Intermediate instructions

Sephiroth is an interesting, complicated, complex, character who serves as a direct foil to at least two different characters within the story he resides- and technically he's only half white/white-passing because his dad sure is Asian, but the other two are 100% white.

And there's really no reason Seph, Aerith, and Zack can't be black. In fact, in the remake, Barrett being the party's only black guy is the next most sensitive to the planet's fluctuations of the humans, so there's even a strong implication that Barrett *being black* is closer to the Cetra than any of the rest of the party, which means Aerith *really* has no reason to not be at least half black.

And yet Aerith gets derided and abused by the fandom for being a woman (there's also no reason that any of these characters can't be women BUT I digress), and Barret gets completely ignored and neglected for being black.

Alabaster shares a lot of traits with Sephiroth- he's even described as handsome and thin and lanky within the narrative, and is just a little bit older than Seph at that. He shares much of the same traumas, he copes much along the same self-destructive lines, and he commits much of the same acts of mass destruction albeit in slightly different contexts due to the slightly different way their worlds work. The trope is very strong with both, and the major difference is that Sephiroth *didn't know and finds out and breaks* vs Alabaster who *did know and broke a long time ago and finally has had enough*.

But actually, their major difference is that Seph is extremely pale, almost artificially doll-like (much like Alabaster's beloved Antimony), while Bast is dark, dark, dark skinned, almost true black instead of brown, so black he's basically blue-black. They point out the irony in naming such a dark skinned man after a white stone more than once. He himself thinks it's funny. There's an implication that *he* named *himself* that.

Every time I say there's no reason that the innocent and somewhat naive and traumatized little girl can't be black, I will think of Damaya. Every time I see a Sansa Stark or Yennifer, I will think of Syenite. Every time I play as a woman whose entire life has been torn apart and she just has to keep putting one foot in front of the other because her only other option is to curl up somewhere and let herself die, I will think of Essun.

There's no reason these interesting and complex characters can't be black. There's no reason they can't be women. Hell, there's not even a reason they can't be trans- not with the plucky and nerdy and bubbly Tonkee.

1) Figured this out.

Built over 1,000 years ago in the dead center of an ocean of sand dunes, nobody actually knows who constructed this circular fortress. This is Ksar Draa in Timimoun, Algeria. An ancient architectural marvel whose true origin story is completely lost to time.

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for false claims in its AI-generated search overviews. In this case, Google's AI had wrongly linked two publishers to scams and shady business practices. The court treated the AI overviews as Google's own content and rejected Google's argument that users were responsible for fact-checking the results themselves.

It seems Google's best defense is that you're not supposed to believe what they tell you, much like Fox News claiming to produce entertainment rather than news, but that perversion of freedom of speech legalizing disinformation under the disguise of "artistic work" may only be possible in the US.

We NEED to talk about this scene because it shape-shifts when you watch the movie a second time???

On your first viewing, when Grace leaves the party to join Stratt on the deck, you’ve been following Grace's POV for the whole movie. You can feel how he's trying to break the ice and connect with Stratt via humor: "Permission to come aboard, captain?🫡"

And Stratt being Stratt kills the joke immediately: "You’re already aboard." And by killing that joke she also kills his attempt at connecting with her. That's her thing. You feel it in the knock-knock scene and you feel it here because Grace is feeling it. He stammers and he's nervous ("Talk too much, that's my problem, like right now"). His attempt at human connection is painfully unrequited (again).

When you finish the movie, you learn, however, that that is not true at all. You hear Stratt's voice crack when she has to do what she has to do, and you realize how her carefully constructed armor fractures because of him. He is not nothing to her.

And when you (inevitably) watch the movie again, and your POV is not limited to Grace's anymore but you can shift your view to Stratt ever so slightly, then suddenly the whole connecting-via-jokes business drops away to make room for the metaphorical meaning of "coming aboard".

"It is okay to be in your space? Am I allowed to be closer to you?"

And her answer?

He is already in her space, behind her defenses, and he doesn't even realize it (blissfully unaware about SO many things in fact). He is asking to be allowed inside the house while standing in the damn living room.

Of course watching a movie a second time will always deepen your understanding of the characters, but it's remarkable that Stratt's answer does not just gain a more differentiated level of meaning. Instead, it is transformed into it's opposite, from a very clear "I am not letting you in" to an equally clear "You've come in uninvited a long time ago", and both can be true at the same time!

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!