#California and Florida EXIST

[everything-is-as-it-was]

ok in this person's defense there is absolutely no reason anyone should ever know what kentucky is unless they REALLY like horses

im European, one time in uni we had an American exchange student. I said idk much about American geography, he said "oh I'm from california that's easy right?" and I, with full confidence, said "that's next to new york right?"

i support you. i am the figurehead for purposefully being ignorant about all of americas geography

[thelasttime]

surprise songs - eras tour

3/17 - glendale, arizona : “mirrorball” and “tim mcgraw”

3/18 - glendale, arizona: “this is me trying” and “state of grace”

3/24 - las vegas, nevada: “our song” and “snow on the beach”

3/25 - las vegas, nevada: “cowboy like me” and “white horse”

3/31 - arlington, texas: “sad beautiful tragic” and “ours”

4/1 - arlington, texas: “death by a thousand cuts” and “clean”

4/2 - arlington, texas: “jump then fall” and “the lucky one”

4/13 - tampa, florida: “speak now” and “treacherous”

4/14 - tampa, florida: “the great war” and “you’re on your own kid”

4/15 - tampa, florida: “mad woman” and “mean”

4/21 - houston, texas: “wonderland” and “you’re not sorry”

4/22 - houston, texas: “a place in this world” and “today was a fairytale”

4/23 - houston, texas: “begin again” and “cold as you”

4/28 - atlanta, georgia: “the other side of the door” and “coney island”

4/29 - atlanta, georgia: “high infidelity” and “gorgeous”

4/30 - atlanta, georgia: “i bet you think about me” and “how you get the girl”

5/5 - nashville, tennessee: “sparks fly” and “teardrops on my guitar”

5/6 - nashville, tennessee: “out of the woods” and “fifteen”

5/7 - nashville, tennessee: “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve” and “mine”

5/12 - philadelphia, pennsylvania: “gold rush” and “come back…be here”

5/13 - philadelphia, pennsylvania: “forever & always” and “this love”

5/14 - philadelphia, pennsylvania: “hey stephen” and “the best day”

5/19 - foxborough, massachusetts: “should’ve said no” and “better man”

5/20 - foxborough, massachusetts: “…question?” and “invisible”

5/21 - foxborough, massachusetts: “i think he knows” and “red”

5/26 - east rutherford, new jersey: "getaway car" and "maroon"

5/27 - east rutherford, new jersey: “holy ground” and “false god”

5/28 - east rutherford, new jersey: "welcome to new york" and "clean"

6/2 - chicago, illinois: "i wish you would" and "the lakes"

6/3 - chicago, illinois: "you all over me" and "i don't wanna live forever"

6/4 - chicago, illinois: “hits different” and “the moment i knew”

6/9 - detroit, michigan: "haunted" and "i almost do"

6/10 - detroit, michigan: "all you had to do was stay" and "breathe"

6/16 - pittsburgh, pennsylvania: "mr. perfectly fine" and "the last time"

6/17 - pittsburgh, pennsylvania: "seven" and "the story of us"

6/23 - minneapolis, minnesota: “paper rings” and “if this was a movie”

6/24 - minneapolis, minnesota: “dear john” and “daylight”

6/30 - cincinnati, ohio: "i'm only me when i'm with you" and "evermore"

7/1 - cincinnati, ohio: “ivy,” “i miss you, i’m sorry,” and “call it what you want”

7/7 - kansas city, missouri: “never grow up” and “when emma falls in love”

7/8 - kansas city, missouri: “last kiss” and “dorothea”

7/14 - denver, colorado: “picture to burn” and “timeless”

7/15 - denver, colorado: “starlight” and “back to december”

7/22 - seattle, washington: “this is why we can’t have nice things” and “everything has changed”

7/23 - seattle, washington: "tied together with a smile" and "message in a bottle"

7/28 - santa clara, california: “right where you left me” and “castles crumbling”

7/29 - santa clara, california: “stay stay stay” and “all of the girls you loved before”

8/3 - los angeles, california: "i can see you" and "maroon"

8/4 - los angeles, california: "our song" and "you are in love"

8/5 - los angeles, california: “death by a thousand cuts” and “you’re on your own kid”

8/6 - los angeles, california: "i know places" and "king of my heart"

8/7 - los angeles, california: "new romantics" and "new year's day"

8/24 - mexico city, mexico: "i forgot that you existed" and "sweet nothing"

8/25 - mexico city, mexico: "tell me why" and "snow on the beach"

[lizardsfromspace]

Sylvia Browne was one of the most famous psychics of the turn of the millennium, and one of its most despicable. You may remember her from when she told the mother of Amanda Berry her daughter was deceased, which she believed, and she died believing that...but Barry was alive the whole time. Or from the dozens of other times she did something similar

Sylvia Browne released her predictions for the new year every year, like many psychics, but she was stupid enough to keep them online so people could judge them later. Her predictions for the year 2000 include Bill Bradley beating out the Reform Party for the Presidency (he lost the primary to Al Gore, and the Reform Party finished fourth, behind the Green Party with less than half a million votes), that David Letterman would retire (he stayed with the show for 15 more years), that small businesses would flourish in the 2000s, and that Donald Trump will not have a career in politics. Which did technically come true in that he didn't run in 2000, but uh

