Silence in the Song

Melodies in the darkness

[candiedapplekisses]

I miss writing. I miss creating characters, pouring endless amounts of time into developing them, their histories, who they were.  But I poured too much into them, and now it feels as though the well is empty. I haven’t been able to develop a character for years. Even the self-inserts for fanfic ideas are lacking.  I wish I could bring to life another character, breath into them what I used to for the others. Even my OCs are lost to me. They are no longer there, no longer able to be a part of any story. It’s sad to know they’re gone. 

[crabussy]

reblog for larger sample size!! are you queer?

queer/lgbtqia+ (:

not queer/lgbtqia+ (:

Voting ended onFeb 16, 2023

[flagellant]

I truly don't have any words about what's happening in Ohio right now. I want to post something like I usually do. Give vocabulary, etc, whatnot. It's important, it's so important. But I don't have words. What could I possibly say about the level of devastation that has happened, is happening, will happen in the future? This is worse than the BP spill. And I don't know how to respond to that with anything other than a shocked numbness.

[flagellant]

There has been a complete media black out regarding the catastrophic and deadly environmental disaster currently happening in Ohio right now, which began a full week ago at time of writing.

A train filled with extremely toxic and reactive chemicals, specifically vinyl chloride, was derailed. A cloud of poisonous chemicals has sprouted and since the cloud is heavier-than-air, it will persist to continue to travel downwind, polluting the atmosphere and environment of everything it touches. All pets will die. Reaching the Mississippi will completely eradicate the safety of all its waters from that point and everywhere downstream. Creeks are already filled with dead fish which the Ohio government claims is not to be worried about. The entire state's soils and ecosystems will be contaminated to deadly carcinogenic levels for the rest of all our lives and far beyond it. If and when it reaches the Gulf of Mexico the currents will carry its poisons globally.

I wish I could say anything of hope right now. I wish I could even say I'm angry. But I'm not right now. I just feel numb. The scale of this is just so beyond anything I can comprehend and there's an explicit and purposeful refusal to report on this.

[tarilaran]

Article discussing some of the safety concerns:

While vinyl chloride itself is a carcinogen, the burning of the chemical, which releases hydrogen chloride and phosgene, can be immediately lethal. Phosgene, a highly toxic, colorless gas with a strong odor, was notoriously used as a weapon during World War I.

Another article:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90848025/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-chemicals-pvc-spill-fire-disaster

Meanwhile, the crash site was leaching other hazardous materials besides vinyl chloride. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says they seeped into surrounding waterways, and “were immediately toxic to fish”—though it added that “actions were taken to minimize that.” The agency has assured the public that, the poor aquatic life’s fate notwithstanding, everybody’s drinking water was “protected.”

Yesterday [Feb 9 2023], the agency announced that the air in East Palestine was finally deemed safe enough for residents to return.

The oldest source I can find discussing this is from Feb 8.

WHEELING — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice on Wednesday said Norfolk Southern’s train that derailed Friday in East Palestine, Ohio, did lead

[ms-demeanor]

Here is the New York Times reporting on this on February 4th.

Here are NBC and The Daily Beast reporting on this on February 5th.

Here are People Magazine, the Sacramento Bee, The Daily Beast again, CBS News, Reuters, and Reuters again reporting on this on February 6th.

Here is CNN reporting on it on February 7th.

The EPA response profile has been active and updating since February 4th.

I want to preface this by saying THIS IS NOT GOOD, and we shouldn't act like nothing is happening. This is bad. This is a serious environmental disaster. There are currently risks to humans and animals, and risks to humans and animals will be ongoing for quite some time at various levels.

However I think that "this will kill all the pets in the area and will lay a swathe of poison from Ohio to Mexico, burning the world between" is perhaps something of an overstatement and I'm aware that folks are upset about this but holy shit let's please try not to catastrophize the catastrophe.

The purpose of an intentional burn at the site was as a containment measure, because it is better to temporarily have extremely toxic chemical byproducts in an evacuated area than it is to allow an extremely carcinogenic chemical to slowly disperse.

There was a similar chemical spill in New Jersey in 2012 (still not a good thing! Not something that we should let go lightly!) and it did not result in "all pets dying" or a mass poisoning of rivers and streams.

Here is the DHHS Toxological Profile for Vinyl Chloride, a nearly 300-page document that goes over risk factors and harms caused by the chemical. Given the tone of the original post, here's what people probably want to see right now:

At the moment, there appears to be one man who claims that his pet fox died as a result of exposure to the vinyl chloride, and it sickened some of his other pets. There is some discussion of dead chickens and one dead hawk was found. Dead fish were found in some bodies of water, and the EPA is monitoring other bodies and has issued directives for dams and spillovers to collect chemical runoff to prevent as much downstream contamination as possible. At the moment, it is very difficult to say whether there will be a significant amount of acute animal deaths (wild or domesticated) as a result of this, though I would guess there will be a very significant increase of cancer in the area in the coming years.

One reporter at a press conference from the Ohio governor was arrested, he has been released and the AG's office is investigating his arrest. There are a lot of photos of the derailment and its consequences on social media and other news websites, and it does not appear that anyone is preventing people from taking or sharing photos of the disaster.

Look. I am not someone who thinks that you should blindly trust the government. There are huge issues here. This is a disaster that happened for a number of reasons, many of which are related to absolute shit regulation of chemical transportation and which were probably exacerbated by overworked railroad employees who got fucked over for the sake of the economy in December. There is bad shit here that is worthy of criticism, there are legitimate things to be concerned about.

