post is long enough and also I haven’t finished collecting all my data from the various 3D zelda games so i’ll see you all in part two! (don’t hold your breath)

edit: part two is out, baby!!

[encyclopika]

Animal Crossing Fish Dish Friday - #14

Brought to you by a marine biologist and a bunch of weird flat bois...

CLICK HERE FOR THE AC FISH EXPLAINED MASTERPOST!

Olive Flounder Meuniere

In ACNH: 1. Get Turkey Day Recipes - Franklin will give you this recipe after you've helped him cook all of Turkey Day's meals. Funny that on Turkey Day, the main ingredient is Sea Bass + a random fish from 3 choices (for Northern Hemisphere players) or Squid and Sea Urchin (for Southern Hemisphere). The recipe you get is for Olive Flounder. 2. Cook on the stove with 1 Olive Flounder and 2 Flour.

In Real Life: from France

Species of Choice: It can be any flounder species - the more native to you, the better. Flat fish come in many names and many species, as I'll explain below, but most of them available for people to eat present flaky, white meat that most people associate with a "good fish".

Other Ingredients:

Butter Parsley Lemon White or Corn Flour

Get the recipe. and serve with a hot veggie and bread.

This will be long because of pictures. A long, long time ago, in an article far away, we covered how flatfish, like the Olive Flounder, become to look so ridiculous. I also pointed out and explained the differences between left-eye and right-eye flounders in the article covering the Dab. These things will be important as we move on to our next lesson about flatfish.

With over 800 species, the Order of Pleuronectiformes, the flounders, has a lot of diversity. Even though most* of these fish are flat and have both eyes on one side of the head, they come in some interesting shapes. We'll start with the tame and end with the weirdos.

Flounders - SubOrder Plueronectoidei

The name "flounder" is used for many flatfish that are important to fisheries/seafood. Even still, these are also quite diverse, not just because both right-eyed and left-eyed flatfish are called flounders, but because they also occupy different niches. Some of them have tiny mouths great for eating tiny fish and plankton, and then some are higher-trophic-level predators with huge mouths and teeth!

^These two fish are native to my neck of the ocean. Big differences in the mouth, right?

There are also 4 special flounders in this group called "Plaice".

Halibut - Genera Hippoglossus & Reinhardtius

The term halibut is reserved for the largest flatfish species, of which there are 3 - the Atlantic Halibut and Pacific Halibut in Genus Hippoglossus, and the Greenland Halibut in Genus Reinhardtius. They are absolutely massive, growing to 9 feet (3m) for some individuals. When you eat halibut, you're getting a very tiny portion of that fish. But size isn't the only way to tell them apart from other flatfish - they also have tail fins with longer, sharper points for fast swimming, and all 3 are "right-eyed" flatfish.

By Jlikes2Fish - Own work, Public Domain

Turbots - Family Scophthalmidae

Okay, now we're getting away from special flounders, and into new Families. The turbots are also called windowpanes or brill, but the biggest difference between them and other flatfish is their more rhombus or stout shape, rather than the elongated oval-shape of most other flatfish. Their shape is not really a scientific trait, but we're going for "first glance" here. These are also eaten widely.

By I, Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0

Soles - Family Soleidae & Achiridae

The fish in Soleidae are the true soles, with fish in Achiridae known as the American Soles, once classified within Soleidae. Either way, soles make up about 180 species and here's where we start to get weird. They often have more tear-drop-shaped bodies (but some can be really kind of square or round like a turbot) and very tiny or non-existent pectoral fins. These are also commonly eaten and they "right-eyed". They also have these weird mouths...just look at the picture...

By © Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 4.0

It's all, like, lip-less? And beak-shaped? They have jaws - of course - but whenever I've had to handle our tiny, native sole here on Long Island, I'm always a bit surprised at it. But yeah, that's a thing they have in common with the last group.

Tonguefish - Family Cynglossidae

Here we are - the last group and the weirdest of the bunch. I think these take the flatfish body plan to the extreme and they have a number of traits that set them apart from other flatfish. These guys also have that beak or hook-shape to the upper jaw, but it's flabby, so it's weird. It's like its body is slowly trying to turn the mouth with the eyes (who knows...maybe in millions of years, it will be!) These guys are "left-eyed" and have no pectoral fins at all. They're just...really weird.

It doesn't even look like a fish anymore. I hope ACPC makes one someday.

