Scipostorm - ScipoStorm

So, India is dying.

Look, I know a good number of you are from the US and things aren't amazing there either, but my country is literally on the brink of collapse. So I'd love it if we could talk about that for a minute.

If you can't do anything else, please just read and reblog.

A second COVID wave has taken out the healthcare system. There are no more hospital beds. There's an oxygen shortage. There's a critical vaccine shortage. The Central Government has thrown its hands up and is passing the baton to the State Governments to do what they can.

There are over 16 million covid cases. A record 330,000 new cases reported yesterday - comparable to the US at its peak. 187,000 dead as of today.

There is no plan.

Mass cremations are taking place. The cremation grounds are running day and night and they are short on wood. People are watching their loved ones die while waiting for a hospital bed, and then they're unable to give them the proper burial rights.

Hospitals are overwhelmed. Patients are being confined, two to a bed. They're the lucky ones.

We are on the verge of people dying in the streets.

This is the second-most populous country in the world. The largest democracy. A country that encapsulates over 15,000 years of recorded human history and has endured everything from famine to invasion to colonisation.

We might be at the end. This might be the thing that does us in.

People are dying.

People are dying.

People are dying and there is no plan.

More good news? Variants are popping up. A double mutation strain has shown up. It is resistant to current vaccines. This will not go away. This is the devastation they warned of when the anti-maskers were out protesting the minor inconvenience of covering their face in public.

My country is on the verge of an emergency state. Our government has failed us. This is as dire a situation as it ever could be.

Look. I don't do much with my life. I write fics, some of you have read them and that's pretty much it. I spend my days with my head in the clouds because that's where I like to be.

But two days ago, my grandmother tested positive, had to be taken to hospital and the ambulance caught fire.

She barely made it to the urgent care she needs.

So, here I am, using whatever meager platform I have to cobble this request together. Because I have to do something.

If you can, donate.

Or spread the word.

Help. Please.

thanks keyboard, when I accidentally typed hest instead of best I totally wanted the hest (norwegian word for horse) emoji

Many places have a “forest that shouldn’t be entered.” Even people who are used to working in the mountains feel there is something there. They are suddenly overcome with fear and it becomes the custom to avoid certain places. These places exist. I don’t know what is there, but I think they are real. I’m not a believer in the occult, but the world is more than we can fathom with our five senses. This world doesn’t exist just for humans. So I think it’s all right to have such things. This is why I think it’s a mistake to think about nature from the idea of efficiency, that forests should be preserved because they are essential for human beings …

I am concerned, because for me the deep forest is connected in some way to the darkness deep in my heart. I feel that if it is erased, then the darkness inside my heart would also disappear, and my existence would grow shallow.

Hayao Miyazaki, “Totoro Was Not Made as a Nostalgia Piece”, Starting Point: 1979-1996 (via perkwunos)

Adventure: Sparks Fly at the Powderkeg Taphouse

“ ALRIGHT YOU MANGEY DOGS, YOU KNOW THE RULES: NO DYING ON THE PREMSIS OR WE CHUCK YOU IN THE ALLEY, NO KNIVES UNLESS YOUR TAB  IS SQUARE, AND NO BREAKING A GLASS YOU HAVEN’T PAID FOR.  AND REMEMBER, SPARE TEETH GO INNA THE TEETH JAR: ROUND’S ON THE HOUSE IF YOU SAD, GIBFACED, BASTARDS MANAGE TO FILL IT UP.”

-Ares McKinley, Barkeep. 

Setup: When listed among the city’s various taverns, drinking halls, and common rooms, the Powderkeg is a sort of afterthought. Easily the most rowdy establishment in the city, it has little in the way to recommend it it save for the cheapness of its drinks or the ease with which one can find a brawling partner ( or three). There are rooms to let, but the loudness of the rabble downstairs lasts until the early hours of the morning and seems to preclude sleep, which the proprietors seem more than happy to encourage as it scares off “ The wrong sort of customer”.   

Adventure Hooks

The Powderkeg makes a natural backdrop for any hardknuckle tournament, be it wrestling, boxing, or just a plain old fashioned fightclub. Characters who want to prove their grit may seek their fortune in the lists, but may discover that the Powderkeg regulars are well acquainted with a wide variety of cheats, ranging from simple underhanded tactics to performance enhancing substances. While many of these under the table alchemics are to be expected in such violence revering venue, some others seem tailor made to the clients interests, or else dangerously unpredictable. A back alley alchemist is at work here, selling drugs to the brawlers and using the clientele as their personal testing grounds for new mutagens. Getting ahold of this supplier will be difficult, as they always work through proxies, with many of the buyers knowing them only as “ The Good Doctor”. 

A villain or rival who wishes to parlay with the party may use the Powderkeg as a stage, knowing that while the establishment may appear innocuous and ostensibly neutral, their agents may hide among the rabble and a few well placed bribes can allow them to slip out a back way while the party is barred inside. Worst comes to worst, this antagonist may incite a brawl, hoping the ignorant punters will soften the party up for the real slaughter to come. 

If you were to ask how the Powderkeg got its name, any of the regulars could tell you that it’s an old joke relating to the fact that the owners are so cheap they store their liquor in casks bought secondhand from the military, which explains one of the very particular smells wafting around the tavern and why the cheapest drinks happen to be a bit gritty. In fact, both the name and the smell are explained by the tavern being a front for one of the city’s largest illegal weapon manufacturers, who use the fights and ensuing infamous reputation as a smokescreen for their real crimes.  Materials for weapons and black powder are disguised in the same sort of barrels any tavern takes in by the wagonload, and are processed in a network of hidden cellars deep beneath the surrounding streets. When a buyer is found, the ‘Keg’s owners send their product off in a cask, mixed in to a wagonload of identical, empty barrels, which conveniently detours through a little observed location where the goods can be unloaded without scrutiny. Such deliveries are given little scrutiny by police or trade officials, which has allowed the gunrunners to operate unchallenged for YEARS.  That is, until a mixup causes on of these barrels to be picked up by the owner of the party’s favorite tavern, who’s asks for their help untangling the crime they’ve absentmindedly gotten themselves tangled in. 

This is the only tiktok you'll ever need, I've made about 13 of these and I'm not stopping anytime soon

in the many years over which the pevensies became mythologized, one important thing was forgotten - when they first came to narnia, they were children

I FINALLY FOUND THIS POST

Reelaeshunsheep

ppl: man, it’s gotta be so boring not having a crush. or be in a relationship. like - tf do you do all day?

ppl: *several agreeing nods or scoffs of approval*

ppl: *expectantly turn to me*

me:

me: oh

me: OH

me: oh

me: yeah, um-

me: *coughs*

me: gee - rELaTiONshiPS. yeah. can’t live without ‘em. gotta … uh ….

me: rOmAnCe it up amirite