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reasonsforhope · 8 months

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Holy crap, I didn't think Biden would be able to get the Climate Corps established without Congress. This is SUCH fantastic news.

"After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.

In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ more than 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.

The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.

Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.

“After years of demonstrating and fighting for a Climate Corps, we turned a generational rallying cry into a real jobs program that will put a new generation to work stopping the climate crisis,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environmental group that has led the push for a climate corps.

With the new corps “and the historic climate investments won by our broader movement, the path towards a Green New Deal is beginning to become visible,” Prakash said...

...Environmental activists hailed the new jobs program, which is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal...

Lawmakers Weigh In

More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale.”

The lawmakers cited deadly heat waves in the Southwest and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.

Democrats called creation of the climate corps “historic” and the first step toward fulfilling the vision of the Green New Deal.

“Today President Biden listened to the (environmental) movement, and he delivered with an American Climate Corps,” a beaming Markey said at a celebratory news conference outside the Capitol.

“We are starting to turn the green dream into a green reality,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal legislation with Markey four years ago.

“You all are changing the world,” she told young activists.

Program Details and Grant Deadlines

The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to prevent catastrophic wildfires; and energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said.

Creation of the climate corps comes as the Environmental Protection Agency launches a $4.6 billion grant competition for states, municipalities and tribes to cut climate pollution and advance environmental justice. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants are funded by the 2022 climate law and are intended to drive community-driven solutions to slow climate change.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the grants will help “communities so they can chart their own paths toward the clean energy future.”

The deadline for states and municipalities to apply is April 1, with grants expected in late 2024. Tribes and territories must apply by May 1, with grants expected by early 2025."

-via Boston.com, September 21, 2023

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sleepy-writes-stuff · 14 days

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DP X DC PROMPT #28

(#) = Notes at the end of post

✦

Chartreuse

Due to the high levels of ambient ectoplasm, all the citizens of Amity Park gained a permanent change in eye color. They don't glow or flare in response to rampant emotions like true ghosts or the halfas though. They're just an unnaturally bright yellow-green.

The thing is, nobody else on Earth has this eye color, and it's never been seen in the human race until the recently graduated Amity Parkers started branching out to other cities to find jobs.

Nobody paid this any mind at first, though. Many just thought the individuals liked strangely colored contacts or it was a trick of the light. It's not until Danny and Tucker are both hired for positions in Wayne Enterprises that questions start popping up.

At first, the other employees thought the two might be related. It could happen, it's not that strange. However, when both of them said they're nowhere near related, just childhood best friends, it left everyone confused. If they aren't related and they aren't wearing colored contacts, then what are the odds of too completely unrelated people having the exact same strange and unseen eye color?

After a while, everyone just stops asking questions. After all, both men are easy to get along with and are excellent at their jobs, so a strange eye color isn't really something to complain about. Their stares were just a bit more intense than most people, and honestly, they've seen stranger things.

It helps that they've started seeing other people with the same eye color popping up in celebrity, sports, and activist circles. (1)

However, It's not until the power goes out during a late meeting/presentation, and Tim Drake accidentally turns on and shines his cell phone light into Tuckers eyes, that he starts seriously digging.

Needless to say, the animal-like green shine of his pupils scared the shit out of him and got him wondering if two of his new employees were part of a previously unknown alien race that'd recently settled on Earth without anyone noticing. When he looks into the middle of nowhere town they came from, this idea is even further cemented when he sees every person he finds a photo of have the exact same shade of chartreuse eyes. Ignoring the ghost rumors and "sightings" as just a strange tourist trap for the strange little town to make extra income, he brings the info he found to the other bats and birds.

They aren't exactly welcomed when they go snooping around Amity Park, unfortunately... (2 & 3)

✦

Now. To make this a bit more cracky, when confronted, do Danny and Tucker just come clean or do they milk the idea of them being aliens for all it's worth? (4) Add in a few strange, but perfectly normal for them, things they do that have people scratching their heads and make the assumption even worse/more irrefutable. This includes the unexplainable eye shine Tim discovered.

✦

(1) Paulina became a supermodel and is coveted for her striking eye color and beautiful complexion. Dash became a coach for a well known college in Metropolis, while Kwan became a fitness trainer and sponsor for health related items that actually work, also partnered with the college Dash coaches at. Sam became a notorious environmental activist and is the enemy of many companys who are determined to turn the world into a toxic wasteland. With the help of Danny's parents, she's found many eco-friendly chemical compounds that dissolve many of the toxic substances damaging ecosystems around the world. Etc, etc.

(2) Ectoplasm exposure has made everyone a bit more territorial over the town, including their protectors. They don't need outside heroes/organizations interfering with their work and don't/won't take kindly to the sudden interest hero organizations gain over them and their strange little town. That hasn't worked out too well with other government sanctioned organizations in the past and they don't want a repeat, thank you.

(3) Maybe Team Phantom even established themselves right around the same time or even before the Justice League was formed and they just flew under the radar until now. Maybe Amity Parkers feel a bit superior due to their seniority in having an excellent team in the know about the supernatural/non-human side of the world/universe? Who knows? You pick! Amity Park has been through a lot by themselves, so it's no shocker if they have an extreme amount of solidarity towards those they call their own.

(3 cont'd) Also! Since Amity Park has become so rich and saturated in ectoplasm over the years, they were eventually annexed/became an outside part of the Ghost Zone. Jack and Maddy are border patrol and any ghosts coming through need a passport now. Amity Park is basically a vacation hub for ghosts? Ghosts can freely roam the streets, they just don't wreak havoc anymore. That'd basically be terrorizing their fellow citizens at this point anyway and that's a no no. That means jail time with Walker. Amity Parkers also aren't afraid anymore and in fact CAN hit back now. This does not stop the Bat Clan and eventually the Justice League from thinking they're a town full of aliens tho. Some are just more human looking than others. Or they've been on Earth and procreating long enough with humans that their hybrid offspring have also started looking more human, is the ongoing conclusion.