But just because I don't trust the government doesn't mean I think it's a better idea to trust a shitpost account on twitter that provided "evidence" in the form of an instagram account posting screenshots of text messages from one guy who had a collection of exotic animals he wasn't able to retrieve from the evacuation area and a tiktok video.

There are definitely things to worry about with this, but please don't panic.

Also look, if the news is too miserable and you don't want to look at it too much but you want to at least pretend to stay informed, the Daily Beast's Cheat Sheet is a constant stream of paragraph-long reports on breaking news. Two of the stories I linked up above are from the Cheat Sheet. Just. Keep it open in a browser tab and check headlines once a day, okay? This has been news for an entire week, if People Magazine is doing human interest stories on it there isn't a media blackout please don't get your news from twitter or tumblr please I am begging you.

[catchymemes]

[angryschnauzer]

Big beefy man.

Oh big beefy man is making a cake.

Big beefy man is making the cutest cake ever.

[silvysartfulness]

Call that beefcake

[sweetcherryblossomswrites]

[jack-the-lion]

This is so true

[candiedapplekisses]

It’s true. All my safe foods are beige and orange/yellow (CAUSE CHEESE).

[citrineghost]

me, gaslighting my stomach into cooperation: you’re fine

[rylandsgrace]

Who is the better babysitter? Dustin, Eddie, or Steve?

[oopsabird]

god, GOD Freddie Mercury was such a fucking badass

[scumbagsblog]

This doesn’t do the moment justice. He took the swig of vodka, said “I’ll fucking do it darling”, and then ABSOLUTELY NAILED IT in one fucking take

[child-of-dolora]

Mood for 2019: “I’ll fucking do it, darling.”

[finninsanelycoolish-deactivated]

Reblog for Freddie Mercury level belief in yourself this new year! 

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

I’ll fucking do it, darling

[books-andbiscuits]

[brightlotusmoon]

Come on, 2023

[harboretum]

Like clockwork

[harboretum]

For reference

[femmeharlequin-deactivated20240]

Men! Get your ears pierced! That’s an order

[femmeharlequin-deactivated20240]

Men! Don’t get it done at Claire’s or anywhere that uses a piercing gun! Go to a professional tattoo and piercing parlor! That’s an order!

[libraryogre]

Y'all're free to get your ears pierced if you like, but I have long maintained the secret to a long life is to avoid having pieces of steel driven through your body.

[femmeharlequin-deactivated20240]

You are absolutely incorrect. The secret to a long life is being penetrated as many times as possible

[blackbackedjackal]

Tweaking this for the last time (April to December).

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

[ventraman]

This could save your life.

[instructor144]

BOOST.

[aqueous2]

Absolutely vital information to have if you live where the waters freeze over.

I especially appreciate this guy's commitment to actually showing the steps himself. That cold-shock response is a bitch and willingly subjecting himself to it couldn't have been fun.

[marlynnofmany]

I don’t live anywhere near water like this, but I am still memorizing this knowledge because:

* I might use it in a story someday.

* Any knowledge that staves off the dying is good knowledge.

[justangrymacaroni]

i’m working on a play about 65-year-old lesbians, and my dramaturg is an older gay man who has been helping me with historical context and research, and also just in general giving me advice based on his own personal experiences.

fav thing he told me so far, said with a lot of love: “dyke drama was specific. it was always so specific. it was precise and narrowed and pointed. and also so dumb.”

[justangrymacaroni]

also spoke to an older lesbian professor. i was asking her all these questions about marches and protests and summits and infighting and rallies and “what was it like what did this mean to you what was it like to experience that?”

and she kinda stared at me for a bit and said, “you know, it was a lot. and it was big and it did feel revolutionary. but also at that time i was mainly focused on getting my heart broken in a bar.”

and like. yeah.

[justangrymacaroni]

another thing my dramaturg told me, from the perspective of a gay man who lived through the 80’s, was that whenever a young gay person asks him what the dating and play scene used to be like, he answers:

“we went to rallies and funerals.”

[justangrymacaroni]

our persistence in our continued existence is big and scary and revolutionary, and the grief stretches on and the losses hit hard.

and because of that, i think it’s important to remember the dumb drama, and the first loves, and the first heartbreaks over beer. i think it’s important to go to rallies and vigils, and also dive bars and game nights.

it’s all so big and so small.

[dichenlachmandaily]

Dichen Lachman in a conversation about race, discourse, diversity & representation with regards to her new show Altered Carbon. (more) (video)

[post-futurism]

she fucking killed, uh, what’s his name, ryan gosling

[trash-slvt]

[big-baby-pudding-snatcher]

Maretarium, an aquarium with Finnish fish species in Kotka, Finland had a cat day. People could bring their cats to watch the fish. Both the cats and the fish were fascinated.

Source

[captainlordauditor]

i just think the world would be a better place if we would all take a bit of time to examine how we personally interact with stories

[prairiedawn]

I, for one, am a complex network of interconnected stories stored on a meat based drive.

[captainlordauditor]

that is quite possibly the most terrifying way of describing a human but honestly same

[venerabledreadnought]

That’s not scary. What’s scary is that you’re a ghost and a skeleton working together to Pilot fleshy power armor made by your mother

[captainlordauditor]

You know, I expected to regret making this post for entirely different reasons than I actually regret making this post.

[elodieunderglass]

The Discourse Derailed, 2018. 

collaborative art performed by collective

[digitaldiscipline]

Asshole Ghosts Direct Mother-Manufactured Meat Suits to Disturb Other Ghosts at a Distance Using Agitated Electrons to Modify Stories on Domesticated Sand

[kidrat]

brain: u gotta be… The Best™

me: ok so we’ll work hard then?

brain: no work… only Best.