“It's time people should stop romantisize the imperial harems of Ancient China and Ottoman Empire. Yes there are instances where concubines has risen to the rank of Empress like Wu Zetian and Hurrem Sultan but what about those who didn't, what about those who rot in those gilded cages because their masters didn't pay mind to them.” - Submitted by Anonymous
I don’t know very much about Imperial China, but it is exactly this romanticization that’s put me off from watching “Magnificent Century”. These women were kidnapped from their homes and sold in the market. Hürrem was a slave. She may have fallen in love with the sultan, and he may have freed her and made her his legal wife; but she met him as a slave and her consent was meaningless because refusal wasn’t an option. Hürrem is literally her slave name- we can’t even be sure what name her parents called her.
CHILD SOLDIERS: Another Humanitarian Crisis in the Making in Iran
There are reports that that IRGC is trying to recruit children as young as 12 years old into its ranks for suppression and surveillance. Keep in mind that while they're not being overt in the marketing of this opportunity, they're going to arm and militarize these children. They want to get kids involved in their operations and their fight not just to bolster their numbers but also to create human shields. And if these kids somehow end up killed because they're caught up in the crossfire, they'll be passed off as martyrs and victims.
If anyone doesn't believe that this is their MO, I urge you to look into their use of child soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War. They have a history of this behavior.
The safety of children means nothing to them. These children are tools for propaganda, whether it's through making it seem like they have more support and having more tools or through having more sacrificial pawns whose deaths can be used to spread a distorted message.
Iranian children and teens say they hate the iri: WELL they’ve clearly been brainwashed to parrot western zionist propaganda, anything less than fawning adoration for the evil theocracy ruling over them with an iron fist is due to nefarious (((outside interference))), and besides their lives hold worth inasmuch as they exist purely for the mullahs’ benefit and the occasional pro-regime photo op for western revolutionary comrades to circulate on social media (but never ever talk to those children face to face of course)
Unpopular but not untrue! Amazing book!Alicent breakdown. If it’s cool, I would love your take on the following: Alicent as the “evil-stepmother”. Do you think she was abusive?
- I watched season 1 when it came out and then read fire & blood before the release of season 2. One of the main critics I heard while watching is that they made Alicent too nice and sympathetic because she was meant to be the clear antagonist: the cruel older woman “beefing with a 9 year old” and “worse than Catelyn was to Jon” and “cruler than Cersei”. When I read the book, I was so confused because it seems to me that Alicent just prioritized her own children (the way Viserys favored Rhaenyra) and the two didn’t like spend time in each other’s company. I definitely don’t think there was physical abuse. As queen, I guess the worst Alicent could do was spread rumors (although Laenor being gay was an open secret and Harwin’s looks and behavior made it clear he was the father), isolate her politically (although Rhaenyra had her own faction of supporters as well as her own court at Dragonstone), and maybe make changes to her household a la Katherine Howard dismissing Mary Tudor’s ladies or even shortening her allowance (but we see Viserys’s solution to the problem was showering Alicent & Rhaenyra both with gold and other gifts and again Rhaenyra had her own court at Dragonstone where she would’ve been in complete control of her household).
Anon, no, I don’t buy “evil stepmother” as an accurate read of book!Alicent, and I don’t think she was abusive in the fairy-tale sense people keep trying to staple onto her.
The “Alicent beefing with a 9-year-old” framing is fandom propaganda more than it is what the text actually supports. In Fire & Blood, what you mostly see is a court that hardens into factions around a succession problem that Viserys refuses to solve like an adult. Alicent prioritizes her children the same way Viserys prioritizes Rhaenyra, and because Westeros is Westeros, that automatically becomes a political conflict. That’s not an older woman tormenting a child for sport. That’s a queen doing exactly what queens in that system are trained to do. And that is to protect her line, secure her children’s future, and build influence where she can.
Could Alicent be cold? Yes. Could she be politically aggressive? Absolutely. She’s a court operator. But “abusive” implies a pattern of personal cruelty and targeted harm in the household, and the book doesn’t really give you that in any concrete way. There’s no strong evidence of physical abuse, and even the emotional abuse angle is mostly assumed rather than shown. Most of what people cite is interpersonal hostility, gossip, and factional maneuvering, which is basically the default setting of King’s Landing.
