#wn + mass effect

[daisychainsandbowties]

degree of lilith's desolation when she finishes ME3

she takes it sooo personally you know lilith is constantly in the bind of ‘i want to play paragon but the renegade options are just sometimes… extremely sexy.’ she’s micromanaging her points so she can kick the guy out of the window on the 200th floor or whatever of the Dantius towers.

but actually. try to convince me she isn’t secretly niceys to everyone. convince me she doesn’t cry and cry over miranda and point at liara like ‘that’s beatrice’ (guess who can NEVER be mean to liara?). i think she also likes jack and wrex and joker and oooh legion definitely (she chooses to destroy the pro-reaper geth over rewriting their memories. cries about it has to lay with her head in ava’a lap about it). i think ava gets really invested in the game, makes maaaybe two or three comments about miranda and how she can install mods “if you want to fuck yourself” “shut up please” as lilith vanguard smashes through a mass of cerberus agents.

god i think lilith feels very strongly about AI and geth and especially the quarian-geth conflict because she relates to being out of control, taken advantage of, changed. that’s why she adores legion and gets into arguments with tali all the time. agrees with wrex So Much about the genophage. argues with mordin but knows the ‘i am the very model of a scientist salarian’ song and one time ava’s making eggs singing it and turns around like “sunny side up!” to find lilith crying at the kitchen table.

i think honesly lilith hates the green ending, too reminiscent of her own life. she likes destroy (perhaps especially in the context of the perfect ending) and she again… feels uneasy about control. oh she’s naturally self-sacrificing (ava frowny face) but the implications of the control ending frighten her too much.

she plays through the ending with ava draped around her arm, wearing the N7 hoodie bea got her quietly for her birthday after she spent three weeks listening to ava and lilith planning for the final ME2 mission at the kitchen table. with charts. (they refuse to use online guides).

definitely cries. i think she works to get the perfect destroy ending, and that last moment has her sitting there with tears rolling down her cheeks. ava gently untangling her hands from their vice-grip on the controller ava’s modded to use with their setup. kisses lilith’s knuckles and they sit there and lilith slowly subsides into ava, the two of them falling asleep (it’s 3am) with the title screen music playing, over and over again.

[spacefaxbyaustin]

All about Wolf-Rayet stars

Some facts about Wolf-Rayet Stars

Wolf-Rayet stars are named the ‘most massive and brightest stars known’. This is because their temperatures start at 30,000 degrees celsius. They also have strong stellar winds which blow away their outer atmospheres, revealing the stars’ inner layers. Blowing at over ten million miles per hour, the stars shed about 2 thousand billion billion tons of material every year. That’s equivalent to the mass of three Earths! Since these stars have trouble holding themselves together, they don’t last very long, burning up their fuel quickly and blasting mass into space, eventually tearing themselves apart. They are usually members of binary stars with O or B stars (types of stars classed by temperature) as companions.vd

The discovery

The French astronomers Charles Wolf (1827-1918) and Georges Rayet (1839-1906) co-discovered this type of unusual, hot star, which are now named after them. They discovered Wolf-Rayet stars by using the Paris Observatory’s 40cm Foucault telescope in 1867 to observe three stars whose spectra had strong, broad emission lines, but few absorption lines, which is unusual for stars. 

For decades, the reason for these emission bands remained a mystery. Eventually, it was discovered that these lines resulted from the presence of helium, which was discovered in 1868, one year after the original observation. E.C.Pickering also compared Wolf-Rayet spectra with nebula spectra, and noticed similarities between them. This led to his discovery that some or all Wolf-Rayet stars are in the centre of nebulae.

In 1929, doppler broadening (the broadening of spectral lines due to the Doppler effect caused by a distribution of velocities of atoms or molecules) was being used to explain the width of the emission bands. It was concluded that the gas surrounding Wolf-Rayet stars must be moving with velocities of 300-2400 km/s, and therefore they are continually ejecting gas into space. This produces an expanding envelope, or bubble, of nebulous gas. The force that ejects this gas was then discovered to be radiation pressure.

Later, Rayet became Director of the Bordeaux Observatory, and to this day, we have discovered over 500 Wolf-Rayet stars in our galaxy. 

About the most massive star, R136a1, which is a Wolf-Rayet star

R136a1 is the most massive star known, which is a Wolf-Rayet star. It is 163,000 light years away from the Sun, and is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is also part of the R136 super star cluster, and has the mass of 315 suns. Despite being the most massive star known and shining 9 million times brighter than the sun, it requires a telescope to see. An interesting fact about R136a1 is that it defies what scientists know about how stars form. A popular hypothesis among scientists is that R136a1 did not form directly from the collapse of a molecular hydrogen cloud, but rather from two massive stars colliding. 

About WR 124, a Wolf-Rayet star

WR 124 is 15,000 light years away from the Sun. Its spectral type is WN, meaning it falls into the hottest ‘O’ spectral type of stars, but is referred to as ‘W’ from Wolf-Rayet. The ‘N’ means it shows strong emission lines of nitrogen. WR 124 is the glowing star in the centre of a huge, fiery nebula. WR 124 has a surface temperature of around 50,000 degrees celsius, and is one of the hottest known Wolf-Rayet stars. It is a massive, unstable star which is blowing itself apart. Its material is travelling at up to 150,000kph. The nebula that surrounds the star, M1-67, consists of vast arcs of glowing gas which is violently expanding outwards into space. M1-67 is quite young, only 10,000 years old, and it contains clumps of material within it with masses 30 times the mass of Earth and diameters of 150 billion km.

WR 7, another Wolf-Rayet star

WR 7 is also 15,000 light years away from the Sun. It produced the emission nebula NGC 2359, which is also known as Thor’s Helmet because it looks like a helmet with wings. The nebula has a diameter of around 30 light years, and has WR 7 at its centre. Its surface temperature is between 30,000 degrees celsius and 50,000 degrees celsius, which is 6 to 10 times the temperature of the sun. It is an incredibly unstable star, ejecting stellar material into the interstellar medium at speeds which approach 7.2 million kph! Even though it is a massive star, it loses the mass of the Sun every thousand years. Material ejected from the star is done so in a spherical manner, which produces a bubble of material. This bubble has been shaped further by its interactions with the surrounding interstellar medium. WR 7 lies at the edge of a dense, warm molecular cloud, which is unusual.

[crimsonxe]

More like fans are normal in defending their showrunners (have a look at MAwS, Acolyte, The Boys, Life is Strange, Mass Effect, Warframe, Warrior Nun, etc fanbases especially WN and Warframe that most aptly compare to RWBY) as fans will do. Ones like yourself on the other hand refuse to just move the fuck on and instead focus on spewing garbage and shitting on things you aren't the audience for. You try to frame any defense as fans being the ones off, when no they're just doing exactly what fans are supposed to do. And not a damn soul owes your ass a pass because "its my opinion", as opinions are not untouchable and even then some are just factually inaccurate aka bullshit that deserves to be called out. Either gtfo or stop thinking you're beyond being fact checked into the ground.

M&K have more than earned their flowers (respect) by crafting a great femme-centered progressive leaned story; you haven't.

Many RWBY fans (RT fans in general tbh) excuse so much of it because they have developed a very weird parasocial relationship with the showrunners I do nottt get it at all. And I'm saying this as a person who was shipping the AH guys as a 14 year old like even by my standards the Miles and Kerry obsession is way too much

[dearsheroozle]

when I played a man to romance Tali I never got shit for it from Ashley???

[plan-d-to-i]

Just another post to justify JC ignoring life debts toward the Wen Siblings. Funny enough, this person thought WQ would achieve anything by voice her disagreement with WRH becoming the overlord. Or they thought WQ would totally be fine to go against WRH publicly (then again by helping WWX and JC, she and WN did go against WRH in secret and NMJ didn't know that because the ungrateful grape didn't bother to explain how he and WWX owned them).

And hey, so follow this person's logic, because WQ kicked JC and WWX out, so JC didn't own WQ that much (even though she let them stay for three days, took care of their wounds and didn't rat JC and WWX out to WC). Cool, but what about WN? He is the reason JC still alive and be able to retrieve his parents' bodies to do his filial duty. If that life debt is still small for this person to deem not worth for gratitude, then next time if anyone ever offer these types of helps to this person and JC, they shouldn't accept them.

I'm sorry this person and even NMJ are so stupid and insensitive to unable to imagine how dangerous it is for people who live under a tyrant regime to even do a tiny act of protests. Like they expected people to forfeit their lives and families to go against the regime that would wipe them out easily.

I'm almost impressed by how effectively they miss the actual message of the story Re: indiscriminate mass revenge against people is not simpatico...🥲. Bc by their logic killing Granny Wen and A Yuan is fine eh- bc Wens. NMJ is a hothead and he generally has the most extreme opinions.

I think ppl often forget too that Lan Xichen speaking up means something. It means something because The Cloud Recesses were burned down by the Wens. His father died because of them. He and his brother almost died as well, and they were never the recipients of their aid as jiang cheng was.

But above all WWX's words are the most meaningful.

"Wei WuXian, “Did I say something wrong? Forcing living people to be bait and beating them up whenever they refused to obey—is this any different from what the QishanWen Sect does?”

Another guest cultivator stood up, “Of course it’s different. The Wen-dogs did all kinds of evil. To arrive at such an end is only karma for them. We only avenged a tooth for a tooth, letting them taste the fruit that they themselves had sown. What’s wrong with this?”

Wei WuXian, “Take revenge on the ones who bite you. Wen Ning doesn't have blood on his hands. Don’t tell me that you find them guilty by association?”

and

Wei WuXian grinned, “Oh. The Wen-dogs did all kinds of evil, so anyone whose surname is Wen can be killed? That’s not it, is it? Many of the clans who defected from the Wen Sect are quite well-off right now, aren’t they? In this hall, isn’t there a few sect leaders from clans that used to be under the Wen Sect’s wing?”

As the sect leaders saw that he recognized them, their expressions changed at once. Wei WuXian continued, “Since anyone whose surname is Wen can be used an outlet of anger as one pleases, no matter if they’re innocent or not, does it mean that it’s fine even if I kill all of them right now?”

How do people not understand that MXTX had the mc say all of this to point out ppl's hypocrisy. To point out how their kind of thinking is wrong?

Back to that post: "Like what could Wen Qing and Wen Ning possibly have don't to cancel out the Wen Sect's huge responsibility for the massacre of the Jiang Sect" ... 🌝... yes, see this would be the moment for jiang cheng to open his mouth and explain how they were not involved in what happened at LP other than to save his sorry ass.

Love how they cut off the most relevant quotes about WQ too :

I’m the office leader of Yiling, but I was ordered to take the position. I’m a medic, an apothecary, I’ve never killed anyone, much less touched the blood of the Jiang Sect.”

It was true. Nobody had heard of any lives lost by Wen Qing’s hands. There were always many cases that people wanted her to take over. It was because Wen Qing was one of the Wen Sect’s people whose way of doing things was actually normal. At times she could even put in a few good words for people in front of Wen RuoHan. Her reputation had always been good.

and

Although the pack of herbs smacked right onto Wen Ning, he spoke happily, “The medicine that my sister prepared will definitely turn out good. Hundreds of times better than mine. It’ll be good for sure.”

Wei WuXian finally felt relief, “Thank you.”

He understood the fact that one of these siblings deciding to turn a blind eye to them and the other deciding to outright help them meant that they were placing themselves in extreme danger. Just as Wen Qing said, if Wen Chao truly wanted to kill anyone, it was unlikely for Wen Qing to be able to stop him. Perhaps she’d be affected as well. After all, children of others could never compare to children of one’s own.

and instead went w : "She herself is aware of her choice when she tries to kick Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian out so as to not get Wen Ning and their house in trouble." Hm... yes she's aware, exactly, AND SHE DOESN'T KICK JIANG CHENG AND WEI WUXIAN OUT. THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT. ( Φ ω Φ )

[silverflame2724]

Happy Prompt (if you feel like it): WWX being the genius/ex first disciple of great scet that he is realizes they can't sustain the Burial Mounds. So he comes up with a Plan to make them all dissappear. Knowing how important lineage is so them, he asks them to give up the Wen name and take up Wei. (The wens are mostly common folk who just want to live so they agree). He the proceeds to hide them among other clans. People who have met and remember all the good young master Wie always did. He hides them among the Jiang and Nie. (I always head cannon that part of WWX'S flirty reputation comes from him helping women who are in bad situations/ NHS somehow finds out/knows and begins to help him. I figure theyhad to get several Lan women out. Mama Lans ghost helps?). JC knows but ignores it, they aren't WENS anymore, so his pride can leave it be. I'm not sure if A'yuan would still end up with Lan Zhan? But then WWX, WN, and WQ all fake thier deaths and go travel as rogue cultivators. But now WWX has all these living and dead people praying to/for him as the patron Saint of lost causes? And he accidentally becomes an immortal without realizing it? To the absolute fond disgust of WQ, of course. Anyway, I figure old Jin perv still pulls his bullshit at a discussion conference and between NHS, JYL, and LWJ? They somehow clear everyone's nsme. And then newly immortal WWX rocks up in there (to the horror of the Lan Elders who now have to face thier own bullshit/ hypocrisy) and lives happily ever after.

I think I read a prompt or a fic somewhere with the concept of the Wens hiding in plain sight.

________________________

The thought came to him out of nowhere. 

It had been a peaceful day with the Wens as he farmed, invented and tinkered with various incomplete contraptions when Wei Wuxian was struck with a thought: they could not continue like this.

Wei Wuxian wasn’t an idiot. He knew that they couldn’t sustain themselves in the Burial Mounds. Their crops hardly prospered, one by one the more elderly individuals of the Wens got sick and died, the resentful energy messed with everyone’s temperament, the cultivators never stopped trying to break his wards.....the list went on and on.

He had to come up with a plan. He thought they could live here for a time, but that was just wishful thinking. 

With this in mind, he takes the next few days to come up with a concrete plan.

...............................

The first task, and perhaps the most important one, is to ask the Wens to give up the Wen name. It would be easier from then on.

As he presented this suggestion, he was surprised by how readily they agreed. He knew how important lineage was to them, so the rapidness of them giving up their name was shocking. 

“Would you......take up my name?” Wei Wuxian asked quietly. 

The Wens were silent before cheering. Wei Wuxian didn’t know how to react to this. The Wens told him that they were more than happy to accept his name since they were his family. 

Wei Wuxian held back the tears and laughed happily instead as he went on to tell him the next plan of action: hiding them in plan sight.

Various people from various clans owed him favors and remembered the good in him, as they were more than happy to take on the refugees he hid away now that they were no longer Wens.

They had to do this quietly and slowly though. It would be suspicious if a large group of people suddenly left Yiling all at once. So Wei Wuxian took each of them to different places. Some of them went back to their original homes, some went to the Nie, some to the Yao, some to the Ouyang clan. 

He even sends some to the small village of women who he helped run away from their horrible home situations.

It was a little tricky with Nie, but Nie Huaisang pulls through and Nie Mingjue suspects nothing.

He sends some to the Jiang and Jiang Cheng grudgingly accepts them, knowing that they are no longer Wen. 

And for A’ Yuan.......He sends A’ Yuan to Lan Zhan, who is familiar with A’ Yuan. Wei Wuxian sends a letter to Lan Zhan asking him to meet and instead of appearing, A’ Yuan is there in his stead. The letter to Lan Zhan details what to do with A’ Yuan and to hide his identity.

Wei Wuxian trusts that Lan Zhan would take his suggestion and tell his brother and uncle that A’ Yuan was a child that Lan Zhan was asked to take care of by a dying mother.

Wei Wuxian watches from afar as Lan Zhan takes A’ Yuan away and takes the last step in ensuring that the cultivation world forgets him: He fakes his, Wen Qing’s and Wen Ning’s deaths. There’s enough corpses in the Burial Mounds and ones with their physique to replace the Wens and him. He gossips to the town that he’s going to destroy his weapon, the Seal, and subsequently fakes an explosion of resentment, quickly disappearing with the Wen siblings to a random direction. 