Also, from reading these at the time, she predicted the big one in California and the death of the Pope nearly every year. Only a keen psychic mind could predict that a man in his eighties could pass away from old age

There's one year she left out, though. She wiped her 2001 predictions from the internet...and her 9/12/2001 predictions. But thankfully, someone preserved them (they're not in the Wayback Machine bc its only 2001 save is in October. And apparently the thing below was a pop-up)

Let's unpack this

She says bin Laden was behind it. An amazing prediction, except she posted this a few days after 9/11, when the media was already speculating he was responsible

She was "given information", which I guess is a way to phrase "watched CNN"

She just makes up a country. She says 9/11 was done by the "Palestinian Republic of Bundi". I can find forum threads from then wondering what the fuck she meant, and all these years later it's still baffling

Did she mean Burundi? A country in Southeastern Africa? There's villages named Bundi in Iran and India, but I can't even begin to imagine what she was even imagining, or why she didn't even begin to stop imagining it

"Triad of Jordan" also turns up nothing

The first name she mentioned just brings up Linkedin pages.

The second only turns up this post. Neither of those names seems to exist in any language

She tried to explain why she didn't predict 9/11, by saying she's not omniscient, and she warned of terrorism...in 1999. But that article I linked dug up her 1999 predictions, bc she left them online, and she said there'd be terrorism...in Florida and London

At the end of this, she takes care to note that 9/11 will NOT stop the Sylvia Browne cruise through Greece and Turkey!!

She saw 9/11, and rushed to make a statement trying to explain why the spirits didn't show her 9/11, and also make up a few countries to blame 9/11 on. Then she sold a cruise, deleted the page, and wrote a book claiming everyone who died on 9/11 was led there to die by their spirit guide to be martyrs to bring patriotism back. I'm glad we don't have celebrity TV psychics anymore but I almost miss them. Simply not justice in how she got off scot-free and our passive aggressive, intermittently-Jamaican queen Miss Cleo got nabbed

[trans-axolotl]

" “In the year 2024….” read the headline of an editor’s message in a 1970 issue of The Presidio, a publication out of the Iowa State Penitentiary. Even for people in prison, whose primary currency is time itself, the date felt far-fetched. Something so distant, it was more the setting of a science fiction novel than of a real-life possibility. Al Ware, the paper’s incarcerated editor, had just experienced the solar eclipse of the century, though Iowa was outside the range of the total eclipse. He whimsically mused on whether he’d be around for the next one—if he meant alive or still in prison is up for interpretation.

People travel for hundreds and thousands of miles to view total eclipses and consistently have difficulty describing the experience fully with just words. But even a partial eclipse can be a stunning spectacle. For those in prison, whose lives are often drudgery punctuated by fleeting moments of fear, being able to experience something collectively with people beyond the walls is the type of reprieve that buoys the psyche for quite some time.

I sat in prison for the partial eclipse of 2017. A far cry from how Florida prisons handled a total eclipse in 1970, the Federal Bureau of Prisons decided a dusk-like darkening of the sky was a security threat that warranted a total lock-down. Never mind that for half the year the sun set at dinner time, and we were allowed to continue going about our business, jogging on the rec yard, grabbing a book from the library, and just generally moving about the compound. Perhaps some nefarious actors would use the few minutes of diminished daylight in the middle of the day to orchestrate a prison break, or perhaps the reverse, introduce contraband.

It felt like my life came to a screeching halt the moment I was arrested. No longer did I feel like I was living, an active verb, I was merely existing. If I vanished off the face of the Earth, not a single thing would change in the world, so minimal was my presence, so isolated was my life. Headlines flashed across the television screens, one of my only tethers to the outside world. Floods in Houston, fires in California, a mass shooting in Miami. It was as if these events were happening in some other world, one to which I only had the narrowest window...

...And with that, she led us outside. She didn’t ask where the colander had come from, and I did not tell. Its round holes somehow cast crescent shadows, illuminating the laws of physics. The sky darkened but nothing like dusk, a bizarre energy filling the air—or perhaps it was the abject fear that I was risking time in the hole to watch odd-shaped shadows dance on the ground, unable to even look at the eclipse directly.

For days to come, we tried to explain to our friends what it felt like, what those colander hole shadows looked like. It was simply too difficult to describe.

Whether Al Ware is still around to see this eclipse—he would be eighty-two—is unknown. What is known is that at least a few hundred people that experienced the total solar eclipse from prison in the United States in 1970 are still in prison. The next total solar eclipse that can be seen from the contiguous US won’t be until 2044—and unless that’s your release date, I’m sure it feels just as abstract as 2024 felt to the men at the Iowa State Penitentiary back in 1970."

- Watching an Eclipse from Prison, by Morgan Godvin

[sunset-sama]

As an American, this is hilarious. I remember being forced to memorize the states in elementary school.