If anything, the bigger issue is that Rhaenyra wasn’t an easy person to live with, even as a young adult. She reads spoiled, entitled, promiscuous and stubbornly convinced the world should bend around her claim. She wanted the privileges and deference of a male heir without accepting that the realm she lived in would punish her for doing exactly that. That tension isn’t “Alicent made her this way.” That’s Viserys raising his daughter like she’s untouchable and then refusing to do the political work to make her succession stable. Viserys is the root problem. He sets up a situation where two women are forced into rivalry by design, then acts surprised when they don’t braid each other’s hair and sing kumbaya.
Also, a lot of what later “happens to” Rhaenyra isn’t something Alicent engineers at all, it’s the natural consequence of Rhaenyra’s own choices colliding with a brutal political reality. She makes enemies because she treats pushback as insult. She fuels rumor and doubt by being reckless with optics, then acts wounded when the realm does what the realm always does: judges, gossips, and weaponizes perception. She expects people to risk their lives and houses for her claim while she repeatedly undermines confidence in her judgment, and when support wavers she responds with anger and punishment instead of coalition-building. Even the personal disasters that spiral into political ones often start with her refusal to compromise, her need to win every room, and her belief that being the named heir should automatically override the fact that she is still operating inside a sexist, violent system she refuses to manage intelligently. Alicent may be a political rival, but Rhaenyra is also her own worst strategist, and a lot of her downfall is self-inflicted.
In short: I don’t think Alicent is the wicked stepmother archetype. She’s a woman trained for court, put into an unstable succession crisis, doing what the system incentivizes her to do. Rhaenyra’s worst traits aren’t “Alicent’s fault.” They’re the product of her personality, her position, and Viserys’s long-term incompetence as a father and king.
By team black logic every noblewoman in Westeros becomes an “evil stepmother” the moment she advocates for her own child’s inheritance.
The idea that Alicent was “beefing with a child” is fandom bullshit. In the early years of Viserys’ second marriage the sources barely mention open hostility between Alicent & Rhaenyra. In fact the few details we do have suggest normal court dynamics not a grown woman harassing a little girl. At the wedding young Rhaenyra pours wine for her stepmother and participates in the ceremony customs. After that the sources go relatively quiet about their relationship for several years. There isn’t a long list of Alicent antagonizing a child the way people claim. The open conflict between them really escalates later when rhaneyra is a teenage / adult esp once factions begin forming around their children and once Daemon’s presence at court re-enters the equation.
I don’t know if George directly based their relationship on Anne Boleyn / Mary I but he has compared the dance to the era of Henry VIII of England and his wives so the parallels aren’t coming out of nowhere. And when you actually look at it, the similarities between Anne Boleyn / Mary I of England and Rhaenyra / Alicent are kind of hard to ignore.
Link 🔗:
Mary’s relationship with Anne Boleyn is mostly told through Eustace Chapuys… which is already a red flag. And the same thing happens with Rhaenyra and Alicent their relationship is told by biased narrators like Septon Eustace and Mushroom. In both cases, we’re not actually seeing the relationship as it was we’re seeing it as it was exaggerated and politicized. So what do all three have in common? They all benefit from telling a dramatic, biased version of events AND none of them are neutral observers. Which means Anne vs Mary and Rhaenyra vs Alicent have something deeper in common that they’re not just rivalries they’re stories distorted by the people telling them.
We actually have real letters showing Anne tried twice to make peace with Mary I of England. Both times, Anne basically said “I’ll support you, advocate for you to your father, we can be on good terms… if you acknowledge me as queen.” Which let’s be real put Mary in an impossible position, because doing that meant betraying her mother, Catherine of Aragon. Mary refused both times and stayed openly defiant. And yes, Anne’s position was shaky, so she reacted harshly at one point (the infamous “box her ears” letter). But here’s the thing people ignore If Anne had actually physically abused Mary, Chapuys the number one Anne hater would have RUN with that story. And… he didn’t. That silence says a lot. And the same logic applies to Alicent and Rhaenyra. Alicent never physically abuses Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra is the king’s named heir and she has her own status and protection. Any direct physical harm would be an immediate political crisis.