He always thought how nice it would be to be like his parents and be rogue cultivators. He guesses that he’ll find out now.

..................................

Years pass and Wei Wuxian makes decent salary by taking care of monsters in the area. Wen Qing is a doctor, of course, and Wen Ning becomes her assistant.  

They move to a little village near Dongying and settle down there. The people there a little more open to demonic cultivation and dark arts and don’t bat an eye at Wei Wuxian using such means. 

Wei Wuxian invents more contraptions, selling them under a false name in towns far away from Dongying.

One day, on a chance night hunt near Yunmeng, Wei Wuxian hears whispers and gossip about Nie Huaisang, Lan Wangji and Jiang Yanli clearing his name and capturing the actual people responsible. 

He’s happy to hear this. Overjoyed. But that doesn’t mean he’ll gladly return to the cultivation world. He’s had enough of that life. 

He walks around town for a bit longer, catching bits of gossip here and there. As explores the town, wine jug in hand, he nearly chokes around a mouthful of wine as he sees a small shrine encasing a statue of his likeness. What.....the hell??

He quickly asks around and finds out that people are praying to him for protection. Wei Wuxian squirms a little at this, glad he’s wearing a weimao to cover his face. 

All of this...praying makes him uncomfortable. Not long ago, people were spitting on his name and now he’s suddenly become some sort of Patron for protection? The change is remarkable and cements Wei Wuxian’s decision to firmly stay out of the cultivation world. 

People’s opinions change like a tide and Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to stick around long enough for them to switch back. He sighs, disposing of his empty jug, and leaves the town.

.......

Surprisingly, that’s not the end of the changes. 

He got careless on a night hunt and ends up with the claw of a yaoguai piercing him all the way through his stomach. When the yaoguai pulled out its claw, though......Wei Wuxian healed quickly. Too quickly.

He recovers from the shock at this and finishes off the yao.

What just happened?

.

.

A quick trip to Wen Qing answered everything.

“Congratulations.” Wen Qing says dryly. “You’re an immortal.”

“........What.”

Wen Qing sighs, “From what you told me, you healed unnaturally quickly, right?”

Wei Wuxian nods. 

“There have only been records of immortals recovering that quickly. Even Wen Ruohan healed slower than you did.”

“But I don’t have a core???”

“You do. Sort of.” Wen Qing replies. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t you felt it.”

“.....” I mean, I did think it was odd that I didn’t freeze to death in the winter or die of hunger when money became tight over these years, but I thought those were side effects of demonic cultivation! Wei Wuxian quickly goes through the motions of feeling for his core, willing the surge of hope he felt down. 

And he......didn’t feel a core. He felt more of a large mass of energy congregated in his dantian.

Wei Wuxian is glad that he is sitting down right now because he feels very faint.  “But.....this......how?” 

“Hmm. Well, from what I’ve been hearing, you’ve become some sort of Patron Saint?” Wei Wuxian nods. “It’s rare, but cultivators can gain power from prayers. Take Wen Ruohan for example.”

“He became powerful through the same means?”

“Yes. Well, his people believed him to be all powerful, not so much as what people are praying to you. As the Sunshot alliance chipped down on his people, so too did they chip down on Wen Ruohan’s power.”

“So if people stop praying to me, I’ll stop being immortal.”

“Yes and no. Right now, there’s just a mass of energy concentrated there. It’s basically unrefined energy. All you have to do is refine that power into a core and cultivate normally. Otherwise, yes. You will lose this power as soon as people stop praying to you.”

“I see.......”

Wen Qing raises an eyebrow and brandishes her needles. “What are you doing just sitting here? Go and cultivate!”

“Aiya, Qing-jie! I’m in shock here, give me a moment to absorb this all!”

“I have patients to see! Get your ass to your room and cultivate!”

“Are you my mom or something?”

Wen Qing’s expression turns thunderous.

Wei Wuxian didn’t want to provoke her any further despite wanting to banter more and left to his room.

..................................

“You should visit your siblings.” Wen Qing says one day. “And Hanguang-Jun. I want to hear about how A’ Yuan is doing.”

“Where did this come from?”

“Wei Wuxian.” Wen Qing says patiently. “It’s been over a decade. Your name and our name has long since been cleared. People no longer hate you. And.....they miss you. Your siblings have commemorated the day you “died” and go into mourning for that day. Hanguang-Jun is a little subtler but he wears a mourning sash now.”

“They’ll be better off without me.”

“Says who?”

“The rest of the world.” Wei Wuxian says weakly.

“And why should you care for their opinion? You never seemed to mind it.”

“Ummm.....Lan Zhan hates me? Jiang Cheng might resent me? And Shij---Jiang-guniang---the Young Madam Jin has a life already.”

“First, if Hanguang-Jun hates you, why would he frequently glare at people who badmouthed you?”

“Because he’s a good person. How do you know this anyway?”

“I have friends. Try again. Hanguang-Jun is a famously reticent person. Would he do this for every person?”

“.........I don’t know.”

“The answer is no.”

Wei Wuxian pouts.

Wen Qing then begins to tell him how Jiang Cheng frequently takes demonic cultivators back with him in hopes that one of them would be Wei Wuxian and even added Wei Wuxian back to the Jiang sect register. Jiang Yanli smiles while ruthlessly talking people into apologizing every time she hears something bad said about Wei Wuxian.

She even lectures him on his feelings towards Lan Wangji, that he would entrust A’ Yuan to him.

Wen Qing closes off her speech with threats of her needles if Wei Wuxian doesn’t get his ass over there.

“There’s a Discussion Conference at Lotus Pier. Wei Wuxian, wait till they’re done and go meet them.”

Wei Wuxian, sufficiently threatened, hightails it back to what was his home.

.......

Wei Wuxian also decidedly forgets that he was supposed to wait for the Conference to end. Well, he had assumed that they would be done considering the empty state of the area in front of the conference room and stupidly bursts through the door to a room full of people.

Wei Wuxian blinks, “Uhh......”

“Wei Wuxian?!”

“Wei Ying?!”

“A’ Xian?!”

Wei Wuxian tittered from side to side, “Hello, all! I bet you thought I was dead! Well, you guessed wrong! Hahaha......”

..............................

Lan Wangji did not know what this time’s discussion conference would be like. He expected Jin Guangshan to try and subtly slander Wei Ying. He expected Jiang Yanli, Jiang Wanyin and himself to stand up for Wei Ying, as he was unable to do before Wei Ying died.

But he certainly didn’t expect Wei Ying, who he thought was dead, burst into the room.

Everyone was silent as soon as they heard Wei Ying speak, but soon burst into a cacophony of noise.

Continuing the Discussion Conference was futile after that and it was quickly closed. Lan Wangji watched Wei Ying be surrounded by many people, some crying, some happily angry, some exasperated and he couldn’t help his reaction after seeing him once again.

He rushes forward and hugs him.

“Wha--Lan Zhan?”

“You’re alive.” Lan Wangji breathes, voice full of wonder. “You’re alive.”

Wei Ying’s arms come up around him and Lan Wangji feels the strong heart beat through their robes. His elders yell at him for his shamelessness and he comes back to himself, embarrassed at his lack of control.

“Aww, Lan Zhan! I’m so glad you missed me!”

“Mn. Missed Wei Ying a lot.”

A slight blush rose to Wei Ying’s cheeks and he laughed, a little shy. Lan Wangji couldn’t help his response to hearing his laugh again after so, so long. He kissed him.

The crowd gasped around them and Lan Wangji pulled back quickly, wanting the ground to swallow him up. But then......Wei Ying kissed him back.

“Aiya, Lan Zhan. How bold of you! To steal a kiss from me in public!” He giggles, not seeming mad at all and even pressing forward, tangling his fingers in his forehead ribbon.

Lan Wangji’s breath stutters at the gesture.

“You’d better take responsibility!”

Is Wei Ying asking what I think he’s asking? “Responsibility?”

“Yes! You took a kiss from me in public! It looks like I can’t marry anymore.”

“Will marry Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji replies, voice hoarse, ignoring the cries of outrage from his elders, the angry shouts from Jiang Wanyin, and the smirks from Jiang Yanli and his brother. “Will take responsibility.”

“I hope that isn’t the only reason.”

This is his chance to come clean. Lan Wangji already told himself that he wouldn’t hold himself back if he met Wei Ying again. “Like Wei Ying. Love Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying laughs brightly. “I like Lan Zhan too. Now, you’ll finally admit we’re close?”

Lan Wangji ignores everyone, eyes only on Wei Ying as they should have always been, “Mn. Let’s get married.”

___________________________

I feel like Lan Wangji may be a bit OOC......hmm. Well, whatever. I finally got this done and with that, I think I’ve cleared all the prompts I haven’t answered, so asks will open up again!

Hope you all enjoyed this!

[darkfalcon-z]

let's deconstruct this. I'm going by the book canon.

of course WWX does not use demonic cultivation, but the ghostly path, and JC pursues the people who, he suspects use the same kind of cultivation - the ghostly path.

Does JC actually hunt demonic cultivators, or rather ghostly path cultivators? That's pretty much a yes. JC is narratively frame from the start to basically finish as a guy who wants to symbolically kill WWX (don't boo me, he's a complicated character, he want both to kill WWX and have him back), the idea that he does so in the flesh of other's, who remind him of WWX fits into that. Besides we have at least partial confirmation from JL that this happened before, and this is why JL does not believe WWX to be WWX (and presumably why no one else would believe JC's testimony on that matter - he made that claim to many times for anyone to treat him seriously). Later on it's confirmed in Villainous Friends extra that JC is frenzied and obsessed with searching for WWX. What is more, when JC first meets MXY!WWX he immediately instructs JL to kill him, even though as far as he knows 'MXY' did nothing to warrant capital punishment or any sort of harsh penalty - all the guy did was using a trick that immobilises opponent without any sort of damadge. Next, when WWX summons WN and destroys the stone Goddess the fist strike of Zidian reveals 'MXY' is not possessed, but JC's immediate response is to try to strike him for the second time. This guy just saved other people, including JL and JC want to flog him? It pretty much confirms he's used to treat people in this way. The information we're given is never disproven or questioned, instead everything we learn confirms it.

Is ghostly path cultivation harmful for it's users? Inconclusive. You can't really make a case for this happening to WWX because all the trauma he'd undergone. Among other things he's missing an organ that helped him to self-regulate his entire body (including the brain). Additionally WWX may have been not only using ghostly path, but overusing it. He used it for mass killing during the war, even if those killings were justified by the necessity of war, killing so many people could be devastating on phycological level alone, not even counting what metaphysical consequences would be. Physiologically, maintaining an army for many hours at time could be really harmful as well. And later on living on the Burial Mounds basically had to manage the mountain of resentment of near daily basis. So if there were negative effects caused by the cultivation of the ghostly path, they may come from improper cultivation practice, like overworking oneself rather from this cultivation path in general. The same is true for orthodox cultivation.

You can make an analogy to technologies, especially newly emerging ones, that can be dangerous and can cause health problem, but that does not necessary made them an unworthy pursuit.

What other ghostly path cultivators we know of? XY and Lanling employed cultivators, maybe "Supreme Lord Of Evil" YLLZ fan club, but we do not know if the last group ever performed any cultivation whatsoever. We don't even know if MXY performed any ghostly path cultivation before summoning WWX's soul (which was ritual predating WWX by centuries). Out of all those only XY got any results. Likewise, we can't say if ghostly path cultivation had negative effects on him because he was already fucked up before he started. He also seems to be pretty healthy, except mentally.

Even if the use of the ghostly path causes harm to the users, does not yet mean it's right to persecute those cultivators who do it. Nie Cultivation path causes harm the the users but no one persecutes them. This is a known fact, and they can also harms others when they undergo qi deviation. In a real would example, the use of alcohol or drugs can harm people, drinking is not usually criminalised and criminalisation of the use of recreational drugs is known to be socially harmful. I won't get here with the use of violence under influence, because there are a lot more socio cultural facts to consider, but generally abuse of alcohol may be harmful, but not necessarian warrant persecution in itself, only the crimes committed by inebriated person warrant punishment, not drinking itself.

The Lanling employed cultivators and wannabe YLLZ fans are probably shitty people, but it's hard to say if any of them present danger to others, or at least more danger than a guy with a knife.

Now, is it universally morally wrong to use the ghostly path? The ghostly path makes use of corpses, resentful energy of the dead and as I understand the Po souls of the dead. Neither of those entities are moral agents, because they are not capable of freedom of making decisions based on reflection, reason and reasonable communication with others. Therefore, they are not entities that can be understood as ends in themselves. Which means, it is impossible to make an universalist claim like this. Instead, they are entities imbued with ethical meaning. There is also a strong cases to be made that Po souls are sentient (they have some sort of sensual or quasi-sensual experiences, which means they can experience suffering), but not sapient entities (they do not actually think - they are sentient like animals, but not sapient like humans). We can say that this is indeed morally sensitive problem, but not the one with a clear yes or no answer. Instead it would be highly contextual, like for what purpose the ghostly path is used for, and in what exact way a particular cultivator uses it. If it's used to save lives, then moral demands override possible ethical objections, if it used to bring peace to the dead then both moral an ethical concerns may align, but if it's used to harm other people or personal gain and power, then it's wrong. It is morally permissible to cultivate ghostly path, although particular ways to apply ghostly path may be wrong and in addition there are ethical concerns that further restrict acceptable ways in which it is acceptable to use ghostly path.

Are ghostly path cultivators bad people? For the purpose of argument lets say that bad people consistently do harmful things to others, that they do not need to be prompt to do harm to others by external events and circumstances and that they avoid doing good things without ulterior motives. We have a sample of entire two (2) cultivators who can use this form of cultivation effectively. One of them is good in a way very few people are (my professional opinion as an ethicist, yeah I know he did some terrible things, that does not disqualify him from being good person) and the other is pretty much evil.

Additionally we can't really say what a general population of wannabe and weak ghostly path users population is like, because the sample that we've seen is self selected and biased towards people with particular moral qualities. People who would want to use ghostly path to do good probably won't go to learn from the guy, who is proclaimed to be a 'Supreme Lord of Evil' and probably wouldn't survive in Lanling. We can reasonably assume that wannabe YLLZ's disciples generally weren't motivated by noble or just causes, while the cultivators working for Lanling probably weren't particularly concerned about right and wrong.

What we can safely assume is that not very many of the either group got any significant amount of power. Cultivators at Lanling didn't and they had the support and resources of a rich sect. XY is an outlier and should not be counted. No, really. He's the only one who made any significant progress. Additionally, he had both the access to rare WWX's manuscripts and to the remnants to Yin Tiger Tally. He was able to restore the Tally and it have become one of the major sources of his power. Without it he'd be much less powerful. He's comparatively much weaker than WWX (reminder that WWX used the Tally exactly twice - once during the war and once in Nightless City). When we meet XY he'd been practising ghostly path for more than twice as long as WWX in his original life and he still does not hold a candle to WWX during Sunshot Campaign.

There is a reason for this: you can learn ghostly path fast, you do not need to cultivate for years to form a golden core, that does not mean the process of learning it is easy. If it was, power hungry fools would be doing it despite danger long before WWX came around.

To sum up: the danger ghostly path cultivators present to society is rather debatable. In the absence of other evidence it is they probably cause more harm accidentally, when they mess with something they are not prepared than on purpose - so the more dangerous ones probably usually take themselves out early or learn their lessons. Self entitled idiots with spiritual swords also pose a danger to society, should they be hunted?

Speaking of XY - the only one of the ghostly path cultivators who was both powerful enough to pose significant danger and malicious enough to use this power on innocent, that we know of. He have been actually put on a public trial. It was a trial for a murder, not for his cultivation path. Additionally, JC was not particularly interested in this trial. It was NMJ who pushed for the death penalty, not JC, funny that.

