#also to be clear this is not the map

[masschase]

Losing my mind over my SR3.5 concept again. Like it was a lighthearted thing I was thinking out in the summer but now it's spring and I am thinking about it like... seriously.

I think I need to make the areas smaller but I like the idea of a city heavily based on DC and the surrounding areas, rather than just using DC itself. Partly because I want to use that Y-shape of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers to split the city up. For a name I'm thinking maybe Samdon.

The grey areas are a mix of press-dominant, Saints-controlled and completely locked out depending where you are in the game. The other colours are controlled by each gang until the Saints take them.

Yellow is looking to be called The Marquis. No-one's quite sure if that's the plural or singular to get a few "The Los Carnales" esque jokes in. The name comes from the fact a Marquis test is a drug test, and the Marquis(es?) are in a very long feud with the Reagents. Also "marquis" as in noble because the Marquis control a lot of the covert crime going on in Samdon. They keep control with excessive wealth, mostly.

The Reagents are the cyan gang, and as mentioned, and probably obvious by the name, are the least subtly named. Their focus is drugs, poisons, chemical weapons, and they mostly operate from meth labs. There is a slight stealth pun- cyanide! But there's also an implication of a similarity to regents, as in second in line AND regent as in governing bodies because there's very much a sense that if the Marquis are the monarchs, the Reagents are more of a symbol of democracy. They're the largest gang and the poorest, they act as the proletariat to the Marquis as bourgeoisie. They're probably the most sympathetic gang and they mostly originate from the equivalent of DC's Ward 8. Like the MCR Killjoys they are encouraged to "die with their masks on".

Torque and Anteros's cowboy/biker gang (original concept credit to @whoredmode) have a name! And it's not the Barebacks after all(but I still think that's hilarious and Casey will spend the whole game calling them the Barebacks, the Brokebacks, etc)! Their name is The Vicinals! Given the whole "The Cooler" thing and the chemical theme for the other two gangs, as well as the gang riding motorbikes, I looked into motorcycle coolants. No straightforward "OK that could be a gang" names there, but ethylene glycol/antifreeze is a common component, and that is a vicinal diol. Vicinal in its straightforward translation meaning neighbouring or adjacent, and the gang are from Stilwater! Literally the Saints neighbours that have just travelled different routes! They've not been in Samdon that long and this is part of why they occupy the area based more on Arlington than Washington. They're also already disrupting the order of things before The Saints get there, whereas the Saints... almost need to take things down in a less disruptive way? I think Casey has a fair degree of jealousy towards Torque in that regard. They're really interesting foils to the Saints.

The Press are still the Saints biggest adversary of course. I can't remember how much I got into this last night but they're represented by monochrome, or perhaps more accurately, the black/grey against the Saints goal of The White House. This reflects their physical appearance; paparazzi in suits with black cameras flashing white, newspapers etc. but also the way they're judging the Saints as black, white or grey.

Obviously I have... more, so much more but I think that summarises my thoughts for now except that IF they were going to use the President plot point in SRIV? It should have been this. This is kind of like my rewrite, I just happen to have managed to slot it into existing canon since we have that little gap between disabling the nuke and official election.

So with that in mind, IF this was to close the series out... well it's super cheesy, but at least it's cheesy in a way that rounds everything out...

Whichever ending you get, the Boss will end up back in Stilwater at the end; on a visit or disgraced back home. Some kid asks them how they made it all the way from Stilwater to be President OR how they managed to fall so far. Whatever happened, their answer is always "Wrong place, wrong time.".

[krazieka2]

I've played the Fire Emblem Husbando Dating Simulator Games

[reasonsforhope]

"The world's coral reefs are close to 25 percent larger than we thought. By using satellite images, machine learning and on-ground knowledge from a global network of people living and working on coral reefs, we found an extra 64,000 square kilometers (24,700 square miles) of coral reefs – an area the size of Ireland.

That brings the total size of the planet's shallow reefs (meaning 0-20 meters deep) to 348,000 square kilometers – the size of Germany. This figure represents whole coral reef ecosystems, ranging from sandy-bottomed lagoons with a little coral, to coral rubble flats, to living walls of coral.

Within this 348,000 km² of coral is 80,000 km² where there's a hard bottom – rocks rather than sand. These areas are likely to be home to significant amounts of coral – the places snorkelers and scuba divers most like to visit.

You might wonder why we're finding this out now. Didn't we already know where the world's reefs are?

