#he visits Chernobyl

[little-pondhead]

I’m making an offer.

Clockwork sees how stressed Danny is from trying to be the goodest boy and never do anything remotely bad that could turn him evil and thinks he may have overdone it. At this rate his panic over never doing anything evil is going to force him to emotionally burn out and stop caring. Then he'll turn evil anyway.

So Clocky does something that sounds completely ridiculous in theory. He scoops Danny up and drops him into a universe full of superheros and villains and tells him to "Do whatever you want. There will be no consequences for you." Then he leaves.

And just like that, Danny goes apeshit. He decides to do the one thing he always wanted to do but was too afraid to because he didn't want to be judged, or worse, forced to join his parents.

He becomes a supervillian. Not as Phantom, no. But as Fenton! He goes full super genius mad scientist and terrorizes whatever city he's in. The local superhero is being driven insane as Danny builds death rays, shrink rays, his own modified version of the GAV, ect.

The best part if that the local heros can never catch him for long and when he is caught he always escapes before he is transported to whatever facility they wanted him in. He always ends up back in his home dimension where he goes back to acting normal and no one from either human dimension or the Infinite Realms knows what he's up to (except the stop watch of course)

After a particularly fun day in which Danny highjacks all broadcasting services to teach everyone in the world how to make insulin at home so you didn't have to pay a ridiculous amount for necessary medication, the Justice League was now on his tail.

Danny just laughs, thinking there's no way they'd ever be able to arrest him. Little does he know some guy calling himself Batman is leading the mission and he has no intention of arresting him. Danny, much to his horror, becomes far to familiar with adoption papers. As in he keeps having to set them on fire.

[peninkwrites]

Idk if this has been said yet but I’d like to think the nukes did go off but no one died immediately (except for Dream and Punz) so everyone left the server bc of the radiation. Tommy comes back to visit like people visiting the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Jack simply cannot die anymore so he’s just been gambling, perhaps a little out of it from the radiation, but otherwise unharmed.

And idk maybe the radiation killed the egg and freed everyone.

[ssruis]

Possible alternative routes for tsukasa unit events because people are mad about him struggling with roles for whatever reason:

> amami seiichi calls him a bitch and he has to cope with that (funny)

> amami seiichi is in the area and tsukasa keeps trying to meet him only to just miss him every time in increasingly comical ways (even funnier)

> they’re about to bulldoze kamiyama but wxs can save it if they raise enough money by putting on the best show Japan has ever seen

> wxs gets audited by the IRS and as the chairman tsukasa is the one in trouble because rui keeps buying nuclear engines and illegal explosives and writing them off as business expenses

> he dies (VERY funny) (slipped and fell on banana peel)

> 8 episode event of nene making fun of him nonstop he doesn’t even need to be there i think they should let nene monologue

> I really want to see him cope with failure like doing all he can to get into character, succeeding, but someone else does better and gets the role. I feel like there’s a lot to examine with his jealousy/sense of inadequacy and failure is something you need to learn to deal with in any arts field. Can he reconcile his ego with coming short despite his best efforts? Can he learn from failure like he’s learned from his other set backs?

> nene teaches tsukasa to sing in a way that doesn’t make me angry

> wxs takes a field trip to a bug museum to help him overcome his fears but rui keeps tormenting him with horrifying bug facts and emu keeps chasing him around with bugs

> he loses his voice for a week

> emu 5 part 2 (the better character)

> tsukasa gets a psychiatric evaluation so we can find out what’s wrong with him (diagnosis: quirky)

> tsukasa goes bald & the lim hair style/costume is just his bald head with his normal unit costume

> wxs is locked in an escape room (disastrous)

> tsukasa and emu visit one of her grandpa’s favorite spots, the Chernobyl elephant foot

> ruikasa wedding and then divorce (never mentioned ever again)

> they bring nenerobo back out and tsukasa has to fight her for a part

> tsukasa finds out he likes men (he is the only person who is surprised)

[aaabatteryy]

What if Bill defeated the Axolotl and Time Baby and absorbed their powers SOON AFTER destroying Euclydia?,becoming incredibly all powerful. He is now,the Almighty All Seeing eye All Powerful Triangle,or Almighty Cipher for short. Where does Ford come in when he's literally God already?,well... Bill needs a disciple,a successor,a vessel for his power,someone to channel his endless ability for him on Earth in order to expand his following and domain via a magic scepter that has an ounce of his power inside.

