#create restore point

[tomato-greens]

completed a very complex community-wide restorative justice process two years in the making :)

[amelikos]

The new Explorers members in this week's ep introduced themselves as guardians of "world order", the specific mention of "order" evoking Zygarde.

Spinel currently positing himself as guardian of order in his narrative through the new Explorers gives further weight to the idea that Amethio will eventually join forces with the White Zygarde.

[widowshill]

literature on dark shadows will really look at a massive ensemble cast and say um actually the only characters that matter are barnabas quentin and angelique <3

[claraschaos]

Ok idk how it is with restoration in the US but here in europe you always have a goal for restoration, like a past stage that aids as a reference to how you want to restore you ecosystem to.

You can do that by looking at pre-undustrialization for example, this this useful when you want to keep heathlands and nutrient poor grass lands that were only kept like this bc of shepards whose sheep kept the landscapes open. Or you can go even durther and say you want conditions to be like post-glacial, where trees and forests were dominating the landscape. In that case the only thing you'd do is cut down vegetation that did not exist in that are around the time frame you're using as a reference. And the rest is basically left to grow cause if you just leave a landscape as is, it will always eventually end in a forest in europe.

Some projects have future aims where you want to build climate stabile forests that can endure the changing temps, in that case you might have to implement non-native plants in your conservation efforts.

Restoration ecology is not just 'oh there were no ppl in the past we should restore the landscape as if there had never been ppl here'. It's hardly ever that if done correctly. And it all comes down to the goal landscape/ ecosystem you want to create. If the US are ignoring this bc they're ignoring their past of colonization then they're honestly not conserving nature correctly (but this is my uneducated opinion)

thinking about what is and what isn't allowed in frame with reference ecosystems in prairie restoration

[theskyexists]

It's an endless ... Like. I wanna install stuff to get things exported..but then I'm scared something catastrophic will happen. So then I need a backup. But then the backup will take four hours for some reason. So I attempt to put files somewhere else. But that also takes one and a half hours. This HDD drive is......BAD!

[reasonsforhope]

"A tribal-led nonprofit is creating a network of native bison ranchers that are restoring ecosystems on the Great Plains, restoring native ranchers’ connections with their ancestral land, and restoring the native diet that their ancestors relied on.

Called the Tanka Fund, they coordinate donors and partners to help ranchers secure grazing land access, funds needed to install and repair fencing, increase their herd sizes, and access markets for bison meat across the country.

That’s the human part of the story. But as Dawn Sherman, executive director of the Tanka Fund, told Native Sun News, they’re “buffalo people” and these four-legged, 2,000 lbs. “cousins” are equal-part-protagonists.

The return of the bison means the return of the prairie, one of the three great grassland ecosystems on the planet, of which just 1% remains as it was when the Mayflower arrived.

“Bringing buffalo back to their ancestral homelands is essential to restoring the ecosystem. We know that the buffalo is a keystone species,” said Dawn Sherman, a member of the Lakota, Delaware, Shawnee, and Cree.

“Bringing the buffalo back to the land and to our people, helps restore the ecosystem and everything it supports from the animals to the plants to the people. It’s come full circle. That’s how we see it.”

As Sherman and the Tanka Fund help native ranchers grow their operations, everyone is well aware of the power of the bison to transform the environment: just as nations across Europe are, who are reintroducing wood bison to various ecosystems, for all the same reasons.

Sherman points out the variety of ways in which buffalo anchor the prairie ecosystem. The almost-extinct black-footed ferret, she points out, lived symbiotically with the bison, and with the latter gone, the former followed—nearly.

The long-billed curlew uses bison dung as a disguise to hide nests from predators. Deer, pronghorn antelope, and elk all rely on bison to plow through deep snows and uncover the grasses that these smaller animals can’t reach.

Everywhere the bison hurls its massive body, life springs in the beast’s wake. When bison roll about on the plains, it creates depressions known as wallows. These fill with rainwater and create enormous puddles where amphibians and insects thrive and reproduce. Certain plants evolved to grow in the wet conditions of the wallows which Native Americans harvested for food and medicine.

Native plants evolved under the trampling hooves of millions of bison, and that constant tamping down of the Earth is a key necessity in the spreading of native wildflower seed.

Indeed, Sherman says some of these native ranchers are bringing bison onto lands still visibly affected by the Dust Bowl, and already the animals are acting like a giant wooly cure-all for the land’s ills.

Since 2020, the Tanka Fund, in partnership with the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council and the Nature Conservancy, has overseen the transfer of 2,300 bison from Nature Conservancy reserves to lands managed by ranchers within the Tanka Fund network.

“[T]he more animals that we can get the more of that prairie we can restore,” said Sherman. “We can help restore the land that has been plowed and has been leased out to cattle ranchers.”"

