#heatwave makes people worse <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[presidentofthelipglossclub]

no bc deadass the rescue bots are straight up mean as hell. like, they arent evil or immoral they’re just rude. to the point where they’re meaner than the decepticons ok like megatron kept avoiding actually gettind rid of starscream despite the constant murder attempts but heatwave was willing to get rid of two of the other bots (blades after he abandoned a rescue bc of an avalanche and blurr bc blurr). heatwave is more ruthless than megatron which is so damn funny. blades keeps insulting people for no good reason (sometimes it makes sense but like quickshadow’s accent and how she talks made him so upset). chase is harder to see but he’s willing to do anything to follow the rules and he tends to repeatedly bring up other people’s issues (i dont think i have to explain but like example is little white lies. that whole episode). boulder is very sweet most of the time but the instant heatwave gets in on it he does too. multiple times in the show this has happened (off the top of my head when blades got the scoop claw hw and boulder were laughing at him and when hw made fun of blades boulder laughed, also heatwave was saying blurr was super annoying and boulder agreed).

to be clear this is a good thing. i wanna see more complex characters who are still fundamentally good people!! you can be callous, have low empathy, be egotistical, get angry, make fun of ur friends and still make good choices and still help people. you at your worst and you at your best are still both you, but your worst being bad doesn’t mean your best isn’t good. especially because morality wise the rescue bots are the best people. i mean, they aren’t war criminals (or regular criminals), they don’t physically harm others, they don’t put others at risk (at least not intentionally), and they literally had to pretend to be actual machines while risking their lives every day. these people who treated them as essentially slaves were who they had to protect. and they did it, over and over again, without hesitation. and i think they deserve to be a bit rude for that, and because their meanness comes from caring. if they didn’t care they wouldn’t bother to speak up and be heard, even if it’s in a disrespectful way. but they do.

anyways idk rescue bots brainrot and the concept of a fundamentally good society have been eating away at me.

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Don't forget that before the concert had even started fans outside were tweeting swift, her team and the venue begging them not to use the usual pyrotechnics. Fire inside a closed off metal shell made made it even worse and for what? Some razzle dazzle while concert goers were burned by the floor grates? They knew it was too hot, they made no effort to make it less dangerous. In fact they actively made it worse! Fans passed out directly in front of the stage and despite seeing this the most she did was hold for a second to throw her own water at them. For 3 hours. Somebody died 2 songs in and over a thousand people were injured but at least they closed the vents so people without tickets couldn't hear for free! Whether it's something that would hold up in court or not, swift and her team are responsible for extreme scale negligent injuries and Ana's death. She is truly a disgusting piece of shit who doesn't care about fans outside their wallets, especially fans of color.

It truly changes my entire perception of Taylor Swift to read about things like this.

Heartbreaking. I can't imagine how hot every piece of metal in that stadium was. Like being burned by your car belt buckle every summer- but way more intense and much bigger pieces of metal.

Who in their right mind would want to use pyrotechnics during a heatwave inside of a giant metal dome that is already so much like a frying pan.

All for what? To watch Taylor Swift strut around a stage- is it worth the risk?

Dear, Taylor Swift, are your concerts really worth hospitalizing people?

It's just pure negligence- You are entirely correct.

I'm entirely certain Taylor Swift knew her own safety protocol, this is her job afterall- and went ahead with her show anyway. Horrendous attitude. Horrible.

[wolfspurr]

Heatwave (1983 words) by Wolfspurr Chapters: 1/3 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Minor Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes, Hot Weather, Making Out Summary: A heatwave hits Beacon Hills and the whole town decides to start coupling up. Stiles isn't sure if it's the best thing that's ever happened to him or the worst. Excerpt:

It has to be supernatural.

The blanket of heat that’s settled over Beacon Hills is an oppressive, sticky kind of hell so unpleasant that it can’t possibly be a natural phenomenon. It can’t. If it’s not supernatural, then it can’t be defeated, and if it can’t be defeated Stiles is going to have to live through it.

It has to be supernatural.

Summer is supposed to be over, and even at its peak the temperatures hadn’t spiked this high. This is Beacon Hills; it isn’t supposed to be like this. What’s worse, school is back in session, so Stiles can’t spend his days lounging in Lydia’s pool with the rest of the pack in between supernatural threats. There’s homework to do and classes to attend, and for some godforsaken reason Beacon Hills High hasn’t seen fit to upgrade its air conditioning system at any point within the last two decades.

Which is to say it’s hot.

Unbearably hot.

The air is so thick he can practically cut it. It’s stifling. Suffocating. No matter how many cool showers he takes, a couple of minutes later there’s a tacky sheen of sweat prickling uncomfortably over his body again, an unattractive flush rising on his skin as blood rushes to the surface in the vain hope of being cooled down. All he can do is fan himself ineffectually with whatever’s closest to hand and pray to whatever higher being might be up there for it to end.

It’s not just the heat, it’s the humidity. It might actually be driving him insane, and Stiles is pretty sure he isn’t the only one.

It makes no sense. In this climate touching anyone else should be the last thing on anyone’s mind, but things in Beacon Hills seem to have been heating up in more ways than one. It’s not enough that the town is hotter than Satan’s balls, the heat seems to be messing with people’s minds as well, burning away their rationality and overheating their senses until they reach boiling point and hidden feelings, secret urges start to bubble over. Everyone is pairing up, finding someone to press themselves up against in discrete corners, empty rooms, the middle of the damn hallways.

Everyone except for Stiles.

Scott and Allison are so hot for each other they seem to have taken up permanent residence in the supply closet during school hours. Yesterday he walked in on Erica doing unspeakable things to Boyd in the depths of the library stacks, and he’s pretty sure he even saw Harris sneaking into an abandoned classroom with the new school secretary at lunch.

It can’t be normal.

And this is why Stiles is sprawled in front of his desk, cursing his laptop for the heat it’s churning out into the sauna he now calls a bedroom as he throws himself into research. Magma creatures. Volcano spirits. Lusty heat demons. Something has to be causing this misery. Keep Reading

[the-derpy-duck]

I really like rescuebots.

Tried to keep spoilers to seasons one and two sorry. Long post ahead.

It was the first transformers thing I’ve ever seen and it’s so funny. Like not in a ‘I’m laughing at it’ way but in a ‘it did a funny on purpose’. Please watch just one episode it is so good and Peter Collin voices OP in it. They make fun of politicians and I was NOT expecting that. I spent five minutes laughing at the first joke involving the mayor because it was so unexpected. RBA is also great. There’s one episode where the children think that one of them is gonna get kicked out and near the start of the episode Hot Shot makes a comment and at the end of the episode it gets brought up again and it might have been because it was 3 am and I was delirious but I laughed way to hard at that joke. Anyway Rescuebots is so good the end of season 1 was so fucking intense and dark. Like wow they went there. But the show is never so dark that it becomes miserable.

Heatwave is so great I love him even though I think he would hate me. His character growth is so slow and subtle but it does exist. He cares so deeply for Cody and the rest of his team and even if he’s a jerk about it he will always prioritize their safety. And his relationship with Kade? I just— I don’t know how to describe how it makes me feel. They don’t like each other but they do care about each other. They aren’t friends and won’t ever be friends but they have a genuine connection with each other. They are so similar that it makes them incompatible in a way that works. They are different, Kade is more openly rude and is definitely not a leader. Kade is selfish and an attention whore, Heatwave is also selfish. Heatwave also wanted to go join Optimus Prime’s team at the beginning of the show. But when Prime later offers him a spot on the team Heatwave wasn’t willing to leave his team. Also, in the episode where Tidal Wave first appeared he was willing to overlook his own poor treatment (although he was visibly pissed) but when Tidal Wave kept insulting Blades (notably after Blades was late because he was helping save someone) Heatwave went to defend him. Heatwave didn’t care that doing so might make him look worse in the eyes of OP, because he doesn’t only care about that anymore. Also it is entirely possible that Heatwave is the one singing the intro and no I will not explain that. Heatwave is an asshole but he won’t tolerate poor treatment of himself, his teammates, or the people he cares about. He doesn’t want to be apart of Griffin Rock’s community because they have only ever seen him as a mindless robot but he does view himself as apart of the Burns family. His relationship with Blurr steadily improves and they both grow to not dislike each other. Also with Kade their is an episode where this old lady is insulting the robots and Kade is genuinely about to get into a fist fight with her over the issue. Kade also has series issues with peer pressure, which is funny to me. I like heatwave a lot, I love the way his anger is portrayed and how despite him being the way that he is he dose show love and care to others.

Also Boulder is just so nice and there’s this music thing that plays whenever he’s learning and I love himmmmmmm. I like that he didn’t have an antagonist relationship with Graham, he was genuinely interested in earth and learning more but Graham was anxious because he didn’t know as much as Boulder, and it wasn’t in a ‘I’m upset your smarter than me’ but a ‘I feel so inferior to you and am assuming that you are being condescending because why else would you be talking to me’. But when he gets over that they work well together, Graham is willing to give up going to a really really good school to stay with Boulder (although he gets to take courses online/remotely. Idk how he got to go to school you just need to know he stays on the island) which shows how far their relationship has come. Boulder also being the first of the rescue bots to get a Dino alt mode was great and I loved those episodes, especially when Optimus was just playing with the other rescuebots. They were just having fun together and it was nice. Boulder is so genuinely kind to others and his interest in nature and the world around him is so charming. He wants to hug Heatwave and I want them to hug so much. Heatwave you know you want to hug Boulder. Also the fact that he can use echo-location is amazing and I love it.

