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Today's Document
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
KIROKAZE
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@aria-benedetto
Introduction
Hello there!
I'm Aria, but you can also call me Ari. My pronouns are she/her and I've been an adult for several years now. I am also ace and english isn't my first language.
I basically made this tumblr because I have been hanging out on writeblr and whumpblr for about a year now and wanted to try my hand at writing something myself (also, having thirty tabs open with blogs I check for new posts is starting to get unwieldy...).
Everyone's Friend
Dialogue Prompt
“You know, in another life we would’ve been friends.”
“Forgive me, but it’s hard to believe that since you’re pressing a knife to my throat.”
@writing-central
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Cole grinned invisibly behind his mask. His knife was perfectly still against the big vein of Elias’ throat.
“Fortunately for you, today isn’t the day for me to kill you,” he whispered back, eyes not on the hero in front of him, but on the coalition of villains farther ahead. “Maybe you’ll even thank me, if this goes off right.”
“That seems even less likely,” Elias hissed, but he let Cole drag him into the shadows. “Why aren’t you killing me?”
“I need your help,” Cole told him, and peered our over a crate. They hadn’t been spotted. Good. “Help me and I’ll owe you one.”
“You shoot people for a living!”
Well, yes. Cole’s Power wasn’t particularly strong, but his ability to go unnoticed (not invisible- motion detectors and cameras could see him fine) was useful for a professional hit man for the Villians.
“I haven’t shot anyone you like,” he protested back. “And we’re gonna save someone this time.”
No hero could resist the chance to help- even if it was one of the bad guys. Elias was no different.
“Who are we saving?” He asked reluctantly. “I’m not subtle.”
“Not in the slightest,” Cole agreed. “But you’re a metal shaper and I need someone who can bust through spelled mythril.”
“The only spelled mythril is-“ Elias stared at Cole, but when Cole shoved him, he got moving. “Why do you need to get through the high-security villain containment?”
“Because they’ve got a bunch of Powered kids in there and we’re getting them out.” Cole told him cooly. “Let’s go.”
The compound was steel and concrete as most villain headquarters tended to be. Durable, and easy to repair when the heroes inevitably punched holes in it. Fortunately, Col knew this one well, and used his slight power to the maximum to keep them from being noticed.
“Since when do you care about kids?” Elias asked when the latest clusters of guards were past and hero and hitman moved onward. “You kill for whoever pays you.”
“Yeah,” Cole said reluctantly. “That’s true. But it doesn’t mean I don’t have a kid, okay?”
Elias froze and Cole had to drag him under cover.
“One of the children is yours?” The hero demanded in a low whisper. “How did we not know you had a child?”
“She lives with my sister,” Cole told him shortly. “And she’s a lot more powerful than me. I didn’t want my bosses finding out about her either.”
“What happened?” at least Elias was moving faster now that he believed Cole’s good intentions. “How did she get caught?”
“Straight up bad luck,” Cole said, and peered our of hiding. “Titan’s last fight was over her school. Terrified eight-year-old equals earthquake makes Villain news. She was gone when I got there. Here we are. Do your thing.”
The massive doors were eight-inch plate mythril and immune to everything Cole could level against them.
That, of course, was why he brought along Elias.
“Crack it open. I’ll cover you,” he said, and drew his knives.
“On it,” the hero acknowledged, and turned his power on the doors. The metal shuddered, warped, and finally began to twist out of the way. As soon as a hole appeared, Cole dove through it, Elias on his heels.
“This way,” Cole told him when no guards immediately appeared. “My informants tell me thereMs between fifteen and twenty kids in here.”
“You have a plan to get them out?”
“Working on it.” Cole snapped and activated his earbud. “Brayden, how’s transportation coming?”
The comm crackled And whined, But finally connected.
“You could’a told me we were hittin’ the villains consortium,” Brayden answered sourly. “I got a copter all ready for ya. What floor are you on?”
“Ninth- and we’ll be cooking out the wall,” Cole told him, and busied himself with the control panel. “Oi, Elias. I found them. Third door.”
The hero pressed his palms to the heavy door. He must have been more determined this time, because the door wrenched itself off the hinges in a screech of protesting scrap.
“Daddy!”
Cole heard the shriek and turned in time to catch an armful of distraught little girl. He cling to her, whispering reassurances even as he shifted to take her weight. She was really too big to carry and he didn’t care.