-Article via Good News Network, February 13, 2025. Video via Tanka Fund, July 17, 2024.

[kyahaikaise]

How to create windows 7 restore point and how to use in hindi

[crazy-hazy-sims]

Hey everyone it seems there a malicious individual trying to hack the sims cc community again and fill it with malware you need to stay vigilant as a creator and a downloader so

i have some tips for both to stay safe while downloading:

1- sims cc file extension is always .Package never download anything that is .exe

2- do not auto unpack zip files and rar files into your mods folder directly, open each zip or rar individually check the file extensions and drag them to your mods folder one by one

3- the only mods that have a .ts4script extension are ones that affect gameplay or how the game works, understand that if you are downloading cas or bb items you shouldn't have a .ts4script file

4- if you are downloading gameplay mods that do have .ts4script make sure that A) the creator hasn't announced on their pages that its infected B) you are downloading from a link provided by the creator of the mods themselves not something off of google or a link you got sent and make sure dates of upload match dated of announcements

5- if the mod or cc creator has retired and hasn't posted for a while LOOK AT THE DATES OF THE UPLOAD if it has been "updated recently" after the creator has left the community its most likely re-uploaded by a hacker and infected

6- download mod gaurd by Twisted mexi and keep it updated and keep your windows defender or malware detector Program up to date and always running do not disable it

7- make sure everything you download comes from a direct link from the cc creator, in this day and age do not trust link shortners, adfly, linkverse, etc get the universal bypass extension and ublock extension to stay safe but genuinely NEVER CLICK ON THOSE no matter how much the creator reassures you its safe it. is. NOT.

8- this is more of a general saftey precaution but, create a system restore point weekly before you run the game with new mods that way if anything happens you could have a chance to restore your windows to an earlier date before you downloaded anything.

9- BACK UP YOUR SHIT im serious right now either weekly or monthly put your files somewhere safe like a usb a storage card a hard drive even an online cloud if you dont have any of the previous.

10- files you should back up are your media from games and media everything else, any mods, games saves, work files, passwords, saved bookmarks, any documents txt files word files pdfs, links you saved, brushes or actions for Photoshop if you have any, any digital bills or certificates if you have any, and keep a physical list of all programs you have installed and where you installed them from

11- turn on any 2 factor authentication and security measures for any account you have

12- google and firefox have the option to check your paswords and emails against any data leaks USE THIS FEATURE and change any leaked passwords

13- regularly check your logged in sessions to make sure all the logged in devices or computers are yours and log out any that aren't and any old devices or unused sessions do this for every website and app you have an account on if available

14- change your passwords often. I know this is a hassle i know its hard to come up with new passwords but changing your passwords every few months will help you against anything mention previously that wasn't detected.

15- and as a cc creator check your cc and the accounts you host cc on and its uplaod and update dates make sure nothing has been changed without your permission :(

16- generally try not to get swept up in the "i must get it" fever you do not need to "shop" for mods weekly or monthly you do not need to download everything by that one creator you do not need to download new cc everytime you want to make a sim, im guilty of this so i know how hard it is to resist but take a breath and think "do i want this or do i need it" before downloading.

These are prevention methods i cant claim they are 100% will prevent any hacking but its better to be safe than sorry and these do keep you safe so

Brought to you by someone who has had their laptop ruined and data leaked from downloading cc once upon a time

[requinoesis]

Hello! Fellow shark lover here, so that means i absolutely love your art! What is your favourite piece youve made of all time and what inspired you to create it if anything did? 🦈

I'm so glad you like my shark art! 🦈✨

I had to think about your question for a while, but I think my favorite piece is this one. It's part of a series of illustrations set in the same world, created during the first Sharktober in 2020.

The story depicts a little pilgrim shark exploring the ruins of his own world, where he finds wonders created by his ancestors, now forgotten.

Even though his people have lost all hope, this little one is determined to restore the image of an ancient deity, once the ruler of the ocean spirit. This divinity, however, is corrupted by a sinister shadow that consumes it as faith fades.

If I were to try to describe the meaning of this story, I would say that the little shark could represent me. He symbolizes my own journey in exploring both the reality of sharks, which are on the brink of extinction, and the fascinating aspects of their biology, ecology and role in the world - things that are ignored and in danger of being forgotten. His journey to “purify” the tarnished image of sharks reflects my attempt to recover the fascination and admiration they deserve.

However, like the little shark, I feel powerless in the face of such a great challenge. Who am I to counterbalance the negative influence that the movie Jaws had and that reverberates to this day? It only took one movie to destroy sharks’ image; could the opposite be done with the same intensity?