You will acknowledge that RB had some level of body horror and you will appreciate that fact. Because it is explicitly stated that Baldes is

A. Afraid of heights

B. Originally a ground vehicle

C. Had no choice in his alt mode and was a victim of circumstance

He went from being on the ground to not having wheels that is fucked. Worse things could happen but holy shit dude. And it’s not like he chose this! He does get over his fears (mostly) and although he has a lot of anxiety he is willing to put himself in danger to help others. Yeah it will take A LOT to get him to that point but he will do it. When Danny and him are surrounded by fire and are about TO DIE he apologizes to her. The rest of the team come in to save them but like- they were going to die. They thought that they were about to die. Third episode in a kids show. And it’s not like Blades and Danny had a great relationship, Danny was an asshole, especially to Kody, and she wasn’t patient with a helicopter that wouldn’t fly. Blades is stubborn and terrified, it doesn’t matter what Danny does because flying is something he never wants to do. But Danny asks him to trust her and he does and she flys them to safety. and they become besties. Blades is also gay. You can’t tell me that he isn’t gay and that him and Bumblebee aren’t robot boyfriends. It is all but cannon the creators of the show tweeted a picture of the two hugging when gay rights became a thing in the US. But his ~friendship~ with BB is great and I love it. Blades also seems to have some form of anxiety and it very much affects his daily life. His nervousness affects him during rescues and that gets him into trouble with Heatwave. I have anxiety and I do love Blades a lot so I don’t know how much of this is actually in the text or just projection. I also find it interesting that he used to be a medic, I love medics in Transformers and it makes sense for a rescue team to have a medic and it makes sense for that medic to be Blades. I also think it’s really funny that he is NOTHING like his G1 counterpart (apart from the name and alt mode of course). Because G1 Blades was a lover of violence and that’s funny to me.

Danny and Cody’s relationship is also really interesting to me. Danny takes out her anger on other people, mainly Cody, and she doesn’t realize that she’s doing it until Cody brings it up to her. She genuinely apologizes to him and says that she will do better. It isn’t really brought up again so I assume that she stuck by her word. Also she plays soccer and is better at it than everyone else in her family and I love her for that.

Chase has survivors guilt. Like that’s just a thing that exists. And he is so determined to try and find this group and help them even if there is literally no way that they could be alive and Cody backs him up and Heatwave lets him go but gives him a direct order to come back alive and Chase has been shown to be unable to go against direct orders and AGAHHASGAHAHBA. It’s just so- it was a good episode. For some reason I thought that Chase and Heatwave had a power struggle, which I’m really happy they don’t because it wouldn’t make sense. I think I thought that because of TMNT but there is nothing in the show that would indicate Chase would want to be a leader. And he really respects Heatwave, although he may disagree with his judgments and decisions he won’t go against Heatwave. Which is also a flaw as his refusal to disobey orders has lead to conflicts. His whole ‘follow the rules’ also has a lot of funny jokes. Like when he’s singing to the baby robot (don’t ask) he interrupts the song to say that the rescuebots don’t condone the reckless behavior that’s taking place in the song. Also the body swap episode is perfect. Literally nothing could be done to make it better it is the best body swap episode. But Chase is such a silly guy. Him and Whirl are the best cops (sorry Jimmy). Chase is also really great in RBA. I love him and I’m so attached to this guy. I love his relationship with Chief Burns and how nicely they work together. I like that half the cast is like ‘yeah my human is a jerk’ and the other is ‘I love my human they are so cool’. It’s just. Silly and nice.

Cody, buddy, my dude, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE ACCESS TO EVERYONE’S SECURITY SYSTEMS? Your unhinged and I love you for that but wow. It’s not even out of character. It’s 1000% something he would do and have access to. Cody is also just great. He forms such genuine friendships with others and you can really tell that he loves rescue work and his home. He’s able to befriend just about ever cybertronian that appears on the show. His connection with Blurr is more than half the reason why he chooses to not go back to velocitron (which totally isn’t destroyed), he befriends the recruits in RBA and is a major voice of reason, and the bond he has with Heatwave is a primary part of the show and if it didn’t exist then the show wouldn’t make sense. Cody is a mediator who helps the others work through their issues with their partners and he’s the main thing that connects everyone. Because everyone loves and cares about Cody and they aren’t willing to just abandon him. They are a family, all of them, and they aren’t going to abandon each other. Family is a strong theme in rescue bots, the bonds that the characters share are so strong and interpersonal. Heatwave cares deeply for the other members of his team, he orders chase to not die. The Burns family has extended to include the rescue bots and arguably Dr.Green and Frankie. The season three finale is fucking perfect with this theme, they are willing to kill themselves for these humans and the speech they give to the family oh my god- Moving on from this—

Salvage is southern. He is southern I love that I love when transformers have accents it’s one of my favorite things ever. Like TFA Blitzwing is one of my favorite characters in part because of the accent. The southern accent suits him I think. I like the connection he has with Blurr. He wanted to help the humans and he’s generally really chill. He finds great fascination with garbage and when he asks if he can keep some Cody and Boulder are like ‘uhhhh I guess’ in a way that’s like holy shit this guy is weird. He recyclessss. I don’t really have A LOT to say about him but I really like him he’s sweet and he is southern. I’d need to rewatch seasons three and four again if I wanted to talk more in depth about him.

I do have a bit more to say about Blurr. To me, he reads as someone who has AD(H)D. The way he struggles to understand why he should work with others, his impulsiveness that comes back to bite him in the ass, his want to move and race, and the way the others talk about him and compare him to Salvage remind me of my own experiences. Specifically how Chase and Blades talk about how they don’t want to teach Blurr reminded me of how I assumed teachers or coaches would think of me. The way Heatwave acts also reminded me of a few teachers. Blurr is an impulsive ass. He sucks so much but also theres a non zero chance that his home planet was destroyed (RB is apart of the alined continuity) and he’s being forced to adapt to a world that is unwilling or unable to accommodate him. I am both annoyed with him and empathetic towards his problems. He views himself in a very positive light but also he wasn’t going to just leave Salvage. When he’s awoken he questions where Salvage is but he also lies about saving the humans. He’s greatly flawed and I probably wouldn’t like to be around him but as a character I love him. I have a hard time watching the second episode that has him in it because it makes me feel bad about myself and that’s understandable. I see him as everything that’s wrong with myself and bit more but I like him? He has an almost antagonistic relationship with Heatwave that improves and he is apart of Heatwave’s greater arc throughout the alined continuity, he learns and improves his teaching methods. He doesn’t like Griffin rock and he has very few reason to like it, the people there don’t know he’s sentient and professor asshole is running the place. He only really has Cody and Salvage as friends and Salvage isn’t on Griffin rock. Blurr also doesn’t die. I like that he doesn’t die please stop killing Blurr it hasn’t happened a lot but come on!

Quickshadow is so cool. I love her she’s fanatic. That’s it. That’s all.

Also the humans are great in this show. I don’t think I’ve seen a transformers show where none of the human characters annoyed me, but rescue bots comes very very close. The villain is a silly silly dude but he’s also a dictator. It’s kind of weird in tone but I do like him as a villain. Dr.Green is amazing and I love him. He’s like if G1 wheeljack was a human. Frankie is amazing and I love her friendship with Cody. They give off the vibes of being besties and I love them for that. Kade is an asshole but their is an entire episode about how he has more than one dimension and cares about his family and friends and girlfriend. He hyped up his brother (Graham) and it’s so sweet. Also Graham is great and I love him. He works well with Boulder and they are genuinely friends. They enjoy spending time together and it’s just nice. Danny is wonderful even with her anger issues. She does seem to improve with Cody and I like that, I like that she is able to get better because it mirrors my own relationship with my sibling. The fact that she also becomes friends with Blades and they banter is great. The humans in Rescue Bots feel necessary to the story. Even the towns folk feel like they belong. I watched half an episode of RID 2001 and I don’t know how necessary he was but their are definitely some shows that don’t need human characters. Also their is a person from Ohio in the show who came to watch birds. Not to shit on human characters, I like a lot of them, but sometimes they can be annoying. Rescue Bots is a great show and the humans work. The environment is also really interesting for a transformers show. Like robots working to help save and protect people in a town is so fun. It’s just fun which is what I think a TF show should be. TFP is great but I watched it in congruence with Rescue Bots and that contrast probably made me like it more. Also Dinobot OP is cannon to Tfp and I love that.

I think the reason I love this show so much is because it’s so nice and sort of calm. Like the situations the characters are put in are really dangerous but the show is made for kids. They aren’t gonna be scared or die. When Blurr died in TFA I was so badly affected by it. The show does take place during a war, but the war isn’t relevant. The characters aren’t actively fighting and because of that they can just relax. The moments when they are playing games are some of my favorites because they let me get attached to them and see them be happy. It also gives small insights into the dynamics and characters. Like Chase is playing a Cybertronian version of chess with Heatwave and Heatwave is frustrated that Chase always wins this game. Chase is better at thinking ahead and strategizing than Heatwave, which makes sense. It also shows how close these characters are to each other, that Heatwave and Chase would play this game together enough to the point that Heatwave would make that comment and be frustrated about it. It’s like the parts of g1 that are just silly for silliness sake. The reason why I watched so much of G1 is because of these little moments. Rescuebots is also superior to TFA because, unlike TFA, RB doesn’t misuse international waters and try to claim that the lakes between America and Canada count as international water. They don’t. If you are in a lake between USA and Canada then are either in America or Canada. The boarder is a fucking line.

Oh and the theme song is the best theme song. I don’t fucking care how good you think tfa’s intro is, RB’s intro gives a perfect summary of the show, the characters’s backstory, and what will be happening. It destroys the tone of the episode and it is PERFECT. So fucking funny when a serious moment is happening only for A ROUTINE PATROL WITH FOUR BOTS IN SATUS- to interrupt it. So good. I am not a functioning human, all I can think about is this fucking show. It is so good, I love the characters and world so much please watch it people it’s great, it’s unhinged, it has a musical episodes and it’s unironically amazing.

So yeah, I am going to get that Chase legacy figure and I will fight a seven year old for it. Hasbro please make all of them I will give you an unreasonable amount of money for a really big High Tide I don’t know the actual name they use for it but please Hasbro please.

Unrelated but if anyone has any links or a copy of the 500 page critique of the Michael Bay TF films please send it to me I really want to read it.

[annabelle-creart]

KOBDase across the Multiverse be like:

👇

SG!Chase: Get that shit out my face

Swap!Chase: Release him and I'll think of it

SG!Knock Out: Am- Chase- sir- sorry- can you please-?

SG!Chase: Shut up! You have nothing yo do in this situation

Swap!Chase: That's not a cute way to talk to your partner

Mako Mori: I can tell the same

Raleigh Beckett: X2

The two human said from the big machine, an humanoid robot as giant as the Hunter's variants, the robot was called Gipsy Danger

Swap!Chase: Now you're conviced?

SG!Chase got back on his pedes, letting go the plant demon

SG!Knock Out: What were you thinking!?

Outlier!Chase: I don't like that bot

Adventure!Knock Out: Wow, what a beauty!

Swap!Chase: neither do I, but we have no reason to make this a gladiator arena

Mako: Thanks!

Raleigh: that's all? C'mon, Mak, let's show them some moves!

Mako: you're acting like a kid

Swap!Chase: This is probably the most weird experience I had in a while

Outlier!Knock Out: to be a rockstar is not one of them?

Swap!Chase: I'm not a rockstar, I just scanned the vehicle of a famous movie

Adventure!Knock Out: you sure you're okay?

Adventure!Breakdown: Something, nothing I can't regrow

Adventure!Chase: I knew that bot wasn't of trust

Mako: Ironic, he's our variant, if I'm not bad

Releigh: well, not because is your variant means you're the same, you hadn't pass through the same things, or didn't choose the same

Outlier!Breakdown: It is not to be obvious, but, where are the other three?

Mako: which other?

Outlier!Breakdown: the others

Hunter!Boulder: Ahem

Mako: WOW! RALEIGH!

Raleigh: KAIJU!?

LoRB!Chase: NONONO, THEY COME WITH US

Hunter!Boulder: That term is cruel!

Raleigh: It talks?

Hunter!Heatwave: Yes, we do, and we have names

Outlier!Breakdown: Oh, there are they

LoRB!Knock Out: Sorry, we didn't knew how to get in the middle of a fight without dying

LoRB!Breakdown: That doesn't explain the need to kill, is he a psycopath?

SG!Chase: Are all his variants this disgraced?

SG!Knock Out: Chase!

Raleigh: Auch, pal, that's not cool

SG!Chase: Don't call me like that

Swap!Chase: If you want to start again, I'm ready to neutralize you

Mako: Count on us

SG!Chase: tch!

LoRB!Chase: ah, what if we do something to relax us

LoRB!Knock Out: Like play cards?

Hunter!Boulder: We have some more!

LoRB!Knock Out: really?

Raleigh: Cool, I have some tricks under the sleeve

A frozen stick almost crosses the Gipsy's shoulder, on Raleigh's side

Crystal!Kim (KO): WHAT THE HECK?!

Crystal!Fang (Chase): sorry, the gun is worse state than I thought

Crystal!Buttercup (Breakdown): better let it for later, Kim doesn't have other 3 centuries to recover

Raleigh: Ahg, excuse me, WHAT WAS THAT?!

Miko: Your... thing, almost do some damage to us

Crystal!Fang: sorry for it, it wasn't for you

SW!Fang: Can I?

Crystal!Fang: No, this is not for little kids, same for animals

SW!Fang: Hey!

SW!Buttercup doesn't think it twice, and bites Crystal!Fang's hand

Crystal!Fang: AGH! YOU, LITTLE-

SW!Buttercup: HISS

Crystal!Fang: And you still ask why I always say kids and animals are the same?! Freacking racoon

LoRB!Chase: sorry, I don't think we saw you before

SG!Chase: I did, they're not the best people

SG!Knock Out: Hi!

Crystal!Kim: Knock Out! Dear!

SW!Fang: How many of us are?

LoRB!Chase: millions or more, as long as there's a universe, we will be there

Crystal!Fang: I see...

Mako: I didn't thought there were so many of us

Outlier!Knock Out: talking about it, where are you Break and Knock? Secret agent!

Swap!Chase: I don't want to talk about it

Outlier!Knock Out: Oh, come on!

Outlier!Chase: Knocky, don't insist... where are the others?

Crystal!Fang: Which others?

But from nowhere, the soil starts to move quickly

LoRB!Chase: everyone! Let's get to safety

From a hole on the earth, a creature emerges, big claws and almost non-existent eyes were the first thing the big creature let see

Hunter!Boulder: Bee!

LoRB!Chase: Why do you call him Bee?

Hunter!Boulder: that's his name!

Followed by the big creature, a thing that looked like an amalgamation of reptile and bird emerged too

Hunter!Blades: Hi, guys! What are you doing?

Hunter!Heatwave: small talk

Hunter!Blades: Have you seen Chase? I can't find him, he has something I need

Hunter!Boulder: Nope

Hunter!Heatwave: Sorry, Blades, Bee

Hunter!Blades: well, no problem, Bye!

And both got under ground again, leaving the rest surprised and frozen of the strange meeting

[sijetaismoi]

First sentence game

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

Thank you @mamadoc for tagging me. I was planning to post this a few days ago, but I guess life happened...

Also, I'm going to twist the rules a bit, and will choose from all of my stories, not just the most recent ones. Well I guess they can all be considered recent, as I just started writing this year. I hope you guys enjoy some of them ❤️

I heard you

"She won’t be coming tonight."

He takes in Angela's words and their implications. Whether she’s trying to reassure him or spare him from needless waiting, his friend doesn’t beat around the bush. She knows him well enough to know he keeps glancing toward the patio door, hoping to see her arrive.

Tim accepted the Evers' invitation to an early summer garden party, and whether Lucy would be there or not didn’t influence his decision. He’s already discussed with his therapist how important it is to make choices for himself, and only for himself. So, he’s here mainly because his best friend asked him to, because he’s always warmly welcomed by her and Wesley, because the other colleagues present are also friends, because he needs to see people, and because he’ll probably have a good time.

If Lucy’s there, it’ll be a bonus, the cherry on top. And if she’s not, it won’t ruin his evening. He’ll be disappointed, but he’ll enjoy the conversations with the others.

He’s making progress, step by step. And simply being aware of that is already a huge achievement.

2. Heatwave

The temperatures have been skyrocketing for three days now, and it's supposedly the hottest summer ever. Lucy is drenched in sweat as she parks her shop to go for lunch, despite the air conditioning.

Nolan signals for her to join their table, where he’s already eating with Tim, Angela, and Nyla. She heads straight to the food truck to grab a salad before they run out and then sits in the only available chair between Tim and Nyla, letting out a long sigh. She loves summer but hates the heatwave. The thought of another sleepless night, tossing and turning in bed while hoping for a slight refreshing breeze, puts her in a foul mood.

All her colleagues around the table have noticed this, and none of them dares to ask how her day is going. She stabs at her cucumbers with her fork as if to make them pay for what she's enduring.

Her eye is drawn to the dessert waiting for Tim. She starts to salivate at the sight of his slices of watermelon—fresh, juicy, sweet.

"Where did you get that?" she asks.

He gestures to the food truck behind them with his thumb.

"There wasn't any when I passed by."

He shrugs. "Must be popular."

She lets out a grunt. Now that she's seen it, she can't think of anything else. And it only makes her mood worse.

3. Another wedding with you

Nell Forester is a bundle of positive energy that reminds him of Lucy. When she stands all excited in front of his desk, he restrains himself from rolling his eyes and merely raises an eyebrow.

"Anything I can do for you?"

She hands him a pale pink envelope, her smile lighting up her face and nearly the entire floor.

"You don’t have to open it right now. I really want you to be there, so I hope you RSVP. I’ve gotta go, see you."

And just as quickly as she appeared, she disappears down the hallway. He can’t help but chuckle. He opens the envelope and unsurprisingly finds an invitation to celebrate the union of Nell and Ellroy on June 15th in San Luis Obispo. He puts the invitation and the RSVP card (which he promises himself to return promptly) back into the envelope and places it in his desk drawer, waiting until the end of the day.

4. What's in a name?

Lucy Chen is by far the most beloved officer at Mid-Wilshire. Sincere and wholehearted, she deeply cares about people, trusts them, listens attentively, consoles, and shares moments of joy. Smiling and radiant, she has certainly earned the nickname some have given her: a true ray of sunshine. Human and altruistic, she helps whenever she can without expecting anything in return. Switching a night shift? No problem. Taking a twenty-minute detour to help a breastfeeding colleague who ran out of storage bags? She makes it her mission. Giving up her last granola bar when she hasn't eaten in eight hours? She'll manage. Welcoming new recruits at the station? It's the task no one wants and everyone delegates to her, and she takes pleasure in being the friendly face for new rookies or freshly transferred colleagues.

So, it's with habit and ease that she introduces herself to the new officer in uniform at the back of the meeting room, offers to show him around the facilities later and explain how the coffee machine works, invites him to the new recruits' get-together she'll organize at the end of the week even if he's the only new one, and wishes him a good day.

5. Practice makes perfect

“I'm hoping that we're good at certain other things, as well.”

“Oh? Want to find out right now?”