And there you have it - so many flat bois!

[spnfanficpond]

Weekly Pond Newsletter

People in the Northern Hemisphere: I miss complaining about how cold it is in the winter.

People in the Southern Hemisphere: I miss complaining about how hot it is in the summer.

Old Business:

It's Fishing For Treasures weekend here at the Pond and we're celebrating RPF fics!! Check out the blog for some excellent fics starring Jared, Jensen, and Misha. Sometimes together. Sometimes with you. Sometimes together with you. Always wonderful! Feel like the other actors on the show have been underrepresented? WE AGREE! Send us some fic recs either in the ask box here on the blog or in the #fic-recs channel in the discord server so we can fix that!

SAG-AFTRA joins the WGA in striking against the studios. Since SPN is no longer in production, this doesn't really affect our fandom, except for upcoming conventions. Rumor has it that all conventions will still be happening, but the actors will not be allowed to talk about their strike-affected work. From what we can tell, this also affects SPN and The Winchesters, even though both are not currently active concerns. Some folks on Twitter have been coming up with some excellent questions we can ask at upcoming conventions! We've already RT'ed a couple from TheGreenCooler to get you started!

Last week's #TweetFicTues prompt was:

Billie and Dean at a music festival with bicycles! Bonus prompt: baseball player.

New Business:

Jason Manns Stageit concert on Wednesday. Jason Manns will be performing with a special guest (we're guessing Jonathan Brown) on Wednesday at 4:15pm Virginia time. Click here for more info and to buy tickets!

Manta Ray in the discord server. On Friday, Admin Marie will be in the discord server, just hanging out. Keep an eye out for announcement posts with the exact time or check out our Google calendar!

Competitive Writing Sprints in the discord server. Admin MJ will be hosting the sprints this Saturday AND Sunday. It's a chance to add words to your WIPs and win prizes, too! Keep an eye out for announcement posts with the exact time or check out our Google calendar!

Want to make a suggestion about something you'd like to see happen in the Pond, but prefer to stay completely anonymous? Send us a message via our Suggestion box, powered by Google Forms. You do not have to tell us who you are, and we get better ideas for how to improve. Send us your ideas!!

(Divider by @glygriffe!)

That's all for this week! To see all Pond events, and also other SPN-related things like conventions and online concerts, check out our Google calendar! We try to keep it as up to date as possible. If there's something you want to see on the calendar that's not there (maybe a convention we missed, or cast birthdays, or something similar), send us an ASK and let us know!

Hope you have a great week! - From your Admins and Manta Rays, @manawhaat, @mrswhozeewhatsis, @mariekoukie6661, @princessmisery666, @thoughtslikeaminefield, and @katbratsupernaturalwhore!

[sciencespies]

Termites may have a larger role in future ecosystems

https://sciencespies.com/nature/termites-may-have-a-larger-role-in-future-ecosystems/

Termites may have a larger role in future ecosystems

Most people think termites are a nuisance that consume wood in homes and businesses. But, these termites represent less than 4 percent of all termite species worldwide.

Termites are critical in natural ecosystems — especially in the tropics — because they help recycle dead wood from trees. Without such decayers, the world would be piled high with dead plants and animals.

But these energetic wood-consuming insects could soon be moving toward the North and South poles as global temperatures warm from climate change, new research indicates.

In a new international study led by University of Miami biology professor Amy Zanne, researchers learned that termites are pivotal when it comes to breaking down wood, contributing to the earth’s carbon cycle. They also learned that termites are very sensitive to temperature and rainfall, so as temperatures heat up, the insect’s role in wood decay will likely expand beyond the tropics.

“With temperatures warming, the impact of termites on the planet could be huge,” said Zanne, the Aresty Chair of Tropical Ecology in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology.

For the study, published in the journal Science, Zanne, along with more than 100 collaborators, studied locations across the globe where bacteria and fungi (microbes) and termites consume dead wood. They also investigated how temperature and rainfall could impact the discovery and decay of wood by using the same experimental set up at more than 130 sites in a variety of habitats across six continents. Their results suggest that areas with high termite activity should increase as the earth becomes warmer and drier.

advertisement

“Termites had their biggest effects in places like tropical savannas and seasonal forests and subtropical deserts,” Zanne added. “These systems are often underappreciated in terms of their contributions to the global carbon budget.”

