#disaster posts

[mini-minish]

have you heard of that new hot spot in ba sing se 🍵

[stinkybrowndogs]

I mean I get that’s it’s not the only contributing factor, but I’m curious exactly how much of the shelter dog over-population problem is actually due to poor dog ownership/management vs the housing crisis and economical stress. I’d be willing to bet by investing in social programs that give people the resources they need to care for their pets (cough cough affordable and free housing cough cough) that the amount of pets in shelters would dramatically drop. We can all sit here pointing fingers and screaming at each other until we are blue in the face, but if the owners basic needs are not being met, how can we hold them to a basic standard for their pets?

[ktempestbradford]

I have been on a Willy Wonkified journey today and I need y'all to come with me

It started so innocently. Scrolling Google News I come across this article on Ars Technica:

At first glance I thought what happened was parents saw AI-generated images of an event their kids were at and became concerned, then realized it was fake. The reality? Oh so much better.

On Saturday, event organizers shut down a Glasgow-based "Willy's Chocolate Experience" after customers complained that the unofficial Wonka-inspired event, which took place in a sparsely decorated venue, did not match the lush AI-generated images listed on its official website.... According to Sky News, police were called to the event, and "advice was given."

Thing is, the people who paid to go were obviously not expecting exactly this:

But I can see how they'd be a bit pissed upon arriving to this:

It gets worse.

"Tempest, how could it possibly--"

source of this video that also includes this charming description:

Made up a villain called The Unknown — 'an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls'

There is already a meme.

Oh yes, the Wish.com Oompa Loompa:

Who has already done an interview!

As bad (and hilarious) as this all is, I got curious about the company that put on this event. Did they somehow overreach? Did the actors they hired back out at the last minute? (Or after they saw the script...) Oddly enough, it doesn't seem so!

Given what I found when poking around I'm legit surprised there was an event at all. Cuz this outfit seems to be 100% a scam.

The website for this specific event is here and it has many AI generated images on it, as stated. I don't think anyone who bought tickets looked very closely at these images, otherwise they might have been concerned about how much Catgacating their children would be exposed to.

Yes, Catgacating. You know, CATgacating!

I personally don't think anyone should serve exarserdray flavored lollipops in public spaces given how many people are allergic to it. And the sweet teats might not have been age appropriate.

Though the Twilight Tunnel looks pretty cool:

I'm not sure that Dim Tight Twdrding is safe. I've also been warned that Vivue Sounds are in that weird frequency range that makes you poop your pants upon hearing them.

Yes, Virginia, these folks used an AI image generator for everything on the website and used Chat GPT for some of the text! From the FAQ:

Q: I cannot go on the available days. Will you have more dates in the future? A: Should there be capacity when you arrive, then you will be able to enter without any problems. In the event that this is not the case, we may ask you to wait a bit.

Fear not, for this question is asked again a few lines down and the answer makes more sense.

Curious about the events company behind this disaster, I took myself over to the homepage of House of Illuminati and I was not disappointed.

I would 100% trust these people to plan my wedding.

This abomination of a website is a badly edited WordPress blog filled with AI art and just enough blog posts to make the casual viewer think that it's a legit business for about 0.0004 seconds.

Their attention to detail is stunning, from how they left up the default first post every WP blog gets to how they didn't bother changing the name on several images, thus revealing where they came from. Like this one:

With the lovely and compact filename "DALL·E-2024-01-30-09.50.54-Imagine-a-scene-where-fantasy-and-reality-merge-seamlessly.-In-the-foreground-a-grand-interactive-gala-is-taking-place-filled-with-elegant-guests-i.png"

"Concept.png" came from the same AI generator that gets text almost, but not quiiiiiite right:

There are a suspicious number of .webp images in the uploads, which makes me think they either stole them from other sites where AI "art" was uploaded or they didn't want to pay for the hi-res versions of some and just grabbed the preview image.

The real fun came when I noticed this filename: Before-and-After-Eventologists-Transformation-Edgbaston-Cricket-Ground-1024x1024-1.jpg and decided to do a Google image search. Friends, you will be shocked to hear that the image in question, found on this post touting how they can transform a boring warehouse into a fun event space, was stolen from this actual event planner.

Even better, this weirdly grainy image?