Also, answering your tags with some of my own @alishatheninth

okay americans how’d i do

[calpis-duo-enjoyer]

Pls tell me some of your wttt ships pretty plsss

SO GLAD YOUR INTERESTED!!!!! >:)

Colorado x New York : why? Idk. i saw them and went "yea that makes sense"

Georgia x Kansas : smashed them together like two ken dolls and made them kiss

California x Nevada : they make me feel warm and comfy. i love them.

Florida x Georgia : "That's okay, I still love you" I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE. (So does California. He was the day one flogeo shipper.)

Florida x Alabama : i have no explanation. i just love them

Indiana x Kentucky : still no explanation. they just had to exist and i became attached.

Ohio x Minnesota : i want to out them into a pot and turn them into soup.

Extra ship under cut. Super rare and awesome..... it might cause heart attacks its so good.....

Canada x Me

[stawpny]

headcannons 😘

—

-main 5 bonding time: half off apps at applebees (Florida always asks for the apples… if not.. *gulp* the bees)

-new york owns a jerboa named frankuel (also he dyes his pigeons different colors)

-California is a terrible party-planner. do u know that one episode of SpongeBob where he has a whole list of things to do at his party and nobody sticks to anything? yeah.. (truly, nobody comes anyway)

-we’ve adressed this but Gov has to be unbearable to talk with. he is the most awkward person to exist and I just know it. I believe he’s got too many secrets.

-by many accounts, Alaska has been seen talking to animals— not like “who’s a good boy’ but more like “what do you think about the socioeconomic status of the world?”

-New York has a deep connection with birds, specifically pigeons and seagulls, but also like crows and other birds that (partially) rely on humans to feed them. he can’t go anywhere without at least one of the three attacking him.

-^ like he’ll willingly feed them but will call them names when they start flocking around him.

(more seagulls fly in)

New York, giving them part of his food: I fucking hate all of you

New York, then throwing the rest of it at them: I hope you all die

—

ummm the main reason I haven’t posted HC’s as much as I used to is because I have no ideas

like all my creativity has left 😔 and my motivation is nonexistent

I’m not gonna leave this fandom probably any time soon but I’m like in a drought (taking AP’s is not for procrastinators like me)

but I’ll try to make more 🙏

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ilana Berger at MMFA:

Right-wing media are trying to delegitimize climate change as a real and growing threat to the West Coast, just as that threat becomes most evident. Several unusual January wildfires have been burning in Los Angeles County since January 7. Despite the clear connection between global warming and the increasingly dry conditions that lead to fire hazards, right-wing media are following their familiar playbook and blaming what they call California’s “failed” policies for the ongoing crisis. 

Californians are struggling to control ongoing fires, as U.S. communities are ill-prepared for year-round extreme weather

The two largest fires, Palisades and Eaton, have collectively burned over 164,000 acres of Los Angeles County. Nearly 173,000 people are under evacuation warnings or orders in LA County, at least 25 people have died, and over 17,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed. The Palisades fire was 19% contained and the Eaton fire was at 45% containment as of publication. [Los Angeles Times, 1/14/25; Cal Fire, accessed 1/15/25; ktla.com, 1/14/25; NBC Los Angeles, 1/14/25]  

Like in many other cities, LA’s municipal water system is not designed to handle multiple massive fires at once. Reports that the hydrants being used to put out the fires were running low spurred misinformation about water shortages due to a lack of reservoirs or related to California’s water policies that divert water from Northern California to Southern California. These rumors proved to be misleading: Even though there is enough water, there isn’t enough pressure to get water to go where firefights need it most. As the LAist has noted in the past, “Fire hydrants have also run dry in the case of other wildfires that spread to urban areas, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire, 2024’s Mountain Fire and 2023’s Maui wildfires.” [Media Matters, 1/10/25; The LAist, 1/9/25, 8/15/23]  

Forecasters were predicting more of the dry and intense Santa Ana winds that were fueling the fires. The winds, which typically occur during the colder months, are severely impeding efforts to contain the fires. NBC Los Angeles reported that “planes dumping water and retardant on impacted areas have been unable to take to the sky at times since the fires began because of the dangerous conditions presented by the winds.” On January 14 and 15, Los Angeles was expecting winds of up to 65 mph. As of January 14, the National Weather Service had declared red flag warnings, signaling “an increased risk of fire danger,” as well as  a “particularly dangerous situation” for parts of the area, which National Weather Service meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld said is “one of the loudest ways that we can shout.” [National Weather Service, accessed 1/14/25, 1/14/25; NBC Los Angeles, 1/13/25; NPR, 1/8/25; Los Angeles Times, 1/13/25]  

U.S. communities and infrastructure are ill-prepared for the climate-fueled extreme weather events that are now happening year round. On X, CBS national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti posted, “American homes were built for an environment that no longer exists. This - like all of the disasters this century, from Florida to Hawaii - must be a call to action. This is the second time in one month Malibu was hit by fire.” Chad Hanson, a forest and fire ecologist and the president of the John Muir Project, told the Los Angeles Times, “The fact is that forest management is not stopping weather- and climate-driven fires.” Carlos Martín, an expert on housing adaptation and climate change, told Fast Company that cities are relying on the federal government because “the resources just aren’t there locally, and the damages are way more than anybody ever anticipated.” Martín said climate change mitigation and adaptation will be key in preparing for future disasters. “It’s like taking a pill to prevent the disease versus getting the disease treated afterwards. That’s the way we have to start thinking about these events: What we used to think of as individual crises [are now] chronic things,” he added. [Media Matters, 1/10/25; Twitter/X, 1/8/25; Los Angeles Times, 8/21/21; Fast Company, 1/11/25]

Right-wing media push the nonsense claim that climate change has nothing to do with the wildfires plaguing the LA area, despite ample evidence proving otherwise.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Can Life Exist on an Icy Moon? NASA’s Europa Clipper Aims to Find Out

With a spacecraft launching soon, the mission will try to answer the question of whether there are ingredients suitable for life in the ocean below Europa’s icy crust.