I do think the “evil stepmother” story around Alicent really came from the show especially because it adds visibly hostile, physical abuse that don’t exist in the book. The dagger scene where she hurst Rhaenyra and forcing Rhaenyra to present her newborn immediately after childbirth. Those are physical and humiliating acts, and they play very differently on screen because you see the aggression. But in Fire & Blood, those moments aren’t there. There’s no clear record of Alicent physically harming Rhaenyra like that. The show just villainizes Alicent atp.
Going back to Anne, she tried again to make peace after Elizabeth was born still got rejected. Eventually, she basically gave up and told Lady Shelton to just follow the king’s orders regarding Mary, because:
Mary wasn’t budging
Anne had bigger political problems
So honestly? Anne did try to be a decent stepmother in a situation that was doomed from the start and in a similar way, Alicent is actually one of the only people trying to manage the problems. She proposes marrying Rhaenyra to Aegon II, saying: “All the more reason to bind them together in marriage.” She’s aware of the tension and she’s trying to fix it through the only political tool available. Also if Alicent were truly “poisoning” her children against Rhaenyra, why would she suggest that match in the first place? That’s not the move of someone escalating hatred that’s someone trying to contain it.
And then Viserys shuts it down with: “the boy is Alicent’s own blood… she wants him on the throne.” Like… yes. Obviously. It’s her son and your blood too! Wanting him on the throne is not failure it’s the default political logic.
At the end of the day, both Anne and Alicent actually tried to fix their relationships with the children in their care despite impossible circumstances.
The problem is that sexism in how Anne is filtered through Chapuys as the villain, evil stepmother, seductress, abuser like Alicent the (depending on version) as jealous, manipulative, “evil stepmother”Meanwhile, both are trapped inside systems where they have limited safe choices/power.
Henry VIII creates the entire Anne/Mary crisis and then just… lets it explode Viserys I does the same by refusing to properly resolve succession. Both men cause instability and then expect the women/girls to “get along” inside that chaos. But yeah let’s blame their wives instead of the men in power…
leftists are more worried about being labeled as "islamophobic" rather then denouncing the islamic regime that has just recently massacred 40,000 innocent iranians, that has butchered even more in its vile history, that is a colonizing oppressor of Persians and their homeland, that was run by the demon khamenei who deserved every bit of his murder today.
"iran has a right to defend itself" - yes, iranians do! they have BEEN fighting for this! this did not happen overnight thanks to your word salad posts!!!! but IRANIANS have this right not the GENOCIDAL ISLAMIC REGIME OF IRAN. DEATH TO THE REGIME.
Honestly , f*** every single official making platitudes about how this was an attack on every Australian. It wasn’t. They didn’t shoot up a mall or a movie theater or a government event. It was Chanukah celebration.
there’s something very unnerving about the way officials are framing this that’s hard to describe. as op said, it was not an attack on every Australian. it was a targeted, intentional murder of Jews. it was an attack on the Jewish community - extending to the global Jewish community, because this impacts us all. this was antisemitic terrorism. universalizing it in this instance doesn’t help because it erases what the motive and the actual problem is. this could have happened to Jews anywhere, because the reasoning was to kill Jewish people.
🚨 BREAKING: The U.S. has officially announced that the first phase of its plan to end the war that began with Hamas’ brutal October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel has been reached.
The agreement, expected to be signed officially on Thursday, will secure the release of 48 hostages, after over two years of inhumane captivity under Hamas in Gaza.
🇮🇱 We pray for their safe return and for healing for all those who have endured unimaginable pain. 💙🎗️
🔵 Updates will be provided as more details are revealed and this historic agreement unfolds.
Police arrested 493 people at the pro-Palestine protests in Trafalgar Square, where I encountered abuse, swearing, ignorance and virulent, u
Let me transport you into the heart of London — Trafalgar Square, no less — in a nation that likes to pride itself on tolerance, the rule of law and mutual respect. There is a circle of people on the lower tier of the square, under the shadow of the National Gallery, surrounding a few hundred more holding placards proclaiming support for Palestine Action, a proscribed terror organisation.
