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spacedikut · 3 years

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Derek would ask Spencer to explain how he feels about u to try and get him to understand that he’s in love with you but Spencer would just be like... is that not friendship?

god this idea is so fucking good but. i didn’t do it justice cause i went down a way more serious route :p 1.4k words, gn!reader

the team have been trying tirelessly to get spencer to just... see. what the rest of them see. the longing, lingering looks and requests to work together, the subtle touches that are so sweet in themselves but, with the added knowledge that spencer is Spencer, its...well, the team knows what they see. spencer is just lagging behind a little.

they try a whole plethora of methods. everyone talks to him and spencer either doesn’t connect the dots or simply says “we’re just friends!” and emily gets so frustrated she flicks spencer on the forehead and leaves a mark (i ask you picture pure, innocent spencer sat at his desk, watching emily’s retreating form with nothing but a puppy-dog confused expression and a red dent in the middle of his forehead).

penelope is at her wits end, so derek decides to step up and retry a very basic method: talking spencer through how he feels for you. surely he’s self-aware enough that he’ll hear himself and hear how un-friendlike it all sounds and... tada! love.

but it’s never quite as easy as you’ll think it’ll be, is it?

spencer should’ve known something was amiss when derek asked him if he wanted to hang out and let him choose where they would go - spencer? being allowed to choose where to hang out after work? have you ever heard of something called a red flag?

so spencer chooses a cafe which - immediately, the second they step through the doorway - spencer has a joy to him, telling derek about the last time you and him came here and what you ordered and what you thought of it and all these details that even the most attentive best friend wouldn’t think were anything more than trivial matters. he remembers the shape you tore your napkin into, for goodness sake. in what realm is that friendly behaviour?

then, to make matters worse, spencer, mid-walk to a table in the corner by a large window, abruptly changes directions, making derek almost spill his coffee. spencer apologies, then says they can’t sit in that booth cause that’s where you and spencer sit and - well. that’s your and spencer’s place, you can’t disrupt that! friends! friendly things and friends doing friendly stuff. friendship.

derek gives this scoff that spencer is so used to he barely reacts. when they sit, spencer is acutely aware that derek is staring - furrowed brows and this intense, firm gaze that only appears when he’s thinking. spencer’s only slightly intimidated.

he’s never been able to lie to derek. he’s never been a good liar, period. he’s good at omissions and burying himself and his emotions but, god, if someone asks just the right question, he’ll fold like the cheap deckchair he truly is.

and derek... derek knows spencer better than he knows himself sometimes.

(is there anyone else that has similar qualities? no. of course not. only his best pal derek and not a colleague/very pretty person known as You)

a question. a question is all it takes.

“so, you and y/n come here a lot?”

derek’s starting light and spencer is so enthralled at the mention of you every worry he had about why he’s here with derek and why derek is looking at him like that flies out the window.

“we do! actually, it’s the perfect meeting spot; the most convenient distance between our apartments and we both have favourite drinks here. we’ve become regulars, actually, so we make a habit of coming at least once a week at a minimum-“

and he keeps going, sweetly reminiscing about the first time you visited to the silly games you’ve created - because you’ll spend that long here, sitting opposite each other and just each other - and derek wonders how spencer doesn’t see it. doesn’t see the way he lights up at the mention of you, rambles like you’re a statistic spencer’s known for years and can’t help but bestow on everyone at every opportunity, not to mention the physical reaction he has to you. you’re not even present and spencer is wide-eyed, rosy cheeked, permanent curl to either side of his lips that looks involuntary.

he’s in love with you. his entire self, from head to toe, from mind to soul. everyone can see it, except you and him, apparently.

“they make you happy, huh?”

“well, obviously,” spencer hehs, “they’re my best friend.”

there’s an opportunity here, shyly gleaming from the corner of the conversation and derek digs it out. “you got a definition for best friend, reid?”

spencer’s taking a sip of his drink, but is happy to share his knowledge. he’s not quite as bright when he’s saying it. “a best friend has many definitions. friendship itself is usually defined as a relationship of mutual affection between people - it is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an association, and has been studied in multiple academic fields-“

derek hums, encouraging him to keep going. he’ll get there.

and he does, after delving a little too far into the nature versus nurture debate.

“id consider you a best friend. jj, too. and garcia, of course. except... except with y/n it’s- it’s different.”

derek pretends to be shocked. “how’s that?”

“well... they have all the qualities id want in a friend - honesty, generosity, empathy...humour-“ spencer smiles to himself, small and intimate, remembering an inside joke between the two of you. “but they’re more than that, too. they’re there for me - not-not that you guys aren’t there for me too-“ derek just raises an eyebrow. “but...it’s different, with them. it always is.”

the shift of topic from friendship to you has spencer unfocused on his surroundings, eyes glazed over as he stares to the side of derek, who feels like he’s intruding - he rarely understands what goes on in that big head of spencer’s, vast in it’s knowledge and memories and self-perception, but right now he’s confident he does.

it’s you. he’s thinking of you, the moments you have together - perhaps in this very cafe - that are reserved for spencer and spencer alone, a side of you derek will never know because it’s not his to know; it’s spencer’s, just as spencer is yours.

his voice is level but distant, the warning signs of that magnificent mind finding the pieces and putting them together. “i think-i think about them often. how they are, what they’re doing, if they’re thinking of me too. i know they’re only a text message away or-or, on cases, a few feet away... i guess i don’t want to seem clingy. or desperate.”

“they’d never think that. you know that, right?”

“i know. i-i know that. but-i don’t... i can’t.. i don’t want to risk losing them, i guess. one wrong move and they’ll realise what a-what a complete mess i am. ill unravel and they’ll see all the dark inside and they... they don’t deserve that.”

derek goes to interrupt, because god is spencer wrong, but he doesn’t have the chance.

“they deserve love and laughter and everything i can’t give them if they... if they get too close.” now, spencer brings himself to look derek in the eye. there’s a seriousness there, a solemn stand that spencer doesn’t often take. “i can’t lose them, morgan. i can’t.” his hands tighten around his coffee cup. “i want them here, with me, for as long as i can convince them to stay. i don’t want to be selfish, i don’t- i don’t mean to be, but. i want this. i want them. every day for the rest of my life, i want them. i choose them. im just terrified they’ll see me and... they won’t choose me.”

there’s an expected silence that befalls the two of them, the busting background noise of the cafe the only moving piece. does he get it now? does he understand what has motivated every thought and feeling? every worry and action?

“reid,” derek says, softly, in a tone that has spencer straightening his back. “that’s not... that’s not just friendship. you know that, right? you can see that?”

spencer blinks.

no. you’re friends - close friends, yes, but friends nonetheless.

but he thinks back to what he’s just said -

he’d say the same for jj, right? for penelope, and for derek. even gideon, perhaps.

except... no. he wouldn’t. it’s for you, he’s for you, all of it and all of him.

and then the picture is as clear as day. no fog, no obscurity, no hesitance - and spencer’s relieved. relieved that finally, finally, he can put all of his feelings into one simple sentence.

“im in love with them.”

“yeah,” derek says, leaning back against the booth. “yeah, reid, you are.”

#headcanons #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #i did not.. expect this to be over 1000 words my deepest condolences #mine #i hope at least one person likes this #india if u see this im sorry u had to put up with my breakdown over this woukd u like me to send u flowers #q

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mayakern · 3 years

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No pressure but I'd love to hear some more puppy tips! Im a recent totally independent adult and Id love to get a puppy at some point but def need some info before I take on the responsibility (I had no clue their bladder develops at 5 months even though Ive been researching which is why I wonder if you have any more tips)

sorry in advance bc this is gonna be a LOT of preamble, but any time you bring an animal into your home it’s a huge responsibility and requires a lot of preparation.

so in general i am a huge advocate for adopting adult animals, especially dogs — UNLESS you have very specific lifestyle requirements (like we do). we needed a dog that was good with cats, other dogs, AND toddlers… which is just not a thing you can easily find adopting through a shelter, especially not in our area (NYC residents snatch up all the dogs within like a 5 hour radius) and ESPECIALLY not after covid (when a ton of people adopted dogs). which meant we needed to get a puppy so we could train in the behavior we needed.

we knew we wanted a companion dog for annie and that i want to have dogs forever and that it is a LOT easier to train in a puppy if you have an adult dog to model behavior from. so with our needs in mind, we started looking for a dog that would be compatible both with our lifestyle and with annie’s personality/energy level (she is a mid to low energy sheep dog and can be kind of a crab ass, but she is also very gentle and doesn’t like playing with dogs who are bigger than her). we did our own research and also talked to a couple friends of ours who work as or have worked as vet techs/other dog jobs.

with all that in mind… a LOT of what is good for a new puppy is going to be breed specific. if you’re getting a mutt, this can be difficult because puppies can look like literally anything so you really have no idea what they are until they’ve grown up a bit — and even then it can be tricky. like, we’re PRETTY sure annie is a border collie/australian shepherd mix because she looks like a border collie but acts like an aussie, but mixed breeds can be difficult because even if you’re reasonably certain which breeds go into the grab bag that is your dog, you never know which traits actually made it in. this is part of why standardized breeds can be such a big deal, since temperament is a BIG part of the package.

we got insanely lucky with annie because we knew her original owner so we had already met (and loved) her, knew her temperament, and that she was good with cats and gentle enough that toddlers would probably be fine too.

ALL THIS TO SAY…. the 5 month bladder control is specific to shibas. other puppies might have a similar timeline but i’m not sure. also, in general it’s recommended to take your puppy out with a frequency equivalent to the amount of months they have been alive (so if 2 months, then a potty break every 2 hours). this isn’t exact and you’ll need to get to know your dog. puppies also have very small bladders and relatively little bladder control (and don’t know they need to control it) and depending on the size of the dog, it is very normal for them to need to pee within 10-30 minutes of drinking water. because of this, it’s a good idea to give your puppy periodic planned water breaks and then take them outside instead of just leaving water out all the time. one thing i have done to figure out where rodeo is at is to give him water while we’re at the park (i have a collapsible water bowl and i bring a water bottle for the 3 of us) and then time him from when he drinks to when he pees, since in that situation he has total free reign over his potty time.

puppies need a LOT of recreation and in addition to walks, they need mental stimulation. scent games are invaluable for this!! i like to scatter a mixture of kibble and treats (in small sizes) across either the backyard or a safe portion of park and let the dogs sniff out and forage. they LOVE this shit. it might take some patience with a puppy if you don’t already have an adult dog to model the behavior, but once they get it they love it (especially if you use a treat they love). i literally cannot recommend this enough, it gets out SO many puppy beans in one go and i get to just chill behind them and like play phone games or call a friend. once your dog is used to this you can gradually decrease the ratio of high value vs low value treats for this, but puppies get bored easily so i recommend like… high mid value, if that makes sense. like you don’t need to give them hot dogs for this, but they probably won’t be super pumped for just kibbles. BUT if they ever are good with just kibbies, then you can use this method for every meal and it will make them so tired. it’s great!!

aaaand my last big tip is to clicker train. this can be a bit confusing to read about so i recommend watching videos to familiarize yourself with how it works, but it is SUPER worth it! puppies pick up on reward patterns super fast but do not have a long attention span and might have no idea what you’re rewarding them for if you don’t start them out with a clicker. i can’t speak for less clever breeds, but rodeo picked up the clicker training in the first day and i accidentally trained the corgi puppy downstairs on the clicker too since he and rodeo play together so much lol.

anyway this was a horrifically long post, i hope it helps. honestly i would not recommend getting a puppy unless you can work from home and have a decent chunk of time to dedicate to raising a literal baby (in fur form).