So is it good that JC hunts down cultivators practising ghostly path? we have this man, on the position of authority, who runs around hunts people, he suspects of being WWX and harms them without any proof of accountability. What gives him the right to do that? He runs a cultivation sect leader not the magistrate, is he entitled to persecute and punish criminals on his land? He'd definitely not entitled to grab random people outside of his land like he tried to with MXY!WWX - despite the fact Zidian have shown he was not possessed and that there was no evidence any crime on MXY!WWX's part.

What he's accomplishing is mostly setting a precented for other powerful people to do whatever they want to do on barest pretences. And we can see this in how JL treats other people at the beginning of the novel. For crying out loud the boy literally attack a peddler for uttering WWX's name in his presence.

What JC is doing hunting down ghostly path cultivators is an arbitrary exercise of power aimed at harming other human beings and that is universally morally wrong, which means it is still morally wrong to do this even when his victims are "bad" people and even if they've committed crimes, they still should be treated fairly - which means a transparent trial in appropriate jurisdictions and proportionate penalties dictated by the law and not being subjected to the whims of a rabid sect leader.

Also this is JC we are talking about. He's certainly not motivated by the ideas like justice or helping people he doesn't personally care about. He never was. He doesn't even send the cultivators from his sect to help the people of Yunmeng unless there are deaths already. He didn't care about the possible harms of the ghostly path as long as WWX was still with him. He does it because maladaptive coping mechanism in response to trauma.

To sum up. JC does the wrong thing, for wrong reasons, with negative, social consequences, and in the process he may or may be stopping moderately dangerous people, but even then he's more likely to capture showy idiots than people who are smart enough to cause problem on purpose.

I don't know why people are so fucking attached to the rumor that jc was hunting down the other demonic cultivators for so many years after wwx was dead.

the novel to begin with teaches you not to go around believing people's rumors so easily, and secondly... why do they consider it a bad thing? do I have to remind you that demonic cultivation was GENUINELY a terrible thing for society? it destroyed the cultivator's soul and mind (literally destroyed wwx slowly), it was a dangerous weapon, and it was super disrespectful to the dead (which, by the way, is serious business in China).

I feel like... people defend this because it was an important part of wei wuxian's character, but they fail to see one important detail:

the fact that wwx used it with intentions of doing good things means NOTHING, much less it should be a sufficient factor to assume everyone else who tries it will be the same. especially since people who started to idolize the patriarch were following the bad rumors about him, and hello!? not one of those rumors were positive! everyone had the dumb idea that wwx was a terrible monster!

why would you come to the conclusion that the following demonic cultivators are not just bad people believing the false rumors that wwx was a heartless monster? those people wanted to be a new big scary patriarch, they didn't care about wei wuxian as a person at all.

so, in what way is it bad that there's someone preventing some idiots from going and trying to do evil shit against the clans using such a dangerous and unstable method?

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 12 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Funsies) 

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

After locking Wei Wuxian into some comically large chains, Wen Chao has him thrown into the dungeon, with an unpleasant surprise.

This Fucking Dog

Being a fan of The Untamed involves occasional second-hand embarrassment, like when they fly on their swords, or the zombies all have the same wig, or a fight sequence moves slower than everybody’s granny. It's ok because each of these things is offset by excellence in acting, story, costumes, weapons, sets, etc.

Then there's this fucking dog. 

The department of questionable practical effects really outdid themselves with this thing. Just seeing this awful creation on screen gives me so much cringe squick I can barely look at it. But for you, dear readers, I FORCED MY EYEBALLS to watch the entire dog sequence OVER AND OVER. Then I applied some brightness adjustments and looked at it EVEN MORE. 

Let's get desensitized! I’m going all in on this monstrosity.

First, this dog does not ever move its body or its feet. Its legs are totally immobile. It appears to be made of a big sawhorse with a stick for the neck. The head swings up and down and side to side. That’s it.  

“Animatronic” is too generous of a term for this thing. The animatronics at Chucky Cheese learned to play musical instruments and host birthday parties decades ago. This dog cannot play an instrument and it has to wait for Wei Wuxian to walk over to it before it can attack him. 

When it falls over after Wen Ning K.O’s it, it’s like a chair falling over. It just topples to the side, legs sticking straight out.  

(more after the cut)

Next, It has a mouth full of teeth, which opens and closes. And it has drool the texture of Astroglide Extra-Thick Gel. But...no tongue.

Seriously you guys, it literally does not have a tongue. They just sculpted a little bump at the at the bottom of its mouth, despite dogs being known for, like, lolling their tongues out of their mouths at every opportunity.

Moving along, it has dull, lifeless eyes, and its eyelids are visibly disconnected from the rest of its head, like a doll that mechanically shuts its eyes when you lay it down to sleep.

Finally, its fur looks like a fucking muppet, and it has random shiny spots all around its eyes and lips. These are probably supposed to be body fluids of some kind, but they just look like someone was careless with the cra-z-glue.

Xiao Zhan gamely tries to act opposite this ridiculous fail prop, but there is nothing remotely scary about it.  

Here is Wei Wuxian being scared. I replaced the animatronic dog with a reversed clip of my dog Pepper asking for a piece of cheese, and I think it looks more convincing this way. 

Ok, let's be done with this stupid fucking dog. Wen Ning knocks it out, Wen Chao criticizes it in the morning, and nobody ever speaks of it again. 

Wei Wuxian is so mortified to have endured this farce that when Lan Wangji asks him, much later, “why are you afraid of dogs?” he does not say “don’t you remember that time I got chewed on by a giant animatronic dog at Wen Chao’s place?” but instead pretends that this never fucking happened. 

Wen Ning to the Rescue

For contrast, the next dungeon scene is a really touching and important encounter between Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian. 

Wen Ning comes and knocks out the creature, and gives Wei Wuxian medicine. 

Wen Ning is doing this in defiance of his clan and his sister, simply because Wei Wuxian is his friend. Yes, he feels indebted, but Wen Qing saved WWX’s life once, so the tally is already even. Wen Ning is just super attached to Wei Wuxian, and vice versa; WWX calls him Wen-Xiong in this scene. 

When Wen Ning explains how to use the medicine, Wei Wuxian changes the subject to ask how WN and his sister are doing. He is bleeding, chained up, high on adrenaline and fear, and what he really wants is to hear how his friends are doing. When Wen Ning talks about Wen Qing’s troubles, Wei Wuxian wishes she would accept help, instead of always going it alone. 

Wei Wuxian thanks Wen Ning formally, and tells him no words can express his gratitude. Whether this is a literally correct translation, the gratitude both of these young men feel toward each other transcends words. It will become a driving force in both of their lives as they save each other from increasingly awful situations. 

Wen Ning tells Wei Wuxian about the burning of Cloud Recesses....the burning of the half we never visit. It would suck to damage that exquisite set, so I’m ok with that production choice, but creates some cognitive dissonance when characters get upset about the fire. 

Wei Wuxian reacts to the news of Lan Wangji’s injury by punching the concrete floor of the dungeon, which is dumb but also highly relatable. 

After Wen Ning leaves, Wei Wuxian decides to save the medicine for Lan Wangji, who might not even need it, while WWX is bleeding right now and definitely needs it. No matter how bad things are for him personally, Wei Wuxian is always thinking about ways to help the people he loves, and constantly seeing his own needs as less important than everybody else’s. 

Breakfast Time

After his night of terror and maiming, Wei Wuxian emerges as chipper as ever. Almost like he is already an expert at hiding his trauma from the people close to him. 

Lan Wangji gives him a careful look, taking in the sight of his ripped clothes and bloody neck and hands. 

Jiang Cheng is angry at Wei Wuxian for joking about his injuries, so he shoves him, potentially causing more injuries. 

Wei Wuxian laughs off the signs of torture and attempted murder and everyone goes along with it. Nobody knows what happened to him other than "dungeon" and what he looks like right now, and they’re all just like, okey dokey, I guess you’re fine.  

He’ll carefully laugh off his months in the burial mounds in the same way, later, and Jiang Cheng will accept it nearly as readily as he accepts this. But by that time Lan Wangji will see right through him.

Nie Huaisang mentions the Lan Clan in the course of discussing breakfast, and then everyone pauses awkwardly because they know that mentioning this will make Lan Wangji think about the recent attack on his home and the deaths of many of his fellow disciples. Whereas if nobody had mentioned it, he totally wouldn't think about it. That's how grief works, right?

Insult to Injury

Wen Chao decides to spend some time gloating about battles and insulting people's families, which he does with Wen Qing standing behind his eyeline so that she can warn Wei Wuxian not to let his brother go off. 

Jiang Cheng is not going to let anybody who isn't his mother insult his father like that, but in a reversal of their normal roles, Wei Wuxian restrains him and helps keep him from doing something rash.

Monster Hunting

Wen Chao makes everyone read out loud until Nie Huaisang wisely faints and gets carried off. Then he gathers everyone for a monster hunt.  It's unclear why he wants to go monster hunting but he sure does, and bringing the hostages along might make them all die, which would be a nice bonus.

The cultivators wander around en masse in a small section of forest, thoroughly covering every inch of it. This is a great way to hunt for a dead body but not so good for living prey. 

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng stand around like bitchy queens at a dance club, talking smack about Wen Chao and his girlfriend. 

Wei Wuxian brings out a salty phrase and Jiang Cheng wonders what websites he's been going to. 

Dude. Lighten up.

Leave that Boy Alone

Wei Wuxian notices Lan Wangji struggling, and now that he knows the backstory, he's determined to help. Jiang Cheng is determined to stop him.

This is, once again, the fundamental disagreement between the brothers, and it's never going to be solvable. Jiang Cheng's specific dislike of Lan Wangji may be rooted in jealousy, but his belief in not helping outsiders runs a lot deeper than that.

For Wei Wuxian, there is no such thing as having helped enough. If someone is his friend, he will never stop helping them, and he has a lot of friends, and makes new ones wherever he goes. He's always going to be giving something of himself, to the detriment of any conflicting obligations. 

Jiang Cheng tells him that Lan Wangji won't accept his help, and Wei Wuxian says that's not the point. 

What other people think, want, say, or do, is not going to have any effect on whether Wei Wuxian does what he feels is right. This is a bit of a problem where a person's right to self-determination conflicts with Wei Wuxian's need to help them, as Jiang Cheng will eventually discover.

Jiang Cheng's least effective argument is the one he relies on most often when they disagree: other people's problems are not our responsibility. He's saying this to an orphan who was eating trash and stealing scraps from dogs before Jiang Fengmian came into his life. 

Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem to realize the underlying logic of this argument. If it's wrong for Wei Wuxian to help the people he cares about, it was also wrong for Jiang Fengmian to help Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng loves Wei Wuxian and would willingly die for him, but he, like his mother, rejects the philosophy that brought them together in the first place.  

Wei Wuxian walks away from an upset and shocked Jiang Cheng to offer a piggyback ride to Lan Wangji.

...who won't accept it, but who will remember the offer forever.

Writing prompt: Thoughts of an animatronic dog

Soundtrack:  Five Nights at Freddy’s by The Living Tombstone

[olderthannetfic]

Escapade Vid - The Untamed

I could say this was my attempt at meta on an underappreciated character and that's why I wanted to vid Wen Ning…

Nah, I just think he's hot.

Wen Ning has this adorable babyface and big eyes. Just my type. And then he got a goth makeover and became a creepy zombie, increasing his hotness by ten thousand times. The Living Dead was everything I wanted except for dubcon possession porn, and it both irritates and cracks me up to see how many people find it OOC and badly made. I agree the colors are an abomination though--but more on that later.

I like Wen Ning the best because 1. He's hot and 2. He's one of the most competent characters and compromises his morals the least. Mianmian might be one up on him given how her story turns out, but in a whole series of craven idiots, I like the suicidally moral characters, especially when they're competent.

And also JC. Because I like his face. (What? I never said my Untamed feels were deep.)

I wanted to make this vid last year, right after Escapade. I spent forever finding a song, and I'm glad I did it then because it was a nightmare. I can find love songs easily, but I don't really care about WN/WWX, nor would most love songs fit that. It's clearly one-sided, but WN is also clearly totally happy to follow him around forever. Happy love songs are out. Pining angst is out.

WN is also motivated by high ideals more than specific family feelings. WQ wants to protect her family. WN wants to repay his debts. WN is a shy doofus on the surface when we first see him, and he acts flustered around most of the older characters, but this is deceptive. I feel like the most revealing scene is when he pops up at Lotus Pier, ready to grab JC and take on his entire clan. In what universe was this a good idea? What is he even doing there? Why did it actually work???

I wanted a song that encapsulated WN's quiet stubbornness. The trouble is that like 99% of popular music is either about romance or about being a confident badass, and most of the confident badass music is "Fuck you, ex boyfriend, I'm stronger now". I did not want an ex boyfriend song. A bunch of other songs are macho, flexing dudes talking about how they'll win the sports competition. Obviously, that was out. There are a very few songs like Try Everything, but they're awfully perky for covering Wen Ning's entire story, including him getting, you know, gruesomely murdered.

I honestly can't remember how I found the song I picked. I was probably listening to Happy Hanukkah on endless repeat and saw it in the Youtube sidebar. (Look, it's a great song for all times of year. Shut up.) Matisyahu has many amazing songs that build and move in ways ideal for vids.

I then sat on this source/song combo for a year because, well, it sure was a year. But when we got close to Escapade, I realized I wanted to finish it for the con.

Clip choices:

I'm not going to include the full lyrics on their own since they're in English and on every lyrics site. Instead, I'm putting the relevant bits between my explanations of what I chose and why. A lot of it came together quickly. I knew I wanted to include cute WN moments, like him being bullied by kids, and they wouldn't fit in the main narrative, so I had to put them in the intro.

Feel like the world don't love you They only wanna push you away Some days people don't see you You feel like you're in the way

I had a lot of trouble with 'push you away' since, generally speaking, no one does push him away. However, this is a vid from Wen Ning's own perspective, so it felt like an acceptable match to use the part where Wen Qing tries to leave him behind as they go on a hunt. She's objectively correct to do so given what happens, but Wen Ning is clearly upset that she tried. He doesn't want to be protected, especially at the cost of other people's safety.

Today you feel as if everyone hates Pointing their fingers, looking at your mistakes You do good, but they want great No matter what you give they still wanna take

I was very clear from early on that I wanted to use 'mistakes' for what Wen Ning is actually upset about: ruining Jin Ling's life. Of course he feels super guilty about what he did, despite it not being his fault, but the specific fallout Wen Ning is going to care about is a kid's feelings, not the political drama. That gave me the idea for what to do with 'good' and 'great'. More than most characters in the series, WN is not impressed by the power structure or reputations--scared, yes, but not impressed. WN likes bringing people food, at little things that are quietly good, and their society does not value that. (Cf. everything about Jiang Yanli's betrothal before Jin Zixuan catches feelings.)

'No matter what you give' I used for a shot that is probably not going to read as anything in a convention vidshow. He's bruised up, so I was hoping it would read properly visually. The actual context of the shot is WN having been thrown in the dungeon for being a traitor to the Wen. And yet, when the Wen are defeated, does he get a pardon? Nope, ignominious death. It really didn't matter what he did: these factions are all thoroughly corrupt and the entire system is garbage. It's all power-hungry assholes and sanctimonious prisses ripe for manipulation. All that mattered was that he was a Wen, and the Wens were either on top or being exterminated.

Give your love and they throw it back You give your heart they go on attack When there's nothing left for you, Only thing that you can do, say

The next part is WWX being an ungrateful little bitch. He's understandably stressed, but it still cracks me up that he's all up in WN's face and WN is literally only there to help him. WN might feel an obligation, but WWX sure isn't earning it here.