The fact that it seems that only this little shark still holds out hope of restoring the lost ocean, while their people live daily lives resignedly, waiting for the end, perhaps reflects something personal for me. Many times, those closest to me have discouraged me from trying to help the sharks, saying that it was “useless" or that I should "fight for a more important cause”.

Just as the little shark chose to trust his heart and leave his village, I decided to trust only myself on this lonely journey. Still, I keep trying. From ruin to ruin, the little shark persists, restoring one spark at a time to the great cosmic shark.

Perhaps, at some point along the way, when I can no longer go on, I will be able to inspire others to continue this journey. May they purify more sparks, until the full image of the sharks is restored.

Currently, I'm thinking of using the world I've created of this little pilgrim shark as some kind of “ RPG Book” of my modern sharkfolk that you know, it would probably be called “The Buried Ocean”.

[randomnameless]

Popping (lately!) in,

Speaking from a strict political sense...

I can't see it happen at all.

As close as Rhea is to Willy's descendants, that fondness didn't prevent her from organising a mediation that ultimately led to Faerghus being independant from Adrestia.

On the contrary, I'd say that if Adrestia tries to push the legitimacy "we have the saint's crests!" angle, the CoS will judge them even more harshly for the state of their own country, and the fact they are :

1/ the only ones who gave the boot to their regional branch

2/ the ones who are currently "negotiating" with a relic, aka in Yuri's paralogue, Gerth basically tells us that he's using the Relic as leverage against the Church, which isn't something you'd do to a potential ally...

No matter how hard they'll push on the legitimacy angle or on the "we will right the current wrongs in Fodlan and rule those places better than those people do", judging by their recent history I can't see the CoS being convinced : how can they pretend they'd fare better than Leicester, politically speaking, when Ionius was deposed by his nobles a no less than a decade ago, after a rebellion that happened because he terminated House Hrym ?

Depending on how far we follow the canon events, accusing the Kingdom of misusing their relics and crests - or not looking after their people - would be seen as pretty hypocritical after the Remire (located in Imperial land!) incident, especially since it's the Church that takes care and looks after the ones who survived!

Lipservice or not, I can't see Rhea - who ran the CoS for 1k years - thus her Church, give a thumbs-up to an Adrestian annexion of the world.

Hell, in Nopes (depends if you see it as canon or not), she lends her troops to the Imperial Heir, but explicitely says that her knights aren't supposed to see any fight (and she calls Faerghus the CoS' child or something?)

I could see a point being made about making allies with the strongest force on the continent, who has historical ties with them, and yet alienating the only current ally they have (Faerghus) to side with someone who betrayed and disappointed (kicking out the Southern Church, in Nopes a book suggests the Empire wanting to part ways with the Central Church even before the Southern Church incident!) isn't a choice I'd see Rhea - who kept a modicum of continental peace for 1k years - do.

In 3H canon, it's kind of taken for granted that Church sides with either Faerghus or Leicester. Leicester also gets treated as sidekick/allies to both Faerghus and Adrestia by canon and fanon; see the amount of combined BE+GD or BL+GD route works. And although it's much rarer than the others, I've even seen BE+BL combined route tag.

However, I think that a Church-Empire team-up route to conquer the other two nations would actually be very convincing in-universe politics wise, and convenient. If Edelgard wasn't as dead set on getting rid of the Church first, or if any other Adrestian emperor tried to re-conquer the rest of the continent at any point, I think allying with the Church and getting their blessing to do it would almost certainly have happened.

It's stated in-game that the Empire has grown distant from the Church as of late, but despite all that, Adrestian connection with the Church runs way deeper than other two countries. The nobles of Adrestia literally have the saints' Crests! If anybody could claim the legitimacy to being the truest and oldest believers, it's them. Plus Empire is still the largest and presumably the strongest nation in Fódlan, so the Church probably won't mind getting close to them again, either.

It wouldn't even take much for the Adrestian imperial heir to repair relations with the Church, too, especially if they go directly to Rhea. Rhea would have a soft spot for Wilhelm's descendants, so Edelgard or any other Hresvelg saying the Southern Church will be reopened might literally be all it takes to win her over.

Then the stuff like the Miklan incident can be used to accuse the Kingdom of not taking good care of Crests/Relics like they were meant to. The political disarray in Leicester can be used to accuse them of being unable to rule themselves. And if the Empire pays a bit of lipservice, swearing that they will retake those lands and rule justly under the guidance of the goddess as their founders did, the Church would probably give the stamp of approval and tell them to go for it.

Whether this alliance lasts or whether the Empire turns on the Church once the conquest is done and take all the power for themselves would depend on the emperor (if Edelgard is in charge, it would definitely be the latter).

But the prospect of a Church-Empire team up is actually way more politically plausible in-universe than fandom thinks imo.

[kyra45]

If you were previously verified by gazavetters, please seek out a different verification account as currently they’ve deleted all their posts + the document they was using to list accounts they verified.

(If you were previously verified by gazavetters, please seek out a different verification account as currently they’ve deleted all their posts + the document they was using to list accounts they verified.)

I know some accounts follow me that verify fundraisers or know some of them, so please spread the word about the current situation since a lot of gfm blogs used them to get verified and now that’s all deleted.

—

5:40pm update

From what I can gather from a reblog on the original post, the blogs runner has become upset that some blogs are resorting to unnecessary tactics to raise funds while trying to raise money theirself. The account was ran by multiple accounts, but it seems the main one has decided to cut ties with verifying all gfms and will leave the blog to be though I’m unsure what will happen to their list.

The blogs runner was upset that it was taking so long for gfms to be verified, so they created the account in order to speed up the process and recently realized they didn’t agree with what some accounts have done to get attention from popular blogs. (Or something like that.)

All in all, if you was verified by them I would suggest unfortunately still seek verification from other blogs due to this one now shutting down it seems. But please don’t harass the original blog owner he is going through a lot as is. Any existing verification is still acceptable, but any posts around it are gone leaving just the document itself which is why I suggest getting another verification done so you’ll have an extra one on hand.

This does NOT mean accounts verified by them were scammers; Do not take this as a sign of that. It’s just an unfortunate situation being cleared up and measures taken to ensure this don’t happen again at some point.

From what I’ve seen, the document has been restored again.

Read the update here

[sirfrogsworth]

I've been thinking deeply about "good people" and "bad people" and how those labels don't work for me anymore except in rare cases (Elon, Trump, MTG, etc).

I've switched to good and bad behaviors as much as I can.

Jay Leno the comedian was just bad behaviors all the way down. He literally made Monica Lewinsky's life nearly intolerable. He was in some part responsible for her brush with suicide. Not only did he make jokes about her every night, but he has kept those jokes in his act TO THIS DAY.

He was probably the first mainstream transphobic comedian. When Cher's son Chaz Bono came out as a trans man, Jay did jokes for months. To his credit, he later did an interview with Chaz and you could see in real time Jay thinking, "Oh, this isn't what I thought." It seemed like meeting an actual trans person changed his perspective a bit. (Imagine that.)

And, of course, the entire saga screwing over Conan was just peak bad behavior. Conan's 60 Minutes interview is the perfect thing to watch if you want to know more.

HOWEVER...

Jay Leno the boss is a solid dude. He was the Anti-Ellen. Got along with everyone. Took an interest in their lives. He'd give them extra jobs like paying the art department to recreate vintage car advertisements for his car museum.

He rewarded loyalty and took care of his crew for the run of his show. He'd give them bonuses and expensive gifts for years of service. When there were strikes he would pay their salaries. He was so loved as a boss, that many of his crew members stuck with him for the entire run of his Tonight Show. They once did a thing where they showed the crew babies born during the Tonight Show and it looked like they brought in the entire student body of a grade school.

Jay Leno the car historian is a sweet old grandpa doing important work in conservation. Cars are a part of our history and I think it is important to have a robust historical sample. Jay does not just collect expensive cars just to have them and show off his wealth. He collects cars throughout history, preserves them as they were (to the best of his ability), and he *drives* them.

So many museums will do this historical pausing thing where they take an old thing, stop any current degradation, and then preserve it from that point forward. Or they might restore the car to its former glory and then do the pause. Keeping it on display and never driving it again.

But I find this problematic with cars for a couple of reasons. First, when you do that, you lose the context of how the cars needed to be maintained. You can lose access to mechanics that can work on them and create parts for them. Cars are not just visual objects, they are mechanisms with thousands of moving parts and the history of those moving parts is important too. Cars need to be driven to be maintained. The longer you let them sit, the more they will break down, the harder it will be to keep them in working order for preservation. Perhaps one paused and one driven would be a better approach due to the risk of accidents.

But also, the experience of driving these cars is important historically. How fast were they? How good was the acceleration? How did they corner? What did all the buttons and dials do? Were they fun to drive? Were they scary death traps? (Looking at you Dodge Viper. How many dentists did you kill?) The actual driving of the cars has important historical context. I think car museums should be next to a track and people should be allowed to experience riding in them.

Jay is an amazing historian and has a wonderful sampling of important cars going back to steam. He even has a steam fire engine from the early 1900s. He is a gracious host and gives lots of people access to his collection. He does weekly videos so there is a great visual record of this history and anyone can watch and learn about these old (and new but inaccessible) cars.

If you were to poke me with a stick, I'd say Jay Leno the comedian is a giant asshole. And Jay Leno the boss and historian is a solid dude.

And holding those two ideas in my head breaks my brain a little.