“You were serious,” Elias said slowly, one hand on a tall boy’s shoulder. “About your daughter, and the children here.”
“And I’m serious about getting them out. Make a hole in that wall,” Cole told him shortly. “Brayden, time to go. Look for a big hole in the outer wall.”
“All ready. You get what you were after?”
“Better believe it,” Cole said, unable to hide the relief in his voice. “Hurry up, it won’t be long before we’re noticed.”
“On my way.”
Cole turned out and looked around for a quick head count. “I got eighteen of you,” he called to the oldest of the bunch. “Anyone missing?”
“Two,” the boy said. It was the same one Elias helped. “Twins. They’re behind that door. Don’t know why.”
“Can you sense them or did you see?”
“Both. They need help, soon.”
Great. That was always bad. But Elias had a hole ready, and Brayden was the best pilot money couldn’t buy. The hoverplane was waiting just outside.
“Run for Brayden,” Cole put his daughter down even though everything in him screamed against it. “Get on the copter. I’ll be right there.”
“Promise?” She trembled and bit her lip.
“Promise. Gotta save someone.”
“Okay. Hurry.”
She ran for the plane. The older boy ushered her in with a sharp nod for Cole. He knew what he was doing.
“Elias, get this door open,” Cole yelled for the hero. When Elias hesitated, Cole snarled. “Two more children, or do you plan to leave them?”
“Of course not,” Elias got his ass in gear and wrenched the door off the hinges. “Hurry. I can hear alarms.”
“So can I,” Cole agreed shortly. The children- a boy and girl not more than five years old- were unconscious, strapped to gurneys. Thankfully, they were without medical attachments, and Cole I strapped them quickly. “Get the boy.”
With the girl-child in arms, he ran for the plane with Elias on his tail. Just in time, as the door caved in with a thunderous crash.
“Catch!” Cole hollered, and yanked the pin of a grenade with his teeth. He smiled coldly when the nearest henchman did exactly that, and panicked.
Not for long. His grenades had an intentionally short fuse. The explosion wiped out the front runners and made a hell of a bang.
Just enough time to leap into the plane.
“Go!” Cole yelled, and slammed the cargo doors down. Brayden- professional maniac that he was- veered off and climbed so sharply that everyone fell. Cole fought to steady his daughter with one arm, and to protect the little girl with the other.
Somehow, Elias managed a laugh.
“Maybe we can be friends in this life,” he said, and struggled to his feet. “And you say you aren’t a hero.”
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Supers Beyond
Card Shark
Heroic Rescue
Housekeeping Before Villainy
Jet Fuel
Lobster Bisque
Reality at Will
Altering Reality
Reality Bent
The Pen is Mightier
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If you like this and want more, check out my Patreon!
Featherdown
Hello darlings! Story time! Today’s story was brought to you by Bradford! Darling, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for your support!
“Humans are complex creatures with a variety of needs. They are not a suitable pet for most dragons, but for the right dragons who have time, patience, and proper resources, these animals can make absolutely incredible pets.”
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“I think we need to have a talk,” Cirrus told Nimbus flatly, and skated his gaze over her fellow dragon, who was looking more than a little shifty. “Is there a reason you’ve decided to roost here?”
Nimbus shifted carefully and wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was young, just old enough to have decided on his gender. More importantly, he was a rescue. An orphan saved from two warring clans and brought into her own after his own clan was caught in the crossfire and wiped out.
It led to some… odd behaviors.
“They’re like me,” he said uncomfortably and shifted again. Unlike her, his wings and breast were all lined in soft, blue-green-purple feathers. He was exceedingly pretty, if you liked feathers. It also assisted his current goal, which appeared to be brooding. “They need someone to look after them.”
Four small, frightened faces peeped through Nimbus’s feathers, tucked safely under his wings. They were clean at least, and by the way their fingers were curled into Nimbus’s feathers, they weren’t displeased with their current situation.
“Nimbus, we’ve talked about this. Did you ask before you took them?” Cirrus asked, tired beyond measure. She loved her little adopted hatchling, but he was weird about pets. He had a dozen different creatures in his lair, all lovingly cared-for. “Humans get very upset when their children go missing.”
“Miss Dragon?”
It was one of the children. A little male who looked to be only a bit older than the rest. He was brave, she thought. One of the others, another male, was tucked protectively under his arm, almost a mirror of Nimbus, who was roosted over them.
