M I L E S

 E R F I D E •  V I C T U S •  M I L E S  → a rogue soldier,Pwithout battalion or army, in pursuit of justice, example: vigilante.  [ Soldier 76 / Jack Morrison RP Blog 18+ ] [est 2/18 and remade 7/19] - Independent | Selective Vent/NSFW sideblog

[pcrfide]

                     Hiraeth : homesickness or nostalgia, an earnest longing or desire, or a                                                                                                                                   sense of regret.                                                      — A desire to return to the past.—                                                   Soldier 76 / Jack Morrison RP/ASK Blog                                                     by indi. 

[pcrfide]

                                       r u l e s     |   a b o u t   |  a s k  |   m u s e

[pcrfide]

Think I might delete this blog, and try something new.

[pcrfide]

                     Hiraeth : homesickness or nostalgia, an earnest longing or desire, or a                                                                                                                                   sense of regret.                                                      — A desire to return to the past.—                                                   Soldier 76 / Jack Morrison RP/ASK Blog                                                     by indi. 

[pcrfide]

                                       r u l e s     |   a b o u t   |  a s k  |   m u s e

[chronal-anomaly]

‎‎‎ Life comes atcha fast.

‎ Independent Lena "Tracer" Oxton from Blizzard's Overwatch. Loved by Spacy Carrd.

[pcrfide]

Anyone wanna help my rusty ass get back into RP?

[crystal-ball-of-ow-canon]

My SEP bois 🥰🥰🥰

[pcrfide]

Pretty sure I'm like eight games, sixteen events and a couple of decades too late- but if there's anyone out there in the void still goin' strong. Lemme know.

[pcrfide]

I was not aware, that this blog was four years old. Jesus.

[just-let-me-drink]

[childmagazine]

someone from 1997 wished me good luck. it’s like someone from so many years back knows your struggles and i just, i think i’m gonna cry

[that-space-boy]

reblogging for luck from friend in 1997

[pcrfide]

I just read the new short story. 

[pantone-palette]

Hey guys, if you have the time please click this link and go view the AIDS memorial quilt. As of last year, all 1.2 million feet of the quilt has been photographed and made viewable to the public.

As such a cornerstone to our community as queer people, the AIDS quilt was a sign of love and remembrance of all who were lost. And for some, with no solution in sight. What a wonder science is, because living as HIV/AIDS positive is no longer a death sentence. It is a treatable and manageable disease. We can live full and happy long lives and not transmit the disease.

When it was intitially unveiled, the quilt had about 2,000 panels and it was now bloomed into 48,000. The majority of them measuring 6'3". About the size of a grave.

I urge you to take the time to treasure, understand, and support our community. As their lives and the queer movement- have brought undoubtable freedom as we live in our own.

Making a quilt can take countless of hours. And a quilt of this size, it's a whole generations worth.

Love your queer elders. Love your gay history. Live free, today.

[hime-memes]

Reblog if you’re a ‘ low maintenance ‘ RP Partner.

( This is typically someone who doesn’t hound their partners for replies and has a relaxed style for conducting their RP blogs ! Feel free to specify what this means to you in particular in the tags ! )

[rpinkling]

You don’t need to say you’re disabled, physically ill, mentally ill, neurodivergent, working overtime, etc as a reason to not reply to your roleplay partners instantaneously. You don’t need to have any reason for not dropping everything to respond to roleplay partners. This culture of "instant replies" is very new, and it's also unrealistic. Nobody should be expected to be online and responding 24-7. Even if someone is online on discord, Skype, Wire, etc, don't expect them to respond to you immediately. And if you're on the other side, don't beat yourself up for not responding to people immediately, for literally any reason!

Give yourself some grace, take a deep breath. It's ok. People will understand, and if they don't, then they're not worth your worry.

