Please don't look at me...

dear fellow soldier, contrary to the popular notion, you are not so easily replaceable

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Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or

Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

first of all i gotta say that it's not actually canon that he's from Illinois. the show is just "generic American small city" for his hometown and the fandom took context cues from other parts of the show and decided "Fuck it Illinois makes sense" and just kept that.

But I guarantee you, nothing about the show makes sense when you look at it too closely so take everything with a grain of salt. Yes I'm looking at you, Timeline.

the teenager in question is also kind of a ghost, hence part of the reason why the other ghosts are picking fights with him. He arguably picks a bunch of the fights himself.

it's not just the entirety of the Ghost Zone that get put into the antagonist role in the show either. Danny's other antagonists include:

A literal billionaire (who is also a ghost) (and gets himself elected mayor)

his parents (literally ghost hunters. who also fight the ghosts.)

a circus ringmaster with mind control and reality bending artifacts

Classmates at school who bully Danny

the closest thing we get to an adult who is on Danny's side is Mr. Lancer, who also supports the school bullies

the ghost who impersonated a school counselor and was literally in the role of Danny's therapist for a bit that one episode

A U.S. government agency

a girl he dates was actually being controlled by a dragon ghost and didn't actually want to date him. Have fun with that fallout kid.

the girl he dates for a bit who *wanted* to date him also shows up in costume to shoot him on sight.

his clone shows up and is supposed to be his enemy. he adopts her instead. yes those pronouns are all correct.

she's not really an antagonist but one of his best friends arguably kills him twice. once very much on purpose.

his other best friend and whatever happened in King Tuck.

like it's not enough that this show puts Danny (and friends) against the regular ghosts and the God-Like Being level ghosts and the literal Ghost Tyrant King guy

he can't even catch a break at home either

kid's literally surrounded by people deliberately or accidentally making his life harder, there are no safe Adults, there are barely any safe friends, and he is fourteen and half dead.

and his parents canonically want to rip his alter-ego apart "molecule by molecule" i am not kidding with that one.

Like they made us a sandbox of a Nickelodeon cartoon and just half assed it by grabbing a bunch of two-by-fours, nailing them together... and then sticking them on the beach.

and then people still get mad when the fandom shows up to build sandcastles and dig to china. Yeah, we know they didn't make it That Deep on purpose.

He's never safe.

Home, school, the zone, hanging out with friends, walking down the street, in anotger state; there is nowhere for Danny to go and be safe.

Most ghosts he's met (pretty sure everyone but Frostbite and Pandora), his parents, his friends, Vlad, Jazz; there is almost no one who has not at least once been his enemy.

Can you imagine living like that? At any moment of any day, anywhere he is anyone; even one or both of his best friends, his sister, his mom and dad; anyone could turn around and suddenly become someone he has to fight.

No, wait, hold on. There's a thought.

Y'know that common thing where we make Danny have a slower heart rate because ghost boi?

So, that's supposed to be true. As a halfa he should have a steady heart rate around 20bpm in both forms. And originally that was true after his body settled into its new healthy after the accident. But by the time anyone team Phantom thinks to actually check that stuff just in case, Danny is already Stressed™ 24/7, so they inaccurately judge his baselines to be in perfectly normal human ranges. Like, 70bpm at rest and 120 immediately after ghost fights.

The fandom gets creative because the show either deliberately or not, puts Danny in absolute batshit situations and tries to sell it to us as normal. He became evil in a timeline because he cheated on test once and it dominoed from there? Come on. The fandom basically takes the show apart (molecule by molecule) and comes up with insanely creative ideas to explain some of the trends

Bucky cradles her to his chest like the precious bundle of joy that she is, one hand carefully supporting her butt while the other bestows generous ear-scritches upon her. He tucks her in his jackets and hoodies, lets her curl up in the crook of his arm when she jumps up on the bed to claim her morning kissies, and he often puts her in one of those baby slings so he can keep her close and have her fuzzy little head within kissing distance all the time, while she purrs the day away in a state of perfect bliss. Alpine adores him. He calls her "baby" and "his best girl", and she regales him with her softest mrrrp's and mrrow's in return - and when she gently rubs her head to his cheek, Bucky's world instantly feels a little brighter.

Steve, on the other hand.

Steve wears her like a scarf, her long fluffy body slung around his neck, hands holding both ends so she won't fall off. Steve carries her under his arm like she's a baguette, her butt to the world, her head tucked just below his armpit, and she never even complains (not after the first ten times anyway).