#ask #long post #dog blogging #pet blogging

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laurelnose · 3 years

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Very New to your blog and the posts are probably way old but I saw you do Witcher Biology (??) rants sometimes and Id love to hear your take, if you have one, on what monsters (namely "naturally occurring" ones like draconids and insectoids) contribute to the ecosystem if anything and whether or not they should be hunted into extinction. I was discussing it w/ a friend last night after dealing with Iocaste, the last silver basilisk, and now its smthn I'm Invested in

re monster ecosystems: I just figure theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans but because theyve got no natural predators aside from eachother and arent hunted by anything but witchers , monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ? Ive little knowledge on the subject as a whole but the whole thing intrigues me

hi & extremely belated welcome, anon! my apologies for the length of time you’ve been waiting for this answer; I had to think carefully about how I wanted to respond to this ask, because: there’s a lot going on here. also, because I am a disaster, I ended up posting it to ao3 first while I was avoiding tumblr for a spell and then completely forgot to come back. oops. i’m sorry!! This one’s about 5000 words long, which is a lot for tumblr, so reading on AO3 may be preferable.

The two main thrusts of your first ask (how do monsters interact with the ecosystem and should they be eradicated from the Continent) are questions of invasion ecology, the study of non-native/invasive species and their effects on the environment. Monsters, having arrived on the Continent about 1200 years ago during the Conjunction of Spheres from entirely alien dimensions, are indeed technically non-native species!

However, invasion ecology is…somewhat controversial, to say the least—there are a lot of invasive species, who have a lot of different & complex impacts, and a lot of different ideas about what we might do about any of this, and it’s basically all arguing all the time, so I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to approach the topic. Not to mention that for reasons I couldn’t initially put my finger on, it seemed wrong to apply theories of invasion ecology to the Witcher monsters. We’ll get into it! There are also a couple of common misconceptions/oversimplifications of how ecology works in your second ask which I want to unpack. Hopefully I pulled this together into something that makes sense, and feel free to ask me for clarification!

Some important background facts:

Species have always been moving to and “invading” new places on their own; humans and globalization have accelerated this process into a Big Problem, as the sheer number of invasive species being introduced all over the globe strains ecosystems already under pressure, but “native ranges” are always shifting, sometimes more dramatically than you might expect. If you go far enough back in time, all species are “non-native”.

Because of this, the very definition of “invasive species” is hotly contested. This is why you’ll hear dozens of terms like introduced species, injurious species, naturalized species, non-native species, etc.; these all have slightly different connotations, but all refer to a species that did not originate in a particular location.

An introduced species is usually classified as “invasive” as opposed to “non-native” or “naturalized” if its presence significantly alters the ecosystem it invades; some people define this more narrowly as a species that causes harm to an ecosystem. “Harm” can take a lot of different forms, as every non-native species interacts differently with the ecosystem they were introduced to.

Aside from various potential impacts to human economic activity, most forms of ecological harm by introduced species involve the decline of native species, by a variety of mechanisms; invaders might eat natives, outcompete them for food, interbreed with them, carry novel pathogens, etc. Invasive species are primarily a threat to biodiversity.

Now, here’s my Hot Take:

The Conjunction of Spheres is analogous to real-life ecological cataclysms such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, and thus monsters are not invasive species.

The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event saw the extinction of 75% of all species on Earth after the Chicxulub asteroid hit, including the non-avian dinosaurs. The Earth has had several disasters like this, of varying severity—the Great Oxidation Event killed almost literally everything on Earth except for the cyanobacteria who caused it. These cataclysmic extinction events completely upended existing ecosystems, altering habitats beyond recognition and leaving swathes of niches emptied of life that the survivors could evolve to exploit.

The most recent Conjunction of Spheres on the Continent is supposed to have thrown everyone living on the planet at the time into chaos and darkness; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the interpenetration of multiple spheres caused mass extinction of species living in the pre-Conjunction environment, similar to Chicxulub or the GOE!

But Socks, you might say, evolution works on a massive timescale! It took millions of years to fill the niches left open by Chicxulub, but it’s only been 1200 years since the Conjunction of Spheres! And you are absolutely right*, but the Conjunction of Spheres canonically came pre-loaded with new species. We actually have no proof that any of the animals we see originated on the Continent: if humans are a post-Conjunction phenomenon, why not also dogs? Why not bears? Who’s to say any of those were actually there before-hand? (The elves, I guess, but as they have not, actually, said so, there’s no proof!!)

* FTR, 1200 years is a shockingly short period of time to go from cataclysm that plunged the world into darkness and chaos to functioning medieval-era society considering how long it actually took humanity to build 13 century Europe (horses had been domesticated for at least 3000 years by that time), even if we’re not assuming that most of the ecosystem was destroyed, so, my timeline concerns here are minimal, lmfao. TIMELINE WHAT TIMELINE.

…and actually now that I think about it the three options for the origin of dogs are a) elves or dwarves domesticated them, b) humans brought dogs with them during the Conjunction, or c) dogs have existed for less than 1200 years, and I refuse to accept that dogs are practically a new invention in the witcherverse, wtf.

Anyways: we really have no idea which species are truly “native” to the Continent, or what the physical environment was like prior to the Conjunction. While monsters are not native to the Continent, monsters are also not invasive—there cannot be decline of pre-Conjunction biodiversity or harm to the pre-Conjunction ecosystem because there is no pre-Conjunction ecosystem anymore.

should monsters be hunted to extinction?

So, the thing is, I think we should try to eradicate invasive species from non-native ranges if we can; the biggest problem with that is feasibility, not morality. It’s much more difficult than one might think to eradicate an invasive species once it’s established, and we have to be very careful that the methods we choose don’t have other impacts, but invasive species are a huge threat to the biodiversity of Earth! If monsters are invasive species, then the answer is yes, they should be eradicated from the places they are not native to.

(Notably, on Earth this kind of eradication is not the same thing as extinction; it would be a local extinction, or extirpation, where the species is totally wiped out in the places it invaded but still exists in its native range. This does get way more complicated if the invasive is already extinct in its native range.)

However, I have just outlined a possibility that would make it plausible for monsters not to be invasive species. Let me also outline why I prefer this interpretation. Here is a book conversation between the sorcerer Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt:

“Our world is in equilibrium. The annihilation, the killing, of any creatures that inhabit this world upsets that equilibrium. And a lack of equilibrium brings closer extinction; extinction and the end of the world as we know it. … Every species has its own natural enemies, every one is the natural enemy of other species. That also includes humans. The extermination of the natural enemies of humans, which you dedicate yourself to, and which one can begin to observe, threatens the degeneration of the race.”

“Do you know what, sorcerer?” Geralt said, annoyed. “One day, take yourself to a mother whose child has been devoured by a basilisk, and tell her she ought to be glad, because thanks to that the human race has escaped degeneration. See what she says to you.”

–The Bounds of Reason, ch. 6

This is a, uh, incredibly unsubtle reference to a debate that has been ongoing for decades; Geralt’s stance here is one of the key arguments in opposition to wolf and bear reintroduction. What do we do about large predators that may pose a threat to humans? How do we balance preservation of the ecosystem with the safety of people who have to coexist with these predators?

I can’t fully agree with Geralt, because large predators are integral to the ecosystem, which I value for its own sake and because humans depend on healthy ecosystems. But I can’t fully agree with Dorregaray either, because Geralt is right: human life is valuable and worthy of protecting. This is an issue that India has been running into in the past ten years; as their tiger conservation efforts yield fruit, people become more likely to encounter tigers, and thus more likely to have a bad encounter with a tiger. It’s become a political struggle as rural people who have to actually live with the possibility of a tiger attack come into conflict with urban conservationists who just really want to preserve tigers (& in some incidents, some of those conservationists have been Western, which is a whole additional level of fuckery). The fact is, there isn’t a good answer to this yet! We certainly should not drive tigers, wolves, or any other large predator to extinction, but we also have to figure out a way to keep people safe. It’s something humanity still has to wrestle with.

Under this framing, which CDPR reinforced when they chose to have the Count di Salvaress defend Iocaste as an endangered species while making significant provisions to minimize the damage she could do to human life, there’s far too much baggage attached for me to say yes, monsters should be hunted into extinction. If you’re going to make monsters analogous to wolves, of course I do not think we should get rid of monsters entirely!

And frankly, Geralt doesn’t think so either, despite his hardline stance about monsters that eat humans. Sapkowski isn’t exactly an anti-conservationist; though Dorregaray is shown as out of touch in this passage, at another point the narrative sides with him calling Philippa out on exterminating a species of ermine for her fur collar, and it’s consistently put forth that Geralt’s best quality is that he doesn’t want to perform violence for the sake of it or destroy things without cause, and one of the representations of that is that he refuses to kill endangered species even at cost to himself:

“What should I say about you, who rejects a lucrative proposition every other day? You won’t kill hirikkas, because they’re an endangered species, or mecopterans, because they’re harmless, or night spirits, because they’re sweet, or dragons, because your code forbids it.”

–Eternal Flame, ch. 2

If monsters and other post-Conjunction creatures are invasive species, the nuance in this conversation is flattened, and Geralt’s refusal to kill mecopterans and hirikkas becomes a flaw rather than a virtue. Boring! I also think that one of the strongest themes in the witcherverse is the idea of all monsters being human ills; wraiths are manifestations of hatred, necrophages multiply because of human bloodshed, cursed ones are created out of malice, mages like Alzur and Idarran of Ulivo go out of their way to straight-up create monsters from scratch*, etc. Iocaste attacks humans and takes livestock because the traditional prey of the silver basilisk, roe deer, has been extirpated by human destruction of their habitat. The aeschna in Blood of Elves attacks humans because humans have altered and polluted the flow of the Pontar, hunting the aeschna’s previous food (seals) to extinction. The true monster is the actions of humans. Monsters that appeared unbidden from another dimension into a previously functional ecosystem to invade and cause problems undermines this theme; monsters that are integrated into the ecosystem and subject to the same social and ecological forces as other animals supports it.

* Idarran’s “idr” monsters from Season of Storms absolutely should be eradicated. Did the world not have enough man-eating arthropods, Idarran? Did you really have to mutate horrible new ones and release them in populated areas?? Mages are a scourge, lmfao

Additionally, one of the biggest reasons I felt like I couldn’t actually apply invasion ecology to monsters was that, whether you accept my Conjunction theory as sufficient biological justification for this or not, monsters just don’t really behave like invasive species. It’s hard to explain this because the setting is pretty brief about its ecological details, but aside from the fact that the narrative frames them like just part of the ecosystem of the world, there are never any details like “that type of flower doesn’t exist anymore because giant centipede tunneling destroyed the soil they needed to grow in.” When monsters are the aggressors, their victims are always humans, not the environment or other animals, and again monsters are themselves often treated as victims of human actions.

So I say monsters aren’t invasive species!

Which means that monsters are, regardless of their strange origins, now a part of the Continent’s ecosystem just as much as bears and wolves.

So let’s talk monster ecology.

what do monsters contribute to the ecosystem, if anything?

So, the phrase “contributing to the ecosystem” is actually super loaded, and I want to unpack that before we go anywhere else. Ecosystems are made up of organisms, and organisms interact with and impact ecosystems, but they don’t necessarily contribute to ecosystems! The implication of “contribute” is that it is possible for an organism to not contribute, and it follows from there that some organisms are not useful. This is functionally nonsensical, and also dangerous.

Conservationists talk a lot about “intrinsic value,” which in this context is the idea that we should want to keep species around just because their existence is valuable! Biodiversity is intrinsically valuable. This is important, firstly because I do believe that all species are intrinsically valuable, but also: ecosystems are so enormously complicated that we do not know the full extent of any species or individual organism’s impact, and we can’t predict what the consequences of removing any given species might be. Treating all species as intrinsically valuable is hedging our bets. All organisms affect the ecosystem, because it’s impossible for them not to, and while some species definitely have outsize impact, none of them are “not contributing,” and frankly even if some of them weren’t, it would be the absolute height of human arrogance for us to decide we could tell which ones were useless when we barely even know what most species eat. Mosquitoes are the base of the entire goddamn food chain, and you still get assholes claiming they don’t “contribute anything.” Of course, most people don’t really mean all of these implications when they use the phrase, but I don’t find it useful to talk about what species “contribute,” and avoid using that language if I can!