[beckettmariner-deactivated20200]

You ever invite your coworker to watch you give birth just to spite a racist

[linguisticparadox]

Okay howmst the fuck has a ship doctor in the far future never handled a birth without the father present? Are sperm donors and gay couples and trans women no longer a thing in the bajillionth century CE?? :/

[thatoldantique]

I while understand the frustration with erasure sometimes it helps to look at things through the cultural context of when something was made. Star Trek the Next Generation was made in 1987, this particular episode I believe aired in 1988 a time when a future where the husband was always present for the birth would have been amazing to many of the people watching the show as men had only been allowed to be present for the birth of their children for 10/15ish years at that point in the US.

Women (and many men) fought for decades with hospitals to even have men allowed in the delivery room during the early stages of labor, which can last for several hours, and hospitals only began to give in to their requests in the 1960s but even then they would be kicked out of the room by hospital staff before the actual birth took place. So many of the couples watching the show would have had to go through labor without having/being allowed to support their spouse regardless of their wishes. Having the child’s father present for the birth only began to happen in the 1970s and 1980s. Which means most people watching this show either went through birth without the support of their spouse, were not allowed to support their spouse during the birth of their child, or their own mother’s went through that during their birth.

A future where the husbands were always present for the birth was still a little crazy to consider in the late 1980s. A good kind of crazy for the people living in that time, it showed a future where the wishes of the couple were finally consistently listened to by medical professionals as a result of the actions of people during their or their parent’s lifetimes. And it does that by also subverting it in allowing Data to step into the role of the father when the father was unknown and/or unwilling/unable to fill that role (I’ll be honest my knowledge of Next Gen is a bit spotty and I have not seen this whole episode, just a piece of it at family Thanksgiving). The woman’s desires as to how she would give birth are listened to and respected, something that still doesn’t happen in many hospitals now and would have been seen as even more revolutionary then. So while it isn’t perfect I think this scene was actually fairly impressive for its time and cultural context and shows a future that many people of that time would have seen as ideal.

[cannon-fannon]

I think this kind of contextual understanding and analysis is really important because things that look antiquated now were revolutionary then. I remember reading that the mini skirts in Star Trek TOS were legot just in fashion (about 64’ ish), one of the actresses (the one that played Rand) requested they be in the show and both her and Nichelle Nichols said they didn’t see them as demeaning but liberating in that time and context. Where as NOW it looks like ‘sexy male gaze’ but then it wasn’t.

[elfwreck]

Miniskirts are comfortable and easy to move in - unlike longer bulkier skirts, which had previously been required for “modesty.” And unlike the approach of “we’ll just put them in pants,” miniskirts made a statement that women crew-members weren’t being treated like men. Miniskirts were a way to say “I can be an attractive woman, wear comfortable clothes, and still look professional and do a serious job.” 

The clothing for that message today would be different. 

[prismatic-bell]

This is also why the bridge crew of TOS may seem “tokenistic” today. When it came out, the Cold War was in full swing and “Soviets” were maligned and hated, Black people could not count on their right to vote being honored, and mixed-race people (like Spock) were called horrible things like “half-breed” and “zebra.” A white man was in charge of the ship, but Gene Roddenberry was fully aware that a chunk of the viewership read him as queer, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DISCOURAGE THAT READING, at a time when “homosexual activity” was illegal in the United States!

By today’s standards, “one of everything? How tokenistic.” In 1966? “A Black woman, a Russian, a man from multiple cultures, and a man who loves differently, all top of their fields, all working together and finding common ground to learn, grow, and help where they can? What a wonderful future!”

[charismat1c-megafauna]

Also I’m sorry but like. A show also featuring a Japanese man who isn’t a stereotype but part of the crew, having a Scottish character be a part of the central cast (idk if I need to get into why this is important, but considering how England has continuously tried to erase Scottish culture and identity, and the stereotype of Scots as bumbling bumpkins, etc, its kind of nice to see a Scotsman who’s the best of the best at his job).

Moreover, a lot of kids watched this show. MLK himself contacted Nichelle Nichols and asked her to stay on the show when she was considering leaving, because “you don’t have a Black role, you have an equal role,” and there wasnt many Black role models on tv. I can only imagine how Black kids, Asian kids, and mixed race or mixed culture kids felt seeing people like them on tv. Hell, seeing Uhura on screen is what inspired Whoopi Goldberg as a little girl.

Also, yeah, its easy to look back and say ‘damn, fathers weren’t there in the delivery room? What assholes’ but no like they legitimately were not allowed in there.

[gayahithwen]

Tiny correction: while George Takei is Japanese, and while Sulu thus looks like what we in the 20th-21st century consider to be an ethnically Japanese man, Hikaru Sulu was Pan-Asian by design. His last name is not Japanese. And Roddenberry designed him like that intentionally, because while there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment in the US at the time (I mean, hell… George Takei himself spent years in Japanese internment camps during WW2), there was also a lot of other anti-Asian sentiments, and Roddenberry intentionally put ALL of it on the character of Sulu.

Like, all the years of anti-Chinese racism in the US? Sulu. Anti-Japanese sentiments left over after WW2? Sulu. Korean War in 1950-52? Sulu. The Vietnam War, with Johnson in 1965 (a year before TOS started airing) choosing to start sending American troops into the conflict? Sulu.

Sulu was Roddenberry’s desperate attempt to show all Asian people as inherently worthy, inherently human, and yeah, he probably put kind of too much on Sulu’s shoulders, but it was the 1960s and Roddenberry fucking cared about representation, so he did what he could.

Just, you know… a little bit more historical Star Trek context

[gholateg]

Also to hammer this home?

Scotty was third in line for the captain’s chair. The only non-Kirk who had the con more then him was Spock.

He was smart, he was a *ranked* crewmen, he was a gentleman, he wasn’t a skirt chaser, and he was capitol L loyal. The only time he got into a fight was when someone both went after his Captain, AND his Ship.

And he was Scottish. 

That’s so above and beyond the typical Scottish stereotype even TO THIS DAY.

[earhartsease]

Dr Polaski was coded as something of an arse just so they could make their valid points about equality and bigotry using her as a foil. Yes it was kind of clumsy from a modern perspective, but it was also kind of groundbreaking (not least because you didn’t usually get arses being played by women)

[aqueerkettleofish]

I am hard-coded to put this on any post that mentions MLK and Nichelle Nichols.

Also, it’s very worth noting that the “token minority character” label doesn’t apply in any way to these characters.

Tokens are there to present the appearance of diversity. Whereas Roddenberry created a diverse cast in an era where there wasn’t even a need for the appearance of diversity. Roddenberry didn’t put these characters in because he wanted to look diverse– he put them in to BE DIVERSE.

[norisunorin]

三重県　伊勢市　賓日館　おひなさまめぐり　Mie Hinjitsukan Hinamatsuri

[pcrfide]

@southernsquall

[pipistrellus]

STILL ON PATROL

I learned something new and horrifying today which is… that… no submarine is ever considered “lost” … there is apparently a tradition in the U.S. Navy that no submarine is ever lost. Those that go to sea and do not return are considered to be “still on patrol.”

?????

There is a monument about this along a canal near here its… the worst thing I have ever seen. it says “STILL ON PATROL” in huge letters and then goes on to specify exactly how many WWII submarine ghosts are STILL OUT THERE, ON PATROL (it is almost 2000 WWII submarine ghosts, ftr). Here is the text from it:

“U.S. Navy Submarines paid heavily for their success in WWII. A total of 374 officers and 3131 men are still on board these 52 U.S. submarines still on patrol.”

THANKS A LOT, U.S. NAVY, FOR HAVING THIS TOTALLY NORMAL AND NOT AT ALL HORRIFYING TRADITION, AND TELLING ALL OF US ABOUT IT. THANKS. THANK YOU

anyway now my mother and I cannot stop saying STILL ON PATROL to each other in ominous tones of voice

[tharook]

There’s definitely something ominous about that—the implication that, one day, they will return from patrol.