So they did find out some time later. Lucy clutches the sheet to her chest and stares at the ceiling of her bedroom, her breathing gradually calming. Tim is lying beside her in the same position, eyes fixed on the same point.

“You okay?” he asks her.

She nods and bites her lip.

“You?”

“Good.”

Their first time was much like their first date. Hesitant, awkward, clumsy. She feels ashamed to think that, but she had imagined stars, sparks, fireworks, like when they first kissed before leaving on the mission to Las Vegas. They had waited weeks for this moment, and she feels terribly disappointed and guilty for even thinking this while having the person who means the most to her in her bed.

She turns her head to face him and he seems just as embarrassed as she is. Neither of them falls into a euphoric post-coital haze.

And yet that's exactly what they should be doing.

She bursts into laughter, and he turns his head towards her, very surprised.

6. 7 stages

She watches him walk away, and she remains rooted in place, unable to follow him, unable to call out to him, unable to get back into her car.

She sees cars and uniformed officers coming and going, entering and exiting the building, joining a vehicle or stepping out of one.

Life goes on while she is frozen in place.

Eventually, she opens the car door and slides into the driver's seat. In autopilot mode, she starts the engine and leaves her parking spot, driving away from the police station, mechanically stopping at lights and stop signs, using her indicators when necessary, adjusting her speed, and parking in front of her building.

The journey to the apartment unfolds in the same manner: every movement, every step, is so ingrained in her that she doesn't need to think.

She turns the keys in the lock, turns on the light, sets down her bag, kicks off her shoes. She doesn't realize that the apartment is empty, that Tamara isn't there. She heads to the bathroom, sheds her clothes, steps into the shower. Again and again, the same actions, the habit, the routine, that render her thoughtless.

She's not in a state to think.

7. Nineteen days

She walks towards her car, ready to head home and open a bottle of wine that she might be able to finish without Jackson's help when what sounds like a bark makes her stop and turn around.

"Hey, Chen!"

She furrows her brow and waits for her training officer to catch up in a few strides.

"Have you decided where you're going to meet?"

She smiles, touched, because behind all his cynical and sometimes sharp remarks, behind his indifference, behind his sometimes brutal words, there is also the need to protect her. She told him she planned to go out with Dave tonight, and he wants to know where she's going, just in case her date turns out to be - again - a serial killer about to abduct her. He wants to know where she's going, with whom, and she's grateful for that. Coming from anyone else, she would find it unbearable.

"Nowhere. I'm going home. "

"Really?"

"And alone!" she emphasizes.

“Do you want to grab a beer?"

8. Without a word

It's an evening like any other, spent in the comfort of their home, each occupied with different tasks as mundane as clearing the table or emptying the washing machine.

He passes by the door of their bedroom, and the sight is enchanting. She wears her silk kimono, her hair pulled up and secured with a clip, humming along to the music filling the room. The candles she loves to light to relax cast a soft, natural glow that illuminates her features. She moves with calm and grace, and he marvels at each fluid relaxed serene gesture.

She hears him approaching but doesn't stop what she's doing. She's not surprised to feel him against her, behind her, to feel his lips on her neck, his hands on her hips, his fingers along her arms. She shivers.

He presses the clip, releasing her hair into cascading waves, and runs his fingers through the silky strands flowing down her back.

She bites her lip and forgets about the laundry on the dresser. She turns to him and sees his hand moving towards the belt of her robe, which he slowly undoes, the two silk panels opening to reveal what little she wears after her shower.

9. Lucy's personal box of personal things

"And this is the very last box!" Lucy exclaims, depositing her burden on the floor, concluding the final trip from her old apartment to their house before returning the keys to the landlord.

She looks around and realizes it was only the first step; they still have to unpack everything and find a place for each item. In their home. She's so excited that she's certain she'll spend part of the night on it.

"I'll take care of the bedroom, you take the living room?" She nods and grabs a box cutter to cut the sealing tape, then puts on some music. The first box contains books. She takes several at a time and places them on the shelves of the bookcase they assembled the day before.

Feeling light, she starts humming along to the music. She empties one box, then another. She looks at the labels on the boxes before opening them, trying to do it in order or to limit herself to one area of the living room to avoid getting overwhelmed. Sometimes it's her handwriting, sometimes it’s Tim's. She makes sure to mix what comes from his house, what comes from her apartment, to make it not his stuff and her stuff anymore, but their stuff.

10. What if you say no?

It all starts one morning when the three of them find themselves exactly at the same moment in front of the bathroom door, ready to draw straws, if not for Tamara who proclaims herself the chosen one and rushes in before he or she could react. Lucy then looks at him with pleading eyes, and seeing the way she bounces on herself while bending her knees, he knows he has definitely lost the game. He will have to tame his bladder.

*

He decides to get up earlier. They are still asleep, and he has all the time to start the coffee maker and have the bathroom to himself. Of course, this is without counting on Tamara, who has an exam that morning, got up earlier, thought she would be the first in the bathroom, entered without knocking just as he was undressing and about to step into the shower. It will take them weeks to dare to look each other in the eyes after this incident.

*

He comes home in the middle of the night after an intervention with Metro, and he trips over the shoes piling up next to the door, he catches himself as he can, barely muffling a curse, and can only admit defeat when he sees the light underneath the bedroom's door, a sign that all his efforts not to wake her up have failed.

I'm sorry if you've already been tagged, I'm not following a lot of writers, all of them being Chenford, and well... chances are you've already done it. Tagging : @zadien, @imperiumwifestrikesagain, @ao3sostarry, @arch78 (if you feel like it, no pressure), @romantashas, (but everyone should feel free to participate).

[kimbureh]

Hi again, as always, love your analyses. You capture one particular point so well in your breakdowns of the episodes: the BB is crumbling. One of the most the tragic things to come out of this show is the clear division of the squad. They’re supposed to be a family, but they’re struggling.

Do you think it is even possible for the Batch so mend the rift in their family even a little bit?

Hunter, as you’ve pointed out, clings to Omega as a way to make decisions and what not. He’s pretty stagnant as a character. Do you think we’ll see Hunter grow as a leader and actually try and be more empathetic towards his squad?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Still no, but not in the way you think.

At the time of writing, I haven't finished watching season 2 yet, so keep that in mind. Still, the way the characters and plot has been set up, it's obvious to me by now that The Bad Batch is a Coming Of Age story. The Batch are a bunch of teenagers graduating Highschool, and the audience wonders whether or not the friend group can stick together despite one of them being a teen dad, one wanting to move in with his girlfriend across states, one of them is already gone to be a political activist with his Grade School buddies, not to mention the grumpy one who unfortunately joined a death cult.

Just as there is no way for Senior Highschoolers to change things back as they were in the imaginary perfect summer break they all recall but has been a fantasy to begin with, the Bad Batch cannot become a squad again for longer than perhaps isolated missions. Even though they want it, it's not what they need. They all develop independet lives for the very first time, and it's holding onto their old life that makes them unhappy.

Maybe, after a period of spending time each on their own and growing as people, they might find that their ideas of life are compatible. But if they will come together again as a group, it won't be as a squad with a command chain. It will be a family, and with new family members also. Complete with child (Omega), spouse (Phee), grumpy grandma (Cid), and an uncle that sometimes visits (Rex).

My preditction is: in the finale of season 2, things need to get catastrophically worse before they can get better again in season 3. Season 3 will build new ties among the Batchers (truely familial ones) as well as new ties to new people. I don't expect the Batch to come together again *as a squad* for more than an epic mission or two. And tbh, we as audience don't want them to become the squad they were before either; it would feel like sending them back to Highschool.

The core of a Coming Of Age story is that things change, often times in ways no one could imagine. So far the story seems to offer only two choices: Can they be a squad again or no? But this is a trick question, because the Batchers aren't the people they used to be, the galaxy isn't what it was, and there is no going back to how things were. They will have to reinvent themselves and their relationships. The writers of the series are clearly aware of that.

So, that's my weather forecast for season 3.

Tried my best to be coherent, I should be working, but instead I am melting from the heatwave here as I type up meta. c'est la vie.

(as always, pls no season 2 spoilers)

[deeenvious]

Ranking Every Halo Infinite Weapon

Based on how much I like them. FIRST CATEGORY: WEAPONS THAT ARE BAD AND BORING 22) THE FUCKING SIDEKICK

The only weapon in this category. An utter failure. Embarrassing. Tactical Sidekicks is like playing laser tag but the lasers do not work. It is also part of the base weapon kit in quickplay and quickplay is boring. SECOND CATEGORY: WEAPONS THAT ARE GOOD BUT ARE BORING!!!! 21) Battle Rifle

If this was about tactical slayer only (the best mode) this weapon is perfectly fine. Decent, maybe. Every other mode it is the most boring accuracy weapon. It brings me no joy. 20) Rocket Launcher

It is just kinda boring. Nothing exciting about it. You look at someone and they die instantly. No thrill of the hunt. Would be fun in any rocket launcher only mode but otherwise no. Bad. Put that shit away! 19) Gravity Hammer

Energy sword but worse. Fun to kill more than one person at once but it is just sorta whatever most of the time. Fiesta weapon only. 18) Assault Rifle

It sure is consistent. Do not care. Next!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 17) Energy Sword

It can be fun when you get a streak going but I do not want to be the one holding it. WEAPONS THAT ARE KINDA SHIT BUT THEY ARE REALLY FUNNY 16) Hydra

I like the lock on thingy. It also kills banshees which is good because I hate seeing those flying FUCKS. Kinda funny 15) Pulse Carbine

Honestly it is a bit more usable and I think that is a bit of a detriment to its funny factor sadly. I still enjoy using it to kill people though. 14) Plasma Pistol

I like holding the shot and the funny pew pew noises it makes. Satisfying weapon. 13) Commando Rifle

I'm surprised too tbh. It is a horrible weapon, beyond worthless. Wretched, Foul, Vile, Etc. But honestly? it is kinda funny and a bit satisfying to get a kill with. 12) Bull Dog

Yeah it's alright. It's fine. 11) Disruptor

I love this thing so much. Almost the most satisfying weapon fr. Love you. If this weapon ever becomes marginally good it will shoot up to like second. WEAPONS THAT ARE GOOD AND ALSO PRETTY FUNNY 10) Cinder Shot

It is a rocket launcher but cooler and kinda based. I approve. 9) Heatwave

It is like if they made a shotgun cool. Impossible. 8) Stalker Rifle

Funny kool-aid sniper. 7) Needler

Very satisfying. Everybody already knows this weapon is good though. 6) Skewer

I think it is funny that this is the sniper the brutes could come up with. Good job guys. 5) Sniper

Sniper 4) Mangler

I am forever pissed about the nerfs they gave it. 343 makes the best weapons in the series and then nerf them into oblivion. Get real. Still fun tho. Tactical Mangler was one of the best modes in the game. 3) Sentinel Beam

Bsshrhrshshshhhrhssshhh 2) Ravager

It has a cool fire blast attack and it shoots globs at people idk what more you could want 1) SHOCK RIFLE!!!

