actually you know what. i'll make a post outside of the fic too. sort of losing my mind that, when cleo and etho were doing stuff they hadn't done before as a last hurrah in their episodes, cleo took etho to burn stuff down. you know, given etho's previous track record and motif with fire. and he has so much fun doing it! he's laughing! he's making jokes about it!
then the thing that etho takes CLEO to do. is to take wardens to the surface and dodge them! it's a very not-cleo thing to do because she wouldn't even know how to do that mechanically most likely, and also it's a level of risk beyond anything she'd normally pull in the life series before a desperate hail mary. and she ALSO has fun! she has such a good time!
it's just. they both share parts of each other that neither of them would have experienced without each other. and then they have so much fun with it.
and then they die. which is why they bothered sharing those in the first place.
this series, man,
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"The world's coral reefs are close to 25 percent larger than we thought. By using satellite images, machine learning and on-ground knowledge from a global network of people living and working on coral reefs, we found an extra 64,000 square kilometers (24,700 square miles) of coral reefs – an area the size of Ireland.
That brings the total size of the planet's shallow reefs (meaning 0-20 meters deep) to 348,000 square kilometers – the size of Germany. This figure represents whole coral reef ecosystems, ranging from sandy-bottomed lagoons with a little coral, to coral rubble flats, to living walls of coral.
Within this 348,000 km² of coral is 80,000 km² where there's a hard bottom – rocks rather than sand. These areas are likely to be home to significant amounts of coral – the places snorkelers and scuba divers most like to visit.
You might wonder why we're finding this out now. Didn't we already know where the world's reefs are?
Previously, we've had to pull data from many different sources, which made it harder to pin down the extent of coral reefs with certainty. But now we have high resolution satellite data covering the entire world – and are able to see reefs as deep as 30 meters down.
Pictured: Geomorphic mapping (left) compared to new reef extent (red shading, right image) in the northern Great Barrier Reef.
[AKA: All the stuff in red on that map is coral reef we did not realize existed!! Coral reefs cover so much more territory than we thought! And that's just one example. (From northern Queensland)]
We coupled this with direct observations and records of coral reefs from over 400 individuals and organizations in countries with coral reefs from all regions, such as the Maldives, Cuba, and Australia.
To produce the maps, we used machine learning techniques to chew through 100 trillion pixels from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites to make accurate predictions about where coral is – and is not. The team worked with almost 500 researchers and collaborators to make the maps.
The result: the world's first comprehensive map of coral reefs extent, and their composition, produced through the Allen Coral Atlas. [You can see the interactive maps yourself at the link!]
The maps are already proving their worth. Reef management agencies around the world are using them to plan and assess conservation work and threats to reefs."
-via ScienceDirect, February 15, 2024
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THIS ISN'T A ROAST. It's some thoughts and backgrounds on a thing that's been eating my brainworms for a bit.
haha ok so, the last few years I've been hearing a lot about how AI can be useful and a tool, which i refuse to believe it is (and if so, the damage it causes to artists FAR OUTWEIGHT any benefit).
So, there's this youtuber that covers, like, tech and stuff. When generative AI for images and text came up , they were rightfully poking at the ethical dilemma, and copyright infringement, but STILL made a soft argument about how useful it can be on pitch ideas, concepts, and other things that quick and cheap art could be used (also fuck whoever did this jobs before i guess lol)
BUT THEN an app finally did the same for music, generating indistinguishable quality music. The said youtuber makes music, usually vibe check music to hear on video's background and such.
but see
this time they were frustrated, and made a video about the ethical concern, how unfair it is, how it destroys the effort and passion of creating and all, and did NOT make an argument about how it could be useful, because now they knew that despite the benefit, if it goes off, their dreams is over.
A lot of people are quick to jump into "this can be useful" for generative tools, and very rarely i see artists, especially digital artists, agreeing with this. And most that do either have no stakes on their careers, aka they're already well off, or have no careers to begin with.
Serious artists KNOW how bad it is, no matter what. The youtuber had no stakes in visual art. They doesn't make them, they don't really profit or benefit from making them.
When it came to a thing they DO understand and make, now they've got to understand why it's bad. Why the benefits are not good enough to justify the disaster it makes on artist's life, on the humankind development as a whole.
idk what the point is here, i just really got pissed that at the point, they've been really kinda "this is bad but this exist, who knows, could be good if it's not unethical etc", to go fully into "this is bad. like, real bad for everyone here and music industry".
