#anyway i should become a tornado chaser

[copepods]

i think if i could do absolutely anything and not be harmed at all i would go find a really big tornado just an absolutely fuckhuge one and get sucked into that big guy. just rotate around at ridiculously high speeds for a while. it would fix me

[bondsmagii]

Questions cause I’m writing- two things! If the foundation and like otherworldly supernatural bullshit never existed, what line of work would Kondraki, and also Draven, eventually end up in? Also is there anything as the originator of this characters (beyond the obvious don’t turn them into Specific Evil Bastards) that you would never want done to Kondraki or Draven? I don’t plan to do anything I’m just nosy. I really like your insight on things in general, I hope this was alright.

sorry for the late response! I’m working through a backlog of asks right now and then hopefully I’ll be able to stay more on top of things... hopefully. anyway!

If the foundation and like otherworldly supernatural bullshit never existed, what line of work would Kondraki, and also Draven, eventually end up in?

I think Kondraki would absolutely be a writer. because such a career is kind of difficult to get off the ground, he would probably teach Literature or something similar at a university until he started making enough money to support himself writing. he would primarily write horror and thriller type stories, but would also dabble in non-fiction (mostly unexplained disappearances, mysteries, and books of photography). he would also travel a lot whenever he had the chance (when the Foundation picked him up, he was hitchhiking around the world).

Draven? he’d be a storm chaser. one of those nutcases who drives around the Midwest chasing tornadoes and radioing in to the news stations telling them where one has touched down and what it’s doing. for the first several years it would be a seasonal thing, where he would work normal shitty jobs outside of tornado season and basically live for stormchasing, but then his father would probably point out that like, you know, this is called meteorology, and if you want to go study it that would be a swell idea. so Draven would likely become an Actual Meteorologist and would eventually combine his love of wild weather with the love of photography he inherited from his father. when he’s not chasing tornadoes and hurricanes and typhoons across the world, he’d be a pretty renowned weather photographer. 

Any Big No-Nos

this is pretty simple because honestly? no. I don’t even mind if people want to make them Evil Bastards, tbh. there’s obviously some stuff I wouldn’t write myself (or want to read), and there’s some stuff I might consider out of character, but the cool thing about writing is that people are free to interpret things how they want, and explore things how they want. when it comes to people’s own creative work (especially under the licencing that the Foundation [and therefore Kondraki and Draven] are under), I really don’t get involved. I believe that people should be able to write what they want. yeah, there are things I’d prefer not to see and characterisations I wouldn’t like, but I wouldn’t express them openly because some people are weird and use such things to bully and shit on other people, so I tend to just stay quiet.

I will use this as another opportunity to say that Draven is bisexual and mixed-race (half Polish-American, half Mexican), though, and I appreciate it when people don’t erase that; likewise both Draven and Kondraki are Jewish. this is basically the only baseline I ask people keep in mind!

have fun with your projects!!

[copperstatestormchasing]

Chase Log: May 7, 2016

I’m new to this whole Tumblr thing, so I figure I’ll open this blog with the story of the very first day of my very first plains chase. 

70 KNOTS OF SHEAR INSANITY

It happened.

I lived my dreams and then some.

It was nothing short of the best time of my life. Corbin and Trey left about twelve hours before we did; once I left work, I picked up Christian and off we went. He took over driving and hauled ass to our first stop- Northeastern Colorado. It took fourteen hours total, no stops, but he did it. We switched places again at the state border and continued to our destination.

Once Christian and I arrived in Brush, CO- after scoring a speeding ticket, which I had budgeted for anyway because I’m an adult, plus Christian leaning over me to tell the cop “We’re heading to- ah, Bush” earning a “how high are you right now because that’s not a real place” glance from the officer- we caught up with Corbin and Trey, who were parked in a dirt lot behind an auto shop. We took a look at radar and models and decided that we were in good position for the day. It wasn’t too long until we were joined by several other chasers- a couple of local folks, and a duo of dudes that call themselves “Into the Meso”. We would end up meeting up with them several more times over the next few days, and they’re amazing people.

For a couple of hours, we hung out and chatted with the other chasers. We all theorized on what we were going to do for our next move; after a while, our gang decided to head toward a small town called Wray, in far Northeastern “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Nevada” Colorado. On the road, we spotted a young cell with some very low-hanging scud steadily moving up into the parent storm. It was attempting to form a wall cloud, so we hung around and waited to see if anything cool would happen.

Unfortunately, nothing came of it; the scud rose into the parent cloud and disappeared. The core was catching up to us, so we decided to move on. Corbin and Trey began packing up the Jeep and Christian and I began doing the same into my Sportage. The storm was approaching rapidly, and it took on a mildly ominous appearance.

