[st-pam]

[little-pondhead]

please let me get that job in algae management

[pallidprincess]

new weed idea

[pallidprincess]

[mothsbythelamplight]

Visit Original Link

[vaguelysharpened-deactivated]

crash

[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 respondibility 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.

[thejollywriter]

wow okay i’m crying now

[girlwithakiwi]

“And even as he watched the rescue unfolding that morning, he would have understood that for the living, everything which could have been done had been done: not a single survivor was lost or injured being brought aboard the Carpathia. For those who had gone down with the Titanic, save for reverencing their memory at the service later that day, there was nothing more that he or anyone could do. Rostron’s duty now was as he always saw it: to the living.”

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I looked up a bit about this because the post is so movingly written that when I read it aloud to my husband and mother they both wept like babies, and something else really struck me about this story.

So Carpathia was not a top-end luxury liner. Her reputation was for being Jolly Comfortable - she was very broad in her proportions, and not super-duper fast, and the result was that she didn’t rock so much on the waves and you couldn’t particularly hear/feel the engines. She was solid and dependable, and lots of people liked using her, but she therefore occupied a lesser niche than Titanic or Olympian or whatever - and crucially, as a result of that, she only had one radio operator on board. This means she only had radio ops for a certain window in the day, unlike Titanic, which had 24 hour radio ops.

So on that night, when Titanic went down, Carpathia’s wireless operator - one Harold Cottam - clocked off his shift at midnight, and went to bed. While he was getting ready for bed, though, he left the transmitter on for the hell of it, and therefore picked up a transmission from Cape Race in Newfoundland, the closest transmitting tower sending messages to the ships. They told him that they had a backlog of private traffic for Titanic that wasn’t getting through. So, even though his shift was over, and it was now 11 minutes past bloody midnight, and he just wanted to go to bed, Harold Cottam decided that nonetheless, he’d be helpful, and let the Titanic know they had messages waiting.

And that’s how he received the Titanic’s distress signal. In spite of no longer being on shift to receive it, and therefore in order to send Carpathia galloping to Titanic’s rescue, and thus saving 705 people.

All because Harold Cottam decided one night to be kind. 

I dunno. That’s just really stuck with me.

[armouredescort]

Cottam also ended up staying awake for something like 48 hours straight trying to send survivors messages and a list of survivors home, but due to Carpathia’s limited radio frequency range and with no other ships to act as a relay, this was rather patchy. However, he tried his damn best to make sure the survivor’s messages got home, and was also bombarded with incoming messages of bribes to spill the details of the disaster to the press.

Rostrum had ordered that no messages to the press be sent out of respect to the survivors, for they would have their privacy destroyed as soon as they reached New York. Cottam respected this order, even under extreme duress of fatigue, stress, and the knowledge that in some cases the bribes were almost three times his annual salary.

He eventually went to bed but not before working with one of the rescued Titanic’s radio operators, Harold Bride, to transmit as many messages as possible. Bride was injured (his feet had been crushed in a lifeboat) and had just passed the body of the second of Titanic’s radio operators aboard (Jack Phillips), so neither of them were really in the best shape to keep working, but they did.

In the face of extreme adversity, both men refused to do anything but their duty (and exceeding their duty) not just because Rostrum had ordered it, but because it was the right thing to do. They could have profited considerably from the disaster and they refused for the dignity of the survivors.

[duckbunny]

This is hopepunk. This is what we can be, what we are, when instinct takes over. This is what we are when we choose to care about each other. We’re not profit machines or units of production or lone fierce wolves in a bitter wilderness. We are people, and we care about people.

This is human nature. Don’t give up on it.

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

Hopepunk is best punk.

[saint-batrick]

this always leaves me sobbing. fuck.

[petermorwood]

I wrote a post a couple of years ago, wondering why there hadn’t been a documentary or docu-drama about the ‘Carpathia’ rescue run.

There are probably sound reasons why not, one of which is probably that getting yet another ‘Titanic’ project greenlit is far easier - name recognition, pre-sold property, multiple conspiracy theories to play with (all discredited, but when did that stop the “History” Channel?)

