#Tw tornado

[autocrats-in-love]

Prompt (378)

The hero gasped at the tornado quickly approaching them and the villain.

“We don’t have time to hide!” They shouted to the villain.

“It’s okay,” the villain said, grabbing the hero’s hand. “Just hold on. I’ll get us out of here.”

[mylittlestims]

Dust Devil (the pegasus!) with sandstorms and dust devils, maybe also wheels kicking up dirt?

Dust Devil | Dusty Gust Stimboard with sandstorms

(X) (X) (X)

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(X) (X) (X)

[geraldofallon]

Fallen London Travel Guide:

Sea of Voices

Where nothing is truly dead. Polythreme, Clay Men, and living clothing.

[charmwasjess]

This unstable spring weather is reminding me of when I was a teenager, I had a massive, irrational phobia of tornadoes, despite growing up in an area with little to no chance of them. It was so bad that my mom took me to a psychologist because I'd do irrational things like hide in the bathtub instead of going to school if there was any chance of severe weather. It didn't help. Every time the sky got dark, I'd get that weird, frantic, achy-itchy feeling.

And then, one day, I'm sixteen, working my first job at a coffee shop and I get a panicked call from my boss. I look out the window and almost comically, like it showed up just for me, to make some point, there's this beautiful white tornado dancing right towards us. I remember thinking it looked like the skinny part of an hour glass. It's true what they say about them appearing to hold still when they're heading for you, so I got a very good look at it. The trees were bending flat to the ground and the double doors of the shop were getting sucked open. Me and the other teenaged employee crowded the kids (we were also an ice cream shop, there was a birthday going on) into the center room, and we sang "happy birthday" over and over again to drown out the sound of it hitting the building. We were okay, but it took off several adjacent roofs and smashed up cars in the parking lot.

This was a weird way to start loving tornadoes. (cut for weather geekery)

They are like dreams - for all the data, we know relatively little about why they happen. We can see their ingredients: moisture, atmospheric instability, wind sheer, but sometimes all those pieces are in place and a tornado won't form. In fact, most often, it doesn't. They're still rare. The language we use to talk about them endlessly fascinates me: they are born out of thunderstorms called super cells, which have a 'lifecycle.' One thunderstorm can birth a single tornado, or many that live and die along the greater lifespan of the thunderstorm. The way they multiply is fascinating, one tornado can be circled by wispy, smaller, satellite tornadoes, or more rarely, two full-sized tornadoes side by side, a pair of twins. A group of tornados is a "family."

They come in all shapes and sizes. Mine was a skinny rope funnel, and a relatively weak example - F1 on the scale. The 1925 Tri-State tornado, F5, the strongest on the scale, was the longest recorded tornado in history with a 219-mile track. Part of the danger of that storm was that nobody even realized it was a tornado until it was right on top of them because it was so huge: it was said to look like a red, boiling fog from horizon to horizon because it was rain-wrapped, and had sucked up a lot of red river mud. Water tornadoes and fire tornadoes are both a thing.

They behave inconsistently too. The El Reno tornado that killed the storm chaser and scientist Tim Samaras in 2013 is often personified as evil, a storm set out to kill storm chasers, because it seemed to behave with particular, intentional nastiness. In 30 seconds, it went from a small tornado to a 2.6 mile wedge. It's hard to even imagine the scale of something like that: someone observing from a safe distance miles away is suddenly inside the literal tornado within less than a minute. Most tornadoes move in a more or less straight trajectory - this one repeatedly changed directions. But this is just another example of how even when scientists know how tornadoes generally behave, we're still figuring them out.

Of course, all of this is not about overly romanticizing a phenomenon that kills a ton of people each year, a fact that is only going to get worse with climate change. And certainly research funding and money for early warning systems or national weather services being less prioritized in the politicization of climate change.

I still have tornado nightmares a lot. I had one last night, which is I guess why I'm still thinking about the shapes. It's always the same: I'm standing in a house, usually my childhood home, and there are families of tornadoes that go right past it, but never hit. I still think they're so interesting. And it's funny the way anxiety can turn into fascination under the right circumstances.

[cyber-therian]

Finished product!

Would’ve had it done sooner if there wasn’t a tornado

thank you this is beautiful!!!! can i put it in a collection of gifts?

also.. im so sorry about the tornado, are you safe? /gen

[batshikns]

She's posing it out while we wait out the tornado warning

[q-starhalo]

WHAT THE F★CK DO YOU MEAN TORNADO ALLEY IS APPARENTLY MOVING EAST???? GIRL. NO.

[pluraladvice]

We may be REALLY spotty, like. I mean worse than ever, here coming up. A tornado hit our town a couple nights ago and it tore it up pretty good. About 70 thousand people are without power, including the water plant and most major businesses in our area. We are extremely lucky to have power right now as we are actually just close enough to the neighboring city to be on THEIR grid instead of our towns. And I mean the apartments in front of us don't have power lucky. We're intending to volunteer for as long as we possibly can, which will put us out of commission for who knows how long. Our spouse will probably be more active than us, but who knows as of right now.