“Don’t be afraid,” Cirrus told him, and dropped her snout almost level with the human. She was large, of course, well over a ship-length, and all over blue-brass scales. Nimbus was substantially smaller, and started green at his nose, and faded from green to blue, to deep purple on the tip of his tail. The children didn’t seem to be afraid, but Nimbus was not happy to have her looking at them. “Where are your parents?”
“We don’t have any.”
That was a little female, younger than the oldest male, but older than the younger one. She had a vivid bruise along one cheek, but it was healing before Cirrus’s eyes. Nimbus must have put a healing charm on her, or maybe on the nest beneath them. The other children showed signs of injury as well, but all of them were healing quickly.
“We’re all orphans,” the oldest male said boldly. He had the haunted eyes of a human who had seen far too much for his young age. Cirrus crooned at him soothingly and he straightened up. “The war, it hit our town. No one really- we only made it out because our parents sent us into the woods before… before everything happened.”
War orphans. No wonder Nimbus felt so strongly about them. He was a war orphan as well. Cirrus and her clan had taken him in as a hatchling and brought him up, but he wasn’t of the same type as they were.
“I found them when I was hunting,” Nimbus said defensively, and fluffed his feathers over the children again, enveloping all but the oldest, who leaned against him, apparently comfortable having a dragon so close. “The nights are getting too cold for humans to be out, and they didn’t have any blankets or food.”
Cirrus sighed. If the children had nothing left, she couldn’t very well return them to wherever they came from. They would die with the rest of their town. Nimbus would fight for them, too. All dragons valued children, but Nimbus cared more than most.
“Humans are difficult to raise,” she told him after a while, and he immediately brightened. The young human did too, in an oddly similar way. “We will need to find someone who knows what young humans require for good health. Are you prepared for that? It’s a big responsibility.”
“I have a few friends at the mage school. One of them has hatchlings.”
“Humans call them ‘children’, Nimbus.”
“Right, right. They don’t have eggs. I’ll remember.”
Cirrus was not at all sure this was a good decision, but she also thought that Nimbus would fight her to keep his new humans. The humans, at least the little male, would probably fight too. He looked like a young hero in the making. That would have to be managed as well. Heroes often died young.
“Alright,” she relented with a sigh that ruffled Nimbus’s feathers and the hair of his little human. They brightened almost identically. That, too, would have to be managed. “You’re very young to have humans. This will not be easy.”
“I don’t care,” Nimbus said firmly, more confident than she had ever seen him. Usually he was a quiet youngster, who spent all his time with his pets. This was more maturity than he generally showed. That might not be a bad thing. He wasn’t a fledgling anymore, and their kind always had an interesting time in the world. Looking after a clutch of human youngsters might not be a bad thing. “I have a comfortable, safe lair with enough off-chambers for them to have their own nests if they want them. I’m friends with the town on the other side of the mountains. I can get them clothing and human-safe food.”
“Fine, fine,” Cirrus gave in, and stretched her wings out. “Rouse up your little humans, Nimbus. We need to take them town so a human can tell us what they need.”
“Right,” Nimbus agreed brightly and bent to nuzzle at the children hidden in his feathers. There was muffled, childish giggling from at least one of them, and the oldest male smiled. “Come on, littles. We’re going to go for a fly.”
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More Stories!
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The Motherfucking Lizard King
No one at work trusts my boss.
He's smart. He works hard. He's not trustworthy. He hasn't actually fucked anyone at work over, but he's ruined his last two marriages with affairs, and got dumped by his third fiance when he wouldn't sign a prenup. The fact that we all know this is just a hazard of working in a small town.
Anyway: The thought process of the people in the lab is that if he screwed over his first wife, and his second wife, and was probably planning on screwing over his third wife, it would be insane for him not to screw us over. After all, what kind of idiot treats their employees better than their spouse?
I dunno. His kind, I guess? He's had a few chances to fuck us over, and he hasn't taken them. Opposite really. When our parent company was doing furloughs, he stayed in the office almost a hundred hours, talking and talking and talking his way up the corporate ladder. And in the end, no one at our site got furloughed.
He's pulled strings like that before. And it baffles me, right? Because it really does make zero sense. He'll move the heavens and the earth for us, but his wife and kids are afterthoughts. It feels like any moment, he's going to look into the mirror and realize how stupid that is. It feels like I'm betting on him making the same stupid mistake again, and again, and again - like it would be less cynical to believe he was, eventually, going to stab me in the back. But he hasn't yet, and as far as I can tell he's been making that mistake for close to fifteen years, and it's already cost him everything it can. If he was going to learn, he would have by now.