Here are a couple of stories about ‘Carpathia’:

As @mylordshesacactus has already said, her boilers and engines were rated for no more than 14 knots and, when she managed 17.5 for the only time in her life it’s said (I hate the phrase but I have to use it) that the Chief Engineer hung his hat over the main pressure gauge so no-one - including himself - could see how far its needle was into the red.

Captain Rostron, a religious man, was seen on several occasions standing privately on the exposed bridge wing with his own hat raised and his mouth moving in silent prayer, and when daylight revealed the extent of the ice-field his ship had passed without harm, he only said “There must have been another Hand on the wheel than mine…”

There’s another problem-of-sorts about a screenplay set aboard ‘Carpathia’ - an astonishing lack of that easy dramatic tool, conflict. Captain Rostron decided he was going to the ‘Titanic’s assistance, and that was that. AFAIK not a single passenger or crewman - not one - questioned the wisdom of his decision either then or afterwards, even when…

…‘Carpathia’ headed at more than full speed, in the dark, through dangerous waters where an iceberg had apparently just sunk an “unsinkable” ship.

It’s easier to write - and sell - a story about pride, arrogance, stupidity, rich against poor and lives lost through hubris, than it is to write one about people who rallied round and did the right thing at the right time, not for reward but because it was the right thing to do.

Here’s Rostron and his officers…

…the ‘Carpathia’ stewards and cabin crew….

…some of her passengers…

…and some of the people they helped.

[armadillorollup]

Here’s some of my personal favourite cards from my now complete paleo tarot deck! 

You can see the full list of Major Arcana and buy a set here!

[prismatic-bell]

For that "glitch in the matrix" thing going around

Not me, but my mom.

In 1972, she ran away from home. She was gone for several months, and when she got home my grandmother started shaking her and screaming about how someone had told her my mother had no shoes and my grandmother was sure it meant my mom was dead.

She finally calms down, and they piece it together: my grandmother had gotten a phone call from someone who breathed two or three times, said “Cathy’s in bare feet,” and hung up. Except that’s not what they said–my grandmother had written the date in on her calendar, and on that date my mother was in Bare Feet, Arizona. She knew definitively that she was in Bare Feet because on that date she called home to talk to my grandfather, who told her Uncle Jim had died–“got himself shot”–and that she had missed the funeral. Ready for the glitch in the matrix part? Here we go:

–My grandfather had no recollection of the conversation–which would have been a strange conversation indeed, since Uncle Jim was still alive and, in fact, didn’t die until 2009, eight years after my grandfather. However, my mom did miss the funeral, thanks to a delayed flight. Cause of death? Supposedly, it was suicide, but there were enough indications for the family to believe that was a pile of horseshit, not least that shooting himself in the head with the rifle indicated would’ve been near-impossible.

–My mom was going by the name Patricia Danko when she was on the run–she had a fake ID and everything. She hadn’t called herself “Cathy” since leaving home and nobody knew she was traveling under an alias.

–According to my mom, she never gave a name for herself–either Patricia or Cathy–when she was in Bare Feet, and she would’ve had no reason to. Bare Feet had maybe a hundred people in it, and they were just stopping for food and gas.

–This isn’t just an account from my mother–my dad was with her at the time, and he remembers both the phone call and the truckstop.

But that’s not the weirdest nor the creepiest part, which is this:

–I’ve been trying for three years to find Bare Feet, Arizona–on the Internet, on old maps, by talking to old Arizona cowboys, and there was never a Bare Feet, Arizona. My mom convinced my dad to drive “through Bare Feet” on the way back from Texas in 2013 and there was no town anywhere along the highway, not even the abandoned bones of one. I’ve looked for Bare Feet, Barefeet, Bear Feet, Bare Feat, Bare Foot, Barefoot, and Bear Foot. None of these exist.

My mother stopped in a town that doesn’t exist, ate in a restaurant that never was, made a phone call that could not have happened and was apparently answered by a ghost from 40 years in the future, and later that night someone called my grandmother from a number that turned up on her phone bill only as a pay phone in Arizona to say that single sentence, “Cathy’s in Bare Feet.”

[sigilseer]

I didn’t initially want to reblog things here, but this is just too far up my alley. I think I’ll start collecting stories of incidents like this, weirdling magic at its most potent.