Why he wants a successor/vessel: With him having everything he wanted,power fame and recognition,things got REALLY boring and so he wants to shake things up a little by getting involved in Earth's affairs more,thus he decides to seek out a "genius mind every century" and he's actually being legit this time cuz he GENUINELY wants a genius mind to help him with no strings attached (sort of). And even with his literal op abilities,he's still horridly evil he still has his Issues™ and he's still very very chaotic. Almighty Cipher is literally just Bill but if you gave him the powers of a fucking god (or two. time baby is also a god),he was already powerful before,now i made him worse. In present day,Bill travels the multiverse with Ford and his family who are all now with him as interdimensional criminals but they also lead a double life back on earth as normal kids and a normal con man as unlike Ford they're not really keen on CONSTANTLY going on crazy interdimensional adventures for the rest of their lives,ALSO,Ford is a horrid egomaniacal tyrant that lives in a pocket dimension called Sixerville which used to be a peaceful farmworld dimension the Crop Colony that revolved around humble humans and the occasional anthro animal person tending to their crops until Ford came around and decided to enslave everyone because he couldn't stand watching a "bunch of useless vermin" live their lives without doing anything noteworthy like devoting themselves to research or advancing their technology,so he "fixed" them by forcing the inhabitants to serve him lest their entire dimension gets eaten by Bill who's like his fuckin attack dog/husband. Ford lives with Bill in Sixerville and also occasionally goes over to Gravity Falls to visit his family,Ford is like this because Bill kept influencing him and enabling his egotistical behavior that often makes him value his research more than his dignity (and his family),what happens when a god like being and a human that has a very strong tendency of letting his ego get to him come together?,this guy happens,ALSO ALSO,Stan and the twins are lowkey terrified of him even when his horrid behavior doesn't extend to them as well but can you imagine watching your brother/other grunkle drive whole societies to extinction via mass genocide without a care in the world for "Science"?. Also Weirdmaggedon still happens,but like,every year. It's like a holiday for Almighty Cipher and Tyrant Ford. They pick a dimension,plan out everything,and BAM, apocalypse on yet another harmless society. Ya see this is what happened instead of Ford being in the portal for 30 years. Almighty Cipher found Ford,made him his main disciple,the two build the portal with Fidds,Fidds quits because of seeing Bill eat his exoskeleton (although he doesn't lose his mind),Ford stays with his dear muse/god and ends up starting Weirdmaggedon on Gravity falls which horridly messes up the town and basically makes it a Chernobyl-esque chaos no man's land zone with how fucked up and weird everything is now,Stan visits due to the postcard (sent way later when Ford and Bill have taken over the town 10 years after) but only for Ford to have his brother join him in the chaos which he reluctantly accepts,later the two move onto conquering the multiverse which they succeed in doing but after having their fill of being multiversal overlords they decide to make a living traveling and studying dimensions,with Stan and later the twins joining them. The twins STILL go to Gravity Falls for the summer but uh,it doesn't go as planned as the place seems to be a literal war zone with weirdness bubbles constantly floating around eye bats turning everything and everyone they see into stone and the Henchmaniacs just vibin' while either torturing or killing any human they see for shits n' giggles,Ford saw that this would be a problem for the only family he has besides Bill so he decided to offer them protection in the Fearamid for the summer.

The thing i said i was gonna throw up ^^^^^

chewing on your brain /pos

fantastic au idea, and i suppose an idea like this needs sustenance to continue...... (<- wants to yap JAKAKSJSALJSJSJS)

bill being given even more power more directly after "liberating" Euclydia is such an interesting concept bc you have to think- he's gonna be so much more unstable than canon where he had millions- trillions, even, if the book of bill is to be believed- of years to cultivate and hone his power to get the tremendous amount of control he as by the time he meets ford and later by weirdmagedon. so, in theory, his power would be almost running rampant, which could explain the scepter idea you had (could be used instead of his cane? which is just adorable, really) and the need for a vessel and project to channel both that energy and bill's boredom into.

ford being coaxed into feeding his ego is so important to me, with his (rather shitty) self esteem and need to be recognized and needed, and then being able to get that recognition himself, even if it is through.... questionable means (COUGH mass genocide and inter-galactic terrorism COUGH). i really do think he could have the capacity for it, especially if not only was fidds not going mad from memory gun usage and seeing bill without his exoskeleton on while eating, but stan was called later and joined him, and bill didn't try to hide his plans for weirdmagedon from ford

TWINS! BEING! IN! THE! FEARAMID! OVER! THE! SUMMER!!

^^ very, very important, especially since that means they're fairly safe under bill and ford's protection there and we know that bill could manipulate the fearamid into whatever the kid's need or desire, keeping them, most likely, entertained for the duration of the summer. plus, i just know dipper would love to study the henchmaniacs, fearamid itself, the event of weirdmagedon, and the rift/portal while not fighting for his life

[risingsunresistance]

"we're just going to immediately get every kind of cancer simultaneously"

anybody else have this problem where you go back to rewatch some old techno videos and since his whole brand is Never Dying and all that. some of the stuff he says is kinda. a little too. yeah.