So my position on him is that if he wanted to date someone I cared about, I'd warn them off. I don't trust him there. But I tentatively trust him to be my boss. Maybe one day he'll stick the knife in and twist, and everyone will say Ah, Babs, we warned you, but for now, I accept that he's doing a very predictable, very irrational thing, and I've made my peace with it.
---
My job has glue traps.
No one likes the glue traps, but we don't have a lot of options. Poison's banned by state law, spring traps are banned by company safety, and several non-lethal options tried in the past failed to work. The mouse problem can get pretty bad if it's ignored, and there's some real health hazards in that. Our site has never had a positive hantavirus test, thank God, but the big base about a half hour away has. That guy's gonna be on oxygen the rest of his life.
If a mouse gets caught, we just euthanize it. But more than mice get stuck. Lizards can wander into those traps too, and the people working there have different feelings about the lizards. They don't pose nearly the same kind of risk mice do. They're chill little guys, and they keep the moths away, and they're just
You know. They're friendly. There's something to be said about walking into a room, and hitting the light switch, and seeing two little guys on the wall start to do pushups as soon as they see you.
People used to just euthanize the lizards too, but I had pet leopard geckos as a kid and I couldn't take that so I wound up googling how to free animals from glue traps. Now, when a lizard gets stuck in a trap - which happens once or twice a week - I get some vegetable oil from the breakroom, and a little plastic fork, and I'll spend fifteen to twenty minutes just kind of gently prying the little guys out.
I have a team of technicians that help me operate one of the larger machines. They're real blue collar guys, ex-airforce, and they make me look like a little kid. Being an engineer means they'll look to me as a leader sometimes, which is a wild experience. And I started helping the lizards for my own conscience, but one of the crazier consequences of it has been that it seriously boosted my leadership cred. Because those guys see me, and they go: Hey. If he's willing to fight for a lizard, he's gotta be willing to fight for me.
I cannot overstate how nice that is. Most engineers that want to make a change to a maintenance practice, or try an upgrade, they have to work their asses off to get the techs to buy in. But I can just ask. They already trust me to do good. They know I'm new, and they know I'm not the smartest engineer in the building, but they also know I'm the one who gets lizards out of the glue traps.
And just because of that, they're willing to follow me.
---
My boss has a meeting every month or two. It's typically basic house cleaning stuff - reminders about routines we've gotten lazy on, and updates on future projects. Maybe some warnings about problems coming from higher up in the company.
People are, in my opinion, a bit too cynical about the meetings. It stems from people not trusting our boss, which again, I understand, because it would make so much more sense if he wasn't trustworthy. It's a testament to the man's incredibly unhealthy priorities that he is. But as we made it to the end of the meeting, one of bullet points was:
Do NOT mess with animals in the building.
So I looked at my techs, and they looked at me, and when he got to the point, he was so scathing I actually just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He said basically that he'd heard some reports about someone in the building handling animals that found their way in and got stuck, and that he just wanted to emphasize how insanely inappropriate that was, not to mention dangerous, and that if he needed to speak to anyone about it again, there would be severe consequences.
I was willing to just take the shame and move on. I was. But one of my techs is old. Old enough he could've retired two years ago. And his actual literal goal is to one day get angry, yell at someone, and storm out. That's how he wants to retire. So instead of biting his tongue like everyone else, he stood up and said: I hate the glue traps. You hate the glue traps. We all hate glue traps. But we've all sat here for years, ignoring the little things that get stuck in them, watching them die, and then Bab's comes in, and he is the first person in decades to give enough of a shit to start pulling the lizards out. And I don't want him to stop.
Get humane traps or shut up but we are not going back to the old way of just letting things starve.
And my boss actually froze up. He got all wide eyed and stared at Marc, and then the other techs jumped in, and there was a very small but intense rebellion in the meeting and my boss kept trying to interrupt while getting absolutely bowled over by this gang of angry middle aged air force vets, and eventually he just went
I will speak with Babylon about this afterwards! After! And then he will speak with everyone else, but I have more points to cover.
So they went silent, and my boss rushed through the last five minutes, and we all adjounred. The techs really didn't like that I was going in alone - they thought our boss was going to try and shout me into compliance. Marc in particular was like, Look, if he tries bullying you, stand your ground, and if he threatens anything, just come get us, and we'll give him hell.