I approach a group of three women — perhaps in their fifties, brown-skinned, British accents — and one of them recognises me: “You are that journalist Matthew Syed.” Yes, can you talk? They assent so I ask what I take to be a fair-minded question to elicit their position and why they are here. “Who do you blame for what is unfolding in Gaza? Do you think Hamas bears any responsibility?”
For the avoidance of doubt, this was the extent of my question. I didn’t say anything else about Hamas: that their founding charter is committed to the killing of Jews; that they have consistently said that they wish to commit October 7-style atrocities again and again; that they are funded by Iran, which wishes to expunge Israel from the pages of history; that the mullahs have sometimes insinuated that Muslims have a duty to kill Jews wherever they are found — perhaps, who knows, the inspiration for a man called Jihad, born to a Syrian father who described the Hamas attackers as “men of God on Earth”, attempting mass murder in Manchester.
No, all I asked was: “Is Hamas partly responsible?” Here’s what happened next, as their friendly faces turned to, well, something else. “Go away,” one said. “Go away. You are a bad faith actor. We don’t want to talk to you. Just f*** off. It’s a really boring old line. You are disgusting.” “I am disgusting?” “Yes, you are disgusting. You are not a journalist. It’s very clear what your position is here.” Now, their voices were getting louder: “Piss off.” “Thanks for your time, I appreciate it,” I said retreating, but they were not finished. “What are you doing here anyway? You are prejudiced. Hopefully nobody will ever buy a book you write. You are a charlatan. You are a f***ing racist.”
Those surrounding us started to join in. “Well said, sister.” “Yeah, well said!” Others in the enclosure began to applaud. I noticed a tall man with a Palestinian flag a few metres away and he pointed at me, although I wasn’t sure why. A younger woman approached and said: “I have seen you all afternoon trying to get a rise from people.” “I only asked if Hamas is partly responsible. Is that so very provocative?” “You are here to cause trouble and you are going to get trouble,” she said.
I wish I could tell you that this was a one-off but I spoke to at least two dozen people and, with two exceptions (including a lovely black guy from north London who conversed intelligently and politely), the motivation for being here was obvious, potent and implacable. The hatred of Jews. I heard conspiracy theories (October 7 was a false flag operation), blood libels, and the pervasive view that the Manchester atrocity was not a heinous attack but righteous comeuppance for an evil people. My sense is that many felt liberated to say what they really thought by the proximity of like-minded others; the classic symptom of mob mentality.
What perhaps struck me the most was the vivid contrast between the ostensibly peaceful nature of the protest — holding flags, going limp when arrested so they had to be lifted by four officers at a time — and the latent violence of the views. As police carried off an elderly protester who I’d talked to a little earlier (and who was convinced of the virtue of his hateful opinions), protesters started shouting at the young officers: “Shame on you! Shame on you!” “But are they not following the instruction of a democratically elected government — even if you disagree with it — and upholding the rule of law?” “F*** democracy. F*** the police.”
Few would tell me their names, except for Julia and Ian, Musa from north London, Ahmed from Oxford and Jeremy from Lyme Regis; all the rest wished to spout their hate anonymously. Perhaps you will say that these people are not representative of the UK, but with protests in London and Manchester in the aftermath of Thursday’s attack on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and the dozens of other marches that have taken place since October 7, it is difficult to overestimate the potent and increasingly assertive nature of antisemitism.
You perhaps won’t be surprised to hear that most were virulently left wing. I almost felt like crying as another anonymous hater — perhaps 22, white, middle-class accent — started to lecture me about intersectionality and colonialist oppression. It was like woke bingo. I couldn’t help asking about the oppression of women in Gaza but her face went blank. “How the f*** do you know women are treated badly?” Er, Amnesty International. This momentarily fazed her since she couldn’t quite place Amnesty in the institutional framework of the Jew-funded global conspiracy. But she recovered quickly: “Well, I haven’t read about that, but I have read about Jewish occupation and genocide.”
