To Be Seen As We Truly Are

Andrea ~ 26 ~ Draco Malfoy enthusiastic ~ Supernatural alcoholic ~ probably reading Loki fic ~ rewatching Merlin at least twice a year ~ busy traveling with the Doctor

[mostlyflesh]

“why do you like this character you do know that if they existed they’d just try to kill you right” actually no they’d fall madly in love with me

[cassianandfenrysaremyboyos]

My taste in men? 200 years + and fictional

[meanwhilepoetry]

“Sometimes I think of you, Medusa. Inside your temple, mournful, surrounded by a hundred stone statues. The men who came to kill you and never left were named lost heroes, warriors, demigods whilst you were called monster, gorgon, terror. (Because the stories were always written by men) But this was never a story about a monster. It was always about a woman burned for a Sea God’s sin, a pawn in an ancient game the fates would never let her win. You did not desecrate that which is sacred, it was him. (But your story was always written by men) You begged him not to visit you, you pleaded with every God. But the Gods turned away when you needed them. You did not want to be remembered this way. And then one day, whilst you slept, a son of Zeus came. And killed you before you could even look his way. (And he too was named hero because the stories were always written by men) Someone once said, words cut deeper than a knife. That history is told by the victors. That he who tells the story is the one who controls the world. Women did not get to write your story, Medusa. Because if we did, a very different tale would be told. (And in our tale, you would not be Monster. But Priestess. Goddess. A maiden who once had a heart of gold.)”

— Nikita Gill, Excerpt from Maidens, Myths and Monsters

[aliciavikander]

BUCKY + smiling in Episode 5 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier

[nightofthecreeps]

That shield means a lotta things to a lotta people, including me. — Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER Episode 3 › “Power Broker”

[wandasmaximoff]

SAM: Can’t argue with that .

[smilecapsules-deactivated202106]

“He’s not my partner.” Sure, Jan.

[nodistanceistoofar]

Tonight I rewatched Avengers: Endgame...and after almost two years I’m still an emotional wreck

[buckybarnesj]

metal arm porn - p6

bonus: 🥺

[sebastians-stan]

SEBASTIAN STAN as BUCKY BARNES in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (2021) | The Whole World Is Watching

[mattmaesonnatural]

Alright James, why does Sam aggravate you? — TFATWS, Episode 2

[nodistanceistoofar]

This kinda broke me

[screamingintothevoid28]

Me: I'm fine, totally fine

Also me: *types in The Song Of Achilles into tumblr just to feel something every day*

[nodistanceistoofar]

He is half of my soul, as the poets say.

[starlitsilvereyes]

"Name one hero who was happy."

— Achilles, The Song of Achilles

I. The first time he sees the Mirror of Erised, he sees everything he could ever dream of and more, right in front of him. Only when he tries to feel the touch of his mother hand on his shoulder that he realises she’s not really there.

Harry stares at his reflection in the mirror, torn between utter disbelief and dread and everything in between. It is one of his first memories with his parents, one that he’s actually old enough to be able to remember and yet, it is not real — a creation of his greatest desires.

He tries to touch the mirror once, and even goes as far as to try to cross over it, to go somewhere he could be with his parents, a place with love.

At eleven years old, Harry Potter questions why love is ever so highly spoken of when it’s unreachable.

II. It is Cedric’s death that makes Harry realise how destructive it is, being chosen by fate to defeat a Dark Wizard.

He watches the life dissolve off of Cedric’s eyes as the killing curse hits him, like stars exploding into supernovas — the light gone within the blink of an eye as it leaves the world a black sky.

Every time Harry closes his eyes, he’s back in the graveyard, flashes of green light and memories of Cedric fighting for him and getting killed in the process haunts his day and nights; he never stops mourning Cedric’s death and the life he could’ve had.

Harry decides he is going to avenge Cedric — no matter what it takes.

III. Sirius Black is the closest thing Harry will ever have to a family.

It all starts with a promise: Sirius telling Harry he’ll adopt him someday when things get sorted out for him — Harry doesn’t have to go back to the Dursleys anymore. He’s going to be living with Sirius, maybe in a country, somewhere they can see the sky. Sirius will like that, after being locked up for so many years, he deserves to see himself in the sky amongst the stars.

Harry holds on to that promise — it got him through living with the Dursleys for a few more summers, it is only a matter of time before he can leave that god awful of a place Pivet Drive is for good.

And just like all promises, hopes, and dreams, it is taken away from him in the image of Sirius’ smile faltering, the veil suddenly becoming vivid and pulling Sirius in, away from the world of happiness he’s yet to experience and away from Harry.

He tries to pull Sirius back but Remus stops him. He screams and yells Sirius’s name until his throat is raw and his voice is left as no more than a rasp, squirming in Remus’ arms as he holds him, as if he knows Harry will follow Sirius into the veil without a second thought if he doesn’t.

In an attempt to avenge Sirius, Harry tries to haul a forbidden curse at Bellatrix Lestrange — for a moment, he does not recognise himself, for all he is made of is pain and suffering and grief. The curse fails and Bellatrix laughs at his failure,

“You have to mean it, stupid boy!” She says in a fit of disheartening giggles before disappearing into nothing but green smoke and ashes.

Harry does mean it, he is angry and all he could think of is Sirius, ever so brave, radiant, and kind as he told Harry he is the spitting image of his father; and just like his father, Sirius is gone. Never to keep his promises to Harry, their plans for when Sirius adopts him slipping through Harry’s fingers like sand spilling through a broken hourglass.

If this is what it costs to be a hero, then he doesn’t want to be a hero anymore.

IV. Harry is not a stranger to death, and yet he feels fear lingering over him, cascading through every part of him until it seeps into his very soul.

“Does it hurt, dying?” He asks Sirius moments before he surrenders himself to Voldemort.

“Quicker than falling asleep.” Sirius answers with a soft smile.

He looks at his mother, takes in the sight of her soft smile as she reaches for him, but her hand never quite touches his; he strains to reach for her, to feel a physical proof that she is really there with him and not just a dream. It becomes reminder that they’re still worlds apart despite the fact that she and the rest of his family stands before him.

And just like that, at seventeen years old, Harry Potter walks into his death, accepting it with open arms because he never really had a choice in the first place. It is ironic, how the chosen one has never chosen anything in his life, but pain and suffering always chooses him.

He survives the killing curse, and defeats Voldemort after that. He is suprised at how hollow he feels — he expects it would be fulfilling, killing the creature who was the root of every pain he’s ever felt, so he feels it no longer. And yet, he is left with a dull ache: the remnants of the war, of everyone who died for him — it is as if the war never ends, it stays with him even after everything.

After all, what kind of hero would he be if he were happy?

[lxvelyfxndoms]

I JUST FINISHED READING THE SONG OF ACHILLES AND I THINK I MIGHT CURL UP AND CRY FOR A FEW HOURS. THE ENDING WAS SO SAD BUT BEAUTIFUL I CAN’T EVEN HANDLE IT-

[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.

[mylordshesacactus]

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.

[prismatic-bell]

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do good now! Walk justly now! No one is expected to complete the work, but neither may any one desist from it.” — Rabbi Tarfon, Ethics of the Fathers

Carpathia embodied this saying. They failed to save all. They succeeded in saving some. This is all anyone could ask.

[the-pandora-jar]

Any minor inconvenience in my life: happens

Me and my sensitive ass: