almost home
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"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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trying on a metaphor
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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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izzy's playlists!
occasionally subtle
★
YOU ARE THE REASON
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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Stranger Things
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@dragonsandfables
We pass by so many people every single day. And none of them wear signs that say: “I'm grieving.” “I'm tired.” “I'm barely holding it together.” But they're everywhere. Quietly carrying heavy loads. Silently hoping for a little light. That's why kindness matters. A gentle word, a warm smile, a soft presence— It might be the only softness someone feels today. So be kind. Always. The world is already heavy enough.
Adeife Adeyeye
“We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality.”
— J.G. Ballard, introduciton to the French edition of Crash (1974)
1974? Holy fuck.
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.
The Star Trek title card generator is over here:
Make your own era-accurate Star Trek episode title cards in seconds. Boldly go!
The sitemaker (Josh Mayfield at https://bsky.app/profile/bean525.bsky.social) has asked for people to come in and kick its tires so he can work out any bugs they turn up. So do give him a hand, if you feel inclined. :)
(also, deeply amused by this one...)
“Voting for the lesser of two evils doesn’t work.”
How would you know? It’s never been tried for long enough.
Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris all lost.
Biden won, but most people spent his entire presidency shitting on him and giving him absolutely no credit for his successes, which were MANY. (If you need a refresher: RFMA, PACT Act, Chips and Science, Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson etc.)
You can’t say “vote blue no matter who” and “vote for the lesser of two evils” doesn’t work if you refuse to ever give it a chance of working.
Also I hate that phrase “lesser of two evils” when we’re talking about someone who supports unions and immigrants and healthcare and food assistance and queer rights and voting rights over someone who is literally trying to end us all.
And the lesser of two evils is, by definition, BETTER.
It’s like the difference between a wound with a bit of an infection, and literal death. Those aren’t comparable.
Democrats are not perfect and no one has ever claimed otherwise, but they are making lasting change. It’s slow and it’s not linear , but it is happening.
Pro forced birth Democrats have been all but forced out the party. Same with anti-gay Democrats AND anti-trans Democrats. You don’t see many Dems supported by the NRA at all anymore. And all Dems believe in the climate crisis.
This was NOT a given even 10 years ago.
Democrats are not becoming more conservative. They’re becoming less. Across the board. Progressive policies have become a deal breaker.
This is what you’re saying is one of “two evils”?
Give me a break.
Do you want things to get better or do you want to scream “perfection only!” and watch it get worse?
Cause that’s what we’re living right now.
We’re living in a refusal to vote for and celebrate the successful harm reduction, or “lesser of two evils,” as you say.
There are rarely examples where we actually get to see what happens if the “lesser of two evils” wins.
And the thing is, when they win, they’re shit on so successfully that we lose next time. Again, Biden.
They do something, or many many things right and the goal post gets moved, again and again.
In the end, the only knowledge anyone has of their actions is that they can’t do anything right.
That’s a dangerous way of seeing the world.
I know this cause we are living it.
What is happening right now is a product of that way of thinking.
I don’t need to find statistics or read a report cause this is our reality.
This is what happens when people refuse to vote for and celebrate the wins of “the lesser of two evils.”
When people choose a candidate in the primary who has no chance of a snowball in hell of winning and then complain and don’t vote when a candidate they REALLY didn’t like becomes the party nominee.
This is our life.
We don’t have to imagine it.
And yet, the mantra hasn’t changed. The goalpost keeps being moved. Dems don’t get any credit for doing ANYTHING right. People spread demands that are literally impossible and convince other people that they are not only possible, but easy. And enough people refuse to vote for harm reduction that the harm is constantly increased.
Perfection is the enemy of progress. That’s not just a catchy phrase, it’s a fact.
If Al Gore had won, we would be A LOT further along on climate than we are now, and we would not have gone into Iraq.
If Hillary Clinton had won, we wouldn’t have lost the Supreme Court. We would still have Roe and affirmative action and the VRA and the Chevron Doctrine.
If Kamala Harris had won, we wouldn’t be at war with Venezuela and Iran and possibly Cuba and maybe Greenland? Trans people would not be attacked at the federal level. Immigrants would not be kidnapped off the streets. We would still have the Department of Education and labor and a DoJ that doesn’t do the president’s bidding.
THIS is the result of refusing to vote for and support the lesser of two evils, WE ARE LIVING IT!
