#IT NEEDS TIME TO PERCOLATE BUT LIKE.

[aberfaeth]

was watching the felix flayn a support like hahaha fruit ninja jokes again and then she said the thing about him chopping vegetables instead of people and i went oh he’s so eliot spencer coded and then almost DROPPED MY SWITCH ON THE FLOOR. GUYS. FE3H LEVERAGE AU?

[winepresswrath]

Armand's simpering little "and I never have" has taken on new dimensions for me. Technicality king and also I think very in keeping with his whole malign fairy creature deal. You can tell him not to hurt the bae, but you should really specify what "hurt" entails. Is chopping someone's hands off really hurting them? If they have annoyed you very much I mean.

-questions Armand might pose to Lestat that inspire him to leave the country

[likethecastle]

born on the day the titanic sank, died on the r101. escaping a boat in japan only to finally go down in the year 500,002. charlotte pollard forever dying and living aboard sinking ship to sinking ship

[nostalgicatsea]

Help. What do you do when you have two viable directions a fic can go (which inevitably lead to two different endings) and you love both so much so you can't pick one over the other? 😩

[sparky-is-spiders]

If I may be weird and petty for a moment, I don't get AUs where Martin is the Archivist when Melanie and Sasha are right there?? I mean I get why: roleswaps are popular AUs and martin is a popular character. And maybe its just my specific headcanons re: archivist requirements but I feel like the other two would be so much better?

Yes, Martin reads statements and yes, he gets marked, but I really don't think those are the Only Requirements to do the big ritual? Cause at that point Elias could've chosen any web-marked dude off the street, especially if they have the mark of another entity as well already.

Melanie and Sasha shared several important traits with Jon, most notably a burning curiosity, a willingness to put themselves in trouble for information, and (in Melanie's case (and Sasha's too, arguably) an ability to antagonize extremely dangerous fear avatars. Sasha's whole statement is her putting herself in a dangerous situation without telling anyone or acquiring any help (remind you of any main characters?) and running face first into supernatural dangers (sometimes to protect her friends, sometimes out of curiosity). Useful for collecting marks, but also useful for collecting information and developing her own powers as the Archivist. Considering her seemingly unrepentant willingness to look through her friends' and coworkers' personal files via accessing their accounts, I'd argue that her curiosity and boundary crossing could easily get stronger when investigating supernatural entities. Obviously, this never happened because of how early on she died, but I think you could make a strong case for Sasha's strong curiosity making some avatars incredibly mad. Not to mention how incredibly Beholding it is of her. None of this is criticism btw, I think Sasha should have access to whatever personal info she wants and I love it when characters are so obviously Eye-aligned. I know "Sasha wasn't promoted because she'd solve all the problems and find a way to kill Jonah" is also a popular headcanon but please think for a MOMENT about her appearances in podcast. There weren't many, but there's a very obvious through-line in almost all of them. She's curious, she takes risks in the face of the supernatural, she wants to Know. It's literally what caused the circumstances of her statement. Those traits are arguably the ones that got her KILLED. I'm sorry this went off on a tangent. I just love Sasha very much and I'm constantly filled with Thoughts of Sasha.

Melanie also has curiosity about the supernatural AND a much more obviously antagonistic personality!! Her first appearance is being a total asshole to Jon, mocking him, the place he works at, the equipment they use, and what they do. But she also dedicated basically her entire career into uncovering the supernatural? She ran a Youtube channel about it, and when she discovered that everyone was sticking to the same "safe" sites, she started looking off the beaten path for the real stuff. And she found it! She went looking for ghosts of war and violence and even without access to statements, probably working alone and sifting through bunk on the internet, she found them! She got stabbed by a ghost and instead of trying to avoid ghosts in the future, she decided to look for more violent ghosts. The slaughter tendencies might be a drawback for her becoming the Archivist, yes, but by that point Jon had already survived multiple marks and was developing his powers. If he failed by that point, Elias might've wanted an Archivist who'd be better able to defend themselves. By S4 Melanie was probably far enough gone to the Slaughter (and hated the Eye enough) that she was probably off the table as a candidate. By that point, however, Jon was expected to fully Become and only needed a few more marks.

I understand that Sasha was approved for a transfer to the Archives because Elias let Jon choose who take with him and Jon chose Sasha. And Melanie was almost certainly chosen to keep Jon in close proximity of a Slaughter-aligned person who'd be likely to mark him but unlikely to kill him. But I think that they served a secondary purpose of being backup Archivists in case something happened to Jon.

Obviously this is more headcanon than theory (not to mention it relies on other headcanons to fully stand) but I'm very fond of it. I guess I think that, even if Elias wasn't really looking for another Archivist when Jon seems like the perfect candidate in every way (and I'm not saying this JUST because I love him), I think that if something did happen to Jon, they'd be Elias' next candidates.

[izzy-b-hands]

I'm going to do dishes, and when they're done, I'll have a final idea for my zine draft that will be better than the-

*checks gdocs page*

Current five drafts, two of which are over word count so can't be used (but might survive as just. fics I publish on my own at some point if I can get my brain to not instantly feel overwhelmed by the ao3 publishing page lmao)

This will work. Surely.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Things I have learned today:

Evernote is useful for letting me put multiple versions of drafts and scenes and outlines all in one place, so I can try things out without making a jumbled mess of documents. This is very helpful in the early draft phase when I'm second-guessing everything and want to change things without destroying old versions.

I shouldn't second-guess myself so much. It's good to follow my instincts and let things develop naturally, instead of trying to make everything fit into a certain mold right away.

This especially applies to characters. So what if you don't know your MC? So what if she seems like all your other heroines? Just let her go through the story and then figure out who she is. If you step back for a second and stop being judgemental, you can work with the good in the initial idea instead of muddling everything up by trying to get rid of the bad.

[brainrotdotorg]

one thing you need to know about me is that I do not have the constitution to b a hater. I am too people please-y for my own good . In some aspects this is something I need to work on (as someone who is afraid of conflict and still has residual issues with like. Needing approval on every situation etc etc) but for the most part I’m not someone who can self-describe as a hater. More power to my friends and mutuals who have the strength to hate and I MEAN that!!

[interestanxiety]

Loved your blaseball ask on the fictional aita (sorry if this is overstepping boundary’s )

Oh shoot it's not at all, don't worry!! Looking back at it I think I was just a bit more anxious than usual when I wrote my pinned post because I was a bit cleepy. And thank you for saying you loved it!! I really appreciate it :DD Riv blaseball :pensive: And also it's nice to see another Scuttles enjoyer :)

[poptartmochi]

i think that i will never be able to rid myself of Magdalena, despite my disdain for her source material, because she's just such a fun little inversion character 🤧

[variousqueerthings]

what i think i need. in my life. is a grant to give me a year to watch every movie on @celluloidrainbow's list and write about how i feel about each one. i think. that would. it would help.

[reasonsforhope]

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024

[harbingrs]

I can't find the original post, but I'm thinking about when I was like "I don't like this album very much on first listen, but this happens every time The National releases an album, give me a few months and I know I'll be absolutely obsessed with it"

I am absolutely self-aware about this pattern

[inuringly]

NGL if my art blog wasn’t “whatever I want” I’d prolly just make a grimleal trash heap sideblog mfsdlkfms

[stevieschrodinger]

So this is one of those things I'll write one day when I have time. Maybe once I'm retired.

So what if Steve's parents aren't actually his parents? What if they're scientists from the lab who got a kid foisted on them?

What if the kids always start to show their abilities but like, three or four years old? And the moment they do, they get their number tattoo?

What if Steve was their first 'failure'?

What if they couldn't let him go completely...just in case.

What if Steve's parents aren't even a couple? What if they're from the labs and they're playing a role they've been pushed into?

What if the reason they lose more and more interest is because, the older Steve gets, the less and less likely it becomes that he's ever going to present powers?

But what if they were wrong? What if Steve can be in the right place at the right time? What if he instinctively knows who needs him most? What if he can feel where to swing the bat?

What if Steve's powers are nebulous and undefined enough to fly under the radar..

I don't know, still percolating on this one. Obviously I'd make it Steddie somehow.

[thir10th]

clothes-emily prentiss x fem!reader

summary: a slow morning with Emily when you've just started dating tw: make out, no smut, just domestic fluff w Emily A/n: i was just in the mood for a little drable, what can i say

You feel a paw lightly patting your face, the soft fur tickling your nose

"Serge, please, 5 minutes" you groan at the cat that has already set on your pillow, wrapping himself in a little black ball, you'd find it incredibly cute hadn't he just woken you up an hour before your alarm went off.

You decide it's a lost battle and move to leave him occupy your pillow, burying your face on the other one, it smells like Emily's shampoo.

The woman feels your body pressing against hers, and she turns around to meet your face, her naked body pressing against yours closer now.

Her eyes still closed, she's still half asleep but she gives you a soft peck on your lips "mh-morning" she mutters.

Her silky black hair tickles your face, but you don't move, you let it cover your forehead and you inhale the scent.

"why doesn't he wake you up? he's technically your son"

"because you spoil him too much" she twists around trying to grab part of the sheet falling off the bed due to last night's activities.

