grumpydragontea

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I FOUND IT GUYS I SPENT HALF AN HOUR LOOKING FOR THIS VIDEO AND ITS HERE

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Coyote | Sheryl Hester

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Book of Kismet

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“tik tok is brainrot I’m glad it’s getting deleted” YOU are ignoring an early warning sign of fascism bc silly dances and asmr annoys u. tik tok ban is a part of a MUCH bigger bill that indicates any foreign app, if deemed a threat, can be banned if the owner does not sell it. aka the government is mad bc they cannot censor & their capitalist puppet masters are mad they aren’t making money from it. and if ur ok w that……hm

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Feelings tonight

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(Link the thread)

In case you don't know, Adam Lambert is Jewish, and I can't imagine what it must feel like to have an audience outright laughing at what is very clearly meant to be a song against antisemitism in Germany during the rise of the Nazis, especially during this political climate

It kind of reminds me of my high school production of Fiddler on the Roof back in 2015, when the parents laughed at the pogrom that happens at the wedding...because flipping tables over is sooo funnee, I guess???

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vis a vis the neil gaiman article that just dropped on vulture (TW: SA, like, jesus christ, so much SA), heres a list of non-exhaustive list of stuff to consider if you're a young woman (or hell, young person) trying to break into a social scene/community that includes older people who have more social clout / financial means (deliberately vague scenario, examples would be a 20-something fan interacting with NG, a 18 yr old writer interacting with someone who edits a prestigious magazine/has gatekeeping power for a publishing institution):

there is always a whisper network in a community. what you want to do is try and get access to that whisper network. dont expect this to be exhaustive.

if someone offers you something huge without a contract or with vague promises of payment, or says something along the "you have so much potential, if only u follow my guidance" this is a red flag. granted this might be something, but only if it is followed up with official channels. AND EVEN THEN. THIS IS SUS.

anything anyone asks you to do in secrecy / under the table is SUPER SUSPECT.

peoples writing does not reflect their personal character and you should not expect it to.

dont be in a room alone with a strange older man, even if he's your favorite author.

older women can either be your advocate or will have the attitude of "well, i went through x, you can get through x." dont expect them to help you or prevent you from walking into a bad situation.

the line between social favors / professional favors / expecting personal repayment for professional things can get...blurred with some people. if someone tries to blur these lines and they're a stranger/acquaintance? this is a BAD SIGN.

all of this is pretty obvious shit but its also just like. idk. people sometimes want to hurt you, or youre collateral damage, and the fiction world has a lot of freaks, some of whom are in high social status positions.

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Anyway, more verified reporting on Neil Gaiman is out and it's real bad, folks, it just is. I'm not going to link it here, but there are plenty of free links floating around.

I cannot stress this enough, if the topic of sexual assault and graphic details are going to be severely distressing for you, please do not read it. That is not something you have to do to yourself. You do not have to do penance for finding his work meaningful, previously praised it, or enjoyed interacting with him on Tumblr. This is not on you. No one needs that from you, no matter how it may feel.

If this is personally devastating, you can (and should!) take some time to process it. You don't owe the internet a hot take or force yourself to feel the right emotion. Just take a break until you find the right headspace to be in. Please take care of yourselves.

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If the paywall comes up, try to put the link into this: https://www.removepaywall.com

Posting in the spirit of not staying quiet about this.

I strongly suggest you read this—all of it, because it’s long. Lila Shapiro is the journalist who wrote the investigation into Joss Whedon btw and won an award for it, so maybe people can finally stop making this all about Tortoise Media.

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Chapelle de l'abbaye de Beaulieu located in Haute-Marne, in France

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Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

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Technically true.

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Something I found on Twitter that really puts things in perspective as a creator.

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Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.