Make A Splash

[makeasplash15]

Being in the Project Hail Mary and Resident Evil Requiem fandoms sure involves a lot of "figure it out through context." Grace is a theater kid? I'm lost without a map. Grace is fighting an eldritch abomination? Cool. Is Simon there or Leon Kennedy?

[mylordshesacactus]

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.

[carouselcometh]

Does anyone want to go out into the winter storm and play polar expedition with me

[sca-nerd]

[mustakrakisch]

@swanfloatieknight I feel like you can relate as well

[makeasplash15]

Au where Lucifer gets around not being able to attack Vox by never finishing his song

[sentientsky]

characters going “we were lovers once”: eh, it’s okay i guess. it’s nice enough

characters going “we were friends once”: absolutely devastating. one hit knockout i’m gone

[makeasplash15]

Refreshing AO3 for the “Will rips off the Mind Flayer’s legs like a giant spider” fics

[ziyuanyuan1113]

Saw Superman recently and proceeded to rewatch Batman right after. They finally have two versions that complement each other well. Pls combine universes, it would be so fun :(

X

Bsky

[shrugsinchinese]

It’s that time of year again

[prophetic-writer]

Becoming a writer is great because now you have a hobby that haunts you whenever you don’t have time to do it

[makeasplash15]

I’m not exactly on the “Gwi-Ma is Rumi’s father” train because I just don’t see her mom falling for him. But! I don’t think “somethin’ about when you come for the crown, that’s so humblin’, huh?” and “Given the throne, I didn’t know how to believe I was the queen that I’m meant to be” are a coincidence. Combine that with the fact that Gwi-Ma can’t control her and her ability to tear holes in the Honmoon with her voice, she definitely seems to be related to him in some capacity.

Did he have a son?

In any case, if ruling the Demon Realm is done through succession, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to think that Rumi would be next in line

[jollyart]

No one is coming to save you.

You guys don't understand how much I love this frame of the Your Idol performance:

The rest of the Saja boys have their eyes closed (I'm assuming Mystery has his eyes closed too), worshipping their Demon King, offering the souls they're about to harvest, while Jinu has his eyes open with a look of desperation. He's at his breaking point. His guilt just keeps growing and growing. He's endlessly falling in a pit of regret with no escape. He wants GwiMa to end it all, to end his suffering, and he'll offer all the poor souls he can get for his final shame of a selfish act.

[lexithestarqueen]

*slowly holds up more K-Pop Demon Hunters concept art*

JINU??

He looks uncomfortable

Magazine cover gasp

They're so coool

HUH???

[arinavah]

I LOVE THEM!!!

[makeasplash15]

I’m 98% sure that the reason the hat is so small is because Jinu made it when the tiger was still a kitten

[makeasplash15]

I know the family not interacting with/seeing Gabe is for the best because he’s a manifestation of unresolved grief and they’re healing. Even Gabe seems to recognize this. There’s a line he sings in “I’m Alive” that goes “And I’ll tell you the truth if you let me try” which makes me think that he’s limited by Diana’s perception and what she wants to hear, but he’s also aware of himself on some level. He’s telling his parents - though not in the nicest way - that they need to grieve him. Yet, at the same time, he’s so desperate to be seen, so scared of being alone, that I can’t help feeling bad for him.

Dan hugs Natalie in “Light”, as he should, and Diana doesn’t acknowledge Gabe, showing that she’s healing, but I wish Gabe could be happy, too. It was the grief that twisted him into something terrible. That wasn’t his fault. And I see him sitting alone in the kitchen, in the dark, while his family moves on without him, and all I see is a boy.

[devongeorgeart]

HEY! Go read Murderbot!