Her nose scrunches in comfort, you think it's adorable and can't help but to kiss it. She barely reacts, which makes you think she's probably still too asleep to correspond.

Last night had been your 3rd real date with Emily, the familiarity you already felt being the result of the time you had spent being "just friends" until you finally gave in on your attraction to each other. You wouldn't have it any other way.

It had been Emily's turn for last night's date, after getting back from work, she cooked, opened a bottle of wine, and you ended the night making out in the coach, and the bed, and the shower, and then the bed again. You felt exhausted in the most perfect way.

"so what, i give him a little too many him treats, he deserves them" you sigh, giving up on sleep coming back to you.

You stand up, unwrapping your body from Emily's strong grip around your waist, she whines, but ends up giving it up and wrapping herself around the pillow.

You scratch Sergio behind the ears, and move to pick up something to put on so you can go make breakfast

you grab the blue shirt that she wore yesterday, and a pair of her boxers, both were laying on the floor, scattered around along with the rest of both your clothes.

You follow the trail that was left on the corridor, you find your pants and Emily's, your bra, your shirt, all the way to the living room. You pick them up, leaving them on the couch, then following to the kitchen.

You secure your headphones in your ears and pull up a favorite playlist. Coffee percolating. Music going. You hum along and gather the ingredients you need to make pancakes, the easiest recipe you could ever memorize.

You crack the eggs carefully, making sure no shells fall into the mixture, you swing around to the music in your ears, dancing to it as you cook.

One by one, the stack of pancakes gets bigger until you run out of mix, you sip on your coffee, turning around to set the table, but when you do, you jump.

"Jesus!" Emily leans on the wall, she watches you with a grin on her face "How long have you been standing there? You almost killed me"

"just enough, are you making pancakes?" she asks, you can't help but to feel embarrassed, she says she's been there enough, which probably means she's seen all your musical number, at least most of it

"Yes, you can get this there until I'm done here" you tell her, turning around to finish up, but instead of doing what you asked, she comes around you, wrapping her arms around your waist, hugging you from behind.

"you smell so nice" she whispers, her head rests on your shoulder, she kisses you there, and on your neck, leaves a trail of small, sweet kisses along your shoulder.

Her hands caress your waist, "you’re wearing my shirt" she says, pressing her lips against your pulse point which makes you chuckle "i am" you say.

Her fingers slowly brushing the bare skin behind her boxers "and my boxers" she nibs at the soft skin on your neck, the smile on your face doesn't fade, you turn to face her, surrounding her neck with your arms

"do you mind? that- that i wear your clothes- I mean"

"no, no, of course not" her hand moves to take a couple of hair strands off your face, placing them behind your hear in a loving gesture

"in fact- you look really good in my clothes" the bright smile on her face turns into a devilish one

her lips crash against yours, lips and tongue, the wetness in her soft lips making you groan on her mouth, she swallows your sounds, her hand grabs your face, yours wrapping around her waist, gripping the flesh.

You separate you lips from hers to much of your distaste "let me just finish this ok? can you wait just a second?" you ask, but she doesn't let go off you, her hands on your waist lower to get your ass, giving a light squeeze

“Maybe. We’ll see,” Emily chuckles, the intensity of her kisses and touches increasing now, tugging you back into her chest. Emily kisses the side of your head, and groans about having to wait to have you.

You finish all up as fast as you can, trying to ignore the woman-koala that's wrapped around your waist, kissing your shoulder where the shirt keeps falling off.

"ok, I'm all yours now, try not to burn me, the stove is still warm" she lets out a devilish laugh

“mh, I like how that sounds, mine”

she loves hearing you’re hers, and you know it. She bites at your earlobe possessively.

she presses you into the counter, her kisses get heavier, hotter, deeper. "Ems-" you say breathlessly "mh?" she asks, her lips back onto yours.

"don't start something you can't finish" you say taking a moment to get away from her lips, but she's back at it in no time

"who says i'm not finishing this?"

Before you can even react, she lifts you up to the counter, you wrap your legs around her waist, your ankles pressing on her ass.

"I let you in my pants a couple of times and now it's all you can think about, who would've said SSA Prentiss was such a needy woman" you joke, her lips still kissing your neck, she snatches at you and kisses you again, biting your lip a little harder than usual

"well, i guess i just can't get enough of you" her lips crashing against yours once more "you're just lucky you're so cute, or i wouldn't let you get away with something like that"

Her words have an immediate effect on you, making you whine aloud "oh, please, don't let me get away with it"

✶⊶⊷⊶⊷❍⊶⊷⊶⊷✶

I can write a thousand of this if you like them! I’m a sucker for intimacy and domestic Emily!!!! 😭😭😭

Like and reblog <3