'When there's nothing left' I wasn't sure about. WN hitting rock bottom is arguably when he gets killed or maybe when they're in the burial mounds, but that didn't work with my structure. I chose to put a montage here of all the times that WQ tells him to stay safe by ditching WWX. I sympathize with WQ, but as WN comments in one of these scenes, he's following their own family code that she taught him. WQ cares so much about protecting WN (and the rest of their little part of the clan, but let's be real, it's mostly about WN) that she's willing to collude with a mass murderer just to keep him safe. Maybe it's only because he's a younger sibling, but WN seems to see things a lot more clearly. I laugh every time he's like "Uh huh, uh huh" as she lectures, and then the next scene is him running off to do something dangerous again.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior, Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

For this round of the chorus, WN is burning his Wen clan membership in a fire, and the heroic thing is running away, living to fight another day. WN has no ego, nor would ego be helpful here.

Buuuut, equally, being an actual warrior means hurting people, and while he was literally mind controlled into murder, that still couldn't have happened if he hadn't been already involved in violence and fighting. Violence you regret is also part of this life, and so is accepting responsibility for your actions. (Sure, he's very literally not responsible here, but WN doesn't know that at the time and doesn't feel that even later.)

There's some things you should let go, They're only gonna pull you down, Just like weight on your shoulder They are only gonna make you drown

I swear The Untamed has the best casting for a variety of face types. I recognized everybody from the moment they appeared… Except for Su She. Whom I forgot entirely and couldn't recognize at all. Doh.

It wasn't till I was clipping the whole series for this vid that I realized that the reason Wen Ning gets possessed here is that he's the only one to notice Su She's plight and go to his aid right away. I think on first viewing, I read it as him just getting possessed before he could get in the air, but that's not what's happening at all. His dumb ass stayed behind to try to help someone. Seriously, fuck Su She. They live in a grotesquely shitty power structure, but WN responds in admirable ways, while Su She just whines that he's not on top.

We all swing high, we all swing low, We all got secrets people don't know We all got dreams we can't let go, We wanna be brave, don't be afraid

WN's secret is that he gets possessed so easily and why. WQ is refusing to tell WWX in this scene, but he has figured out something is up and gives her a talisman for WN, which shows up later in the plot to great emotional effect--though not in this vid, alas.

The butterfly reveal was one of the first things on my timeline as I recall. I have Many Feelings. Also, this is me, so yes, I totally ship them. >:D

WN and WQ showing up to accept responsibility is kind of a dumbass move, but it's definitely brave. I enjoy how WN just keeps barrelling through the plot in a way that should mean he's the cute woobie who dies early on to prove the world is bad… and that instead leads to him being one of the strongest fighters, making it through the series, and finding A-Yuan again. (Though, okay, he did that first thing also. Heh.)

I ended on Jin Ling because I was so struck on rewatch at how the juniors first meet Wen Ning.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior, Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

I dimly recalled this fight, but it wasn't till I was clipping that I realized just how much focus each of them gets and how WN is literally strangling them and such. I just remembered him fighting people, not who. It's hilarious how quickly after this (in their timeline) we have doofus woobie WN being cute and them being like "He's my murder zombie! ♥"

For this chorus, I focused on that change. WN is rescuing them. "Yesterday" is their scared faces. Here, being a "warrior" is apologizing to JL. And maybe WN doesn't really owe an apology, but JL does deserve one. Almost no one in the series seems to give a shit about how JL is feeling.

And then my favorite scene with my two faves! WN is finally telling JC what he has probably wanted to for ages. WN is a wuss when it comes to himself, but he gets righteously pissed when someone else is being mistreated. The yesterday he's letting burn here is his promise to keep quiet… along with viciously burning down every bit of self perception and hubris JC ever had. Ouch!

Your heart is too heavy from things you carry a long time, Been up you been down, tired and you don't know why, But you're never gonna go back, you only live one life Let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go,

Bless the sequel movie for literally being entirely about Wen Ning's internal struggle. The way he breaks free of the bad guy's hold is by accepting the past and letting go of his guilt over things he can't change.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior,

He's just so hot in this movie! This first chorus is him coming out of the hallucination, having beaten his self doubt and then beating on the villain.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

Okay, in actual canon, JL mostly joined them because he was competing with LSZ like the bratty little asshole he is, but I wanted to highlight how JL got over himself enough to join the other juniors on team WN. Also, WN defends both him and LSZ in this scene in ways he couldn't back then.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior,

This I wasn't planning on at all. As I was clipping the whole series, I was thinking that WN's possessed footage here wouldn't be narratively useful since he went and got taken over again, but when I rewatched for visually impressive stuff to use interstitially, I realized that--holy shit--he's defending Jin Ling in this scene. And he succeeds. I included both a shot of Jin Zixuan, which everyone caught in the vidshow, and a shot that nobody mentioned: Wen Ning's bloody fist after ripping JZX heart out to go with Wen Ning's bloody hand on the sword in the present as he struggles to keep it from Jin Ling. Here, fighting like a warrior means keeping the sword off of JL, even if WN can't defeat the spirit or resolve the entire situation himself.

ALSO I HAVE MANY FEELS ABOUT JC JUMPING IN FRONT OF JL.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

Sometimes, WN is not that sweet. He traps this dude in a hell of his own making instead of letting him kill himself because Wen Ning can be a vindictive little bitch. And then he strides off into the matte painting sunset.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Other vidding notes:

I totally wanted to do something with Chinese characters, but there wasn't really space, and after much dictionary-searching and asking, it's clear that Chinese does not use morality metaphors involving a compass pointing true north. But that effort was not wasted since I needed a good font for my other vid.

Vidding The Living Dead turned out to be a pain. I had completely forgotten it was in another aspect ratio. The shots look much more beautiful before one crops them. That said, none of them are that beautiful because the entire film has this atrocious green color filter over it. It's like they're all wading through mud at all times. Ughhhhh. I spent so long trying to fix the color on that final scene to be at least a little pretty for my vid.

Still, the film had exactly the emotional tone I wanted. It very much skewers the fanon that WN is entirely the bashful wimp he appears to be on the surface when we first see him. It makes overt the change that we see over the series. It's also fundamentally different because it's a situation where WN is the senior person and in charge of someone. We've seen him babysit a small child, and we've seen him around the juniors with lots of people of his generation also there, but we've basically never seen him out from under WQ and WWX's thumbs. It's only natural that he's acting more authoritative here. His smackdown of the villain is very much in line with how he treats JC during the golden core reveal. WN is not a forgiving guy when he thinks someone has been selfish and awful.

Throughout this vid, there are shittons of color, speed, and motion effects. I don't normally use a lot, but it turned out to be a lot of fun this time. I should find another project to use effects on.

The vid:

Available on AO3.

[robininthelabyrinth]

1/ So I was thinking what if Wen Ruohan turned out to be LSZ's biological father? It would be a very interesting concept since they are such polar opposites and it's not even impossible as all we know about his bio parents is that they are WQ's and WN's cousins and the 2 of them could've known the truth but decided to bury it forever since there's no point in burdening a child with his dead father's bloody legacy.

2/ Except somehow WR survives the sunshot campaign (I mean he's almost an immortal it's unbelievable JGY could end him so easily) and he gets the mother of all redemption arcs (because even a megalomaniac mass murder would have a reality check if his leadership led to the total annihilation of the biggest and most powerful sect in the cultivation world) and so he decides to atone for his crimes by secluding himself in a mountain and spending eternity meditating and reflecting on his mistakes

3/ Until one day he finds a badly injured LSZ and recognizes him so he nurses him back to health but refuses to tell him anything about himself and LSZ being a human ray of sunshine doesn't mind it and even feels sorry for this mysterious hermit so he keeps visiting him from time to time (always alone cuz WR tells him he doesn't like people) and WR grows very fond of him because he's such a sweetheart and starts teaching him some secret QishanWen techniques and doting on him...etc and LSZ keeps telling him stories about his parents and how great they are and how much he looks up to them and all the milestones of his life WR could never be a part of cuz he was a horrible father, sect leader, and human overall (ouch!)

4/ And they have this mentor/student relationship with LSZ never asking WR questions about his past for a couple years until WN figures the whole thing out and tells LSZ the truth (out of fear WR would hurt him or manipulate him for some evil plan) and so more drama/angst happens. Basically WR paying for his crimes by an eternity of regret and atonement cuz honestly death was too easy on him

-------------------------------------------

The old man on the mountain could never leave his cave – that was the first thing Lan Sizhui learned about him. He’d been a cultivator once, before someone tore out his dantian and crippled his meridians; far worse than merely lacking a golden core, even his former cultivation has left him – the withered, weakened state of his body is evidence enough of that, and if Lan Sizhui could see his face beneath the iron mask that always concealed it, he thought it would reflect the same.

He was very likely a prisoner.

Lan Sizhui didn’t care. The man was no threat to him – Lan Sizhui wasn’t so foolish as to think that merely lacking cultivation was sufficient to render a man not a threat, he knew very well that a tongue capable of dripping poison could do far worse than any skill at swordplay, but this man barely spoke to him. He’d helped Lan Sizhui once, after a night-hunt gone wrong: the injury hadn’t been that serious, but the man had wrapped it up quite seriously before trying to scare Lan Sizhui away, refusing all manner of reward. So naturally Lan Sizhui had returned later, trying to repay the man with food or drink or even just company, and in the end the man had begrudgingly allowed him to sit and talk.

Lan Sizhui liked talking. He wasn’t a chatterbox, like Lan Jingyi, but there was something freeing about telling someone a little about himself – nothing that could be used to harm someone. It was mostly mundane things, everyday things: how much he loved the two men who had raised him, how much they loved each other (too much, sometimes), how he was getting better at guqin, how his seasickness had yet to abate despite a great deal of practice and good-natured teasing by his peers.

Every once in a while, the man grunted out some word of advice – the one about suppressing seasickness had been exceptionally helpful, and some of the ones about cultivation were (after being carefully cleared with Wei Wuxian) surprisingly effective for all that they didn’t come from any source with which Lan Sizhui was familiar.

The man had refused to explain, shutting down like a rock not just that time but several times after.

After failing to make any dent through kindness or sincerity, Lan Sizhui took his poor big brother as a role model and opted to be mischievous and annoying; eventually, the man snapped, “If I had raised you as my son, you wouldn’t have been so insolent.”

Lan Sizhui laughed, happy to have gotten a reaction. “But you couldn’t have,” he pointed out. “You and I are no relation; I do not take you even as a teacher – we are merely strangers passing some time together.”

The man turned his head away.

After a moment, he said, voice hoarse, “What if we weren’t?”

Lan Sizhui blinked. “What do you mean?”

“You have no idea how long I’ve been here,” the man said. “And I have never told you my name. For all you know, I could be your ancestor, related by blood. What would you say to that?”

“That would be hard,” Lan Sizhui said, smiling. “I’m not even a Lan by birth, in fact; I was adopted when I was young.”

“Regardless,” the man insisted. “The world is full of strange things. What would you say if I was more than a stranger to you?”

If Lan Sizhui had been younger, as impulsive as he’d been as a teenager, he might have answered rashly; he had been quite foolish back then. As much as he loved Wen Ning now, he had very nearly harmed Jin Ling beyond all telling by blithely accepting as family the one who had killed his father, who Jin Ling had no duty to ever forgive; it was a testament to Jin Ling’s resilience and innate goodness that he had.

“I would need to know more about you,” he said honestly. “I was born into a clan that was far from the best: there were cultivators there who were cruel, who were brutal, those who were even tyrannical, murderers and torturers and rapists; it is not too little to say that some of them were irredeemably evil. Those ones, I do not accept; those ones, I cast out, cut all ties with, and will never forgive. I will not sweep their graves, I will not honor their memories. I am filial only to the fathers that raised me and taught me righteousness, to my uncle who cares for me; even if were my own blood father returned from the dead, I would ask him to account for himself before I accepted him. After all, it’s only blood, and my surname has long not been shared with him…no, I wouldn’t feel bad at all. I have all the family I require.” He laughed and shook his head. “An interesting question, if hypothetical. Why do you raise it?”

The man was silent for a long moment. “No reason,” he finally said. “No reason at all.”

[lupine-publishers-ciacr]

Lupine Publishers| Model Development for Life Cycle Assessment of Rice Yellow Stem Borer under Rising Temperature Scenarios

Lupine Publishers | Agriculture Open Access Journal

A simple model was developed using Fortran Simulation Translator to study the influence of increased temperature on duration of various life cycle phases of yellow stem borer (YSB) in Bangladesh environment. Model was primarily based on Growing Degree Day concept, by also including cardinal temperatures sensitive for specific growing stages of YSB. After successful calibration and validation of the model, it was taken for climate change (only temperature rise considered in the present study) impact analysis on the growing cycle of YSB. Temperature increase values of 1, 2, 3 and 4 oC were considered and compared with the Control (no temperature rise), by using historic weather of representative locations in eight Divisions of Bangladesh. Differential spatial response in the life cycle of YSB under various temperature rise treatments was noticed, and in general the growing cycle hastened with the rising temperature. The life cycle of YSB is likely to be reduced by about 2 days for every degree celcius rise in temperature, while averaged over locations. This means that there will be 2.0-2.5 additional generations of YSB in pre-monsoon season about 2.9-3.2 in wet season of Bangladesh. There is a need to include the phenology module developed in subsequent design of population dynamics model for YSB.

Keywords: Model; Growing degree days; Yellow stem borer; Life cycle assessment; Temperature rise

Introduction

Yellow stem borer (YSB) is the most destructive and widely distributed insect-pest of rice. It causes dead heart or white head, depending on infestation time and significantly reduces rice yields by 5-10% and even up to 60% under localized outbreak conditions [1]. It can grow in places having temperature >12 oC and annual rainfall around 1000mm. Generally, temperature and high relative humidity (RH) in the evening favors stem borer growth and development [2]. The female moth oviposits from 1900 to 2200hr in summer, 1800 to 2000 hr in spring and autumn, and deposits one egg mass in a night and up to five nights after emergence. Optimum temperature is 29 oC having 90% RH for maximum number of eggs deposition. Optimum temperature for egg hatching is 24-29 oC with 90-100% RH. Larvae die at 35 oC and hatching is severely reduced when RH goes to below 70% [1]. Larvae can�t molt at 12 oC or below and they die. The last instar larvae can survive unfavorable growth condition as diapauses, which is broken by rainfall or flooding. In multiple rice cropping, no diapauses takes place. The pupal period can last for 9-12 days and the threshold temperature for its development is 15-16oC.

The number of generations in a year depends on temperature, rainfall and the availability of host [1]. The occurrence of the pest is generally the highest in wet season [3]. Since there are many stem borer species, the average life cycle of rice stem borers varies from 42-83 days [4], depending on growing conditions. This implies that heterogeneous population can be found in the same rice field. Manikandan [5] also reported that development time by different phases of YSB decreases with higher temperature and thus increased population likely in future at early growth stages of rice crop. However, no such data is available in Bangladesh. Keeping the acute problem of YSB in Bangladesh, the present study was undertaken to develop a simple phenology-based) model to assess the life cycle of YSB in two major growing seasons of rice and subsequent taking it to evaluate the effect of rising temperature on growth cycle of rice yellow stem borer in representative locations of eight Divisions of Bangladesh.

Materials and Methods

Model description

Model for assessing the phenology of yellow stem borer was written in Fortran Simulation Translator and the compiler used is FSTWin 4.12 [6]. This model will subsequently be used to develop population dynamics model for YSB in rice-based cropping systems prevalent in Bangladesh. Growing degree days (GDD) concept was used for this purpose, with base temperature assumed as 15 degree Celsius, below which growth and development activity in the life cycle of YSB does not take place. Each day, average temperature (mean of maximum and minimum temperatures) minus the base temperature is integrated over the growing cycle, and subsequently the development stage is achieved when critical value for attainment of a particular stage is crossed.

In the INITIAL phase, the GDD is taken as zero, which is read one time during running of the model

INCON GDDI, initial value of GDD = 0.