(4) The Anti-Ecto Acts are not an issue here! Team Phantom already dismantled and annihilated the GIW years before they even thought of leaving Amity Park on its own. Before graduating highschool even. Yes, Team Phantom is perfectly self-sufficient and able to handle their own problems and have kept the city-wide ghost infestation pretty isolated outside a few events that were handled quickly and with the world none the wiser. So the world is still pretty ignorant of the existence of ghosts/the Ghost Zone. Would Team Phantom and Amity Park prefer to keep it that way though?

#dp x dc #dc x dp #everyone in amity park's eye color changed to chartreuse/yellow-green #the rest of the world finds this strange but it's whatever #weird things happen all the time in the dcu #tim thinks danny and tucker are part of an alien race #amity parkers are territorial over amity park because of radioactive green juice in the air #amity park is now part of the ghost zone just an outside part #competent team phantom #retired team phantom sorta #they're still on call if a new ghost shows up and gets any ideas but other than that they hung up the capes and ghost hunter gear #amity parkers are also feral enough to handle their own problems now #team phantom might as well be retired heroes turned annual trainers for new ghost hunters/liminal police recruits #danny phantom is NOT ghost king #danny phantom crossover #dp x dc crossover #dp x dc prompt #dpxdc #writing prompt #prompt

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olomaya · 8 months

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My Sims are getting political! After so many months, I'm going back to finish up my Politics/Community Activist mod. This is actually what my Student Council mod is based on (it's basically a baby version of the Poltiics mod.) My current Sim, Arie Wang (I forgot where I downloaded this sim from but she's lovely and perfect for this storyline I'm playing out!) is in the Community Organizer career which is an Active career (like Firefighter or Stylist) and right now is working hard to push a new law in that will increase University scholarships and grants for all students.

Arie is a member of the New Earth party, one of the 4 political parties I created. New Earthers are all about the environment and focus on pushing forward environmental policies but as a mom, education is something that Arie cares about so she's been out there trying to encourage people to vote and hoping to sway voters before election day.

Different political parties have issues that they are either strong in favor of or against. If a party is against the policy, it's near impossible to sway them to vote for it so it's best to target people who are neutral and could vote either way.

I'm happy with how this customized ITF layout is coming out though I still need to make more tweaks and edits and also figure out why the active Sim's photo isn't showing (as below). Maybe also changing the title (Local Political Scanner??)

After probably doing about 40 fundraising cold calls she finally got someone to donate money. And boy did they! She's at the point in her career though when she doesn't need to be doing calls so I'm going to have her get some volunteers to do the grunt work so she can focus on making friends in City Hall to build further influence.

Once a ballot measure is put up for vote, you have 5 days to campaign before voting day. Arie has been hitting the streets every day to canvas for votes, doing campaign calls and also raising money for the party to pay for advertising (TV, radio, online, print) which is the most effective way to sway voters.

Yesterday, I added in a VFX to show when a Sim has been successfully influenced either for or against the ballot measure in question and in testing it out, I saw that Arie has actually been campaigning AGAINST the measure this whole time! Oops!

I clearly messed up with a bool somewhere but at least the influence system is working as intended.

With 7 hours until the Election period begins, and all the time and money I've spent on campaign ads, it looks like I've just accidentally doomed my town to expensive education until I can repeal the law. The Free Llamas are not going to be happy.

Also, shout out to Stable Diffusion which I used to create the Political Party Icons. I'm obsessed with this tool and loved how they turned out.

#wip #political activism mod

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sugarmarbles21 · 8 days

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Something needs to said about the smear campaign against climate activists who are against apartheids too

I don’t care if this is not a big thing, but I am very frustrated with the apologists who targets anyone who calls them or the Zionists on their crap to save face! We know that they went after all those students who protested against their schools dealing money with Israel and they definitely have gone after Norman Finkelstein many times because he’s the biggest expert on Israeli colonialism who isn’t a Palestinian as far as I know.

Why are they acting like it’s such a surprise that Greta decided to join the pro-Palestine movement? She hates it when people destroy the environment for profit or pure stupidity and the Israeli fits both criteria here.

If you’re wondering why the movement is an environmental too: They drove the Palestinian crocodile to extinction and probably some other species too. They have been ripping up olive trees for decades now, because the “barbarians” shouldn’t have nice things. They have dropped bombs all over Gaza, destroying everything that can grow food and poisoned the ground water with all the chemical weapons they have been using illegally for months and I still believe that they intentionally killed off most of the marine life around the coast just so that the Palestinians couldn’t fish to feed themselves. To summarize my rant: Israeli government=bad for the planet!

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #rottmnt #israel #jerusalem #israel is a terrorist state #i stand with palestine #social justice #anti imperialism #end the apartheid

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 8 months

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IOTA Reviews: Action

So, this is a interesting one to talk about. Not only is this the first episode in all five seasons to not be written or directed by Thomas Astruc in any capacity (though the other three writers on his team, Melanie Duval, Fred Lenoir, and Sebastien Thibaudeau still wrote this one), not only is it not connected to the ongoing plotlines of Season 5 in any way, but this episode was made with the help of the Breteau Foundation.

For those who don't know, the Breteau Foundation is an organization that works together with schools by giving children access to technology for their lessons, helping them with their psychological needs, and teaching them about ways to protect our environment. This episode was even made available on the Breteau Foundation's website for free in addition to educational materials meant to teach kids about recycling.

Yeah, when we were kids, we got excited whenever the teacher played an old episode of The Magic School Bus or Bill Nye the Science Guy in class, but nowadays, TV shows are producing episodes of their shows specifically so they can be shown in class. And I'm not talking about those half-assed science lab worksheets with pictures of SpongeBob on them either.