Amy Austin, associate professor of ecology at Universidad de Buenos Aires, and a collaborator of Zanne’s, said the global study helped scientists glean broader insight about wood decay.

“The inclusion of arid, hot bioregions, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, where termites are often plentiful and active, allowed for novel insight into their role in carbon turnover,” Austin said. “As ecologists, we may need to broaden our consideration of woody ecosystems beyond a closed-canopy forest and recognize that woody carbon stores in drier ecosystems are an important component of the global carbon cycle.”

Although microbes and termites both decompose dead wood, there are important differences between them. While microbes need water to grow and consume wood, termites can function at relatively low moisture levels. In fact, termites can search for their next meal even if it is dry out and carry what they want back to their mounds, or even move their colony into the wood they are consuming.

“Microbes are globally important when it comes to wood decay, but we have largely overlooked the role of termites in this process. This means we are not accounting for the massive effect these insects could pose for future carbon cycling and interactions with climate change,” Zanne added.

advertisement

Like little cows, termites release carbon from the wood as methane and carbon dioxide, which are two of the most important greenhouse gases. Therefore, Zanne said that termites may increasingly contribute to greenhouse gas emissions with climate change.

“I am fascinated by how microbial and termite wood decay affect how carbon is being released back into the environment,” added Zanne, who has been studying the feedbacks from wood-based carbon release for more than a decade.

Zanne began her research on termites in 2008, connecting with other wood decay experts as she attended a working group in Sydney, Australia. That led to a large National Science Foundation and Natural Environment Research Council-funded research project in Queensland, Australia, which even included collaborating with artist Donna Davis to portray termites, microbes, and decaying wood.

She expanded the study globally through social media and word of mouth, including researchers across career stages and locations with everyone running the same experiment using locally-sourced materials.

André M. D’Angioli, a Brazilian biologist, collaborated on the project as part of his doctoral dissertation at Universidade Estadual de Campinas.

“Being involved in the global wood project was a major step for my research,” he said. “It was fascinating to see how the regional-scale data I collected in Brazil was related to the global patterns found in this paper.”

Zanne said the chance to spearhead a global-scale research endeavor was extremely rewarding.

“This is one of the most incredible projects I’ve worked on,” said Zanne. “It was a truly international collaboration. Our ability to better understand wood decay and parts of the carbon cycle at a global scale is now stronger because of this research.”

#Nature

[scitties-enjoyer]

ESMP S1 Worldbuilding thoughts

Okay so I might be overthinking things a little (I'm very normal about my ESMP S1 worldbuilding and I'd more-or-less let it fade into the background for a while but I'm afraid it's back with a vengance)

So. My biggest headcanon is that the continent it takes place on is in the southern hemisphere of the planet. I know the second you travel outside the actual empires that theory falls apart because minecraft terrain generation however. If you look at the Empires alone and their geographical locations, we have Mezalea and Pixandria as the northern-most empires and Rivendell and Crystal Cliffs as the southern-most empires.

One problem: House Blossom is actually further south than Rivendell.

Now I had a crisis over that this morning (I had somehow got it in my head that House Blossom was northwest of Rivendell rather than southwest) but then I remembered my headcanon that House Blossom is a particular kind of Faerie settlement which is always built on magical convergence points. Belatedly, afterwards, I also remembered that the Overgrown is a thing.

If all that paragraph is a bit much to parse: House Blossom is very magical. It can be warm if it wants.

Now. I am not (currently who knows what the future holds) trying to work out the size of the planet this is on, the specific tilt the planet has, or anything like that, so I don't have accurate teperature bands here, but if I overlay a gradient where blue is cold and yellow/red is hot....

It's not perfect. There's a badlands biome in the southwest, and ideally the jungle wouldn't be so far south. But I'm not looking for the whole seed to have perfect geography. The thing we care about is roughly correct.

I could just extrapolate the size from this small one but you know what would be more fun?

Thus step one of mapping each empire is complete. We know sort of what's going on climate wise in each empire. (Did I mention that's what the end goal is here?)

Step 2: I'd like the rivers to make sense. But for that I need a good idea of like. The size of the land. And real life countries aren't just one town or city. So I need a big world map.

Making a large biomes world with the original ESMP seed and getting the whole map to trace over by flying around. I don't remember what I said in this video but here's where I started doing a perimeter of Mezalea.

Unfortunately this is taking a while.

Perhaps I will continue this

[c03xistentw01]

hey there

it's been a while. I'm sorry. I've been so busy getting my feelings hurt over random guys on the internet.