What I assume you mean by “what do monsters contribute” is a combination of “what roles might monsters play in the ecosystem” and “are monsters actively harmful to the ecosystem, i.e. do they cause loss of biodiversity?”

And this is difficult to answer! As I’ve said, I don’t think monsters are invasive species, and thus don’t harm the ecosystem, though we know that monsters can be harmful to humans. However, when it comes to the role they do play in the ecosystem, there isn’t enough in canon for me to do more than wildly speculate! Also, there are so so many of them, and the role of a hirikka is going to be wildly different from that of a draconid.

Just offhandedly, most of the big predatory monsters can be assumed to fill the same roles as Earth’s big predators, one of the big ones being overpopulation of prey species, which has ramifications throughout the ecosystem. Some of them are canonically ecosystem engineers, or animals that physically alter their environment (think beavers); for instance, shaelmaar and nekker tunneling. Additionally, the big insectoid colonies can’t be relying solely on naturally-occurring caves for their homes; they’ve gotta be constructing some stuff themselves. These tunnels can be repurposed as habitat for other organisms, from giant centipedes to sewant mushrooms. Necrophages, like corpse-eaters in our world, likely limit the spread of diseases from decomposing flesh (and really wouldn’t be as much of an issue if everyone would stop, you know, doing war and mass murder, lmfao). Arachasae use tree trunks and organic plant material to conceal themselves, which is likely contributing to plant reproduction in a few different ways—but the arachasae decorating essay is a different topic that I swear I will finish one day oh my god—

…anyways, feel free to ask about any specific monsters or niches if you’re curious, but if I tried to go into detail with every single potential niche/ecosystem service all of the monsters we know of might fill, we would be here all day!

Let’s talk about a couple specific things you brought up in your second ask.

> theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans

I mean…maybe! That is, yeah, they’ve definitely settled into niches by now, but feeding is way more complicated and interesting than that.

For instance: orcas can eat basically whatever the fuck they want—orcas are fully capable of bringing down everything from fish to seals to gray whales to great white sharks. But they don’t. In the Pacific Northwest, the resident orca pods almost exclusively eat salmon, while the transient pods largely feed on seals. Orcas are kind of an extreme example, but this is something called resource partitioning and it’s a big part of how animals limit competition with one another and what enables lots of predators to coexist in one place!

We see a big fuck-off dragon thing and we assume that it’ll eat anything it can fit in its mouth, and definitely some predators work like that. But just because an animal is technically capable of eating something and deriving nutrition from it doesn’t mean that it will. Silver basilisks made roe deer the staple of their diet before the destruction of beech forests meant they had to turn to humans—which is a pretty specific dietary restriction when there should be multiple species of deer running around, not to mention everything else a draconid could be killing! And given how many types of draconid there are…I have to assume there’s some kind of resource partitioning going on to prevent them all from conflicting with each other! For instance, if basilisks prefer roe deer, maybe forktails prefer wild goats, while wyverns are mostly kleptoparasitic (stealing other predators’ kills).

And of course, not all monsters eat humans at all; harpies steal from and attack humans, so they’re a dangerous nuisance, but they don’t seem to eat them. And in the books Geralt mentions plenty of monsters which are totally harmless.

So yes, there are lots of things monsters could be eating, but it would strongly depend, and there’s a lot of interesting places one can take monster diets! Netflix decided their strigas only eat specific organs, leaving the rest of the body untouche, & I love that for her. More monsters that need a particular kind of nutrition that leads them to take only specific body parts from some kills!

> because theyve got no natural predators aside from each other and arent hunted by anything but witchers, monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ?

Absolutely—invasive species whose populations rapidly increase once they’re away from their natural predators cause the decline of native species, often by eating natives directly or competing with natives for resources. And in fact, even native species who become overpopulated can seriously damage the ecosystem (see: white-tailed deer in the United States, whose overpopulation has such negative ecological effects that some people argue we should classify them as invasive, even though they have definitely been here this whole time).

However, even if we grant that monsters are invasive, it’s a little more complicated than that for a few reasons!

Despite the apparent preponderance of them in the witcher games, most monsters are supposed to be strongly on the decline, like witchers themselves. Geralt’s profession is falling out of necessity; human development of the Continent is going to be the biggest suppressing factor in monster populations in the future. Monster overpopulation is just canonically not a problem in this universe! But even in the scenario where the Inevitable March Of Civilization isn’t threatening monster populations, there are a lot of factors that could and would limit monster populations.

(TL;DR for this next part: yeah I definitely think they’ve figured out their own little circle of life—the term you’re looking for is ecosystem equilibrium, btw!—& I’m going to take the next 1.2k to talk about how.)

For starters, predation is only one among many limiting factors that affect populations & prevent them from ballooning out of control:

food availability: If there’s not enough food, there’s not enough food! It also matters how adaptable the animal’s diet is—silver basilisks moved from deer to humans, but if the eucalyptus went extinct koalas would not switch to eating cycads.

illness and parasites: Some people argue these are more important than direct predation for limiting populations, and I am often inclined to agree. Basically, if a population becomes very dense, illness and parasites spread more quickly, creating a natural limiter on how many animals can live in any one place. The greater susceptibility of some individuals to illness or parasites also winnows down populations. Non-native species often escape a good portion of their native diseases by moving to a new range—however, given how fast bacteria and viruses evolve, 1,200 years is a pretty decent amount of time for new diseases to arise. Also, just going to drop a link to my treatise on monster parasites here. It’s gross, mind the warning at the start of the post.

mate availability: If only a certain percentage of the population is actually able to reproduce, that’ll eventually bring the total number down. RIP Iocaste’s boyfriend 😔

territory/shelter availability: Animals need a certain amount of space and certain types of spaces to survive, and space isn’t infinite! It again depends on how adaptable an animal is; rats find ways to thrive nearly everywhere, but pandas can only live where there’s bamboo. If there’s not enough space to hide from predators, reproduce safely, store food, and avoid adverse weather, the population again limits itself naturally.

natural disasters: Wildfires, drought, flooding, tsunamis, storms, etc. pick off significant portions of wildlife populations. Disasters are sporadic rather than directly linked to population like most of the other factors but these periodic blows to population and the other impacts of fire or flooding are often integral to the ecosystem (see especially: fire regimes and fire ecology.)

Now let’s talk predation & monsters! (Genuinely, I think predation is one of the most interesting things in ecology; people tend to simplify it down to things eat other things, which—yeah, but there’s so much more going on there!)

First, I wouldn’t underestimate the effects of monsters eating other monsters! Even if it’s rare for a draconid to snatch up a nekker and carry it off, the threat of a draconid doing so can have dramatic impacts; researchers found that just playing the sound of dog barks on a beach stopped raccoons from foraging for crabs for over a month after the barking stopped, leading to an increase in crab populations, even though no raccoons ever encountered a dog. This is called the ecosystem of fear (which as a term is metal as hell) and it theorizes that just the fear of predators can lead to chronic stress for prey animals, decreasing reproduction and making them more susceptible to disease. Maybe draconids in Toussaint eat only a few dozen nekkers a year, but that might cause thousands of nekkers to have fewer offspring or fall to disease. When it comes to ecosystems the direct effect is usually only a small part of the story!

Second, when we talk about a species not having natural predators, we’re usually talking about an animal that would have a predator back in its home range—lionfish, for instance, have plenty of predators in their natural range (the Indo-Pacific), but no natural predators in their invasive range (the Caribbean), so invasive lionfish, suddenly freed of a limiting factor, can run amok. However, a great white shark has, aside from orcas (who do not actually eat white sharks, they’re just assholes sometimes) and occasionally other white sharks, more or less no natural predators anywhere once it reaches maturity, and that’s fine! Lack of predation of great white sharks did not cause their populations to explode and consume the ocean. White sharks are limited by other factors.

So: it is possible that wherever draconids originated (and it’s entirely possible that “draconids” came from multiple different places, tbh) there was something bigger that preyed on them, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they were also apex predators in their previous dimension (I mean…look at them), and that adult draconids were never really preyed on by anything else! It isn’t necessarily an issue for there not to be predators of certain monsters on the Continent.

(Though, of course, we also shouldn’t forget that most apex predators are prey when they’re young—baby white sharks are snack-sized for a lot of fishes, and bear cubs and wolf pups are similarly vulnerable. Based on the size of the eggs you see in TW3 draconid nests, a basilisk is hatched around the size of a little dog, which is the perfect size for small, ballsy predators such as wolverines to sneak into a nest and snap them up—predators such as more wolverines or raptors like eagles and hawks might also come directly for the eggs.)

When it comes to smaller monsters such as nekkers, who likely weren’t apex predators in their original dimensions and would thus be subject to that lack of natural predators—there are usually specific reasons why prey species manage to avoid predation in their introduced range. Lionfish confound Caribbean predators because lionfish are covered with huge poisonous spines that Caribbean predators don’t know how to deal with.

Drowners, on the other hand, are basically just man-shaped fish; they don’t have any adaptations or defenses that would really stump a bear or a wolf. Again, bigger monsters are still probably checking the populations of smaller monsters no matter what, but there’s really no reason a bear couldn’t figure out how to eat a drowner! Unless a monster has a unique defense (e.g. scurver spines), is actively distasteful to eat (rotfiends, probably), or is just difficult to take down (nekkers in packs), most of the non-monster predators* on the Continent will have incorporated various monsters into their diet by now, or suppressed monster populations indirectly with the threat of predation or by competing with them for food. It has been over a thousand years, which is nothing evolutionarily but is still a decent period of time for mammals, who pass hunting techniques down to their babies, to figure out how to eat ghouls—especially if we’re considering that the Continent’s mammals may also be a result of the Conjunction and would thus have to have been just as adaptable as the monsters to establish themselves. And I’ve also actually talked before about how wolves specifically might be preying on necrophages!

* For reference, the non-monster predators are, considering the Continent is more or less Europe, most likely lynxes, brown bears/polar bears (in Skellige), wolverines, foxes, badgers, and a variety of large birds of prey.

So—yes, if monsters were truly overpopulating, then that would damage the ecosystem. However, canon tells us they are definitely not doing that, and there are also many factors that would prevent that from happening!

(Though I will say that some of the reasons white-tailed deer are overpopulated are that we got rid of cougars and wolves and human development creates a lot of extra habitat of the type that deer like. Given that we know many of draconids are for sure in significant danger of going extinct, and the trajectory that Europe’s wolf and bear populations followed in real life, it is possible that the Continent will have to contend with an overpopulation of some of the smaller monsters at some point as they continue to try to eradicate the larger predators, both monster and non-monsters—you think the drowner problem is bad now, wait until the bears are gone and city development has tripled the number of sewers. Yet another of those humans-make-monster-problems-worse things I am fond of in the Witcherverse!)

…whew. that was a lot of words. In conclusion: ecology is really cool & there’s a bunch of ways monsters can fit into it!!

#kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #and a bit of #witcher book blogging #asks #anonymous

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

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Humans are Space Orcs, “Keeping Secrets.”

Wrote another for you all. Hope you have a good day :)

“But I’m HUNGRY.”

“We don’t have time for that.”

“I’m the commander, I’m your boss, and I say I’m hungry.”

Ramirez turned on his heel going toe to toe with the taller man, “I don’t give one shit if you’re hungry or not, something is wrong with you, so I am taking you back to Dr. Krill and Katie, so they can to a scan of your dumbass skull.”

Commander Vir bared his teeth in a feral snarl held back only by Sunny, who had two of her arms wrapped around his chest. He was being absolutely impossible to control. First it had been other people, largely women, but with Ramirez in the crossfire once, and Sunny taking the brunt towards the tail end. Then it had been the aggression, the heightened need to fight absolutely everyone for the smallest infraction, and then had come the hunger, which he hadn’t shut up about for over a mile now.

Ramirez would have gotten them a taxi, but everything here tended to fly, which made Adam assume that it was his since he was “the best pilot in the known galaxy, so it should be me that flies everything.”