So armed with that, I went to my boss's office. I sat in the chair across from him, and he kept his composure for maybe five seconds before just flopping back into his chair.
I had no idea you were saving lizards, he said, but I'm glad you are. I always hated seeing them die in the glue.
I wasn't expecting that. I was about to ask him what the comment from the meeting was about then, but he answered that before I even got the chance.
A snake got into the building last week, and - someone picked it up and chased a coworker around. Turns out that coworker was severely afraid of snakes, and now it's a shitshow. We're a small site, and now I can't ask those two to work together anymore, to say nothing about how the snake fared after all that. Being upset about that is a reasonable thing, right?
And he gave me a look like he actually wanted an answer, so I said Yeah, totally, chasing a coworker around with a snake is a dick move. Especially if that coworker is already afraid of snakes.
And he said Exactly! and then we sat there a few moments longer. He looked so incredibly tired that I did, actually, feel kind of bad for him. And then he somehow managed to sink even further into his chair, and said
Look, I know I'm not a good guy. But I'm not evil. I'm not some sort of crazy asshole that's going to demand that everyone watch lizards starve to death. When you go back downstairs, could you try to pass that on? That I'm not evil?
I said Sure because it wasn't a hard request, and he looked relieved. I actually made it halfway out before I realized I had a question.
Who grabbed the snake? I asked.
Not supposed to talk about it, he said. But whoever comes to mind first is probably right.
ThatGuy? I asked. And he looked me in the face, nodded his head yes, and said No.
---
The techs seemed a little disappointed that they didn't get to storm the boss's office, but were otherwise in good spirits. They were actually a little bit embarrassed to hear about the snake story - apparently, it wasn't much of a secret. It'd just slipped their minds because it happened three weeks ago.
We did maintenance after that, the same basic repairs we did every week. The meeting had been stressful and it was a relief to work with my hands. When the parts were reinstalled, everything cleaned and smooth and ready to go, Marc found me again.
You know what the lesson of today is? he asked. And there were quite a few answers to that that I could have taken - from don't assume the worst of people to be careful with how you spend your trust - we all need it more than we think.
But instead I said what? because I wanted to hear what his answer was going to be.
That I got your back, he said. Then he clapped one very, very large hand on my shoulder, gave it a good squeeze, and walked back to dosimetry lab.
---
The next day, Marc gave me a package and told me to open it in my office. I was suspicious, but I followed the request.
Cardboard gave way to a small baggie, obviously full of fabric, which opened to reveal a t-shirt that read
"I Am the Motherfucking Lizard King."
I looked at it, I loved it, and then I got an idea. I went to my boss's office and knocked on the door. When he opened it, I asked him if he would be willing to allow something very unprofessional to happen for morale building purposes.
How unprofessional? he asked. I held the shirt up in answer. He gave the shirt a short look over and snorted.
You can wear it on weeks without customers, he said. Which just so happened to include that week.
I'll pass on that it came with your blessing, I replied, and he looked oddly relieved.
Thanks, he said. And then I went downstairs.
---
The techs were very, very happy to see the shirt. And while my boss's reputation remains in tatters, and probably will be until he moves (or dies), the next time there was a meeting, there was quite a bit less complaining about how mere presence. Which is, I guess, a start.
We'll see if he squanders it.
fun fact this poem is so popular amongst yall that three separate people, in three separate instances, have commissioned it with their flowers of choice:
Hi yes hello it’s me the local wizard, and I- Ok well “evil” feels like a strong word but yes, that’s me. Anyway, I need your help. I know I stole away the kingdoms 12 princesses, that’s my bad. Listen, I didn’t think this through. It didn’t occur to me that having a dozen angry young women from early teen to early 20s and giving them giant powerful wings would be a bad idea.
I know I’m the one who cast the curse but it can still only be broken with true love. I’m begging you, somebody, please come and fall in love with these girls and make them leave, I can’t take it anymore, it sucks so bad. I can’t keep getting viciously bullied by one of the largest living species of waterfowl anymore. I’ve tried running away but they can fly so they just find me. I’m getting nothing done.
I’ll pay you, I’ll grant you wishes, I don’t care, please just come and fall in love with the mean angry women who live in my yard and hate me so bad
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 responsibility 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.
I can’t begin to describe how happy and flattered and a little teary I am that this just broke 100k.
I may be the actual only human being on Tumblr with a post this popular that I not only don’t regret making, but am actually HAPPY whenever I notice a surge in its circulation.