Deep down, in an ocean beneath its ice shell, Jupiter’s moon Europa might be temperate and nutrient-rich, an ideal environment for some form of life — what scientists would call “habitable.” NASA’s Europa Clipper mission aims to find out.

NASA now is targeting launch no earlier than Monday, Oct. 14, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Europa Clipper’s elongated, looping orbit around Jupiter will minimize the spacecraft’s exposure to intense radiation while allowing it to dive in for close passes by Europa. Using a formidable array of instruments for each of the mission’s 49 flybys, scientists will be able to “see” how thick the moon’s icy shell is and gain a deeper understanding of the vast ocean beneath. They’ll inventory material on the surface that might have come up from below, search for the fingerprints of organic compounds that form life’s building blocks, and sample any gases ejected from the moon for evidence of habitability.

Mission scientists will analyze the results, probing beneath the moon’s frozen shell for signs of a water world capable of supporting life.

“It’s important to us to paint a picture of what that alien ocean is like — the kind of chemistry or even biochemistry that could be happening there,” said Morgan Cable, an astrobiologist and member of the Europa Clipper science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission.

Ice Investigation

Central to that work is hunting for the types of salts, ices, and organic material that make up the key ingredients of a habitable world. That’s where an imager called MISE (Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa) comes in. Operating in the infrared, the spacecraft’s MISE divides reflected light into various wavelengths to identify the corresponding atoms and molecules.

The mission will also try to locate potential hot spots near Europa’s surface, where plumes could bring deep ocean material closer to the surface, using an instrument called E-THEMIS (Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System), which also operates in the infrared.

Capturing sharply detailed pictures of Europa’s surface with both a narrow and a wide-image camera is the task of the EIS (Europa Imaging System). “The EIS imagers will give us incredibly high-resolution images to understand how Europa’s surface evolved and is continuing to change,” Cable said.

Gases and Grains

NASA’s Cassini mission spotted a giant plume of water vapor erupting from multiple jets near the south pole of Saturn’s ice-covered moon Enceladus. Europa may also emit misty plumes of water, pulled from its ocean or reservoirs in its shell. Europa Clipper’s instrument called Europa-UVS (Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph) will search for plumes and can study any material that might be venting into space.

Whether or not Europa has plumes, the spacecraft carries two instruments to analyze the small amount of gas and dust particles ejected from the moon’s surface by impacts with micrometeorites and high-energy particles: MASPEX (MAss SPectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa) and SUDA (SUrface Dust Analyzer) will capture the tiny pieces of material ejected from the surface, turning them into charged particles to reveal their composition.

“The spacecraft will study gas and grains coming off Europa by sticking out its tongue and tasting those grains, breathing in those gases,” said Cable.

Inside and Out

The mission will look at Europa’s external and internal structure in various ways, too, because both have far-reaching implications for the moon’s habitability.

To gain insights into the ice shell’s thickness and the ocean’s existence, along with its depth and salinity, the mission will measure the moon’s induced magnetic field with the ECM (Europa Clipper Magnetometer) and combine that data with measurements of electrical currents from charged particles flowing around Europa — data provided by PIMS (Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding).

In addition, scientists will look for details on everything from the presence of the ocean to the structure and topography of the ice using REASON (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding to Near-surface), which will peer up to 18 miles (29 kilometers) into the shell — itself a potentially habitable environment. Measuring the changes that Europa’s gravity causes in radio signals should help nail down ice thickness and ocean depth.

“Non-icy materials on the surface could get moved into deep interior pockets of briny water within the icy shell,” said Steve Vance, an astrobiologist and geophysicist who also is a member of the Europa Clipper science team at JPL. “Some might be large enough to be considered lakes, or at least ponds.”

Using the data gathered to inform extensive computer modeling of Europa’s interior structure also could reveal the ocean’s composition and allow estimates of its temperature profile, Vance said.

Whatever conditions are discovered, the findings will open a new chapter in the search for life beyond Earth. “It’s almost certain Europa Clipper will raise as many questions or more than it answers — a whole different class than the ones we’ve been thinking of for the last 25 years,” Vance said.