Yeah right, like he was going to let commander jackass fly the plane.

But deep down he was worried. Whatever this guy was, it wasn’t Adam.

Adam was….. Well how about the exact opposite of everything this person was doing, he was shy, and polite, and friendly, and humorous. Even when he got angry or indignant, his actions were usually justified for some sort of reason.

But whatever that thing in the alley had been, it had definitely done something to him.

He glanced down at his implant, and pulled up the tracking device that Krill had managed to weld to the commander’s ribs and found that it did indeed say that the commander was right behind him.

Up ahead they were just stepping onto the docking bay platform where ship shuttles were constantly rolling in from the sky above. Noctopolis didn’t have a station big enough for entire ships to land, so they were going to have to take a shuttle back to the ship. It would be best not to take their shuttle as the other marines would need a way to get back when they finally finished with their carousing, so he finally hailed another shuttle, which pulled to a stop in front of them.

“This piece of junk.” The commander snarled, “I’ve seen better shuttles in junkyards. Look at it, the D-4 coupling. Only some kind of bitch drives a shuttle with a -”

Sunny clamped her hand over the commander’s mouth and Ramirez sighed as the shuttle ramp opened and allowed them to step inside.

“To the station?” the pilot asked turning around in its seat to look at them.

“Yes please.” Ramirez said scanning his implant under the reader for payment.

As soon as that was done, he helped Sunny to strap the Commander into place getting a fat lip for his troubles when the man snuck in an angry knee to the face. Ramirez contemplated ‘accidentally’ closing the five point harness on the man’s junk in retaliation, but assumed it wise not to piss the man off more than he already was.

Sunny still had her hand over the Commander’s mouth, as the roar of the engines started up nearly deafening the.

Sunny yelped in shock and drew her hand back from Adam.

“He bit me!”

He barred his teeth at her, complained for a couple more minutes, though, luckily it wasn’t loudly enough for the pilot to hear. Eventually his messed up brain moved on to a quieter activity, pressed against Sunny head resting on her am.

Ramirez wasn’t stupid.

Had he guessed that Adam had a thing for sunny. Totally, who didn’t, but he doubted that Adam wanted anyone to find out like this. Ramirez honestly didn’t care about what he did in his free time, but he was worried about what would happen to his friend when he came down from whatever freaky psychotic behavior this was.

So, what did he do?

He decided to piss him off some more.

The commander could more easily come back from anger than he could from the humiliating of letting everyone know he was in love with an alien.

“Adam, Fuck you.”

It wasn’t his most eloquent diatribe he had ever given, but it worked pretty well.

Adam turned to look at him face twisted into an expression of murderous rage. Sunny was forced to hold him back as the cursing began and the struggling. Ramirez stayed very calm. He just had to keep him pissed like this until they made it to the infirmary.

They made it off the shuttle without incident, and walked through most of the station. Aside form the man hungrily eyeballing a couple of passing people, and a couple of passing food carts, they made it to the ship.

People came to approach them but Ramirez vigorously shook his head waving them off and out of the line of fire. Commander Vir glared them down as if he intended to fight each and every last one of them.

Sunny practically carried him up the corridor and through the ship towards their final destination.

Along the hallway up to the medical bay they ran into Conn, who took one look at Commander Vir and floated backwards a bit. Whatever was inside the man’s head, the starborn wasn’t to keen to be apart of.

Ramirez ignored that little fact and shouldered the next door open with gusto practically bursting into the medical bay with sunny close behind.

Dr. katie and Krill looked up from their work frowning in confusion as Sunny struggled to make the Commander do what she wanted.

Krill floated up.

“Is everything alright?”

Ramirez shook his head, “Something happened to the Commander. I think he was attacked?”

Both Dr. Krill and doctor Katie stepped forward in concern as Sunny forced him to sit down.

Krill moved forward, and so did doctor katie until eventually the man’s eyes fell on her. They all watched as his head tilted slowly moving up to her face after passing over her body. The look on his face was so uncharacteristic of him that Dr. katie and Krill took a step back.

He licked his lips.

Dr. Katie’s eyes narrowed, and she walked over grabbing him aggressively by the face and turning his head this way and that.

He mewled in pain.

“You are definitely right, something is completely wrong with him. Sunny pinned his hands down as he tried to fight Katie off.

“He got all weird like, started going after everyone, and then he tried to fight the, and then he got all hungry. And he's been aggressive and pissy ever since. I have never seen anyone behave like this ever, and I joined the army.”

“Yes the behavior is completely out of character. What did you say happened before he started acting like this.”

“I think someone may have used a device on him. It was dark, and I didn’t get a good look of the shadow, but I saw some metal, like there was a contraption on his head. Sunny continued to hold the commander down as doctor Katie looked over his head. She completely ignored whatever he was saying, though it did happen to be rather alarming coming from Adam.

“Here, on the scalp, what do you make of it Krill.”

Krill moved forward to take a look leaning in closely for an examination, “Hmmm, yes. Puncture wounds on the temples and under the eyes, very minuscule. Almost microscopic in fact.

Adam bit at Katie’s hand and she pulled back.

The look on her face was one of complete no nonsense as she stepped away grabbed something and then came back.

Adam looks almost shocked when she stabbed him in the back with the syringe.

“What did you give him.” Krill wondered

The concoction was self-evident a moment later as the man lost all muscle tone. Sunny grabbed him and lay him back.

“Combined sedative and paralytic. That should keep him still she said.” Behind her glasses her warm eyes had changed to one of worry. She wasn’t mad at the commander knowing that something had been done to hi to make him behave in such a barbaric manner.

“Call in Dr. Adric will you. He might be able to help us explain at least some of this behavior.”

It wasn’t long before the man slipped into the room honey tones of his dark skin washed out by sharp overhead light. He walked forward and stopped with the other two doctors.

“Something is wrong with the commander.”

“Increased libido, hyper aggression, and hunger to the point of not being able to control himself. We had to sedate him.”

“Strange, sounds like you just gave me the textbook definition of the Id.”

“The what now?”

Dr Adric shrugged, “Oh nothing it was simply a theory proposed by a psychologist more than two thousand years ago. His methods have since been questioned and greatly disproven, but Freud did coin the idea of the Id, or the subconscious driving for of the human mind that encompasses all our base desires, food, sex, aggression, and so on.” he glanced down at the commander, “In this case, i might suggest something in causation with the function of the brain stem (including all base drives) and an inhibition of the frontal lobe and limbic system.”

“Why those in particular?” Krill wondered

“The frontal lobe, as you know is in charge of executive decision. Whatever function has kept these drives and habits suppressed, is not working. With the limbic system down, he has no way of controlling his emotions which might explain the aggression, though I have never seen anything manifest in this way.”

“So you have seen it?”

“Alzheimer patients can experience similar behavior towards the end stages of the disease as their executive function and limbic systems break down, but he doesn't appear to be having any related memory involvement. I would suggest an x-ray fMRI and CT scan to begin.”

“Why the x-ray?” wondered Ramirez pretty sure that that could show you the skull and not the brain.

“Looking for metal of course.”

It was probably a good idea as the first x-ray image lit up like a lightbulb. Gathered around the screen, Sunny and Ramirez looking over their heads they saw the skull was packed full of shiny white dots. The skull was intact, and the dots were on the outside of his brain, but they were small, very small.

“Think you can get those out, Dr?” Katie asked turning to look at Krill.

“Yes, they are very small, a large magnet should do the trick.”

Dr Adric made a joke about putting him in an MRI to do the work quicker, and received a look form Krill while Katie laughed.

By the end of the hour all oft hem were staring at a minute grouping of microscopic electrodes that had been pulled from the man’s head.

“That would explain it.” Dr Adric muttered

“Explain what?”

“Generating a magnetic current through areas of the brain can disrupt its function. We’ve known that for thousands of years. Continuous stimulation of the occipital lobe, for example, can make someone go blind. So whoever did this intentionally shut off his executive functions, or stimulated his base drives. I believe what we just saw is the hardwired, natural human instincts.

“How very comforting”, Krill said, obviously not very comforted

“Well, lets wake him up and see if the problem resolved.

Nervously, the group gathered around the man who had been mostly sedated for the entire procedure. He wasn’t fully asleep, but he was only half conscious. The reversal agent woke him up pretty quickly, and he lifted his head sort of groggily.

He blinked owlishly at them, his face neutral.

They waited worried.

“What…. Happened?” He groaned hand to his head

His single eye slowly focused in on Dr Katie, and then he blanched absolutely white. Eyes widening he put a hand over his mouth.

“Yep, that’s him.”

“Commander, are you ok? What do you remember.”

He grabbed Katie by the arm stammering, “Katie I… I’m so sorry I-I dont know what came over me. I’ve never done anything like that in my life I swear to god.” he looked near close to panic, “You know I would never intentionally ever do anything like that to you ever, and I am so sorry. I have no idea why that even happened.”

She grabbed his hand, “Adam, it’s alright. I know you wouldn’t. It wasn’t your fault.”

He turned his head, and as he saw sunny and Ramirez his face went from bleach white to pale pink, to bright red.

Ramirez grinned and threw in a wink just for fun.

He thought the man was going to stroke out and die. He dropped his head into his hands. Even his hands were red.

“Do you remember what happened, commander?” Dr krill asked

“I…. I don’t now I was waiting for Ramirez and sunny but then…. I saw something in the alley. Next thing I knew everything was dark, and I was being thrown around. It pinned me to the ground and did something…. That’s when ramirez and sunny came out. After that I remember….. I remember feeling, so angry and, and hungry and….” He went quiet as his neck blushed and even deeper shade of red, “I’m so sorry”, he moaned.

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything else, Commander.’

“Well I mean…. I’m not sure, but maybe...I thought it might have said, the Kree, but I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“The Kree. Didn’t the GA make contact with a race that called themselves the Kree.”

Te commander lifted his head, “Yes, though it was only by long distance communication, otherwise no one knows anything about them.”

“Well, rest, Commander, and we will figure this all out later.”

He nodded dejectedly as the doctors stepped from the room all the while discussing what the device could have been.

Ramirez followed after them having taken a step out the door when.

“Sunny, I am so sorry. What happened, I didn’t meant to do any of it.”

He paused beside the doorway knowing he should move on, but being unable to do so.

“None of it?”

There was silence.

“I…..”

“So I shouldn’t expect anything like that ever…. Even in an appropriate context?”

Stammering

He really should go

“It’s fine, Adam, but that is something I just needed to know.”

“But I didn’t say that, Sunny I…. I just.”

“You just…. What?”

“Eventually yes of course…. And I want to…. But I….”

Ramirez shook himself and pulled away. He shouldn’t be listening in. It was wrong despite how much he wanted to shove it in maverick’s face and claim his two hundred bucks.

He wasn’t going to rat out his friend to everyone.

He knew what being a friend meant, and often that included keeping secrets.

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nutty1005 · 4 years

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How “The Untamed” reversed its fate, Xiao Zhan went the hard way in his depiction of Wei Wuxian

Original Article: https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404476523863212216#_0 Original Author: 乍暖已寒 (Published by: 爱战DAYTOY_1005)

(TN: The Untamed was based off the novel “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” or “Mo Dao Zu Shi / 魔道祖师”. Bringing this novel to the silver screen had its fair share of troubles and many did not look kindly at this project in 2018, nor believed that it would fair well in China.)

I have said this before – when a new top celebrity with stunning good looks appears onto the scene, immediately accompanying it will be forceful criticisms of his/her acting. Xiao Zhan, who burst into fame because of The Untamed, is no exception to this as well.

Endless negative articles, out-of-context screen snaps with negative captions (e.g. the first 3 episodes where he had to act as Mo Xuanyu, a lunatic), slowed down GIFs, or even insinuating special effects… they really tried their best to smear his acting.

Just this once though, Xiao Zhan prevailed despite all of these. The endless waves of well-prepared negative articles did not prevent Xiao Zhan’s acting chops from appearing on Weibo’s trending topics (instead of his appearance). His unforeseen, exceptional performance in The Untamed proved them wrong – such a great refute to their efforts!