The point I'm trying to make is that there was clearly a lot put into this episode, and it's all for a good cause to help teach children about how to protect the environment in order to ensure a better future... and of course, I'm still going to make jokes about it, because I'm just some schmuck on the internet who isn't backed by a major educational foundation.

Let's get into the 27th episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Action

We start off with Marinette and Adrien heading over to the Liberty so they could be told about the pollution in the Seine River by their class' resident environmental activist, Myl—Nino, I mean, Nino. No joke, Nino gets more lines in this episode than Mylene does, even though ever since Season 2, Mylene has been established as the one to protest polluting the environment. I get that she already had a lot of screentime in an earlier environmental episode (Mega Leech), but why would you have Nino be the one to help spearhead this protest instead of Mylene? Hell, the plot of another episode started from him trying to get him and his friends out of helping Mylene plant trees for the environment (Party Crasher), so this makes even less sense.

I should also get this out of the way by pointing out a few continuity errors in the episode. For one thing, Marinette is stuttering around Adrien when she had mostly gotten over that issue after “Derision”, Kagami is now one of the avatars for the Alliance rings, something that had been established in “Revelation”, and the episode mentions that the Alliance rings are made of plastic when the season finale shows that they're actually made of metal. I don't want to harp on this too much, as this episode obviously wasn't meant to really tie into the main plotline so it would be easier for kids who aren't familiar with the show watching this episode, seeing how this was meant to be viewed as a standalone story. Besides, compared to other plotholes in the show like the ones I'll cover next time, these are fairly minor.

Nino tells Marinette and Adrien, and by extension, the audience, that the Seine River is full of pollution, and the Liberty has recently been converted into a makeshift water treatment plant. The problem is that with a recent increase of plastic in the Seine, it's becoming harder for the Liberty to filter out all of it. Hey, here's an idea: Maybe don't set up your homemade water treatment plant in the longest river in Paris.

The reason for all the new plastic comes from a recent ad campaign promoting some vending machines that sell these paper fans that were designed by Gabriel and are sold by a man named Bertrand King, who looks like a cross between Willy Wonka and Colonel Sanders, down to having a southern accent in the English dub.

Nino suggests that Adrien talk to Gabriel himself, but as usual, Adrien doesn't think he'll listen, so the kids decide to go to Bertrand King's company while picking up an order for plastic containers for the Dupain-Chang bakery... even though I'm pretty sure most bakeries store pastries in paper instead of just plastic.

Nino has the others dress up in disguises, but like most of his plans this season, it fails miserably, so Marinette comes up with a little story about Adrien meeting up with Bertrand. The kids make an impassioned presentation to Bertrand, asking him to help change the way he operated his business like making his fans out of more biodegradable materials. Surprisingly, the man whose entire livelihood revolves around selling plastic doesn't want to listen to the people saying everything his company is doing is wrong.

Bertrand: This is all intentional. It's the wonderful cycle of throwing away and buying again that makes my fortune. If people didn't throw away and buy new items again then I, Bertrand King, would no longer be the King of Plastic! So, there is no way any of this is changing.

Wow, a rich person in Miraculous Ladybug turning out to be a total jerk? What an unexpected turn of events.

Bertrand points out how much plastic is used in everyday society, using pens and the Alliance rings as an example, and seeing how we cut to the next scene afterwards, we can assume he had them thrown out. Oh, come on, you couldn't even parody The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air like you did during “Migration”? The kids then try to go to Andre and Gabriel for help protesting the fans, but because one's a corrupt politician and another helped make them, they won't do a thing. Marinette tries to ask Nadja, the local news anchor, but because the ad revenue from Bertrand's company funds the channel she works for, she can't do a thing or else she'll be out of a job.

This leads to the kids deciding to do the sane thing and HACK THE NEWS BROADCAST SO THEY CAN MAKE A SPEECH ABOUT POLLUTION.

Because it's not like Marinette and the others could have just gone to another news network with this story or uploaded it to the internet instead, right? And sure, scowl at the camera while you're giving this presentation too. That won't make you look like a bunch of eco-terrorists at all. The kids give a presentation about how dangerous plastic is, and how people can use fans made of more biodegradable materials like bamboo instead. Also, we get cameos from Jess, Aeon, and Fei, but they're pretty much there just to remind viewers that the New York and Shanghai specials happened.

Of course, the episode's following RWBY Volume 8 logic, so rather than view them as a bunch of lunatics who hijacked a news broadcast, the public immediately turns on Bertrand's company, arguably faster than what happened with Andre in “Mega Leech”. Speaking of, Andre and Gabriel change their opinions to make themselves look like they were always against Bertrand, and seeing how this episode aired after Season 5 ended, didn't really sit too well with viewers.

Bertrand calls out Gabriel for lying, but Gabriel doesn't care, secretly using this as an opportunity to akumatize Bertrand into King of Plastic through his pen.

King of Plastic has a pretty underwhelming design. It's clear that the intent was to make him look like plastic, and there is a noticeable reflection on his body, but other than that, it doesn't really fit the anti-plastic moral. I think maybe if they did more to make his movements seem more stiff like a living doll, or at least make him look less like he's made of candy, it could work more. The Miraculous power this time is the Bee Miraculous' Venom, which he can use through one side of his lance to stun any victims so he can use the other side to turn them into plastic statues. It's sort of like the dollmaker episode of Arrow, only we don't get to hear the sound of anyone's esophagus hardening.

King of Plastic makes short work of Andre and the local police squad, and Adrien is forced to put teaching Marinette Mandarin on hold so he can transform into Cat Noir, while Marinette transforms into Ladybug as soon as she's alone. After he transforms Adrien's bodyguard into a plastic statue, King of Plastic fights Ladybug and Cat Noir, eventually transforming Cat Noir's staff into plastic too. Even though he was originally akumatized to get revenge on Gabriel, King of Plastic leaves the Agreste Manor and heads to the Liberty to get revenge on Marinette and Adrien's friends instead... for some reason. Even the episode points out how weird this is.