Another striking thing in this age of free-flowing digital information was the incuriosity of this supposedly politically motivated group. Trump announced a potential end to the Gaza conflict in a diplomatic coup last Monday when almost a dozen Muslim nations signing up to a proposed peace deal, alongside Israel. I am no Trump fan, and the proposal may yet fall apart, but there is no chance that this could have been achieved by Joe Biden, let alone Kamala Harris. Coming on top of the seminal Abraham Accords, it testifies to the diplomatic tenacity of the American president.
But how did they feel about this breakthrough here? How did protesters who “weep” for Gazans feel about the prospect the killing might end? I can assert that almost nobody I spoke to showed the slightest interest. “I haven’t kept up with that one.” “I haven’t read about it.” “If Netanyahu signed up, it must be awful.” But surely it is a good thing if it brings to an end the slaughter? Hesitation. “But it won’t be a just peace.” I didn’t need to ask the follow-up question because the answer was obvious. No peace can be just if it involves the Little Satan, particularly when in concert with the Big Satan.
Joseph Henrich, the Harvard anthropologist, has said that ideology “doesn’t just blind; it binds”. Nowhere is this more true than with antisemitism. Many of these people do not just hate Jewish people, they have an ideology to justify and legitimise their hatred; one conveniently protected from doubt by the unwillingness to engage with anything that challenges it. In this sense, it is not so very different from the myopic fundamentalism of the group so many here admire. Hamas.
I left Trafalgar Square even more convinced that the government has demonstrated criminal complacency about the rise in antisemitism over recent years. Now is the time for robust action. Otherwise we will see more atrocities like Manchester, and ever greater fear among a group that has made a huge contribution to this nation and regarded it once as a place of refuge.
a worthwhile read. I don’t know that I entirely agree regarding the assessment of Trump vs Harris, but:
(we keep having to deal with important points being made with poor phrasing, or worse, with more denial, as if meeting apathy with apathy isn’t furthering harm - so: the hostages are starving. there are Gazans who are too. one doesn’t negate the other. disparity in the coverage and the slanted one-sided blame, however, is driven by intent and often malice)
Hamas is not concerned about how terrible these images they’ve released are - in fact, they’re counting on the non-reaction.
the photo of Evyatar has now been approved for publication by his family.
he will not make front pages, celebrities’ instagram stories, activists’ feeds. they will not have rage and tears for him.
I know it sounds small, the number. I keep seeing it said. “only.” only 50, only 20 still alive, it’s not that many, it’s “insane to keep shouting about them.” I can’t process those dismissals, and the inability to understand that the hostages’ suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza are fundamentally intertwined. they must both be resolved. the hostages must be freed. it is day 666.
this is part of the video of Eyvatar, his family has approved its release. they want it known what is happening to their son. Evyatar’s sister is pleading that we share what is being done to her brother.
I’m not sure why it won’t embed here, but tw for upsetting content if you click the links.
it should be noted: the hostages are not starving because of any situation with the aid. they are starving because Hamas is intentionally starving them, and has been doing so this entire time. aid flowing more freely into Gaza, which it must, will not change this. the hostages will never see the humanitarian aid, just like the Red Cross has never visited them. they are abandoned by this world.
say something. where is everyone, all the people who pretend to be righteous, claiming they care so much? where? why won’t they bear witness to this?
On October 7, Evyatar heroically helped others injured at the Nova Music Festival before he tried to flee. He texted his family saying, "they are bombarding the party." Various videos of Evyatar being kidnapped to Gaza soon surfaced - showing him in a headlock, hands bound, at gunpoint; in the back of a pickup truck being hit by armed terrorists; and handcuffed on the floor of a dark room with other hostages. Evyatar was seen for the first time since his kidnapping in a Hamas propaganda video a few months ago as he was forced to watch a group of hostages get released. Released hostages have said Evyatar is being starved and kept in chains with a bag over his head. He is in inhumane conditions, suffering physical and psychological torture daily. He is unable to see as he is without his glasses. He has spent 2 birthdays in captivity.
alanalindsay:
They made him dig his own grave and filmed it. Then they slapped their upside down red triangle death cult logo on it. The same triangle their Jew hating supporters love to put in their social media bios to spread hate in the name of "resistance." In one video the both inflict psychological trauma on his family and all Israelis as well as embolden their agents of chaos to fuel global Jew hatred. Just because I hold Netanyahu and his criminal coalition responsible doesn't mean I will stop reminding you that Hamas is evil and silence allows their evil to grow.