From a post that claims to be about the preparations for a "Willy Wonka" experience (we'll get to this in a minute), is not only NOT an actual image of anyone preparing anything for Illuminati's event, it is stolen from a YouTube thumbnail that's been chopped to remove the name of the company that actually made this. Here's the video.

If you actually read the blog posts they're all copypasta or some AI generated crap. To the point where this seems like not a real business at all. There's very specific business information at the bottom, but nothing else seems real.

As I said, I'm kinda surprised they put on an event at all. This has, "And then they ran off with all our money!" written all over it. I'm perplexed.

And also wondering when the copyright lawyers are gonna start calling, because...

This post explicitly says they're putting together a "Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Experience" complete with golden tickets.

Somewhere along the line someone must have wised up, because the actual event was called "Willys Chocolate Experience" (note the lack of apostrophe) and the script they handed to the actors about 10 minutes before they were supposed to "perform" was about a "Willy McDuff" and his chocolate factory.

As I was going through this madness with friends in a chat, one pointed out that it took very little prompting to get the free Chat GPT to spit out an event description and such very similar to all this while avoiding copyrighted phrases. But he couldn't figure out where the McDuff came from since it wasn't the type of thing GPT would usually spit out...

Until he altered the prompt to include it would be happening in Glasgow, Scotland.

You cannot make this stuff up.

But truly, honestly, I do not even understand why they didn't take the money and run. Clearly this was all set up to be a scam. A lazy, AI generated scam.

Everything from the website to the event images to the copy to the "script" to the names of things was either stolen or AI generated (aka stolen). Hell, I'd be looking for some poor Japanese visitor wandering the streets of Glasgow, confused, after being jacked for his mascot costume.

HE LIVES IN THE WALLS, Y'ALL.

[slayfk]

posting here because this just doesn’t feel right to talk about in the horseimagebarn voice but this is extremely important to talk about.

my partner and i have returned to our hometown to stay with her family and my own has gotten a hotel here too (they moved to the town we currently live in after we did) so we are all safe and out of the thick of it

however there are tens of thousands of people who are not both in my own town and in the many surrounding it. appalachia will take an extremely long time to recover from this and there are more storms on the way. all i see on social media right now is people asking for shelter because their homes have been destroyed, or people asking for help searching for family members who are missing. hundreds of trees have fallen. hundreds of homes have flooded. roads are literally falling apart. preexisting sinkholes due to shitty pipes are opening up and consuming land. dams are on the verge of bursting and the only way to stop it is to release water so quickly it floods whole towns. all but one of our cell towers are down, so only people with at&t have service and the rest can’t contact anyone. over half the town still doesn’t have power. a major water supply issue occurred and the entire town is on a water boil order with no electricity to boil with. people are trapped in their homes and workplaces or out on the street because they have nowhere to go. law enforcement is blocking off roads but trapping people in the process. people have to be rescued by helicopter. our animal shelter has no water or power and boarding facilities have been flooded. entire villages like chimney rock nc are gone, and entire cities like asheville are cut off from the rest of the state and are completely inaccessible. ALL OF THE ROADS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA ARE CLOSED. 400+ roads are closed because they are unsafe . that is INSANE!!!

when people say that climate change isn’t real, they don’t know what they’re talking about. climate change and its father capitalism are only going to continue to worsen lives in every way possible. i live in the mountains and our infrastructure is completely unprepared to handle hurricanes and it’s only going to get worse. it’s such a strange and eye-opening experience to live something like this when you think that it could never happen to you because that type of weather shouldn’t reach you in your environment. climate change doesn’t care where you live. it’s real.

western north carolina and the rest of the southeast that has been hit by helene need help. more people need to be talking about this so that the government DOES SOMETHING because the government historically fucking hates appalachia and it still does!!! the major state institution near me took DAYS to respond despite being the only place in town with power and wifi connection because they had to wait for the state to approve their response—they could have allowed thousands of people to evacuate days prior to the hurricane hitting us but they didn’t do anything before or after until it was too late!!! it’s bullshit!!! PLEASE get talking about this because something has to be done. climate change is going to continue happening and our mountains and the people in them are going to suffer immensely. hundreds if not thousands are now homeless. please talk about this look at the footage online of the wreckage and look how quickly our infrastructure crumbled. we need better. the people of appalachia deserve better.

i’ll get back to posting horses soon. but for now this is a lot. my friends are homeless and my family had to get off the mountain or be trapped there without power and water for days. we’re all safe but exhausted. i hope everyone who has been affected by this is staying safe. if you are in western nc, dm me. when i come back, if you’re in my area, im happy to bring supplies. stay safe everyone

[grey-viridian]

Turtle pile!