[swordfright]

Since we're talking c!Quackity...one of the interactions that fascinates me is the conversation between him, c!Wilbur, and c!Tommy when crimeboys visit Las Nevadas, because it contains this snippet of conversation:

This snippet comes in the middle of a larger conversation wherein Wilbur, more or less freshly revived, is grilling both Tommy and Q for details about how to get into the prison to see Dream. After this, the conversation moves on to navigating the visitation system. This snippet is framed within the context of Wilbur wanting to visit Dream, Tommy trying to convince him not to, and Quackity...? Well, okay, what is Quackity trying to do here? What's his goal in this conversation? He readily supplies Wilbur with info about the visitation and security systems (while Tommy actively withholds and obfuscates this info), so does that mean Q is trying to normalize his own visits by encouraging other people to visit? That's possible, but what interests me more is the question of, like, what the hell is going on here in a broader sense.

The simplest view of this conversation is that it's an argument between two people who are diametrically opposed, and Quackity is the third party here, a guy who doesn't seem particularly invested in either outcome. Which begs the question, why does he bring his own visits up at all? Q is the one who cuts in and mentions that he's been visiting Dream, which at this point isn't a secret on the server but it's also not something Q seems interested in discussing at length. The torture visits are something to be flaunted, not talked about. My assumption, given what we know about Q as a character, is that he's leveraging his experience with navigating Pandora in order to impress Wilbur. Information is something that can be negotiated, brokered, sold - so he's letting Wilbur know he has something Wilbur wants.

This is classic Q behavior right up until the end, where he gets oddly touchy about the torture being brought up. This moment has always struck me as weird, especially considering the handful of other times Quackity doesn't care whether people know (the conversation he has with George comes to mind, as well as the path he asks Foolish to build.) So there are three possibilities here:

that Q is bothered by Tommy saying the quiet part out loud;

that Q has only just found out about Wilbur's gratitude to Dream in the last 5 minutes (literally) and doesn't want to give Wilbur a reason to oppose him right now;

there's something about Tommy specifically knowing about and acknowledging the torture that rubs Q the wrong way.

Personally, I don't see option #2 as viable, given that Wilbur and Quackity are already beefing over how close to Las Nevadas Wilbur can build stuff. That's part of the reason Wilbur is here in the first place: to execute some chernobyl-grade negging. It's not world-ending beef, but given the propensity for mid-tier beef to turn into world-ending beef on this server, it's not nothing. Point is, Quackity and Wilbur have already been at odds with each other for this entire episode. Is Quackity less likely to tolerate conflict involving Dream? Absolutely, but I don't think avoiding such a conflict is his primary reason for acting the way he does here.

My current theory is that it's a combination of #1 and #3 - Quackity seemingly enjoys implying that he's been torturing Dream, but rarely talks about it outright unless it's with Sam. I can't think of many examples of him discussing the torture openly with other characters. I think it's not a stretch to say he enjoys the power of suggestion, he likes making people wonder, he likes making people scared, but he's not really prepared for someone to bring it up so boldly and directly the way Tommy does here. As for why this bothers him, my best guess is that the torture is actually kind of...difficult to talk about with people who aren't directly involved (i.e. Sam and Dream.) It's an incredibly demanding habit that takes up much of Quackity's time and energy, not to mention it's insanely intimate. Like I just don't think it's a stretch to say that Q probably just straight-up doesn't know how to talk about it in a way that's upfront, rather than gloating or flaunting or vaguely implying. Another reason it's likely difficult is that, based on the interactions we've seen, Q probably isn't used to other people bringing it up at all. Tommy's remark catches him off-guard in a very literal way.

The "Don't say that, not even as a joke," really gets me though, because it's such a defensive thing to say, coming from a guy who up until now has been very clear about how little interest he has in defending the indefensible. Is this comment a sign of remorse on Quackity's part? Fuck no, but I do think it's an admission of something. Keep in mind that Quackity's mannerisms when speaking to Tommy are almost identical to the way he speaks to c!Slime. This is evident in a number of streams from the Las Nevadas era, but especially this one: Quackity's tone of voice, language, demeanor, all of it is calculated to evoke the same kind of mentor-mentee relationship he has with Slime. And it makes sense - at this junction in the story, Q views Tommy as someone who's young and impressionable and fucks up a lot, someone who could use Q's advice, someone who's easy to manipulate.

If I were to hedge a bet, I'd say the primary reason Quackity reacts to the torture comment with defensiveness in this scene is because Tommy's remark reminds him that he needs to stay in control of the narrative. I think this is why Q brings up his visits (not the torture, but the visits) earlier in the conversation: "Tommy, you know about this, right?" He's testing Tommy to see how much he knows, and is taken aback when Tommy is prepared to bring up the nasty stuff. Q can walk around with Dream's blood on his shirt all he likes, but once the story's out, it's out - Quackity will no longer have control over who knows and, more importantly, what they think. If anything, this moment is a fleeting but noticeable admission of Quackity's insecurities surrounding the torture in specific. If he's going to properly manage his alliances, he would do well to maintain control of info surrounding, uh, how he spends his time.