“Hey,” Christian asked, patting his pockets, “Where are the keys?”

“I thought you had them.”

“No?”

We stared at each other for a moment, the hail beginning to come down and bouncing off the pavement. There’s a divine moment in the dawning realization that you’re not playing the stormy little leagues in Arizona anymore; it’s a moment concocted of both horror and amazement, a moment of understanding that should storm move into air with more optimal conditions, it would chew you up and spit you out. We looked at the approaching wall cloud, realizing the gravity of the potential situation.

Was it rotating? We couldn’t say because we were too busy tearing into my truck to find the goddamn keys. After a few tense minutes and Corbin asking me where I could have put them in five minutes,  I found them in my camera bag.

We piled into our respective vehicles and headed east. We moved to a better place to watch the storm that we had just outrun by minutes.

We exited the vehicles again and Trey explained that this was probably going to get interesting in a few minutes. We hung out and talked for a while as the sky changed to a bright green-blue hue,  the clouds rolling and boiling overhead. Suddenly, to our excitement, our phones chimed with a tornado warning. It was on.

Suddenly, we heard it- the sound of music. Sirens began to blare from the nearby town of Wray. I cannot describe the feeling when I heard them; I’ve had a fascination with them for my whole life. They’re the soundtrack of a successful chase day. To me, it was the sound of the gates opening, revealing the land of enlightenment I’d sought for my entire life. This was it.

Unfortunately, after a few minutes, the sirens shut off and nothing came of this particular moment. We moved on ever slightly and again stopped to watch a beautiful wall cloud with a very clear RFD cut cross the road. It just didn’t seem to want to get its act together, so we began looking for our next move. It wasn’t long until Christian noticed a newer, younger storm in the back of the line: Tail End Charlie sat there, with a beautifully sculpted base and distinctive lowering already forming. We made our move to it and waited.

That was when Corbin noticed it. “Tornado on the ground!” he called, pointing to… exactly where we just were. It was there, a dinky little funnel trying it’s hardest to stay on the ground. It whirled and corkscrewed, teasing the ground by lifting and touching down again, dancing like a ghost on the horizon.

We were several miles away. We had just missed it.

Corbin and Christian were disappointed. The verbal irritation with the situation was hard to ignore, but I didn’t mind so much. A tornado was a tornado, and this was so cool. The guys weren’t happy. We decided to stay and watch Tail End Charlie as the griping continued. As Charlie moved in closer, the chatter topic moved to the base of the storm, which was churning wildly. The clouds had a now-familiar blue hue to them, and we began theorizing where the tornado was going to drop. The furiously twisting clouds continued on for several minutes before it happened; it was something I’ll never forget for as long as I live. Very suddenly, there was a rush of humid, warm air flowing in from behind us. It was strong enough to pull me along on my feet, forcing me to walk forward. This lasted a few seconds until:

“Tornado on the ground! There it is!”

Sure as daylight, there it was- a small circulation had formed on the ground, kicking up dirt and dust. There was a considerable amount of celebrating, as this beauty was maybe a mile or two away this time. It didn’t bob and dawdle like the first one had- this one seemed to mean business, remaining in contact with the ground and gaining strength. The tornado continued to gain strength and speed, just we realized that it was coming right at us.

For those first few moments, we thought we were fine. It wasn’t going to hit us. But no, sure enough, the wind picked up in our area and we needed to go. Now.

We began to make a move back to our vehicles- except for Trey, who stood there challenging the tube like a meteorological David and Goliath. “Trey! It’s coming! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!!” I yelled as I made a beeline back toward the Sportage. I hopped inside and closed the door as Christian turned it around. The debris cloud was close now. The Sportage rocked back and forth, dust from the road in front of us beginning to be pulled into the vortex.

Christian pressed on the gas and we high-tailed it away from the whirling thing, dodging cars and random onlookers on the way out. We continued on for maybe another mile before we noticed that the tornado had lifted and was now only a small funnel hovering over the hills. We reassured ourselves that we were okay- until we realized again that we weren’t. The funnel wasn’t moving away from us anymore; it was about to pass over our heads.

This time, we had let it get too close. It had touched down again and was now doing considerable damage to the landscape. I’m pretty sure that I became terribly aware of this before Christian did because as we were leaving he asked excitedly: “Can I pull over?”

“No,” I said sternly as I watched the funnel increase in size yet again, twisted around in my front seat to watch it out of the rear window.

“Please??”