Matteo. Or the so-called "Legami guy" as addressed to by me and my friends. I sent him a direct to which he replied after a whole damn month at 11:00ish pm. He seemed so chill and was all like "no worries it's really nice when people take initiatives" i explicitly asked him out after that to which he replied "I'm very pleased but I'm actually gay haha". As y'all know me at this point, yours truly SO did not give in and came back after a day with a new wave of spontaneounity in case that's a word, and told me about how i so sincerely hope that in the next lifetime we both be reborn as butterflies whose preferences are oppositely aligned. Matteo saw my message and didn't reply. He still sees my stories as well. Matteo hurt my feelings by us not being born as butterflies (or ladders) with oppositely aligned preferences.

Leone. The guy i met on bumble, with whom I've been chatting for quite some time, principalmente in italiano. Si, veramente. With him being super gentle and patient with my errors, we have been enjoying a bilingual, somewhat vague conversations over the past few weeks. He once called me "weirda". I'm guessing you won't be planning to ask a weirda out in the foreseeable future, nay?

Riccardo. I met him on bumble as well. In italian we've spoken as well. We've apparently been classmates before and he graduated before me and is now working in Padova come un software engineer, which he doesn't like that much, but eh. He mentioned that he can capirmi tranquillamente and asked me whether I had learned Italian stando qua in Italia? [update: I just told him I'll be glad to hang out if he was free and in Padova - in case, of course, he doesn't suddenly come out as asexual or something :s]

I'm tired. The rest is also potentially interesting like I went to Venezia for an in-person meeting with Maria and Laurent from AMA Venezia. They told me i was apparently the best candidate, smart and also Laurent (The Investor of the exhibition which contains performance art which is the very piece of art I'll hopefully be working on this summer instead of floating in a bottomless black sea of hot, humid and loud depression) had apparently taken a liking in me according to Maria (The organizer, who informed me that since I'll be doing an extracurricular stage, the monthly net amount of my allowance will be one-fucking-thousand euros).

Filippo is in New Zealand. Yes you read that right, he's in the southern hemisphere. It's good to be optimistic in times like this. He could be on Mars i could be somewhere in M31.

[norwegianfriedokra]

Italian Schlager a go-go, with a smattering of historical Leipzig

As the beginning's of Fall starts to tease the northern hemisphere, here I am pondering once again. I haven't written a blog entry in a while, and there have been many a'happenings, thus here I am.

This summer was busy and yet also filled with relaxation and adventure. Sven and I were on the go again, this time in east Germany, particularly Leipzig and Berlin. After that we headed south into the Czech Republic. However the whole thing started with a BANG, at the Zelt Musik Fest in Freiburg in Southern Germany. 

At the Festival we had tickets to one of Sven's favorite bands, "Roy Bianco and the Abbrunzati Boys". It had been his birthday present, and he had to wait half a year to attend.  It was a blast.  I already like the band too (they call it Italian Schlager), but the concert experience was electrifying. The crowd was like corn on a hot pan, and the band's presence delivered a unique experience. After the concert we visited with Sven's sister a bit, enjoyed some delicious fried fish, then headed out to Leipzig, our first stop.

Leipzig is historically a very important city in Germany. Located in southeastern Germany, it has been the home of many protests over the years, often prior to wars with the most recent prominent protest happening right before the wall fell. In October of 1989 on a Monday morning over 120,000 east German citizens walked the streets in protest of the east German government. Interesting side note, many of these protests were somewhat brought about after the Tiananmen Square incident that had happened earlier that year, in June of 1989.

Leipzig is also famous for the historic Battle of Leipzig, where Napoleon was defeated in October of 1813. We briefly visited the monument which exists there…it's HUGE.

In Leipzig we visited a friend of mine called Felix, he is a "Meister Tischler" (Master Journeyman Cabinet Maker/Carpenter). He happened to make my wonderful desk, and currently works privately as a carpenter and cabinetmaker. He, as a Meister Tischler, had to learn historical techniques as well, so that he can repair old furniture, windows and doors in ways appropriate to the era in which they were created. You can view his projects here Tischler Meister Felix Kessler

He also happens to have chickens and lives in a small village outside of Leipzig, on what is called a 4-walled farm (Vierseithof). 

Image courtesy of ernst-stiftung. 

