#disaster field

[wangleline]

cover done :3

get chiptuned!

OH MY GOD This is incredibly cool!!! ahhhhh!!

Thank you so much for making this cover!!!

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: Jysh'parun, Outergod of Unwelcoming Earth

As distant and ancient as a mountain, as scornful as an axebitten tree

Many philosophies debate and negotiate the relation of mortals to their environment. Some see nature as a thing to be tamed in the name of survival, domesticated, exploited. Others proffer a more symbiotic path, a holistic system to be protected and stewarded.

Beyond these there are the ravings of those claimed by Jysh'parun, who claim that mortals have no right to exist at all, and survive merely by the beneficence of the trees and stones. While all but the most foolish agree that heed must be paid to nature, none but those under the unwelcoming earths dominion would think that there is some geological-feudal hierarchy to which we must all submit.

This then is the paradox of the Unbowing Mountain: a god that claims the worship of things that do not traditionally think, but views nature through a distinctly mortal lens of domination and hierarchy. It's an absurdity bordering on being a joke, atleast until Jysh'parun's influence washes over the land and the forest marches off to war while the rivers start demanding tribute.

Adventure Hooks:

Having come into possession of a disused tract of land, a young farming couple were picking the stones from their new field in preparation for planting when they came across the petrified remains of some indescribable horror. Resembling nothing so much as a horse sized mandrake-root with teeth, they've reached out to neighbours, the sheriff, even the local wizard looking for advice about what to do... only to wake up one morning and find the thing gone. Theft or reanimation are both equally alarming possibilities, and the whole region has been on edge since.

Having been thought dead for years after being lost in a winter storm, a dwarven cartographer descends from the mountains claiming to be their mouthpiece and demanding sacrifices in their name. Her words at first go unheeded, at least until the glacial rivers begin to run with noxious acid, transforming back only when something living is thrown in. Farms and villages are drying out and grisly offerings of livestock now fail to meet her standards she claims the mountains will only be satisfied when the people of the realm throw their rulers in and swear fealty to the peaks on high.

The king's palace is in chaos after a coup took place in the royal gardens, specifically when the great tree that shaded his majesty's favourite thinking bench stabbed him in the back with one of it's branches and then skampered off to replant itself on the throne with the crown in tow. Before Anyone knew what was happening, greenery had overtaken the palace locking most outside while trapping certain vital hostages inside.

Inspirations: Something that's all too often lost in the "madness and tentacles" misinterpretation of eldritch horror is that much of the genre is spun off from the particular phobias of HP lovecraft. When we use the iconography without understanding the anxieties behind it, we risk creating a shallow B movie version of the horror we want our audience to feel.

To write good horror then, we need to draw off fears we understand, and with Jysh'parun I wanted to tap into climate anxiety in a way I don't think I've seen before. We've all resigned ourselves to the fact that climate change is happening, with the understanding that its being driven by the bullheaded egos and greed of people who are so powerful their perspective on life bears no resemblance to anything we could possibly conceive of. Translate their willingness to let us suffer for the sake of profit into a psudo historical fantasy context and you get the Unwelcoming Earth: widening sinkholes that demand tolls from passersby while an approaching tsunami proclaims the divine right of kings. It's not only absurd it's fundamentally idiotic but that it doesn't mean it won't destroy you and everyone you know.

Worshippers: Delusional druids and geomancers. Goliaths and dwarvenkind who get too into being "children of the mountain". Sentient trees, Living crystals, and other elemental entities who seek to put themselves "above" other forms of life. Corrupted primoridals.

Signs: Aberrations that resemble roots or stone spontaneously emerging from nature, acid flowing from normally clear running springs, statues of lordly alien figures carved from erosion, not tools. Proclimations in an unknowable script engraved deep under the earth or on monumental scale.

Symbols: A glyph resembling a mountain range or branches of a tree in the shape of a crown.

Titles: The Unbowing Mountain, The Insuperable, King of all Corners,

Artsource

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[shapeshifter-shenanigans]

[poolparty13]

Angry Davo

[ultimateyakazoo]

i love how right out the gate danganronpa sets you up for this suspension of disbelief with the concept of hopes peak academy. like its such a creative and interesting concept but in practice itd be such a stupid idea and that just makes the series all the more fun and ridiculous

[unexpectedstormy]

Angsty story idea I just had:

Wild is feeling homesick for the home he had before the calamity and before he drew the Master Sword. All the other Links have their places of origin and he wants to know his own. He asks Flora but she doesn’t know where his home was. She only knew him at the castle. He prays to Hylia to show him his home.