[ailendolin]

List 5 topics you can talk on for an hour without preparing any material.

Thank you for tagging me @the-20th-century-girl!

1. Palaeontology: I didn't get a PhD for nothing and even though it's been years since my thesis defense, I'm sure I could still do the full presentation without preparation. I dedicated three years of my life to this (ten if you count my bachelor's and master's degrees as well) and I certainly don't mind talking about this childhood dream of mine or the issues surrounding academia, especially here in Germany.

2. Ghosts and anything Six Idiots related: the Six Idiots have been such a huge part of my life for the last few years even my family now knows who I'm talking about when I mention Thomas lol. They're lucky the original Ghosts isn't on TV here or I definitely would have made them watch it with me (on that note, I made my dad watch Bill last year and he enjoyed it!).

3. The Lord of the Rings: the films and then the books changed my life 23 years ago and if prompted, I will happily discuss why the Eagles were not the solution to the ring problem and why the Silmarillion is absolutely incredible and not dry and boring at all. Oh, and don't get me started on the musical or I will lament for an hour about the Springle Ring not being on the cast recording.

4. Survival stories: Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 is just the latest in a line of survival stories that I have been fascinated by over the years. I'm sure I could talk about it for an hour alone but there's also the Franklin Expedition, the Donner Party, the Endurance Expedition, the Terra Nova Expedition, the Batavia shipwreck ... I think you get my point. There is just something about humans facing such extremes adversities and, if they're lucky, rising above them that I find deeply touching.

5. Animals in captivity: a few years ago, the documentary Blackfish opened my eyes to all the issues surrounding animals in captivity. I will never forget the pictures of Orca teeth being so far eroded that you can see the root canal or that one time my palaeo prof took one look at a skeleton and promptly asked if the specimen came from a zoo because he could immediately tell by the deformed bones and worn teeth. I don't try to convince people not to go to zoos because it's none of my business to tell them how to live their lives but if asked I do tell them why I don't visit those places anymore in the hopes that they too will realise that a fun day out for them is a lifetime of miserable imprisonment for the animals they claim to love.

Honorable mention goes to History because I have been fascinated by a wide range of historical topics over the years (the Pacific theatre of war, Chernobyl and nuclear power, the Plague, Napoleonic Wars, Ancient Rome, mountaineering history, medical history ...) and could talk about any of them for hours if prompted.

Tagging @amalthea9, @professorlehnsherr-almashy and @ginevralinton but no pressure!

[kaleidoru]

I've only just discovered your blog and I love Sherman so much

If he ever got the chance to visit earth (or his solar system's equivalent) for vacation, who would he bring, where would they go, and what would they do?

He'd bring his bossman (and creator) Jaro, as always (they're attached at the hip practically)

We'll pretend he goes to Earth in this case because his first vacation choice was Chernobyl, which Jaro forbid. So Sherman went with his second choice, which was a roadtrip all over America to every single listed Superfund site... which mysteriously, these toxic places somehow wound up mysteriously much cleaner and less hazardous after Sherman's visit....................

[crushedsweets]

I know this shit is long as hell and you probably won't answer since you have so many asks but I just wanted to say I found a backstory for Cody(X-Virus) for your AU!!!

It's not as creative as your ideas but I tried to do something original and meaningful for him. He deserves more love and recognation.

I'm so so sorry for bothering you and I apologize for my mistakes.

Hope you like it and can't wait to hear your opinions about it!!!!

▼・ᴥ・▼

Cody never got adopted by a scientist, instead, he lived in an orphanage where he constantly got bullied. The reason for this situation was just straightly absurd. He just couldn't understand peoples and their emotions like other kids because of his lack of emphaty.

That's why he focused on academic knowledge rather than human relationships. Because mathmetical problems were easier for him compared to comforting a crying person.

Cody always was a succesful and smart kid so he could easily pass his exams in middle and high school. Because of that, in high school, he didn't bother to focus over boring topics like his daily lessons anymore.

No, he focused on more complicated science fields such as quantum physics, anatomy and organic chemistry.

Of course Cody couldn't understand everything he read easily, that's why he spend hours and hours on studying and having countless nights without any sleep. He read articles and textbooks, he watched professors' lectures on youtube, he tried to solve problems on his own and more.

Overworking on university lessons was not a good way for socialising, he got more and more isolated and the bullying was increased.