This type of building unit is common throughout Germany, Denmark, Austria, as well as some areas of Poland and the Czech Republic. There are four long walled units, typically with two stories. One side would be for servants the the main owners of the land, and served as housing. The remaining three sides consisted of livestock stalls and storage for food for both the people living there and the animals they cared for.  Often the animals would spend time in the courtyard of the buildings, and the courtyard was otherwise used as a slightly sheltered workspace. 

Okay, enough about history.  Visiting with Felix was great. We had some delicious Spanish Tapas at a local soccer club, and otherwise wandered the city.  Afterwards we headed out to Berlin!

[zealoptics]

📸 Marcus Paladino

Cold Water Surfing With Peter Devries

Who are you, where are you from, when did you start surfing?

My Name is Peter Devries. I'm a Professional surfer from Tofino B.C. Canada who enjoys surfing in remote locations. I'm also a father, husband and dog owner :) I was lucky enough to grow up on the beach in Tofino with waves right in front of my doorstep. My dad surfed so he got me in the water at 7, but I didn't really take to it until I was 13 and could fit into a better, warmer wetsuit.

What do you love about cold water surfing?

I guess I've always just felt at home in colder water being from Canada. Surfing was always an experience where I would get away from everything and push myself while also enjoying my surroundings. I think the main thing I enjoy about cold water locations is how beautiful and empty some of the places are. The empty part is changing a lot with more and more people surfing, but when I find those moments of solitude in different places with pumping waves it is still a special feeling. I also think anything that is a little more difficult in life feels more rewarding when it all works out. Surfing in cold water is not that hard if you have the right gear but it's also not as easy or consistent as surfing somewhere in boardshorts.

If someone is thinking about starting surfing in the cold, how do you make it enjoyable?

Having the appropriate gear is the first step. Wetsuits are so amazing these days. They are warm, flexible, and can keep you in the water for hours if you are set up and the fit is right. Go to a local surf shop or ask the locals what they are wearing and what you should get. I'm a big fan of spending as little time outside changing in and out of my wetsuit as possible. When I'm surfing the beaches at home I usually suit up in my house and drive to the surf. When I am done I drive home and jump in my outdoor shower. Little things like that can make all the difference. If you are suiting up at the beach or cold after it's nice to have some hot water in a thermos. When it's pouring rain it's not very enjoyable to get changed outside but the coldest days are always when it's clear and the temperatures drop below zero. As soon as you remove your gloves, your fingers freeze and it becomes hard to turn your car on :) During surfing it's important to keep moving, especially once you start feeling the cold settle in. If you don't paddle a lot and catch a lot of waves it's easy to get cold and uncomfortable. I generally try to stay busy unless the waves are really good and I am waiting for a specific one to come in.  

What are some essential pieces of gear for cold water surfing?

In the winter I wear a Manera 5/4/3 with 7mm boots and 2.5mm gloves. Arcteryx waterproof jacket because you never know when the weather will turn. Surfboard of Choice: I love this Black Baron twin fin by JS Industries. My many Hydroflasks filled with water, coffee, and tea. And of course my Zeal Optics sunnies for those rare moments of sun.

Where is the most interesting place you’ve ever surfed?

I've been so lucky to have traveled to many remote and exciting places to surf. I've been everywhere from Chile, New Zealand, and Western Australia in the southern hemisphere to Iceland, Faroe Islands, Norway, and Alaska in the North. I would have to say the Aleutian Islands and the island of St. Paul in the Bering sea are probably the two most remote and interesting locations I've ever surfed. The waves were world class and very memorable in both locations. That sense of the unknown and the adventure of figuring it all out on those trips are something that I really enjoy about cold water surfing. My favorite days are probably those rare days at home when it all comes together and the waves are firing at a remote reef at home though. I have so many great memories of those days over the years and I always reflect on them when thinking about my favorite moments. 

[alphonseelriic]

Hi Sofia, hope you're not overworking yourself despite being busy! 🤧

Ooh what is Christmas like there besides being hot? I always wondered why they don't have more popular shows portraying a summer Christmas cus I've never seen that! Like do people do bbqs or something too instead of feasts indoors? 😆 Haha to be fair, where I live it doesn't get snow either and the weather is hit or miss about how cold it is during Christmas season but generally much warmer than most areas' winter 😅. I too admire the white Christmas tho.