So maybe going forward we stop. We give a chance for the lesser of two evils to actually work. To scream from the rooftops every time they do right thing. We don’t just vote for it once, but do so over at least a decade.
Cause we’ve tried your way. It hasn’t worked. This exact moment that you are reading this post is proof of that.
So let’s try this way, for once. Let’s give this country a fighting chance at actual progress.
PLEASE?
YES, to ALL of this!!!
C H I L L S
Alien 3 (1992)
Turning heavenward.
Image 1: Apollo 1. This was meant to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, but a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test killed all three crew members: Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee (pictured)
Image 2: Challenger. The first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft while in flight. The entire crew was killed: Dick Scobee, commander; Michael J. Smith, pilot; Ronald McNair, mission specialist; Ellison Onizuka, mission specialist; Judith Resnik, mission specialist; Gregory Jarvis, payload specialist; Christa McAuliffe, payload specialist, schoolteacher (pictured)
Image 3: Sputnik 2. Laika was the first living Earthling (other than fruit flies) in space, and her capsule was never designed to come home.
Image 4: Soyuz 11. Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev (pictured). The first people aboard a space station, spending 23 days aboard Salyut 1 in 1971. They died tragically on their return to earth when a valve failure caused their capsule to depressurise.
Image 5: Columbia. Space shuttle disintegrated upon re-entry, killing Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool, Mission Specialists Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon (pictured).
Image 6: Soyuz 1. The first human death in space. Vladimir Komarov (pictured) was killed when his descent module crashed upon re-entry. It is said that Komarov knew the mission was unsafe, but if he pulled out then they would have sent his friend to die instead: Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space).
Image 7: The Fallen Astronaut. A 3.5-inch (8.9 cm) aluminum sculpture that was left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 15 to commemorate the astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the advancement of space exploration.
Please, reblog! IIt’s called self defense. Apart from having here, in the US, one of the highest cases of homicide and rape in the world and high rate of GBV, think about how this could help your mother or sister
Yes indeed#💯💯💯💯💯
The Artemis II crew naming two previously undiscovered lunar craters (one after Commander Reid Wiseman's late wife).
I'm just... I'm reblogging this again because I keep bursting into tears because I just keep thinking about his KIDS.
This is Reid Wiseman with his two daughters, Ellie and Katherine. They lost Carroll to cancer just a few years ago. I know lots of people are saying what a sweet and romantic gesture it is for Reid, but... for me? I think about his daughters.
Can you imagine losing your mom when you're barely a teenager*, but knowing now that when you look up at the moon on the right nights, you'll be able to see a little bright spot that proves that humanity will remember how much your family loved her? That the whole world is going to feel that with their whole hearts?
What a beautiful gift that must be! What a remarkable moment, five years removed from the worst of the pain and grief, to have this monument to her memory, to your love for her, shared with the universe and all of posterity?
Carroll Wiseman was a NICU nurse and a beloved wife and mother and friend to everyone on the Artemis II mission crew and though she's gone, many nights they'll all be able to look up and say 'hey' to her memory. What a kindness.
If I wasn't already thrilled about NASA getting press for a big bold launch like this, this'd do it.
--
*I think; NASA is good about respecting the privacy of astronaut families so everything I've shared here is based on what little is available, which is good tbh.
Some of my favorite quotes from Artemis ii so far:
"Copy. Moon joy."
"I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."
"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."
“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”
"To all of you down there on Earth... we love you, from the moon."
"We just went sci fi."
"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."
"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."
“It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.”
People always wonder why we need to risk sending humans out to do this when we can just send a robot. I think this is a good explanation.
i would die for this thing
he's called Rise (like earth rise, the best fucking space picture ever) and he's the ZGI (zero gravity indicator) for this launch
which basically means they have a plushie free floating in the shuttle and when it starts floating around they know they're in zero gravity :3
WHEEEE!!!!!! YIPPEEEE!!!!!!! SPAAAAAAACE!!!!!!!!!
yall.
YALL.
Servalan's costumes, rated
I was supposed to be going out and doing fun things like bouldering tonight, but it's pouring with rain, so instead I'm staying in and looking at Blake's 7 screengrabs.
Screengrabs from here (they prefer their images copied, not linked) and record of what Servalan wears when from here.
As seen in Seek-Locate-Destroy.