But I think there is merit in thinking of people as collections of good and bad behaviors rather than just giving them a singular verdict of good or bad person.

Jimmy Kimmel is another interesting study in good vs bad behavior.

He started doing comedy in the misogynistic manosphere genre. Famously, he did "The Man Show" with Adam Corolla. What's funny about that is I think Jimmy thought it was mostly satire (though he was absolutely problematic) and Adam was a true believer who thought he was really sticking it to those feminist bitches.

Jimmy Kimmel might be one of the most public examples of genuine, authentic growth. A person who analyzed his bad behaviors and decided to limit or replace them with good behaviors. I'm guessing his marriage and family helped push him along. But he started this journey long before that. He learned he could still push the limits of crude humor and even satirize his misogynistic past while generally being a solid dude. Slowly he became one of celebrities' favorite shows to go on. And, because of his growth, he started making friends with tons of them. You would not believe how many big stars are good friends with Jimmy Kimmel outside his show.

And when Trump came along, Jimmy got fucking WOKE. (The OG usage) His empathetic side came out in a big way. He couldn't hold it back with his crude man humor facade. He started caring about the world and what his kids were going to grow up in, and he added scathing political humor to his repertoire.

Jay Leno remains apolitical as much as possible with some mildly shitty conservative views popping out every once in a while. He is into old school WWII style patriotism and thinks everything should be made in America. Like, when someone says a car part is made in America, I worry Jay is just going to jizz in his pants right on camera.

Is Jay Leno a bad person? Sometimes. Absolutely.

Was Jimmy Kimmel a bad person? Sometimes. Absolutely.

Is Jimmy still a bad person? Not as far as I can tell.

Is Adam Corolla a piece of shit? Absolutely. Absolutely.

[mesetacadre]

what's wrong with the concept of technofeudalism?, honest question 😅

It's based on disregarding capitalism as an antiquated term to refer to the current economic structure of society, it's no longer capitalist (for varoufakis meaning when there is a market with more or less free competition between different agents) but technofeudal (high levels of monopolization of markets and logistics like feudal lords (?) but it's modern instead of medieval, so technofeudal). Jeff Bezos (it's Amazon's board, actually) controls large amounts of global shipping which means Bezos is like a feudal lord but with technology instead of tilled fields, and with employees instead of peasants. It's an extremely liberal point of view, it's positing capitalism as a system based on the free market, and the logical conclusion of this outlook is a "restoration" of "free market capitalism". The defining trait of capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of labor-power carried out by a class lacking in that private property, only upheld by the salary they're paid, a fraction of the value they create. This has not changed regardless of the amount of capitalists that make up the capitalist class.

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

David Bowie - Space Oddity 1969

"Space Oddity" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was first released on 11 July 1969 as a 7-inch single, then as the opening track of his second studio album, David Bowie. It is a tale about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom; its title and subject matter were partly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Bowie's feelings of alienation at that point in his career. Its sound departed from the music hall of his debut album to psychedelic folk inspired by the Bee Gees; it was one of the most musically complex compositions he had written up to that point. "Space Oddity" is considered one of Bowie's finest recordings and remains one of his most popular songs. It has appeared in numerous "best-of" lists, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.

The label rush-released the single to capitalise on the Apollo 11 Moon mission, which was launched five days later. According to Bowie: "It was picked up by British television and used as the background music for the landing itself in Britain … Though I'm sure they really weren't listening to the lyric at all; it wasn't a pleasant thing to juxtapose against a moon landing. Of course, I was overjoyed that they did." Upon realising the dark lyrics, the BBC ceased playing it until the Apollo 11 crew safely returned home. It initially sold poorly but soon reached number five in the UK, becoming Bowie's first and only chart hit for another three years. Reissues became Bowie's first US hit in 1972, and his first UK number one in 1975. Bowie revisited the Major Tom character in later singles, notably the sequel song "Ashes to Ashes" (1980).

A range of artists have covered "Space Oddity" and others have released songs that reference Major Tom or develop the story of "Space Oddity". In May 2013, the Canadian astronaut and artist Chris Hadfield, commander of Expedition 35 to the International Space Station (ISS), recorded a video of "Space Oddity" while stationed on the ISS that went viral and generated media coverage. It was the first music video to be recorded in space. In the video, filmed towards the end of Hadfield's time on the ISS, Hadfield sang and played guitar while floating around the space station. On Earth, Joe Corcoran produced and mixed the backing track with a piano arrangement by the multi-instrumentalist Emm Gryner, who worked with Bowie during his 1999–2000 concert tours. The lyrics were somewhat altered; rather than losing communication with Ground Control and being lost in space as a result, Major Tom receives his orders to land and does so safely, reflecting Hadfield's imminent return from his final mission to the ISS. The song also mentions the Soyuz spacecraft that Hadfield travelled in. Hadfield announced the video on his Twitter account: "With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here's Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World." Bowie's social media team responded to the video, tweeting back to Hadfield, "Hallo Spaceboy …", and later called the cover "possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created".