[jazzybot4]

 Growing up in Arizona: I fully believe that all of this is true.  There’s a couple little town that pop in and out of existence, I’m sure of it. I remember one myself. When I was little, I lived in a school bus with my family. We’ve been through a couple little highway junction towns, and then never been able to find them again. I distinctly remember a circle k that tried to kill me, and when I asked my mom about it, she said that we never went back there, but when she tried to find it on a map? nothing.  Arizona is mostly Rez land. Sacred grounds. The last holdouts of a people who have been here long enough to remember the stars they came from. I’m certain that Bare Feet exists, but maybe not /here/. 

[xlivvielockex]

I’ve spent 30+ years in Arizona and I can confirm this too. I vividly remember towns and events from my youth but am unable to find them now that I am an adult. I ask people who went on these adventures with me and we all remember it but these places aren’t on any map, in any Google search.

Happened to my mom and husbear last month. They took some back road, under directions of a forest ranger, to find a town that we found out later doesn’t exist. Forest ranger swears up and down it does. 

I think this is why I love Welcome to Night Vale so much. I feel like it captures the kind of weird transient place a lot of Arizona exists in. 

[maevemauvaise]

@claraxbarton

[crown-of-winterthorne]

My mother grew up in Arizona, including a few years on one of the Reservations, and she’s got Stories. Lost time, stalled cars being pushed uphill, mysterious lights… That’s not even counting some of the stories from when she and my dad drove truck in the 70s. Deserts are freaky weird places.

[eventhorizonshootingstars]

Last time I drove from AZ through NM to CO, the same vehicle kept passing us over and over. And I drive like a fucking maniac speed demon. But sure enough, Id be passed, I had someone in the car who witnessed it too. It was the same vehicle. Theres details about the vehicles I don’t want to share, but Especially just over on the New Mexico side, or Southern CO, I just feel on edge, I see things like lights on the road that appear and disappear and generally the hair stands up on my neck when I’m near there. It’s weird cause my releatives have lived in those areas forever. I hate it though, even on uninhabited stretches with nothing but pine trees or open space for miles in the night, I feel like I’m being watched. And I’ve driven all over the country for work, literally hundreds of thousands of miles, many of which at night, I never get that feeling or see any lights or anything strange or feel paranoid. So I agree, something about that land. Idk. I stay away as much as possible.

[feitanswife]

I just want to thank you all because as a writer, posts like this are what I live for. I’m thinking gay cowboy supernatural drama. Yeah. Gay werewolf? Maybe…

[slightlystoopkid]

I grew up in arizona and have so many crazy stories about driving around in the desert. Once my friend and I were trying to get to a party our friend gave us directions to over the phone. He said take the first left you see just after you hit dirt. We hit dirt and some twenty minutes later still only right turns. We’re way outside town by now and just as I suggest we turn around we see headlights coming toward us pretty fast so I pulled off to the side of the narrow road as they got closer to us and suddenly they just went out. They didnt turn they just dissapeared and we kept driving to see if there was a car but didnt see anything but drove in to a cloud of dust. we were so freaked we turned around. When we were almost back to pavement i saw headlights in my rear view. They flashed twice my friend saw it too and then dissapeared. I have also seen flaming things fall from the sky, loud explosions have been heard near my hometown with no explanation. The desert holds some old powers we dont understand.

[deathcomes4u]

If you guys like Arizona the liminal desert, then ooo boy.

You should try the whole middle of Australia some time.

[radio-cybertron]

You guys should come to Texas, too. 

There’s whole areas in the eastern/middle part that are nothing but state forests and empty lands. @tinyfiestyrosiekitten and I managed to teleport somehow an hour ahead in time, and a hundred miles ahead of where we were less than five minutes before.  We got lost coming back in a town that didn’t exist, at a rest stop that has vanished- and that we’ve never seen again on our return trips down 287 past Lufkin/Crockett and Woodville. 

And the sky never, ever quite looks right at sunset- that hint of pink and green. 

[mslightningprime]

I’ve lived in AZ all my life and still live in AZ and it’s fucked. I totally believe all these stories. Some weird shit goes down in this state man.