Later, the Chain's in his Hyrule and they’re riding horses somewhere and Wild sees a ruined house out in the wilderness surrounded by blue nightshade (which is the symbolic flower of BotW/TotK Link). He realizes that this is his home and he ends up having a long memory of some of his life as a child living there.

He then finds something from that old time like a buried chest of valuables his family buried before the Calamity for safekeeping.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

[courtforshort15]

Rewatching Grey's Anatomy and this scene just hit me in the Matt Murdock feels

---

[vintonharper]

Just a regular reminder that in the time after cutting the One Ring from Sauron's hand and refusing to cast it into the fire, Isildur spent two years setting up his (ingrate) nephew Meneldil as King in Gondor, and then started on his way to Imladris to reunite with his wife and lil son, aaaaaand to give the Ring to Elrond. And he was just about there when he was killed.

He may have initially refused to give up the Ring but he yielded to better judgment once he had more context (i.e. finding out that it could not be used for good, as he had intended), and not only set aside his pride to return to one "greater" than himself, but resisted using it to save himself. Tolkien takes great pains to show that Isildur had every reason to believe his journey from Osgiliath to Imladris would be without issues and that he was well-prepared for any trouble that could be anticipated.

Oh, and his sons loved him very much. Isildur Defence Squad forever! Peter Jackson did him so, so dirty.

[ranahan]

Free tactical medicine learning resources

If you want to learn first aid, emergency care or tactical medical care for real, you will need to practice these skills. A lot. Regularly. There’s no way to learn them just from books. But if you’re looking to supplement your training, can’t access hands on training, are a layperson doing research for your writing or otherwise just curious, here are some free resources (some may need a free account to access them).

TCCC

The current gold standard in the field is Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC), developed by the US army but used by militaries around the world. There is also a civilian version of the system called Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC). Training materials, Standards of Care, instructional videos, etc. can be accessed at deployedmedicine.com. You’ll need a free account. This should be your first and possibly only stop.

There’s also an app and a podcast if those are more your thing, although I haven’t personally tried them.

More TCCC (video) resources

STOP THE BLEED® Interactive Course

TCCC-MP Guidelines and Curriculum presentations and training videos

EURMED’s Medical Beginner's Resource List has suggested list of video materials (disclaimer: I haven’t watched the playlists, but I have been trained by nearly all of the linked systems/organisations and can vouch for them)

Tactical Medical Solutions training resource page (requires registration; some of the courses are free)

North American Rescue video downloads

Emergency medicine

WHO-ICRC Basic Emergency Care: approach to the acutely ill and injured — an open-access course workbook for basic emergency care with limited resources

Global Health Emergency Medicine — open-access, evidence-based, peer-reviewed emergency medicine modules designed for teachers and learners in low-resource health setting

AFEM Resources — curricula, lecture bank, reviews, etc.

Global Emergency Medicine Academy Resources (links to more resources)

OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology textbook

Open-access anatomy and physiology learning resources

Principles of Pharmacology – Study Guide

Multiple Casualty Incidents

Management of Multiple Casualty Incidents lecture

Bombings: Injury Patterns and Care blast injuries course (scroll down on the page)

Borden Institute has medical textbooks about biological, chemical and nuclear threats

Psychological first aid: Guide for field workers

Prolonged field care

When the evac isn’t coming anytime soon.

Prolonged Field Care Basics lecture (requires registration)

Aerie 14th Edition Wilderness Medicine Manual (textbook)

Austere Emergency Medical Support (AEMS) Field Guide (textbook)

Prolonged Casualty Care (PCC) Guidelines

Wilderness Medical Society Clinical Practice Guidelines

Austere Medicine Resources: Practice Guidelines — a great resource of WMS, PFC, TCCC, etc. clinical practice guidelines in one place

The Wilderness and Environmental Medicine Journal (you can read past issues without a membership)

Prolonged Field Care Collective: Resources

National Park Services Emergency Medical Services Resources

Guerilla Medicine: An Introduction to the Concepts of Austere Medicine in Asymmetric Conflicts (article)

Mental health & PTSD

National Center for PTSD

Psychological first aid: Guide for field workers

Combat and Operational Behavioral Health (medical textbook)

Resources for doctors and medical students

Or you know, other curious people who aren’t afraid of medical jargon.