Previously, we've had to pull data from many different sources, which made it harder to pin down the extent of coral reefs with certainty. But now we have high resolution satellite data covering the entire world – and are able to see reefs as deep as 30 meters down.

Pictured: Geomorphic mapping (left) compared to new reef extent (red shading, right image) in the northern Great Barrier Reef.

[AKA: All the stuff in red on that map is coral reef we did not realize existed!! Coral reefs cover so much more territory than we thought! And that's just one example. (From northern Queensland)]

We coupled this with direct observations and records of coral reefs from over 400 individuals and organizations in countries with coral reefs from all regions, such as the Maldives, Cuba, and Australia.

To produce the maps, we used machine learning techniques to chew through 100 trillion pixels from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites to make accurate predictions about where coral is – and is not. The team worked with almost 500 researchers and collaborators to make the maps.

The result: the world's first comprehensive map of coral reefs extent, and their composition, produced through the Allen Coral Atlas. [You can see the interactive maps yourself at the link!]

The maps are already proving their worth. Reef management agencies around the world are using them to plan and assess conservation work and threats to reefs."

-via ScienceDirect, February 15, 2024

[pika-blur]

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii give up

[demi-pixellated]

a stray

[kanoyachi]

taking a quick break

aka "hey [said with the intention of aiding your guy's mobility]"

[vulpinesaint]

kind of unfortunate that so many fantasy epics are also war novels because i will be honest i just do not like war novels that much... the grand clashing of forces is compelling obviously but it requires characters to talk about so much practical battle strategy and while i can get my brain to comprehend all these fantasy maps and kingdoms and borders and battalions and front lines and army movements it takes up. so much space in the book. feels like i'm fighting a war of my own trying to get through it sometimes

[revive-the-fandom]

Love the maps! I am curious as to why you've put the northern markets where you did though. The show isn't always great with its cartography but at one point Snotlout did say the northern markets were in the opposite direction to Berk (from Dragon's Edge)

I would love to talk about the maps!!

but chief, i gotta say... you make a good point on this one.

I think there's so many inaccuracies within the shows geography (within how they describe directions, esp things like Outcast Island) that I dismissed Snotlout's tidbit as just, one of those things.

but actually, I don't really see any reason why I couldn't move it more North, so it's just South of Caldera Cay?? It wouldn't make it "the opposite direction" so much as like.. west instead of south. but still, it would put the point across that there's a visible difference in direction

- and it would also make sense as to how the Defenders of the Wing would be able to get there and trade with people

- and it would explain the heightened Hunter prescene since it'd be deeper into Hunter territory.

- and it would explain why it's the Northern markets to people outside of Berk...

I may have to do some fiddling, hmm.

but mostly I was concerned that the official map seems to put the Northern Markets further away from the Edge than Berk? Like if Berk is easier to get to, then go to Berk?? Not the Hunter infested, expensive, probably illegal trade centre?

but I would be against putting it any further west, since it's supposed to be close to the Edge than Berk. putting it further east would push it out of Hunter territory, which doesn't work for the vibes (and Hunter presence). it's already as South as I dare put it. too far North and it interrupts the Eruptodon's migration to Vanaheim, which, a market is gonna attract ships from all directions so Caldera -> Vanaheim has to stay pretty clear. plus too close to Caldera Cay and the Riders would have found it before Viggo pointed it out.

so.. I'd probably nudge it to just above Gustav's Treasure Island, but not much more than that? idk, thoughts?

[flashhwing]

hate when i have multiple things to do so instead of doing any of them my brain refuses to pick one and does none of them

I need to finish a training module for volunteer work, clean my apartment, and prepare for dnd all by saturday. so of course i'm doing none of those things

also i am in the middle of one book but just received another one that i'm itching to read. so instead of reading either of them i am watching a show

[covington-shenanigans]

christ alive I love my parents and I'm glad I got to see them but they are just. so fucking exhausting

[quinn-of-aebradore]

.

[torchickentacos]

Been getting really into tiny pen sketches lately. I get bored of them and start new ones so I never actually finish any of them, but I think it adds a je ne sais quoi tbh. Here's a few I've drawn (or at least started drawing) today and yesterday :) they're all 2.5 x 2.5 inches. They are not great, but they are small and I love them

[branmer]

everyone is having babies at the moment

[snakesandstone]

Woe, transfem minecraft Steve be upon ye

[brainmoss]

Took Arthur on a little trip : )

He made some friends along the way

It was a long journey, but he finally got to his destination

[kirkwallguy]

the storm coast is crazy because i hate it and get lost every time i go there but it's definitely one of the best maps in terms of quests and content