#waterspout

[pinkblanc]

The Great Waterspout in Vineyard Sound, 1896

[acatpiestuff]

punk tactics animation meme WIP moment

ft. my spidersona waterspout 🥺

its still very unfinished, but yippee

[lionfloss]

Waterspout

[shirleydanders]

“Reunion”

CHARACTERS: River Cartwright x James ‘Spider’ Webb

SUMMARY: It’s been about a month of silent hospital visits before River hears that Spider’s awake. He goes to see him and their game, as ever, is on.

WORD COUNT: 1,664

WARNINGS: Angst, violent imagery, bad language, deep, deep sadness and weird dudes.

NOTES: This is kind of a fix-it fic because I refuse to accept Spider’s death as laid out in either the book or the show. Also, I tried to do a bit of a character study into why River is so pathetic and Spider is such a fucked up little freak, so I hope you enjoy that.

River knows how it feels. To be worth more vivisected than whole. Maybe he can sympathise. There’s something more compelling about his destruction than the half-life he’s slipping through.

So loneliness will always be preferable to the feeling of being sifted through for something more valuable. He watches as the light in everyone’s eyes dies on contact with him. He carries on talking even though no one’s listening. He was made a pawn, but the game’s over.

He knows he’ll let his guard down eventually. Sooner or later, he’ll offer himself to someone, to be broken down into those familiar disembodied bits. He can feel useful then, if only for a moment.

Pathetic, that’s what most people would call it. River has given up trying to justify himself. He doesn’t have the energy. He’s half a person; half the vital functions. His thoughts dissolve as soon as they arrive. Any emotion feels a hundred miles away. If he does catch up, it’s already petered out.

He thinks about his mother briefly. How she left him on his granddad’s doorstep at seven. Well, of course she did. She could see it, even then. He’s always been a ghost.

He thinks that’s why he doesn’t stay whole for long. Whatever he is isn’t worth being saved, not even an entire being in the first place. And haunting people is so painful. So he lets them take him apart. All the pieces. Until he’s just a husk, and they’ve slinked away.

Spider’s anxieties are different altogether. He is sure of his importance; knows he’s needed. But the idea that someone could overtake what he’s managed to achieve makes him sick. The constant need to sabotage, to prove himself above others. He marks his card as one of the elite, but the conviction he embodies it with doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Taverner never liked him. He doesn’t need her to, so long as she doesn’t like anyone else either. But she did before. She liked River. So when she came with the request to ruin him, a Shakespearean betrayal, he’d done what he had to. There was no place for him but the top of the food chain.

It’s never bothered him. There’s always someone undeserving in the place he should be. Who was the one weeping, smeared across the floor in the torture resistance training? Not him, that’s for sure.

It’s not personal. What River is or isn’t to him has never even been a consideration. It’s London Rules, as it always has been. Covering your arse is a lot easier when you can push someone down to do it for you.

When they meet again, for the first time since Spider woke from his coma, there is that stilted silence – the great unsaid. That has always been a game they played. There’d always been a hushed nature to their… relationship. Before the resentment kicked in, there was something else that was keeping them apart.

Now, even the love’s gone, but the distance remains unchanged. They’re too incompatible for that to be overcome.

Nevertheless, they are drawn together every single time.

River is the first to speak.

‘Long time, no see.’

Spider nods – a smile, half expressed, half tangled up in another moment, resting on his lips. He catches River’s insinuation. That Spider hadn’t seen him, even though he’d visited.

‘You gonna use that against me? The coma?’

‘Well, I’ve never been in one.’

The pair laugh, acidicly.

‘Never too late to try something new.’

The thin veil of playfulness shatters. They both wilt, as though resigning themselves to the opposite. It is too late. It’s all too late, and too messy, and too much.

‘That’s the last time I ask your lot for a favour.’

‘Yeah, well, we’re slow horses,’ River replies, teeth grinding slightly as he forces it out, ‘what did you expect?’

‘I would’ve thought not letting people get shot while you’re running security is common practice, even among your kind.’

They both know they’re not here to speak as though they’re on the record, in some unseen competition. They want to be candid. To possibly even be vulnerable. The trouble is, someone’s got to break first. Spider had never knowingly broken in his life. Ah, but River…

‘I thought you were gonna die.’

Spider’s eyes snap up to River, quiet satisfaction setting his lips in a smile.

‘That was never on the cards.’

‘Be fucking serious, I…’ River began with the anger that only really expresses itself for Spider. Every other inconvenience he felt was par for the course, worth little more reaction than an eye roll, but Spider is the one who gets under his skin. It’s impressive, really, how instantly he can boil River’s blood. He starts again, softer. ‘It just made me think about training.’