“NO,” I shouted, “GO!” It was very close now. It took up a significant portion of my rear view mirror and filled my side mirror. I’m assuming it was at this point that Christian looked for himself because from the driver’s side I heard “SHIT!” and the sound of the gas pedal being floored. In spite of this effort to gain speed and ground between us and the twister, we were only doing- maybe- forty. I picked up my phone once again and began to film.

“Oh my god.” It was very close now. The roar was now the only thing I could hear, except for the occasional swearing of my partner, who was no longer interested in pulling over. I wasn’t truly worried until I heard the fear in his voice. Nothing terribly significant- he wasn’t in utter terror yet, but he was definitely concerned.

“It’s right behind us! Fuck!”  His tone in those five words were enough to make me realize that this could be a problem. A very real, very serious problem. Before my eyes, the funnel condensed, snaking to the earth and meeting the debris cloud in living color. It was the most spectacular thing I’ve ever witnessed. “Go, go, go, go, GO!” I shouted over the wind, knowing full well he had it floored and that this was as much as we were going to go.

We neared a corner and he took it, not anticipating that the tornado would curve slightly once more and again be heading in our direction, this time from the side. We raced up a hill, every foot and every second counting when we saw a farmhouse on the top.

The funnel had completely condensed and the entire tornado had become a stunningly sculpted thing of beauty; a ghostly figure shredding the hillside- and it was heading right for the house.

“Oh God, it’s gonna hit that house!” Christian yelled. “It’s gonna hit that house!”

“I know,” I said, leaning out of the window as far as gravity would allow and firing off several shots. I grimaced as the tornado made contact with the property, white particleboard and wood becoming airborne and assimilating into the debris cloud like disastrous confetti.

“No, no, no.” Christian slammed his palms into the steering wheel. “God damn it!”

I said nothing. I felt small and helpless. There was nothing anyone or anything could do. “Get those shots,” Christian said. “Just shoot.” I kept firing the shutter, getting photo after photo before I realized something.

Corbin’s headlights were behind us before, and now the only thing I saw in the rearview mirror was the tornado.

They were gone.

“Dude, Corbin and Trey are gone. They’re gone. I think they got hit.”

Christian glanced at me and then in the rearview. “No,” he said, “No no no. They got behind it, they had to have got behind it.”

Finally, we were far ahead of it enough to stop and assess the situation. We got out of the truck and watched in a stunned stupor as the monster tornado trekked across the dirt road and into a field, where it seemed to pause, having grown into a behemoth dirt eater and taken on an entirely new appearance;  it was significantly more ominous than before. The rotation was incredible and the occluding process was blatantly obvious. A satellite funnel spun up beside it. This was a violent tornado.

As incredulous as I was, I felt sick. Where were Corbin and Trey?

“Dude. Dude! There they are!” Christian said, pointing up the road where the tornado had just crossed. Sure enough- there they were, in one piece and driving toward us. Chris and I shouted happy shouts of relief and high fived. The joy was short-lived, though, because as they rolled up, it became clear what needed to be done now. The dirt demon had wandered further into the field and was obviously weakening.

“We have to go back.”

Everyone agreed. Once there was structural damage, the chase was over. We needed to get to that farmhouse. We made our way back up the hill, avoiding downed power lines and approaching the front driveway of the property.

It had been decimated. Two propane tanks sat on their sides in different places of the yard, hissing loudly. They were both leaking, and any spark from the downed power lines would set off an explosion. The tornado continued to wander further away into open land, but the focus was not longer on it. I threw the truck door open and made a run for it up the hill as hard as I could. “Tori!”, Trey’s voice cut through the pounding in my ears and the hiss of the propane tanks, “Power lines!!”

I hopped over them, channeling my inner gazelle with an awareness of my own tunnel vision,  up to the remains of the house. Three trucks were piled on top of one another, one of which still had headlights on. There was clothes and drywall scattered all over the yard. A rogue sheep dashed away from me. I approached the house just as the family who lived there emerged from their shelter. The first person out was a young woman, her disheveled hair in a ponytail. She covered her face when she saw the destruction. “Are you good?  Is everyone alright?” I yelled over the wind, which had picked up again.

“Yes!” shouted the woman. It was then that I heard the guys yelling my name. I turned, now very much aware of the wind beginning to howl again and a very familiar pull to the air.

“Tori! Come on, it’s a hand off!” Christian screamed. He had stopped just short of the propane tanks and was waiting on a signal that it was okay. The wind was whistling so loudly that I could hardly hear him at the top of his lungs. I threw an “OK” gesture at him and began trying to run back down the hill, but it was as if I were running in place. The wind was amazingly strong and my heart began to race again. Was I going to die here today when a propane tank blew up after dodging a monster tornado, or maybe when a hand-off occurred and another spin up happened?