Cat Noir: Didn't you want to take revenge on Gabriel Agreste?

Ladybug: He probably has more than one enemy.

After following King of Plastic there with Cat Noir, Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, getting a plastic bag. Because it's already made of plastic, it can't be transformed, which gives Ladybug an idea. She tells Alya to activate the Liberty's water treatment function, intentionally overloading it before Cat Noir Cataclysms the engine. This jettisons the collected plastic and overfills the deck of the Liberty, trapping King of Plastic so Ladybug can break his lance. So in an episode meant to teach kids about how dangerous plastic is, the day was ultimately saved by plastic. I'm sure that won't confuse any kids watching this in class.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, tells Bertrand about how dangerous plastic is, and he immediately vows to change his company's ways before Ladybug gives him a Magical Charm as useless as a plastic toy before she uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage.

The episode ends with Bertrand funding the repair of the Liberty before vowing to change the way his company operates, as do Tom and Sabine, who now sell their products in eco-friendly containers. Unfortunately, with all the renovations being made to his company that come with moving away from plastic, Bertrand had to stop funding this groundbreaking cancer research institution in America in order to prevent his company from going bankrupt.

Anyway, this episode was pretty good. I honestly didn't have a lot of problems here. The plot was pretty straightforward, the themes of how easy it is to perpetuate companies that damage the environment were handled pretty well, and the main characters were pretty active.

Even the greedy corporate asshole meant to be a stand-in for real life executives was handled pretty well, having some quirks that make him stand out while showing how ignorant he is to the situation without making him completely insufferable. This episode could have easily gone the Captain Planet route with Bertrand, but they showed he wasn't intentionally endangering the environment because he felt like it, but rather, because he cared more about his company making money, even showing him ultimately realizing the error of his ways.

If there's one problem I had, it's with the way the Akuma fight was resolved. I get that any other Lucky Charm wouldn't have been immune to King of Plastic's plastic powers, but I feel like weaponizing the plastic the heroes spent most of the episode fighting against in order to stop the Akuma sort of muddles the message the episode is going for. It's not the worst way to resolve an Akuma fight, but it just bugs me personally.

While I still think “Mega Leech” did a better job with the environmental message, overall, this episode did a pretty good job teaching the moral it set out to teach.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... ANDRE (THE OTHER ONE)

Shockingly, nobody really acted that stupid this episode. Yeah, the kids were pretty naive thinking they could make Bertrand change his company's way of production, but still took action when that didn't work. Andre, on the other hand...

While Gabriel and Nadja had their own reasons to support Bertrand (Gabriel for Monarch reasons and Nadja for financial reasons), the only reason Andre went along with the fans polluting the environment was because they happened to have his image as one of the designs, and when the public started to turn on Bertrand, Andre acted like he always opposed him, and when confronted with an akumatized Bertrand, begged for his life like a coward and said he would reinstall the fan vending machines. While I guess it's better than having Chloe be the primary supporter of Bertrand's company, I need to reiterate that this aired after the last few episodes of Season 5 tried to place Andre in a more sympathetic light.

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rawrsatthetree · 20 days

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I think the best way to tackle a Modern AU for BG3 isn’t to make it a slice of life but to some how combine the elements of a collage drama, organized crime, a dooms day cult, and an alien invasion all into one coherent plot.

I do not know how to do this but I do have some ideas. All the characters have no reason to associate with each other until they’re all abducted by aliens, wormed, and released back into the wild like a bird that just got tagged. Everyone kind of writes it off as either a bad trip or a dream until the cross paths and the worm does the connection thing. Eventually bringing them all together with a few people investigating the invasion to get to the bottom of what’s happening.

Wyll is a pre law student mostly against his will to appease his dad. He wants to help people but doesn’t necessarily want to be a cop like his father the chief of police. He half asses his classes because he doesn’t have much passion for them, blowing them off to volunteer in clubs and community outreach programs. I think Mizora should be either a professor, Dean of students, or academic advisor. In exchange for favors she alters his grades pushes him through the system. Little does he know she’s also idk involved with a crime organization and her favors go from small and perverted to slowly becoming more dangerous and criminal. He’s young and she has a lot of power over his future and could even expose him as a fraud and an accomplice to his father so he feel helpless to defy her.

Astarion is a law school drop out but that’s old news. You’ll find him prowling the local bar and club scene looking for potential clients. After a string of bad luck and poor life choices he’s a prostitute and drug dealer for a local gangster in the Black Hand gang only known as The Vampire (I know I’m so creative). Cazador’s deal is still the pretty much the same local rich public figure is secretly a very cruel and evil man who uses fear and addiction to control his underlings.

Karlach worked as muscle for the leader of the Black Hand gang before she was forcibly sold and enlisted as a mercenary over seas. After a ten years fighting in foreign years she’s back and ready to get her revenge on the whole Black Hand cult unfortunately she has to do it quickly because (ok idk I tried doing some research and couldn’t find any condition caused by an injury that can suddenly become fatal idk maybe cancer from a bullet or shrapnel)

Gale isn’t a professor but like a doctorate student on a tenure track, but bordering on the mad science kind of research. He’s in an abusive relationship with his over seeing faculty Mystra. Ultimately a lab accident during his research leads to the orb.

I think Lae’zel should still be an alien. She was abducted on another planet and escaped while the earthlings were being tadpoled. Now she’s stranded and tadpoled on a strange planet.

Halsin is a university professor and a local environmental activist. He’s been investigating strange occurrences and is onto the alien invasion thing.

I’m honestly not sure about Shadowheart. She should definitely be college age. But I’m not sure how to approach the shar thing.

Not sure about Minthara either except maybe military turned death cult member.