Hadfield's performance was the subject of a piece by Glenn Fleishman in The Economist on 22 May 2013 analyzing the legal implications of publicly performing a copyrighted work of music while in Earth orbit. "Space Oddity" is the only song of Bowie's for which he did not own the copyright; his publisher granted Hadfield a one-year licence to the song. When the one-year licence expired on 13 May 2014, the official video was taken offline despite Bowie's explicit wishes for the publisher to grant Hadfield a licence at no charge to record the song and produce the video. Following negotiations, the video was restored to Youtube on 2 November 2014 with a two-year licence agreement.

"Space Oddity" received a total of 86,5% yes votes! Previous David Bowie polls: #33 "I'm Afraid of Americans", #235 "Life on Mars?" (and original artist of #118 "The Man Who Sold the World")

[sh4nksslvt]

Giant Duck Incident

When Luffy mistakes a giant duck for dinner and ends up getting a kiss instead

LUFFY X GN!READER ౨ৎ💗 ONE SHOT

tags: fluff, sfw

a/n: this js me trying to write ffs, this is experimental and for fun only so expect this ffs a bit cringe

masterlist | ko-fi

words count: 1.1k

: 𓏲🐋 ๋࣭  ࣪ ˖✩࿐࿔ 🌊

The sun was high, the sea was calm, and there were absolutely no signs of trouble.

Which, on the Thousand Sunny, meant one thing:

Trouble was coming.

“LUFFY, NO—!!”

Too late. You watched in horror as Monkey D. Luffy, your idiot-slash-sweetheart captain, launched himself full-speed off the ship.

“THAT’S A HUGE DRUMSTICK!!”

He landed with a wet splat on what you now saw was not, in fact, a drumstick, but a massive, living, very not amused yellow blob.

A duck.

A giant duck. Towering, glistening, waddling angrily in the shallows.

It honked—a sound that felt more like a roar—and thrashed its wings wildly, trying to throw the rubbery parasite off its back.

Luffy clung to its neck like a child to a carnival ride, cackling madly. “SHISHISHSHI IT’S THE SIZE OF A WHOLE BANQUET!!”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. “This man has the survival instincts of a particularly reckless bread roll.”

You glanced at the rest of the crew.

Zoro was asleep.

Sanji was busy sculpting carrot roses for Robin.

Robin was reading, obviously not surprised.

Nami looked up from her map just long enough to yell, “Not it!”

Usopp and Chopper screamed something about curses and jumped into a barrel together.

Which left you.

Of course it did.

—

The duck, still honking its fury to the high heavens, stomped in circles while Luffy attempted to bite its side. You sprinted down the ramp and into the shallow surf.

“LUFFY, GET OFF THE DUCK!”

“I’M TRYING TO TASTE IT!”

“IT’S A SENTIENT CREATURE!”

“BUT IT LOOKS SO CRISPY��”

The duck, insulted on a deeply personal level, launched itself upward in one majestic leap and sent Luffy flying through the air like a flailing meat meteor. He landed beside you, face in the sand, limbs splayed in defeat.

“…Ow,” he mumbled.

You sighed and knelt beside him. “You good?”

He gave you a thumbs-up, still face-down. “YUP! SHISHISHI”

You helped brush sand off his hat as he sat up.

“Luffy,” you said, trying to be calm, “you can’t eat random animals just because they’re big and vaguely drumstick-shaped.”

“But look at it!” he whined, pointing. “It’s got those golden thighs! The rotisserie energy! The juicy potential!”

“It has a name, probably. A family. A job.”

He squinted. “Maybe it’s an orphan with a deep desire to fulfill its destiny as dinner.”

You blinked then laugh at this. “… pftt! did you just create a duck backstory to justify your cravings?”

“Yes!” he said proudly. “That’s called empathy I think! SHISHISHI”

You stared at him, completely deadpan. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

He blinked. Then beamed. “You think I’m cute?”

“…That was supposed to stay in my head.”

“TOO LATE!” he yelled, springing to his feet and throwing his arms in the air like a victorious meat wrestler. “Y/N THINKS I’M CUUUUTE!!”

“Luffy!”

“I’M CUTE! I’M CUTE! EVEN CUTER THAN THE DUCK!”

The duck, now perched like a war god on a rock, glared at him with pure malice.

You sighed. “We’re gonna be hunted by poultry assassins. I can feel it.”

—

Back on the Sunny, after Luffy was physically restrained from offering the duck “one little nibble,” peace was finally restored. The sun dipped low, painting the sky in soft golds and purples.