elicalebon:
Do you know why Hamas chose this timing to release footage of Evyatar David looking emaciated? To prove they own you. They're proving that while the world is screaming from rooftops about starvation, they can show you the cruelest form of international starvation in ruthless captivity and nobody will bat an eyelid. The NY Times won't post about it. Time Magazine won't do a feature on it. Washington Post won't dedicate its feed to it. The New Yorker won't release a polemic about it. Your NGO's won't declare war crimes over it. Your United Nations won’t issue arrests. Your students won't smash windows. Your activists won't pour into the streets. Your politicians won't mutter a word. Your intellects will call it resistance, and the bleeding hearts will mysteriously run dry.
They're boasting that what's beneath the hypocrisy is their ideological domination. The objective of distorting our worldviews in their favor, as well as thoroughly and completely dehumanizing Jews and Israelis has been achieved. This image was Hamas's message to the western world: We haven't just taken Israelis captive, we've taken your minds hostage, too. Your people are now our people. We own you. We've won.
In the eight decades since the Holocaust, just about everyone has wondered: had I been alive during World War II, what would I have done? Would I have I have hid Anne Frank or would I have been a silent bystander or collaborator? Everyone, except the most rabid of Jew-haters, reaches the same conclusion: of course I would have hid the Frank family. I'm not a monster.
The problem is that most people have been playing the wrong game, deliberating on a misguided rhetorical exercise. If it's between the bad guy and the good guy, well, of course everyone will choose to be the good guy. But in truth, it's not between the bad guy - and don't get me wrong, the Nazis were certainly bad - and the good guy. It's between the antisemite and the Jew.
Look, I get the confusion: for 80 years, whitewashed Holocaust education and media has overemphasized the role that Righteous Among the Nations played during the Holocaust. But this is a distortion, a fantasy: the white saviors were few; the bystanders were most. Even those who most ardently opposed the Nazis -- the Allied forces, even the non-Jewish anti-Nazi resistance -- cared little at all to do anything about the plight of the Jews.
Hamas released a propaganda video showing Israeli hostage Evyatar David emaciated after more than 650 days in captivity - being forced to dig his own grave.
No celebrity outrage. No media headlines.
No global rallies. Just silence.
The world is indifferent because decades of anti-Israel propaganda have made this horror feel justified, and Hamas knows it.
This is what it looks like when dehumanization works.
It was cocky and overconfident to call the Titanic "unsinkable" but one thing that's overlooked is that she was genuinely really, unusually solid. She could float even with 4 compartments fully flooded, which even a lot of modern day ships can't do.
And it's not like they were wrong about her being solid! Olympic, her identical sister ship, survived being torpedoed and then running over the U-Boat that fired that torpedo. Those ships were solid.
It's very clear that absolutely no other ship in 1912 would have been able to survive that collision, and it's a testament to the quality of the ship that she didn't sink in a few minutes Empress of Ireland style. Part of what makes the Titanic such a tragic story is that it isn't a group of rich idiots locking themselves in a shoddy iron barrel to go 4km underwater. It was 2200 people, most of whom were poor immigrants, on a reliable ship on a commonly-made journey, and then something went horribly, unpredictably wrong.
#also the White Star Line never billed Titanic as unsinkable #the media kind of did though most of that was posthumous #but she was NOT officially advertised that way#and before anyone mentions the lifeboat thing: #it's a myth that lifeboats were removed for aesthetic reasons #and Titanic had WAY more lifeboats than was required or expected at the time #in a design environment where lifeboats were seen as deathtraps significantly less safe than staying with the extremely well-designed snip #titanic isn't a story of carelessness #no expense was spared on safety #and oh my god they did not lock third-class passengers in to die on purpose that is a movie it is fake (via @mylordshesacactus)
There WERE gates seperating third class from the rest of the boat, but those gates were. Literally just waist high fences. They were just there to mark 'hey you're not allowed past here' in universal language, and that was it. It was physically impossible to trap third class passengers in the ship.