Xiao Zhan’s Exceptional Moments

He had multiple different ways in handling his crying scenes, and they were all able to invoke a lot empathy in his audiences. There were tears of helplessness, tears of doubt, tears of pain, tears of false bravado, tears like that of a lost child – and every teardrop touched his audiences’ hearts.

This scene was my personal favorite – it was as painful as it was beautiful. Besides grief and hopelessness, you could also sense Wei Wuxian’s helplessness, and it became extra heartbreaking. Yes, many would always forget that beneath the all powerful Yiling Patriarch, he was merely a teenage boy, and he had just lost his home.

Besides his crying scenes, Xiao Zhan also had similar delicacy and accuracy in managing the character’s psychology – for example, the scene which Wei Wuxian discovers the method to transfer the Golden Core. At the moment of discovery, he was filled with exultation, but the joy in his eyes slowly dimmed down, ending with relief. There was this sliver of sadness amidst the jubilation but it was quietly set aside.

Xiao Zhan used his “eyes acting” to great effect, and performed the series of complex emotions perfectly – from the discovery of a cure, to understanding that someone has to sacrifice his Golden Core, to deciding that he would be this person. This made the audiences want to ask, “What about you? What is going to happen to you?”

I also admired Xiao Zhan’s attention to details in the scene where Wei Wuxian brings Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli to Yiling Supervisory Hold – he was like a helpless prey trapped at a dead end.

Wei Wuxian was just an child when his family perished, and he had just went through another massacre – there was simply too much death and bloodshed. He was high strung and any bit of provocation could make him lose his rationality. He was instinctively biting his teeth and shaking as he forced himself to protect his only remaining kin.

In fact, after leaving behind the first 10 episodes of happy-go-lucky, Xiao Zhan had countless exceptional moments such as these. I could not even finish describing 10% of them in this long article of mine. For someone who was the lead actor for the first time, his future is really filled with endless possibilities.

As such, I could not even fathom why someone would blindly mock Xiao Zhan’s acting, even more so than when someone mocks his appearance. For someone who could weep while script reading with his fellow actors, how could he be someone with “zero acting chops”?

“Empathic” Style of Performance

The most apt words I can use to describe Xiao Zhan’s acting are “graceful” and “touching” – there appears to be no discourse to his acting, but yet his acting draws empathy and his characterization extremely believable.

To an actor, this is a solution, but this is one of the dumbest method as this is also one of the most harmful method. This is because this method requires the actor to breakdown his personality and restructure himself to suit his character. It makes entering and exiting the role extra difficult – every teardrop is created from the actor’s blood and soul.

To me, I am an extremely sensitive viewer and I like the acting to be natural; I cannot accept any bit of deliberation. I do not like it when performance leaves a trace of the techniques used, instead this “dumb” method is what that can touch me – to become one with the character.

This is probably why this silly child could weep like this during script reading. He might really be a natural born actor, but also a gentle angel – what kind of soul resides in him? How is he able to empathize entirely with Wei Wuxian such that he could tear up like this? Who would not love this boy, who is naturally extraordinary, but yet also incredibly compassionate?

He Understands Wei Wuxian

And because he understood the true meaning behind “becoming Wei Wuxian”, so he understood him even in the smallest details.

Have you ever wondered how Wei Wuxian was like beneath the manically cool Yiling Patriarch and suave youngster?

Firstly, he was an insecure person.

Below is from the author’s Weibo:

His childhood as a stray set the tone for him as person who is always filled with uncertainties – he will subconsciously attempt to change his facade in order to please his loved ones.

And it is evident that Xiao Zhan understands this – you can see that Wei Wuxian has a different facade when dealing with different people. To Jiang Cheng, he is his best buddy; To Nie Huaisang, he tries to be the friend who leads him astray; To Jiang Yanli, he is unashamedly a child begging for praises; To Madam Jiang, he is the most proper and obedient student.

In fact, this scene of an obedient Wei Wuxian gave me more affirmation that Xiao Zhan knows Wei Wuxian, more than any of his crying scenes. (Madam Jiang appeared, and he was the first person who stood up, in apprehension.)

Secondly, he puts up a false front.

Before the broadcast of the drama, Xiao Zhan gave an interview which caused displeasure among part of the novel fans. He said “Too many crying scenes, Wei Wuxian cried too much.” Some of these agitated fans expressed that Wei Wuxian was actually a cheerful happy-go-lucky person, he does not like to cry – he only cried twice in the books, Xiao Zhan must not understand his character!

However, is that really so? Evidently not. The novel was written from Wei Wuxian’s angle, therefore the story was told to us by Wei Wuxian, and hence we are actually reading his version of the story.

When you think about it, how is it possible for Wei Wuxian to not be devastated at the massacre of Jiang Family, the death of his brother-in-law due to his misstep, the death of Jiang Yanli, who took the sword on his behalf, or his own death, where he despaired and allowed himself to be devoured by ghosts? It is definitely not possible, but why were these not described in the books? Because, Wei Wuxian, who liked to put on a false front, decided to sidestep these in his own version.

Yes, our Wei Wuxian was the sort of person who only spoke of the good, but never the bad. No matter how much trauma he suffered physically or mentally, he kept smiling and kept his false front. He always looked like nothing mattered to him and he never suffered.

Hence, when he was battered and wounded by the demonic dog in the drama, despite being covered in wounds, after he took a bite of the bun he got from Jiang Cheng, he smiled brilliantly and said “delicious”. This part made me cry for him – I felt so much for this stubborn child.

Below is why, I was sure from the beginning that Xiao Zhan would do a good portrayal of Wei Wuxian. He told Wei Wuxian at the end of The Untamed shooting to “cherish yourself more, stop putting on a false front”.

He really knew him. He really felt for him.

He came from a boyband, he had no professional acting training, he did not even have much experience in acting, but he lived up to Wei Wuxian.

In the End

Finally I wanted to say, analyzing anyone’s acting using static pictures, GIFs or even short video clips, without script or character context, are all biased analysis. True performance is not pieced together by short clips, but by complete characterization. As such, perhaps my article may just be as truthful as those gossip articles online. You are welcomed to watch The Untamed in order to truly understand how Xiao Zhan did.

#xiao zhan #sean xiao #xiaozhan #肖战

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missguomeiyun · 3 years

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Homecookings [Apr. ed]

Hi friends~

Due to the home-cation during the 1st little bit of April, I actually had time to do more ‘extensive’ cooking/posts so the content in this post will be quite limited...

But here we go!

Good ol’ spaghetti + PC brand flatbread (the chicken one that I didn’t enjoy......)

This was an interesting snack. Have you tried shrimp crackers by Nongshim brand? This had similar vibes to that but thinner chips & a diff ‘taste’ bcos it’s fish-flavoured haha I got a bag for myself, & also gave a bag to the nieces so try. They did not like this! I thought it was okay; not my favourite but I finished it all anyway. It was my Penthouse snack :P

I don’t know why I thought this package of zucchinis was cute. ..

I have deonjang (Korean soy bean paste) soup with the zucchini, tofu, imitation lobster meat, & underneath that, there was also some napa cabbage. To add some extra flavour, I added gochu powder & some salted shrimp sauce.

Another zucchini in soup lunch.. . no, I’m not on a diet haha I actually had more of this soup in my pot; I just scooped out this much for the photo. For this soup, I had zucchini, tofu, imitation lobster meat as well as fish cake. I personally liked this one better than the previous. Some ppl may not like it bcos of the added fish cakes, making the soup “fishy” but I am a huge fan of the fish cakes! Paired it with some radish & injeolmi!

[where my injeolmi came from] This was from the small bakery section at the U of A location of Hmart. I haven’t had injeolmi for such a longgggg time.

Breakfast after a long stretch >.< I needed to reward myself haha

Jjajang-ddeokbokki. Instead of the traditional spicy version of ddeokbokki, I’ve been making this more often nowadays (aka the black bean sauce version). This has become one of my regular lunches bcos I’ve figured out a way to cook this so that when I microwave it the next day, the rice cakes are still chewy (not soaked/soggy). I have tried bringing the regular spicy ddeokbokki for lunch before & for some reason, it just. .. never worked out the way I wanted it to be. I’ve tried diff brands of rice cakes etc... I’ve experimented with it a handful of times. However, it seems to work with the black bean sauce o_O I’m not sure why. This is the day-off lunch version but basically if I’m making some for work lunch the next day, I actually undercook the rice cakes & save the extra sauce in a separate container. Before I head out to work, I pour the sauce into my rice cake-containing container (to prevent overnight soaking). & while I’m at work, I heat it up like.. . hardcore! For like 3mins... (bcos some microwaves at work are old & not very ‘strong’). The rice cakes are bouncy & while it’s being microwaved, they actually take up some of the liquid/sauce! SUCCESS!!!

Another drama snack~ This was my snack while I was watching the Kdrama “Cheat On Me, If You Can.” Not as good as Penthouse but I was also really into it & finished it in a few days. This snack was interesting- while the flavour was meh, I was actually in love with the shape/texture. It was rotini-shaped, & the texture was puffy!

Beef seasoning~

Yes, more zucchini. .. I legit ate all 3 by myself over the span of 4-5 days haha oh no, my mom used about half in a stir-fry one evening so I guess I ate 2.5 zucchinis. Anyway, I used the above beef seasoning for this soup that consisted of zucchini, napa cabbage, regular green cabbage, minute amount of onion. Yes, it was vegetarian.

Laksa vermicelli noodles. YES MORE ZUCCHINI! I swear this is the last one lol but I needed to use it up bcos prior to cracking open the saran wrap/packaging, it was actually sitting in the fridge for almost a week already so I needed to use it all up like fast! Anywho, I threw away the package of laksa soup base that I used here but it was by the Asian Home Gourmet brand. I used the entire package, diluted with half:half chicken broth & water for my soup. It was delicious! For toppings, I had my zucchini, napa cabbage, baby clams & a variety of fish balls.

This was interesting. I will likely make this again NOT bcos it was particularly “tasty”, but iuno. .. the combo of textures was just great! I had buttered toast, a single layer of yellow radish, mashed up imitation lobster meat (did not add anything to it), & then furikake. It was like crunchy & soft, & just, overall, a burst of diff flavours in one bite!

Korean fried chicken by MEEEEEEE~ I have gotten rid of the double-frying practice bcos it takes too long & too much effort. Now I do the wet-dry batter method, & the outcome is equally as crispy! ^^

If we buy these frozen lasagnas, it’s always the PC brand, but we have this Western Family brand this time.

Looks like this... o_O wasn’t impressed.. . Why is there so much ice!?

I don’t have a finished photo bcos it was so sad... why?

I used microwave method, & . .. it turned out to be such a big mess =( it become so liquid-y & everything was just. .. melted down. I think it was bcos of the water content, plus the extra ice that dripped onto the pasta. Anyway, flavour was good but nothing crazy! Will be sticking to the PC brand :P

My version of mapo-tofu. I have satay sauce + bulgogi sauce, diced green cabbage, eggplant & tofu! Topped with a gochu powder~ YUM!

& now I wanna talk about my vaccine with you all~ if you’re not interested, check out my Etsy shop here instead! https://www.etsy.com/shop/OneOfAKo

Okay, so my vaccine story.. .

1st of all, a little bit of background in regards to my province’s C*vid situation .. . long story short, it’s NOT good. To be fair, I’m in-and-out of tuning in to the daily updates; I look once every few days &. .. yeah, it’s just NOT good! We are hitting record numbers; surpassing the worst numbers in the 2nd wave.. . I don’t get it >.< I’m not sure why the numbers are so high despite ppl are getting vaccinated *shrugs* but I think everyone should go get vaccinated if you are eligible to!

Right now, in this province, there are 2 routes of getting vaccinated: select pharmacies & via provincial health services.

