different banner bc this one is just a bunch of lines from my various wips that i've poked at recently. i tried to actually write and it didn't go well but i am rotating all my blorbos like rotisserie chickens in my mind palace which i'm sure will eventually bear fruit. enjoy some random sentences!

i wanna be adored (elliott lefevre from chambers x marco peña from kissing booth 2 & 3)

Marco tries to catch Elliott’s eye. He’s honestly not sure if he’s drunk or if he just wants everyone to think he is.

mechanic alex (firstprince) this one is so close to being done please sir can i have some spoons 🙏

“Oh,” Henry whispers. “You beautiful slut. Look at you.” 

taylor pov of the second half of chapter 3 of disaster (taynick) i'm thinking i'll throw disaster in a series and post some ficlets, taylor pov, etc when inspo strikes (aka when jon gives me brainworms)

A buzzing sound from Nick’s nightstand jerks Taylor’s thoughts away from all the things he could do to get Nick to make more of those delicious noises.

untitled raf/alex (what is says on the tin. i'm FERAL for these two)

“I’ve got you,” Raf tells him, stroking a thumb over his cheek.

ryliver villa fic

“You fucking slut,” Oliver growls right into his ear. “You could barely tear your eyes off of me long enough to tell her how pretty she is, could you?”

i know you can't ignore me (another taynick fic)

Taylor’s not sure if Nick spent all night fighting off memories of the night they spent together, but he certainly did.

i'm always happy to chat about any of my wips! feel free to poke me - maybe some words will fall out! open tag + some no pressure tags under the cut.

i'm scheduling for midnight my time so if you beat me somehow i'm sorry! i'll hopefully be snoozin'!

tagging @bigassbowlingballhead @oxfordslutphase @lostcol @winderlylandchime @taste-thewaste

@dreamsinthewitchouse @basil-bird @sheepywritesfics @agostobuwan @ninzied

@hgejfmw-hgejhsf @thinkof-england @wordsofhoneydew @happiness-of-the-pursuit @cactusdragon517

@violetbaudelaire-quagmire @dragonflylady77 @cha-melodius @heysweetheart-writes @captainjunglegym

There is some pretty shocking footage out there of the Baltimore bridge collapse early this morning. I've already seen some incredibly wrong, incredibly insensitive Hot Takes about how shitty the bridge was to have fallen after being bonked by a boat, etc

Please don't be that person.

The facts will come out. Speculation is silly. In addition to loss of life, the Francis Scott Key bridge was a major arterial in that region's highway system. Its loss will be felt for years, and not just to daily commuters.

Baltimore harbor is closed. No shipping at all. This will impact supply chains in ways we cannot even assess yet.

It's pretty fucked up.

I just saw how many people are suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake because it has also been very cold and raining; I remembered how branches fell through your roof and got worried... I hope all three of you and ikemen orange and white are still warm, dry, and safe! <3

We had warm new year holidays but it's gotten colder again. The disaster area is also cold and have snow, so we're really worrying about there.

Our house had damaged but we have no problems to live and she's going to repair but the damages around the disaster area is so heavy and the damage is increasing still now.

The three of us are fine, so if you would like to help, we would be very grateful if you could donate to support the effected areas.

Japan Peace Boat can be accept the donation from abroad:

Although our house in this circle but the the damage of Noto peninsula is so heavier...

Gomi Pit

I remember discovering the fire of Notre Dame on tumblr, so I'm very sorry to inform everyone that the Danish Stock Exchange in Copenhagen, completed in 1625, is burning. Its unique spire has fallen, and as the building is, to a larger degree than Notre Dame, made of wood, mortar, and stucco, there may be very real structural damage. As you can see from the image, they were in the process of restoring it, just as it was the case with the church. Very real reconsideration should be done to how we restore very old buildings if we keep setting them on fire during the work.

People off the street have been seen running into the building and bringing out historical art pieces, primarily paintings. If you are close by, DO NOT do this! I know it appears the heroic thing to do, but no human life is worth the risk to save a painting, no matter how significant.