In last year of high school, he was worried because of the fact that he needed to win a success scholarship for all the cool topics he worked over, moreover, for a diploma. He could easily go to a college, however, he wanted the best of them. Because only the best could satisfy his hunger for research and true knowledge.

Cody was also confused about choosing which major to pick and he was stressing about this topic all the time. So many good fields were lying ahead him but he could only choose one of them and he wasn't sure which one is the one he wanted to dedicate his entire life. What if he would made a mistake and regret for his lost years for the rest of his living?

So yes, this was a very overwhelming decision for Cody. Since he was anxious all the time and he was going through a serious depressive episode, he decided to give a shot to the Chernobyl school trip in his school.

Obviously it was not like they really went inside of the nuclear powerplant since most of them weren't even over 18 years old. More like they wandered around the places in Ukraine which were close to the powerplant(Chernobyl City) and they visited some important museums.

But this was not enough for Cody.

He wanted to see the inside of the powerplant. He wanted to learn more details about behind the scenes. He wanted to see the deformed bodies. He to carry out experiments on dead humans who got affected by the radiation.

That's why he stole a gas mask and sneak out to the powerplant while everyone else was sleeping in a hotel.

He was truly breathless because of what he witnessed.

That's when he decided to became a chemistry engineer.

Of course he they got him and he took a huge punishment which caused to screw his school life.

Even though he got a really high score in his university acceptance exam, his applys were rejected by all the big schools he dreamed about. He got so, so upset about this that he even wanted to kill himself rather than living as a worthless piece of shit.

While he was rolling in thoughts of negativity, a teacher who respected Cody's success wrote a reference letter for him to an school.

The school decided to accept Cody with a few conditions. This school was not as big and as fancy as other schools he wanted but it was still better than what he could aford without that reference later. So he immediatly accepted this offer and thanked his teacher.

He did not became a chemistry engineer.

He majored in psychology which provided him the chance to do some different kind of experiments on mental health hospital residents.

He did a double major in chemistry, not in chemistry engineering.

But he's mostly using all his time for psychlogical experiments over chemical experiments. Sometimes he uses chemistry too for topics like neurotransmitter matters and the structure of hormones.

He's mostly a psychologist who you not want to cross and he works in mental health hospitals. He mostly manipulates his patients for doing something morally grey or hurtful for them either mentally or physically.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING THIS AND PLSSS DONT BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF ITS WRITTEN BEAUTIFULLY AND I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE SHARE THINGS WITH ME. I PROMSIE UR NOT BOTHERING ME AND ITS SO GOOD.

OK IMMA CHAT A LITTLE WITH IT UNDER THE CUT CUZ I LIKE IT

"That's why he focused on academic knowledge rather than human relationships. Because mathmetical problems were easier for him compared to comforting a crying person." I ABSOLUTELY LOOOOVE characters like this. who lean into math and science because they just cant grasp all of the wishy washy of emotion and that kinda stuff. characters who like clear, linear paths with rules and whatnot. i think its really interesting way to try to define a character

which is why i love "No, he focused on more complicated science fields such as quantum physics, anatomy and organic chemistry."

i love how much you focus on his desire for knowledge. i think its cool when someone CRAVES for intelligence, they want to learn, they wanna know everything they possibly can - and i think its especially interesting when that turns into scary, morbid curiosity

and i fucking love how scary it is that he decided to go snooping around during his Chernobyl trip. it just sounds like a really unsettling turn of events and i think is such a creative, yet creepy, take on what made such a big shift. going from a kinda awkward, focused, troubled kid to someone who is willing to hurt and sacrifice people for his own morbid curiosity. SUPER SCARY

and i like that he still couldnt get what he wanted. i like that he still got stuck doing smth that didnt truly appease any scary urges he had, and that he has to do his freaky killer stuff in a roundabout way by manipulating his patients

would be interesting to see if any other creeps could perhaps be his patient . . .

[j-sims-tmi]

This statement that I just followed up on, the one about the statement giver visiting Chernobyl-- I was able to contact him and he explained the route he used to break into the site, though he refused to elaborate more on the 'radioactive goop monster' from his statement, saying that he could point me in the direction to his initial sighting, but did not want to 'relive that nightmare'. Does this give me an excuse to go to Chernobyl?

If you can convince Elias that this statement is important enough for him to pay for your trip, then yes. It comes down to the budget—we don't exactly have a lot of money, definitely not enough to personally investigate everything. But, again, if you can talk Elias into it...

[sjweminem]

when the new psychiatrist currently doing my ketamine infusions asked me what's kept me from simply killing myself (from which i am fucking..inches away) once and for all, considering i've spent the last 7 years in this miserable unlivable state, i said "i haven't visited the chernobyl exclusion zone yet" and i could see how badly he wanted to walk away

[olekciy]

Ukrainian soldier Roman Horilyk after two years of Russian captivity.

He was a senior checkpoint controller guarding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. He and 168 other National Guard guardsmen guarding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were captured by the Russian military in March 2022.

During the captivity, neither Horilyk nor other Ukrainians were ever visited by observers of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

[naomiknight-17]

#i probably come off sounding pretentious when i get excited about radiation incidents#like. uhm actually hiroshima was an airburst explosion so the fallout is minimal. chernobyl however exploded on the ground and included...#hot particles which blah blah blah

I Would Like To Hear More

@chasm-connected

Okay gosh uhm

I am not an expert in any way, but basically what I was referencing is how the different types of explosions (Hiroshima atom bomb air burst vs Chernobyl reactor meltdown) had drastically different levels of fallout

Let me preface by saying that this in no way is meant to minimize the real destruction, pain and suffering caused by the Hiroshima bombing - that is unspeakably heinous, but that is another post. This is specifically about the science of nuclear fallout

When the Hiroshima bomb exploded, it had not yet reached the ground. The heat and shockwave it produced were extreme and deadly, but the radiation did not stick around as long as one may expect. When that kind of explosion goes off in the air, radioactive particles disperse in the atmosphere and die out relatively quickly. Hiroshima today is a thriving metropolis - forever changed by its nuclear history but safe and livable!

Chernobyl, however, is another story entirely. The exclusion zone is still considered uninhabitable. One could visit and even spend a day or two in the area, but living there every day (as some people do, but again, that's another post) could have serious health effects. The ambient radiation levels are unsafe, even miles from ground zero.

Why?

Well. When the reactor exploded, it sent actual pieces of radioactive fuel into the atmosphere, which rained down all over the immediate area. Not particles that would disperse in the air, whole pieces of active fuel rods just... everywhere. There are still tiny bits of these rods and similarly radioactive materials from the explosion just... hanging out on and in the ground in Chernobyl, continuing to put out radiation. This is in addition to the core of the reactor that actually melted down, but that has been largely enclosed and shielded (though as it continues to slowly degrade there is a risk of further contamination to the ground/groundwater - another post!) The little hot particles everywhere? How do you shield or enclose them? How do you even find them all without putting people in danger? If you could, how long would it take?

There's more to it, of course, and if you want to learn more I highly recommend the Half Life Histories series of videos on YouTube by Kyle Hill. He's an actual scientist who can explain this stuff SO much better than I ever could.

[jokest3r]

Matvey-Lukyan Volkov-Makarov ☀

or "Matthew Clarke," really depends on who you ask...

General Info -

Name: Matvey-Lukyan Volkov-Makarov(True Identity is on a need-to-know basis)

Age: 19

Issued Identity: Matthew Clarke

Issued Age: 23

Issued Rank: Specialist

Callsign: "Kid" until Further Notice

Status: Alive

Ethnicity: Tajik

Nationality: N/A(His parents kept his existence fairly quiet, only his mentors and his parent's closest associates knew he existed for quite some time before he went missing when he was older. His parents when he was young did debate that he may exist under a different name in the legal system in Tajikistan but didn't look into it after Matvey was disinterested at the prospect of meeting his biological parents.)

Height: 5' 7

Blood-Type: O+

Weight: 145 Pounds / 67 Kg(He came weighing less than that.)

Further Info -

"All things considered the kid came out far better than anyone would have expected given who his parents are."

Matvey was adopted a little over at two months old along the border crossing between Russia and Kazachstan on a cargo road that showed little action. He never really thought about the reason why he was there or the what how, just that he would've died if not for intervention (lucky or damning) you be the judge.

He had a pretty fair upbringing if you don't bring up visiting warehouses with his father or playing with guns at a young age. He was originally raised to be just that, a son, however it would become more skewed as the year's went on and his father Makarov's power grew. Then his role went past being only a son and more of a "good soldier." Of course, what Matvey would've called his first "failure" was failing his mentors and by proxy, his father. His mentors said he would never be a soldier and neither would he be strong enough to fight. It just wasn't in his cards. After that, his father's expectations seemed to slow down to a simmer, and his approach became to hold Matvey at an arm's reach away from the Ultranationalist Party and revolving plans. He would be protected, but not without getting trained to protect himself and escape at a moment's notice.

Though Makarov obviously wasn't his only father, his extended family mostly comes from Yuri's side of the family. Matvey obtained personality traits from Makarov but was much closer to Yuri. Yuri's a sensitive topic as is most of everything in his life. Yuri and Matvey both have something in common and that is "abandoning" or in Matvey's case "running away." Yuri left, without a word or notice and Matvey chased after him, and only realised he wasn't coming back "home" after two months on the road with Lobo, his loyal guard dog. Exact details on the first year of Matvey's lone days have not been found, but not without some prying. All he has to show for it is the bloodied patch the 141 found him holding along with his belongings.

Matvey was found along the Chernobyl exclusion zone by 141 squad members bleeding out in the hospital safe house he had rigged with traps, bleeding out from a wound that a mercenary had done to him in retaliation for murdering his partner, forgetting about the long-term reward of keeping him alive and sending him back to his father. And instead attempted killing him for revenge. He said he lived well off for what he had. With his father's hired mercenaries on his tail, he couldn't exactly pick a lot of areas. They caught his scent a month before the 141 had found him, sending an SOS through a makeshift antenna but getting help when they were finally able to trace it with spare time on their hands. Matvey really hadn't intended on surviving to the end if at all.

Combat-Style: Matvey plays dirty, real dirty, most "end up killing themselves" before they even see his face. He uses traps, bombs, chemical warfare (has an inclination for using gas) throwing knives and all sorts. Usually, he keeps to having a good distance with any target and avoids close combat at all costs, if any combat at all. And tends to favor using escape tactics he's learned over his previous training. He's known by most to be very slippery and sly if he wants something over with quickly.

If with a squad on something serious he fills a support role: and (jokest3r's opinion: his support role is something similar to Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite just without all the tears.) can find materials or target objects fairly easily since slipping through vents and getting out unseen is one of his best strengths and keeps him away from any of the serious fighting while still helping the team.

Personality: Matvey is naturally combative, moody, and "explorative" if the definition meant rule-breaking. He alternates between being quiet and isolated to being playful and rather "loud." He follows orders to a T, almost too closely like he's had past experience. He's self-destructive when it comes to most people as he doesn't want to care for much of anyone since all signs seem to point to anyone he cares for or stays with long term end up dying or disappearing one way or the other. Or abandoning him. He also tends to not understand social cues and is very affectionate even if the situation around him is dire. Warning: hugs and heartfelt conversations abound.

Allegiance: Matvey made it very clear where his loyalties lied, along with his goal to reunite with his father Yuri and gain some closure beyond bottling up all his anger and mourning for a father that doesn't seem to exist anymore. He's also seemingly gotten attached to some of the members, and would like to see them alive. When asked what that exactly meant he shrugged, thinking anyone else would've known what he meant.

As time passes the 141 hope to get Matvey out of his shell and influence him to grow and make better decisions. For now, Matvey will try to grow used to Western surroundings and hopefully, meet both his father's face to face, though he knows that it won't likely end happily. (FLAT COLOUR UNDERNEATH THE TAB)

[rjzimmerman]

The Toxic Sludge That Ate Tennessee (New York Times)

Excerpt from review of the book, "Valley So Low" by Jared Sullivan in the New York Times:

A concise summary of Jared Sullivan’s “Valley So Low” is offered halfway through the book by its hero, Jim Scott, a plain-talking, suspender-wearing, Skittles-addicted plaintiff’s lawyer: “They had a toxic tub of goop, and it blew up.”

“They” are the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility. The “goop” is coal ash, the residual soot after coal is burned for electricity. Soot might not sound so bad (one pictures a burned-out campfire). But this coal ash contained arsenic, iron oxide, aluminum oxide, selenium, cadmium, boron and thallium, what Scott called “a Long Island iced tea of poison.” As for the “tub” …

The tub began as a spring-fed swimming hole. It stood near the site of the T.V.A.’s Kingston Fossil Plant, which, when it was completed in 1954, was the world’s largest coal-fired power station. Every day the plant burned enough coal to power 700,000 homes and produce a thousand tons of ash. The T.V.A. dumped much of that ash into the swimming hole. Over decades there rose from that pond, like a zombie crawling from a tomb, an ashy colossus. It broadened into a mountain range of coal slurry, sprawling across 84 acres — until, on the morning of Dec. 22, 2008, it collapsed.

A 50-foot-high tsunami of poisonous sludge buried docks and homes and soccer fields beneath mounds of coal ash as high as six feet. By volume, it was the largest industrial disaster in U.S. history, a hundred times the scale of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. But for years most of its victims believed themselves unharmed.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of Chernobyl, Deepwater Horizon or the World Trade Center cleanup will not be surprised by what happened next. The T.V.A. announced that exposure to the ash did not pose a “significant” health concern, but nevertheless barred journalists, lawyers, environmental groups and scientists from visiting the site. Workers were warned, under threat of termination, against wearing dust masks and hazmat suits, lest local residents grow alarmed.

One safety officer told his charges that they could eat a pound of ash a day and “be fine.” Incriminating air-monitoring data was ignored, manipulated or tossed out. Before long the workers, and the wives and mothers who cleaned their clothing, began feeling dizzy, having nosebleeds and coughing up “strange black jelly.” Later they discovered that the Kingston ash was not merely toxic. It was radioactive.