Jaheira and Minsc are cops investigating the alien invasion I’m so sorry not like real world cops but like fun fictional cops that only exist in movies. Boo is their police dog. OMG wait no they’re Park Rangers!!

Other stuff

The dead three chosen are instead three gang leaders. Except Bhaal cult also doubles as a murder cult still on top of being a criminal organization.

The alien invasion is still the mind flayer grand design.

I don’t think the dead three are controlling the mind flayers this time. Instead they’re using the strange alien invasion occurrences as grounds to start a dooms day cult or maybe they are idk

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #astarion #bg3 astarion #baldurs gate astarion #balur's gate 3 #bg3 modern au #bg3 au #baldurs gate 3 modern au #bg3 wyll #bg3 gale #bg3 karlach #bg3 lae'zel #bg3 halsin

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lorcandidlucienwill · 6 months

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ACOTAR characters' job occupations if they existed in the modern world

Lucien Vanserra: He'd be an ambassador of course. Nesta Archeron: Secretary of State Eris Vanserra: State Senator who runs a dog shelter on the side :) Elain Archeron: Environmental scientist and activist Feyre Archeron: A painter Tamlin: A musician, of course Tarquin: A marine biologist Nuan: A prosthetist Helion: A supermodel (duh) Beron: CEO of a pharmaceutical company, the dick (with a little illegal drug trafficking business on the side) Lady of Autumn: The trophy wife :( Thesan: Doctor. And his lover is a veterinarian. Alis: Nurse Cassian: A military man of course! Azriel: part of the Secret Service Rhysand: The corrupt PM/president of a nation who somehow won despite nobody voting for him (it's voting fraud, guys) Morrigan: Some kind of baroness or duchess or some shit. Screams old money. A social media influencer through and through. Amren: Nobody even knows. They suspect she's some kind of assassin, but they're all too scared to ask her. Spreads word of the "old ways" to anyone who will listen. Kallias: He's Viviane's manager of course :) Viviane: Olympic snowboarder Jurian: a psychologist (after everything HE has seen? He's perfect!) Vassa: Secretary of Defense Emerie: Business-owner Gwyneth Berdara: Pastor

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renthony · 3 months

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From the article:

Christine Louis-Jeune knew she was home when she saw ash falling from the sky and onto her windshield. She hadn’t been back to her central Florida hometown of Belle Glade in six months. She was both exhausted after a six-plus hour drive from Tallahassee and excited to tell her parents about her first semester at Florida A&M University. But as she saw the dark clouds of smoke, all she could think about was how to get out of the car without getting ash on her clothes or in her lungs. She looked for extra masks in her glove compartment. She began to worry about her family, and hoped they were safely at home with all the windows shut. Her homecoming had been darkened by what Belle Glade residents call “black snow” —ash and soot that fall on the low-income communities south of Lake Okeechobee (also known as the Glades) during the six-month sugarcane burning season. Every year from October to March, farmers in South Florida set fire to over 400,000 acres of sugarcane fields in preparation for their harvest. Residents of the surrounding, predominantly Black towns have long complained of the accompanying smoke, and research has indicated adverse impacts on health. Community organizers and environmental experts propose green harvesting as an alternative to this widespread and controversial practice.

#florida news #climate news #environmental racism

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sterekchub · 3 months

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Derek works as a trainer at an aquatic amusement park. The whales are rubbing off on him.

I’m picturing a park stuck in the 80s. The local aquatic park that should have been closed 10 years ago, and back in its glory days was overflowing with guests. And now it sits luckily to see 100 guests a day, with 80s lighting and fake plastic plants around the walkways, with the dolphin tanks empty.

Stiles is an environmental activist who comes by on weekends- their busiest days, to protest. The staff all know him by name.

Including Derek, nephew of the owner and reluctant whale “trainer”. He has no experience or education on animals other than having worked in the park since he was young. They do the best they can, but failing attendance means falling revenue, and they cut corners where they can. It also means their one orca whale left in captivity isn’t going to have a tank mate anytime soon.

But the whale shows are still one of their few draws. So three times a day on weekends, Derek pulls on his 80s wetsuit and stands by the tank throwing fish into the water for the orca to catch, and lecturing the crowd about whale facts that he could recite in his sleep.

Stiles was at his latest show, which was usual: he had always protested from outside their gates and Peter had made it pretty clear not to allow him further in.

“I thought you didn’t want to support this place?”

Stiles grins. “Who said I bought a ticket?”

“I could have you arrested. You better not be here to vandalize anything.”

“Maybe I just had questions about whales.”

Derek snorted. If not wasn’t on his prewritten script, he didn’t know it.

“You know they do better in packs, right?”

“She was a rescue and her 2 packmates died.”

“So why keep her here?”

“We are a business,” Derek sighed. “We have to make money and whale shows are the only thing that bring people in. No money, no animal care or rescue. All our animals get the best medical care and treatment.”

“That you can afford.”

Derek walked away. Stiles didn’t follow him. That night, he dreamed he was in the middle of the ocean, alone with no one around. Tired of swimming, he decided to open his mouth, but instead of drowning he found himself filling up with water like an expanding water balloon.

***

Stiles started making a habit of coming to each of his shows. And every night after, Derek would have strange dream.

“Did you know male orcas weigh about 5 tons?”

“Rosie is a female.”

A disconcerting grin. “I know.”

That night Derek dreams his wet suit is stuck during one of his shows. He tugs and pulls and when it does finally come lose, waves of blubber come spilling out. It takes him a few minutes to realize that it’s all *him*- a belly that hangs to his knees, moobs sagging down on top it, and love handles and side rolls that seem to stack on top of each other endlessly….

***

“Some orcas eat 500lbs a day.”

“She only eats 200-300 pounds.”

“Maybe you don’t feed her enough.”

“Maybe you should work here,” Derek shot back, “since you seem to know everything.”