Before all this:

Stained glass windows in the administrative building of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was one of the largest in the Soviet Union and the poster child of the Soviet nuclear power industry. As such, little expense was spared on details like these windows.

The Soviet Union often used motifs in abstract art to promote Communism and laude their successes.

For more info, check out my reblog of this post.

The Great Molasses Flood was a disaster in Boston that occurred after a storage tank collapsed on January 15, 1919, sending more than two million gallons (eight million litres) of molasses flowing through the city’s North End. The deluge caused extensive damage and killed 21 people.

The tank was built in 1915 along Boston’s waterfront on Commercial Street, opposite Copp’s Hill. It was operated by the Purity Distilling Company, a subsidiary of United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA). At the time, industrial alcohol—then made from fermented molasses—was highly profitable; it was used to make munitions and other weaponry for World War I (1914–18). The tank’s immense size reflected the demand: it measured more than 50 feet (15 metres) high and 90 feet (27 metres) in diameter and could hold up to 2.5 million gallons (9.5 million litres) of molasses. Built quickly, the tank was problematic from the start, leaking and often emitting rumbling noises. Nevertheless, it continued to be used, and after the war’s conclusion USIA focused on producing grain alcohol, which was in high demand as prohibition neared passage.

At approximately 12:30 PM on January 15, 1919, the tank burst, releasing a deluge of “sweet, sticky death.” According to reports, the resulting wave of molasses was 15 to 40 feet (5 to 12 metres) high and some 160 feet (49 metres) wide. Traveling at approximately 35 miles (56 km) per hour, it destroyed several city blocks, leveling buildings and damaging automobiles. Although help arrived quickly, the hardening molasses made rescue efforts difficult. In the end, 21 people were killed, many of whom were suffocated by the syrup, and approximately 150 were injured. In addition, the Boston Post noted that a number of horses had “died like so many flies on sticky fly paper.” Clean-up efforts lasted for weeks, and Boston reportedly continued to smell like molasses for years afterward.

Numerous lawsuits were filed in the wake of the disaster. While victims alleged that the tank was not safe, USIA claimed that it had been sabotaged by “evilly disposed persons.” In 1925, however, it was ruled that the tank was unsound, and USIA was ordered to pay damages. In addition, the disaster resulted in stricter construction codes being adopted by states across the country.

For years, questions were raised over how such a seemingly benign substance could have caused so many deaths. In 2016, researchers released a study that placed the blame on cold temperatures. While warm weather would have caused the molasses to be less viscous, the winter temperatures made the syrup markedly thicker, severely impeding rescuers.

Run! It's a Kermit-nado!!!

Today in a freak accident a container ship leaving the Port of Baltimore struck a support column for the 1.6 mile long Francis Scott Key Bridge causing enough damage to collapse most of the bridge in seconds.

The skyline of Baltimore City will never look the same again

Francis Scott Key Bridge (1977-2024)

Patapsco River, Baltimore, Maryland

Scragglmop the Destroyer

Once feared throughout the land, a great and terrible dragon grew tired of being endlessly hunted for his hoard and faked his death with the aid of a glory-hungry gnomish bard. Living on for centuries in the guise of a street cat, the dragon is now a hair's breadth from resuming his rampaging ways after the bard's descendants have lost the fortune he gave over to them for safe keeping.

Adventure Hooks:

A series of unexplained fires has wracked the city in recent weeks, which has both the guard and the populace on edge. Rumours swirl blaming arsonists, saboteurs from a rival kingdom, even an illegal duelling society of mages, but none have yet put it together that all of the workshops and businesses were all patronized in one way or another by the famed Candlebright noble family.

Coincidentally, Hignatta Candlebright, young head of that same noble house has sent an invitation to the party to join her at a famed teahouse to discuss a delicate matter involving the retrieval of stolen property. Hignatta has all but taken over the teahouse and its guestrooms since her own family home burned down near the start of the panic, and the party might begin to draw a connection when half way through their meeting the teahouse begins to fill with smoke, panicking patrons, and a booming, sourceless voice that demands "WHERE IS MY GOLD, CANDLEBRIGHT?!"