[jbirrd23]

@child-of-the-west-wind

[west-wind-child]

There is some weird stuff that goes in Arizona. ESPECIALLY at night. I remember my family and I were driving home from Phoenix at night. Not a single car coming inbound or from behind. It was just pitch black out and not a single star in sight. The music was low and the head light would catch little flashes of the bugs that would pass through the beams. But I ever so clearly recall this massive white bird shot up from the front of the car. Literally coming out of no where. It’s wingspan covered the entire windsheild. This mystical white bird way way to big for being an owl…My father was the one driving that night and had not see a single thing in middle of the road.

[sunset-sas]

I can actually add to this! This is in the Nevada desert, but since it’s an overall Southwest aesthetic…

So, to cut a very long story short, my family was driving through the back end of Area 51 on our way back from Zion National Park. The first time we’d come through the area, we’d stayed in Vegas, but that shit’s expensive, so we decided to bypass it and go down ET highway, which cuts through a part of Area 51 and Nellis. So there’s a couple of details that are important here.

One: it is the middle of the night. So it’s about 10 PM. Pitch black.

Two: my whole family is there: my sister, me, and our parents.

Three: my dad is an asshole who got me and my sister jumpy about the concept of aliens showing up.

Okay, so we’re driving along and the first thing that happened was that my dad almost hit a cow that was as black as the sky. Then we found ourselves in a herd of Angus beef. So, my mom did her animal whispering thing and managed to coax the herd off the road. We’re on our way again.

Second thing happens: we are driving along, and for those of you who don’t know, there’s a small mountain in the vicinity that is extremely distinctive. Well, at the top of it, we see a bright blue explosion. My dad pulls the car over and asks if we saw it too. We all confirm, verbally, that we did. Then it happens again in the same spot. The only way I can describe the type of explosion was as if the blue turtle shell from Mario Kart was real. We oggled that for a little bit and then drove on.

Third thing happens: suddenly, we make a turn and start heading for some hills when we see a wild fire has started on the hills in front of us. The road turned so we weren’t heading directly that way, but we watched the fire for a solid ten minutes before we left the area.

So, we’re all shaken up a bit, right? Well, we’re driving and all of a sudden, I get this overwhelming dread that something is following us. I didn’t say anything, but around the same time, my dad started driving a little faster. Later, once we got to a hotel, he admitted that he thought someone was following us too. Now mind you, this is a pitchblack highway and we hadn’t seen any cars in over an hour.

So we finally get to a town (Tonopah) and stay at a hotel called the Mizpag Hotel, which has been around since 1907. It’s a stunningly beautiful historical building and it is a fantastic time. A little odd, but what remote hotel isn’t? Oh yeah, our hotel room seems to be haunted, but we don’t see anything.

Fun fact: the next day, we rode through Death Valley and our AC crapped out so my sister nearly got heat stroke from how hot it was. We took refuge in one of the businesses and had to leave under cover of darkness. So, an overall fun time.

[yardsards]

not from a desert, just a forest in pennsylvania but:

a few years ago, my mom and sister went out driving at night so she could get practice. they went on a dirt road they never noticed before. after a long time of driving, suddenly the road transitioned from dirt road to a decent paved road. they drove along the paved road and came to a weirdly pristine cul-de-sac. the houses looked new, straight out of a suburbs- not something you’d find in the middle of the woods. they reached the end and turned around and went home.

they tried to take me there again to show me but they just couldn’t find it

[yardsards]

this other time i walked on a dirt road that i’d seen the ends of but never walked on (also only half of it was listed on google maps, but the maps around here are really incomplete) and i saw a house that i remember VIVIDLY from my dreams. never been on that road before.

(this one'a kinda mundane and is probs just a computer glitch and nothing more) there’s a pizza place that, according to google maps, exists like 10 minutes from my house. however, it does not, to my knowledge, actually physically exist.

[thoughtsofadame]

From Illinois, My mom and I were only about a hour away from our house driving home from something. My mom is sick of traffic and decided to take back roads home to avoid it. This is an area hat my mother is familiar with, super familiar with.  After driving five minutes something goes wonky. My mom passes a small strip mall that she recognizes but know shouldn’t be where we are.  we drive a bit more and its confirmed we are a good ways away from where the road we took should have gone. My mother is baffled, she is still baffled. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we went through a fucking wormhole, because its the most logical thing we could come up with. 