That night he was walking up to Rosie’s tank…except instead of seeing her, or seeing any water at all, the tank enclosure was filled with nothing but comically large foods . Derek found himself climbing up the ladder and throwing himself in, landing on top of a burger bun, which cushioned his fall….

***

“Orcas have been known to eat seals or even penguins.”

“We don’t feed her penguins. Or seals.”

“Why not?”

“Go home, Stiles.”

He can’t seem to get out of his dream. He’s in bed, and when he goes to move he finds he just…can’t. Feels heavy and weighed down and even his arms don’t seem to want to move. He opens his eyes and all he sees is a flesh colored mountain obscuring his view, pushing up against his chins, making it hard to breathe..::he wakes up gasping for air and is late to work in the morning.

****

Two weeks after Stiles first visits into the park, Derek comes into work to see a crane over the orca tank.

Peter looks less upset than Derek thought he would be losing the star of their park.

“Could try and get dolphins back.”

Peter shakes his head. “I’ve been having some words with that activist and….I must say he has some compelling ideas.”

“An animal free aquarium doesn’t bring in customers!”

“Don’t worry, nephew. This is a first of its kind idea….”

****

Derek wakes up that night to a bag over his head and someone binding his hands and dragging him out of bed.

***

A year later, a brand new sign is added to entrance to the whale stadium and tank. “Opening Next Month: Hale the Human Whale!”

Stiles sits in Derek’s old wetsuit by the feeding pen, where Derek is sitting in shallow water, no more than six feet, cheeks swollen and mouth closed around a feeding pump. Stiles checks the tank, remarking “good job, Der! Only 50,000 calories left” before jumping into the water and starting to massage and oil Derek’s mounds of blubber to try and reduce the new collection of stretchmarks that seemed to appear overnight.

After months and months of being pumped full of high-calorie slop, Derek stopped protesting. He was just a ideal whale. It had been so long since he had been able to move let alone walk, and now he could roll over and float around in this shallow tank.

When the feeding tank was finally empty, Derek rolled over and let his food swollen belly hang down, the sheer weight and pressure of the nearly half ton ball of lard take off his back. Belly rumbling, he opened his mouth and let out a long, deep belch.

Stiles laughed. “Sorry, I don’t speak whale…and now you’re fed, time to train!”

Derek was too full to care about how humiliating it was to roll over and do tricks command. He liked food. He needed more food to keep him pleasurably full and aching and increasingly heavier and heavier.

Stiles held a bucket of shrimp and said “roll!” Derek obliged, the movement causing his stuffed gut to protest and another rumbling burp escaped.

“Speak!”

“Want….more.” Derek grunted. Stiles tossed him the entire bucket and he finished it in a matter of seconds. After a few more minutes of lazily bobbing around in the water, Stiles pushed him back towards his feeding tube.

“Eat up. Show opens in a month and you need to be at least a ton by then… can’t have people thinking we don’t feed our animals!”

Derek was too busy eating to hear him.

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aimportantdragoncollector · 7 months

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I was waiting until I had a really dramatic prompt aND I FINALLY THOUGHT OF ONE SO LET'S GO

How about a no-quirks AU where AFO is a woman and she marries Second/Third just for political gain? Say Second is the heir to a major weapons developer or Third is the reluctant new head of a certain branch of government—something where their parents could (be manipulated to) set them up with someone else powerful and they wouldn't be able to say no.

Thus Second or Third's tragic and tense crash course into meeting Yoichi! :D

(You can also shuffle the others' genders around if you'd like I just figured AFO would have to be at multiple disadvantages to consider marrying Second or Third even for personal gain lmao)

Female AFO is fun!

1. Yoichi and All for One are both women in this AU, because I want to explore some sisterly dynamics. They're born into a wealthy Japanese family. Their father owns a major weapons development company and very much wanted a male heir. However, he had fertility problems and it took numerous expensive treatments just to have Yoichi. Their father never let Yoichi forget that she was supposed to be born a boy, and although AFO was the perfect heir in every regard, she was never good enough due to not having a dick. Their mother was weak-willed and unable to stand up for them.

2. Yoichi was a sickly, neglected child and AFO became very protective as a result. As children they were very close. By teens, Yoichi had started to feel inferior toward her favored, brilliant, and beautiful sister. As young adults, they fought because Yoichi had ethical objections to the family weapons business.

3. The Shigaraki father started pressuring AFO to get married from a young age, because he's desperate for a grandson. AFO resisted until their father drew up a document to leave the company to Yoichi instead. This could have been a bluff, but on the other hand, the Shigaraki father would loudly go around saying he'd rather see his company destroyed than in the hands of a woman, therefore if AFO didn't give him a male heir than he would let Yoichi dismantle it. (Seriously, this idiot thinks he's King Henry VIII with all this talk of heirs.)

4. We're increasing the tropes to the max in this AU. Second is the bastard child of a weapons development CEO. He was raised by his grandmother. His family called him back as heir after the legitimate son came out as gay and eloped with his boyfriend to Europe. Second didn't want anything to do with them, but his grandmother needed expensive medical treatment so he had to agree. AFO negotiated a merger of their companies (a major accomplishment) and she asked to marry their son to seal the deal. No one consulted Second before marrying him off.

5. Yoichi has an enormous crush on Second, who's an environmental rights activist and the author of her favorite book. She's secretly devastated her sister is marrying the guy she loves, feels too inferior to say anything, etc.

6. Second is very grumpy about being forced into this marriage and rude to Yoichi when they first meet. (More tropes!) However, AFO can't be bothered to plan this wedding due to running the company and keeps throwing Yoichi and Second together to handle the arrangements. Yoichi and Second fall in love, but there's a lot of angst over Second needing to marry AFO to save his grandmother. This culminates in a grand scene with Yoichi screaming "I object!" in the middle of the wedding, then running off with Second.

