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Well @monstrousagonies ?

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Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

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Rewatching the Barbie trailer for the 3rd time, I realized something... It looks like Will Ferrell is playing a corporate villain in a movie, based on a toy, that seems to involve existential dread again... Where’s that Dr. Doofenshmirtz meme?

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TV Executives: “if the strike goes in, you won’t get new episodes of your favorite shows! You won’t get new movies you were looking forward to! Isn’t that terrible, what the writers are doing to you?”

Me: Bitch, that might have been an effective threat in 2007, but we have since survived a Covid shutdown and discovered ways to amuse ourselves while we waited, we can outwait this shit, too. I got a pile of shows saved I haven’t even watched yet, and a Mt. TBR waiting for me.

Compensate (and respect) your writers for their work, assholes.

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Dr Doolittle-style show about a detective who can talk to animals, except instead of talking like people the animals still talk like animals, just translated into English sentences, so the plot of most episodes centres around trying to figure out what the star witness testimony actually means.

Victim's murder was witnessed by her pet snake, whose tank was in the room. Unfortunately pet snake is incapable of describing the world around them except in terms of 'rocks' and 'meat', with their descriptions of individual forms of 'meat' focusing almost entirely on body temperature and smell.

(Solved when it turns out that their description of 'warm-cold meat with rock' was actually an attempt to describe a suspect with a prosthetic limb, which is pretty unnoticeable to a human, but looks dramatically different in infrared.)

Murder at a honey farm. Each witness managed to see about ~0.06% of the full crime, in order to get the full picture, you have to get them to swarm.

Victim was found several days after death, already crawling with maggots. Days into the investigation, protag begins a frantic search to find any surviving maggots/flies that were on the corpse, after realising that how the victim tasted would give vital information about the poison used.

Also there's at least one or two animals who actually do talk in full sentences and in terms humans can understand, and the reason behind this is never fully explained.

All cats in this universe talk in terms of 'mine/not-mine' and mainly focus on territory, mates and food, with the one exception of the main character's cat who is named Watson and knows how to use sarcasm.

All insects speak in one word sentences where everything is 'food', 'enemy' or (for hive insects) 'friend' and 'queen', with the exception of seven-spotted ladybirds specifically, who for some reason speak in full English sentences and are up to date and knowledgeable about world events. The protagonists is as concerned by the full implications of this as you are.

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GUYS THIS IS AMAZING

SERIOUSLY

6000 YEARS

STORIES THAT ARE OLDER THAN CIVILIZATIONS

STORIES THAT WERE TOLD BY PEOPLE SPEAKING LANGUAGES WE NO LONGER KNOW

STORIES TOLD BY PEOPLE LOST TO THE VOID OF TIME

STORIES

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I’ve been thinking a lot about compassion in Judaism, and being kind. In that light, I would like everyone to know that my current favorite Jewish supernatural headcanon is that, instead of driving vampires away with crosses or stakes through the heart, we say the Mourner’s Kaddish for them. I mean, that’s just so adorable. You see this threatening undead creature, and instead of yelling murder, you feel bad for them, and you mourn for them. Imagine being a vampire at the receiving end of that, having been chased away for years and years and told you’re a monster when you come across someone who sees you and your existence and accepts that you’re in a pretty bad place and offers help in the best way they can. I’m actually tearing up about this a little. If someone adds to this post I’ll love them forever.

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There’s a podcast I listen to sometimes that is run by two people who used to be in cults and they interview other cult survivors about the cult they were a part of. It is called “Was I In a Cult?” Part of what they talk about is redefining cults to include more than just groups, but families and other relationships as well.

America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)

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So I recently saw "See How They Run" (I enjoyed it) and it got me thinking about moves that "Know What They Are". Famous examples being Scream and Cabin in the Woods. And I was trying to make a list of films I think are like that and realized my personal list wasn't that long so I'm curious if other people have good examples?

