#quests are going to be normal from now on (no)

[ssschocopie]

I almost shifted and I'm so pissed.

Well, last night I did the routine, I went to bed and visualized expecting to shift but falling asleep instead, nothing new under the sun.

Then, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I did the same thing, which is something i didn't do before, but I always feel like each attempt gets me closer so I started doing it last week. So there I went: visualized and fell asleep.

Then i was dreaming, and no, it was not a lucid dream at any point. A normal dream where someone was guiding me (like the white rabbit yk), and I noticed it was like a shifting coach. I made a question like "I've heard you need to do that to shift" (I can't recall the exact words, it's a miracle that I can recall anything from a dream) and then he answered "its different for everyone, and I know just what is the perfect way for you" (again, not exactly these words) and he showed me A BROKEN BLOCK OF WHITE CHALK (i keep trying to see some meaning in it even if i know my dreams are all insanity on top of insanity). Then I looked at it, and it was like something was loading, like in a quest in a game when you need to focus the screen on an item to go to the next level, and then WHITE SCREEN, I woke up but with my eyes close and a sensation like if my blood pressure was very high and i was breathing too fast (at some point, i thoughti was actually dying), and I KNEW I was shifting. So I thought, "omg it's now, I need to pick a place," and i visualized exactly where I wanted to wake up and then I started to stop feeling my body in my cr but not completely. But I also noticed something was strange with my "other body" I was starting to feel, there was something on my leg. I was curious so after a few seconds I opened my eyes and I was in my cr, everything was blurry so I know I was at least VERY close but I was already pissed that I ruined everything and just went to sleep.

So the reason why I'm pissed at this amazing experience of not shifting (jk) is that i thought when something like this happened, I would get some knowledge, like a feedback of how to improve for the next time but the only thing I got was a reminder to not open my fucking eyes.

But it was an amazing experience anyway. I just hope I can complete it next time.

[juniorig0327]

Random 2:30 Thought

So I'm just up thinking and honestly I'm thinking about HOO and like, what if the conflict between the Greek and Roman camps was bigger than what it was.

Like, thinking about a way to integrate the Ottomans and Franks (I wanted to put Byzantine but they didn't have a religion pre Christianity and I'm sure not sure how that would be integrated, maybe in a way similar to Egyptian magicians??)

Because the Greeks have a long history outside of Romans and basically struggled for true independence for a very long time.

Could possibly develop an issue that goes deeper than the Athena Parthenos, grudges of the ancestors still being carried by modern demigods, just because they were told to hate these people.

Have the Seven be a mixture of all of these (could get a magnus chase crossover with the Franks since their religion was essentially of Norse origin I think lol.)

We have characters learning to overcome their prejudice and going through conflicts. Having one character (probably Percy) being the one to truly bring everyone together. The Uniter of [insert some cool title here] and bringing everyone together.

Them trying not to fall apart in the inevitable Tartarus fall and them pulling themselves back together on their way to the house of hades and the doors of death and becoming found family.

(I still think Percy should've killed Gaea imo and he was written off too quickly as not an option, especially when he was talking about killing Gaea w his bare hands or something like that so.) And finally at the end the camps (or whatever they'd consider themselves to be) finally uniting with the "death?" of Percy and his honorable sacrifice, the beginning of a new future, ambassadors being set up, facilities being built. All of the camps would unite maybe under an alliance, one more step to the actual safety of demigods (now that they're being claimed).

I dunno it sounds sort of cool since Greece and their history is really crazy, so bringing it all together against one of the strongest primordial beings, fixing what's broken, bringing hope for new generation of demigods is just wow.

As I'm writing this, I honestly could do something for the Byzantine Empire as far as including them, I'd just make them more like the Egyptian Magicians compared to demigods.

As for how they'd meet for the first time, that's a little complicated, especially because having five leaders or people from five separate camps seems a little too much.

Maybe the quest would go as normal but like at the beginning it's just Jason, Percy, Hazel, and Annabeth (maybe not "officially" being apart of the Seven but instead just being there for the Mark of Athena? I just feel like Hazel would only really work as apart of the Greco-Roman pantheon just because of her backstory directly relating to Gaea like it does so I wouldn't be able to revamp her character and drop her in another pantheon) traveling to pick up the rest of Seven.

Anyways I've been writing this for twenty minutes so I think I'll stop lol.

[dragonsarecats]

going INSANE over the implications about kaeya with this new quest. he called dain a "pureblooded khaen'riahn" which we later learn means he suffers from the curse of immortality, of which kaeya definitely does not have because he grew up in Mondstadt. kaeya's pupils are different from the other "pureblooded khaenriahns" we've seen because there's is more of a hollow outline??? idk also the fact that we have NO idea what happened to caribert means that he could be kaeya's ancestor also?? because otherwise how is he an alberich??? anyways kaeya mains stay winning ig because they definitely are not stopping here like i lowkey feared lol

[blue-deneb]

anthony’s thought process in the last half of this ep as i imagine it:

ok so they’re gonna go to earth and get the last anchor everything’s going according to plan

god fucking damnit taylor not this again

yknow what. fuck it. into space you go fuckers

oh shit they’re going to die in space

gotta agree with any stupid ass plan they do now so i don’t accidentally do a tpk

yeah sure marriage makes you one person in the eyes of the lord

nicky’s now an ordained minister. whatever

yes you’re flying over utah

that’s not how banishment works but sure let’s go with that

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

this isn't about witchcraft but I don't even care, I just found out my special interest game is getting an update today in like five hours and somehow I missed that memo???? I was burnt out so I wasn't paying attention and now I'm hearing that we're getting a new main quest, specifically the quest in which the formula is "this one guy shows up, drops the biggest lore bomb, and then leaves."

needless to say I am FROTHING AT THE MOUTH no one's gonna hear from me for like a month on my main (/j) it's all gonna be my alt's sideblog (yes I have three Tumblr blogs, shhh) screaming about this nonstop. because I'm one of those players who doesn't ever actually play the game but will never shut up about the worldbuilding and ✨LORE✨ and we're getting a quest that will, most likely, once again shift the entire perspective of the world a little to the left.