You sat on the deck’s edge, feet dangling over the sea. Luffy flopped beside you, hat tilted back, grin wide.

“Hey, Y/N,” he said suddenly.

You braced yourself. “If you ask me to cook duck—”

“No, no,” he chuckled. “I was gonna say... I like when you laugh.”

You turned to him, surprised.

He was watching you. Not in the usual Luffy way — not like when he spotted meat across the room, or stared down an enemy. This was the kind of look that made your chest feel warm and your brain do a little somersault.

“Earlier,” he said, “you laughed when I said something about empathy”

“Thats not... I was mocking you!,” you replied. “I thought I was about to watch you get pecked into a new time zone.”

“But you still laughed,” he said, all sunny and smug. “You always do.”

“That’s because you’re ridiculous.”

“You like it,” he teased, nudging your shoulder.

You bit back a smile. “I tolerate it. Barely.”

He tilted his head, expression soft. “Zoro said it’s obvious.”

“…You talked to Zoro about me?”

“I asked if I could kiss you,” Luffy said bluntly. “He said ask you, not him.”

Your brain fizzled. “Wait. What—”

“So,” Luffy continued, turning fully to face you with that open, earnest joy you’d come to adore, “can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Kiss you,” he said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Your breath caught. This was the same boy who just tried to eat a duck like it was a buffet item. Who once got stuck inside a vending machine trying to retrieve a stuck candy bar. Who sometimes forgot his shoes and didn’t notice for an hour.

And yet.

Your heart fluttered like it hadn’t gotten the memo about logic.

“…Yes,” you said, quiet.

His face lit up like a festival. “Yeah?!”

You nodded.

He scooted close—awkwardly but gently—and cupped your cheek, his hand warm and calloused. The kiss was clumsy, sweet, quick. His nose bumped yours, and when he pulled away, he had that stupidly big grin that made your stomach flip.

“WHOA,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” you whispered back.

He leaned back on his hands, practically glowing. “Gonna tell Zoro it worked!”

“LUFFY—NO—!”

Too late.

“ZORO!! I KISSED Y/N!! AND THEY SAID YES!! YOU WERE RIGHT!!”

You groaned and dropped your head into your hands as Zoro’s muffled “I don’t care!” echoed from the crow’s nest.

Sanji’s head whipped up from the kitchen door, his cigarette dangling dangerously.

“WHAT?!”

Luffy turned mid-skip. “I kissed Y/N!”

Sanji's eye twitched. “I leave you alone for ONE romantic sunset and you SNEAK AHEAD?!”

You, now partially hiding behind the mast, groaned. “Oh no.”

“Luffy, you absolute—! That was supposed to be MY kiss! I was going to bring you a fruit parfait! HOW DARE YOU KISS MY Y/N~CHWANNNNN!”

Luffy skipped back to you, unbothered and beaming. “Wanna kiss again?”

You peeked through your fingers. “If you promise not to announce it like a seagull with a megaphone.”

He nodded. “Fineee!. But I will write it in my logbook shishishi.”

“…You have a logbook?!”

“It’s mostly meat sketches and battle doodles. But now it has you.”

And your heart, traitor that it was, somersaulted again.

You sighed. “Fine. Just… no more trying to eat ducks.”

He tilted his head. “What if it asks nicely?”

You groaned, flopping back dramatically.

And somewhere in the distance, a vengeful honk echoed over the sea.

[reasonsforhope]

Although dam removals have been happening since 1912, the vast majority have occurred since the mid-2010s, and they have picked up steam since the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provided funding for such projects. To date, 806 Northeastern dams have come down, with hundreds more in the pipeline. Across the country, 2023 was a watershed year, with a total of 80 dam removals. Says Andrew Fisk, Northeast regional director of the nonprofit American Rivers, “The increasing intensity and frequency of storm events, and the dramatically reduced sizes of our migratory fish populations, are accelerating our efforts.”

Dam removals in the Northeast don’t generate the same media attention as massive takedowns on West Coast rivers, like the Klamath or the Elwha. That’s because most of these structures are comparatively miniscule, built in the 19th century to form ponds and to power grist, textile, paper, saw, and other types of mills as the region developed into an industrial powerhouse.

But as mills became defunct, their dams remained. They may be small to humans, but to the fish that can’t get past them “they’re just as big as a Klamath River dam,” says Maddie Feaster, habitat restoration project manager for the environmental organization Riverkeeper, based in Ossining, New York. From Maryland and Pennsylvania up to Maine, there are 31,213 inventoried dams, more than 4,000 of which sit within the 13,400-square-mile Hudson River watershed alone. For generations they’ve degraded habitat and altered downstream hydrology and sediment flows, creating warm, stagnant, low-oxygen pools that trigger algal blooms and favor invasive species. The dams inhibit fish passage, too, which is why the biologists at the mouth of the Saw Kill transported their glass eels past the first of three Saw Kill dams after counting them...