TOP IMAGE: This artist’s concept (not to scale) depicts what Europa’s internal structure could look like: an outer shell of ice, perhaps with plumes of material venting from beneath the surface; a deep, global layer of liquid water; and a rocky interior, potentially with hydrothermal vents on the seafloor. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOWER IMAGE: The puzzling surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this reprocessed color view made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. The images were assembled into a realistic color view of the surface that approximates how Europa would appear to the human eye. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

[doueverwonder]

Gov: I wish in 1845 before Florida and Texas that year, and California just a few later, all became states a time traveler had appeared to warn me that they would end up the most important and I would have to see all three daily for the rest of my existence.

Florida: you love us :)

Gov: I do not.

[distinguishedwitchparadise]

louisiana: You know, people treat me like a god. 
Gov: How? 
louisiana: They ignore my existence unless they need something.

California: I don’t think the therapist is supposed to say ‘wow’ that many times during their first session with a client, but here we are.

California: No thanks. 
California: I'm god.

New York: You’re such a dumbass (affectionate). 
louisiana: Aww, you’re such a whore (complimentary). 
California: How are you talking like that in real life? 
louisiana: Witchcraft (derogatory).

Florida: I’m quick at math. 
Texas: Ok, what’s 38 times 76? 
Florida: 24. 
Texas: That wasn’t even close. 
Florida: But it was quick.

New York: Texas, fuck off. 
New York: And by "fuck off" I mean "fuck off right back here and listen", you insufferable prick.

[phoenixfangirl]

I wish there was a WTTT discord 😭

but anyway Here is a Short Texas/Cali Hypnosis show Aftermath fic.

Texas jolted as he came back to reality. He looked around at his fellow states he came with and just saw some of their mouths a gape while Florida was snickering and messing with his phone. He suddenly didn't feel as confident as he did when he first volunteered for this nonsense, as he called.

"Sir, you can go sit with your friends again." The hypnotist smirked snapping Texas out of his musings.

Texas just nodded and slowly stood to his feet before walking off the stage. Walking down he went to sit next to Tennessee, But he just kept laughing which caused him to keep falling into both seats. He rolled his eyes and took a seat next to Kentucky who was trying not to make eye contact.

He turned to him and asked. "What in sam's hell could i have said to cause this level of chaos?"

Kentucky finally looked at him and winced. "... well he made you act like a cowboy."

Texas snorted before he interrupted. "Thats it, you'd think with how y'all are acting I started stripping."

Kentucky shook his head. " That wasn't all, he then had you announce your biggest secret. Which almost gave Virginia a heart attack cause he thought you were about to announce you were Texas to all the humans....But imagine out surprise when you basically gave the biggest most cheesiest love confession about how much you love your Poppy."

Texas kept turning paler and paler as Kentucky went on. He put his head in his hands and groaned.

"Why the hell did I let Y'all convince me to do this? at least I didn't say his actual name."

Kentucky just laughed. "Who is poppy anyway? Florida apparently knows because he started laughing right away. Most of us were just shocked you could be so .. open about your love for a man."

"None of your business, also y'all are ones to judge considering your screwing Nevada and Utah on the daily, Virginia is married to Mass and dating Pen, and Tennessee is sleeping with Missouri." Texas said in a huff before turning his head away.

Kentucky shook his head and grabbed Texas's shoulder and turned him back.

"You sure as hell know thats not what I meant.. You've just never been very open about your preferences, honestly it's like you've been living like a monk for the last 100 years." Kentucky explained with a eyebrow raised

Texas was about to respond before Florida bounced over smirking.

"So, is your love for "Poppy" really stronger than your stance on gun control?" Florida said in a mocking tone.

Texas groaned even louder before he glared. "Florida, Imma take one of my pistols and shove it up your *** if you don't knock it off. I'm really not in the mood."

Florida pouted. "Oh come on it was a serious question... Poppy wanted to know if you were serious? "

Texas sat straight up at that comment.

"And tell me, How in the **** would Poppy know about was i supposedly said Florida." Texas said glaring dangerously at Florida.

Unphased Florida smirked. "Because I face timed him the entire time you were up there... I didn't know that shade of red existed until he turned it during your little confession."

Texas immediately stood up panicked. Kentucky was trying to get him to sit and relax to no avail. He just glared at Florida before giving a gruff goodbye to the group. He teleported to back to the ranch house near Austin that most didn't know about.

Texas walked up to his porch. He collapsed down on his swinging bench. The tears started to flow before he covered his eyes willing them to stop.

"This is so ******* stupid, imma idiot" Texas said to himself frustrated. 

"I mean sometimes you are, but this time it wasn't really your fault Bonnie." California said as he popped in and took a seat next to Texas handing him a old looking handkerchief

Texas snorted before taking it and wiping his face. He then let his head fall back against the back of the swing.

"I shoulda known you wouldn't let this go, how'd you figure I'd be at the Austin ranch Poppy? " Texas said with a sad wistful smile. 

"You'd be right about me not just letting this go, but to answer your question.. this house has the best view of the stars. Any time you're upset you always just go outside and just look at them for comfort. I know you." California said while looking up at the stars then back at Texas's face with a knowing smile.

"I don't really know what to say to that Cal, or this who situation in general." Texas said unnaturally quiet.