[skeletalroses]

So this is a totally useless rant, but as a skinny girl, I’m getting extra, extra tired of fat-shaming.

I work for a corsetier at a Renaissance Faire. We sell corsets. Not flimsy bullshit costume corsets; like real, durable, waist-training corsets. Today a woman came in with her boyfriend, so I helped her pick out a corset and try it on. While her boyfriend—who was decidedly enthused about the whole corset thing—sat watching me lace her in, he told me, grinning, “Of all the good jobs at the Renaissance Faire, I think you have the best.”

I shrugged in agreement. “I touch butts and reach down cleavage all day; I mean…” Because we like to be a bit rakish at the Faire, and, y’know, it’s true. Tying people into corsets pretty much invariably requires getting handsy.

The couple laughed at that, and the boyfriend said, “That’s the job I would want!” But then he chuckled again and said, offhand, “Or maybe not; while we were looking at the racks, there were some pretty big sizes on there!”

Our sizes are all done in inches, and the biggest we make is a 46. And you’d better believe our large sizes sell. For a second I wasn’t sure what to say to the guy’s comment, but I answered him casually. “We get a lot of beautiful big ladies in here.” Because we do. “We make corsets for real women, not Barbie dolls,” I added. Wasn’t trying to be smart, just kind of tossed it out there because that’s the line we like to use when people ask about larger sizes, and because, again, we do.

The boyfriend went quiet at that; I didn’t think anything of it, I just kept on lacing. A moment later, he said, a little awkwardly (but sincerely enough), “Didn’t mean to be offensive.”

I quickly smiled and brushed it off, said he wasn’t, said I was just saying. (Don’t want to make the customers uncomfortable, you know?) And that was the end of it. His comment had rubbed me the wrong way, but it wasn’t a big deal. Now, I wear a 20-inch corset. I’m a few cup sizes short of being one of the Barbie dolls. Like his girlfriend, I’m one of the “hot chicks”; he doesn’t have to worry about offending me by implying that I wouldn’t be fun to poke and pull at.

Honestly though, of all the people I fit sexy technically-undergarments to in a day, fat girls are maybe my favorite people to lace up. Because they are just so damn happy that we have stuff that fits them. They are so damn happy that the corsets we make in their sizes are all the same pretty, shiny colors and cool flower/dragon/skull/etc. prints that the smaller corsets are, not ugly beige and boring “granny” colors. They are so goddamn happy that at least one (of several on the grounds) corset shop carries things that they can wear, that they actually want to wear, and that they look fucking awesome in. This is only my second season working, and we’ve fit 60+ inch waists and double-K busts. The only people we’ve ever had to tell sorry, we don’t have anything that fits them, are twelve-year-old kids.

It’s half-wonderful, half-heartbreaking how excited those women get. Women who say with sad smiles, when we ask if they want to get fitted, “Oh, no, you don’t have anything that fits me,” and then are stunned when we’re 300% confident that yes we do, and we have options. Women who can’t stop smiling and looking at themselves in the mirror after we’ve got them laced in.

I had a lady last week whose waist I measured (cinching the tape tight, as per procedure) at 41 inches—honestly not all that big. So she picked out a 41-inch corset to try on. I could tell halfway through getting her laced that it was going to be a bit big for her, so I mentioned it and said she might do better to try a smaller size. She started crying on the spot. She was so overwhelmed; she couldn’t believe someone had just told her that a 41 was too big. She told me about how hard clothes shopping was for her, how her mother would tell her she needed an XXXL instead of an XXL, how she had recently lost weight but still couldn’t wear certain colors because they didn’t fit or she wasn’t confident enough.

She did end up getting her corset, and after I checked her out she asked if she could give me a hug, so we ended up standing there hugging each other for a minute. While we did, I told her, “Do not ever let anyone tell you any bullshit. You are gorgeous.” She said, “I have a new boyfriend and he keeps telling me that.” I told her he was right, and to just keep telling herself she’s gorgeous; it was okay if she didn’t always believe it, but to keep telling herself anyway. (That’s how I talked myself through shit when I had bad anxiety.)