7. Here's where it gets really interesting. This was all a massive gambit from All for One. While the Shigaraki father is having a breakdown over the public embarrassment of the failed wedding, AFO takes over his company and has him marched out of his office by security. AFO got Yoichi to sign papers giving up any rights to the family business, using guilt-tripping over the groom theft and promising enough money to fund an overseas operation for Second's grandmother. From the beginning, AFO knew about Yoichi's crush and picked Second figuring he would run off with her little sister and thus leave her unmarried, free, and in a great negotiating position with his family to claim compensation. AFO has been deliberately throwing Yoichi and Second together. After all, she's a good big sister who wants her little sister to have whatever makes her happy.

8. AFOs across the multiverse would be screaming at this one for setting Yoichi up with Second. But female AFO doesn't care. She's just sitting on her massive pile of money, planning how she will use this to guilt-trip Yoichi for the rest of their lives, and laughing at her male alternates for totally lacking any subtlety.

(All of my ask game AUs are free to use in my Three Weeks of Trioholders event.)

#bnha #ask game #All for One #Yoichi Shigaraki #Second One for All holder #Third One for All holder #Three Weeks of Trioholders #5 headcanons game #closed ask game #Female All for One #Duo holders #Ichinii

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reasonsforhope · 3 months

Text

Hazel Chandler was at home taking care of her son when she began flipping through a document that detailed how burning fossil fuels would soon jeopardize the planet.

She can’t quite remember who gave her the report — this was in 1969 — but the moment stands out to her vividly: After reading a list of extreme climate events that would materialize in the coming decades, she looked down at the baby she was nursing, filled with dread.

“‘Oh my God, I’ve got to do something,’” she remembered thinking...

It was one of several such moments throughout Chandler’s life that propelled her into activist spaces — against the Vietnam War, for civil rights and women’s rights, and in support of environmental causes.

She participated in letter-writing campaigns and helped gather others to write to legislators about vital pieces of environmental legislation including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, passed in 1970 and 1972, respectively. At the child care center she worked at, she helped plan celebrations around the first Earth Day in 1970.

Now at 78, after working in child care and health care for most of her life, she’s more engaged than ever. In 2015, she began volunteering with Elder Climate Action, which focuses on activating older people to fight for the environment. She then took a job as a consultant for the Union for Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization.

More recently, her activism has revolved around her role as the Arizona field coordinator of Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. Chandler helps rally volunteers to take action on climate and environmental justice issues, recruiting residents to testify and meet with lawmakers.

Pictured: Hazel Chandler tables at Environment Day at Wesley Bolin Plaza in front of the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, in January 2024.

Her motivation now is the same as it was decades ago.

“When I look my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, my children, in the eye, I have to be able to say, ‘I did everything I could to protect you,’” Chandler said. “I have to be able to tell them that I’ve done everything possible within my ability to help move us forward.”

Chandler is part of a largely unrecognized contingent of the climate movement in the United States: the climate grannies.

The most prominent example perhaps, is the actor Jane Fonda. The octogenarian grandmother has been arrested during climate protests a number of times and has her own PAC that funds the campaigns of “climate champions” in local and state elections.

Climate grannies come equipped with decades of activism experience and aim to pressure the government and corporations to curb fossil fuel emissions. As a result they, alongside women of every age group, are turning out in bigger numbers, both at protests and the polls. All of the climate grandmothers The 19th interviewed for this piece noted one unifying theme: concern for their grandchildren’s futures.

According to research conducted by Dana R. Fisher, director for the Center of Environment, Community and Equity at American University, while the mainstream environmental movement has typically been dominated by men, women make up 61 percent of climate activists today. The average age of climate activists was 52 with 24 percent being 69 and older...

A similar trend holds true at the ballot box, according to data collected by the Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan organization focused on turning out climate voters in elections.

A report released by the Environmental Voter Project in December that looked at the patterns of registered voters in 18 different states found that after the Gen Z vote, people 65 and older represent the next largest climate voter group, with older women far exceeding older men in their propensity to list climate as their No. 1 reason for voting. The organization defines climate voters as those who are most likely to list climate change, the environment, or clean air and water as their top political priority.

“Grandmothers are now at the vanguard of today’s climate movement,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project.

“Older people are three times as likely to list climate as a top priority than middle-aged people. On top of that, women in all age groups are more likely to care about climate than men,” he said. “So you put those two things together … and you can safely say that grandma is much more likely to be a climate voter than your middle-aged man.”

In Arizona, where Chandler lives, older climate voters make up 231,000 registered voters in the state. The presidential election in the crucial swing state was decided by just 11,000 votes, Stinnett noted.

“Older climate voters can really throw their weight around in Arizona if they organize and if they make sure that everybody goes to the polls,” he said.

Pictured: Hazel Chandler’s recent activism revolves around her role as the Arizona field coordinator of Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

In some cases, their identities as grandmothers have become an organizing force.

In California, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations formed in 2016, after older women from the Bay Area traveled to be in solidarity with Indigenous grandmothers protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

“When they came back, they decided to form an organization that would continue to mobilize women on behalf of the climate justice movement,” said Nancy Hollander, a member of the group.

1000 Grandmothers — in this case, the term encompasses all older women, not just the literal grandmothers — is rooted at the intersection of social justice and the climate crisis, supporting people of color and Indigenous-led causes in the Bay Area. The organization is divided into various working groups, each with a different focus: elections, bank divestments from fossil fuels, legislative work, nonviolent direct actions, among others...

“There are women in the nonviolent direct action part of the organization who really do feel that elder women — it’s their time to stand up and be counted and to get arrested,” Hollander said. “They consider it a historical responsibility and put themselves out there to protect the more vulnerable.”

But 1000 Grandmothers credits another grandmother activist, Pennie Opal Plant, for helping train their members in nonviolent direct action and for inspiring them to take the lead of Indigenous women in the fight.