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Some of this you may already know, so I apologize if this is unhelpful. But I think it really depends on the nature of the job. I have an office job, but I only leave my desk when I need to ask someone a question who isn’t immediately around me. We are split up by department but we have these like half cubicle things so when a conversation is happening you can kind of hear what it’s about and sometimes you can poke your head up and join in if you have an answer to the problem, or they’re talking tv or movies or books or what have you and you share the interest, sometimes it doesn’t concern you so you tune it out. You get to know people by physically leaving your desk to ask them a question about a project and if they have personalized their desk/ cubicle/ office at all you can ask them about it. Mondays you ask about the weekend. Fridays you ask about plans for the weekend. Some companies have happy hour. My company does that and a hiking club and the occasional game night. We also have a service committee for giving back to the community that employees can partake in. I think my company also has a Fantasy Football thing going on. Idk, a group of my coworkers mentioned needing another person in our last company wide meeting. All these help you to get to know your coworkers a bit more outside of work so we are able to have some fun at the office and enjoy coming to work since we enjoy the company of our coworkers. My company also values work/life balance so a lot of people are gone from the office by 5, some start leaving at 4. They really don’t care when you come in or when you leave as long as you get your work done. If you have a schedule you like better than 8-5 you are free to do that. Some do 9-6, I know someone who does 5am-2pm. I know I’m very fortunate to work for a company that is values their employees and wants them to have happy and healthy lives. We have 1 on 1s with or managers every two weeks to make sure we are happy, if any problems have come it, how can those problems be addressed, do you want further education or training in something, how can we help you in your career growth. And at least with my department, any answer you give is met with compassion and without judgement. We have separate teams, but don’t compete with each other like in some companies since we know if we all succeed at our job that means more business and work for everyone. I don’t know what sort of office environment you are going for, but this is a bit of what mine looks like. Also,

My parents had a workplace romance! So the company they worked for at this time is vastly different than my office. It’s also 30+ years in the past. But this is a real life take on an office romance if that helps, too.

I’ve told my mom that her and my dad’s story plays out a bit like a romcom. My dad interrupted my mom’s interview to ask his boss for a pen so he could get a glimpse of her. They got to know each other as professionals. My mom had a crush on him from the get go and she knew he was a good guy based off of how he talked to people of the phone. He never raised his voice, never got upset with anyone, really had and still has the patience of a saint. She was an administrative assistant so she was always going around to desks bringing people things and people would bring her things, so she knew and talked with a ton of people at the office. She always liked how my dad treated her, and not everyone at the office treated her well. They became friends and would hang out outside of work. Then my dad told my mom he was leaving the company and moving to another state. My mom was devastated. This was a corporate job with a non compete clause so my dad was escorted off the premises the same day. He was allowed back to clean out his desk but that was it. As my mom tells it, she was on the elevator to leave for the day as my dad was there cleaning out his desk. He got to the elevator, pulled her off, kissed her, she got back on the elevator, and after the doors closed one of the ladies on the elevator who was also her friend was like, “you got something you want to tell us?” My mom just smiled and said, “Nope” Fast forward a year, my dad calls my mom out of the blue asking for help with a hotel reservation. My mom says, “why can’t your assistant do that?” And he replied with, “I’m interviewing with the boss to come back to the company.” My mom was so happy and excited. She was like, “Absolutely, I’ve got you! While your here would you have time to grab dinner with me?” I forget the answer but she made the reservation and when my dad came back to the company, they started dating in secret due to company policy. But everywhere they went they saw their coworkers! Eventually, they started to tell people they were dating and my mom may have had to change departments but then when they went out, they never saw their coworkers. When my dad proposed he wanted to get married the next weekend. My mom said, “Hold up, I need a little more time than that.” They eloped a month later. Friends and family were upset cause they had wanted to be there for them, but my parents didn’t care. They were happy. They both admit it hasn’t been without it’s trials, but 31 years later, they are still happily married. My dad loves when my mom comes on convention trips with him and he’s always sad if she’s not able to. My mom changed careers while I was in college and became a real estate agent. She got so busy she and my dad weren’t seeing much of each other. So, my dad went to school to get his real estate license to help her out so they could spend more time together.

the other day i started writing an office romance but i quickly remembered that i have no idea what working in an office is like

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I've made a shopping list, I'll be making these this weekend.

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It wrinkles my brain that Jupiter’s moon Europa has oceans that are sixty miles deep, while Earth’s oceans only reach seven miles deep at most. I’m willing to bet good money that there’s life in Europa’s oceans. Like five bucks. You hear me, NASA? I bet you five bucks that there’s life on Europa… Now that there’s money and reputation on the line, I bet they send a mission there real quick.