[lazylittledragon]

the only thing scarier than vampire lords/mind flayers/death cults is meeting the in-laws

[snugglecat453]

Offering hugs in exchange for a helpful hand is always a good way to secretly show you want affection! He got it from his dad, ok? The thing Leo helped him with was something that happened 2 weeks ago and he was saving it for THIS MOMENT‼️‼️

[bonetrousledbones]

fuck it since my birthday is in like one day i'm gonna use my birthday wish to tell y'all to look at the shit going on in southern Appalachia right now after Hurricane Helene. look at it and talk about it and spread resources about it like wildfire because nobody else fucking is and it feels like we're on our own out here.

there are people who are stranded in hazardous areas that are still safer than trying to leave by driving on the increasingly hazardous roads. i'm personally going into my third day without electricity at this point, and haven't been able to get any gas for a generator to even keep our fridge working. there are very few places with power or running water, and cell service has just barely been restored in the last hour. ground crews are working hard to repair things, but there are many, many areas that are entirely inaccessible that may not receive these fixes for several more days if not weeks. i'm afraid my own neighborhood might become one of those areas if repairs don't get to us soon, and since we're much more rural i have a difficult time trying to be optimistic about it.

we're very far inland. i guarantee you damn near everybody here was expecting a little more rain and wind like we usually get during hurricane season, if they even heard about the hurricane beforehand in the first place since most people only got about a twelve hour notice before landfall- after several major areas had already been flooded. our terrain protects us from most major weather events- most locals have never encountered a single tornado or legitimate tornado warning in our entire lives. nobody i've talked to or heard from about it seems to have had any idea that it would be this bad. everybody's wishing that they took it more seriously, but we've never, ever had to before. i've seen people comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and honestly i'm not sure if that's all too inaccurate. today while looking for a single working gas station i drove by a military helicopter parked in front of the elementary school i went to when i was little.

please for the love of god, talk about us. talk about the good memories you had here or the beauty of our mountains, and talk about how devastated we are as we watch historic structures, buildings, and entire towns get wiped from the face of the earth like they were never even there. stop dismissing us as uneducated hicks and rednecks and hilllbillies and fucking help us.

r/Asheville resource/updates megathread (Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina)

How to set up disaster roaming for cell service

WLOS Live updates

Duke Energy power outage map

WNC Landslide Map

Hotels accepting locals

Emergency shelter locations

I live in western North Carolina so all of my own resources are centered around that. If anybody from the other impacted areas has additional sources they'd like to add, please don't hesitate to do so.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Trapped in a vicious cycle of pining? Try gay sex! (More things to learn over at Tiger Tiger!)

[abbeyofcyn]

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[sodamnbored]

Jason: Hey come on, you’re definitely gonna get into college, no doubt.

Percy, sighing: I hope so. It’s just…sometimes I just feel like the biggest fuck up in the world, you know?

Jason, hand on his shoulder comfortingly: If only you could see yourself through my eyes.

Percy: *looking at him expectantly*

Jason: You’d be amazed at how blurry you are.

[that1notetaker]

It's not a headcanon if it's the truth.

[ironunderstands]

The way some of yall mischaracterize Ratio as being stoic in chill when in reality he is 24/7 resisting the urge to rip everyone around him a new one is crazy to me like. He cares so much, so much. It’s unhealthy, he loses the idgaf war every time because Ratio is the least nonchalant person ever like

He was this close to breaking character and throttling Sunday like you cannot tell me he wasn’t planning a murder in this scene. Ratio straight up calls Sunday a crazy bitch but everyone brushed it aside 😭

Honestly his entire conversation with Screwllum is just him tweaking, watch it on YouTube the VAs performance is amazing, you can here just how much He Cares

Genuinely, Aventurine is way better at concealing his true feelings that Ratio. Ratio may be acting for the sake of the plan but the way he truly feels about anything he’s doing always seeps through, it’s why he apologizes to Aventurine in 2.0 in their staged argument scene. It’s why he is as mean to Sunday as he can be. It’s why him pretending that he “hates” Aventurine makes him act so silly. Ratio can’t fully commit to the bit, he can’t force himself to not care or to be someone he isn’t, because fundamentally Ratio CARES and that is something he is incapable of hiding, alabaster bust or not.