Wish that understanding came from their kindness, not AI coming with a baseball bat to their knees. Makes me real sad that it came for them too.
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It's been so fascinating to see how strongly people react to Toshiro in Dungeon Meshi. When I first read that scene I didn't feel hurt by Toshiro's rejection of Laois at all, I was more shocked at Laios raising a hand to him in anger because Laios had always felt like a man free from such anger and aggression. Although it was very powerful to see that Laios was capable of feeling such a way. I felt the scene was very emotionally charged and an important moment for both characters.
So when I started hearing about how hurt other people were at seeing Toshiro lash out in frustration towards Laios, and seeing people express discomfort towards Toshiro I was surprised but not confused. Honestly I was more surprised at myself for not having a similar reaction because I have also been subject to being led on in "friendships" that the other person secretly despised (or at least did NOT feel the same). It can be very hurtful to discover that someone has built a resentment towards you but never made any attempt to clear the air with you until a point of crisis.
I am autistic and I struggle a lot with relationships but in this instance I didn't see myself in Laios' shoes (although I have been there) instead I found myself relating to Toshiro. A man trapped by social expectations, rigid rules of engagement hammered into him from a young age, only to discover that there is someone who does not follow these rules at all. Even more bizarrely they seem completely free from any of the consequences that would befall Toshiro if he ever deviated from his carefully cultivated mask.
I can say from experience it is confronting to try and unpack your own high masking trauma while also feeling compelled to support the low masking autistic person in your life. Even if the other person means no ill will and has not truly done anything wrong, having them unknowingly walk all over you can be enough to push you to a breaking point. There is an intense frustration that comes with seeing someone else get away with not following the social rules you have beaten yourself painfully into shape to fit.
Yes Toshiro could have chosen any moment to correct Laios on his name, or clarify his discomfort or his personal boundaries, but that is operating under the assumption that Toshiro feels safe enough to do so. He is a stranger in a strange land, and often in that position it is a safer choice to subject yourself to a level of discomfort simply to keep the general peace. Where my fellow high maskers at? We make biting our tongue a fucking art.
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I love Canon Remus and all of his flaws. Enough of this "Casanova of Gryffindor Tower" BS, Remus is the cowardly lion of Gryffindor tower. He values bravery because it is something that he lacks and yet still strives to be. He has an ingrained sense of shame and self-loathing and an inferiority complex that stems from society's contempt and marginalization towards Lycanthropy, a condition he was cursed with from a very young age. He wasn't a leader, he was a follower. A blind follower who believed to his core that he was unworthy of love and respect because of what he was.
Which opens the door to what I believe to be Remus' greatest flaw: His unwavering, unquestioning devotion to Albus Dumbledore.
I think Remus saw Dumbledore as the perfect encapsulation of Good. He was everything that Remus desperately wanted to be, everything that society was determined to believe a werewolf could never be. And maybe, if Remus could earn (and cling to) Dumbledore's favor and make him proud, he would prove to the world and himself that he is Good, too, in spite of his lifelong curse.
Remus felt that he owed Dumbledore a debt he could never hope to repay for allowing this chronically ill little boy into his school when no werewolf before him had ever been given such an opportunity. So many of Remus' choices in canon stem directly from this imagined debt that he had dedicated his life to paying. Hell, he didn't even hold a grudge against Snape for OUTING HIM to the entire wizarding world simply because Dumbledore trusted him.
Remus trusted Dumbledore wholeheartedly. And Dumbledore personally saw to Harry's placement with the Dursleys. Why should Remus have considered, for even a moment, that Harry wasn't safe? Certainly far safer than he would have been with a monster in close proximity, as Remus believed himself to be. In his mind, staying away from Harry was what was best for Harry. Until Dumbledore needed a favor, that is.
It's reductive to suggest that Remus failed Harry (and by extension, James) for putting his trust in Dumbledore to do right by Harry. James and Sirius trusted Dumbledore, too. They all did. Stripping away all of the nuance and blaming the abuse Harry suffered on Remus is simply unfair. NO ONE helped Harry, not even those who were fully equipped to do so, and Remus was the farthest thing from being equipped to take that on, what with being an impoverished werewolf living in a society that reviles his very existence. The only person who could have saved Harry from the abuse was the very man that placed him in that home, the very man that Remus revered with blind conviction.
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