#Elena was going to specialize in emergency surgery before all this went down

[rhetoricalrogue]

I probably should have paid more attention to the militia hierarchy in the last half of Days Gone so I can properly daydream potential story scenarios instead of getting sad that they took what normally looks like a Bob Ross painting and burned 90% of the landscape, like yes, I know this is part of the theme of the story but there are no happy little trees anywhere. Just sad little burnt stumps that did very little to keep the infected hordes away.

The Crater Lake area made me miss Lost Lake and the Cascade maps so much.

[newstfionline]

When Government Fails, Social Media Is the New 911

Maya Averbuchmaya Averbuch, Wired, Oct. 25, 2017

Roberto Hernández Alarcón needed a diamond-blade saw. It was nearing midnight on September 24, and he was standing on the rubble of what had been an office building in the middle of Mexico City. It was five days after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake had hit Mexico, showering rubble across the central states. Hernández, the leader of a volunteer rescue team, had seen how a building could crush a person--and he knew there were perhaps 40 people inside this one. To get to them, he would need to pierce concrete.

Topos México, Hernández’s highly respected volunteer group, was one of several formed in the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake that razed Mexico City. When the latest earthquake hit, the team rushed to action. But when Hernández yelled for assistance, he was not calling for his government, which he thought was not reacting fast enough. He was calling for hundreds of volunteers to cast his words onto social media, where civilians were doing what the government would not--or could not--do: Give the rescuers a shot.

Social media has often sprung up in times of disaster, amplifying the voices of dissenters and the damned. It has a history of instigation, most famously during the Arab Spring and the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine. But in the past few months of epic catastrophes, it has served for another sort of recruitment. It has created a new set of first responders to step in where traditional aid has failed.

In August, Texans trapped by Hurricane Harvey used the app Zello to radio for the volunteer Cajun Navy’s 700-boat fleet, saving people who could not reach 911. In September, Puerto Ricans posted emergency messages to neighbors in pop-up Facebook groups, locating relatives in areas with fallen phone towers. In October, after a bombing in Mogadishu, the Gurmad 252 volunteers posted the Kalkaal Hospital’s injury list to Twitter. They maintained hotlines to assist anyone searching for the missing, performing a job that had once been done with old-school radios.

Mexican citizens were already primed to look away from official channels for aid, considering the country’s ire against president Enrique Peña Nieto (whose approval rating stands at just 17 percent since his election in 2012). Suspicion of the authorities was high. Even before the army, the navy, the police, and the civil protection unit mobilized, volunteers had started creating informal brigades through WhatsApp, recruiting others to move rubble. Three days after the earthquake, viral reports indicated that the government was going to use heavy machinery to haul debris without first confirming that there were no survivors beneath. Five days after that, an office specializing in electoral crimes began to investigate whether political parties had redirected donations for their own benefit.

From Hernandez’s viewpoint, international aid workers from countries such as Spain, Japan, Israel, and the United States were working at a dangerously slow pace. Hernández placed more trust in civilians, such as the carpenters, electricians, and welders who had responded to volunteers’ messages. The lamps, shovels, and dust masks were distributed from volunteers’ tents. The food that volunteers provided for the hundreds of people on site, including the government’s uniformed forces, was prepared in their own homes.

The building where Hernández posted himself, Álvaro Obregón 286, was particularly dangerous--dozens of lives were at risk. By September 24, there was still no official to provide information to the family members of those trapped inside, and a long list of the missing remained tacked to a wooden pole outside. When Hernández’s cutting machinery started to splutter, he repeatedly doused it in water to bring down the temperature. He, like many others throughout the country, knew that he needed help.

Miriam Becerril Avila was not prepared for the thousands of WhatsApp messages pinging her cell phone the day after the earthquake. The 18 surgeries she’d endured for fibromyalgia made her useless for carting supplies. But Becerril was a fast talker. She had gone to three rescue sites on September 20, added herself to a dozen WhatsApp groups, and become one of thousands of volunteers blasting out emergency requests. The resistance depended on who showed up and which of their friends they called. On Sunday, September 24, she saw the request for a diamond-blade saw.

Technology has made Becerril’s actions possible in a way they were not during previous disasters, such as the deadly flooding in the southern state of Tabasco in 2007. Social media has become ubiquitous, especially in highly urban areas like Mexico City, where smartphones are commonplace. In Mexico, prepaid monthly plans with unlimited WhatsApp, Facebook, FB Messenger, and Twitter are popular. To aid organizers after the earthquake, telecommunications companies temporarily offered data and calls for free. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Facebook had just celebrated its first birthday, and other social media apps were mere figments of the imagination. Now, Facebook has over two billions users and is the owner of WhatsApp, the most downloaded non-gaming app in the world.