Steve play-wrestles with her, winds her up good and then lets her swat her paws at him, all soft fur and righteous fury, and he plays up the punching sound effects when she hits his palms, all the while going "Come on girl, get in here, show me whatchu got," and "Pow pow, thwap boom fshhhhhh, oh no, oh no she got me, I'm going down, Sergeant Stinkass Fishbreath is too strong for me, nooo!". Steve likes to spin her in circles on the floor, and Alpine loves it - in fact, if Steve is around and failing to give her the required attentions, she screams at him with that blood-curdling yowl of hers until he finally gets the hint, grabs her with one hand and turbo-twirls her at maximum speed, like a feather duster in a salad spinner.

“…Hello?”

i do enjoy drawing for an au that i havent even finalized the plot for so half of these drawings may not happen in the fic. if i ever actually write it. self indulgent art for myself. anyways, wild and twilight first meeting before the apocalypse even happens

Edit:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/86681886

Some extremely self indulgent doodles that involve me crossing over whatever currently interests me, which in this case is Baldur's Gate 3 and Legend of Zelda. Featuring some of the awkward or concerning interactions that Link has with his new teammates.

Some notes about BG3 Link:

Much like botw/totk Link, he's selectively mute; he'll respond when prompted but is otherwise happy to stay quiet and let others take the lead. The more stressed he becomes, the quieter he gets

His class and subclass are not up for debate, that's just how I'd class him to mimic the style of dive-bombing enemies that I do when I play botw/totk

He's probably closer to a hexblade warlock or eldritch knight that can bind their weapons; alas there is no master sword here to bind, so Link is free to class himself as chaotically as he likes

He wakes up depowered in a mindflayer pod and wants to know what he did to the goddesses that caused this to happen a third time

He sees mindflayers and immediately assumes that they are to octoroks what fish are to Zora

He is frighteningly susceptible to the suggestions of the Dream Guardian, especially if the Dream Guardian looks like Zelda

He doesn't know what vampires are but retains a healthy fear of chickens

The lack of horses in-game is emotionally devastating

Immediate kinship with Karlach and Wyll; enjoys cooking with Gale

Uncannily good at puzzles

He saw the cave bear in the goblin camp and immediately decided he wanted to ride it, and then was mortified when the bear turned into a giant elf

Transcript:

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox or librewolf (open-source fork of firefox) instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega instead of google drive

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

get free stuff with the help of r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH, r/piracy and r/roms

use trakt (for shows and movies), letterboxd (just movies), or TMB instead of IMDB (owned by amazon).

use storygraph instead of goodreads (owned by amazon).

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause, ecosia, or ocean hero to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, or tuta instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use project gutenberg for free public domain books, and librivox for public domain books and audiobooks

use the seal app (android only) to download video and audio

use ellipsus instead of microsoft word or google docs

use mastodon instead of twitter

use peertube to create a network of small video hosting providers (disclaimer: not a 1:1 alternative to youtube)

use threema and signal for encrypted communication, on mobile and desktop

use qwant and startpage for secure internet browsers

use syncthing to securely transfer files between devices

learn how to jailbreak your kindle/ereader if you have one (wiki and video walkthrough)

use riseup’s email and VPN for secure communication (aimed towards activists)

use cryptpad and collabora instead of the microsoft office suite

use google takeout to export the data on your google account

use library extension to look for books on online stores and find them at your library

remove paywalls with removepaywalls

install the open-source adblocker ublock origin

install sponsorblock to skip sponsored segments on youtube videos

use bookfinder to look for the cheapest available listings of books, including textbooks

learn a language through mango (duolingo laid off some of its employees and now relies on AI translations) for free with a library card or through your school

edit photos with photopea

edit pdfs with foxit and sumatrapdf

download music with doubledouble

take notes offline and collaborate securely with obsidian

for android tv, use smarttube and cloudstream (ad-free, open-source)

change your OS to linux

Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential. 

So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’ 

1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust! 

2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:

a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it! 

In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support. 

I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose

b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me! 

c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface

d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)

e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them

f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics. 

g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper. 

h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more. 

And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc. 

This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah. 

Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks. 

https://youtu.be/NBE-RTFkXDk

Astrologers helped design the study

No one did better than random chance, even though they only included people in the study who are experienced with astrology and stated that they expect themselves to do better than random chance

They gave every astrologer a set of 50 things about a person and 5 birth charts to choose from. They weren’t even coming up with the chart themselves!

After taking the test, most thought they nailed it. Zero out of 152 did better than 5 out of 12. None nailed it

Astrologers who rated themselves highly experienced (“world class experts”) did the same or worse as those who said they have limited experience. Both performed the same as random chance

Then there's Shinichi who treats Kaito's heists as a break from the daily murder cases because 'No one ever gets hurt at Kaito KID's heists.' He's kicking balls at him with his shoes cranked up to full power. Shinichi is NOT holding back. All that for a thief who doesn't even keep the things he steals. Talk about going overboard.

FHR log I drew these days and a wip. There's also another one under read more for spoiler