When I was eligible to book (I’m in health care but not front line so I just got the eligibility this month!), I went thru the pharmacy options that were closest to me. Why? Bcos it was convenient by location. I read into it a little more, & realized that I’ll be placed on a general waiting list. I ended up signing myself up for 1 pharmacy, where the location was TBD until they actually confirm my appointment, which they say, could be weeks to months down the line! O_O In any case, I just left it as is bcos there was no way to cancel being on the wait list.

In the meantime, immediately after I did the pharmacy registration, I went on the AHS website. Did the questionnaire & got the ‘final page’, where they gave a date/time option with a 10minute timer running so you have 10 minutes to finalize your booking. Except when I hit “confirm”, the next page said, “this time has been taken”. So I had to go thru the whole process again. And again. I clicked the “confirm” 3 times, & finally got a date/time for my vaccination! YAY!

Went to my vaccination appointment ~10mins before my scheduled time. There was a "greeting” table, where I was required to change into a new (provided) medical mask. Then I was instructed to line up for the sign-in table, where the staff at the desk asked for my 2 pieces of ID. I was also given the vaccination record form. After that, I went into another line to actually enter the vaccination room. At my location, it was a small-ish room with about 10 vaccine administrators. There was a girl who was monitoring the “ppl flow” from the line to the vaccination station. A little more info was given by my administrator, & a final “do you want to get the vaccine today?”. The shot itself was short, & to me, painless. Then everyone had to move to a waiting room, where we had to wait around for 15mins to make sure we don’t get an allergic reaction. This room was the PROBLEM! It was SO small & spaces between chairs was only about a meter! It was stuffy in the mask AND in the room. I could FEEL it. It was very bad! & worse of all, the number of ppl who got their vaccines exceeded the number of ppl exiting the room, so when I was there in a chair, there were ppl standing along the wall & the room got even more crowded. This part was the worse part of the experience =/ 15mins done, & I was able to leave!

So yeah, glad to have the privilege to be vaccinated (about time!), but I don’t know why our numbers keep climbing >.< Cooperate, ppl!!!

#homemade #homecooking #food #cooking #cook #i cook #healthy

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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So while it’s still gonna be 2-3 days until I get my test results back, I figured I’d give people some insight on stuff about covid testing beyond vaguely yelling that it’s uncomfortable.

1. That CDC list of like 4 sad cold-like symptoms is garbage, that isn’t all they ask you about. Literally if you’re letting your family hold you back because you don’t explicitly have a “dry cough”, or your fever is /only/ running 99.6 so that’s NBD? Yeah, ignore that. Also remember, /people can be asymptomatic carriers./

2. This idea of 6 feet of social distancing really only applies in like, enclosed areas with no air draft. For example, when doing drive through testing, they make you turn off your air conditioning, because the aerosol affect can and will cycle it actively through a vehicle. If you’re exactly 6 feet away from someone that’s a carrier and a big wind draft comes by, it can still blow shit your way.

Notes on the actual testing process:

UAB is running drivethru testing in several areas. UAB was also on top of this shit before it ever surfaced in the US while the politicians were denying it, and UAB developed one of the drugs being tested in China with some success. In fact, the UAB infectious disease chief of staff used to like, live across the street from where I am right now. But that’s a whole other aside.

That said, UAB isn’t playing around. Your local institutions may have something similar. Don’t be shy about calling, though find what your *local hotline* is, try googling like “Covid testing near [city]”, because the stupid Health Department loop will send you on a circular circus forever.

In the case of how mine worked, there was a pre-screener via phonecall that asks for symptoms or reasons for concern. In my case, it was a list of things including headache, body ache, dizziness, feeling like I’m living in an eternal hangover, fatigue and yes, finding out we had contact with someone who turned up covid positive.

The last one kinda got my wife throwing a bit of a tizzy because she started arguing in the background they never touched while I had to cut her off, because really guys, I promise, you don’t need direct contact, and I think my wife figured that out at the drive thru process. But that alone IS enough of a keyword to go to the next screener stage.

They set an appointment and don’t want you to show up more than 15 early. In our case, UAB has an emergency radio station that bilingually broadcasts basic starter directions including having your ID ready, not rolling down your window, turning off your AC and, when you DO have to roll down your window, *DO NOT TALK TO THEM*. They know you’re thankful or whatever so keep your diseased mouth shut, because things the CDC AREN’T telling you right now is even asymptomatic people can have such dense manifestation of the virus in their throat that you’re basically just actively breathing clouds of this shit. So keep your face shut, keep your AC off.

I really, REALLY wanted to communicate this part to the crowd because I don’t feel like people are grokking how easy it is to circulate-jet this stuff over public spaces. One motherfucker sneezes near a vent, see what fucking happens.

Anyway, after that they slap a test baggy compared to your ID on your car, flag you forward, then have you call a doc or nurse practicioner that reviews your symptoms and reason for testing again because of test kit shortage. The doc will be outside of your car with an ipad or something like it tallying down your symptoms, reasons and keywords. Don’t lie, but be willing to be a little less than specific, because they KNOW these things are vague but also have to disqualify you. If you’ve had contact with someone that turned up covid positive, *say that*, don’t split hairs over how direct it was; it doesn’t mean That Specific Friend is at fault either, you could have touched the wrong gas station door, but that’s a huge qualifier to get tested, even if they ask who and where, you’ll have a name but GENERALLY SPEAKING THEY ARE TOO OVERLOADED TO CARE. If you have a cough, don’t split hairs over if it’s a wet or dry cough.

And DON’T pass up listing other symptoms you don’t see listed on stupid CDC/WHO/whatever sites. I had introduced it with my 3 day headache, and later on she cycled back to ask again if I had any headache, which I reminded her and yup, guess what, fuck the CDC, that’s apparently a flag checker. Body aches, low grade fever, various coughs, fatigue, headaches-- apparently nausea and diarrhea, though I had dismissed my previous nausea and didn’t have the latter. You don’t need any/all of these tbh, but I just can’t emphasize enough how utterly incomplete the listing is and it led to my own family well-intendedly gaslighting me out of my symptoms which, like, 3 pre-screen rounds later got me put through.

They don’t even just have N-95 masks, they have those plastic visor ones on top. They ain’t playing. Even the cars get distanced where possible. One person per car is tested here and they say if you turn up positive, presume everyone in your household is positive. So like, those numbers you see on the counters? Aren’t really scratching the surface because like, for every test there, that whole family is now considered infected.

The shit’s like the flu swab on steroids. You WILL get a nose bleed. I wouldn’t call it painful but it’s super uncomfortable so like if you’re in it you better damn well commit. Your face will probably feel funny for the rest of the day from nerves being pushed weird, or I know mine did.

Anyway that said, I’m still waiting on test results but I figured I’d put some stuff out that might help people/clarify shit. It IS possible to get testing but you have to search out resources to do it and navigate carefully.

Also check out what methods are being used to regulate ventilator availability in your area and don’t screw yourself. I fully admit I sidelined through my questions when asked if I had previous conditions by mentioning undiagnosed/in pursuit issues causing arrhythmia etc, without deadass being like “Yeah hi we’re pretty sure I have a major heart condition” because in my area, those are the first people denied ventilators, so I’d rather be marked down as generally at risk without being NOBREATHYTUBEFORYOU axed off in the system. So check how your local authorities or med systems are regulating shit and be careful how you phrase things.

I’ve never been so damn thirsty in my life so if this a general flu and not covid it’s still a big yikes. Electrolyte solutions can and will be a lifesaver regardless. Someone I know, their brother got it, and he started losing a pound a day in waterweight despite drinking water by the gallon, so HYDRATE GUYS, HYDRATE.

#covid #covid-19

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overdrivels · 4 years

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Moving money in the Overwatch world is somewhat of a subplot in TWtaH. I was reading an article just this morning about how money-laundering is at a standstill because criminals are having a hard time transporting and exchanging their ill-gotten gains in this Covid-19 lockdown. So that got me thinking about Overatch’s currency--credit.

I don’t really think ‘credit’ as a currency is canon in the Overwatch world. I just took the cash shop stuff and shoehorned it into the story because I didn’t want to use specific currencies like ‘bitcoin’ or ‘dogecoin’ or whatever else is out there.

With cryptocurrency, you get exchange goods and services without having to physically interact with any paper or coin money. On an individual level, it just means that a pandemic such as COVID-19 wouldn’t stop people from paying for stuff and no one has to worry about transmitting disease using money as a carrier. On a much larger-scale like money-laundering, the story becomes a little different.

We understand that the original concept behind bitcoin is, at a very high level, a representation of money (”cryptocurrency”) that is traded for goods and services. There is no central governing authority (decentralization), it is mostly anonymous, and very secure (or as secure as your password and wallet ID is anyway) because the code behind it sure is.

There are pros and cons to this. Let’s address the three ones I mentioned:

1) No central governing authority. This means that whatever cryptocurrency we’re talking about isn’t controlled by anyone. No federal government, no international government, nothing. That means no singular entity can lock you out of your money if suddenly let’s say all banks fail or something or government declares some law that suspends withdrawal of money.

On the flip side, that also means there’s no one to regulate the money. For example, 1 bitcoin is worth whatever the fuck the people decide. This leads to instability and the rollercoaster of having bitcoin being worth $10k per bitcoin to suddenly dropping to $6k per bitcoin in a three day period. It is incredibly unstable. This also means there are no laws governing what happens if you get scammed or the like or anything to protect the consumer. If you lose your money, it’s your fault (by and large).

2) It is mostly anonymous. Yes and no. Yes, as in your name and social security number isn’t blatantly associated with your wallet ID. In theory, you could set up like five or six wallets and trade that way to obfuscate (hide) your activities. Then there’s the ‘no’. Similar to how police can triangulate where your cellphone is based on which cellphone tower your phone pinged last, investigators can get a general idea of who you are, and what transactions were made. Bitcoin specifically uses a public ledger to record all trades. If they see $400 come from wallet A to wallet B with the same amount and transaction ID, they may have a match. Then there’s recording IPs and the like. Lots of contextual data that can be used to track someone down if someone was determined enough.

3) It’s mostly secure. This one is the backbone of cryptocurrency. There’s not much to say except it’s based on algorithms. Really, really annoying to crack algorithms. It’s not exactly possible to steal money unless you have access to the person’s wallet and password. However, this goes back to point 1 where if you lost your wallet or had it stolen, there is no central authority that can really help you.

Okay, so why the fuck am I talking about this?

I’d imagine that with the development of omnics and the progression of omnic rights, Overwatch’s world may have evolved to move away from physical money to digital currency and to keep paper money around kind of as a novelty or only used in really remote places. Having digital money means paying people more reliably, paying people faster, less errors, and less hassle.

(I messed up a little in my fic and I’m thinking of retconning it to remove the part about different countries and their currencies still having different exchange rates. Instead, I might just say that they still use the same symbols they always used to indicate money and the numbers are in credits instead.)

Anyway, back to the three points again. I think in the world of Overwatch, if cryptocurrency were to become the norm, they would first get rid of point #1. They would absolutely centralize the fuck out of it. It’s money. What bank, what government, what nation wouldn’t want to have control over money? If it’s global, I’d assume the World Bank would create a branch specifically dealing with cryptocurrency. They issue the regulations, they do the audits, they handle the interest rates, inflation, and everything related to the control of money. Then the banks of each nation would accommodate that. Though, with the obsolesce of physical money and different exchange values, that can imply that currency is no longer really tied to anything. Up until the end of WWI or Great Depression (I forget which), the de facto standard was gold (hence ‘gold standard’). How much physical gold you had is how much wealth your nation had and it was translated into paper money. But then the Great Depression(?) happened and then that became stupid. Now the monetary system is based on 'fiat money’, so I guess it’s not too dissimilar to a full cryptocurrency system. It’s just that there won’t be any bills.

Next is the anonymization. If it becomes centralized, I can’t imagine how it would remain anonymous. Money-laundering and bypass of trade sanctions would be rampant. It’d be an international disaster and undo the many years of regulatory law each nation has put in place. (Look, money is a serious business. Look up regulatory compliance, look up OFAC, look up KYC, and the like. It is a very, very big deal.) So, lack of anonymization would likely take place. However! That doesn’t mean it’s not possible.