If you really want to mess with the party, consider introducing them to the fluffy street cat completely independently of the arson plot, making a nuisance of himself in the market while they're trying to shop, or catching mice in their store-room should they have acquired a residence in town. Have them befriend the cat as they might any bad-tempered stray, only to realize after the adventure is half way through that the mice he catches are always somewhat charred. Also imagine the looks on their faces the moment the party's home is broken into by an enemy and their housecat incinnerates a wave of intruders for disturbing his nap.

Background: Everyone knows the story about how the legendary hero Gailen Candlebright saved the realm from the tyrannical dragon Slaggrath, a beast known to devour whole armies and raze kingdoms in search of treasure. It's the ubiquitous tale against which all adventurers are measured against, made all the more ubiquitous thanks to the fact that the deed is memorialized in drinking ballads, children rhymes, and even a few folk operas. Gailen was a troubadour of not insignificant skill before he became a legend, and he had little trouble using that skill and hardwon fame to ensure his deeds would never be forgotten.

As with many tales told by the bards, Gailen left out quite a bit of the truth when concocting his tale: It was a late night in a roadside tavern and the young Candlebright was approached by a sourfaced man with a tangled beard and clothes that might have once been quite fine. Gailen had sung for his supper and then some, his hat was overflowing with tips from a long night's work and a greatful crowd, and the old man wanted to know how it was exactly that the Gnome hadn't yet been robbed; The roads were full of all sorts of rough types who thought that their strength entitled them to others' wealth, bandits yes but worse yet kingsmen, who took what they wanted sure that that they were above any kind punishment.

Seeing that the old man had fallen on rough times, likely having been robbed himself, Gailen spoke from the heart: He'd been robbed a few times yes, but he got by looking like someone that no one would bother to steal from, dressing in his fine clothes only on days he'd perform, and keeping most of his riches in the safe keeping of others, such as the caravan masters he frequently traveled along with.

The old man considered Gailen's words and the two sat up drinking through the night debating the merits of the Troubador's duplicity. Was it not better, asked the old man, to defend what was yours with strength and reputation, That everyone might learn from the failure of those that had trifled with you before?

Gailen looked at the many scars the old man bore and countered that fools never learned their lesson, they just thought themselves better than the last fool who risked it and they'd keep risking it till luck won out or they went to join all the fools that had come before.

It was dawn when the two parted ways, Gailen tottering off to bed thinking he'd given council to a reformed bandit chief, the old man slipping out of the inn and taking to wing thinking he'd concocted a brilliant scheme with the help of his newest, and perhaps first, friend.

i was a week (and one pants-shitting revelation over the old man's true draconic nature) later that the legend of Slaggrath came to an end: Gailen walking into that very same tavern bloodied, burnt, and with the broken off horn of the great wyrm held above his head as a trophy. The news spread like wildfire, the name Candlebright ascended to the shortlist of the realm's great champions, and not a soul questioned when the newly knighted Gailen comissioned the construction of an elaborate series of vaults beneith the castle he'd just been awarded. The bard had everything he wanted, and in return he and his family would hold the dragon's horde in trust, not touching a single copper and adding a little to it each year out of respect for the wyrm's generosity.

Future Adventures:

Even before he charmed his way into unexpected riches, Gailen was an ardent follower of Garl Glittergold, god of ambition, wit, and wariness. Genresavvy bard that he was, he understood that this fabulous windfall wasn't just some gift from his god, it was a test, and that to keep his good fortune going he'd best abide by the exact deal he'd struck in that tavern. Gailen kept Slaggrath's treasure under lock and key all his life and made sure his children did the same despite never telling them where he got it, in accordance with his pact with the dragon . Feeling that the Candlebright family has sat on its laurels for far too long (especially since practical and buisness minded Hignatta has been increasingly questioning why her late grandfather insisted on keeping a giant pile of money in their basement and never spending it), the god has seen fit to shake things up, ensuring that some long lost blueprints for the vault have fallen into the hands of a group of thieves, who broke in and cleared the vault though the very same secret passages Slaggrath used to pop in every decade or so and make sure the count was up to date. The dragon is pissed, convinced Hignatta has reneged on her family's deal.. and all the while the thieves get closer and closer to escaping.