The glint in Spider’s eyes extinguishes itself.

‘You know, they say that when you’re in a coma, you’re aware of everything around you. That wasn’t true for me.’ Spider begins the observation in a cold, guarded way. As though armouring up in the terrible event of his vulnerability.

‘I heard nothing. Saw nothing. One minute I was awake, the next minute I was awake again. Nothing in between.’ There’s a pause, as he draws breath like a gun. ‘It’s what I imagine your life’s like at Slough House.’

River looks at him, really looks. If this is a joke at his expense, it hasn’t landed. Spider’s as serious as a heart attack, his words grave.

‘And, so what? You– you feel sorry for me?’

Spider just looks away. Maybe he thought about training too. What they had been through– only for Spider to leave his legacy in blood on a marble floor. For River to still experience a living death, everyday. Maybe he considered how sitting at that desk must feel to someone with the world to give.

Or maybe not.

The blood’s up again in River’s ears. His cheeks are beet red and his jaw aches from clenching. So much has changed. So much has stayed the same. They walk a hall of broken mirrors; a corridor leading to the abstract nothing. The walk had almost ended for Spider, but he clung on. If only to throw River ahead of him.

Why does River continue the cycle? Why is he even here? A voice in the back of his head answers:

Because he’s the only one who knows what to do with the bits you break down into.

‘I haven’t missed you being such a prick.’ River is serious when he says it, but it’s an evasion. It’s pointless too. Spider can see it for the hubris it is.

‘Cartwright,’ River hates when Spider calls him by his surname. Like an old schoolmaster. It’s loaded with association, too. His grandfather, the super spy, and him, Cartwright the Younger. The disappointment. The black sheep no-one had the decency to send to slaughter. ‘They tell me Taverner’s coming down. You might wanna make yourself scarce.’

Something like vengeance flashes in River’s eyes. How sweet it feels when the upper hand begins to guide you.

‘If they’re sending her down in person, there’ll be two choices.’

He let that hang. Maybe Spider had already considered this.

Maybe not.

‘I don’t choose Slough House.’

‘Didn’t think you would.’

‘As a new expert on fates worse than death–’

‘Yes, fine.’

It irks River. That, even while lying in a hospital bed, Spider still commands the room. His confidence, misplaced though it is, is like a dagger between River’s shoulder blades. The first piece begins to come away.

‘When will you be discharged?’

‘End of the week, all being well. Few more tests.’ He’s vague, lest River mistake his condition for any sort of weakness. It was simply a matter of record keeping that he had been shot. Dodging death in a manner almost offensive, and powering ahead like he still has the world at his feet.

Only, it’s starting to settle in. What River had said. When one choice is Slough House, the other is quit the Service. There’s no route back to the Park. This isn’t the minor blip he’s pretending it is. This is as good a death as he’ll ever get.

River might feel sorry for him. Under all the resentment, there might be a tiny sliver of him that wouldn’t wish his life on anyone else. Especially Spider, for some reason.

They sit in their torturous silence. When they built their walls, they’d been too close to see that they’d hemmed each other in with them. Stuck in a hellish limbo between saying nothing and saying everything. The goodwill between them, if it ever had existed – in the liminal ‘before’ – had run dry. There remained only an itch, like a phantom feeling for something that could still exist, but never will again. River needs to be broken down, and James needs to consume him. That was the unspoken order of things. But, to admit it would be the worst betrayal. Instead they sit, in this prison of their own making, thinking of what life would look like, as if they didn’t already know.

‘I’m gonna go.’ As River turns to his coat, he finds the forgotten bouquet beneath it. Spider’s eyes widen. ‘Oh, yeah. I got you these.’ He extracts them, now more than slightly squashed, and hands them to Spider. ‘Lilies, in case you’d died.’

Receiving them now, Spider knows what he should say. He’s opened up a clear line of sight. You got me flowers, you pathetic fuck? But he can’t. Some unseen chain snags around his neck. He holds the flowers, plastic crinkling as he turns them over in his hands.

‘I wouldn’t make it that easy for you.’

River finds himself smiling, despite himself. Despite everything.

‘I’m sure.’ He throws on his coat. ‘Give Taverner my love and… erm– enjoy unemployment!’

‘Fuck you, River.’

‘Fuck you, Spider.’

And although they both wish it weren’t, the world as they’d always known it is back.