In the DYNAMIC phase, the program is executed daily till the FINISH Condition is achieved.

DAS, days after start of simulation = INTGRL (ZERO, RDAS)

PARAM RDAS, day increment rate = 1.

The development stage can be expressed in development stage (0-1), but in the present study not used for development stage identification, which we will use in further design of population dynamics model in coming times.

DVS, development stage = INTGRL (ZERO, DVR)

DVR, rate of development stage increase, Arbitrary Function Generator- a well defined FST function=AFGEN (DVRT, DAVTMP)

Since the age of male is relatively lower than the age of the female, so the computation is done separately as indicated below:

*FOR FEMALE

FUNCTION DVRT = -10.,0., 0.,0.,15.,0.,35.,0.03325,40.,0.0415

*FOR MALE

FUNCTION DVRT = -10.,0., 0.,0.,15.,0.,35.,0.0342,40.,0.0426

Base temperature below which the activities do not take place, degree celcius, is given as under:

PARAM TBASE=15.

Reading of weather data, on daily time step, is read through external file, as per well defined format for FST compiler, as given below:

WEATHER WTRDIR='c:\WEATHER\';CNTR=' GAZI';ISTN=1;IYEAR= 200

Where, various climatic elements are used as below:

RDD is solar radiation in J/m2/day

DTR = RDD

TMMX is daily maximum temperature; COTEMP is the climate change, temperature rise switch for evaluating the impact of temperature rise on the phenological development of the life cycle of YSB. TMMN is daily minimum temperature.

DTMAX = TMMX+COTEMP

DTMIN = TMMN+COTEMP

DAVTMP, average temperature (derived parameter) = 0.5* (DTMAX + DTMIN)

DDTMP, day time average temperature, derived parameter = DTMAX - 0.25* (DTMAX-DTMIN)

COTEMP is temperature rise/fall switch

PARAM COTEMP = 0.

DTEFF, effective temperature after deducting the base temperature = AMAX1(0., DAVTMP-TBASE)

SVP, is saturated vapor pressure in mbar, calculated from temperature (derived value)

SVP = 6.11*EXP (17.4*DAVTMP/(DAVTMP+239.1))/10.

VP is Actual vapor Pressure, mbar, an input for running of the modelAVP = VP

AVP = VP

RH is relative humidity, expressed in %, derived from the vapor pressure as below:

RH = AVP/SVP*100.

In the present study, only temperature and relative humidity effects are undertaken for computation of the phonological stages of the life cycle of YSB, although we have described the other climatic elements as part of the FST compiler, but the other parameters will also be used in deriving the population dynamics model, which we will take up in later course of time.

Since the development stages of YSB are influenced by relative humidity also, so we have to introduce the correction factor for including the effect of humidity, as below:

DAVTMPCF, RH induced temperature correction = DAVTMP*CFRH

TMPEFF=DAVTMPCF-TBASE

CFRH is the Correction Factor for relative humidity for judging temperature is computed as below: i.e. during hatching (CFRHH) and larva formation (CFRHL) stages, computed as below:

CFRH, correction factor for RH=INSW (GDD-EGHATCH, CFRHH, DUM11)

DUM11=INSW (GDD-979.9,CFRHL,1.)

Where INSW is FST Function, if GDD<979.9, then CFRHHD is taken and otherwise DUM11

CFRHH=AFGEN (CFRHHT, RH)

CFRHL=AFGEN (CFRHLT, RH)

FUNCTION CFRHHT=50.,0.9,60.,0.9,75.,1.,90.,1.1

FUNCTION CFRHLT=50.,0.95,60.,0.95,75.,1.,90.,1.05

WDS, wind speed in m/sec = WN

RRAIN, daily rainfall in mm = RAIN

TRAIN, total rainfall in mm = INTGRL (ZERO, RRAIN)

GDD is growing degree days, expressed in degree Celsius-days, is calculated as below:

GDD=INTGRL (GDDI, TMPEFF)

On the basis of literature search from the published literature, the growing degree days for various stages were computed and used in development of the model, and is described as below:

EGHATCH is the thermal degree days requirement for egg hatch, is as below:

PARAM EGHATCH=119.7

INSTAR1 is thermal degree days for end of first instar 1 stage

PARAM INSTAR1=224.9

INSTAR2 is thermal degree days for end of second instar stage

PARAM INSTAR2=317.0

INSTAR3 is thermal degree days for end of third instar stage

PARAM INSTAR3=438.7

INSTAR4 is thermal degree days for end of fourth instar (larva) stage

PARAM INSTAR4=550.3

PUPA, is thermal degree days for end of pupa stage

PARAM PUPA=662.452

ADULT LONGIVITY is thermal degree days for end of adult longevity, which is different for male/female, For Male=741.484 and Female=773.538, depending upon the defined parameter SEX

ADULT=INSW (SEX-1.05, FEMALE, MALE)

SEX=1. For female and 2. For male

PARAM SEX=2.

PARAM MALE, growing degree days for male = 741.484

PARAM FEMALE, growing degree day for female = 773.538

Critical temperature above which the egg hatching stops is defined as below:

DEATH=REAAND (EGHATCH-GDD, DTMAX-40.)

HATMI, minimum temperature below which the Hatching stops, is defined as below

PARAM HATMIN=15.

DEATH1=REAAND (EGHATCH-GDD, HATMIN-DTMIN)

LATMIN, minimum temperature below which larval growing stages stop, and is given as under:

PARAM LATMIN=12.

DEATH2=INSW (GDD-EGHATCH,0.,REAAND(INSTAR4-GDD,LATMIN- DTMIN))

REAAND is FST Function, which will be 1 when both the variables within parenthesis are greater than zero; otherwise the value will be 0.

Duration of various stages is computed as below:

EGHATCHD is egg hatch duration, in days and computed as below:

EGHATCHD=INTGRL (ZERO, DUM1)

DUM1=INSW (EGHATCH-GDD,0.,1.)

INSTAR1D is INSTAR1 Termination Day

INSTAR1D=INTGRL (ZERO, DUM2)

DUM2=INSW (INSTAR1-GDD, 0.,1.)

INSTAR2D is INSTAR2 Termination Day

INSTAR2D=INTGRL (ZERO, DUM3)

DUM3=INSW (INSTAR2-GDD, 0.,1.)

INSTAR3D is INSTAR3 Termination Day

INSTAR3D=INTGRL (ZERO, DUM4)

DUM4=INSW (INSTAR3-GDD, 0.,1.)

INSTAR4D is INSTAR4 Termination Day

INSTAR4D=INTGRL (ZERO, DUM5)

DUM5=INSW (INSTAR4-GDD, 0.,1.)

PUPAD is PUPA Stage Termination Day

PUPAD=INTGRL (ZERO, DUM6)

DUM6=INSW (PUPA-GDD,0.,1.)

ADULTD is Adult Life End Day

ADULTD=INTGRL (ZERO, DUM7)

DUM7=INSW (ADULT-GDD, 0.,1.)

Stop of Run Condition is as under:

FINISH DEATH > 0.95

FINISH GDD> 775.

Integration conditions for running of the program are as under:

TIMER STTIME = 360., FINTIM = 600., DELT = 1., PRDEL = 1.

TRANSLATION_GENERAL DRIVER='EUDRIV'

PRINT DAY, DOY, DVS, RH, AVP, SVP, WDS, TRAIN, GDD, DAVTMP, DAVTMPCF, ADULTD, PUPAD

In the TERMINAL stage, the final values at the stop of model run can be written in an external file:

CALL SUBWRI (TIME, COTEMP, EGHATCHD, INSTAR1D, INSTAR2D, INSTAR3D, INSTAR4D, PUPAD, ADULTD)

END

Reruns options for evaluating the impact of temperature rise on the development stages of the YSB can be run through this given below procedure:

PARAM COTEMP=1.

END

PARAM COTEMP=2.

END

STOP

Experimental

Growing degree days for attainment of various growing stages in the life cycle of YSB were collated from the published literature in this region. The model was calibrated with 2003 weather data of Bhola district of Bangladesh against the findings of Manikandan [5] at 30 oC. After model calibration, it was subsequently taken to climate change window, temperature rise only considered in the present study. Eight divisions (Dhaka, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Sylhet, Khulna, Chittagong and Barisal) of Bangladesh were taken and one representative location was chosen from each division and historic weather data of 35 years were taken for running of the model and the duration of each development stage was computed and compared amongst temperature rising conditions. In the present study, daily temperature rise from 1-4 oC were considered for two growing seasons, .com rice season i.e. premonsoon (April to June) and Aman Rice season i.e. Monsoon (late June to November) of Bangladesh.

Figure 1:  Days required for completion of growth stages of rice yellow stem borer with increased temperature by 1, 2, 3 and 4 degree celcius in the growing environment of Bhola, Bangladesh.

Results and Discussion

During the test period, minimum temperature averaged 26�0.115 and maximum temperature around 31�0.32, with the average temperature around 30 oC, which was used for calibration and validation of the model, and the model performed satisfactorily well, through nice agreement between observed and simulated results (Table 1). Depending on growth stages, the percent deviations were within the limit of model errors. The application of model for specific years of Bhola district showed that the growth stages of rice yellow stem borer (YSB) were decreasing (Figure 1) by about 1.76 days per degree rise in temperature (Y=1.7X+54.6; R2=0.932). This indicated that YSB is likely to infest more rice plants in future under increased temperature conditions. Ramya [7] also reported that YSB would likely to develop faster, oviposit early and thus enhanced population build up than expected. There are reports that temperature increase by 2oC may cause 1-5 times additional life cycles of insects in a season [8].

Table 1:  Validation of various growth phases (days) of rice yellow stem borer.

Results, from represented locations in the eight Divisions of Bangladesh, showed that growth stage of YSB varied depending on season (Table 2). In .com pre-monsoon season, life cycle of YSB would likely to be completed within 47-53 days, depending on locations and temperature rise from 1-4 degree celcius. Similarly in Aman wet season, it would about 45-50 days for temperature rice from 1-4 degree celcius. However, under the Control (no temperature rise) condition, it requires around 52 days for T. Aman and 55 days for .com. Our findings indicate that growth cycle of YSB is likely to decrease by 2.04 days per degree rise in temperature in the .com season and 1.70 days in T. Aman season (Figure 2). Similar results were reported by Manikandan [5]. Generally, insect population build up depends on favorable weather conditions and availability of host. So, there will be ups and downs in the peak build ups in a cropping season [9]. Although model data needs to be cautiously adopted, it clearly showed that with climate change impact the infestation of YSB would be increased, which might be cause of yield reduction, if not proper management is taken at the right time [10].

Figure 2:  Total life cycle duration of yellow stem borer as influenced by temperature rise during .com and T. Aman, season (averaged over eight Divisions of Bangladesh).

Table 2:  Developmental phases (in days) of rice yellow stem borer as influenced by temperature rise in different growing seasons.

Conclusion

Yellow stem borer of rice crop is a major concern in Bangladesh. Dead hearts and white heads caused by YSB significantly reduce growth and yield of rice crops, especially in .com (Pre-monsoon) and T. Aman (Monsoon) seasons. There is a need to understand the phenology i.e. life cycle assessment and population dynamics of YSB in the growing environments of Bangladesh. In the present study, a simple model, as written in Fortran Simulation Translator (FST), was developed to assess the life cycle of YSB. The model was primarily based on growing degree day�s concept, by also considering cardinal temperatures for specific phenological/ development growth stages of YSB. The model was successfully validated with the growing environment of Bhola district of Bangladesh. Subsequently, the model was taken to assess the impact of rise in temperature on life cycle of YSB in representative locations of eight Divisions of Bangladesh. The response was spatiotemporally and seasonally variable. The life cycle hastened with the rise in temperature by 1-4 degree celcius. We, in near future, plan to develop a population dynamics model for YSB and to subsequently link it with the rice growth model to evaluate the yield reductions associated with YSB infestations.

https://lupinepublishers.com/agriculture-journal/pdf/CIACR.MS.ID.000144.pdf

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[montparnasse]

top 5!!! video games

oh BOY i hate. all video games . here we go

1. going to lump animal crossing and harvest moon together. mysims also belongs here in slot number one due to the thousands of hours wasted.

2. mass effect (original trilogy. they are all so good.)

3. unt*l d*wn... i was not gonna put this one on but i do help run a discord server about it and i have written like 120,000 words about it so

4. fire emblem, i suppose, has somehow worked its way onto this list... but only in the very selective way i play it which is Badly and focusing entirely on characters + story (which suck most of the time). 

5. i don’t know. undertale. portal. i have never played a video game

[bdunbar-enst]

Final :)

Self Evaluation: A-

This first semester has definitely been really challenging for me, I have never been so far away from home for this amount of time before (I am literally on the opposite side of the country from my mom). This is my first year of college so trying to adapt and provide the amount and quality of work that is being expected of me is also quite tough, on top of working four to five times a week and having to find time to still feed myself and sleep just has not been the easiest of feats. I have also never gotten sick so frequently before in my life. It has definitely been an overwhelming 14 or so weeks of life, but I have been learning and finding out what works for me and what doesn’t so that I can go into next semester better equipped. That being said, I also took into account the note about my previous blogs not containing academic rigor or citations, and while I got backed up on my blogs with everything going on, I didn’t want to submit half-assed work because I know better. I think Blogs 7-12 are written well academically, demonstrate my understanding of the material well, have an abundance of elaborate citations, and also have a little bit of humor so they aren’t miserable for you to read. I definitely think that these blogs, my participation in class, and my presentation with Celeste better represent my academic abilities. Overall, thank you for a great semester and the knowledge that I promise to take with me throughout my life.

Blog #7

As we have been observing over the last 8 weeks, human impact is continually destroying earth’s biodiversity to the point of extinction. Elizabeth Kolbert’s article, “The Sixth Extinction?” discusses several issues that extinction creates; the most dangerous and damning being mass extinction. A mass extinction, think dinosaurs or the wooly mammoth from Ice Age, “takes millions of years for life to recover” (Kobert, 5). While human action did not necessarily cause a mass extinction of our beloved dinos, we are actively aiding in the extinction of other species such as rhinos, sharks, and tigers by hunting for sport or extraction of ivory from rhinos and elephants or the fins from sharks for food, and of course, other human interference with wildlife. The decline of these species and many others causes a huge decline in biodiversity causing trophic catastrophes and could ultimately lead to a mass extinction of humans. Since “20-50% of earth’s known species could disappear this century primarily because of human activities'' it is vital that we continue to search for solutions to protect wildlife and our ecosystems and essentially have more government intervention and involvement with hunting regulations and protecting animals that are nearing extinction (Miller, Spoolman 177).