[emdotcom]

*remembers what they did to Vanny* 500 FUCKING PIPEBOMB ATTACK.

[indigobackfire]

Having absorbed enough Locked Tomb series content, highly recommend it btw, I realize Merula is not a bad character, she's just badly written.

[rigaudon]

who the fuck designed these color palettes hE LOOKS LIKE A WATERMELON

[rivilu]

Ooo...

[eric-the-bmo]

So for my game tonight- Theodore's unconscious right now, but as soon as he wakes up... Imagine this, because this is what the session's opening will be like for him:

You're ripped out of whatever dream-state you were in (was it a nice dream? did you forget everything you've gone through while you were sleeping?). You're on the floor.

You realize your body Hurts. Your nose is broken.

Maybe you'll vaguely realize where you are, or maybe you'll try to remember what happened-

But you're going to get decked with a baseball bat, held by your former friend/party member, who most likely has the intent to kill you. He's knows it's you.

Panic- fight back? Do you fight out of instinct or because you remember what you've caused and decided this is a viable act of karma, so you fight to get him to hit you more?

If you haven't by now, realize the consequences of your actions: Your mentor, who kept you from dropping out and had hope for you, both for the changeling and human world, is gone- possessed- and it's your fault. Your former friend's boyfriend is also gone, you tried to kill another party member's friend (and the party in general), and you've practically kickstarted a war while you were possessed by the BBEG. Your party already lost some trust in you earlier before- all trust is obliterated because of this.

Do you have anything left?

[plusultraetc]

I have rewritten one (1) conversation in btd ch 3 like four times. I hate u exposition through dialogue

[gender-euphowrya]

i'm ngl it's incredible how unpolished genshin is despite how much money it racks in

[poetryqueer]

nothing will beat the tragedy of bg3 mechanics for me rn

[boygirlctommy]

im actually workin on a story o_o

[reasonsforhope]

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024

[critterbitter]

The twins and their starters may have grown slightly taller, but their love of shenanigans have tripled, no, quadrupled in size.

On that note did you know Eelectrik has a glow animation?? Perfect nightlight eel. Absolute gold standard for creature. Click here for the masterlist!

Bonus shitpost under cut ft @birdsaretoddlers’s incredible take.

(plus a fanfic drabble that birds did while we were discussing in chat! Check out their funny writing @birdsaretoddlers) “Lam lam pentttt. Lam.”

“Language. I am not calling them that. This is a civil discussion about the capacity of a 284 Berkshire’s firebox, not a playground argument.”

“Lammm Pent.”

“If you possess my phone I will have to put you in time-out in your ball, and neither of us will like that.”

The argument over a literal online flame war was cut short by the door flying open, one of the hinges breaking off with the force and flying somewhere into the aether, never to be seen again. Or at least, not without a strong magnet.

Emmet stood there, proudly, holding his newly-evolved Eelektrik, his grin a mile wide. Ingo picked his heart up out of his femoral artery, where it had lodged itself, and gently removed Lampent from where she hid, hanging over his shoulder. Emmet stood there, eyes twinkling, clearly ready to perform the coveted Bit. Ingo opened his mouth, got halfway through a word, and his twin took the proffered delight of cutting him off.

“I am Emmet and I discovered something INCREDIBLE. INGO LOOK.”

Ingo looked, because what else was he going to do? He would allow his twin to complete his circus act, it was only proper and polite. Eelektrik trilled with delight. Emmet twirled like the best of Nimbasan runway models, clearly wrestling his eel, cooing platitudes to it as he writhed and squirmed to get it into position.

“Me beautiful slimy baby, my beloved pool noodle, my beeesstt conductor!~” Doing something that could generously be called ‘dislocating his shoulders’, Emmet managed to get his eel flipped up and around his neck. He flopped forwards, bonelessly, tipping his hat and giggling madly. He was grinning harder than normal. Ingo was a little scared.

“But now, Eelektrik can do MORE. OBSERVE.”

He threw his shoulders back, standing up as tall as he could, somehow not throwing himself ass-first onto the floor as the fifty pounds of eel he was currently deadlifting remained stationary over his neck. Emmet’s arms flew upwards and out, rocking back and forth in jazz hands. Eelektrik frilled its fans, made another happy little buzz and-

"Eelektrik boa."

“DRAGONS ALMIGHTY. THE EEL GLOWS.”

There it was, clear as day. Eelektrik flashed it’s spots in natural bioluminescence, blinking like a neon sign. Bright beautiful yellow and clearly charged, Emmet’s hair stood on end, pushing his hat an inch off his head. They blinked in a rhythmic, pulsing manner. It was almost hypnotizing to watch, in a way. Ingo snapped back to reality, realizing his mouth had dropped open and Lampent had ceased questing for his Pokedex. Recognizing Emmet was looking for a response, he threw his arm out in a thumbs-up so fast his arm hurt, snapping his suspender against his neck.

“Brrravo! Ten out of ten! Majestic eel scarf!” He praised, Emmet’s expression only growing further full of himself and his achievement, which was well deserved. Lampent echoed the sentiment, flashing back at Eelektrik in response.

Now that both Pokemon could glow, they’d never have a problem in the caves again!