We all know fat-shaming is bad. The stupidity, fatphobia, and misogyny of it has pissed me off since I first became aware of it. But working with clothing, especially as figure-hugging and precise as corsets, has given me a new perspective on it—how much it affects people and just how shitty it is. Like, what does it say that I had a grown, only average-big woman crying into my shoulder because she was so overjoyed not to be the uppermost extremity of what a manufacturer can clothe?

My job rocks and it’s really rewarding, but sometimes it highlights some of the ugliest shit about society. I’m so glad I work at a shop that’s not bullshit about body types and operates with more people in mind than just scrawny white chicks like me. The fat women I work with are a ton of fun to lace up, and they’re so much more than their size—they’re cool, they’re smart, they’re funny, they’re sweet, they’re great to talk to, and yes, they’re hot. I’m so damn done with them getting short-changed and shamed by petty fucks who refuse to make them nice clothes, who refuse to even try to work for them, who refuse to consider them pretty. This whole rant was useless and won’t get read, but I had to vent because it’s been driving me nuts.

So actually, screw you, random dude. Fat girls are the highlight of my job.

[bob-belcher]

Watch out for children!

[bax16]

[tenderlesbian-deactivated201807]

1. janelle explicitly stated that she identifies with BOTH bi and pan labels

2. she was so respectful in her coming out interview and didn’t even say anything close to this lmao. people who look her up and see this shit as an explanation of pansexuality and the implication that bisexuality doesn’t include trans people is a disgrace to janelle, bisexual people, AND the people trying to learn more about pansexuality

[witchgays]

slides in with roombas strapped to both my feet: sup heteros

[permanentlyexhaustedpidgeon]

Theory: great

Reality: they both take off in different directions, fuck

[witchgays]

homophobia never sleeps

[virpiablccdnerd]

you have to have rope at a length of like 1 to 2 feet. or maybe a steel bar. something. that connects the roombas and keeps them at an appropriate distance.

[witchgays]

finally a good suggestion. roomba bondage

[greelin]

tfw you Kinda have a crush on someone & also feel like they Sorta have a crush on you too but also you’re probably just projecting your own feelings due to wishful thinking & your hopeful ass is gonna get let down when reality comes a-knockin’

[fog6v7a4m8p5i8r3i8s1m0]

[borgeslabyrinth]

I realized why the idea of constellations has always swayed me. constellations are so very human.

our wonder of the stars is bone-sunk; we’ve been thinking and dreaming and watching and watching and watching since the beginning of time, and we looked for so long that we started making connections. 

we played a celestial game of connect-the-dots; trying to find order in something so vast and trying to show that the stars are in everything and everything is in the stars.

we plucked pictures out of the infinite; there’s a dog, there’s a bear, there’s a lion, see? look, right there; the stars hold and mirror back everything. 

but then it went a step further. instead of everyday things, we stopped picking out the cups and the bears, and instead we saw stories. 

look, there’s Andromeda, chained to a rock and waiting to be devoured by Cetus. there’s Orion, and Hercules, and do you see Orpheus’ lyre? Zeus sent an eagle to retrieve it after Orpheus’ death and he placed it in the sky. 

we did the most human thing imaginable: we wrote our stories into the stars. we filled the night sky; previously so vast, so unknowable; with our history. we forged connections to the stars and made it so our children will always know where they come from. 

[thecoldheartofspace]

so there’s this guy in three of my dance classes

and first off, I’m 5'7, 5'11 in dance shoes, 170 pounds, broad shoulders and big hips and not small in any dimension. For a ballroom dancer, this means a lot of time spent learning the men’s parts. Especially in lifts.

I’ve had years now of guys kinda just going “lol heck naw” when told to lift me. I don’t admit this part much, but it makes me want to sink into the ground and die when every other girl can be lifted, but I’m just too big.

So this guy, smaller than me and really cute, shows up at auditions and I see this girl across the room getting tossed about like the beautiful pixie she is, and apparently I looked a little wistful because this boy asked me if I liked lifts.

“Oh. I… Uh… I’ve never really done the girls part. I’m a little big, haha…” (laugh it off, as usual.)

He looked me dead in the eye and then picked me up like a movie princess, bounced me in the air a few times, and set me down effortlessly while telling me whoever refused to lift me before was just being a lazy wimp.