Borden Institute Military Medical Textbooks and Resources — suggestions: start with Fundamentals of Military Medicine; mechanism of injury of conventional weapons; these two volumes on medical aspects of operating in extreme environments; psychosocial aspects of military medicine; or Combat Anesthesia

Emergency War Surgery textbook and lectures

Disaster Health Core Curriculum — online course for health professionals

Médecins Sans Frontières Clinical guidelines

Pocket book of hospital care for children: Second edition — guidelines for the management of common childhood illnesses in low resource settings

Grey’s Quick Reference: Basic Protocols in Paediatrics and Internal Medicine For Resource Limited Settings

The Department of Defense Center of Excellence for Trauma: Trauma Care Resources (links to more resources)

[black-rabbit-razumikhin]

I love what I get to read for my degree

[24thmemberkatienolan]

That starting lineup was Vlakto’s first mistake

[dailyadventureprompts]

Adventure: Storming the Door of Death

Having long used the energies of sundered souls to perform their rites and rituals, a coven of necromancers now seeks to create a portal to the underworld by gathering as many ghosts and other haunting spirits in one place as possible. As their experiment reaches critical mass, the sinister energies have even begun leaking into the land and sky, threatening to spill out across the land.

Hooks:

The town the party is staying in is buffeted by a supernatural storm, thunder sending ripples of unnatural fear through the populace while spectral figures stalk through the sheets of rain. Even as the bruise coloured clouds dissipate, the danger is not lifted, as the torrent seems to have brought with it an infestation of ghosts. With the local temples overtaxed putting the dead to rest, an apprentice level adventuring party could make reasonable coin ousting shadows from abandoned houses or attics above taverns, and wrangling furniture and other objects gone rogue through poltergeist activity.

While hunting a beast that’s been digging up the local cemetery, the party encounter a chipper young mystic who’s wandering through the plots collecting wayward soul wisps in an ornate lantern. She’s all too happy to talk, explaining that she’s part of a group called the order of the veils who want to help those spirits left behind by the church find peace. She’ll offer to show the party how to construct their own lantern, which will be of great aid to them should they encounter any more wayward spirits. Should the party end up “filling” one or more lanterns, she encourages them to travel to a particular clearing not far from the local crossroads and leave the lanterns hanging there for one of her fellow initiates to collect.

Several nobles and wealthy merchants with aging or sick loved ones have been surreptitiously approached by the Order of Veils for patronage, offering to one up any of the local clergy with promises regarding the afterlife: Why wait years to see your loved ones when you could have them back within your lifetime? These whispers have reached the ears of a cleric of the Raven Queen who wants the party’s help investigating this outwardly pious band. Apparently a prominent official was funding the construction of a public grave temple to honour the memory of his departed wife, but abruptly cut off his charity after the veils convinced him that his money was better used elsewhere. 

Background: Unlike other necromancers, many in the order of the veils really do believe (at least in part) that they’re doing something good,  providing succour and sanctuary for souls that’ve gone unclaimed by the divine or lost on the path to the afterlife. Their leadership has grander ambitions however, as the (self appointed) Deacon Maudry and her inner circle grow ever closer to opening a door into death itself. With such a portal, they imagine they will be able to step across the threshold of mortality with ease, not only able to return endlessly from death but to extract kingly ransoms from those who wish to do the same.

 On paper their scheme is surprisingly sound: hauntings have been known to create “lowspots” between the land of the living and the dead, and portals have spontaneously formed between the two realms when the conditions were right.  Get enough ghosts to induce the sinking effect, throw up some dimensional and necromatic wards, and it seems like you’d have a ready made portal into death. However, Maudry and co are brainpoisoned by a) reading nothing but necromancy literature for years b) being up their own asses and have failed to realize that once their chosen gateway ( a grand country manor abandoned after terrible murders took place) begins sinking into the shadowfell, they won’t be able to stop it, and will very likely drag them and everything within a few miles down with it and possibly create a new dread realm in the process.

[anghraine]

It's pretty common in fandom for people to entertain themselves by filling in the gaps of some text (a novel, a movie, whatever) with headcanon, fic, etc. In some ways, it's common outside fandom; one of the literary critics I assign my students, Steven Mailloux, describes audiences in general as (among other things) "creative gap-fillers," which is an idea I've always liked.