"Then don't said anything Tex, you already gave one of the most beautiful  confessions I've ever heard. Listen everything the last 150 years has been crazy, but I've never loved anyone like i loved you and I'm tired pretending like I don't. So if you game for it why don't we just sit here for a bit, then go inside and sleep on it. Then we can wake up and you can tease me for just drinking coffee, and I can pretend to argue like I'm not just gonna steal the extra bacon you grabbed on purpose off your plate. does that sound good Bonnie? " California pleads as he takes hold of Texas's hands. Texas and Californias eyes were both equally teary-eyed now. 

Texas looks over at California hopefully. "I reckon that sounds like a good plan Poppy"

They both smile and just look out at the stars.

outtake next morning.

Texas: ( chasing Cal around for his phone) come on Cal gimmie your phone, I wanna delete it

Cal: Neverrr imma replay it at our wedding... its sweet Hun

Texas: ( Grabbing him into his arms) Not that darlin ..the part where I'm riding the chair like a horse it's embarrassing.

Cal: Mmm I'll delete it if .....you wanna ride something a bit more fun instead ( Cal winks as he breaks free and runs up the stairs)

Texas: ( left a frozen blushing mess) Oi get back here darn it I wanna make sure you deleted it, you can't say **** like that and run away you tease.

[sleepdeprivedsimp234]

babe I need to know for science. assign TADC characters to wttt characters. please. I beg.

sincerely your boyfriend who likes to be on anon

:)

Okay so i think it'd be pretty obvious that Caine would be Gov, that's definitely a given. But not just in the way that they're both really powerful in a ruler type of way, but also in the way that they both think that their only reason for existing is because some god forsaken higher power put them there for the purpose of being a higher power to the others.

For Louisiana I feel like both Kinger or Pomni could work here. Paranoid bitch that had some dark stuff go on in the past and has some shit going on even now? But is always friendly and there for others? Yeah.

I'm also torn between having Jax or Bubble as Florida. I mean. They're all chaotic in one way or another, but I'm leaning slightly towards more Bubble cuz Florida's just kinda like that. A feral lil animal. Though where it leans more to Jax, is realizing that Florida does have a heart and does care at least a little bit.

Despite Texas being my favorite I genuinely cannot think of a character to assign him with.

California would be Gangle. Idk why. But he'd be Gangle.

New York is another one of those characters where I'm torn between two others. Zooble or Jax. I think that I'm leaning more towards Zooble honestly, since yeah Zooble has an attitude and doesn't seem to like anyone but in episode 4 we could see that they do actually like others (Zooble/Gangle -> York/Cali anyone?)

Bonus would be Illinois as Gummi Goo for the sole purpose of: he's not there (in the mains) but probably should be.

[slightlyartist]

How do you think Tate and Backle met? (I kinda think about them obsessively now bc I love to think about characters who barely exist in canon)

I like to think that maybe they started as enemies to friends (to lovers), like Mabel and Pacifica. Maybe Tate when he first moved to Gravity Falls and met Backle didn't like him because Backle was also from Appalachia but was actually raised there unlike Tate, who is from Appalachia but was raised in California.

Also, as someone from Appalachia myself, the thought that the McGucket's going back to Appalachia aftet the effects of hurricane Helene is greatly comforting to me

Thoughts? Opinions? (I'm sorry for long ask, I just really like them 😭)

Hello!! :DD It's so lovely to hear that Backle infected not only mine but other people's minds!!

Your thoughts about him are so cute and I love when people make HCs that are related to their own experiences and places! <33

Personally, I'm inclined to think Backle was born in Australia and later moved to Florida! (I think he looks like the type of guy who would fight an alligator and would have an Aussie accent)

I have yet to think how he ends up in Gravity Falls, maybe he went there for work, holidays, or just to explore new fauna and flora. Seeing the weird animals and plants just boosted his passion for nature, so maybe he decided to stay there for a while longer. He is a very chill guy so he'd spend days fishing and whatnot. I don't think he and Tate would be enemies! Just very chill guys who share a passion for fishing, they probs met at the lake and started fishing regularly, Tate would complain that it's always so difficult to get fishing supplies in the town, and then Backle would suggest starting a business with him. And so, Tate and Backle's Bait and Tackle was born! They've been fishing buddies and coworkers ever since <3

[try-set-me-on-fire]

whatever you write is probably going to take me straight out but i love the way your fics do that to me, so "laughing while kissing" for the soft prompts please and thank you 🤗

-@buckactuallys

Soundtrack to this one. Soft prompts! Finished ones!

“Chimney’s doing another round of s’mores, you want one?”

Buck half turns from his spot at the edge of the tide. It was hot enough earlier that the cool bite of the ocean around his ankles still feels good as they creep closer to midnight than evening. “Nah, I had like eight of them with the kids.”

Eddie does a little hop over the foamy surf to stand beside him, and then licks his marshmallowy fingers clean. “Suit yourself.”

Another wave comes in and Eddie does his little hop over it again, except they really are at the very edge of the water so there's not really much foam to avoid. Buck squints at him a little, but he's unable to help the fond smile yanking his mouth around.

