+ 1 To "commissions That Are The Reason I Wake Up In The Morning".

everyone please read this and share if you can.

Brazil is going through one of the worst climatic crisis ever seen.

i live in the southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. we have been suffering from extreme, nonstop rainstorms for a week now. the rivers are flooding, reaching 4-6 meters above their natural level. people are being rescued by helicopters, neighborhoods are being evacuated. entire cities are slowly but surely becoming submerged in water. 60 people missing and counting. 32 deaths and counting.

and this is not new. last november also had a flood like this one. 50 dead, many material losses. it happened again this january, with thousands being left without power or water for days.

three catastrophical disasters within less than a year. three disasters only a few months apart.

this is not natural.

unsustainable agricultural practices and politics led to this. a complete disregard for nature led to this. greed led to this. always greed.

when it comes to the climate crisis, i cannot stress this enough: we need to act now if we still want to live. disasters like this are going to happen more often and they're going to be much, much worse. this flood is being considered the worst climatic catastrophe in the history of my state. i don't know how long it will take for another bigger one to happen and take its place. i just know it will be sooner than it should.

links to donate (if you can't donate, sharing already helps a lot):

link for non-brazilians (paybox)

link for brazilians

pix assufrgs

will update more links later. in the meantime, pray for us.

A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

have you been reading any fics lately? the ones you recommend are always top tier 😭 specifically any saiou xiaoven or albether! thanks!

hmm i've only been reading other characters for gnshn lately, so i guess this'll just be saiou rec list #4 (out of 1, 2, and 3)!

What's Yours to Have | postgame VR AU | The thought crashes through his head uninvited. This isn't real. | i like VR AUs that tackle the crippling sense of derealization that must follow... saihara's really going through it, but there's comfort to be found, too. soft!

A Dream (Is it Boring if We Walk this Way Again?) | post-canon | Shuichi has been having a recurring dream, lately. Kokichi is in it, and so are many dark and tangled roads. | how about another fic featuring saihara thinking about identities and having a crisis? loving and haunting both, like lots of OP's works :)c

Morally Gray | angel & demon AU, series | the classic angel/devil au with conversations about righteousness and morality suits saiou a lot...! unfinished series, but the first part especially can read as a fun stand-alone. i like the idea of a sort of good omens-esque saiou investigating supernatural incidents...

watch out, i could steal your heart! | phantom thief AU + p5r xover | Ouma Kokichi is a phantom thief. That’s a phantom thief, no capitals, not a Phantom Thief who steals hearts. In fact, he’s quite annoyed at them– they completely stole his spotlight, when they came onto the scene back in April. | phantom thieves squared!! wip saiou + akeshu, but honestly the saihara + akechi frenemies is really doing it for me too lol

moe moe kyon, saihara-chan! | maid cafe AU | Akamatsu called his omajinai a mix of pathetic and off-putting performance art, and Yumeno just said he looks like a freak. None of the patrons complained so far, but surely as a famous idol Ouma would have high standards, right?  | this is incredibly self-serving LOL but maayan and i like to cook up the most deranged AUs and she wrote this gem in answer to our insane DMs... saihara would be a terrible maid. lucky that's not all ouma's there for...?!

Sugar | salmon mode | Saihara, in the process of offering gifts, makes some grave miscalculations. | similar framing but a different premise than illusion rod, but with the same layered, insightful and fun writing :)c saihara's interactions with the other classmates are A++ too

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Save My Family from the War Nightmare in Gaza

Hello

I am Mohammad Taysir, 34 years old, a Palestinian living in Gaza. I am married to Basma, and we have two children: Joud, who is 3 years old, and Yazan, who is 2 and a half. I am writing to you from the heart of destruction and suffering in palestine

Our lives used to be normal, filled with hope and hard work, until war came and destroyed everything.

gofundme.com

Donate to Save My Family from the War Nightmare in Gaza, organized by Mohammed Alanqar

Hello, I am Mohammad Taysir, 34 years old, a Palestinian living in Gaz… Mohammed Alanqar needs your support for Save My Family from the War

Before the war, I worked as a mobile programmer, and my wife was a schoolteacher. We had many aspirations and lived a simple yet happy life, dreaming of a bright future for our children.

gofundme.com

Donate to Save My Family from the War Nightmare in Gaza, organized by Mohammed Alanqar

Hello, I am Mohammad Taysir, 34 years old, a Palestinian living in Gaz… Mohammed Alanqar needs your support for Save My Family from the War

The war came and changed everything. Our home was destroyed, we lost our jobs, and we became homeless.