The problem is that him expressing his care is often done in a rude and/or blunt manner which people tend to interpret as stoicism or apathy when it’s anything but. Ratio’s vial that he gives to Aventurine is short, sweet and gets straight to the point, because that’s the easiest way for Ratio to express his emotions, even if it’s often detrimental for him and anyone else around him. However Aventurine understands him quite well, and knows that although brief, Ratio telling him to “stay alive, survive this and keep on living” is how he truly feels towards Aventurine, and that’s enough to keep him going.

Underneath Ratios carefully crafted marble facade is a man who cares so much and is so bad at expressing it and I wish the community in general, especially Aventio shippers would acknowledge that more. Ratios true moments of sincerity are brief, but they are anything but stoic. Let the man be soft, it’s in character.

[tizeline]

Draw rottmnt donnie and rottmnt leo fighting

The word “fight” can be interpreted a number of ways, so you get one drawing of the two of them doing some friendly sparring and one where they’re just having a stupid sibling fight

[hairmetal666]

Eddie survived the Upside Down. The bats. Vecna. And after the hospital, the town recovery, the shady government agencies clearing his name, after all of that, he has the best year and a half of his life. A lot of it is due to Steve and Robin. Well. The whole group of them, really, but Harrington and Buckley specifically.

Except that, you know, he survived extra-dimensional horrors and now he's going to die anyway, brought down in his prime by his devastating crush on Steve Harrington.

It's a stupid way to meet his end. Even worse than going at the hands of a demented telepathic wizard named after a DnD monster. Though...it's not like he didn't see the crush coming a mile away. Eddie may not have any practical experience in matters of the heart, but he knows he likes a pretty boy and Steve is the prettiest of them all.

There is no dimension where his feelings are requited, so he flirts and he pines, and knows it means nothing when Steve matches him quip for quip, touch for touch. He keeps getting himself in these situations where he thinks--maybe--but Steve is straight, constantly goes out with pretty, bubbly girls.

The pining may kill him, but he's determined to leave this world with a little bit of grace.

Until Steve's Halloween party.

It's a whole thing. All the kids, the rest of their own group of young adults, plus the Hellfire Boys, and the actual adults. It's a weird mix, but Eddie figures that, well. It's a family thing.

Halloween is his favorite holiday, one he plans for all year, but this year he decides to take it easy, electing to do a take on the vampire gang from The Lost Boys. The party is in full swing when they walk in, Wayne quickly spotting Hopper and making his way to the kitchen, but Eddie doesn't see Steve in the chaos of kids and Jonathan and Argyle's dual Frankensteins.

He grabs a beer from Robin who keeps giving him this look all knowing and sparkling and he doesn't understand it, not until he hears delighted laughter and shouts in the main room.

Buckley squeezes past him, and he takes the moment alone to close his eyes, brace for whatever fresh, unwitting, torture Steve has in store for him tonight.

He steps into the living room and time freezes.

Steve's in the shortest shorts Eddie's ever seen, thick, muscular, bitable thighs on full display. He's wearing a pink sweatshirt, neon fingerless gloves that very distantly Eddie recognizes as belonging to El, and gold hoop earrings in both ears.

Eddie has to sit down.

Wham! Isn't his kind of music, and he finds George Michael grating because of it, but--he's seen men dressed like that in magazines he steals from bookstores in Indianapolis, had wondered if George Michael was gay too. And now here Steve is, looking like a fantasy ripped direct from Eddie's brain.

Before he can make an escape, someone turns on the Monster Mash. The two Frankenstein's lurch into the room and start dancing. The rest of them are quick to follow, even Wayne and Hopper, after some light cajoling from Joyce, Max, and El.

It's silly fun, the perfect way for Eddie to forget about Steve and the way his ass looked in those shorts. They dance and goof around, and Thriller comes on, so they all try to do the dance, him and Nancy laughing until their stomachs hurt with their stiff-limbed moves.