"What… are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh…" Eddie looks down at his feet and lets out a sort of bashful laugh. "Uh, we came to the coast to visit Pepa when we were kids - like little kids, I don't know if I was even five yet - and, uh…" Eddie looks at him, also sort of squinting and smiling. "I had it in my head that if the very edge of a wave touched me I'd get eaten by an alligator."

"W- why?" Buck gets out past a laugh. Eddie shoves him gently.

"I dunno, I was four. Made sense at the time. I think I maybe thought California was in Florida."

Buck laughs again, and when the next wave comes and they both hop over it he laughs harder, hands on his knees as Eddie chuckles beside him. He hasn’t bothered to straighten up when Eddie speaks again.

“Not in a bonfire mood?”

Buck looks out at the moon’s reflection cutting a path all the way to the distant islands that are just visible on this clear, bright night. “Just nice to be in a different ocean for a bit.”

Eddie hums, and kicks a little wet sand at him. “Now who thinks he’s in Florida? Same ocean, Buck, we’re two hours from home.”

“You know what I mean.” He waves a hand in a sweeping gesture. “It’s… vacation ocean.”

Eddie’s smiling in a way that seems to have trapped the words in his mouth, and Buck has to look back out at the waves or the full moon will give away the burning in his cheeks. “Yeah,” Eddie says eventually. “I know what you mean.”

Buck thinks he does. Eddie is the responsible one, of the two of them, level headed and no nonsense and calm, so it's been a little delightful to watch him throw himself into this camping trip with reckless abandon. He’d challenged the firefighters among them in a swimming race out to the floating platforms just offshore, begged alongside the kids to go walk down the beach to the little burger joint for ice cream, and charged around the woods with them after dinner, playing right along in their game of hunting for a spaceship full of aliens that might want to make friends, blinking their flashlights and throwing their laughter up into the sky in attempts to communicate.

Buck had spent the week before the trip feeling kind of sad about getting dumped, and feeling kind of guilty for not feeling more sad, and feeling a little… something, about how relieved Eddie had looked when he’d told him things with Marisol had also fizzled out. He’d liked Natalia, a lot. She was cool, and beautiful, and thought he was too, and she knew so little about him and his life that she felt like a safe place to exist without context for a while. It’s all a little dreamy, though, in hindsight, and Buck thinks he’d maybe tricked himself into finding a new method of running away from his own life disguised as grabbing on to a new one.

Vacation ocean. Maybe that’s what this is, too, another escape. Except Eddie is here, standing next to him and real as anything.

Buck feels like he’s got all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle floating around in his head, and has just started in on the edges when Eddie says “Hello, earth to Buck.”

“Oh, sorry, were you saying something?” Buck takes a step further into the water, back to the waves despite any good advice about ocean safety. Eddie’s watching out for him, he’ll be ok.

“No, not really.”

“Did you ever find them?” Buck is wet up to his mid calves now.

“Who?”

“The friendly aliens.”

Eddie’s face scrunches into a grin. “Uh huh. Turns out they like s’mores too. And look a lot like Maddie and Jee-Yun.”

Buck breathes out laughter, and Eddie steps closer to him. “I didn’t text Bobby this morning.”

“Well, he was like five feet away. Drew short straw, had to set up his tent next to you and your rhinoceros snores.”

Buck takes another step back, and Eddie takes another step forward. They’re wet to the knees, now. “I mean… I was less surprised today. When I woke up.”

Eddie’s expression almost looks neutral, Buck can only see the smile because he might know this man’s face better than his own. “Yeah?”

“Mmhm.”

Eddie nods. “That’s good. You’ve seemed a little… something.”

“Before now, or this weekend?”

Eddie tilts his head, in a move so like Buck himself it makes him smile. “Both. In different ways.”

Buck takes another half step back, water licking at his thighs. “I think things were a little dull before. I think things are a little bright now. Letting my eyes adjust.”

Eddie nods again, thoughtful, and just a hair nervous. “Hope you like the view.”

Buck grins with half his mouth, biting his cheek with the other. “Mmhm.”

They’re quiet for a moment, the gentle roar of waves around them, a distant happy shout drifting over from the campground. Eddie takes the half step to close the distance. “Buck,” he sighs. “I have bad news.”

“What?” He frowns, and his stomach flip flops just a little. He’d like to think he knows Eddie well enough that he hadn’t misread the situation, but he’s been known to be an idiot about these kinds of things before.

“Unfortunately…” Eddie tilts his head forward, very close to Buck’s own, and says “There were also evil aliens and I did get possessed by one,” before shoving him backwards into the sea.

Buck goes down laughing, and comes up spluttering. Eddie is giggling as he moves sideways in the surf to escape revenge, but he’s not trying all that hard and Buck’s lunge takes him off his feet. They roll around in the water, a lot colder now that it's not just their ankles submerged, and end up in a kind of breathless tangled together kneeling situation, rocked by the current as it comes and goes.

“You piece of shit,” Buck says, fully grinning, and Eddie roars with laughter. “We’re gonna get our tents soaking wet.”

“So we change in yours and you come to mine,” Eddie says, a little scared and a little brave.