What DID happen with a lot of third class passengers was just a case of really unfortunate circumstances - they had the worst steward to passenger ratio, they were the furthest down in the ship, AND they had the widest diversity of languages, giving them the least time to get out, and the worst communication barriers. And even then, y'know what many surviving third class passengers reported?
People did not evacuate third class. They knew the ship was sinking, and they stayed put, because of an overwhelming amount of learned helplessness - for the majority of these people, their lives had NEVER been their own, they were always in the hands of greater powers. So they stayed put, they waited to be ordered to leave, and when those orders never came... they died. Which is fucking awful, but... yeah, not really a design flaw; just the nature of the tragedy.
Anyways, all that aside, I also hate it when people smugly talk about how mOrE LiFeBoAtS would have saved more people, like. Dude, holy shit, the Titanic actually sank EXTREMELY fast, boats that size normally took the better part of a day to sink, she was gone in about two hours. More lifeboats wouldn't have done anything. They didn't even have enough time to launch all the lifeboats they did have - Collapsible A was launched with the sides still down, so all passengers were sitting in ankle deep water all night, meanwhile Collapsible B was never launched at all - it was swept overboard and wound up upside down in the water (with the one surviving radio operator, Harold Bride trapped underneath). The survivors on Collapsible B were mainly men, who managed to climb on top of it, and under the command of Third Officer Lightoller (highest ranked survivor), the men standing on the overturned boat kept it balanced and floating all night, while towing more survivors in the water.
This obviously had high casualty rates, but one of the survivors they towed in the water was the ships head baker Charles Joughin, the final person to leave the Titanic, as he managed to climb up to the top of the stern as it tipped, and calmly rode it down like an elevator while people were panicking and jumping; Joughin didn't even get his hair wet (the Titanic movie also lied about the ship 'sucking people down with it' btw). Joughin also spent the entire sinking drinking heavily, which probably helped him stay calm, and when he was rescued his only health concerns were mild frostbite in his feet, and a raging hangover, god bless.
Anyways as for the lifeboats not being fully loaded, that WAS a mistake, but not the crews fault - that was STANDARD PROCEDURE in the day, lifeboats were NOT meant to be fully loaded while still in the air, you were supposed to put some people in, send them down, the load the rest in the water; loading them in the air would cause their hulls to break from the weight. Now, the lifeboats on the Titanic DID have reinforced hulls, so they actually could be fully loaded in the air, which had held up in testing... but the crew and officers had NOT been informed of that fact. When they were launching full lifeboats near the end, Lightoller's admitted in his inquiry testimony that it was an extremely reckless choice being made out of desperation.
Anyways, if you are also a nerd and want to know how the Titanic sinking actually went down first hand, why not get it right from the primary sources? There was a US Senate Inquiry that began literally the day after the Carpathia arrived in New York, the British held their own inquiry later, and the full transcripts of both can be found here. Extremely interesting stuff - during Gugliemo Marconi's testinmony on the first day, you can literally see the inquiry realizing in real time that hey, why the FUCK isn't it mandatory for ships to have someone at the radio at all times in case of emergency? Really neat stuff.
I have just found out *all* 20 of my AO3 fics have been scraped by that idiot generative AI. In other words; 10 years of my work, over 620 000 words, that I have written *for free*, that I have done out of love of writing in my spare time, have been put into a machine so that some lazy shit can generate 10 years of work in 2 minutes. To all the AI apologists - fuck you. Seriously.
I'm not the fastest writer anyway, I spend hours and hours drafting and adding and thinking and rewriting till I have something I'm happy with. And it's my hobby. I've made some great friends through my writing. And some techbros have decided none of that effort and time and community means anything, is worth anything, and have put all of it into some generator to be torn apart and spat out in some Frankenstein imitation of the human brain. I have never and will never use AI in any capacity to write my stories; I think it's cheating and plagiarising.
I'm sickened. I'm sorry for all the guest readers who have given kudos and commented throughout the years, because as a result of this I've restricted my works to registered AO3 users only.
following news of AO3 being scraped for generative AI purposes; I am setting all my AO3 stories so that they can only be shown to and read by registered users. Sorry to have to do this.