But within fandom, it's even more of a thing. Yet often, other people seem to doubt that it's okay to "let" people just play in the sandbox like this without patronizing them with "well actually, in the lore..."

But it is, in fact, perfectly acceptable to let them be. You really, truly don't need to lecture people who are inoffensively minding their own business about the lore.

[swashbucklery]

OK friends and nerds, I’ve done a full pass of edits and am waiting for beta comments but barring a calamity The Willow OT3 Fic will be up this Friday, May 5. Think some gay thoughts for me. Prepare emotionally. Set aside time in your calendars.

[1doesnotsimplyhavejust1fandam]

The funniest thing about criminal minds never fails to be the fact that Reid is literally NEVER following protocol in the field. He’s got his gun down when they’re sneaking round the back of the house, he doesn’t have a flashlight on him when they’re going after the unsub after sunset, HE NEVER WEARS HIS GODDAMN VEST, he doesn’t check around corners correctly (if he does at all), he carries a REVOLVER which is NOT a good service weapon bffr Mr. PhDs, he randomly fuckin goes off on his own to talk down the unsub bc he relates to them (😭literally whaaat), sometimes he just straight up doesn’t wait for backup WHEN THEY SHOULD REALLY WAIT FOR BACK UP SPENCER!!!!!!???!!! The fact that this man is not immediately killed in season 1 is the miracle of all plot armor miracles bc YIKES Dr. Reid

[nat-of-personifs]

Human Torch AU: General Power Logistics

I don’t plan on creating anything resembling a further plot in this AU, so I’ll post what I have and let all of you run wild. Everything here is just a suggestion.

Going through each of the powers in a single post would take way too much time, so have this instead for now. I’ll be elaborating on the individuals shortly.

First of all, the strength of a statespirit’s power is dependent on their ranking on this list:

The top three just HAPPEN to be Texas, California, and Oklahoma, which I think is a sign that Nature’s fucking with us. While California ranks highest on this list, pretty much every other site I checked had Texas as top. It’s your discretion.

Strength overall is measured by stamina, not intensity; individual powers will vary in their metrics, but while Vermont, for example, could as the strongest snowstorm user create a blizzard outmatching anyone else’s, he would only be able to sustain it for a few minutes since he’s so low on the overall scoreboard. Sphere of influence also falls under the individual powers.

Users can go beyond their stamina, but it’ll lead to temporary loss of consciousness and more disasters the next year or so in their state. The edge of safe casting is called the baseline.

Most abilities have some collaborative capacity, or temporary mind-meld, that allows the users to pool their power. They require someone leading and guiding, either the one drawing the others in or the strongest (scoreboard or power, depending on the circumstances) of the group. A notable exception to this is fire.

Statespirits must be granted permission to cast outside themselves by whoever they’re casting in, though this can be waived if metaphors take precedence. Peacetime external casting automatically ensures a mind meld between the two parties, and the host can stop the cast at any time. Internal castings (a statespirit casting within their boundaries) gone awry, most common with fire users, will always remain within state borders.

Each major power generally has fifteen or so practitioners, except for hurricanes and earthquakes; only around five users for them each. On the other hand, the entirety of the West has fire capabilities because of the association, which is also what keeps California as the strongest of the bunch.

Some states have special abilities; these don’t fall under the ranking system. Florida has sinkholes, California and Wisconsin have fire tornadoes, Hawai’i has magma. Alaska’s ability to hide fire castings under snow counts as a special ability and a subpower of fire, as it emulates ‘zombie fires’—fires that burn underground through all of frozen winter and resurface in the spring.

To cast, users draw upon memories of the disasters that have already occurred, and their power is augmented if the disaster they’re trying to cast is actively taking place in their state. In that case, they can transfer some (negligible amounts—statespirit conceptual power alone won’t replicate the scope of Nature’s disasters, all abilities that can truly reproduce the scale rely on outside sources of power or power pooling) of the energy from that disaster into their casting. This only works when casting inside their state, at least fifteen miles away from the edge of the disaster; users can’t take control of disasters they didn’t cast themselves.

The memory factor and stamina requirements stops users from casting constantly.

Powers lock when the user is panicked, though this can also be waived if metaphor/the narrative takes precedence.

Major cities and those with a strong enough association to a particular disaster also have abilities.

Questions in comments or reblogs?