I believe this weapon is the best weapon in any game ever sorry. If you disagree I am telling my mom on you.

[agentsquirrelsgotrobots]

Part 3 of my tarn & Cody repost because I didn't know how to use Tumblr at the time.

The DJD filed in, Helex flexing his repaired fingers. Vos had taught himself how to fix him for him, knowing that Tarn would kick him out of the medbay at some point or another.

"Crew! Let it be known that I have new rules in regards to our little guest. Megatron has given me permission to have my way with him, and after making a discovery about a unique flaw in his biology, I have chosen to cyber-form him to be used in our hunts. That being said, you are not allowed to cause any harm or distress to the human, especially before it is cyber formed. The Pet is to be kept in the brig until the human's training is complete to avoid any accidents. As you might see, I have means of keeping it on me during hunts to get it acclimated to the nature of the job and out of the Pet's jaws. Helex, you are not to touch it for any reason other than to keep it alive. Vos, find a suitable alt mode for it. Final size will likely be between three and five feet tall. Something that it can't hurt itself on would be preferred. Try the maintenance closets. You have a tool alt mode, you know what to look for. Kaon, stow the Pet and clean the hazards off the floor. The human is completely fearless, and accident prone." The human in question peeked out of the window, made his eyes go wide after spotting the Pet, ducked down and went back to watching the screen.

After one more week in the solar system, Tarn was given the go-ahead to pursue the next victim on the List by Megatron. Soundwave made an appearance, projecting a smiley face on his visor as an orange and brown sparkling mimicked it back on its own visor, a few silver tentacles securing it to its Sire. He was informed that Knockout and Breakdown took a pink and navy Miko, and a grumpy navy and black Jack was still on the run with Arcee.

At this point, they were just going to let the spiteful femme be. She had split off from the Autobots after Heatwave apparently attacked her in a jealous fit, killing June on accident. Tarn couldn't help but chuckle at the tiny black compact car she had chosen as her new alt mode in order to carry Jack.

All the energon that was left on earth were scraps anyway, and even if she stole the Jackhammer, Ultra Magnus's ship, or the Rescue Bots patrol ship, she wouldn't dare attack a Decepticon ship with active Sire coding, not if she had a safe path out to a neutral outpost. He gave them orders to let any ship they suspect to be carrying the two neutrals go.

Tarn activated the Peaceful Tyranny's cloaking device as the Jackhammer raced past them in the direction of a neutral cybertronian settlement, a little more worse for wear than he remembered it being the last time he had seen it. Despite himself, he did hope they made it to wherever they were going. Made it easier to find a bot if they put down roots, but he doubted Arcee was stupid enough to risk her sparkling for that.

He checked the location of the next victim on the List and chuckled. Of course it's the same settlement that the femme is going to. Welp, not like it matters much. With luck, she wouldn't be on the wealthy side of the settlement at all.

Well, her luck sucked.

Tarn watched as Arcee, who had gotten a job as a maid in the swanky villa they were currently setting on fire, stuffed her son into a sling and flee out the back door. He stopped Vos from going after her, pointing out the kid and the hastily covered brands. It didn't matter. Their victim didn't bother running, and Tarn could feel Cody shifting in his pocket as he watched and listened to the hunt, unable to look away, feet tapping nervously against the wall that the vid screen was mounted on.

Surprisingly, he hadn't cried or screamed once, watching the flames catch with a twinkle in his eye. The bot they were hunting sold the Decepticons blasters with a deadly defect in its power cores, so Cody really didn't see the harm in watching someone who hurt people die in flames.

Tarn smiled under his mask and sent a soothing pulse from his spark. Cody couldn't catch the sentiment yet but patted the wall anyway, knowing not to talk while Tarn was working.

Cody leaned into the gentle rumble of Tarn's Voice, knowing that, at any moment, something Tarn had only described as catharsis in motion should happen. He jumped back as the mech's spark was forced to collapse, causing a tall, brilliant blue burst of fire to erupt from his chest and lick the ceiling, the mix of a dozen shades of sparkling blue and white flames making Cody's jaw drop. It was so beautiful, it made the horrors almost worth it. The structure creaked ominously, and the DJD fled the building before it was consumed by red and blue flames.

"Whoa." Cody whispered, watching the house collapse in on itself in a shower of blue flames. "What was that?"

"Spark fire. It is truly the most beautiful force of destruction you can only truly see with your own eyes. No photograph or video can get close to its beauty. What you are seeing is not a camera but my own optic feed. You are literally seeing through my eyes."

"Noble!"

"Yes, yes indeed. We don't have the nicest jobs in the faction, but it is necessary to keep rot from infecting our way of life. Hey, Cody. What if I said there was a way you could stay within the ranks of my Lord's people for as long as you wished. See the stars, forge some new friendships, and be safe from those who may cause you harm. I have heard truly terrible things about the foster care system on earth. If you stay with us, even if you find a different group within the faction to stay with, I can promise you sights just as beautiful as spark fire."

Cody tilted his head, completely spellbound by the last few flickering flames as they winked out. "Yes."

"Yes?" Tarn said, putting a little of the Voice into his question, making Cody feel as if he could trust him, that no secret was too dark, too twisted to confess. He turned around and started to walk back to the Peaceful Tyranny.

"I don't want to go back. I don't want to be alone, and if I go back to the Autobots they will just stick me at the firehouse with Heatwave and I will be all alone with him and I don't want to be alone with him because he picks me up all the time when we are alone and carries me around like I am a baby and I am not a baby but I don't want to live with Frankie because the lab is too much and not home and I am pretty sure she died in the cafeteria explosion and I just want to go home but I can't go home because home is dead and so is my family and I don't want Heatwave to pick me up again." Cody took a deep breath in, wiping away the tears that threatened to burst out of him. He wasn't going to cry around Tarn. Tarn wouldn't like that. They are hunting, and hunting is his job and you can't cry when you are working and now he just wants to watch something bright and cheerful and take a nap in Tarn's chest because he likes his heart- no, spark beat and it's nice and steady and- is Tarn humming?

Tarn was, in fact, humming. The Empyrean Suite took up a few octaves to avoid the whisper part of his Voice. His favorite part is because he learned how to drop into the whisper on purpose while singing it. It did wonders on Cody, slowing down his overwhelmed mind and soothing him into a nice, calm state. Tarn put on that movie that Cody was watching earlier while Tarn laid down the law.

Cody watched it half-heartedly, and Tarn pushed a bit more lethargy into his tune. He felt Cody slump over, tears drying on his face, and turned off the movie.

He brought Cody to Nickel immediately after he arrived at the Tyranny, ordering her to prepare the human to start the cyber-forming process. He was a little embarrassed when it turned out to just be a series of spaced out injections, not some creepy, gorey process.

He voiced his disappointment, and Nickel told him to wait until she could introduce more energon to his systems.

She informed him that Cody would have to be slowly weaned off of the organic food and onto an energon based diet, though he would always retain the ability to eat small amounts of organic food to survive, but he would need energon eventually.

Tarn put Cody back into the tank, Cody burrowing into his pile of clothes and blankets with a sigh.

Tarn left to plan for the next hunt. The Peaceful Tyranny was approaching the moon the victim was currently hidden on, but they had given the DJD the slip before. This time, they won't escape them.

[ghostcrows]

Human civilisation will definitely make it through climate change intact, and if you live in a developed country, you won't see the worst of it. However, heatwaves, hurricanes, floods, rising sea levels, increasing desertification, species extinctions and wars over scarce natural resources will get more common. It's nuanced! Yes, it's bad to deny or ignore climate change, but it's also bad to get into doomer mode about it! Most issues aren't either "perfectly fine or the end of the world," but somewhere inbetween. I hate how social media's oversimplified world view seems to push us to extremes about this - and just about anything. Both climate denial (it's not happening, it's happening but it's not us, it may be a good thing, etc.) and climate doomerism (the world's going to end no matter what we do, no point in pretending otherwise) promote a "we shouldn't do anything about climate change" mentality. Since climate change denial is increasingly hard to maintain, fossil fuel companies have started to bankroll climate doomers - it has the same "might as well, nothing we can do about it" effect!