We begin the list with what is - delightfully, amazingly - a relatively understated costume by Servalan standards. I guess it's the shorter sleeves over longer sleeves (a consistent Blake's 7 design choice, I guess that's just what fashion is like in the Grim Future) that gives the sense that this might be Dress Down Friday in the offices of the Federation. Almost dowdy in comparison with what's to come. Let's keep our powder dry for now. 5/10.
As seen in Project Avalon.
What amazes me about this costume is how silly it looks in screengrab form - seriously, take a moment to really look at Servalan's tiny head emerging turtle-like from the enormous quantity of furs - and yet, in motion, Jacqueline Pearce completely pulls it off. It's ridiculous, of course it is, but not for one moment do you doubt that this is the kind of thing that Servalan would choose to wear and feel comfortable in. It also gets an extra point or two for how the opening of the coat is tailored to the collar of the dress she wears underneath. 6/10.
As seen in Project Avalon and Deliverance.
There's a fun process that happens when you look at lots of Servalan's costumes (bearing in mind that I've preloaded all the images!) where you start to look at something like this and think, yeah, that looks normal enough, I could wear something like that to the office. And then you step back and go, no the fuck I couldn't, and you admire everyone involved in the process that brought us here. Love the beading and ruching, love the way that big collar actually looks quite comfortable, love the way that Jacqueline Pearce is lounging in it. 9/10.
As seen in Orac.
Trousers? On Servalan? Not sure how I feel about that, and I get the impression nor is she. On anyone else the coordination of white gloves and shiny white knee-high boots would be noteworthy, on Servalan it's just a Tuesday. Bit bland to be honest. 4/10.
As seen in Weapon.
There's an image limit to deal with, so I'm sacrificing at least one further fluffy overcoat thing in order to show more photos of this magnificent costume, and I make no apologies for that. Look at this swan-queen spun-sugar exposed-midriff confection of delight. Just when you think you've absorbed it all you notice the fishnet sleeves and the floor-length cape. Maybe it would be worth submitting to just a little bit of remorselessly evil oppression for the opportunity to float around all day dressed like this. 100/10.
As seen in Pressure Point.
It takes quite an outfit for you not to really notice the Sexy Stormtrooper vibe of the Mutoids in the background. And so Servalan is delivering quite an outfit here. What a jacket, what a hat. Ladies Day at Ascot never looked so good. 9/10.
As also seen in Pressure Point.
This is one of those beaded lizards that we all made when we were eight, right? I feel like I should like this: it's flattering, it's a bit weird, it's a nice dress with 25cm or more of a sparkly gecko giving it jazz hands across Servalan's chest, but somehow it's just not coming together for me. Maybe it's the lack of a massive collar. 5/10.
As seen in Trial and Voice from the Past.
No. Absolutely not. The nadir of Servalan outfits, from the weird double-breasted bodice, which I can only describe as military meets straitjacket, to the terrible combination of off-grey stockings and shiny silver shoes. Even Jacqueline Pearce is struggling to make this look good. 0/10.
As seen in Gambit.
From the nadir to very nearly the zenith. This is only one of two times that Servalan wears an outfit that isn't black or white and wow, does she make it count. The red! The glitter! The big frill thing that looks like the kind of adaptation a lizard might use to warn off predators! Also, not to get too pervy, but I think this has to get extra points for whatever machinations are preventing her boobs from making a bid from freedom from the astonishingly low neckline. 12/10.
As seen in The Keeper.
It's another big fluffy robe! But a different one from the previous big fluffy robe! I like to think she might be hiding snacks under there. 7/10.
As seen in Star One and Aftermath.
This is... a normal dress. Could be an understated bridal gown, plausibly a cocktail dress, but I could imagine both having this in my wardrobe and actually wearing it, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's just not what Servalan's costumes are for, you know? Obviously she looks great but where's the pizzazz, where's the oomph, where's the collar that could take someone's eye out? 6/10.
As seen in Aftermath and Powerplay.
This is technically Dayna's dress, but Servalan wears it for two whole episodes, so it counts. Which is a pity because it's just so drab. It shouldn't be! It has a funky triangle neckline, only one sleeve, and a ribbon arm wrap on the sleeveless side like she's heading off to a festival with hippies. Unfortunately the colour scheme brings to mind nothing so much as a faded bus seat and the smock-like cut is deeply unflattering. 2/10.
As seen in Volcano.
Things I like about this: for once Servalan gets to cover both shoulders, her arms and her cleavage. Jacqueline Pearce must have been so warm! It looks comfortable and practical. And dull, but I suppose it must be a lot of pressure on a Supreme Commander to look fabulous all the time. 4/10.
