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I tried to leave Kudos on a fic that was already deleted (i had the tab open) and I was expecting it to just bug out or not work but this is so much more unsettling

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he aint paying attention / le entra por un oido y le sale del otro

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A male sand diver, Trichonotus elegans, posing by spreading its pectoral fins. The female in the background looks only moderately impressed. These fish live in groups of 10 or 20, just above the sand, and the males mark their status by these displays by Klaus Stiefel

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we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth

For the first time, it's occurred to me to wonder - is this a normal 1890s ship's cargo? Or are things already weird at this stage?

With surprisingly little googling, I found Lloyd's Register Wreck Returns from 1890. Lloyd's Register listed merchant shipping vessels so that the people hiring them and the people insuring them would have a reliable source of information about their condition. The Wreck Returns, as the name would suggest, lists wrecks, how they were wrecked, where they were registered, their route and, helpfully, their cargo.

This might not be representative, because presumably there's some connection between the type of cargo and the likelihood of being wrecked. But it's an interesting start.

Most of the cargo listed in the Wreck Returns falls into one of these categories:

General: I think this means mixed or unspecified cargo.

Farming products and foodstuffs: cotton, cattle, wheat, wool, grain, palm oil, rum, pineapples, bananas, fish, salt, etc, etc

Fossil fuels: lots of coal, some coke, paraffin oil.

Wood: listed as battens, deals, staves, raffia, timber, larchwood, pine and sometimes just "wood".

Raw materials: ore, asphaltum, phosphate.

Building materials: iron pipes, paving stones, tiles, bricks, road stone, cement.

Ballast: lots of listings just say 'ballast' and don't specify what it was.

Of the sailing ships that were wrecked, the majority were transporting coal or wood.

It's not clear to me whether "cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth" means cargo of silver sand and boxes of earth, or general cargo plus the sand and earth. But either way, the Demeter's cargo wouldn't stand out.

It's unsurprising, but the name 'Demeter' is also pretty typical. Vessels wrecked in 1890 include Minerva (British iron screw steamer, carrying copper ore), Ajax (American wooden schooner, no cargo listed), Ianthe (British wooden bark, carrying copper ore), Terpsichore (Norwegian wooden bark, carrying timber) and Echo (British wooden schooner, carrying patent manure).

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if you complain about anything on tumblr, the guys who do the exact thing but ever so slightly less of it will show up en masse to agree with you

“holy shit people need to stop throwing rotten tomatoes at homeless orphans”

“#damn straight! #that’s why I, personally, only throw lightly expired tomatoes at homeless orphans. #unlike those absolute monsters asgkgkihh”

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waving my freak flag at half mast to indicate there has been a pervert tragedy

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baking vids like this make me die laughing every time like I know what will happen before the video finishes but it's just so funny to me

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A male sand diver, Trichonotus elegans, posing by spreading its pectoral fins. The female in the background looks only moderately impressed. These fish live in groups of 10 or 20, just above the sand, and the males mark their status by these displays by Klaus Stiefel

[ball-lightning]

we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth

For the first time, it's occurred to me to wonder - is this a normal 1890s ship's cargo? Or are things already weird at this stage?

With surprisingly little googling, I found Lloyd's Register Wreck Returns from 1890. Lloyd's Register listed merchant shipping vessels so that the people hiring them and the people insuring them would have a reliable source of information about their condition. The Wreck Returns, as the name would suggest, lists wrecks, how they were wrecked, where they were registered, their route and, helpfully, their cargo.

This might not be representative, because presumably there's some connection between the type of cargo and the likelihood of being wrecked. But it's an interesting start.

Most of the cargo listed in the Wreck Returns falls into one of these categories:

General: I think this means mixed or unspecified cargo.

Farming products and foodstuffs: cotton, cattle, wheat, wool, grain, palm oil, rum, pineapples, bananas, fish, salt, etc, etc

Fossil fuels: lots of coal, some coke, paraffin oil.

Wood: listed as battens, deals, staves, raffia, timber, larchwood, pine and sometimes just "wood".

Raw materials: ore, asphaltum, phosphate.

Building materials: iron pipes, paving stones, tiles, bricks, road stone, cement.

Ballast: lots of listings just say 'ballast' and don't specify what it was.

Of the sailing ships that were wrecked, the majority were transporting coal or wood.

It's not clear to me whether "cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth" means cargo of silver sand and boxes of earth, or general cargo plus the sand and earth. But either way, the Demeter's cargo wouldn't stand out.

It's unsurprising, but the name 'Demeter' is also pretty typical. Vessels wrecked in 1890 include Minerva (British iron screw steamer, carrying copper ore), Ajax (American wooden schooner, no cargo listed), Ianthe (British wooden bark, carrying copper ore), Terpsichore (Norwegian wooden bark, carrying timber) and Echo (British wooden schooner, carrying patent manure).

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if you complain about anything on tumblr, the guys who do the exact thing but ever so slightly less of it will show up en masse to agree with you

“holy shit people need to stop throwing rotten tomatoes at homeless orphans”

“#damn straight! #that’s why I, personally, only throw lightly expired tomatoes at homeless orphans. #unlike those absolute monsters asgkgkihh”

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My five year plan is to just see what happens

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is this anything