It'd be super irresponsible to ignore all the bad things that are already here and will get worse in the future - species extinctions, coastal cities flooded, the spread of deserts, more extreme weather events like heatwaves and floods, etc. But it's also a distorted picture if we don't include the fact that renewable energy is becoming really cheap and widespread, cities and countries are starting to do something about the problem, and the flip side of increased effects of climate change is increased awareness and calls for action. Human population growth is slowing and we're predicted to stabilise at around 10 billion by 2080. Already we've avoided the worst case scenario predictions from 10-20 years ago. Back then there was legitimate talk of temperature rises up to 6 degrees C by 2100, which would have been a mass extinction level catastrophe. Now the worst case scenario looks about 3 degrees C by 2100 - STILL ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE MIND YOU! But also literally not the end of the world. Also, back then the problem seemed insurmountable as fossil fuels seemed the only way to power our planet to allow everyone to have a high standard of living. That's no longer true. We now know what to do to solve the climate crisis, and we now CAN do it! It's just a matter of political will. Also, bear in mind the climate isn't a binary switch going from "everything's fine" to "the end of the world" in an eyeblink, it's not a yes/no thing but a spectrum! Huge and irreversible environmental damage has already been done that we can't fix, sadly, but we still have an enormous scope for slowing and stopping climate change before it gets TOO bad, and maybe even reversing it in the distant future! A lot of people seem to see the future as a choice between an uninhabitable wasteland and a glittering paradise with advanced technology. But the world is already a mix of both in some ways, and will probably continue to be! I don't get why we have to pick between utopia and dystopia and assume that every little step away from utopia is inevitably a step into dystopia. The future probably won't be perfect and it won't be catastrophic - it'll probably be "eh, alright I guess?," with ups and downs like the present and the rest of human history. The great thing about the climate crisis is that it's a human crisis and that's why it's a good idea to be optimistic. Faith in humanity isn't like, for example, faith in religion. Either God exists or he doesn't, and your belief can't change that either way. Same with optimism and pessimism about a disease, a natural disaster or anything else you can't change. But if you believe in humanity, that will affect your actions as a human, and if enough of us do, that will affect our actions as a species. Optimism about the human future is a self-fulfilling prophecy! So - let's not ignore the climate crisis, but let's not fall into doomerism either. Let's have climate action fired up by enthusiastic optimism about the fact that a better world really is possible - we can do this! We can save the world!

You're right

Thank you for sending this cause I get very doomer mode about it all and it's definitely not conducive to action at all you are right about that . And it's good to hear from someone who does have hope in a realistic way

I believe in a better earth...change the world my final message goodbye

[wolfspurr]

It's finished! Chapter 3 is now up and can be found here.

Heatwave (7355 words) by Wolfspurr Chapters: 3/3 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Minor Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes, Hot Weather, Making Out, Getting Together Summary: A heatwave hits Beacon Hills and the whole town decides to start coupling up. Stiles isn't sure if it's the best thing that's ever happened to him or the worst.

Excerpt: It has to be supernatural.

The blanket of heat that’s settled over Beacon Hills is an oppressive, sticky kind of hell so unpleasant that it can’t possibly be a natural phenomenon. It can’t. If it’s not supernatural, then it can’t be defeated, and if it can’t be defeated Stiles is going to have to live through it.

It has to be supernatural.

Summer is supposed to be over, and even at its peak the temperatures hadn’t spiked this high. This is Beacon Hills; it isn’t supposed to be like this. What’s worse, school is back in session, so Stiles can’t spend his days lounging in Lydia’s pool with the rest of the pack in between supernatural threats. There’s homework to do and classes to attend, and for some godforsaken reason Beacon Hills High hasn’t seen fit to upgrade its air conditioning system at any point within the last two decades.

Which is to say it’s hot.

Unbearably hot.

The air is so thick he can practically cut it. It’s stifling. Suffocating. No matter how many cool showers he takes, a couple of minutes later there’s a tacky sheen of sweat prickling uncomfortably over his body again, an unattractive flush rising on his skin as blood rushes to the surface in the vain hope of being cooled down. All he can do is fan himself ineffectually with whatever’s closest to hand and pray to whatever higher being might be up there for it to end.

It’s not just the heat, it’s the humidity. It might actually be driving him insane, and Stiles is pretty sure he isn’t the only one.

It makes no sense. In this climate touching anyone else should be the last thing on anyone’s mind, but things in Beacon Hills seem to have been heating up in more ways than one. It’s not enough that the town is hotter than Satan’s balls, the heat seems to be messing with people’s minds as well, burning away their rationality and overheating their senses until they reach boiling point and hidden feelings, secret urges start to bubble over. Everyone is pairing up, finding someone to press themselves up against in discrete corners, empty rooms, the middle of the damn hallways.

Everyone except for Stiles.

Scott and Allison are so hot for each other they seem to have taken up permanent residence in the supply closet during school hours. Yesterday he walked in on Erica doing unspeakable things to Boyd in the depths of the library stacks, and he’s pretty sure he even saw Harris sneaking into an abandoned classroom with the new school secretary at lunch.

It can’t be normal.

And this is why Stiles is sprawled in front of his desk, cursing his laptop for the heat it’s churning out into the sauna he now calls a bedroom as he throws himself into research. Magma creatures. Volcano spirits. Lusty heat demons. Something has to be causing this misery. Keep Reading

[fleurcareil]

East Ontario: Bon Echo and Ottawa areas

And off I go! 9am Thursday 1st June I'm starting my cross Canada road trip with an overloaded car and at 54,836km...

First stop is one of my favourite things in Ontario; paddle boarding along the Mazinaw Rock in Bon Echo Provincial Park, midway between Toronto and Ottawa. After having traversed the entire GTA one last time on the QEW, Gardiner, DVP and 401 highways, I finally escaped the madness and got to spend a few lovely hours on the water, searching for the pictographs that Indigenous people created a long time ago. The first time I tried to find them was with my mother by kayak, but not having a clue what it exactly was that we were looking for, we found none until we realised on a boat tour that they're tiny and just above the water, whereas we had been craning our neck to scour the high cliffs for anything that seemed remotely like a drawing 😂. Since then, I had already come back once to explore by SUP, however now in the mid-week quiet without other tourists & motorboats it was magical!

Starting my trip during an unexpected heatwave (32C!) has been tiring as I was constantly sweating but at least it meant I was not freezing at night which had been my fear. In the morning I did my regular 20-minute hulahoop wake-up routine but this time on the beach overlooking the cliffs... Great way to start the day and as bonus there were no mosquitos!! I kinda had forgotten how bad it can be in spring, but after two miserable attempts at a hike, I realised I will be doing most of my exploring by water until the bugs have died off. That said, so far it's only been mosquitos which have mass-targeted me, without the deer/black/sand/other nasty flies, so I guess it can & will still get much worse.

Instead of hiking, I ended up paddling two little lakes at Sheffield Conservation Area just south of Bon Echo, which is the most southern location to experience the Canadian Shield... it was not as majestic as up north but the bare granite rocks hold their beauty wherever they are! The channel between the lakes turned out to be blocked by a beaver dam, which made me realize that the pretty water lilies that I had seen earlier were basically the beaver's vegetable garden 😜. I had never seen a beaver dam up close from the water, so it was cool to see how it's constructed with a slope of soil upstream, intertwined with branches for extra stability. I tried to spot the beaver as well, but no luck (the only time I've seen a beaver was at Leslie Spit in Toronto of all places!). Someone had already created a little portage trail around the dam so that I could continue to the next lake and eat lunch on a little island (with my feet out of the water as the fish were trying to nibble).

Am now on a campground on the Quebec side for 3 nights to spend some time around Ottawa; after not having done a campfire on the first night I was looking forward to one and bought a 1-kilo bag of marshmallows and my favourite chocolate (dark, orange & sea salt) for s'mores, but the entire province is under a fire ban due to the many forest fires that are out of control.... Am afraid this is going to be a recurring theme this summer, we need to fix climate change asap!! Without a fire to chase them away, I'm already completely fed up with the mosquitos at the end of the 2nd day, so I spent the evening in my "living room" tent, which is a blissful haven to eat, read and drink some wine.

Spent Saturday very chilled in the capital; although downtown Ottawa is small it is very lively due to all the tourists (like me) and I always enjoy walking around the highlights; I had planned to visit the National Art Gallery but wasn't attracted by any of the current exhibits so gave it a miss and visited the neighbouring Royal Mint instead for what turned out to be a private tour of the facilities - cool to see how they make 99.99% pure silver and gold coins! Thereafter past the Rideau Canal to Parliament Hill which was disappointing because of the construction but also because I couldn't find my favourite sculpture 'Women are Persons!" celebrating the suffragette movement that allowed women to vote...I did find it later in front of the Senate building, but only after I attended (unplanned) the annual D-Day commemorative ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We cannot afford forgetting the horrible impacts of war so it was a sobering but important moment. I ended on a Byward patio; nothing beats drinking a beer in the sun and watch the world go by!

And today I had a beautiful day at Gatineau Park where I had never been despite having wanted to on previous trips, due to rain/snow etc...I initially did not plan to hike and go supping instead but there was a lot of wind and it turned out no mosquitos due to the cooler weather, so I ended up doing several hikes after all, up to some viewpoints that were no longer visible (as is often the case as they don't cut the trees so that beautiful view when the bench was installed 10+ years ago is long gone), around Pink Lake which is green from the many algae, and to a waterfall that hadn't seen a lot of rain but was pretty nevertheless. I always struggle with making forest hike pictures interesting as it's very green without much variation and not able to capture the true essence of hearing the wind & the birds, the dappled light on the forest floor etc. Tried anyway, and also made a picture of the forest along the parkway to capture the bright apple green of the trees in spring, so refreshing! Ended the day at the Champlain lookout over the Ottawa valley.