I never intended this to gain any traction at all (you’ll notice there’s no sources or anything–this was a personal ramble, prompted in good humor by a friend after I jokingly said that I wished someone would give me an excuse to cry about Carpathia on Tumblr so I could get it out of my system.) I literally expected to get, like, maybe 20 likes and a reblog, from friends, indulging me in my nonsense.
It just….means a lot to me that it’s touched so many people. I see a lot of tags to the effect of “HOW DARE YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS AND MAKE ME CRY ABOUT A BOAT” that are often really funny, but overwhelmingly the tags on this post are from people saving it for a rainy day, or remarking in a sort of quiet awe that they never even really thought about her role in the story–and God knows I never did, I learned it by complete accident much as most of the people who’ve found this post.
And so many of you guys are taking strength and reassurance from the reminder not only that people are capable of amazing things together, but simply that kindness matters and that a simple, tiny act of compassion is never wasted. I’m just really glad to have been able to do that for some folks.
If I can just add one personal note. I need to emphasize something I only touched on in the original post.
I need to emphasize that Carpathia failed.
A lot of the tags and comments have a tinge of…despair, or guilt, or wistfulness about things like this happening so rarely. Or inadequacy, or just being overwhelmed or unhappy about not being in a position to step up in a comparable way. And I want to gently bring up the fact that this is still the sinking of the Titanic.
They did not get there in time. They did not save the ship. It can be argued that they may not even have saved a single life; we have no way of knowing. This was still a horrific maritime disaster mired in arrogance and incompetence and a lack of care.
If the response to this story shows anything, it shows this: It matters that they tried.
Even though they got there too late, even though the ship still sank. It matters that they tried. The difference between making the best reasonable speed after confirming the seriousness of the situation, and the miracle they pulled off–it matters. It makes all the difference. Even if it made no difference at all. Not one of you read this and concluded that I was stupid for caring so much when the Titanic still sank and all those people still died.
You don’t have to fix the world. You’ll likely be cold and sick and miserable and testy and scared, and unprepared, and in over your head, and entirely too small to be of any real use. It feels stupid, passing out blankets and coffee in the middle of an ice field knowing what just happened. It’s hard to feel anything but useless when all you can do is tap a wireless transmitter and promise help that you know will come too late.
It matters that they fought for those people. It matters that they cared, and it matters that they tried. It matters that they didn’t stop. If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have read this far.
Ultimately, you can like or dislike any character for whatever arbitrary reason. It's neither activism nor a moral failing, don't let the internet convince you otherwise. On the other hand, if you consistently find yourself lacking any interest in the, e.g., female characters of the media you engage with that may be a sign of some unconscious biases you need to examine.
You say "be aware of your biases" once and all of a sudden your notes become filled with the most un-selfaware people on the whole website tripping over each other to justify themselves.
Oh hey, do you know what time it is? It is highly specific resource time!
Today we have the Royal School of Needlework Stitch Bank! There are HUNDREDS of stitch types in the RSN Stitch Bank.
And more added regularly, let’s look at a recent addition
I picked the first one in the 25 recently added Elizabethan stitches, the Elizabethan French Stitch
The stitch bank provides written and photo tutorials as well as a video option to learn to do it yourself. There are examples of the stitch in use, resources, references, everything but a needle and thread!
RSN Stitchbank
rsnstitchbank.org
I looked at some of the tutorials last night and holy shit I'm so impressed! They're SO thorough! Not only do they have written and video instructions, but there are photo and illustration options for each image AND a "flip view" button so that left handed people can see all the images in reverse!
I am going to jump in and add, as you said they are very detailed in their directions, something that takes a lot of time and money.
If anyone who has enjoyed this resource has the means, I encourage you to adopt or sponsor a stitch to help keep this free to access. I know not everyone has the means to (fair, been there) but if you can, check out their sponsor options
RSN Stitch Bank Progress
And one other resource I have shared before, The Lady's Magazine. Embroidery patterns from 1770-1819. In case anyone wants some historic ideas for using all these new embroidery stitches
The Lady's Magazine: Patterns of Perfection
My “draw the squad” memes so far
Also you can buy my Ref folder here
Patreon
Updating with some newer ones!
@mexicanesecat @raimeyl references for y'all!
WOW! THE OG POST!
i will let my mind go wild with these knowing i’ll finally be able to credit the original artist
EEEE FINALLY THE ORIGINAL ARTIST
Oh hell yeah, going to use these later!