The song switches to Material Girl, making El and Max screech, and the next thing he knows, Steve is in front of him, shimmying along. It's the closest they've been all night and now Eddie can see the faint eyeliner smudged along Steve's lash line. Something low and hot tightens in his core.

Steve grabs his shoulders, pulls Eddie closer. "C'mon, Munson, even you have to dance to Madonna!"

He laughs through his breathlessness, can't believe he and Steve are dancing together, not with Steve looking like that, somehow innocent, sexy, and ripe all at once.

Their eyes meet and Steve smiles all slow and dangerous, knotting up Eddie's stomach with a wild kind of anticipation. He doesn't have time to stop himself feeling it, can only give himself over to the shrinking distance between their bodies, the way Steve is warm and muscular against him.

Eddie's not hearing the music anymore, unaware of all their friends dancing close by. He's hypnotized by the dark heat in Steve's hazel eyes, lets himself clutch at Steve's hip, drag their bodies together. He feels Steve's breath escape in a quick burst, and it's a crash of cold water.

He disentangles himself, rushes out the patio doors. The night air is bracing as it chills his heated skin, his burning lungs. He takes a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, lighting it with a shaking hand.

That was too much. He let himself feel too much; want too much. Got swept away by Steve in makeup and earrings and tiny shorts. On the street, he hears children laughing, music thumping from a passing car, tries to get lost in that instead of his embarrassment. It makes him miss the slide of the patio door opening again. Doesn't realize he's not alone until he hears Steve say, "Eddie? You okay?"

He nods, but doesn't turn. "Just needed some air." He lifts the smoldering embers of his cigarette before dropping it and stomping it out.

Steve stands close enough that their shoulders bump. Eddie forces himself not to flinch away. "What are you doing out here? You'll freeze." It's not all a deflection.

"I'm fine," Steve says. "Sweatshirt." He wiggles the sleeve in Eddie's face.

"Yeah, but your legs, man. C'mon." He pulls his jacket off his shoulders. "At least cover them up a little."

Steve gives him an annoyed smile, but takes the jacket, trying to settle the leather around his legs. It's kind of a losing battle, but it makes them both laugh.

"I'm sorry," Steve says. "For back there. I shouldn't have pushed."

"Pushed?" Eddie feels like he missed a couple of stairs on his way down. "You didn't--"

Steve runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I did, Eddie. And Robin said," he sighs. "Robin said to just talk to you but I'm shit with words, so."

"So?" He faces Steve now, completely perplexed about where this is going. "I'm the one who pushed too far."

"Of course you didn't." Steve laughs a little. "I wanted to dance with you. I wanted to be close to you."

Eddie takes a step back, nervous smile on his face. "Is this some kind of weird joke?"

"What? No! Why would it be? I'm trying to say that I like you, man."

"Wha--But you're--"

"Don't--don't say popular or a jock or any of that. I'm--you know who I am, Eddie, better than most people."

"I was going to say straight."

Steve stills, blinking. "I told you I was bisexual."

"You did not!" Eddie yelps.

"I did! After went to see The Lost Boys!" He grabs Eddie's leather jacket. "I said I thought Kiefer Sutherland was sexy!"

"I thought you were being hyperbolic!"

"I wore this for you!" Steve wiggles his naked calf in Eddie's face.

"I don't like even like Wham!"

"You stared at a picture of George Michael in this outfit in one of El's Teen Beats for fifteen minutes!"

"I did NOT!" Except now that Steve's said it, Eddie has a pretty good memory of doing that very thing. "Wait. You were trying to seduce me by dressing as George Michael?"

"Like you weren't doing the same with the whole hot vampire biker thing?"

"I didn't expect it to work!"

He doesn't--will never--know who closes the distance first, but they crash together in a clash of mouths and teeth and noses. Steve's hands fist into Eddie's t-shirt, Eddie yanking at Steve's belt loops, until nothing separates them.

The kiss breaks as Steve mouths along his jaw, down his neck, and Eddie's fucking helpless at the turn of events. Never in his wildest fantasies--

"Stay tonight?" Steve asks, voice muffled against Eddie's skin.

"Are you kidding, sweetheart? I'm going to tear these shorts off with my teeth."