Not sure I'll keep up writing so much each time but am clearly excited about how the trip has started so far! 😍

Wildlife: 1 marmot (Bon Echo), 2 male mergansers fighting with each other (Bon Echo), 10,000 mosquitos (Bon Echo), 2 snakes (Toronto Island and Sheffield), 2 turtles (Gatineau), 2 deer (along the road in Gatineau)

SUPs: three (Toronto Island, Bon Echo, Sheffield)

Hikes: one small one (eaten alive) and one aborted (more eaten alive), both at Bon Echo. Three hikes at Gatineau (no single mosquito bite!)

[icewindandboringhorror]

Daily Log 9

Trying out (probably just temporarily) making short daily-ish notes about things, in an attempt to see if it helps me be more reflective or productive lol.

Activities: Worked on the previously mentioned tapestry style painting thing for like 5-6 hours today (with a few breaks in between), and that's just for the border around the main picture lol.. I think all the little sections and detail always take longer than I think they might. But hopefully the final product will look interesting! :0

I feel like I'm entering another Sick Phase where I just am weird/ill/sleepy/having joint pains much of the day (probably some vitamin deficiencies or hormone imbalances or general bodily inflammation or whatever nonsense seems to randomly pop up from time to time lol), so couldn't focus on anything more intensive like writing or editing videos, unfortunately. It's good to have smaller crafts I can do that don't take much mental effort and are just menial hand tasks (like carving, painting, sculpting, etc.), but I still always feel frustrated falling behind on the things I see as much more broadly significant to my overall life and potential career (making games, writing, finishing videos, socializing, costumes, etc.)

Organized my desk a little. Responded to some doctor emails. Paid bills.

Planned out something I might make with pressed flowers tomorrow.

Edited like 4 costume photos.

Also have a lingering sense of dread due to the weather. The heat often makes me feel terrible, and if I'm already in kind of a Bad Phase at the moment, I'm afraid of it making it even worse... stimky..

Which I know these temperatures are nothing to some people but.. to me... aUGHHHH... I am abnormally heat sensitive + live in a dinky old apartment with no ventilation that gets direct sun the hottest part of the day.. on a 90F day outside, it literally gets about 84F inside.. like.. even people who love the heat I feel like would struggle to sleep at night if their bed is 85F lol... hewwo.. You can spray yourself down with water, drink ice water, put a fan on yourself, etc. etc. but.. sometimes it just feels so oppressive and inescapable..

ANYWAY. Aside from painting, feeling weird, and dreading the upcoming heat/contemplating my entire life and how to get enough money to move to a different climate somehow one day/existential exhaustion/etc., I didn't accomplish very much lol

Spent maybe 30 minutes thinking about a little more worldbuilding stuff, and some things in reference to the game I mentioned resuming work on at some point.

Notable sights: The clouds were really pretty and pastel this afternoon, and some stars are visible in the sky for once since the nights are beginning to be clearer. The 'forget me not' flowers that I thought had died after transplanting actually seemed to be perked up and healthy looking today, and perhaps may actually survive. >:3

Goals moving forward: Do new poll adventure post. focus on social activities, finding new friends in the places I want to move, communicating with the ones I have. Physical therapy exercises. Finish and upload videos, edit costume pictures & etc. Do the new costumes I've planned. MAKE SCULPTURES at some point, I miss them.

Notable foods: Not much, kind of a warm day so didn't really want to use the oven. No idea how I'll handle the diet I've been put on by my doctors (involves usually cooking all food fresh, using the stove a lot, nothing is supposed to be canned or processed or premade, so that eliminates a lot of 'quick easy simple warm weather' meals, etc. etc.) during the heatwave. I might just have to break the diet a little and hope it doesn't give me stomach pains while I'm already hot and feeling sick lol..

I did have a boiled egg with some green onions on top, which is very simple but was refreshing somehow lol. Another ice cold ginger ale treat today, and some cold prune juice (which I know most people find gross/it's an old person food/etc., but I like that it's a smooth textured and not very sweet juice? Like it's slightly thicker than apple juice, has a lightly bitter taste, etc. I just find it nice for some reason. More evidence I am secretly an 85 year old wizard)

[neptunianashes]

The news are saying that temperature we are having for this time will break a record not seen since 1940. I don’t have an air conditioner nor a pool and also the air is so hot that my fan is basically blowing hot air rather than cooling me so I just have to take 387318634259054968 cold showers a day I guess. I went out to buy some meat and everyone at the butchery shop were talking about the temperature there were people over 50 years saying they don’t remember living temperatures this high and having long periods of time without rain in their childhoods and young adulthoods, the last 3 years the temperature keeps rising more and more every new year. Today I didn’t see the smoke but yesterday and the day before yesterday the sky had some smoke because the grasslands on the outskirts city were burning bc of the heat. Uruguay is small and doesn’t have a large soil area to cultivate like us, so this heatwave that keeps getting worse in the last years has wrecked havoc there, between 60% and 70% of their agriculture production has been lost to the drought and heatwave, the uruguayan government is paying farmers to help them but farmers are not accepting the help because no matter how much money they receive from the government it will not make the sky rain and the plants live so it will be a massive debt for them, Uruguay is now being forced to import food despite being historically one country with such a good quality of fertile soil that they never needed to import food and they always managed to grown their own. Argentina is suffering too, although not as much as uruguay bc we have more space so not all parts are affected equally we still have some areas where the cattle and cows are dying bc of the drought and heatwave. It’s getting freaking insane.

[newstfionline]

Friday, May 24, 2024

Memorial Day traffic (AP) You didn’t think summer travel would be easy, did you? Highways and airports are likely to be jammed the next few days as Americans head out for Memorial Day weekend getaways and then return home. AAA predicts this will be the busiest start-of-summer weekend in nearly 20 years, with 43.8 million people expected to travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday. The Transportation Security Administration says up to 3 million might pass through airport checkpoints on Friday alone. And that is just a sample of what is to come. U.S. airlines expect to carry a record number of passengers this summer. Their trade group estimates that 271 million travelers will fly between June 1 and August 31.

Parents Feel the Pinch From Child-Care Expenses, Inflation (WSJ) Here’s another data point to answer why negative feelings about the economy persist, despite solid job growth. High inflation that has dragged on for years is causing financial pain for parents. About 64% of parents living with children under the age of 18 said they were doing all right financially in 2023, down from 69% in 2022, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve. That is worse than Americans at large. About 72% of total respondents said they were doing all right, down slightly from a year earlier. Perhaps the most jarring finding: Some households with young children reported paying nearly as much on child care as they did on housing.

What Do Students at Elite Colleges Really Want? (NYT) The meme was an image of a head with “I need to get rich” slapped across it. “Freshmen after spending 0.02 seconds on campus,” read the caption, posted in 2023 to the anonymous messaging app Sidechat. The campus in question was Harvard. While the main image of elite campuses during this commencement season might be activists in kaffiyehs pitching tents on electric green lawns, most students on campus are focused not on protesting the war in Gaza, but on what will come after graduation. Despite the popular image of this generation—that of Greta Thunberg and the Parkland activists—as one driven by idealism, GenZ students at these schools appear to be strikingly corporate-minded. Even when they arrive at college wanting something very different, an increasing number of students at elite universities seek the imprimatur of employment by a powerful firm and “making a bag” (slang for a sack of money) as quickly as possible.

Mexico’s drought, heatwave and water shortage are so bad even police are blocking traffic in protest (AP) Mexico’s drought, heatwave and water shortages have gotten so bad that even police blocked traffic in protest Wednesday. In recent months, residents of some Mexico City neighborhoods have regularly taken to forming human chains to block boulevards to demand water. In April, complaints about contaminated water sparked a weeks-long crisis in one upscale neighborhood. Normally, police seek to redirect traffic, but on Wednesday some officers were themselves manning a protest blockade, near the capital’s iconic Independence Monument. The officers stood blocking six lanes of traffic, saying their barracks hadn’t had water for a week, and that the bathrooms were unusable. In the midst of record temperatures and a severe drought, many buildings in the capital have to get water brought in by tanker trucks, but they have been in short supply and are expensive. About 85 percent of the country was expected to see highs of at least 104 degrees (40 Celsius) Wednesday, with about a third of the country reaching 113 degrees (45 Celsius) or more.

UK politicians set off on a 6-week election campaign framed as choice between continuity and change (AP) Britain’s political party leaders were crisscrossing the country on Thursday, the first day of a six-week election campaign in which voters will decide whether to end the governing Conservatives’ 14 years in power. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gambled on an earlier-than-expected July 4 election, arguing his party can give the country security in turbulent times. The main opposition Labour Party says it will bring much-needed change after years of political and economic turmoil under the Tories. Sunak took many of his own lawmakers by surprise when he called the election Wednesday, in an ill-starred televised announcement outside 10 Downing St. that saw him drenched with rain and drowned out by protesters blasting a Labour campaign song. Elections in the U.K. have to be held no more than five years apart, but the prime minister can choose the timing within that period.

France is proud of its secularism. But struggles grow in this approach to faith, school, integration (AP) Brought into the international spotlight by the ban on hijabs for French athletes at the upcoming Paris Olympics, France’s unique approach to “laïcité”—loosely translated as “secularism”—has been increasingly stirring controversy from schools to sports fields across the country. The struggle cuts to the core of how France approaches not only the place of religion in public life, but also the integration of its mostly immigrant-origin Muslim population, Western Europe’s largest. Perhaps the most contested ground is public schools, where visible signs of faith are barred under policies seeking to foster a shared sense of national unity. For its officials and most educators, secularism in public schools and other public institutions is essential. For many French Muslims, however, and other critics, laïcité is exerting precisely that kind of discriminatory pressure on already disadvantaged minorities, denying them the chance to live their full identity in their own country. Amid the tension, there’s broad agreement that polarization is skyrocketing, as crackdowns and challenges mount for this French approach to religion and integration.