FINALLY! PINTEREST GO SUCK DICK WE FOUND THE SOURCE!
Pinterest is one of the reasons why I’m broke
Speaking of broke, my newest ref folder’s full of new DTS doodles is out NOW!
Buy it in my Ko-Fi store!
We need to bring back the athletics body type post
This one
Tumblr has 10+ image limit had to add these on too
I will probably never NOT share these photos.
These are *peak athletes*. All of them.
Literally. These are Olympic athletes.
Seeing the variety of body types that are honed for a specific purpose just makes me so happy and does so much for my mental health. ❤️
Due to my recent post about the Olympics, this popped back on my dash and I need to share it.
Literally peak performance. Human bodies at peak performance. Love it.
I want to add that both women's gymnastics and women's track have gotten far more muscular since these photos were taken. And if you want to say that decreases performance, I DEFY you to watch Simone Biles or Sha'carri Richardson perform.
They literally only compete with themselves. They are on that level.
Or watch Ilona Maher absolutely dominate at rugby. Again, peak performance.
And I. Love. It.
this illustrates what I was saying about how eugenics makes no sense because theres no such thing as "best" traits. It depends on the situation
You, the queen of a fairy tale kingdom, got cursed to give birth to a princess who’s going to live her life isolated in a tower the first 20 years of her life. Narrate how you avoid your daughter’s fate.
She laughed, when she placed the curse on me. Laughed and laughed. She called me a fool for coming to her, for wanting children who would sap my strength and steal my power.
One child to take my kingdom, she promised me. Well, I’d wanted an heir. It didn’t have to be a curse.
One child the sea would steal. There was room in that. They didn’t have to die, only to love the sea. I would buy the finest ships.
And the third would suffer my grandmother’s fate.
The tower.
Grandmother told me stories about that tower, shuddering. About the isolation almost driving her mad. About the desperate longing for escape. I know what that escape cost her, and my grandfather as well, with his scarred face and limping gait.
That was going to be difficult.
The sorceress’s curse worked. Within the year, I held my first babe in my arms, a sturdy boy who kicked and cried and cuddled against his mother as if he hadn’t been made only to bring me grief. Well, all mothers grieve.
Weiterlesen
Download this easy DIY clothing repair guide (only 10 pages) from Uni of Kentucky
link to PDF
Excellent resource if you're new to sewing and want to start doing some clothing repair!
Professional seamstress here, who has taught intro to sewing many times, saying: this guide is excellent!
Hello tumblr I heard you like changeling stories
Edit: If you want a physical copy of this comic!
Love this so much
the practical magic musical looks great
yknow AI art has ruined an entire genre of painting to me, i saw one of those smooth anime-realism pieces and immidiately thought ''ugh, AI art'' until i noticed it was posted by an established deviantart user 6 years ago. like ive never been a huge fan of that genre but it looks like a pretty difficult style to master and i feel bad for the artists who specialized in anime-realism only to have their entire market jacked by people typing keywords into midjourney.
I have something to add to this. every single time I look up reference pictures, I get shitty ai generated bullshit. I've actually reached the point where I discovered that pasting this into google gives you a solid filter for 99% of the ai art. typing in -"word" will filter out all results with that word. I might end up making another one to filter out costumes and all that shit for better historical results when looking at outfits for my characters from various time periods.
if you don't put a space before it, it won't work so keep that in mind. if there are any I might have missed that are still coming up in your results, put them in tags. and I'll add them to the original post. if you see this and you end up using it, please reblog so more people, especially artists and charecter designers, are able to find it. Google is becoming rapidly unstable due to the influx of ai art, and it makes me incredibly sad, first of all, that my work as an artist is becoming rabidly obsolete. This is not worth it. Ai art is not worth it.
Here is the anti ai filter, note that this only works for image searches and only serves as a filter for art. due to the amount of ai writing concealed in media, I have no real way to create a filter for that. I hope this helps the art homies who are sick of this shit, and the people who just want to look at human art for a change:
-”starryAI” -”Krea” -”freepik” -”lexica” -”Midjourney” -”hayo” -”storybird.ai” -"Craiyon" -"ai art generator" -"prompt hunt" -"Opendream's ai" -"nightcafe creator" -"arthub.ai" -"open art" -"playground ai" -"PixAi.art" -"Creative fabrica" -”ai” -”Tensor.art” -”Images.Ai”