Jeremy Dietrich, an aquatic ecologist at the New York State Water Resources Institute, monitors dam sites both pre- and post-removal. Environments upstream of an intact dam, he explains, “are dominated by midges, aquatic worms, small crustaceans, organisms you typically might find in a pond.” In 2017 and 2018 assessments of recent Hudson River dam removals, some of which also included riverbank restorations to further enhance habitat for native species, he found improved water quality and more populous communities of beetles, mayflies, and caddisflies, which are “more sensitive to environmental perturbation, and thus used as bioindicators,” he says. “You have this big polarity of ecological conditions, because the barrier has severed the natural connectivity of the system. [After removal], we generally see streams recover to a point where we didn’t even know there was a dam there.”

Pictured: Quassaick Creek flows freely after the removal of the Strooks Felt Dam, Newburgh, New York.

American Rivers estimates that 85 percent of U.S. dams are unnecessary at best and pose risks to public safety at worst, should they collapse and flood downstream communities. The nonprofit has been involved with roughly 1,000 removals across the country, 38 of them since 2018. This effort was boosted by $800 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But states will likely need to contribute more of their own funding should the Trump administration claw back unspent money, and organizations involved in dam removal are now scrambling to assess the potential impact to their work.

Enthusiasm for such projects is on the upswing among some dam owners — whether states, municipalities, or private landholders. Pennsylvania alone has taken out more than 390 dams since 1912 — 107 of them between 2015 and 2023 — none higher than 16 feet high. “Individual property owners [say] I own a dam, and my insurance company is telling me I have a liability,” says Fisk. Dams in disrepair may release toxic sediments that potentially threaten both human health and wildlife, and low-head dams, over which water flows continuously, churn up recirculating currents that trap and drown 50 people a year in the U.S.

Numerous studies show that dam removals improve aquatic fish passage, water quality, watershed resilience, and habitat for organisms up the food chain, from insects to otters and eagles. But removals aren’t straightforward. Federal grants, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the Fish and Wildlife Service, favor projects that benefit federally listed species and many river miles. But even the smallest, simplest projects range in cost from $100,000 to $3 million. To qualify for a grant, be it federal or state, an application “has to score well,” says Scott Cuppett, who leads the watershed team at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program, which collaborates with nonprofits like Riverkeeper to connect dam owners to technical assistance and money...

All this can be overwhelming for dam owners, which is why stakeholders hope additional research will help loosen up some of the requirements. In 2020, Yellen released a study in which he simulated the removal of the 1,702 dams in the lower Hudson watershed, attempting to determine how much sediment might be released if they came down. He found that “the vast majority of dams don’t really trap much sediment,” he says. That’s good news, since it means sediment released into the Hudson will neither permanently worsen water quality nor build up in places that would smother or otherwise harm underwater vegetation. And it shows that “you would not need to invest a huge amount of time or effort into a [costly] sediment management plan,” Yellen says. It’s “a day’s worth of excavator work to remove some concrete and rock, instead of months of trucking away sand and fill.” ...

On a sunny winter afternoon, Feaster, of Riverkeeper, stands in thick mud beside Quassaick Creek in Newburgh, New York. The Strooks Felt Dam, the first of seven municipally owned dams on the lower reaches of this 18-mile tributary, was demolished with state money in 2020. The second dam, called Holden, is slated to come down in late 2025. Feaster is showing a visitor the third, the Walsh Road Dam, whose removal has yet to be funded. “This was built into a floodplain,” she says, “and when it rains the dam overflows to flood a housing complex just around a bend in the creek.” ...

On the Quassaick, improvements are evident since the Strooks dam came out. American eel and juvenile blue crabs have already moved in. In fact, fish returns can sometimes be observed within minutes of opening a passageway. Says Schmidt, “We’ve had dammed rivers where you’ve been removing the project and when the last piece comes out a fish immediately storms past it.”

There is palpable impatience among environmentalists and dam owners to get even more removals going in the Northeast. To that end, collaborators are working to streamline the process. The Fish and Wildlife Service, for example, has formed an interagency fish passage task force with other federal agencies, including NOAA and FEMA, that have their own interests in dam removals. American Rivers is working with regional partners to develop priority lists of dams whose removals would provide the greatest environmental and safety benefits and open up the most river miles to the most important species. “We’re not going to remove all dams,” [Note: mostly for reasons dealing with invasive species management, etc.] says Schmidt. “But we can be really thoughtful and impactful with the ones that we do choose to remove.”

-via Yale Environment 360, February 4, 2025