Many of the coordinators were students, which made them fast with their phones if inexperienced in running rescue operations. Because she was standing at an aid center at the Centro Universitario México, Becerril asked the center’s director for proof that the diamond blade request was real. He dispatched a motorcyclist to Álvaro Obregón 286 to check. 10 minutes later, he gave Becerril the go-ahead.

Ping. Her message went out to her approximately 800 WhatsApp contacts, who in turn posted her number on social media.

Later that evening, with the help of an owner of a construction company, Becerril had a promise of two diamond-blade saws.

Becerril wasn’t the only one trying to track down facts on expensive blades she had never used. Volunteers, relying on information from Telegram and WhatsApp, started a handful of new Twitter accounts dedicated to confirming information based on reports from sentinels on the ground. They tried to get their hashtags seen amidst the chaos. Sandra Patargo, 30, was in pajamas in bed the morning after the earthquake when she started an Excel spreadsheet that would soon become a sprawling fact-checking project, Verificados19s. Sergio Guzman Rodriguez, 39, became one of dozens of web designers who tried to organize the flood of information from social media so that people had an idea of where to go. He and his wife, Lucero Gimello Plasencia, 34, created a volunteer signup through their website, SismoMex, and listed the phone numbers of the biggest donation centers. Alberto Márquez Reyna, 29, placed all the newborn pages on AyudaMX, to help people find everything from hospitals with free x-rays to photos of misplaced pets.

The volunteers ran on adrenaline, working with dark circles under their eyes. “We list people who have disappeared because they’re still under the rubble, or they’re lost because they have trauma,” said Guzman. “You have this overwhelming sense. You get sad. You get a little bit tired. You don’t know.”

Many of those who had design skills, including Guzman, got to their computers because duty called, and then started calling friends for help. But others, such as Patargo, had built their networks based on years of critiquing an untransparent government. The platform on which Patargo worked included employees of 25 organizations, ranging from coding collectives to magazine writers. It won the assistance of Google. At a more personal level, the people who came to her aid as fact checkers included coworkers at the human rights group Artículo 19, as well as activists who had marched alongside her during the historic university protest #YoSoy132 in 2012, against reforms of the telecommunications laws in 2014, and in favor of the president’s self-impeachment in 2016.

“Those who say that movements are ephemeral should consider that their societal effects are cumulative,” said María Elena Meneses, a professor at the university Tecnológico de Monterrey who researches the internet and digital culture. “Something just has to set them off.”

Mexico is on an economic cusp. It is a place where corrupt engineers still approve buildings that cannot withstand an earthquake, but where citizens have enough purchasing power to get phones in the hands of the discontented. It is also a country with a history of citizens standing up to the authorities. At the height of drug violence, the country’s northern states used hashtags to publicize disappearances. Activists used the internet to turn the kidnapping of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College into an international scandal. During the earthquake, the volunteers’ mobilization mimicked that of political arenas, spiraling into a massive on-the-ground effort.

By the next morning, Hernández had a diamond-blade saw in hand at Álvaro Obregón 286. He was not sure who had donated it, or how many had arrived for the many rescuers gathered around the site. But he knew his team could cut concrete.

[alittledangerx]

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Sleeping Beauty

( ♔ ) • • • I. Main!AU

“The chill of the wind created little goose bumps along her tan skin as she shivered slightly, lying over the cool grass under her bare back. The lids of her eyelids fluttered as she felt the cool mist of the evening eyes hit her eyelashes. The blue dress she wearing did absolutely not one damn thing to fight against the cold as it clung to her skin. Raising one hand to her head she groaned in pain as the sharp needles pinched at her brain and took a deep breath, a low whimper passing her red lips. What happened? There was blood, and screams…an explosion of glass. Kai was… wait Kai? Where…Jo! Her eyes snapping open as she sat upright on the ground, her heart hammering hard in her chest.” ( READ )

( ♔ ) • • • II. Show!Elena

“Dear Diary: Today will be different. It has to be. I will smile, and it will be believable. My smile will say, “I’m fine, thank you. Yes, I feel much better.” I will no longer be the sad little girl that lost her parents. I will start fresh, be someone new. It’s the only way I’ll make it through.“ ( READ )