As mentioned time and time again, it is human ignorance of nature that is the most prominent cause in our lack of sustainability and low rates of sustainability efforts. For example, “up to 60% of the wood consumed in the United States is wasted unnecessarily” for uses such as fuel, building material, paper, clear space for growing agriculture for farm animals, etc (Miller, Spoolman 214). In doing this, we are actively destroying habitats not only for all species that find homes in trees, but more importantly the habitats of endangered animals like orangutans. We’ve already observed the detrimental effects of deforestation to extract goods like palm oil, but “without urgent protective action, the endangered orangutan may disappear in the wild within the next two decades” if we continue this harmful process (Miller, Spoolman 179). This is quite similar to the case studies that Kolbert mentions in her article; the first regarding the death of bats and “White Nose Syndrome” or WNS, a fungal disease that killed nearly “90% of northern long-eared, little brown and tri-colored bat populations in fewer than 10 years” (USGS, “White-Nose Syndrome Killed Over 90% of Three North American Bat Species.”). According to Kolbert, these bats dying almost exponentially is “breaking the evolutionary chain” and causes concern for many other species that this is occurring to that is going unnoticed. The second case study that Kolbert discusses is different frog species disappearing around Panama, explaining that species of frogs and other amphibians are dying at alarming rates due to multiple fungal diseases. It is predicted that “between a third and a half of all Panama’s amphibians to be gone within the next five years'' which is extremely damaging to Panama’s ecosystem as one population of the food chain dies out, the whole pyramid collapses, wiping out the entire ecosystem which little chance of regrowth/recovery (Kobert 7). Not only are these fungal diseases a huge concern for the fact that they are killing populations of animals, but it is even more concerning how rapidly they can spread from one animal to another: “in a single afternoon, a pathogen like Bd can move, via United or American Airlines, halfway around the world. Before man entered the picture, such a migration would have required hundreds, if not thousands, of years—if, indeed, it could have been completed at all” (Kobert 22). Sounds familiar, right? If you were thinking Covid-19, you’d be correct. The virus managed to make its way from overseas to the United States and spread so rapidly that it forced us to shut down. The first case of the omicron strain made its way to the Western United States all because of one person who traveled from South Africa. Now imagine if we had the same government response to the dying and endangered species that are keeping us alive, the world would look a lot different, wouldn’t it? Well we have the facilities to do so, but our ignorance to nature trumps any sort of desire to; if only people were more aware that these species that we are killing and that are dying off have a similar impact on human health that this pandemic does then maybe our environment would be in a better place. This is why education is so important!

Mass extinctions are occurring more often than we realize, and it is mostly because of human activity that “a third of all amphibian species, nearly a third of reef-building corals, a quarter of all mammals, and an eighth of all birds are classified as ‘threatened with extinction’” (Kobert 23). This impending threat of extinction will soon be upon humans if we continue to pollute the earth and use up all of its resources as we have been doing in a vicious cycle for years and years and years. As we continue to search for possibilities of living more sustainably and decreasing the loss of biodiversity, it is crucial that we alter our living habits for the better/more sustainably and press for more laws and regulations regarding the environment that are similar to the Endangered Species Act. There is hope that we can slow down the rates at which some of these species are dying off. Making the unnatural extinctions (because some do occur naturally and keep population growth in check) of animals come to a halt is more of a challenge, but I believe that it is possible if we start with attempts to “slow the spread” (get it? covid?).

What human processes are unnecessary and should be banned or regulated to help save some of the endangered species?

Word count: 946

Bibliography:

Spoolman and Miller, Tyler and Scott. Living in the Environment. Printed in the United States of America, 2019.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. “The Sixth Extinction?” May 25, 2009. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/05/25/the-sixth-extinction.

USGS. “White-Nose Syndrome Killed Over 90% of Three North American Bat Species.” April 21, 2021. https://www.usgs.gov/news/white-nose-syndrome-killed-over-90-three-north-american-bat-species.

Blog #8

Why should we care about aquatic biodiversity (which I will refer to as AB in the future)? Great question that you have so kindly asked. If you care about jobs, then about 300 million jobs rely on the ocean; if you care about food, about “42% of the world’s people get 15–20% of their animal protein and essential nutrition from seafood;” if you care about breathing, oceans generate 50-70% of the oxygen we breathe; and if you simply care about existing, oceans absorb about 25% of the CO2 and 90% of the excess heat that humans produce (Miller, Spoolman 233). Just to name a few. Decreasing aquatic biodiversity will negatively impact the economy, human health, and the environment as a whole with pollution and the increase in human population being its biggest threats.

However, overfishing is another imminent threat to AB. Overfishing is mostly the result of bycatch in an attempt to catch a large amount of fish with one net; essentially more fish with less labor. Bycatch is the accidental capture and killing of dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, and other marine mammals which exist in the same location in which fisheries send out their boats (Miller, Spoolman 240). Bycatch of these animals results in the destabilization of their ecosystems and trophic catastrophes, as I have previously discussed, of the oceanic populations. But wait, seafood is a large part of many people’s diets and cultures, especially in Asian countries where there is more of an abundance of fish than meat. We also need to feed the ever-growing population, so let’s look into what we can do here.

With this exponential growth in human population there became a need for innovating the fishing industry and finding a way to increase the amount of seafood available for consumption, as well as meat and crop products (but let’s stay focused on fish for right now). Well, we have left the age of hunter-gatherers and entered the age of industry; we no longer depend on the wild for meat and produce, so it wouldn’t make sense to depend on the open ocean to supply the roughly 150 million tons of seafood we consume in a year. Thanks to industry, we don’t have to! As of today, around 47% of our seafood consumption is supplemented by aquaculture. Considering the mass overfishing and diminishing oceanic species, aquaculture has become a necessary solution (if you will), considering that around 30% of the world’s commercial fisheries have been overfished and 57% have been harvested at full capacity (Miller, Spoolman 241). Additionally, the aquaculture industry is worth roughly $78 billion and the global output from fish farming in 2012 exceeded 70 million tonnes, surpassing beef and land animal meat production, not accounting for the other half of seafood caught wild (Britannica).

A case study that I found important was “Why Should We Protect Sharks?” If you’re into philosophy and ethics then the answer might be that their lives are just as intrinsically valuable as ours, but the answer goes a little deeper than that. According to an IUCN study, “25% of the world’s open ocean shark species are threatened with extinction, primarily from overfishing” and some sharks are keystone species, so their extinction can threaten the ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide (Miller, Spoolman 242). Sharks are especially vulnerable to population declines because they grow slowly, mature late, and have only a few offspring per generation, so with the addition that they are being overfished and the fact that they are “among the earth’s most vulnerable and least protected animals” it is crucial that we find ways to protect them, ultimately protecting our environment as well (Miller, Spoolman 242). A solution could be to either ban the fishing of sharks and provide monetary or legal repercussions in doing so, or to place a quota on how many can be fished per annum, giving them time to reproduce.

Nearly “80% of all ocean pollution comes from land-based coastal activities” emphasizing how much of an impact we have on our surrounding environments and how damaging it actually is (Miller, Spoolman 237). One of our plethora of human activities that causes multiple different issues is the fact that we generate an unimaginable amount of trash, which is a significant problem for both fish and seabirds. In the trailer to the film Albatross, we see several scenes of nature and its beauty, then… a dead bird with stomach contents of only plastics and then more and more depictions of dead birds and an island of trash. This portrays the idea that we are perpetually destroying nature’s aesthetic, stripping her of her beauty because we are careless and self consumed.

In what ways can we replenish nature’s beauty and save aquatic biodiversity?

Word Count: 777

Bibliography:

Spoolman and Miller, Tyler and Scott. Living in the Environment. Printed in the United States of America, 2019.

Jordan, Chris. “Albatross.” 2018. Video, 01:29. https://www.albatrossthefilm.com/.

“The Pros and Cons of Fish Farming.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/the-pros-and-cons-of-fish-farming.

Blog #9

Ground beef, ✓; eggs, ✓; salmon, ✓; mixed veggies, ✓. When at a grocery store, most people don’t really have a second thought about where their food is coming from, they just know they need to check it off of their grocery list to make dinner that night. The words “organic” and “cage free” sound enticing, but not many people really know what that means.

The documentary Food Inc. (a film I’ve seen about 4 times now and each time has made me temporarily vegan), examines and elaborates on the process of where our food comes from, and the dangers and hidden horrors that these processes inflict not only on the animals, but on human and environmental health.

The documentary puts focus on the presence of E.coli in the foods that we are eating. Remember Chipotle’s tainted lettuce? Yeah, me too. Schlosser explains that in factory farming, “animals stand ankle-deep in their manure all day long so that if one cow has [E. coli], the other cows will get it. When they get to the slaughterhouse their hides are caked with manure, and if the slaughterhouse is slaughtering 400 animals an hour, how do you keep that manure from getting onto those carcasses? And that’s how the manure gets in the meat” (Kenner, “Food Inc.”). Their solution to keeping E.Coli out of the meat we eat? Deep clean all of the cows before slaughter? That surely would fix the problem safely. Nope! Takes too long. But what doesn’t take long? Ammonia. One of the workers explains that “ammonia kills bacteria, so it became a processing tool,” and when asked how much of their meat is in hamburgers around the country, Eldon Roth, the CEO of Beef Products Inc., responds with 70% and that she thinks in five years it will be 100% (Kenner, “Food Inc.”). Meaning almost all of the beef consumed in the US contains ammonia, and without that ammonia would contain E.coli. Sure, it’s the lesser of two evils, but why should we settle for consuming ammonia? We can’t all possibly go vegan.

This documentary also explains the problems regarding genetic engineering for mass production. The film talks about genetically modified chickens, and how “birds are now raised and slaughtered in half the time they were fifty years ago, but now they’re twice as big. People like to eat white meat so they redesigned the chicken to have large breasts” (Kenner, “Food Inc.”). There was also a quote where a farmer said “If you could grow a chicken in 49 days, why would you want one you gotta grow in 3 months?” The basis behind producing genetically modified food, which genuinely is not good for us, is more profit in less time. Everything is about money.

In a similar film I believe is called “Eating Animals,” though I am not entirely sure, also talks about the unethical ways these animals are treated before they are led to the slaughter. Caged chickens were not given enough space to even turn around, and “cage free” barely means anything, the hens also have barely enough room to move around and can’t go outside, it just means they aren’t held in battery cages. The beaks of young female chicks are also cut off (without any sort of mediation for pain) so that the hens cannot peck at each other, and the male chicks are just killed because they can’t produce eggs or grow large enough to be eaten. The hens are also often fed antidepressants because of the stress they have from being confined in these factory farms. Farmers also cut off the tails of pigs so that other pigs cannot chew off their tails due to stress. Female cows are repeatedly inseminated to the point where their udders get mastitis and they are no longer able to produce milk (where they are then killed), in addition to having their young calves taken away from them after birth. All of these horrible conditions for animals take place every single day, and very few people are aware of the fact that they are buying and ultimately incentivizing factory farms to continue these practices. And if they are aware, they don’t seem to care. Ding ding ding! Human ignorance at its finest.

Another problem regarding cattle, not to mention the amount of water that is required to raise/farm cattle, is overgrazing, a process that is mentioned in the documentary “Symphony of Soil”. It explains that “the US Department of Agriculture reports that we have a serious overgrazing problem and of course that contributes to increased soil erosion,” and as we know, soil degradation reduces the ability to grow more grass for future grazing, or even future crop land due to the lack of nutrients in the soil (Koons Garcia, “Symphony of Soil”). The documentary also discusses the importance of soil, and how healthier soil = healthier crops = healthier environment. Described in the film: “soils have parents just like we have parents so they came from somewhere and soils form from some material that’s in a particular location” (Koons Garcia, “Symphony of Soil”). This quote reminded me of my environmental science class in high school where we learned about ecological succession and how “pioneer plants” grow from environments that are generally unsuitable for life and then die to create soil, starting a biological community that grows more complex and diverse as time goes on. However, it takes hundreds of years after the first pioneer plant to create a climax community. The goal is to maintain a climax community like “Times Square on New Year’s Eve,” instead of waiting upwards of 300 years for earth to restore our damage, if it remains untouched (Koons Garcia, “Symphony of Soil”).

I believe that these films should be shown and the conditions and processes that occur in producing the food we eat should be taught widely throughout the United States and the UK where most factory farming takes place because it is vital that we start cracking down on human ignorance and pushing for more environmental education to raise a generation of environmentally conscience leaders.

Should we make classes like Environmental Science/Studies a mandatory class, similar to math and english? How helpful would it be to have a generation as educated on our environmental issues as we are?

Word Count: 1019 (I really didn’t think it was that long)

Bibliography:

Kenner, Robert. “Food Inc.” Filmed 2008. Video, 01:34:00.

Koons Garcia, Deborah. “Symphony of Soil.” Filmed 2012. Video, 01:44:24.

Blog #10

While the average life expectancy in the US has increased from 35.1yrs in 1865 to 78.81yrs in 2020, and about 73yrs in 2019 worldwide (according to Statista) and we’ve been able to increase overall sanitation, we still have an overwhelming amount of threats to our health in our environment. Even more alarming, we have posed these threats to ourselves with chemicals polluting our water sources, atmospheres, and common household materials and items. Many of “these highly toxic chemicals have been shown to produce numerous harmful effects, including cancers, birth defects, compromised immune systems, and declining sperm counts and sperm quality in men in a number of countries” which clearly alter and decrease the quality of life in a person (Miller, Spoolman 428). Solutions? “Banning the use of harmful chemicals or regulating their use” (Miller, Spoolman 427). Think Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, notably the most effective way in which the use of DDT was banned. I think the easiest way that we could enable these regulations/bans would be to enforce fines of such a high amount that companies would ultimately lose money/profit if they did use the chemical(s). Most large corporations are able to find ways around fines (loopholes) or they simply make enough money that they can pay off fines fairly easily. There is often little oversight into if companies are following laws or regulations, so there would need to be a system in place in which their actions are accurately documented and submitted to an official to maintain regulation/oversight.

I also think that we could fund research that studies these agents and how to protect humans against them seeing that we cannot fully eliminate these chemicals from our environment because of the Learning in Nature note in the textbook. “A shark’s skin is covered with tiny bumps that somehow help it to avoid bacterial infections” (Miller, Spoolman 410). If we can discover the ways that animals naturally protect themselves (because there is no ‘animal’ hospital in nature), we can use biomimicry (as discussed at the beginning of the year. I love when things come full circle) to attempt to find, modify and create similar protection for humans. No, I did not just make up that possibility. It’s a thing! “Scientists are using this information [about the shark bumps] to create antibacterial films with a bumpy structure that could reduce human skin infections” (Miller, Spoolman 410).

I think we can all agree that it is not shocking that LDCs have higher rates of disease or health issues, since many of them have fewer access to health care, clean water sources, and overall have lower health standards. However, while there are higher rates of disease in less developed countries, “almost everyone who lives in a more-developed country is exposed to potentially harmful chemicals in their environment” (Miller, Spoolman 425). There is greater greenhouse gas emissions in MDCs because they have the money to burn fossil fuels for electricity and heat, and there are more cars on the roads in MDCs all contributing to the toxins that are trapped in our atmosphere. As always, humans are to blame.

In terms of bacterial infection, there are infections that are becoming resistant to antibiotics (similarly to pests that overtime gain resistance to pesticides). New strains arise from these bacteria that are stronger than the antibiotic designed to combat it, like the somewhat recent emergence of the STD “Super Gonorrhea” that is antibiotic resistant, or as the textbook mentions, new strains of Tuberculosis. “WHO considers antibiotic resistance one of the biggest threats of this century and the World Economic Forum calls it a ‘potential disaster’ for the global economy and human health” (Miller, Spoolman 411). Additionally, there is an alarming amount of infections that are virtually untreatable and almost “2 million of u.s. citizens get infections that cannot be treated with any known antibiotics” (Miller, Spoolman 412). Viruses are much more aggressive and cannot be treated with antibiotics, but antivirals that in a lot of cases aren’t extremely effective, such as Influenza, Ebola, HIV/AIDS and others. The flu shot is different each year because the flu adapts each year, and you can very well get the flu even if you get the vaccine. Similar to the possibility of getting Covid-19 even if you have been vaccinated.

Hazardous waste production and disposal is very common in toxic chemical exposure. In fact, “workers who recycle e-wastes [...] usually wear no masks or gloves, often work in rooms with no ventilation, and are exposed to toxic chemicals” (Miller, Spoolman 553). All I can think about is The Simpsons intro where Homer accidentally slips the glowing green nuclear product into his suit at the powerplant. How careless! I think we could mitigate this issue by providing more protection gear and safer protocol or attempting to mimic the natural disposal of these wastes by reusing/recycling them.

Would you test out engineered protection such as the biomimicry of the tiny shark bumps (the antibacterial films)? Why or why not?

Word count: 814

Bibliography:

Spoolman and Miller, Tyler and Scott. Living in the Environment. Printed in the United States of America, 2019.