[sincerecinnamon]

Y'all, the tornado from young sheldon is gonna make a cameo at my school today! /j

Anyway, I'm jokingly playing "We Will All Go Together When We Go" by Tom Lehrer because my friend joked that we were all gonna die-

[notreal-nothere]

oc. in 2011, an EF5 tornado eviscerated my home town Joplin, and of course, my childhood home. these pictures are of my home that I took after the storm. i’m still dealing with trauma from it. thought I would make something out of the pictures, something that would convey how I felt.

[g4laxy-drag0n]

In a tornado, wish me luck guys :D

[infinitepersona-alterpacks]

WHAT THE FUCK

[geraldofallon]

Fallen London Travel Guide:

Beggar’s Wake

Once more through the glass and beyond, into the long, lonely fullness of the Kingdom of Is-Not, and farther, to its wildest wastes, where the dreams of the Beggar's Wake wait.

[theseance444]

❛  do you think we're gonna survive this?  ❜

(from Jo @accordedxneutralxterritory )

Pulling the cellar doors shut tightly behind them, Klaus couldn't bare the sound of tornado sirens. He'd hated them since childhood, making a loud and scary situation louder and scarier. But since going to war, he struggled to keep himself in the present. It was Jo's voice that kept him grounded, reminding him that he needed to be there for her.

"What? Yeah, of course we are," he said, pulling on an easygoing smile as they got settled in the cellar. "Big nice, sturdy building like this? Some wind isn't gonna do anything that hasn't been done before." It sounded true, he hoped it sounded confident.

"Some wind" was quickly turning into howling above them, as they huddled in the corner. As much for his sake as hers, Klaus offered out his hand to take.

"Squeeze my hand," he instructed, having to raise his voice over the storm above. "Put all that energy into my hand as you breath...!" He'd always known yoga would come in handy.

[tristyndaroo01]

So, uh, this is going to be embarrassing, but the reason I haven't been drawing spamton lately is because of...

...My obsession with tornados rn...

OKAY, LOOK I CAN EXPLAIN 😭😭😭

The reason I'm obsessed with tornados is with a very specific image of a tornado that was taken in 1997 (haha funni year haHA-) called "D3ad Man Walking," it's very interesting considering it started out as a weak rope tornado. Not to mention how cool it looks, like, LOOK!!! IT LOOKS LIKE A PERSON OR SOMETHING!!!!!!!!

I know no one is going to understand what I'm talking about, but AY, AT LEAST I GET TO INFO-DUMP MY OBSESSION TO YALL :D

[spoonfulofjesus]

PTSD in Twisters

There may be minor spoilers ahead for Twisters? Idrk what counts as a spoiler but it's not like I reveal the ending or anything. Anyway!

I saw the movie Twisters yesterday and I wanted to comment (positively) on the PTSD representation in the main character Kate. I don't have PTSD myself (though I do have trauma), so if someone who has PTSD has something to add please do so and I will reblog it.

In the first scene of the movie, we see what causes Kate's trauma. Put simply, she makes a mistake while chasing a tornado and gets too close. Three of her friends (including her boyfriend) get blown away and killed, she gets injured and almost killed herself. We see a street sign wobble and get ripped out of the ground. The windshield wipers get stuck from the wind. She leaves the car she was in and hides under a bridge to survive. One friend was in a different car, and is yelling trying to radio them as they are running away. These are important details.

The movie then jumps 5 years in the future, where Kate has gotten a desk job and given up on why she was hunting tornadoes (to try to find a way to stop them). She is reunited with the one friend who didn't die in the first scene, who she hadn't seen in years. He asks her to go help him with a similar goal to the one she had originally had (stopping tornadoes). She is very reluctant but eventually agrees (otherwise we wouldn't have a movie).

After her traumatic event, Kate almost completely cuts contact with her old life. She moves across the country from rural Oklahoma to very urban NYC and ignores calls from her mother, cuts contact with her one friend, and gets a job that is the farthest possible thing from what had caused her trauma without leaving meteorology altogether. Each of these things individually may not seem like a big deal, but right after her trauma as well as all of them at once makes it clear this was probably an attempt to distance herself from her trauma. And it makes sense why she would be so reluctant to go back into the field when her friend asked. I wanted to highlight this because PTSD is not just panic attacks and flashbacks. Trauma changes you, and it is not always obvious. And this was a very good portrayal of distancing oneself from trauma.

Next thing I want to point out is visual triggers throughout the movie. Remember the things I described about the traumatizing event. I can't remember the chronological order, but we see a sign wiggling about to be ripped out of the ground, at which Kate looks very panicked. We see the windshield wipers get stuck from the wind, and Kate watches them very nervously. The car she's in passes under a bridge and she turns around in the car to stare at it. All of these are clear visual triggers of the incident. What makes this a good portrayal is that it wasn't just the tornado that reminds her of the incident. It was things others would have found inconsequential. A wiggling sign, windshield wipers, and a bridge. Often people with PTSD get triggered by those small signs. I have heard people say things such as walking through a doorframe of a certain color, an inconsequential smell, things that nobody else would notice. Not to mention that triggers can change day to day. Someone may be able to handle something one day, and not be able to the next due to many other factors.