Point 3 is an interesting one because it is literally the backbone of cryptocurrency as we know it in 2020. This might actually create a problem. If someone, let’s say a super omnic or the like is about to figure out the algorithms used to generate and validate new cryptocurrency, wouldn’t that mean money is worthless? Whoever can figure this out can essentially make themselves infinite money and then tank the economies of powerful world nations. Because you can’t print physical money anymore, so now you have to spoof digital money. Security (specifically cybersecurity) would be super huge and the tools to protect this crytocurrency generating process would be unworldly. Maybe even Sombra’d have a hard time cracking it.

Though, digital currency does pose one itsy-bitsy problem. The poor. The criminals. The underdeveloped. The current issues plaguing us now and why we don’t see contactless payments everywhere. There could be a billion reasons why a person cannot get a credit card or some form of contactless payment ranging from poor self-control to shitty credit scores as a result of their reckless youth but they know better now, victim of constant identity theft, unable to afford any fees if they were to occur, etc. So, how does cryptocurrency overcome this? It can’t. Not unless restrictions on who can use financial facilities are non-existent such as anyone can open an account regardless of current financial status and the like, or unless it’s something that is automatically given to every person regardless of their current status in life, etc. There’s a ton of restrictions, but we assume Overwatch’s world has already overcome these.

Finances are complicated. Monetary systems are complicated. I’m having a hell of a time picking this stuff apart. There’s pros and cons to all of this stuff. If the cryptocurrency stuff is centralized and people are reliant on it to live, people can easily get locked out of their methods of living. On the flip side, if there’s no central governing body, we’ll see the insane fluctuation of the market that could very well spell the life or death of nations.

In TWtaH, donors are giving to an account managed by the Chef. Chef redistributes this money under the name of the restaurant and under the guise of paying vendors and the like. With the above points in mind, it’ll be a spoiler to talk about it anymore, but a lot of this stuff is relevant.

#drivels drivels #to new followers #good luck because this blog is mostly me toying with real world ideas as applied to overwatch #and i talk about finances fairly often #i just wanted to talk about money and money laundering #welcome to my infodumps #back on my mundane bullshit #fuck there i go again talking about one topic and rabbitholing down something else

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jamiesmcstuff · 3 years

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Web Authoring Blog

10/01/21

The past week I have been working on my assignment through Wordpress. The assignment is to install and build our own wordpress site on the college server. This was a basic enough assignment but I did encounter some problems along the way. Firstly, I had a problem connecting to the college server, which meant I was required to get a new password from IT, and that took up some time.Once I could connect to the server I successfully connected to the server, and uploaded wordpress to filezilla.

I also encountered a problem trying to activate a child theme on my wordpress site. I didn’t realise that my .css file in my wordpress folder had an extra full stop where it shouldn’t have been, and it was breaking my up the code when I tried to activate my child theme on the wordpress site. Once I figured this out (which took some time) I found that I had a lot of fun with this assignment.

It was great to play around with all the various features of wordpress. Somethings I did find a little strange and a bit unintuitive (such as accessing certain editing functions from the front end site) but I I got used to the workflow the more time I spent on it. I do feel like I ran out of time and had to eventually settle with what I had for the assignment but I am keen to continue working on the site I had created in order to improve my skills using Wordpress, and having something good to add to my portfolio.

22/12/20

Last week we covered CMS systems and. It seems like it should be straight forward, however if I have learned anything so far its that sometimes coding can seem straightforward, but due to lack of experience simple problems can be difficult to figure. Wordpress, however, looks great a a system to use.

As soon as we started learning it I could think of difficult examples of blogs and websites that have used Wordpress as a platform to great effect, and I am excited to start using the platform properly. It seems that once you start using Wordpress, and get used to the workflow, you can create really great looking websites with minimal effort.

There are so many different customizations meaning you can be very creative with Wordpress. I am excited to start using some other CMS systems in order to see how they compare against Wordpress anf figure out whether Wordpress is the best option for me as a system to use going forward.

16/12/20

This was our first week covering Wordpress and CMS systems. I had heard from multiple sources regarding the unintuitiveness of WordPress but that definitely was not my initial thought. It potentially could have been outdated by other CMS that came after it, but as a platform it seems very powerful if you know how to use it correctly.

My mind automatically started thinking ahead in terms of how platforms like wordpress could be used by web designers, and myself hopefully when the time comes, to build comprehensive and sophisticated web pages for clients.

We had a reading week so had no class on the 12th of December, but on the 11th we also had to submit assignment 2, which was our personal profile web page. It was a tough task, but I believe I got a good result for my first attempt at creating a web page. One problem I encountered, that I was very satisfied to find a solution for, was aligning an image of the Griffith college logo to the right of the footer. After numerous attempts at finding a solution ( and tearing out a lot of hair) I eventually entered a <p> into the footer and cleared the floats within the style sheet which aligned the image up correctly.

2/12/20

Last week’s lecture covered Flex boxes. I think it may have been the first time we were exposed to any kind of framework that can simplify the building of web pages to some degree. From what I understand, tasks pertaining to the layout of elements on a page can be strenuous in terms of writing the html and css code; but flex boxes are effective in streamlining this process through their own unique set of rules.

I found Flex boxes easy to understand because, to the best of my knowledge, flexbox follows similar cascading and hierarchical principles as are the fundamentals in other parts of coding we have learned. For example, the container is a parent and everything contained within (items) are children; akin to how a <section> element is a parent to a child <p> element contained within that section. I am starting to see how coding language is very complicated, but is designed to try and be as user friendly as is possible; there is a consistent way to think structurally about code that will benefit me and help me to troubleshoot problems I may have down the line.

25/11/20

Last week's lecture we covered color, links, layouts and floats. There was pats that seemed to be as straightforward as our previous lecture, and I found myself easily able to keep up in terms of what we were learning. For example with color, it was easy for me to understand how color can be applied to different elements. Also, I like how there are different ways that things can be applied through CSS, for example there being a choice to apply colour by percentage, or by hex values.

However, there I had two main takeaways from this class. The first, which I was already aware of but hadn’t yet been covered in class, is that CSS isn't just about visuals, parts of the page can be laid out in various ways by applying different rules. Floats do seem complicated, but once I get some experience using them I know it’ll be a massive part of building web pages, so it's something I am eager to get practice in.

The second take away, which I hadn’t pre-empted as a possibility with CSS, is the 5 styles that are applied to links on a web page. This was very interesting, and I was surprised, because I had thought that Javascript was the coding language for integrating interactivity on a web page. However, pertaining to our upcoming assignments, it is somewhat of a relief to know that more basic functions such as the 5 styles for links can be applied through CSS, without having to yet know javascript.

18/11/20

Last Saturday we had our first lecture that introduced CSS. A few things we covered were rules, IDs, classes and the cascading specificity of CSS. From the first introduction it seems to be straight forward enough, however once applied into a practical context I am sure there will be a lot of barriers to overcome in order to get competent with CSS. Seeing the difference between how a basic html page looks, without CSS, and then the possibilities once CSS has been applied was exciting.

I have found html relatively easy thus far, and it is very satisfying once the code does what you intended. However, it doesn't make things look beautiful, so seeing the difference between a page with and without CSS, and what the possibilities can be, was very exciting. Gemma used the example of the Griffith website, with and without the CSS, and the reality of what's possible once I get to using CSS became a reality.

SImilar to writing html, and the application of good practice and bad practice in terms of writing code ; we learned in last week's lecture the difference between inline CSS and stylesheets, and how the latter is the preferred method of applying CSS. Even though it would seem easier to write CSS within the same file as html, I am very conscious now of ensuring that I do not fall into bad habits in terms of I write any coding language as I hope to day be hired based on the quality of the work that I provide, so will avoid developing bad habits at any cost.

10/11/20

Last Saturday 7th November lecture covered semantic html and the structure of web pages. The previous lecture on links, images and tables had demonstrated and actualized for me the building blocks that web developers use across the board for different features of websites. Our most recent lecture built upon that knowledge and made me understand how semantic html is used to break up the different parts/sections of a website so that browsers can digest it and for SEO.

When practicing at home writing the code for articles and sections, which as I understand act as mini web pages within a web page,the muscle memory of writing code is improving physically writing code while also ingraining in me the concept of nesting code, and how hierarchy within that nested code is structured. The analogy of the Russian dolls has been mentioned numerous times and this week it became more applicable than before as a way to look at how you wrap up your code into structured pieces.

The easiest way for me to visualise semantic html in action was looking at online newspapers. Through looking at a few examples I could see how the home pages in particular are structured because they have so much content and articles etc that are irrelevant to each other. It's necessary to use semantic html to give meaning to each bit of content in order to direct internet users to relevant parts of the web page. One thing I never preempted, again in my own naivety/ignorance, was how integrated SEO is with the information contained within html. As a side project I think I will go and read up some more about digital marketing.

We were also required to do some practical exercise on forms this week. One thing of note, I had seen in previous lectures how values can indicate what happens when a user clicks on a link (opening in a new tab etc). Relative to values such as input/emails it’s interesting to see how these values can indicate how a specific entry of information into a data field, such as an email address, is handled. Also, the content we covered briefly touched on empty elements which I was not expecting as they don't follow the same rule set we had previously learned. I had expected there to be some as there are exceptions to rules in any language and html is no different evidently.

03/11/20

Our most recent lecture covered the topics of tables, links, images. As I mentioned in my previous post I was initially happy to be able to keep up with the material and didn't feel too far out of my depth. This week I am happy to say that I am still feeling positive about the decision to move into this new world and potential change of career.

With just two weeks under my belt I could already feel a change in how I will view websites going forward. As a user I had always thought, naively, of websites as eclectic; their features and functions presented as specific to the brand or organisation that they represent. However, during this lab, and particularly regarding the topic of tables, I began to visualize how they are all the same components put together by developers in different ways that serve the same functions.

Telecommunication companies websites and how they present their pricing online was one such feature that came to mind. Previously I would have thought that their pricing was just an image integrated within the web page but now I obviously understand that it is built through a specific <table> element that is adjustable by a front end developer.

I had a thought on the topic of images and their applicability in different parts of a web page also. Having worked as an outbound salesman for the last couple of years I looked at a lot of websites to find clients. Obviously, a company's budget has to be considered when considering the quality of a website but from what I observed there are some elements of websites that are perhaps ignored or rushed by developers, are not budget dependent, and can give a website a cheaper or less professional look.

I think the two screenshots below corroborate my point above; B2Bs logo on the home page of their site is slightly pix-elated while Hunt Office’s (one of the biggest office supplies companies in Ireland) logo looks smooth and gives it a cleaner look, which as the first thing a user sees when clicking onto a home page immediately portrays a better level of professionalism than that of B2B.

I am trying not to think too far ahead in terms of the end goal of being in this course, and this module, because I have a long way to go and an extremely vast discipline to cover before any of that will happen. Thinking too far ahead would be daunting for me so its better to sit back and enjoy the process of learning each part as it comes.

27/10/20

This web authoring module is the reason I decided to do this interactive digital media course. I have come from working in sales the last couple of years and wanted to make a complete career change. For that reason it was very important I acquired proper tangible skills that allowed me to make that change and I felt coding was up there with the best of options.

Our first lecture last Saturday was about HTML. From what I understand, we are learning HTML at the best time up to date as its been consolidated into one format that everyone in the western world abides by and is uniform so a lot of complications can be avoided across the board for developers and users alike.

The lecture primarily focused on elements and I was happy, and relieved, that I could keep up with the material and didn’t get too lost as this is all totally new territory for me. I enjoyed the lecture thoroughly as HTML seems logical and if you follow the right steps it does what you want it to do. I am looking forward to starting practice, getting the muscle memory working and moving toward that career change I need.