( ♔ ) • • • III. Book!Elena

“My brother,” he went on, “is a fool. He thinks that because you look like Katherine you’re weak and easily led like her. But he’s wrong. I could feel your anger from the other side of town. I can feel it now, a white light like the desert sun. You have strength, Elena, even as you are. But you could be so much stronger…” ( READ )

Current Storylines

( ♔ ) • • • I. Safe & Sound

Delightful Dia ( READ ) - “In order to protect Elena and Claudia from the forces out to get them, Damon Salvatore with the help of a witch in New Orleans sends the girls into a place where they will be safe…at least that is what he thinks. He had no idea he sent them literally into a battlefield and that the Hunger Games were about to begin. Follow Elena and Dia as they navigate through the world of Panem, with a slight twist.” 

( ♔ ) • • • II. The Black Pearl

Riptide ( READ ) - Elena's sleeping beauty spell sends her into a new dimension. A realm where fairy tales are real and not just in the minds of small little children.Slipping into a new body and new name, Elena Carina Jones is determined to reunite with her siblings and make her broken family whole. Even if they don't remember... and she is stuck with a certain drunkard Captain Jack that throttling would give result in the greatest joy of her life. Yet, as one adventure begins another continues. Bonnie found a loophole to the spell. As her two worlds collide slowly but surely, will the supernatural world reclaim the Gilbert Girl or will the daughter of a sea goddess and child of pirates, continue to sail out into the night.

( ♔ ) • • • III. Ring of Fire

Sempiternal ( READ ) - Elena and a small group of friends, including Anna to her dismay are going up to the Salvatore Cabin for a weekend of relation. However, due to traffic the others are going to be arriving late which leaves Anna and Elena in the cabin alone. Once it gets dark and no one else has arrived, they begin to believe that something isn't right. The intense foreboding feeling of something amiss and a chill running up their spines has the girls running to the phone to call for help. That's when they realize that the phone lines are down and that they've been locked inside. The façade of a relaxing cabin get away was dissolved and replaced with a cage for the two to be tortured in. Trapped in this Ring of Fire.

( ♔ ) • • • IIII. Shadow's Firefly

Blue Eyed Saviour ( Read ) - Summary Here

( ♔ ) • • • V. Flowers in the Attic

Lost Saviour ( Read ) - Summary Here

( ♔ ) • • • VI. The Purge

Kleine Hexe( Read ) - “THIS IS YOUR EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM ANNOUNCING THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE ANNUAL PURGE SANCTIONED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. — The rules are simple: weapons of class 4 and lower have been authorized for use during the purge and commencing at the siren, any and all crime, including murder will be legal for 12 continuous hours. Two girls find themselves unwilling on the night of the purge. How will they survive after 12 hours of complete and total hell…”

Elena is the daughter of Doctor Greyson Gilbert and older sister to Jeremy Gilbert. Her twin sister Katherine died in the purge the year before after being caught out after hours. At least that is what the family was led to believe.

REASON FOR PURGE: Elena and Jeremy were home alone when their house was attacked. Their father was stuck at the hospital because of a surgery complication, the house was boarded up with a state of the art security system. Only just after the purge began, the security was disabled by none other than Katherine, wanting to get rid of her perfect twin sister and slip into her place. Jeremy and Elena fought their way out and went on the run meeting up with Davina on the streets. Davina is the cousin of Matt, and she travels to Mystic Falls to see her cousin and ends up there during the time of crisis. Matt dies right in front of her, killed by Katherine. So during this time, Davina is on the prowl for Katherine to get revenge for Matt's death. Now, the three of them are on the streets fighting for survival against the purgers and their own blood.

Beatrice "Tris" Levinson

( ♔ ) • • • I. New World

Tris x Levi ( READ ) - Everyone believes that “Levi” as the rest of the world knows him has always been this strong man with a head on his shoulders. That is what he shows them. They don’t see the Eugene I see. The one who beat the crap out of the man who was also known as our sperm donor; to the point he would have killed him if the police didn’t step in because of Agatha, our step-b-itch. He lost control that day, all because he saw his little sister, beaten and bloody on the ground when he came home as a surprise from the military. He lost six months of his life… because of me. Why shouldn’t I risk mine in-order to get him out. Especially, when everyone around us is dying. He is the only family I have left. He promised Jude and I that he would always protect us. Jude is god knows where but me? Always works both ways, big brother. I am coming…