[thatshowthingstarted]

Waterspout in the form of a hound, early 1st century CE, Roman, 

Terracotta 

Courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum

[moon-jellie]

What if watson was the main character and sherlock was way cuntier and also they hated each other. Have you guys heard of slow horses

[sunnydaysinamusicalhaze]

[quasarlasar]

MELISSA AND THE ALLIES OF GAIA ART DUMP 1 - THE SUPERCELL

In episode 9 of the story "Melissa and the Allies of Gaia" I posted on Wattpad in August, Melissa and her storm avatar partner Hurricane Carla (shown in her miniature form) face off against a sapient high-precipitation supercell over a salt marsh in Alabama. A pair of fisherman have been using the tornadoes/waterspouts it creates to catch fish, having used an artifact of evil weather magic to take control of the storm.

Since actually moving to Alabama (I had no idea I would end up there at the time I wrote the story chapter) I have kind of developed a new fondness for this character. Most of the characters in the story I have done art previously for but I have never drawn this one.

While I don't specify this in the story, I imagine this supercell to use she/they pronouns (insert mammatus cloud joke here) and the tornados are like her "children" that she lets out to "play" (I mean if you scaled up a toddler to the size and strength of a tornado you'd probably get as much destruction). I plan for her to come back in a sequel, though of course Melissa will end up calling her something like "Mr. Thunders." (not that I imagine she would care all that much, of course, being a giant storm and all).

Like the hurricane avatars, she has a miniature form (shown in the top image) that she stays in when conditions aren't right for her to build up her massive supercell body. It looks like a cute little cumulus cloud with a thunderbolt crest. She doesn't speak any human language, and in the story she only briefly speaks in the wind language of storms to Carla, so she isn't very talkative. For this reason I imagine Melissa might one day try to keep her as a pet, which of course goes terribly wrong (as you can see in the first page with "Mr. Thunders" pooping huge spiky hail all over her apartment ["Mr Thunders! Not on the car!"]).

Shown in the top image is also her standing off against the miniature form of Labor Day and glaring at him with lightning. This happens in the story because Labor Day gets really hungry after the wind shear causes dry air to be entrained in his circulation and he basically loses control for a brief moment and tries to eat her waterspouts. Needless to say "Mr. Thunders" doesn't like this one bet, and attacks Labor Day. Fortunately it turns out "Mr. Thunders" also is hungry for some warm moist air too and they end up just kind of returning to Gulf Coast Headquarters and having lunch on some tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico.

The final drawing on the first image shows them snuggling with their tornado children. Ultimately I imagine she only wants what is best for them. It just so happens that sometimes what is best for a tornado isn't what is best for humans.

Some more notes on her design:

-Since she's a high precipitation supercell I imagine she has a lot of precipitation falling both from her anvil and from her base, which obscures anything like the wall cloud etc. This also conveniently means I don't have to draw all the features in the base of the supercell because I can't make heads or tails of how they are arranged lol (you can tell I have more experience with tropical cyclones)

-I basically imagined her thunderhead anvil is like her hat. It actually extends far ahead of and behind her head (it is extended by the upper level wind shear) but since she's viewed from the front it is foreshortened. From the side it would be quite long.

-Her eye color is supposed to be the deep green seen in storms with a lot of hail as the sun sets. I imagine her triangular pupil actually looks like a conical tornado up close.

-I had previously in the webcomic drawn Melissa as having a peace sign beanie or skullcap, but I realized when writing the story that that sort of hat doesn't make sense for her home of Galveston, which has a hot climate. I imagine it's more of a sunhat now. (Okay this isn't about the supercell's design but I think it's important)

[milestoearth]

[wtfearth123]

A rare phenomenon of a swirling column of water and air, known as a waterspout, was seen on the Kama River in the Perm region of Russia on July 13, 2023.

[mediumsizetex]

Storm by BlueNoteFS

[alteredstatesstuff]

open sea storm

[hungrytravellers]

Glimpses Of Life In Happy Town

[boltsofglory]

Photoshopped, but nevertheless cool.

[androgynousbirdtale]

A Waterspout in FL

What's happening over the water? Pictured here is one of the better images yet recorded of a waterspout, a type of tornado that occurs over water. Waterspouts are spinning columns of rising moist air that typically form over warm water. Waterspouts can be as dangerous as tornadoes and can feature wind speeds over 200 kilometers per hour. Some waterspouts form away from thunderstorms and even during relatively fair weather. Waterspouts may be relatively transparent and initially visible only by an unusual pattern they create on the water. The featured image was taken in 2013 July near Tampa Bay, Florida. The Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida is arguably the most active area in the world for waterspouts, with hundreds forming each year.

Image Credit & Copyright: Joey Mole