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Happy Star Trek Day! (September 8 2021)

Celebrate 55 years of exploration, hope, and diversity. Join us September 8 for a Star Trek Day live stream featuring some of your favorite cast members, fascinating announcements, and so many surprises.

The event will air live on http://startrek.com/day (or http://intl.startrek.com/day for international fans) on September 8 at 5:30 PM, PT/8:30 PM, ET.

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Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute Characters

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

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just learned that magnolias are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they existed before bees

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Without spoilers, I want to say one thing about Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and the whole Ghostbusters franchise: it was made for the autistic community by an autistic person, aka Dan Aykroyd and it shows. It comes across so beautifully in writing and on screen.

Let me explain: the movie came about as a direct result of Dan Aykroyd's hyperfixation and special interest in the paranormal, he's said so himself many times. Aykroyd wrote Ray Stantz as he would embody himself on screen. He's said that. Ray is an extension of himself. Therefore, and naturally, Ray is autistic.

Unlike other depictions of autistic people in media, Ray comes across as likeable and honest. He reads well as a character without diminishing his autistic traits; he's witty, bubbly and excitable about his hyperfixation in parapsychology.

Ray is slightly clumsy, optimistic and slightly dim sometimes. He's the autistic person that is never depicted in media. He doesn't show the stereotypical traits but he is so evidently still autistic. He lacks eye contact and is quite stiff in his motor movements, and his voice is often monotone. But he expresses his excitement through his movements and facial expressions all the same.

And Egon, by extension of that, is a character that a lot of people on the Autism Spectrum relate to - myself heavily included. He portrays a lot of autistic traits but he, also, doesn't come across as unlikeable. He's grounded, well-versed, understands emotions and is shown to be empathetic - even when he doesn't overly understand social cues (for example, when he's comforting Janine in the first movie).

Egon is shown to have a strong connection and relationship with his colleagues and friends, he's witty and uses playful humour in social situations. He understands sarcasm and he's reserved in his use of it. He's adverse to physical touch but he does use it when needed. He's exactly the same as I am. And that's why I hold him so close to my heart.

The connection between Ray and Egon was always really special; they bounced off of one another and finished one another's thoughts. They were able to communicate with each other in good flow always appeared to be on the same wavelength. This is common in a lot of neurodivergent people; we are able to connect in a way that we can't with neurotypicals.

What Afterlife did was - SPOILERS FOR AFTERLIFE FROM HERE ON IN - give us a fresh outlook on autism through Phoebe. Though it is not stated she is autistic, it is evident that she may be on the spectrum. Phoebe's mum describes her as suffering from "bad co-ordination", and is constantly trying to help her open up and converse with people, which her brother says is "bad advice". This sort of comment is something that auties have heard our entire lives. Seeing Phoebe on screen felt like looking into a mirror into my life and it was so, so important.

Phoebe is shown to be a fantastic scientist, which is depicted as her special interest, and is shown to struggle in other subjects and with other issues. She is shown to be well-versed and straight-forward, just like her Grandfather. Phoebe says that she "exhibits emotions differently" to other people but feels them all the same - which is a common misunderstanding with autistic people.

I think what is also incredible about Afterlife is that everyone is aware of Phoebe's struggles, but she's labeled as a "gifted, intelligent kid" by Paul Rudd's character - even after her mum just listed all the things she struggles with. That's because even now - in 2021 - a female exhibiting all of these traits is unlikely to be diagnosed until later in life. Because autistic traits in women aren't shown to be an issue to people because we know how to mask. Phoebe is still developing into a young person, and her mum dismisses these issues she has because she is intelligent. That's a real issue.

Egon, on the other hand, as a person with the exact same traits, was labeled as a weirdo and outcast. That's a whole other issue.

And it was all so well-written. I love this franchise so much.

Overall, Ghostbusters is the perfect autism representation and I will NEVER shut up about it.

All three of these characters are so well loved, even by neurotypical people, and it's because they're a very raw and very real depiction of an autistic person written by an autistic person. Autism was less understood in the 1980's, so it's no surprise that it wasn't explicitly stated, but I think that adds to the magic. I think it's wonderful that autistic people like me are able to connect with these characters in a way that allistic people never could. That's what makes Ghostbusters such a beautiful franchise for people on the Spectrum.

And we owe it all to Dan Aykroyd and his hyperfixation all those years ago.