( ♔ ) • • • II. Synthetic World

Tris x Sinclair ( READ ) - words here

( ♔ ) • • • III. Third Time's a Charm

Tris x Jace ( READ ) - My life hasn’t been easy. After going through the unfortunate hell of living in a home that was supposed to be filled with happiness and light, but was all in all a purgatory… a girl deserved some fun right? A reprieve from the torment, and just be a normal 21 year old girl. Only to be quite honest… my luck sucks. One particularly bad weekend, a few friends of mine decided that I needed a break. It was my 21st birthday after all, so why not celebrate it with a bang. The bang being Las Vegas, and sneaking my ass out the house when Frederick was passed out from his alcoholic state and my step-bitch was away at a spa. What was supposed to be a weekend of fun (It was for all it lasted) led to waking up Sunday morning with a ring on my finger and a tall and dangerous man laying in my bed beside me with a marriage certificate nearby. What happens in Vegas my ass! Jace, reminded me of another man in my life that I hated with a passion now. He had the know it all ability, and cocky personality that Jude has… you can imagine how much I didn’t like that. We parted ways with a promise of his lawyer contacting me about the annulment. Only dear old dad answered the phone… leading to me being sent to the Emergency room, Eugene in Jail for almost killing our father after he came back from leave and saw our father pounding me with his fist. Oh and then six months after that the virus hit the world… so the divorce kinda wasn’t on my mind. Well until now… How was I supposed to know that the one-day I decided to volunteer and gather supplies… my past would quite literally run into me?

Concluded Storylines 

( ♔ ) • • • I. Bleeding Love - [4 responses left]

Delightful Dia ( READ ) - Dia is in the French Quarter believing that the others don’t want her in their life anymore after she ran away following the murder of Kol in Mystic Falls. They are in the midst of Hayley and Jackson’s marriage celebration. Elena, lost and confused after the death of yet another loved one, this time the one she was going to spend the rest of eternity with, decides to have her memories wiped by a certain nobleman after almost going through with Alaric erasing Damon. Neither girl knows that it was actually Niklaus, who was responsible for Dia’s disconnect from the Scooby Gang.

( ♔ ) • • • II. Guardian Blood

Poison and Wine ( READ ) - “Katherine and Elena have bonded after the events of the revelation of their true parentage. Elena now pregnant with Matt Honeycutt’s child, finds herself hiding out at Katherine’s home. With the Guardians seeking to continue the bloodline, will any of them remain safe? How does Katherine deal with the fact Elena’s water breakage happens all over her Prada shoes? ***Special Circumstance***

Closed Storylines

WHAT ARE CLOSED STORYLINES? Closed storylines are storylines that I have had over the years where the other writer and I have either stopped talking, the story concluded or the roleplay just died. After so long of being in this verse I realized that not many people are appreciative of the time they had regardless of the circumstances that some friendships have ended or when a person just leaves roleplay completely. You just discard the writing, delete or block the person and all the time & hard work you both put into the story vanishes into thin air. I want to change that.

Some of you may wonder why am I writing responses to people that aren't currently apart of my life. Or save my old writings that never went anywhere... but honestly? Why shouldn't I. To close one chapter in your life, you have to acknowledge and give respect to the past. That's what the history books say. Just because it ended, doesn't mean it was not real.

Therefore, whoever you are. Whatever our story was... In the end of one chapter of my life I learned to appreciate the memories I have had over the years in roleplay. To all my peers in this verse I want to thank you for writing these incredible storylines with me. However, long or short that period was. I hope that whoever is taking the time to read these stories, enjoy it as much as we had writing them.

( ♔ ) • • • I. London Schemes [typing my final response]

Will ( READ ) - AU/AH/Crossover - Who knew that stepping off the plane in London, England would be equivalent to stepping into a rabbit hole? 20 year old, Elena Gilbert was new to the towering walls and beauty of the campus known as Dodgson University. From what she knew, her parents died, and her younger brother was sent to an art school in Georgia, while Lena was in a mental institution because she believed she should have died with her parents. After recovering from the trauma, she was sent to live with her mother’s cousin in England and to study her doctorate program in the acclaimed university, under a new name, Lena Somers. Her fresh start. 