I was finally able to get some momentum and made it down the hill, where Corbin and Trey were already getting ready to leave. Christian caught up to me and we got into the truck and bailed as well, heading back up the dirt road the way we came. Corbin and Trey decided to drive ahead while Christian and I stayed back and waited for the authorities to clear the road in front of us. A tractor trailer had been tossed into the road and slightly bent like a toy. Tractors and farm equipment were dragged and thrown. We sat and pondered the reality of the day, absolutely in awe that what had happened had happened.

After some time taken to process, we joined Corbin and Trey at a gas station, where we used Corbin’s wifi to upload photos and videos to social media. I couldn’t believe the images I had captured. 

Christian took the camera from my hands and stared at the images. “Are you serious, dude?” he breathed, “This is it. This is your shot.”

Corbin was monitoring Twitter after posting photos and video to it. It took a few moments, but then it began- the notifications kept on coming. They were going viral. “You need to get those photos online,” Christian said. “Just get them up. I promise you they’ll go insane.” For the first time in my life, I knew I had something special here. These were significant images. The best I’d ever taken. I did quick edits of both of them and put them on Twitter.

We decided that we’d drive to Garden City, Kansas and get some sleep. It had been an intense and beautiful day, and there were things to do tomorrow. It had been the most successful chase of all of our lives, and it was only day one.

“Dude! What did I say?” Christian said, showing me his Twitter feed on his phone. “Your pictures are going crazy.”

It was true. It had already been retweeted dozens of times and favorited countless more. I wouldn’t realize the full scope of it until the next day, but it was the very beginning of the biggest change in my life for the good.

And there were sixteen days left to go.

[thesanetrain-blog]

Never say Never

So...my first blog since my little detour (aka, seismic shift in the tectonic plates of my sobriety, aka mother of all benders). Little detour indeed! I wasn't sure if I should go back to zero with my counting of days. Or should I continue as I was with the new number since January in brackets? But then I decided to stop counting. Maths was never my favourite subject anyway. Instead of scrabbling around on an abacus trying to decipher if it was day 154 or 164, I'm just going to enjoy the moment of clarity and sobriety. I still plan not to drink and to embed good habits every day and one day at a time. I felt that having an end date in sight was dangerous for me. Like, what do I do when I get to that date? Get fucked up? Very likely. So instead, I'm striving to remain free of booze in this moment, and in this one, and this one here too. Let it be... in the meantime I'm exploring my inner self, my higher self and aiming to be a good human. I'll keep you posted on that. I feel there has been a shift in my attitude to alcohol of late. It's as a result of the lessons I learnt from my previous bender and some spiritual stuff I'm experiencing recently. But also, I have developed negative associations with alcohol (after almost 20 years! They say you have to stick your hand in the flames to understand that fire burns. Well I stuck my hands in the flames, let myself combust, and rapidly exploded into a massive inferno of destruction. Walking through life aflame and burning everything I touched. I digress...). But when I drink now it just ends in disaster. When I order a pint and a chaser which I have been fond of in the past, I may as well say "hello bartender, a pint of your finest depression and an anxiety chaser please". And the hilarious thing is, I pay for it! Anyway, the negative associations are becoming embedded and that is a good thing because I no longer feel left out when others are drinking and I'm not. I just feel grateful that I'm not drinking and now I'm grateful that I don't want to. Those changes came on quite suddenly. I hardly know the person I reflect on being in previous years. The crazy tornado guy, chicaning through cities, clubs, and after parties with a can in one hand, a bottle of poppers up his nose and a bag or two of God-knows-what in his wallet. All those items in place to stop me feeling, to stop me from living the reality of my situation. "I want total sensory deprivation and back up drugs sweety!" Cut to today, and the can is now Earl Grey tea, the poppers have been swapped for lavender oil and well....you get the picture. I've turned into my grandmother. How bad?! I learnt very recently to never say 'never'. I always said I would never ever move back to Ireland. And here I sit on a bus from Dublin to Cork, happy as a pig in shit. Coming back to Ireland has been the most healing, transformative, pivotal, beautiful, life-giving, gift from the fucking stars. Take that, old David who thought he knew it all!! Life has its ways of figuring stuff out despite our constant rationalisations. I've learnt to make room for the unexpected and the extraordinary, because it seems like that's where the secret of 'success' lies. Trusting our process and submitting to it step by step. So I won't say that I'll never drink again. But I will say that I have far too much respect for the hell I've been through on booze and the lessons I've learnt from it so far to even consider drinking today. So onwards and upwards, we rock back and forth in a comfortable carriage on The Sane Train. The world whizzing by in a blur through the window. We're heading somewhere, we don't know where. But we are making progress and that's all that matters.