[thehoneybeewitch]

Actually, it’s rather sweet. I don’t know if this is common across the board, but my dad’s friend is a radio op for subs launched off the east coast, and he always is excited for Christmas, because they go through the list of SoP subs and hail them, wishing them a merry Christmas and telling them they’re remembered.

Imagine a country whose seamen never die, and whose submarines can’t be destroyed…because no ones sure if they exist or not.

[hardoncaulfield]

No but imagine. It’s Christmas. A black, rotting corridor in a forgotten submarine. The sound of dripping water echoes coldly through the hull. You can’t see very far down the corridor but then, a man appears, he’s running, in a panic, but his footsteps make no noise. The spectral seaman dashes around the corner and slips through a rusty wall. He finds himself at the back of a crowd of his cadaverous crew-mates. They part to let him through. He feels the weight of their hollow gaze as he reaches the coms station. Even after all these years a sickly green light glistens in the dark. The captain’s skeleton lays a sharp hand on his shoulder and nods at him encouragingly, the light sliding over the bones of his skull. The ghost of the seaman steadies himself and slips his fingers into the dials of the radio, possessing it. It wails and screeches. A bombardment of static. And then silence. The deathly crew mates look at each other with worry, with sadness; could this be the year where there is no voice in the dark? No memory of home? The phantasm of the sailor pushes his hand deeper into the workings of the radio, the signal clears, and then a strong voice, distant with the static but warm and kind, echoes from the darkness; “Merry Christmas boys, we’re all thinking of you here at home, have a good one.” A sepulchral tear wafts it’s way down the seaman’s face. The bony captain embraces him. The crew grin through rotten jaws, laughing silently in their joy. They haven’t forgotten us. They haven’t forgotten.

[beautifultoastdream-deactivated]

I am completely on board with this. It’s not horrifying, it’s heartwarming.

Personal story time: whenever I go to Field Museum’s Egypt exhibit, I stop by the plaque at the entrance to the underground rooms. It has an English translation of a prayer to feed the dead, and a list of all the names they know of the mummies on display there. I always recite the prayer and read aloud the list of names. They wanted to live forever, to always have their souls fed and their names spoken. How would they feel about being behind glass, among strangers? Every little thing you can do to give respect for the dead is warranted.

I love the idea of lost subs still being on patrol. Though if you really want something ominous, let me say that the superstitious part of me wonders: why are they still on patrol? If they haven’t been found, do they not consider their mission completed? What is it out there that they are protecting us from?

[amusewithaview]

@boromir-queries-sean

[emilysidhe]

 There’s been something in the water since we first learned to float on it.  Not marine life, although there’s more of that than we’ll ever know.  Not rocks and currents and sand bars and icebergs either, although they’ve all taken more than their share of human life.

But something deeper.  Something Other.  Something not natural.

Sailors have always been superstitious.

Not one of them described it right.

You don’t hear about it so much now that we don’t lose ships anymore, really, not like we did at the height of the sea trade when barely an inch of ocean floor didn’t bear some wreck or other.  And better ships and GPS and weather satellites have all played their part in that.

But we have protection now that we didn’t before.  They don’t interfere with war and battle, even on behalf of what used to be their country, or with rocks and weather and human stupidity.  Those are concerns for the living.

But the Other Things, the Things that shouldn’t be there - They can’t get to us now without a fight.  It’s a fight They haven’t won in a very long time.

As long as we remember them, as long as we call out to them - not very often, just once a year will do - they will keep protecting us from the Things that go bump in the deep.

More than fifty submarines, Still On Patrol.

[animatedamerican]

I love everything about this, but it’s the last bit that made me say “okay now I’ll reblog it.”

[musicxmusingsxmemes]

Nichelle Nichols, Shields Up!, organized by Marian Nichols Smothers

Help Legendary Nichelle Nichols Recover from Tragic Elder Abuse Perpetrated by … Marian Nichols Smothers needs your support for Nichelle Ni