Awww your beach days sound positively relaxing!! <3 Hope you'll get there soon!! I miss the beach now too 😩 

No way! Eng/lit sounds difficult haha!! Huge props to you, I imagine there's a lot of papers involved? What do you want to do with your degree? *sending you all the de-stress comfort things during these times*

Thank you for the rec too!! I'll keep that in mind! Unfortunately I read so slow, so I always go for the mindless watching. 😅 

Is shounen your favorite genre? I too love characters who are more than face value. And omg I lovee Haikyuu and almost everyone in there, so I can see that!! Yamaguchi's development was so heartwarming in the beginning.😭

And don't worry I've seen all of FMAB, it's one of my favorite animes so feel free to talk about anything there. I've only watched the anime for Ao no Exorcist but I remember liking it a lot and Rin too. ☺️ So you have good taste!! Thank you for all the insight into your favs, very interesting about Gon too (I'm anime only again lol) ❤️. And please don't stop on my account, I enjoy hearing all your thoughts so be as long as you want haha. 

Question of the week, do you have any favorite colors or palette and why? 

Take care!

- Animanga 🎅

Hello Secret Santa!! I'm sorry for the late reply, today I had a really important and difficult final and I studied all week hahah but it all went well! I got a good grade and I'm in a really good humor rn ;) it's nice seeing the results of your hard work. Hope you're doing well too!!!

Yeah I feel summer Christmas is a really missed opportunity for sure. In the case of my country (and, for what I know, most of south america) most people have reunions with either their nuclear or extended families (in my case it's the latter bc my family is pretty big and close) and eat dinner together, we open the presents at 12 and then stay hanging out till 2 o 3am. My grandma has a big front yard so we put a pair of long tables and seats over the grass. Lately we've been going to my aunt's instead, who has a pool ;)

In general it's a really family oriented and relaxed holiday, but I think it's a cultural thing rather than a southern hemisphere thing. I really don't know how they celebrate in Australia and New Zealand for example :p now I'm curious...

Oww I feel the struggle, living in a place that doesn't have snow can be a bummer sometimes. Winter here feels very gray without it :( but it is what it is....

Yuppp I've written a looooot of papers throughout the career and I still have to keep writing them 😅 they never end, but I was the one that signed up for this so I can't complain much. Hmm to be honest I kinda jumped into this career bc I love reading and I was a dumb 17yo who didn't think much ahead (bad. bad thing to to) but now I would love to work as a text corrector for publishing companies!! But also any kind of job involving libraries is good for me for the time being, I'm not a very ambitious person really. I know the most common path for lit people is teaching but I don't think that's a good match for me, at least not for now. Maybe someday.....

Hahahahah don't worry about it! Despite me loving to read I'm also really slow at reading manga. And I usually only do it when I really liked the anime adaptation to begin with. I think the only one where I started reading the manga first was Spy x family (and now it got an anime and blew up)

I honestly haven't thought about shounen being my favorite genre but I think it's true 🤔 I honestly didn't realize the grand majority of anime I mentioned was shounen LMAO but yeah I tend to like it a lot, specially the less formulaic ones. Aww I'm glad you also love FMAB and Haikyuu :') Yamaguchi's journey was lovely to watch and what cemented him as my fav was how easy it was for me to connect with him! I was also shy and a big pushover in school and I had to learn how to get out of my shell and stand up for myself, just like him. Thanks for the compliment also, Uno reverse card at that 💕

Usually my favorite color palettes are ones with cold colors! Purple is my favorite color in all its shades (but mostly lighter ones) and I love how it goes with blues and greens! I def prefer the more pastel shades in general. Lately I've also been more attracted to warmer colors like yellows and soft oranges, but lilacs and lavenders will always be my favorites 💟

Thanks for the ask and happy weekend!!

[love-and-bubbles]

I love food as well!! I am just thankful that I do not have to worry about my body going crazy in size when I stuffed it with absolutely loads of carbs, meat and spices. I am currently going through the restaurants in my city and discovering which one of them are serving me the best asian’s cuisines. I love spicy foods, like wow. Best thing that humans have ever discovered and moulded since the beginning of time.

I love how wordy you got with the details of how you make your hot chocolate. I have to try how you make yours! It sounds so good. Also the vanilla oat milk is something I have to try too.

My process might be too unhealthy for you but I usually just do this:

Get a cup, put in like 3 or 5 little square of dark chocolates from a block of at least 79% dark chocolates.