O'Neill, Aaron. “World - Life Expectancy at Birth 2019.” Statista, 3 Aug. 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/805060/life-expectancy-at-birth-worldwide/.

Blog #11

We are quite literally surrounded by water no matter where you live on our planet; water makes up just about 71% of earth. Despite the bounty of water we have, about 3% of it is freshwater that is able to be used for human activities, and only about 0.024% is readily available to us as is, and water desalination is extremely expensive making that 0.024% of water just about all we have (Miller, Spoolman 302). All of the water we drink and use now is the water we’ve had since the “birth” of our planet and all we will ever have; remember the Law of Conservation of Matter? Unfortunately, we are currently using and polluting our available freshwater at a rate that is unsustainable (Miller, Spoolman 303). As the planet warms due to climate change, droughts become increasingly common, and the ice caps are melting. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, “10 percent of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice” and “glaciers store about 69 percent of the world's fresh water.” But what happens when they melt? Yep, they melt into the surrounding ocean’s saltwater, making it no longer potable without desalination processes. Currently, 2.1 billion people are facing water scarcity, and as populations grow and the climate warms, this number is only expected to grow (Miller, Spoolman 306).

Only 57% of the world’s population have water piped to their homes, mostly developed countries with the facilities and money to do so (Miller, Spoolman 301). The rest, commonly LDCs, must find and carry it from distant sources or use it directly at the source (as they do in India), or pump groundwater from aquifers resulting in water table and aquifer decimation. Aquifers are formed through the porous layers in the soil that water percolates through storing water underground. Normally, they can be restored naturally through the water cycle; however, as we develop and pave more and more land for roads, sidewalks, etc, surface water is unable to penetrate the concrete, causing groundwater to be used at a rate faster than it can be restored (Miller, Spoolman 302). There are types of cementing and asphalt that are permeable and meant for water to be able to, you guessed it, permeate through the concrete; however, pervious/porous concrete is generally more expensive than regular concrete and typically used in areas where rainfall is common. When I used to live in Las Vegas (the literal desert where rain was not common), any and every time that it did rain (small or large amounts) there was always a flash flood because we did not have the proper cementing for the water to percolate through or proper storm drainage systems because the rain wasn’t terribly common. You might be thinking “but it’s a desert, there’s dirt for the water to penetrate” and you would be correct, for the unpopulated areas of Nevada. Populated cities like Las Vegas, its surrounding cities/most of southern Nevada, and Reno are extremely urbanized causing this flooding. The aquifers in these areas could not really be restored because the water really could only “go away” through evaporation, which is why Lake Mead (the largest man made water reservoir) supplies most of Nevada’s and Arizona’s water.

Due to human and industrial activities, we are currently polluting our available fresh water at an exponential rate. This pollution can come from point sources (specific discharge locations such as pipes from factories) or nonpoint sources (nonspecific pollution diffusion, such as agricultural runoff) (Miller, Spoolman 507). Not only does water pollution cause the destruction of ecosystems, such as eutrophication, but it can also be extremely detrimental to human health, as “over 1.6 million people die each year from water-borne infectious diseases” (Miller, Spoolman 508). This is mostly in LDCs where they do not possess the ability to treat their wastewater or don’t have/enforce laws or regulations in the disposal of wastewater. In these LDCs with less treatment infrastructure, according to the Global Policy Project, it is estimated that 80-90% of raw sewage is dumped directly into streams and rivers, the same water they use for drinking, bathing, and cleaning. Additionally, 62% of the billions of gallons of raw sewage produced each day in India ends up untreated in nearby rivers and other bodies of water (Miller, Spoolman 512).

Streams and rivers can generally cleanse themselves through natural processes due to their constant movement and decomposing bacteria, unless they are too saturated with slowly degrading or non-degradable pollutants or if they have been altered by man-made structures such as dams in a way that prevents self-purification (Miller, Spoolman 511). Lakes, where there are stratified layers that often don’t mix and very little movement of water, are even more difficult to cleanse of pollutants (Miller, Spoolman 512). Lakes are especially susceptible to cultural eutrophication (the oversaturation of plant nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates that causes algal blooms), resulting in a depletion of dissolved oxygen (because when these algal organisms die they are decomposed by aerobic bacteria that require the DO in the water to breakdown the organisms overall decreasing the amount of DO entirely). The lack of dissolved oxygen makes it impossible for any other respirating aquatic organisms to survive in the body of water, and the toxic algae can be fatal if consumed by many land species (Miller, Spoolman 513). Eutrophication can also halt photosynthesis processes as it blocks sunlight from reaching the aquatic plants in addition to causing “Blue Baby Syndrome” in children drinking the deoxygenated water.

An example of a water pollution success story is the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio (my birthplace!). Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught fire several times and no one seemed to care until a highly publicized image of this burning river was shown virtually everywhere in the city. It prompted elected officials to enact laws to limit the discharge of industrial wastes into the river and to provide funds for upgrading sewage treatment facilities. Today, it is no longer flammable and this accomplishment illustrates the efficacy of bottom-up pressure by citizens who prodded elected officials to change a severely polluted river into an economically and ecologically valuable public resource.

It is possible for us to pressure city and state officials to fix environmental issues, but I believe that it is more important to focus on water pollution prevention because it is much easier to mitigate the problem instead of having to eventually clean up after ourselves after the damage has already been done.

What are some ways that we can help LDCs with their water pollution crisis?

Word count: 1090 (I know it is way too long, but this was my presentation chapter and I really want to display my knowledge here. Thanks for reading it)

Bibliography:

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott Spoolman. “Chapter 20: Water Pollution.” Living in the Environment:  Concepts, Connections, and Solutions, vol. 20, Brooks/Cole, Belmont, CA, 2011, pp. 506–533.

“National Snow and Ice Data Center.” Facts about Glaciers | National Snow and Ice Data Center, https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/quickfacts.html.

Blog #12

Recently, representatives gathered from around the world to meet in Glasgow for the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference. While representatives made some pretty intrepid new commitments to reduce the impact that their respective countries have had on climate change, those “commitments” simply won’t be enough to truly address the looming threat posed by climate change. After this week's readings that condensed what occurred during the conference, I’m not convinced that many of the commitments and goals are to be met and upheld.

Alarmingly, the meeting actually opened with a UN chief stating that it’s time to “go into emergency mode” (Quiñones). I personally think we should have gone into ‘emergency mode’ a long time ago and maybe we’d be better off than we are now, but this statement alone only goes to show how serious of a threat our planet is under. After learning that “to keep the goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C within reach, we need to cut global emissions in half by the end of this decade” and that “the United Nations calculates that these plans, as they stand, put the world on track for 2.5 degrees C of warming by the end of the century” you almost are forced to lose hope (Mountford). While it is better than the 4 degrees C trajectory the world was on before the Paris Agreement, Prime Minister Mia Mottley was quoted as saying that “2 degrees is a death sentence” (Quiñones). Even better, you have to almost laugh when the negotiations concluded that 1.5C is in reach (“just barely” according to Mountford) once you’ve heard that it’s looking like we’re on track for 2.5C even with the plans to cut global emissions in half. These are just some insane expectations that are most probably unrealistic. I mean imagine how much easier it would have been to reach 1.5C or even lower if we started caring more earlier on. We can no longer “prevent” climate change. Climate change has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. Words like “prevention” are just blatantly ignorant and create a group of people who “don’t believe in climate change” because issues that can be prevented generally haven’t occurred yet, but we are in preparation for their occurrence. How utterly damaging is that belief system? We should have been preparing for climate change the minute we realized the effect human activity has on the environment. Albeit, we should have been preparing for all of the environmental issues then at that time too. The only thing we’re “preparing” for, is the mass extinction of all living things on earth, since that has yet to occur.

However, (let me stop bashing the conference for a second) one thing that COP26 was successful in doing was that it acknowledged the fact that climate change is already causing loss and damage “to millions, including the loss of lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems” (COP26 Explained, 11). Great! (A continuation of criticism now ensues). We’ve finally realized how bad we’ve messed up; can’t prevent that now, can we? It is already too late for the Maldives, a breathtaking island that now cannot be saved by the 1.5C goal (Quiñones). The Maldives and similar countries will have to begin to make plans to relocate their citizens, and this could possibly only be the start of, what I’m going to call, evacuations. What happens when the 1.5C goal is not met? Are more and more countries going to be forced to evacuate their countries, because life there is no longer sustainable? Does it finally end when there is nowhere else to go?

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting here baffled and sad that it has taken this long for world leaders to truly realize the trouble that we’ve been in for so long and how it is only progressively getting worse. While from an economic standpoint, I can be understanding of profit margins and the importance of maintaining a good economy; but from an environmental standpoint, I’m simply not in favor of the economy. At first I was thinking “What is there possibly to negotiate? What is so much more important than the environment that whatever it is can’t be sacrificed?” Now I understand that we can’t destroy the economy of any country just for the sake of saving our environment (though if it were up to me, maybe we could). But, economies have absolutely destroyed and continue to destroy our planet. The economy won’t and can’t possibly mean anything if we’re all fighting to stay alive on earth. The money that is being gained, or just not lost, from all of the detrimental human activities we’ve talked about over the course is not worth anything if our kids or their kids don’t have a place to live.

I found myself most disappointed to read of the change to the pact made by two of the world’s guiltiest polluters and contributors of coal-fired power generated emissions. “COP26 President Alok Sharma struggled to hold back tears following the announcement of a last-minute change to the pact, by China and India, softening language circulated in an earlier draft about “the phase-out of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”. As adopted on Saturday, that language was revised to “phase down” coal use” (Quiñones). If the words “struggled to hold back tears” didn’t jump out to you at first, I hope they do now. The fact that this announcement caused such emotions is a red flag! Though we shouldn’t cause mass hysteria and nihilistic views on life, we should ALL be concerned and somewhat afraid of the future of our planet. If that’s what causes action, then so be it. But we cannot continue to just sit back, continuing our harmful habits, and watch as the world around us deteriorates.

Considering some of these negotiations are basically “last resort” efforts, how can we make lasting improvements to the health of our environment? What needs to be sacrificed?

Word count: 977

Bibliography:

“COP26 Explained - ukcop26.Org.” COP26 Negotiations Explained. UK Government. Accessed December 8, 2021. https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/COP26-Explained.pdf.

Mountford, Helen, David Waskow, Lorena Gonzalez, Chirag Gajjar, Nathan Cogswell, Mima Holt, Taryn Fransen, Molly Bergen, and Rhys Gerholdt. “COP26: Key Outcomes from the UN Climate Talks in Glasgow .” World Resources Institute, November 17, 2021. https://www.wri.org/insights/cop26-key-outcomes-un-climate-talks-glasgow.

“Organization of Work, Including for the Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies.” Glasgow Climate Pact. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, November 13, 2021. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_L16_adv.pdf.

Quiñones, Laura. “COP26 Closes with ‘Compromise’ Deal on Climate, but It’s Not Enough, Says UN Chief | | UN News.” United Nations. United Nations, November 12, 2021. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/11/1105792.

Environmental Stakeholder Statement

I believe that as an environmental stakeholder, I am extremely concerned about the environment, as most of us are. We all actively chose to take this class, but considering environmental studies has absolutely not a thing to do with my major and counts as an elective credit for me, I would say that I care just a bit more than the average human, I would hope. I think it is pretty prevalent in my blog posts and my participation in class that I care a great deal about ongoing issues such as climate change, deforestation, pollution, water resources; basically everything we have covered over these last fourteen weeks or so. After taking AP Environmental Science in high school I think that I started to view the world in a more critical/enlightening way. Not only do I know the stages of wastewater treatment like the back of my hand, but I feel I can say that I also fully understand how all of my actions impact the environment, both positively and negatively. While having never boughten a single seafood product, I can’t say that I have single handedly solved the fishing crisis, but I do understand how collective efforts to not buy certain goods because of how they are produced can provide an economic incentive for companies to practice sustainability and attempt to be more ethical in their ways. I love using my reusable water bottle and filling them up in the water fountains and seeing how many plastic bottles have been eliminated, and not ended up in the ocean or a bird’s stomach. I also think that this course and APES gave me a greater appreciation for my environment. I know not many scientists believe in theology, but environmental degradation doesn’t only upset me because we are sending earth to the slaughter, but because the animals and pure life that God created for us is being destroyed every second of every day because of human activity. It is the simple yet detrimental ignorance of nature that a lot of humans have toward our planet that is most upsetting because it feels like you can’t change their minds; and in some ways you can’t, you can’t change the mind of every single person to do better or to be better inhabitants of earth, but the fact that so many people aren’t even willing to listen is really disheartening when you know what we are doing to our planet.

As a Political Science major, I hope that I can take this knowledge and apply it in the future, you know when I’m a successful politician (manifesting it), to help engrain positive, environmentally charged thinking into politics because as I have learned in this class, the solution to most of earth’s problems lay in hands of leaders. I’m hopeful that our generation and future generations will shape human thinking and create an age of leaders who choose quality of life for all living beings over measly profit gain. But for now, I will continue to share my knowledge with even those who don’t want to listen, because I have the ability to do so and as mentioned more times than I can count, education and educating is so very important.

Climate Initiative Practicum

Similarly to the Midterm Practicum Report, my extensive work and school schedule (in addition to trying to somewhat maintain a social life) has prevented me from being able to participate in a lot of the programs and activities I would have loved to do. But work never stopped me from attending the weekly meetings, even if I did have to join on Zoom and secretly listen while working (let’s not tell my manager that). There was a week of activities for Sustainability Week and the sign up times that I could attend were already taken and the others were either times that I had work or class. I’m pretty bummed that I couldn’t participate in Sustainability Week because it would have been a lot more fun than making coffee for people who are probably going to end up throwing their cup on the ground when they’re done. However, there was an activity where we could go to Thousand Fell, which is a sustainable shoe store in Manhattan. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the time that everyone was going, but, don’t worry, I went with my roommate on my day off to go check it out! I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything because truly the shoes were over $100 each and I put most of the money I make working into my savings account, but they have an online website, so I put the link into my Christmas list.

Speaking of Christmas lists, we contacted and compiled a list of websites and discount codes for businesses that practice sustainability or are environmentally conscious because Christmas, and other practiced winter holidays, are right around the corner. I was actually really excited to hear about this because not only are we all striving to support sustainable businesses, but they provided us with unique coupon codes which I think is super helpful for college students trying to buy presents. I also really appreciate the discount codes because sustainable products are generally more expensive (the Thousand Fell shoes for example) to their unsustainable counterparts, so this allows us better access or ability to purchase these products when I probably could not have been able to afford otherwise. Some of the brands on the list don’t have discount codes, but I feel are important to be included because it can guide holiday shopping, for those who can afford to purchase from them, towards brands that are more sustainable.

In the likes of shopping, I am proud to say that I have not bought any new articles of clothing since the school year started. I want to say that it is because I am constantly trying to decrease my carbon footprint, but it could be that I really don’t have the money to do so; however, I am going to go ahead and say that it is probably a combination of both. I have realized that I don’t need new clothes. At all. I am pretty sure I have reached the end of growing and that I probably am not going to grow out of clothes any time soon, at least I haven’t in the past year or two, so “needing” new clothes is more of a “wanting” new clothes at this point. This decision has kind of sucked because of the growing fashion trends and the fact that my roommate is always ordering new clothes online, so I can’t lie and say that I haven’t been jealous; but even when I have had the money to buy some new clothes, I just haven’t and I would say that is an accomplishment for me, especially because I really like buying clothes. I was able to participate in a program held by one of my building RAs where we went to a GoodWill in Harlem to go thrift shopping; I didn’t get any good finds, but some of my friends found some really cool pieces. I think that the Climate Impact Initiative and this course have both really guided my way of thinking and acting, I definitely would not have been able to go this long without buying fast fashion previously.