A Shortage of Men Is Pushing Women Into Ukraine’s Mines (WSJ) For years, Olga Khandriga dreamed of working underground at her local coal mine in eastern Ukraine. It wasn’t until Russia invaded that she got the opportunity. As men left their jobs to fight Russia, the Ukrainian government suspended a law that had barred women from employment in “harmful or dangerous” conditions—including underground—allowing Khandriga to take over as deputy head of a section of the mine. Grappling with personnel shortages, Ukrainian companies are training women in jobs traditionally done by men. Women are working as miners, locksmiths, electricians and bus and construction-vehicle drivers. Businesses have lobbied the government to exempt more men from military service, arguing that a strong economy is essential to sustaining the war effort, but Ukrainian troops are stretched thin and losing ground.

Inside a US ally’s secret war on its American critics (Vox) I have spent the past several months investigating stories involving critics of India who say the Indian government has reached across the Pacific Ocean to harass them on American soil. Interviews with political figures, experts, and activists revealed a sustained campaign where Narendra Modi’s government threatens American citizens and permanent residents who dare speak out on the declining state of the country’s democracy. This campaign has not been described publicly until now because many people in the community—even prominent ones—are too afraid to talk about it. (The Indian government did not respond to repeated and detailed requests for comment.) India’s efforts include a handful of high-profile incidents, most notably an assassination plot against American and Canadian activists. But more commonly, India engages in subtle forms of harassment that fly under the public radar. An American charity leader who spoke out on Indian human rights violations saw his Indian employees arrested en masse. An American journalist who worked on a documentary about India was put on a travel blacklist and deported. An American historian who studies 17th-century India received so many death threats that she could no longer speak without security. In some ways, the Indian campaign is more brazen than Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. While no evidence has emerged that Russia threatened harm against American citizens and their family members, India has been caught doing so repeatedly.

China begins military drills around Taiwan as ‘punishment’ for new president (Washington Post) China sent dozens of warplanes “fully loaded with live ammunition” and several navy destroyers and frigates all around Taiwan and its outlying islands on Thursday, launching large-scale military drills as “punishment for separatist acts” after the inauguration of Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te. They were simulating strikes on “high value ‘enemy’ targets” in military drills that run through Friday, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. The latest show of force is part of Beijing’s long-running effort to weaken Taiwanese resolve and build a military advantage by combining real-world combat practice with ominous propaganda designed to send a warning message to Taipei, analysts said. Even if some of it is just for show, China does appear to be practicing “joint blockade operations” to learn how to cut off Taiwanese ships and jets from external support and “prevent the mobilization of the main navy and air force,” said Chieh Chung, an associate research fellow at National Policy Foundation, a Taiwanese think tank.

Unprecedented insurrection in New Caledonia—Macron (BBC) President Emmanuel Macron has described rioting in the French-Pacific territory of New Caledonia as an "unprecedented insurrection movement" that no-one saw coming. During a tour of police headquarters in the capital Nouméa on Thursday, he said the coming days and weeks would be difficult, but Paris would "go until the end" to restore calm. Six people, including two police officers, have been killed and hundreds more wounded in riots, looting and arson triggered by a controversial electoral reform. New Caledonia, a group of islands between Australia and Fiji, has been a French territory since the 19th Century. Tensions have been high for some time between the central government in Paris and indigenous Kanaks who make up about 40% of the tiny archipelago.

Israel’s latest offensives unleash ‘hell’ in Gaza, aid groups say (Washington Post) More food had finally started to reach famine-racked northern Gaza earlier this month, pushing down prices in the Jabalya refugee camp, where doctors like Yehia Abed were trying to save a legion of malnourished patients. Then came “another attack,” he said. Israeli military operations this month against Hamas in Gaza—from the last, desperate refuge for Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah to the devastated refugee camps of the north—have displaced nearly a million people, according to the United Nations, and further sealed off the territory to outside aid. Aid groups say it has deepened the enclave’s humanitarian crisis and reversed their recent gains in staving off starvation and disease. Now, aid workers said, they are resorting again to triage. “Instead of looking at antenatal care for pregnant ladies, instead of looking at malnutrition, now we are looking at how to stop the bleeding,” Abed said in a phone interview, as an explosion rang out in the background. “That’s continuous,” he said. “Day and night.” It was “potentially the darkest chapter in this horrendous war that started seven months ago,” Ricardo Pires, a spokesman for UNICEF, said last week as the disaster unfolded.

How does this end? With Hamas holding firm and fighting back in Gaza, Israel faces only bad options (AP) Diminished but not deterred, Hamas is still putting up a fight after seven brutal months of war with Israel, regrouping in some of the hardest-hit areas in northern Gaza and resuming rocket attacks into nearby Israeli communities. Israel initially made tactical advances against Hamas after a devastating aerial bombardment paved the way for its ground troops. But those early gains have given way to a grinding struggle against an adaptable insurgency—and a growing feeling among many Israelis that their military faces only bad options, drawing comparisons with U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[mr880fan]

The First 12 Things to Do After a Power Outage

  Power outages are widespread and, surprisingly, are getting worse in the USA. This is due to aging infrastructure, frequent storms, and problems sustaining the electric grid as populations grow. Despite how common power outages are, few people are prepared for them, and even fewer people know what to do if the power goes out. If you are one of these people, please don’t feel guilty or bad. Just take action so you are prepared if the power goes out. Read here for how to prepare for a power outage.

Be Prepared: What You Need for a Power Outage

Steps to Take Immediately After the Power Goes Out

Step 1: Turn On Your Emergency Lights Make sure your emergency lights are accessible in case you have to find them in the dark. Ideally, keep a flashlight in each room of your home. It is generally better to use battery-operated lights instead of candles because of the fire risk. Step 2: See If Your Neighbors Have Power If your neighbors still have electricity, the problem is likely inside your home. Start by checking the main fuses or circuit breakers to see if they have blown. Step 3: Check the Extent of the Problem If your neighbors also don’t have electricity, you’ll want to see how widespread the problem is. You can do this by calling your power supplier. It might take a while to get through to them if many people are trying to call. You can also try calling friends who live nearby to see if they have power or not. If your phone is not working, then turn on your emergency radio.   If you don’t already have one, read this post on how to choose an emergency radio. Note that a major disaster or event, such as an EMP attack, could take out the grid and cause electronic devices to fail. Read this post on the first steps to take after EMP. Step 4: Contact Family Members During significant power outages, stoplights and streetlights can go out, too, making driving unsafe. If your family members aren’t at home, contact them. It might be best for them to remain at their current location until it is safer for them to come home. Note that your family should have a contact plan in place. Read about how to make a family emergency contact plan here. Step 5: Unplug Appliances When the power comes back on, it can cause a massive power spike which may damage electronics. Hopefully, all of your sensitive electronics are on surge protectors. (Amazon Link) Even if they are, it is wise to unplug all your sensitive (read: expensive) electronics from the wall so they don’t get damaged when the power comes back on. Step 6: See if Water is Safe to Drink When the power goes out, water treatment centers might not work. You could still have clean-looking water from the tap, but it might not be safe to drink! Call your local authorities to see if the water is safe to drink. Or, you can listen to your emergency radio to see if there is a “boil alert” in place. *If you are unsure whether the water is safe to drink, always play it safe! Treat water before drinking it, or use bottled water. Read this post on ways to treat water in emergencies and use water when the power is out. Step 7: Keep Fridge and Freezer Closed According to Ready.gov, food in an unopened refrigerator will stay cold for about 4 hours. Use this article to decide which food in the fridge is still safe to eat. Step 8:  Save YourPhone’ss Battery Turn off any power-consuming apps on your phone to save its battery. Do this even if you have a solar charger because you might not always be able to charge it. Step 9: Stay Cool (Summer Power Outages) If the power outage occurs during a heatwave and you have health conditions, you might need to evacuate your home to a cooler location, such as a shopping mall or church. Step 10: Stay Warm (Winter Power Outages) If a power outage occurs during winter, you should start using your emergency heating method. A wood stove is my personal favorite off-grid heating method. Be cautious about using generators, camp stoves, or grills for heating, as they can cause carbon monoxide poisoning. You can get some passive solar heating during the daytime by keeping all curtains closed except those on south-facing windows. Close all drapes at night to trap heat, and line windows and doorways with towels to prevent heat from escaping. Step 11: Prevent Pipes from Freezing (Winter Power Outages) Hopefully, your pipes are well insulated so they don’t freeze. The easiest way to prevent pipes from freezing during power outages is to let a small stream of water flow through the faucets. For long-term power outages during extreme weather, you’ll want to drain your electric water heater. You will also need to winterize the drainage system by putting antifreeze into the drain traps below toilets, sinks, washing machines, etc. *Note that most gas water heaters will still work during power outages, though some may have electric ignitions or components which won’t work if the power is out. Check the appliance instructions to see whether it will work. If you drain a gas water tank, the pilot needs to be off, and you may need to call your local gas company to re-light it. 12. Stay Sane! Play games, make shadow puppets, hang out with the neighbors in the dark…  You might even enjoy the power outage and the digital detox it gives you! What’s the Likelihood of a Long-Term Power Outage Happening? Most power outages only last a few hours. Even without any supplies, you’ll probably be able to survive these using your cell phone light or just by sitting it out in the dark. But what if a long-term power outage occurs? The likelihood of this is much higher than you might think. Though it doesn’t get discussed much in the mainstream media, agencies like NASA warn that a solar flare could take out the grid. Is it going to happen? I hope not. Should we be prepared just in case? I would rather be safe than sorry! Source link Read the full article