There is a grinding predictability to stories of industrial disaster, particularly when it comes to the behavior of the institutions responsible. Jared Sullivan, in his scrupulous account of the aftermath of the Kingston disaster, had not only to dramatize a convoluted series of abstruse, drawn-out legal cases. He also had to contend with his villains’ shameless lack of originality. The T.V.A. and the firm it hired to clean up its mess, Jacobs Engineering, played their assigned roles with great dedication. Nearly every strategic decision they made, Sullivan suggests, seemed calculated to be “cartoonishly wicked.”

While T.V.A. spokespeople urged the public to remain calm and downplayed the extent of the spill, internal communications revealed an institution adrift in confusion and incompetence. “This is unbelievable,” one employee says, despite decades of warnings. “We did not expect this.” The T.V.A. hired white-shoe law firms to force costly trials, refusing settlements and pursuing every delay tactic possible while the plaintiffs began to die off. Meanwhile, the T.V.A.’s chief executive — at one point the nation’s highest-paid federal employee — gave a speech declaring, “We’re going to clean it up, we’re going to clean it up right.”

[teeth--thief]

Thoughts on Sasha Korol? I think your response on him will be particularly interesting.

-R

Particularly interesting, you say? Is that a code for I'll add extra sass and shade to my answer? If so... you're probably right =D I'm kidding, I always try to be as subjective as can be... except for all the times I'm not subjective and settle for bullying. But I'll be kind this time... or will I?

Let's practice some armchair psychology on Leonid Toptunov's best friend, shall we? ...And by that I do just mean let's look at him a little more seriously than I usually do.

Whenever I say that I don't fully believe or trust him, I don't mean to attack his character - I do think that either his age or something else entirely (underlying mental issues, most likely related to trauma from the accident and subsequential events that unfolded afterwards like, oh, you know, losing his best friend and colleagues) must have taken their toll on him and so I do treat him like a sort of unreliable narrator. When your brain has barely had the time to finish fully developing and suddenly, overnight your life is in shambles, it's to be expected that you're not exactly going to act in the most rational of ways...

I don't want to say that, even when keeping all that in mind, Korol still seems slightly... odd to me... but, well, he does. For example, from Midnight in Chernobyl (from a bit about Yuvchenko):

(...) Natalia scoured the city for scarce and expensive ingredients to keep up his strength. She brought black caviar sandwiches to his bedside; his friend Sasha Korol came to visit and insisted he try ketchup instead. But Yuvchenko proved unable to eat anything, and he was placed on an IV.

What do you mean he basically tried to medicate his friend with ketchup?? I have... many questions... Is ketchup more nutritious than other foods condiments? I have a feeling this was out of sheer desperation to not lose another mate...

The whole bit about him not wanting to go with Toptunov to see the test because he was reading a medical journal is also, quite frankly, laughable. I wasn't aware that the magazine has a cool down and will disappear once you put it down, brother. Just say you were feeling kind of lazy that day, there's no shame in that.

Judging purely from his interview with Kupnyi, he seems to have lacked that burning passion for science we always see Toptunov described as having. Which is... just fine. You don't have to choose a job in a field you're super passionate about. I just thought it was worth mentioning since he seems to have had an attitude of well, it might as well be physics when choosing a career path. Anything but being sent to Afghanistan with the army (perfectly understandable).

He was most likely just as capable as Toptunov when it came to work, given that while Lyonya decided to become a SIUR, Korol stayed on a lower position by choice (or so he says), choosing a different path, basically.

He certainly made himself useful right after the disaster happened by everything from continuing to work on site to informing the families of the workers about their loved ones being transported to Moscow ect etc. Good deeds all around.

While he did not attend Toptunov's funeral (he was... on vacation... :| ), he attended someone else's not too long after:

Pictured closest to the grave (some speculated he's the other guy in the light shirt, second from the right, but I think otherwise, the shadows on his face have... a distinct look... I think.)

I will NOT comment on the fact that I think his relation with Lyonya was very close, closer than what I normally associate with typical friendships because I know fuckall about good relationships, so... who am I to judge.

I'm pretty sure that because of him there's a bit of confusion about who Toptunov's girlfriend was - not that it's an important piece of information TO YOU - but it's significant enough to consider. I won't get into that here, though, this is not about the fact that because two people mention two seemingly different women, it seems as if he had two girlfriends (good for him, I wish I had two girlfriends... one would also be more than acceptable).

Same with the whole "fight" he reported Toptunov as having with the tutor during uni - I don't know how, if he was apparently indeed involved in what happened after - he could have misremembered that while remembering other details about it. Unless he's misrepresenting what happened on purpose, that is, but that's also a questionable hypothesis.

I think that's that when it comes to my general "overview" of him... If I remember anything else later on, I'll make sure to add it to the post in a reblog or something.