Another really cool mission the Climate Impact Initiative has started is attempting to shape the core curriculum. Nicolette Makris has been in contact with one of the deans at Fordham about updating the core curriculum and advocating for including more environmental components as they are looking to make changes to it. I contributed by suggesting that they change this class (Environmental Studies) to fulfill a science (or similar) credit, instead of being an elective because I think more people who are not majoring in Environmental Science or Studies would take the course if it would fill a needed requirement. I think I asked in one of my blog questions if ENST or APES should be a requirement and I 100% believe that it should. Not only do both classes teach about the impending environmental issues, but also shapes young minds to think more critically about our planet. I think it could be really beneficial as a required course in college when we are really finding out what we are passionate about and what we believe in. In one of our class discussions we were all trying to figure out ways that we can participate in local activities to push for environmental change similar to Occupy Wall Street.

Due to the fact that I couldn’t participate much during this semester, I continued to watch the seminars from Slow Factory as I did and mentioned in the Midterm Practicum Report because I found them really interesting and I liked that I could do it during the very little free time that I had. I am thinking that next semester I will have more availability to participate in the activities and projects as my work schedule will be changing based on my class schedule. Overall, it has been a really fun semester and I hope I can join some more clubs that are similar and just as passionate about the environment because it is really cool to come together with like-minded people and share ideas and just talk.

Word count: 1018

[diallokenyatta]

I think you made a post about how presidents Lyndon or Nixon used military forces to enforce antiracism. that got me thinking, if Obama wanted he could drone bomb the shit out of all these racist in the USA, and shut down their websites. I think you were talking bout how folk always say Obama "aint got no real power" so "he can't really do nothing for black folk", how that's some bullshit. How is it that piece of shit like Lyndon and Nixon did what Obama a black man refused to do?

Obama was very powerful and well positioned to bring hell to White Nationalist, White Supremacists, and White Separatist Groups; although it wouldn’t be as dramatics as “drone bombing the shit outta them.” He could have implemented a full scale Counter Intelligence Program against White Extremist the day he took office, it was withing his power to do so.Obama could have deployed the same apparatus that took down the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, the Weather Men, the IWW, the UNIA, etc.The US has a long history of bringing down groups and organizations. Obama, from the day he was elected to the day he left office was the Commanding Officer and Chief Executive of the agencies that are experts at subverting lawful and unlawful organizations in the US.  He also had a multi-billion dollar budget at his disposal.  Here’s something we often overlook: Obama did bring down Movement while he was in office, the Occupy Movement. Obama used US Intelligence Agencies and local Law Enforcement to systematically destroy the Occupy Movement from the inside and from the outside. The masses have seemed to totally have erased the Occupy Movement from its collective memory, but it was the biggest social movement in the US in the last 50 years, and Obama shattered it. 

But Obama never used his powers to target White Racist organizations or agendas, in fact White Extremist got much stronger under Obama as their membership swelled and they went unchallenged by Obama and his Administration.  The White Nationalist knew from the moment that Obama held his infamous Beer Summit that he had no intention of challenging them in any significant way.  Obama didn’t even take a stance when the White Nationalist targeted him, his wife, or his daughters; so we shoulda know he wasn’t gonna stand for the entire Race. 

In fact the last Presidential Administration that brought any heat to the White Nationalist was the Clinton Administration.  From 1992 to 2000 the WN were on the run and in steep decline across the nation.  Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno made it her mission to disrupt the White Nationalist, especially after the Oklahoma Federal Building Bombing, which they blamed on White Extremist Tim McVeigh in 1995

Now, Clinton & Reno had their own reasons for targeting White Extremist, and it had nothing to do with saving Black people, but they did demonstrate that the Militant White Right can not only be targeted and subverted, but it can be done in such a way where you can sustain the support of the White masses while you do it.  But Obama never had any intentions on targeting White Militant Extremist, and now we have one elected to the presidency on his bloody coattails.But that’s just one of so many failings and betrayals of Obama that it doesn't really get any focus. SMH.  Obama had and used his presidential power to the fullest, but the Black masses constructed this illusion of a Powerless Black President to excuse that fact that he didn’t use that power to repay the Black community for our loyalty and support.  Any benefits we got from the Obama Administration was purely incidental, an unintended by-product of his service to other communities and interest groups. Obama did little to nothing directly for Blacks!

The worse thing about Obama is not his actions but the Black community's response to his actions, we still love him, his approval ratings are still thorough the roof among Blacks...across the US and the globe.  That means were are still ripe for another Treasonous Black Leaders to be put up by the System to lull us into a false sense of accomplishment and advancement. Obama should have been a wake up call but he’s proven to be a very effective sleeping pill for the Black masses.  

www.patreon.com/diallokenyattawww.diallokenyatta.com#BroDiallo

[trendshavi]

Importance to Health and Fitness to Get Success in Life

There are tons of health and fitness tips and equipment that you can use to improve your weight loss efforts. Nowadays the importance of health and fitness has been increased to a greater extent. Physical health is one of the utmost importance in everyone’s life. Reducing extra weights helps you to look sexy and better and the good news is you do not need to just rely on doctors or medicines to get your desired looks.

Basics Equipment that helps in weight loss, which is now available at many online stores like Havi Trends:-

Ankle weights:- Ankle weights are optional for strength exercises like the side leg raise and hip extension.

Exercise mat:- A nonslip, well-padded Exercise mat helps for floor exercises. A thick carpet or towels will squeeze.

Hand weights:- The Hand weights bands that strap onto wrists and kits that let you screw weights onto a central bar are available, too.

Resistance bands and tubing:- Resistance bands or tubing mainly used for a full-body strength workout. The attractive features include low cost, lightweight, portability, and ease of storage.

Bands:- The Bands look like big, wide rubber bands. The bands are come in several levels of resistance from very light to very heavy, designated by color.

Stationary bicycle:- Riding a stationary exercise bike is an efficient and effective way to burn calories and body fat.

Men and women have always set out to live healthy and fit lives in the hope of being noticed by other people. Also when it comes to health and fitness, the most frequently asked question is how to tighten or strengthen muscles. Now the muscles can consist of hands, legs or abdomen. Here I would like to note that to reduce some muscles, one has to strengthen the muscles of the whole body. You can never reduce or strengthen the muscles of a particular body part. You have to do several cardiovascular activities to reduce or burn those extra fats.

Now the question is what is a cardiovascular activity? Skipping rope, jogging, swimming, walking, step aerobics, etc. These are all cardiovascular activities. Always remember to never start a cardiovascular activity on your own, as you will also need some strength training. The strength training exercises help you to strengthen the muscles as well as build lean muscle mass for your affected areas.

Do you want to discover the secret to keep your body fits and healthy, regaining lost vitality and improving the quality of your life? Order the Health and Fitness equipment now at Havi Trends online store at a reasonable price.

[hellodoctordrone-blog]

(1) System Dynamics & Vibration Paper Project Report Second Order Mechanical System Landing Gear of an Aircraft By Saad Ali Hassan and Beatrice

1        Introduction

  1.1  Mechanical Part

Landing gears, also known as undercarriage, are mechanisms designed to support the overall weight of the aircraft (body of airplane + passengers + stowed bags and hand carriage) when the vehicle is still grounded and to withstand extremely high loads during landing without damage to its structure while providing comfort and safety to the passengers on board. In resume, a landing gear is the mechanical system that allows the craft to land, take-off or even taxi.

1.1.1 Background

The landing gear mechanism is extremely important to the overall performance of the aircraft. Even under rigorous and regular maintenance, failure still happens on aircrafts and even the smallest malfunction on the landing mechanics can account for those failures that can cause danger to the passengers and crew. Because of that, the right choice of strong materials for the structure of the mechanism and the correct assembly of each component of the system are of extremely importance. The material of the structure must have high static strength as well as good fracture toughness and fatigues strength to withstand the load and the high impact that happens during landing; therefore, some good choices might include high-strength steel and titanium alloys.

1.1.2 Simplified Selected System for Analysis

Landing gears are known for being quite a complex system with many different primary components and some secondary components that are attached to its body and that function with the landing gear during the operation of the aircraft such as steering devices and retracting mechanisms which will act during tax and after the airplane has departed). The image below illustrates the complexity of this mechanism.

Because of the complexity of the mechanism, a simplified version of a landing gear can be used during analysis like the one approached in this report. This simpler mechanism contains a mass (m) representing the overall weight of the aircraft, a spring (K) and a dumper (B, or in the image 'C') which are all suspended by a wheel that results on the horizontal movement of the plane. This simplified version can be seen on the image below and that is the system that will be constantly referred in this project report.

1.1.3 System Physical Decomposition

The simplified system that has been approached has three main components. They are dumper, spring and mass. Each one of these components play a very important role in the operation of the mechanism.

The damper, also known as shock absorber, is a hydraulic device designed to

dissipate kinetic energy and weaken the impact

in a certain structure.

The spring represent the elasticity of the system; it converts the force input into mechanical displacement. In the landing gear mechanism, the spring used to create retraction and elasticity.

The mass of the system is what creates the inertia force which is the resistance to any change in velocity. This mass is represented by the total aircraft weight on the landing gear mechanism.

 1.1  Additional Electrical Part

The distance measurement sensors are used in several engineering application including measuring liquid levels in tank, precise movement of robot arms in an automated production line, detection of people or object from a reference, measurement of object distances in outdoor and indoor environments. These sensors are electronically controlled and are very accurate in their measurements. The system of an aircraft uses a diverse range of sensors that provide critical assistance and feedback information in piloting, maintaining and communicating with the aircraft itself. These sensors work altogether to create a safe and effective operation of an aircraft. The report will investigate the ultrasonic distance sensor as prototyped, which is used in measuring distance to the point of interest (ground level) in an aircraft.

 1.1.1        Background

The ultrasonic distance (HC-SR04) sensor emits an ultrasound at 40 000 Hz which travels through the air and if there is an obstacle on its path it will bounce back to the module. Considering the travel time and the speed of the sound it is possible to calculate the distance from the object to the sensor. The ultrasonic distance sensor comes in two types. Proximity detection, an object passing within the pre-set range will be detected and generate an output signal. The detect point is independent of target size, material or reflectivity. Ranging measurement, precise distance(s) of an object moving to and from the sensor are measured via time intervals between transmitted and reflected bursts of ultrasonic sound. Distance change is continuously calculated and outputted.

1.1.1        Simplified Selected System for Analysis

Due to the the extent of complexity in the project, the electrical system is self-customized to follow the main learning aspect of the project that it is portraying (read Objective heading below) while avoiding the factors that are not necessary to execute the practical demonstration and the reflect learnings. The selected electrical system consists of an Arduino board, LED, buzzer, resistor and an ultrasonic distance sensor HC-SR04 used in a proximity detection mode.

  1.1.2        System Physical Decomposition

The Arduino board module is an open-source micro-controller which is the main component to the electrical part. It is powered through a 9V battery and acts as a computer in operating the other sub modules attached to it. The LED and buzzer are used to provide a ‘get ready’ and ‘warning’ signal feedback respectively as the distance sensor output signal changes comparing the set values in code. All of which is controlled and programmed in the microcontroller.

1        Objective

The objective of this project is to combine the mechanical and electrical parts to produce a second order electromechanical system and depict its combined function through prototyping and using the concept of a landing gear mechanism of an aircraft. This will investigate further into the transfer functions, mathematical equations, block diagrams and its active system parameters that involves in producing the desired output action from an input along with evidences using Simulink models and the prototype designed.

2        Scope of the Project

The project provides a learning opportunity to students pursuing the understanding in System Dynamics.  The designed prototype shows the basic way how efficiently an electrical system’s output element relates to a mechanical system’s feedback input element practically in order to operate in an effective manner. The theoretical and mathematical part is there to prove the functionality of the prototype.

3.1 Future Work

Modification can be made in the prototype to enhance and increase the learning experience gained by the students. It is recommended to add a feature of auto-retraction of the wheel as the ground approaches. This practice could be applied by introducing a servo motor that is well connected with the retraction mechanism, and as the sensor sends out the ‘close to ground’ signal to the Arduino board, the board should enable the configured servo motor to retract the wheel and prepare for landing. This would allow another element of study to the project and extend its future scope.  

 3        Constraints and Assumptions

For doing the analysis on the system, we consider the following assumptions for the values of the parameters in the given system. For simplicity these values are taken from problem A-4-18 in the book. To obtain the responses curve in the report further we assume:

 M = 100kg

B = N-s/m

K = 800 N/m

Wn = 1 rad/sec

1        Block Diagram for All System Components

1        Mathematical Equations of the Subsystem and System

The simplified second order mechanical system consist of the following parameters in the absence of any external forces (P). Below is the free body diagram:

Figure 9 FBD of System 2

 1.1  Damper Equation

Where B is the damping coefficient, ẋ and ẏ are the velocities.

1.2  Spring Equation

Where K is the spring constant, x and y are the distances.

1.3  Inertia Force Due to Mass

Where M is the mass of the plane, and ÿ is the acceleration.

1.4  System Equation

Using Newton’s second law, sum of all forces, taking upward direction as positive:

1.5  System Equation with External Force

Using Newton’s second law, sum of all forces, taking upward direction as positive:

  2        Derived Transfer Functions

The transfer function is defined as the output resulted from a certain input.

2.1  Y(s)/X(s)

This transfer function can be defined in simple words, how much X(s) displacement is to be applied to get Y(s) displacement.

Applying Laplace Transform with zero initial conditions

 3        Simulink Model of the Entire System

The Simulink model of the system is referenced from the problem A-4-18 of course book.  The second order mechanical system’s transfer function equations are shown in the standard from below after applying the assumed values. Further the system is analyzed by observing the output responses to certain standard input responses below.

 3.1  Step Response

The step response of a system is one of the most important and basic response for a system that has initial conditions as zero. Our prototype was tested by a unit response of the displacement caused by the landing impact (X(s) = 1) and how it made its effect to the displacement after the shock absorber placed (Y(s)). We derived the following transfer function to test it using Simulink.

 3.2  Ramp Response

  1.1  Step Response

Step, Over Damped, Critically Damped and Under Damped

1.1  Ramp Response

Ramp, Over Damped, Critically Damped and Under Damped

1.1  Frequency Response Sinusoidal

Sinosoidal, Over Damped, Critically Damped and Under Damped

1        Conclusion

It can be concluded from this project and report that the landing gear follows the same principle as a simple second order system composed by a spring, mass and damper. The springs provides elasticity to the mass which in this case represents the body of the aircraft and its passengers; the damper, also known as shock absorber, makes the impact on the airplane weaker by dissipating the concentrated kinetic energy and the mass provides the inertia force for the system which is key in any type of motion.

As it was experimented using the landing gear prototype and Simulink, graphs were produced and mathematical calculations were performed in order to analyze the response of the system under conditions like underdamped, overdamped and critically damped conditions while changing the inputs of the system.  As we want a system that quickly response to transient response and reach a steady state value with small settling time, we tend to prefer a over damped dumper for our landing gear prototype.

In addition to the mechanical system a distance sensor and motor was also attached to the landing gear prototype which gives the system an element of control signal, to release the wheel as the mechanism approaches the ground level.

With regards to the different types of inputs, when there is a step input of 1 being applied to the X displacement, the Y displacement changes accordingly with different values of zeta, damping ratio. As it is shown in the graph, Y should reach the steady state in the shortest period what happens when the least amount of disturbance is observed.  In other words, it is desirable that the consequent output has a value that is relatively close to the input. As we follow to the ramp input, the different responses from different values of zeta are observed. We can also observe the time delay between the input and output response as it is the area between the two responses. The response increases proportional to the time.  The error between the input and output is gradually decreased as the output slowly reaches the steady state value. 

With the impulse response the system’s oscillations quickly variate from maximum to minimum values. However, this difference becomes smaller and smaller as the transient response dies out over time as the output reaches a steady state value. Finally, with the sinusoidal response, if the input is sinusoidal, the output will be sinusoidal as well, but the value will be shifted by theta what can be easily observed by looking at the graph inserted in this report.