Put a spoon or two of condensed milk on top of it.

A spoon (the big one) of sugar.

And just pour a boiling water from the machine too.

And that’s how I make them!!

Well, I am excited to read your long works. I am regularly checking new works when I get the time. I knew instantly that you were european with the choices of words on your first step and your choices of ingredients. It’s too fancy for an american.

I would love to travel and see europe with my own eyes one day. I surely know what you mean. What do you like most about Europe. Tell me more about it and how you see them.

I am currently in the southern hemisphere (specifics — you would know after the gift day because I am too loud with my location and you’d figured out right away who I am.) Haha. I surely love it here. So much better from my original country. So diverse in terms of people, food, and just everything.

The meaningless—shallow fanfics I was talking about were just pure fluff, and filth, absolutely filth separately. A lot of people in this fandom seems to be so in love with porn fics that I just get random notifications about them and they have the highest read counts. lol

I have one that I always say, which I am pretty vocal about it, so someone might figured out it’s me but it’s “Dancing with the Devil” by Corsetbriefs. (It’s a translation from someone) but that work is just utter perfection. After the gift day, I will tell you more and send you an entire lists. How about you?

We all need a hug from a stranger every now and then. Lord knows I need it now more than ever. (If by chance I accidentally send you an anon ask where I forgot to put it anon, let’s just pretend that that never happened. lol)

I also can eat everything without changing shape a lot, and I used to stuff my face with pastries and chocolate and fatty stuff. But now I have this goal to turn very old and live a long life so I am more conscious of what I eat. But I would never restrict myself so that it feels like a punishment, a good balance is key. I would looove to go to more restaurants, but they are expensive and I am so used to cooking I sometimes forget it's an option. But I got sushi on the weekend. Spicy food absolutely kills me. I am weak like that :D. It just makes fluids run out of the holes of my face. I've got a bit better over the last years, but still. I love Mexican food and Indian cuisine so I got to build a tolerance but it's a bit of a war every time.

I love how you use condensed milk and dark chocolate for your hot chocolate. That sounds like an amazing combination. And you know sometimes I indulge so you never now.

Hahahaha I love how I am a fancy, bit pretentious European. I guess I can't help myself. I love the diversity of Europe for sure. You said that's one of the things that you like about where you live so you get it I guess. Cultures (which brings loads of different food :) ) are just fascinating. I try to take a little bit with me from every place I go to (or live more like). I have moved a LOT over the last 10 years and have spend significant amounts of time in nearly every part of Europe which means I am not an expert on anything really. However, there always has been something that I fell in love with.

My fave capital is London, for the vibes, the style, the vintage and record stores, free museums (if I could live in the Natural History museum I would), theatre and musicals, great queer culture and amazing underground pubs. Fave nature would be cliff's and beaches in Scotland, northern Spain, forests in Romania, and the North. I live and breath for the North and I have left a huge part of my heart there. I love the sea (more than mountains so that's why). Have you read Tired Tired Sea? That's basically my dream life (and I've been to the Shetland Islands in winter xD). I am a witch so if I could just disappear into the forest into my hut doing some conscious foraging I would, and I have done (but now I back in the city... can you tell the frustration? :D). It's okay though, I should at least try to live this 'proper' life before I decide against it. If I ever have a place of my own you would be welcome to visit. So many people have taken me in over the years, my door will forever be open to anyone who wants.

What do you want to know about Europe? Anything you are especially interested in? I could talk about this forever... I really need to write more fanfic so I can put all this energy and love for talking into it.

So.... I would know who you are? That's wild. I am feeling like I am talking to a celebrity now.

I love me some new fic recs and I'll def. read that one. One of the best things of this fandom is how long it exists and how big it is it means nearly an endless supply of fics and one for about every mood you are in. So yeah, sometimes when life gets a bit dark all I need is a short super fluffy one, other times I go straight for the filth, to just kill every thought in my brain, but most of all I love those good long ones that are beautifully written and you fall in love with every character and you know at the end everything will be fine but it takes a bit to get there. I guess that what most people feel, right? The thing with smut in fics is that at one point I got so used to it that I thought I needed to always include smut in all my fics otherwise it is boring. But that's not the case. Both can be really intriguing in their own way.

So sorry again that I let you hanging for the weekend. But I got to say this is a wonderful way to start my week. Especially because I was not looking forward to it. Deadlines deadlines deadlines. So, this already feels like my gift.