Natural Turf vs. Artificial Grass: Battling the Urban Heat Island Effect in the Low Desert
The low desert region faces the challenges of the urban heat island effect, where urban areas experience significantly higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas due to human activities and the built environment. As we strive to mitigate this heat island effect, one key consideration is the choice between natural turf and artificial grass. Both options have their own advantages and…
literally my favorite aspect of sock opera is bill calmly but repeatedly failing to buckle his seatbelt. like its funny enough that Bill Cipher of all people is putting on a seatbelt but its so funny that he keeps fucking it up. but he's still just smiling like a dumbass the entire time
put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.
major props to christopher eccleston for acting out the lines "i couldn't save your world. i couldn't save any of them" with such subtle and layered emotions while also struggling against mannequin people trying to throw him into a pit of lava (he is very clearly standing on a styrofoam pad lit by LED lights)
How would you describe Chang's relationship with his adoptive parents in your wonderful au?
Chang is adopted pretty quickly, so it's likely they didn't get much time to get to know each other as well as most adopted families nowadays. My thoughts on Chang and his adopted family are below!
Chang's heroism in The Blue Lotus was impressive, which leads to lofty expectations Chang himself feels incapable of meeting. He struggles to adapt to life in Shanghai, the Wangs' upper middle class culture and has problems at school, having missed out on a few years of education and a lot of unresolved trauma.
He's frustrated at his own inability to fit in, and guilty about flubbing this opportunity at life they gave him. Part of him feels like he's tearing their family apart. The Wangs are desperately trying to give Chang a good life, but feel completely out of their depth.
He also can't help but compare himself to Didi, his much older adopted brother and their biological son, who is scarily competent and a clear favourite of their mother.
Didi is aware that his father may have expectations for Chang to join the Sons of the Dragon. Having experienced the pressure and danger first-hand he takes it upon himself to foster a sense of agency in Chang so he will be capable of choosing for himself when the time comes. Didi trains Chang in martial arts and is tough on him in general, but encourages Chang to travel when he expresses an interest in it. Chang on the other hand encourages Didi to have fun and let loose!
Mr Wang has high expectations for Chang because he believes in him. He and Mrs Wang genuinely care for him and only want the best possible life for him, but this sometimes comes across as them expecting Chang to be somebody else. They first thought Chang was much like Didi, disciplined and quiet, but Chang's rebellious streak catches them off guard. Mrs Wang is particularly shaken.
It struck me how gentle the Wangs were with Didi while he was under the influence of madness poison, and as they are good friends with a mental health specialist, they would absolutely take Chang's mental health seriously. Whether or not they fully understand each other is another thing. As Chang slips into a deep depression they decide to send him off to London to meet his uncle, hoping a change in scenery will help him. On his way through Tibet however, his plane crashes into the mountains...
To be fair, there are perfectly practical filmmaking reasons why cool guys don't look at explosions:
Most low to medium budget productions don't use compositing or CGI to put the actor in the same shot as the explosion – they just put the actor much further away from the explosion than you think they are, and use forced perspective tricks to minimise the apparent distance. There are a limited number of camera angles those tricks permit, and most of them require the actor to be directly between the explosion and the camera.
In spite of the fact that the distance between the explosion and the actor is larger than you think, mistakes happen, and the best way to avoid catching a piece of flying debris in the eye is to direct your line of sight away from the explosion.
"Cool guy slowly walking away from explosion" happens to be a very obvious way of satisfying both of those safety constraints.