Of course, her biggest trigger is getting close to a tornado. Naturally, she is nervous when they are driving up to the tornado for the first time. Even without PTSD, it's a dangerous situation and anyone would be nervous. But she seems to be holding it together until she steps out of the car. Remember I said she and her friends left the car at the beginning. As soon as she does so, it takes no time for her to be triggered into a freeze response which then evolves into a flight response. Her friend also yells her name trying to snap her out of it (the same friend that had been yelling through the radio during the incident). She stands frozen for too long and the goal is missed, then she ushers her friend into the car and drives away in a panic. If you know anything about PTSD, this shouldn't be a surprise - not only her panicking, but the specific responses she has (freeze first, flight second). During the incident, she and her friends had frozen in place in the car, then aborted the mission and ran for cover. It makes sense that as she's experiencing flashbacks (be it emotional or full), she would use the same techniques that saved her the first time. Now would also be a good time to point out that the way she cut herself off from her old life could also have been considered a long-winded flight response. Often fight or flight/trauma responses manifest in other ways besides heat-of-the-moment.

After driving away and messing up the mission/goal, Kate seems extremely angry at herself and guilt-driven. She lashes out physically at the car and has a posture of self-loathing. This makes sense. People with PTSD often feel much anger and guilt with things regarding their trauma, as well as when they have trauma responses. They can be harsh on themselves, feeling like they "shouldn't have reacted the way they did" even if their response was completely in line with their trauma. In Kate's case, it had been 5 years since the incident and it clearly still affected her. Not to mention, she had failed another tornado-related mission in a way her survivor's guilt brain would absolutely have taken as entirely her fault.

While she does have other moments of panic throughout the movie (which is good, because it means they didn't just write her to have one panic attack and then be done with her trauma), they are all fairly similar and brief.

The last thing I want to mention is how, besides these brief moments and the major panic at the very triggering first attempt, Kate does very well under pressure, more so than the other characters. This can also be attributed to PTSD. Often people will work very well in stressful situations, especially those with C-PTSD (which Kate does not have, at least not from the tornado incident alone) because they had to learn to live with chronic stress and walking on eggshells. In many people's situations, panic was not an option, and during stressful/triggering situations after the fact, the panic comes once the event is over. This is true in the moment as well as broadly. I have seen that people with PTSD may be numb, dissociative, seem to have it all together, and be otherwise strong in the moment, but it isn't until they feel safe that they start to break down, and that post-traumatic stress begins to truly take hold as the brain struggles to process and put the trauma behind them. This can also somewhat be seen in Kate's case, as she runs away and tries to ignore/suppress the incident as well as her emotions toward it. She tries to act as if she's moved on, but it's clear once she's triggered 5 years later that she has not truly processed and moved past it only ignored it.

Dissociation is also very common in people with PTSD, and may be profound enough to be a separate dissociative disorder or not. In Kate's case, it doesn't seem to be, at least overtly, however there is one moment in which she does seem to be dissociating. It's subtle, and possible wasn't even intentional, but the way she had a blank expression and thousand foot stare (the rest of the movie she was quite expressive) and was in a triggering situation makes it very possible. They were in the car driving toward the tornado target. In Kate's case, this makes sense to be extremely triggering as it is reminiscent of the lead-up to the incident, and dissociating as the mind's way to prepare and protect itself for more trauma makes a lot of sense. She could also have been lost in a flashback, which would also have made sense, or a combination of the two.

One other small thing that's worth noting is the brief nightmare/flashback. After the 5 year time skip, Kate is shown asleep in bed and her late boyfriend wraps his arm around her, which startles her awake. She then checks the bed to make sure she's really alone. Flashback nightmares are very common in PTSD, and even though it didn't seem related her boyfriend did die during the incident, which could have tainted some or all of her memories of him to be triggering.

Overall, I think the PTSD representation was very good in this movie. The only thing I'd say was that they didn't come out and say that's what it was, even though the signs were clear. The description of the movie said "haunted by the memory" which shows they did in fact have the intention of the incident being traumatic and having a lasting impact on Kate. But there are many people who still think PTSD is limited to war veterans, or is very different and even makes people dangerous to others, or doesn't believe it exists at all. Of course everyone has a different experience, and it looks different for everyone. But I think a brief mention that she has PTSD would have helped get people with those misunderstandings to think more critically and broadly about their understanding of trauma and PTSD.

Anyway thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Again, if someone with PTSD wants to add, please do. Otherwise, have a blessed day and I hope this was informative!

Also, shout-out to the tall Storm Par guy with the sunglasses who had like one line. My man did NOT get enough screen time ;-; [Crying emoticon]. Can't even find his name.