Depending on how the party handles it this situation could break bad in any number of ways: The dragon could give up on being Scragglmop and go on a rampage forcing the party to put him down, they could intercede on Hignatta's behalf and ensure the treasure is returned possibly earning themselves a cushy position as retainers of house Candlebright, perhaps most dangerously they could earn the attention of Garl Glittergold himself and end up being singled out for their own unstable blessing.

In addition to being motivated by the prerequisite desire to get rich, the thieves were hired by an ambitious mage who has long desired to get his hands on Gailen's Horn, the draconic trophy the bard thereafter used as the sigil for his house and hollowed out into a heavy instrument through which he channelled his most showy magic. The mage has designs on the horn as the centrepiece of a ritual drawing on the object's history of power and triumph. Given that the horn is in fact the centrepiece of a giant con it's going to bring some very unaccounted for variables into the mage's ritual which is liable to set off its own chain of problems down the line.

Art

What's your favorite part of disaster research?

Ohohoo. I could go on about this one for HOURS.

But, at it's core: my favorite thing is looking into how and why we tell disaster stories the way we do, both in fiction and non-fiction. As an extension of that, how the fiction and non-fiction aspects intersect. Why do we focus on the elements we do? Why does media coverage of disasters work the way it does? Why do we believe so many myths about disasters like looting and panic behavior and everyone-for-themselves? How can we use fiction to better inform non-fiction, and non-fiction to better inform fiction?

Here's an example of fiction to better inform non-fiction: in Emergency Management, it's a common sentiment that it isn't necessarily the plan you come up with that's useful, it's the act of making that plan. The actual plan you make is probably going to fall apart at some point, because you can never plan perfectly. A plan is fiction. It's fiction heavily based in reality, but it is still imagining scenarios that have not actually happened. But in the act of making it you are going to learn so much about yourself, the people you work with, the place you live, etc. and that knowledge is going to be what saves you.

A perfect example of this is Gander, Canada during 9/11. Gander is a little town that also happens to have the eastern most airport in Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada that can take large passenger jets. In the 90s, as everyone was preparing for Y2K, Gander realized that if we did have a worst-case Y2K, there would be a ton of jets stranded over the Atlantic that would need a place to land immediately, and that meant landing in Gander. So they made a plan. They fictionalized the scenario to figure out what they would need to do to deal with that outcome. But then Y2K didn't amount to much and the plan was thrown away, because they'll never need a plan like that again, right?

Cut to almost two years later when 9/11 occurs and what happens? Air traffic in the US is shut down and suddenly there's tons of jets stranded over the Atlantic with nowhere to go and desperate for a place to land. So what does Gander do? They've thrown out their actual plan for this. But it didn't matter because they'd learned from it, and they remembered what they'd learned. Gander ended up taking in nearly 7,000 refugees from dozens of jets. It nearly doubled their population in just a handful of hours. Everyone in town came together to get these people safe, get them comfortable, and help them figure out what the hell to do next. (There's actually a Broadway musical about it called "Come From Away.")

So how do we make those sorts of plans? How do we develop them to be as helpful as possible in a way that is understandable and digestible so that it can be as effective as possible?

Then, of course, there's non-fiction informing fiction which is a bit more obvious as to how that all works. We've been doing studies since WWII that have told us how people behave in disasters, and it very much does not match the way Hollywood usually portrays it. So why? Why are we so obsessed with these disaster myths? Why are those the core aspects our cultures keep sinking their teeth into?

So. Yeah. :P

That's my favorite aspect of disaster stuff. I may or may not be looking into pursuing a PhD at this point. >.>

bellum omnium in omnes

happy birthday disaster party