What she didn’t know was that in reality, her memories were wiped clean by Elijah Mikaelson after the love of her life, Damon Salvatore, was left on the other side with her best friend Bonnie Bennett. Although, she originally went to Alaric in the hopes that he would take her memories away, she realized that she couldn’t ask that of her love’s best friend and turned to the one person who could help her start over. Without vampires, the supernatural, the pain and grief, to go back before Stefan walked into her life… before she remembered that Damon met her first. Elijah, agreeing that it was in her best interest, sent her to England, to Judith Sommers, her mother’s cousin with false memories of treatments, and getting into this stable place in her life where she could become the person her parents always wished for. For a month she lived a happy and at ease in her life, but than Damon and Bonnie came back… with the cure and the gang once again reunited with Elena. 

However, before they gave her the cure to transform her to a human once more, they saw how happy she was. Happier than she had ever been in Mystic Falls, and while Damon knew that he couldn’t live an eternity without her, at Jeremy’s insistence they agreed that Elijah would re-wipe Elena’s memories after she took the cure and give her 4 years of freedom from all the supernatural world. Once she started her life after college, her memories would be given to her once more and she would decide if she would blend her two lives together or pick one or the other… Damon promised to always watch out for her, and that he would take care of her loved ones till it was time. 

With the gang gone and Lena starting her first day of college,  no one expected that there would be hidden supernatural crime underground that ruled London, similar to the quarter. Or that a young blonde man, with blue eyes would cast his eyes upon that Somers girl and mistake her for the vampire vixen that was known as Rowan Lockheart…Being the hunter he is, what better way to destroy the enemy who’s family was responsible for the death of his brother. The woman he loved. What better way to erect vengeance, on the young blossom of the crime family? Only poor little Will Oakheart couldn’t be more wrong. 

( ♔ ) • • • II. Crazy in Blood 

Tapout ( READ ) - When Damon killed Aaron, instead of Enzo finding him, it's Elena. After a fight over Damon wanting to kill off Aaron's bloodline and knowing that Aaron would be next, Elena begged him not to, pleading for his life. Damon tells Elena that while he would do anything for her...this isn't one of them. As he was walking out the door, using the last piece she could to get him to stay, Elena tell's him that if he walks out that door she would be done with him. He kept walking, and Elena followed determined to save Aaron's life... unfortunately she was too late. While the two were in the middle of a fight Enzo shows up and he infects her. Damon begins to freaks out because he has been living with this virus, and he doesn't want Elena to suffer like he has. Leaving Mystic Falls, the two set out for New Orleans to find a cure... Only with a vampire nest near by what will the rippers do? And who will be caught in the crossfire... 

( ♔ ) • • • III. Hex Girls - [typing my final response]

Firewater ( READ ) - New to Mystic Falls, Aaron a necromancer begins to have blackouts that lead her to that little graveyard that no one goes to. At least from how it appears. The town itself is in a wreck and chaos is all over, why Aaron's parents brought her here to the hunky dunk town with a clocktower straight out of a creepy movie is beyond her imagination. Which brings her back to the graveyard, past the old mausoleum and deep in the middle, there is a girl writing in her diary. Aaron doesn't know anything about that tainted Gilbert Girl, only while there is chaos brewing all around the girl looks strangely at peace. Sad yet peaceful. Aaron goes up to Elena, not realizing she is an apparition... and begins talking to her. Elena not realizing that Aaron is real... thinks her mind is finally playing tricks on her. Because of bonnie's curse she can't go anywhere. They begin to bond of their tragic lives and past loves, slowly falling into a friendship that would truly be tested when Aaron has to kill the one person she truly loved and trusted in order to test her powers. But also to save her best friend from a trapped life.

( ♔ ) • • • IIII. Forsaken Truths

Black Kitten ( READ ) - When two doppelgängers discover that they are actually sisters who share the same mother and every single thing that they thought they knew about their life was false... what turmoil would that bring? How would Katherine and Elena reconcile the fact that despite being sworn enemies they were connected further through an unbreakable bond? 

Storyline was never kicked off. All we got through was the planning stage... but all that crap alone was brilliant! I will be putting a close to this sl with the writing of the scene created in the gifs. It seems right.

( ♔ ) • • • V. Fireball

Charlotte, NC ( READ ) - It started again. The nightmares that left her sleepless as the auburn haired-girl remembered her past; that put Zanesville, front and center of her mind. Throw into the melting pot the fact that her Mate, Angel, would never be hers… yet her heart clearly hasn’t accepted that. Charlotte did the one thing that would get her to calm down… Drink.

This was a piece of writing I did when I was apart of the rpg Cursed! Check them out, they are still around.

( ♔ ) • • • VI. Contained- [typing my final response]

Firewater ( READ ) - Words go here.