Plant, 66 — an enrolled member of the Yaqui of Southern California tribe, and of undocumented Choctaw and Cherokee ancestry — has started various organizations over the years, including Idle No More SF Bay, which she co-founded with a group of Indigenous grandmothers in 2013, first in solidarity with a group formed by First Nations women in Canada to defend treaty rights and to protect the environment from exploitation.

Pictured: Pennie Opal Plant has started various organizations over the years, including Idle No More SF Bay, which she founded in 2013 alongside Indigenous grandmothers.

In 2016, Plant gathered with others in front of Wells Fargo Corporate offices in San Francisco, blocking the road in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline, when she realized the advantages she had as an older woman in the fight.

As a police liaison — or a person who aims to defuse tension with law enforcement — she went to speak to an officer who was trying to interrupt the action. When she saw him maneuvering his car over a sidewalk, she stood in front of it, her gray hair flowing. “I opened my arms really wide and was like, are you going to run over a grandmother?”

A new idea was born: The Society of Fearless Grandmothers. Once an in-person training — it now mostly exists online as a Facebook page — it helped teach other grandmothers how to protect the youth at protests.

For Plant, the role of grandmothers in the fight to protect the planet is about a simple Indigenous principle: ensuring the future for the next seven generations.

“What we’re seeing is a shift starting with Indigenous women, that is lifting up the good things that mothers have to share, the good things that women that love children can share, that will help bring back balance in the world,” Plant said...

[Kathleen] Sullivan is one of approximately 70,000 people over the age of 60 who’ve joined Third Act, a group specifically formed to engage people 60 and older to mobilize for climate action across the country.

“This is an act of moral responsibility. It’s an act of care. And It’s an act of reciprocity to the way in which we are cared for by the planet,” Sullivan said. “It’s an act of interconnection to your peers, because there can be great joy and great sense of solidarity with other people around this.”

-via The 19th, January 31, 2024

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cxcassii · 14 days

Text

*ੈ𑁍༘⋆ merman x human EM au *ੈ𑁍༘⋆

prompt summary:

Mikasa and Eren are both in a marine biology class and are both passionate environmental activists against ocean pollution. Mikasa has always felt extra strongly about the specific subject, more than her friends, more than her family, more than anyone she knew in her life.

The only one to ever trump this passion of hers is Eren. Mikasa just can’t figure out why.

He looks like the opposite kind of person who cares about nature—with messy brown hair, scraggly and lacking a level of grooming in his overall appearance—not to mention he smokes cigarettes. However, it is very apparent in how Eren behaves like ocean pollution is on a personal matter.

Then Mikasa goes on a scuba diving trip—in search to catch some marine photography of rarer tropical fish—when she is suddenly face to face with an all too familiar face.

Eren.

Except he wore no scuba diving gear—instead a flash of emerald green swishes behind him. A tail.

Eren’s a mermaid—or make that man?!

snippet:

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

It was her first day on campus that she initially noticed him out of her peripheral vision.

In the beginning, he was quiet, reserved. At first glance, Mikasa concised perhaps he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

Then she thought twice about that when she noticed him next—after their very first lecture—a cigarette cushioned between two plump lips. The smell caught her nose firstly, not the visual source. Once she looked up and registered the awful aruoma emitting was from him, she chalked him up for an edge-lord emo.

No one else on campus smoked cigarettes—they vaped like most new age nicotine users.

He looked the part. Piercing aligned his ears in rows. His skin, though caramel and tan in the sunlight, is covered with sloppy ink from his assortment of tattoos. His hair was long for a man—stereotypically anyways—and it was messy, nearly always thrown up in a disheveled half-man bun. Then there’s a light amount of stubble above his lip and dusting his chin and jawline. His clothes were usually baggy, looking far too loose on his form, which she caught glimpse of the more she noticed him. Some days he would wear a tight camisole under a baggy jacket, except he wore it down around his waist one day. She noticed how his body ripples with muscles. She thought it was odd that he seemed to go to a good amount of lengths to cover up all that taunt skin he hid under his baggy clothes.

She thought it with suspicion, yet, it was massively unidentifiable. For heaven's sake, Mikasa hasn't even managed to talk to the man yet.

Anytime she gathered enough courage to make an attempt at using the simmering of bubbling sensations inside her chest, her mind raced to come up with something clever to say—before the moment of bravery would disappear next in a blink of an eye. The words stump at her lips, cut off from her tongue, receding back deep into her being. Unmoving.

Somehow, he appeared to sense it. He’d turn his head and meet her eyes. She’d grow so lost in them that she’d completely forget what she was aiming for in the first place.

And what stopped her every time wasn’t his expression or his demeanor. No. It was his inhumanly beautiful eye color. It was otherworldly—unnatural.

Caribbean sea foam green. Though, ultimately his color is not what captivates her attention the most. It was the manner in which his orbs glew.

Unnaturally bright.

Exceptionally distracting with how enchanting their colors glow. She felt drowned in their oases and by the time she pulled herself out of the trance, he was gone. Leaving her feeling dazed and a little confused.

It’d been like this for a month now.

The only emotion she ever saw out of him was when they’d be in the midst of a heated lecture. Where his tone grew thick with respited skepticism and twinged with detested sounding reproach. It was as if he came alive, a fire lit under him. He had this manner of always challenging the professor's teachings. He was severely underwhelmed with how unproactive big corps that have the means to keep waste and pollution to a minimum, how they choose to turn blind eyes. When he spoke like that, a cord had been struck in her.

She learned through unwilling enamorment that the gloomy and yet passionate emo man’s name was Eren.

Eren Jaeger.

That name didn’t have any intention of slipping her mind. Not any time soon.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆

#eremika #エレミカ #merman au #merman x human #modern #cass mer au’s #Cass’s writing #mer May

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