I seriously doubt this boy will ever really get how much that meant to me. But, holy cow. Some faith in humanity just got restored.

[ifitaintbaroque]

I work at a coffee shop and have gotten all my co-workers to start calling lattes “hot milkybois”

[ifitaintbaroque]

I also got everyone to refer to the salted caramel blended drink as “the big salty” and I consider it one of my greatest accomplishments

[ifitaintbaroque]

Oh yeah and any time someone orders a hazelnut latte with almond milk (which specifically is a weirdly popular drink) I say “one HOT NUT latte coming right up!”

My coworkers have not latched on to this one like they did with the others for some reason.

[ifitaintbaroque]

I forgot to mention I also pronounce “hot chocolate” like “hot cocklate”… because I’m awful.

[goatbran-deactivated20190407]

please give us updates

[ifitaintbaroque]

Our largest drink size is affectionately referred to as “Texas Size” so sometimes when I hand it out in the drive-thru I like to say, “Here’s that TEXAS SIZE [drink] for ya, YEEEEHAW!”

And some people look at me as though I have just made their entire day while others look like they they could not possibly get away from me soon enough. Both reactions are equally satisfying. 

[ifitaintbaroque]

I made this into a game except when I hand out the Texas-size drinks I say “Can I get a YEEHAW?” And the guests always look mortified but occasionally one of them will let out a terrified “yeehaw” and all my coworkers cheer and then we keep a running tally of how many yeehaws we each get on the back of a pastry bag.

[kittykat8311]

What does my cat think when I kiss his little head? Does he know it’s affection or does he think I’m trying to eat him

[softly-speaking-valkyrie]

These questions are totes why I follow you, top quality content right here

[kittykat8311]

It’s important!

[mollytwos]

Well it depends. Do you try to put ketchup on him before kissing his head, that would change things :P

[kittykat8311]

Yes. I put ketchup on my cat before I kiss his head.

[steampunkette]

Fun bit of info!

Kitties rub their heads against their chosen people as a method of scent marking, but not of ownership. Instead, they’re getting their scent on you because they know that you’re a family, but you smell “Funny” compared to them. They’re trying to make you smell like their family.

If your cat allows you to kiss their little head, it’s because they’re accepting -your- scent, and being part of your family.

Ketchup included.

[kittykat8311]

This is a good note, thank you

[rutabegaville-blog]

This why they boop you. :)

[ephuyrie-deactivated20180427]

Fact:

In animals that have communal grooming as part of their behavior, sticking your face in their face for kisses/boops doesn’t bother them at all because they know you’re not going to eat them.

But, with frogs (and other animals you shouldn’t be putting your mouth on) that do not have communal grooming there’s a high chance their first reaction will be “plz don’t eat me” before realizing you do not mean them any harm.

Also; if you accidentally step on a cat or a dog, or accidentally pinch/hurt a smaller pet and after they squeak or yelp you start petting them and trying to reassure the animal that you weren’t trying to hurt them they’ll understand that. Puppies and kittens get a little too rough with their play, but when a litter-mate ends up squeaking because they got hurt the puppy or kitten will stop playing so roughly and switch to kisses/licks as a way to apologize before they go back to playing.

When humans act the same way, and do not hurt them again it registers as “oh that wasn’t on purpose” and the animal quickly forgives you.

It’s the animal equivalent of “Don’t tell Mom!”

[kittykat8311]

This is also good to know, thank you!

[deactivated-drawing]

Thank fucking god

[a-magpie-witchling]

THANK FUCKING GOD.

[androidboy]

a few days ago i was walkin past a basketball court and a ball Flew at me and i

1) didn’t flinch

2) caught the ball

3) threw it back at the guy

4) responded to his “thanks bro” with a nod

it was like the ghost of some guy named chad took over me so i didn’t like embarrass myself

[androidboy]

a bro talked to me today and it caught me v off guard but instead of my voice rising an octave it dropped an octave and i suddenly was effortlessly speaking Bro™ back to him. this resulted in a very positive interaction

thanks, chad

[neurodivergent-crow]

Reblog to be possessed by Good Ghost Chad in your hour of need