Buck splashes him, and Eddie laughs, and then Buck kisses him, and Eddie laughs into that too, the sound a little disbelieving and a lot giddy. Buck pushes forward into it and Eddie falls back till he’s sitting and they’re both almost underwater, so Buck pulls him back up again and Eddie chases the kiss, and they’re both laughing into it now, puffs of air passed back and forth between them.

“This is-“ Buck speaks the words mostly into Eddie’s mouth, shaking a little from the giggling and the cold and the everything else. “I can come to your tent?”

“Yeah, Buck.”

“And this is- it’s vacation ocean?”

Eddie pulls back, just a tiny bit, and puts his hand on Buck’s face, fingers already a little pruny. “It’s the same ocean as always, Buck.”

“I can… come home, after?”

“You can come home forever,” Eddie says, and kisses him again. It’s not a very successful kiss, what with Buck nodding into it and Eddie smiling too much to work his mouth at all, but Buck is putting it in the top five kisses of his life anyway. “Come on, let's go get dry.” Eddie stands up out of the water, and then pulls Buck to shore.

[mariacallous]

While solar power is growing at an extremely rapid clip, in absolute terms, the use of natural gas for electricity production has continued to outpace renewables. But that looks set to change in 2024, as the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has run the numbers on the first half of the year and found that wind, solar, and batteries were each installed at a pace that dwarfs new natural gas generators. And the gap is expected to get dramatically larger before the year is over.

Solar, Batteries Booming

According to the EIA's numbers, about 20 gigawatts of new capacity was added in the first half of this year, and solar accounts for 60 percent of it. Over a third of the solar additions occurred in just two states, Texas and Florida. There were two projects that went live that were rated at over 600 megawatts of capacity, one in Texas, the other in Nevada.

Next up is batteries: The US saw 4.2 additional gigawatts of battery capacity during this period, meaning over 20 percent of the total new capacity. (Batteries are treated as the equivalent of a generating source by the EIA since they can dispatch electricity to the grid on demand, even if they can't do so continuously.) Texas and California alone accounted for over 60 percent of these additions; throw in Arizona and Nevada, and you're at 93 percent of the installed capacity.

The clear pattern here is that batteries are going where the solar is, allowing the power generated during the peak of the day to be used to meet demand after the sun sets. This will help existing solar plants avoid curtailing power production during the lower-demand periods in the spring and fall. In turn, this will improve the economic case for installing additional solar in states where its production can already regularly exceed demand.

Wind power, by contrast, is running at a more sedate pace, with only 2.5 GW of new capacity during the first six months of 2024. And for likely the last time this decade, additional nuclear power was placed on the grid, at the fourth 1.1-GW reactor (and second recent build) at the Vogtle site in Georgia. The only other additions came from natural-gas-powered facilities, but these totaled just 400 MW, or just 2 percent of total new capacity.

The EIA has also projected capacity additions out to the end of 2024 based on what's in the works, and the overall shape of things doesn't change much. However, the pace of installation goes up as developers rush to get their project operational within the current tax year. The EIA expects a bit over 60 GW of new capacity to be installed by the end of the year, with 37 GW of that coming in the form of solar power. Battery growth continues at a torrid pace, with 15 GW expected, or roughly a quarter of the total capacity additions for the year.

Wind will account for 7.1 GW of new capacity, and natural gas 2.6 GW. Throw in the contribution from nuclear, and 96 percent of the capacity additions of 2024 are expected to operate without any carbon emissions. Even if you choose to ignore the battery additions, the fraction of carbon-emitting capacity added remains extremely small, at only 6 percent.

Gradual Shifts on the Grid

Obviously, these numbers represent the peak production of these sources. Over a year, solar produces at about 25 percent of its rated capacity in the US, and wind at about 35 percent. The former number will likely decrease over time as solar becomes inexpensive enough to make economic sense in places that don't receive as much sunshine. By contrast, wind's capacity factor may increase as more offshore wind farms get completed. For natural gas, many of the newer plants are being designed to operate erratically so that they can provide power when renewables are underproducing.

A clearer sense of what's happening comes from looking at the generating sources that are being retired. The US saw 5.1 GW of capacity drop off the grid in the first half of 2024, and aside from 0.2 GW of “other,” all of it was fossil-fuel-powered, including 2.1 GW of coal capacity and 2.7 GW of natural gas. The latter includes a large 1.4-GW natural gas plant in Massachusetts.

But total retirements are expected to be just 7.5 GW this year—less than was retired in the first half of 2023. That's likely because the US saw electricity use rise by 5 percent in the first half of 2024, based on numbers the EIA released on Friday. (Note that this link will take you to more recent data a month from now.) It's unclear how much of that was due to weather—a lot of the country saw heat that likely boosted demand for air-conditioning—and how much could be accounted for by rising use in data centers and for the electrification of transit and appliances.

That data release includes details on where the US got its electricity during the first half of 2024. The changes aren't dramatic compared to where they were when we looked at things last month. Still, what has changed over the past month is good news for renewables. In May, wind and solar production were up 8.4 percent compared to the same period the year before. By June, they were up by over 12 percent.

Given the EIA's expectations for the rest of the year, the key question is likely to be whether the pace of new solar installations is going to be enough to offset the drop in production that will occur as the US shifts to the winter months.