We tried to flee to safer areas in search of security. But safety in Gaza has become nearly impossible. Death and destruction are everywhere, and our children live in an endless nightmare. Opportunities for education and entertainment have vanished, and basic necessities are scarce. We are suffering from poverty and despair.

We are now searching for an opportunity to live in a safe place outside Gaza. However, this is very costly, and we are in desperate need of your support. We want to provide a dignified life and a better future for our children. We believe that humanity and compassion still exist, and that there are those who will respond to our desperate plea.

Every donation, no matter how small — $5 or $10, or 50$ will have a significant impact on our lives. Your contributions will help us cover the costs of travel and living in a safe country. We want to start a new life away from fear and destruction, giving our children a chance to dream and hope again.

gofundme.com

Donate to Save My Family from the War Nightmare in Gaza, organized by Mohammed Alanqar

Hello, I am Mohammad Taysir, 34 years old, a Palestinian living in Gaz… Mohammed Alanqar needs your support for Save My Family from the War

My Campaign was Reblog by some and Vetted

vetted by @communistchilchuck 🌹link🌹

vetted by @northgazaupdates

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vetted by

@mohammedalanqer

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Thank you to everyone who supported us❤

Lucifer: *enters the hotel*

Alastor: I cast vicious mockery 😈

An animation my sis and I made for fun

Music is Perception Check by Tom Cardy.

Home screen reveal part 1❤💙

This is Eman a Biotechnologist from Gaza. Asking for help is not easy. It's not easy at all. You have no idea how mentally and emotionally tiring this is. But when thinking that the price is my family's life, getting out of here safely and achieve my doctoral degree dream, it just pushes me more and more to do this until we reach our goal. I'm here as I try to reach out to more people asking for their help to support our family's campaign so we can survive while all you have to do is literally donating even by just the price of your morning coffee or maybe a simple breakfast, So I think I'm not asking for so much. We're really tired of living under these catastrophic conditions for a whole 10 months. Your generosity will not only change our lives but also remind us that even in our darkest hour, we are not alone. https://gofund.me/d597b8e2

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did you know that in one of dorm epel's voicelines he mentions he once got lost in pomefiore and ended up in a creepy basement. it's never mentioned again or given any clarification and i think about it every day

that comes up a couple of times actually! there's just like...a weird creepy dungeon slash old alchemy lab that the Pomefiore castle was built on top of. I think Vil might use it sometimes? but really it serves absolutely no purpose beyond the characters every once in a while being like "oh yeah, there's that secret underground laboratory we all apparently know about" and then never elaborating on it at all.

(I know it's a movie reference, but it's still pretty wild to just. in-universe have a not-so-secret basement alchemy dungeon that never has any relevance beyond a couple of throwaway lines. what other buckwild secrets does NRC hold that the characters just never talk about for some reason)

It's Valentine's Day and Amani needs your help!

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Amani and her children in Gaza, who are in dire need of, organized by MUSBAH ABUMAHROUQA

Hello, I am Amani from Gaza, and I have 4 children. We los… MUSBAH ABUMAHROUQA needs your support for Help Amani and her children in Gaz

Amani's house is now rubble. She and her kids need to find somewhere else to go for a better life. Another country even! Spread love this Valentine's Day by giving her family a donation of at least $5!

Thank you dear supporters for all the help you are offering the people of Gaza in this dire time. I am a father of four tender babies who are paying much of their childhood and innocence in this unfair war. Please do whatever you can to help me save my family till the war ends.

Despite the suffering and hardships of this fierce war , your support and assistance ease us and grant us power and patience. Your contribution keeps a whole family safe, that is why i am asking you to donate whatever you can of at least share my link so that other donors can know about my tragedy and pain.

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