As seen in The Harvest of Kairos.
Fun fact, of all of Servalan's outfits this is actually the closest to something that I used to have in my wardrobe. Mine was navy blue on one side and stripey on the other, and the stripey side emerged into a similar enormous... sleeve... thing?? I never wore it to my day job, but you know, perhaps I should have done. These are the kinds of things that Servalan inspires us towards. 8/10.
As seen in Children of Auron.
And just like that, Servalan changes her colour scheme. Black, of course, looks just as good on her as white did, and I can't decide which I like better. What makes this outfit is the detailing: the collar, the little decorative slashes like a Tudor nobleman would use to show off his undershirt. 6/10.
As seen in Rumours of Death.
I just spent ages scrolling through red carpet photos to try to find the celebrity who I swear recently wore almost this exact outfit. And I can't find them. But never mind! This ticks so many boxes for me: it looks everso pretty, it seems wearable, and the floofy sleeve feels like it reflects plausible fashion trends of the Blake's 7 universe. 9/10.
As seen in Moloch.
Whereas this is not working for me. This is, thank goodness, Servalan's only foray into full-on 80s shoulders (unlike poor Avon, whose costumes suffered from this for the whole of series D) and I do not like it. The wide shoulders, made to look wider by the silver detailing, just serve to make the rest of her look small. And no one should make Servalan look small. 3/10.
As seen in Death-Watch.
Just a normal LBD, innit. 5/10.
As also seen in Death-Watch.
This is the same dress underneath with a semitransparent beaded cardi over the top. It should be fun and vaguely goth, but instead it reminds me of nothing so much as the kind of thing you throw on when you're worried you're showing too much skin for a funeral. Amazing how it makes her look about 10 years older too. I miss the days of the massive collars. 2/10.
As seen in Terminal.
For someone who is confidently writing a series of posts about costume design choices, I know exceptionally little about costume, and as a result I don't actually know what this is made of. Is it leather? Some kind of matt-looking PVC? It's a solid costume choice, anyway; I'm starting to think that the mark of a good Servalan outfit is how much difficulty I have with the image description. In this instance, I have no idea what the thing on her shoulder is and I love it. I also love that this is the 80s and therefore she's allowed to be on TV with a normal human belly. 8/10.
As seen in Traitor.
MAGNIFICENT SHOWSTOPPING ICONIC. She looks like a sexy raven and she's having such a great time. The way the points of her eyeliner match the points of her hair! This is the kind of thing that drives people to cosplay. I don't think I would get a buzzcut and dye my hair solely to get this look just right, but I'm also not ruling it out. 20/10
As seen in Animals.
It's so disappointing when you get an outfit spot on and then it's in the wash, and all you can manage from what's available in your wardrobe is an half-hearted replica. That seems to be what's happened to Servalan here. Sorry, Supreme Commander, but sexy raven lightning doesn't strike twice. 6/10.
As seen in Assassin.
Later on she wears a sort of lacy cardi over it, but I have an image limit and I'd only be repeating what I said for Death-Watch, so we're going to skip that one.
This is another normal dress. It's a perfectly fine normal dress; it's hard to see from the photo, but I like the fabric belt, and those are undeniably good earrings. Still, it's not exactly strange enough for a Servalan costume, and I feel for Jacqueline Pearce having to do this whole episode without a bra. 7/10
As seen in Games.
Just as I am running out of ideas for commentary, I feel like the Blake's 7 costume designers were running out of ideas for outfits. This feels like it has a bunch of disparate ideas thrown at it - polka dots! fluff! peephole thing! - but the vibe is of a reality TV show fashion challenge where they have a box of stuff and 20 mins to turn it into a dress. 4/10.
As seen in Sand.
This is a floor-length dress, but it's best in close-ups: it's the detail that matters. It looks pretty, comfortable, and quite soft. It's a nice costume, but is it really a Servalan costume? It doesn't scream command like some of the others on this list. 5/10.
As seen in Orbit.
Don't worry about what I cut to be able to include two photos again, because this is worth it. From the front it's good but not great (though I'm glad she gets a bit more boob support in this one!) but from the back? Superb. She's wearing the splendid earrings from Assassin again, but here they also reflect the detailing on the back of the dress - oh, it's just a delight. A very creditable note to end on. 9/10.