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sirjustice735-blog · 4 years

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good, dont ask me high thinking u r intelligent, get this, u will be killed, monitor ya own people, in tumblr sirjustice390, how machines r made and more than u got, its me who told china, so stop asking me my location wanting to know my next budget, if u wanna send money send to some1, u r being investigated if u r insane and kinda dude, once every African nation has made such machines, u control ya waters, dont bring ya lazy brothers her to want 1 food synonymous with Germans already seen character that their women direct them, me am a man and mark u, u got my cash. U cutthroat dog and silly sleek animal, we will kill u and take ya land if u relent not with that sickening character of not getting dude, u imbecile thinking u r above people with silly investigative tricks. Whether am lying none of ya business as u have lied with what have told the truth above and u dont see dude

Old car engines place waru then add cabbage makes aero-plane or place paw paw add waru b4 spitting saliva many people, urinating, eating boiled maize smeared with chilies. The rule of the thumb is place mango seed, maize cob, ripe guava, butternut, mfenesi, chilies, cabbage, yam and add with any fruit or fruit seeds, or other veggies, wild berries and any leaf of any plant, roots, back and any animal body parts or animal itself, birds, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, rodents and non living things so they be 3 plus the old engine for any machine then apply all the styles mention above in the boom process as spit saliva, caress booty, clap, run, walk, blow charcoal, hurl fruit and any beverage juice and any cereal, leaf, rodents as above and u get a different answer, i mean a new machine dude, serious no kidding bro!!!!

Listen to the song link below dude, relaxing in country side Texas bored with ya wine thinking not much of the woman u love but the kid hasty character

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=takila+country+song

When other nations got internet, make computers, make artificial euphorbia, veggies, cooking, oil, sugar via other methods, caskets and have the make toothpaste herb as ogombo in local dialect in artificial way then carli4nia with her cities collapses 4 sure and even Texas with other ways to make flakes and gas and NY with new other Manhattan and how to make rye and uses of rye with other methods collapses dude, 4 sure, no kidding bro and even how to make tissue and ice cream and candy via other means, with wood pulp Canada collapses due

8 ball pontoon software and servers can be made when like awiny tree leaves place in maize cob then cabbage placed b4 hurling hot water or hurling cold water mixed with millet or cassava in grass then kale placed b4 hurling cold water 4 the similar software and hurling hot water 4 the money to be placed service or kale in grass place sugar cane then add water melons b4 u spit saliva or hurl with hot water 4 the payment software and radar or cabbage in grass place kale b4 u spit saliva or hurl with hot water or carrot in grass add euphorbia b4 u hurl with tangerine or place avocado and spit saliva or hurl with cold water and boom ya software control unit and payment service dude as in the link below

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miniclip.eightballpool&hl=en

A longtime some people were forced to live in mad thatched houses, people at those time thinking they can transfigure in fat cattle as cows or horses but the whole lie was resolved dude with many wise teachings, songs and writings from people who live in such to create a holiday of mesmerizing joy and disgust around those people who live in such and Mr white man lies unearthed in books to settle the disputes.

Armored glass train or light rail or bullet train, take awiny tree leaves then place in maize cob and add grass b4 u spit saliva or awiny tree leaves in grass then place hay b4 u spit saliva or cabbage in grass add guava seed b4 u spit saliva or in grass place acacia seed pod b4 u add dry grass and spit saliva and boom ya bullet train or cassava in paw paw add groundnut, spit saliva 4 the armored rail or awiny tree leaves in cabbage add sukuma or in sukuma add carrots and boom ya rail or paw paw in cassava add guava leaves or guava in grass add paw paw b4 u spit saliva in the boom process many people from lofty high and Lo ya train dude and 4 armored glass gun in paw paw in grass add hay spit saliva or cane in grass add groundnut spit saliva

And 4 monies Sodom apple leaves in fruits place mango seed, leave, awiny leaves, Sodom roots, avocado seed b4 u clap hand, walk hurriedly together, caress and spit saliva in the boom process to give u much denominations. Ogembo herb in Sodom leaves add Sodom roots gives ya dimes while if u add Sodom fruit gives ya break fluid and inside seed watch like cells dude

Rye now can be made artificially to stop coming to E-Africa, in pretense to create fights to take those lands as well as with TEA, coffee and fish, nyamau etc Only 1 remaining is wheat but can be made artificially with real goat brain or artificially made place in hay then carrot or avocado seed placed b4 cold water hurled to give ya the wheat flour or grain to mix with real ones to reduce the budgets of such nations growing such as Ethiopia, SA, Canada, Kenya to reduce the moves of those who were eyeing such as Negro moving to Africa to later conquour like Ukraine saying they are jew or Germans moving to E-Africa to share nyamau cash or tea as well as moving to Brasilia or Ghana thwarted as their is artificial cocoa and coffee with Ethiopia. The problem will solve it self and even with developed nations planning to bring their pay-TV and internet where local countries got the same to puzzle them

With the software above, u think of and certainly ask the devaura to place it in CD 4 u like the Arab web browser and Benin software is me i told them, kids off me reopens my mind to think as if they came to me to infuse my mind as many have been trained dude, get me that’s it homey with writing how these things displayed written, no 1 always next to ya, open yours as well if we are the same, we aint the same dude but equality laws should be fixed to make us co-exist peacefully, we can never be equal lest our desires same to make the nation not move forward dude or us not buy some machines or gadgets 4 the economy to move on as if we buy another breeds jealousy cause we are equal dude and even housing styles not wanted as 1 housing style that breeds spirits. Houses should be different to infuse that spirit mentioned above.

Snail, og’ong’lo in grass place hay or cactus makes fish or in paw paw place guava.

CD with cushioning is guava in grass place acacia seed pod b4 u spit saliva in the boom process or place hay b4 u shout or guava in avocado place raw paw paw b4 u shout or scream 2 people or place kale and shout or cabbage in kale place coffee berries or tea and shout dude or grass in cabbage place kale and shout or kadhira in kunde place paw paw and shout or place cabbage and scream dude

Sodom leaves in grass add mango spit saliva big supersonic jets if u add raw banana armored fighter chopper while ripe fighter small choppers, melons flying tankers, sesame gives ya glass guns, rats urinate guns, spit saliva gun boats, walk machine guns, talk set guns, paw paw napkins spit saliva, died goat or coconut submarine, eggs wifi controlled missiles with radar, chicken big missiles in cold weather, while place cauliflower missiles still, hoho gives ya drones, chilies gives ya submarines, tomato gives ya fighter jets while its seed E-engine gear box, lemon seed gives ya light air-crafts as well as guava and paw paw while lemon itself gives ya choppers, chachina leaves lambo, graveli ferari, mango leaves phantom, kale gives ya bulbs, kadhira gives ya grenades while its stick grenade launchers, kunde stick police clothing, kunde leave bullet proof vests clothes while seed bullets as fruit gun boat, turkey gives ya jaguar cars, white guava leaves grenade launchers as its seeds gives ya bullets it roots grenades. Fighter helicopter big plane like is tomato leaves or kale sticks place in the above as Sodom leaves in grass, human feces gives ya machine guns, silencer is rye grain added while wheat grain gives ya assassins riffle when u spit saliva when u walk armored glass train dude, when u talk telephone booster technology, when u place lemon seed urinate internet servers, when u defecate onto it when lemon seed in place gives ya internet servers and pay Tv when u hit ya booty opposite way 2 people, E-digital water meter system when u place lemon and hurl with avocado juice, E-telescope system when u hurl same with pineapple juice, when u hurl with paw paw juice gives ya electric meter system digital ones when u hurl with dry grass gives ya old type grenade launchers, when u hurl with kunde gives ya spies drones, when u hurl with kojet tv station system when u hurl with cucumber radio station unit, when u hurl with reed gives ya recording station machine units, when u shout many people gives ya photo printing studio machines and more trying to hurl with anything living and none living 4 better results when lemon seeds placed dude.

International phone 0ne line is when Sodom leaves placed in paw paw then hurl with cold water to give ya the booster or when rice grain placed in wheat grain then grass added b4 u spit saliva or Garlic in paw paw then tangerine added b4 us shout 4 joy or pumpkin placed in paw paw then cucumber added b4 u speak like 2 people or grass in hay then potato added b4 u shout 4 joy or sweet potato added b4 u spit saliva gives ya strong boosters and we got fissures beneath to pass the wire and cargo drone technology to hang another booster beneath and on and on until we reach the land dude

Liqours how made hay in avocado place onion then spit saliva 4 red label or 4 bell is hay in kunde then place paw paw spit saliva or 4 saints honey in green grass place leaf onion or paw paw in honey place avocado 4 ballantines and 4 jack danells saw dust in water place grass, 4 jim bean grass in hay place paw paw or 4 jameson Kart in grass place paw paw or honey in saw husks place hay 4 lamore dew or sminofe is sperms in hay place green grass b4 u spit saliva, 4 tryconnel is green grass in hay place paw paw or coconut in clean water place hay 4 teeling and urine in sewer water place cucumber 4 roe and co or mango in sewer water place guava 4 gold label or eggs in grass place hay 4 roberts or sewer water in hay place tangerine 4 macallan or paw paw in sewer water place avocado 4 jack daniels or honey in green grass place kojet 4 rye brand or 4 rede is paw paw in mango place red guava or 4 evan paw paw in hay place mango or 4 mark is hay in green grass place eggs or orange peel or tangerine seeds or 4 knob is tangerine in clean water place pursely or dania or strawberry in honey place orange 4 hibiki or 4 JP is mango in hay place onion as in the link below dude

https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/best-whiskey-brands/

4 brandy whisky is honey in green grass place paw paw or 4 kibao is mfenesi in green grass place avocado or hunters is paw paw in hay place bringanya dude or 4 caprice is mango in paw paw place hay or kale in hay place paw paw 4 vat 69 or 4 jb is grass in avocado place paw paw or Gilbeys is paw paw in avocado place kunde or passion fruit in green grass place paw paw or 4 Kenya cane is coconut in green grass place paw paw and 4 black and white is paw paw in pumpkin place kart/mira b4 u spit saliva with bottle u add chachina or graveli leaves or hay in green grass place paw paw or guava 4 captain Morgan dude or gum tree in hay place hoho 4 brandy legend liquor or 4 Hennessy is paw paw in hay place kale or cucumber in grass place paw paw 4 4th street.

Cow bones in grass then place cabbage urinate machine guns place sugar cane spit saliva military vehicle, place avocado helicopter, place pumpkin jets, place oranges big air-crafts 4 military, place tangerine and seed bullets and guns, place coconut missiles, place kunde grenades, place mango seed grenade launcher and on and on dude placing different veggies and fruit, leaves as well or other animals in the above bro

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sirjustice734-blog · 4 years

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Listen to the song link below dude, relaxing in country side Texas bored with ya wine thinking not much of the woman u love but the kid hasty character

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=takila+country+song

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miniclip.eightballpool&hl=en

Snail, og’ong’lo in grass place hay or cactus makes fish or in paw paw place guava.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/best-whiskey-brands/

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sirjustice733-blog · 4 years

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Listen to the song link below dude, relaxing in country side Texas bored with ya wine thinking not much of the woman u love but the kid hasty character

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=takila+country+song

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miniclip.eightballpool&hl=en

Snail, og’ong’lo in grass place hay or cactus makes fish or in paw paw place guava.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/best-whiskey-brands/

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sirjustice732-blog · 4 years

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Listen to the song link below dude, relaxing in country side Texas bored with ya wine thinking not much of the woman u love but the kid hasty character

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=takila+country+song

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miniclip.eightballpool&hl=en

Snail, og’ong’lo in grass place hay or cactus makes fish or in paw paw place guava.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/best-whiskey-brands/

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sirjustice731-blog · 4 years

Photo

Listen to the song link below dude, relaxing in country side Texas bored with ya wine thinking not much of the woman u love but the kid hasty character

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=takila+country+song

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miniclip.eightballpool&hl=en

Snail, og’ong’lo in grass place hay or cactus makes fish or in paw paw place guava.

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