so in an attempt to actually use positive thinking, anytime i fuck up and my brain reacts as if ive cause a minor apocalyptic event, i compare my fuck up to the 4 minute fuck up committed by the crew of the uss william d porter.
and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.
...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.
see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.
while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.
especially if the president of the united states is on board.
yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.
and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."
but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.
...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.
not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.
yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.
but yeah, so thats my new measure for "how much did i really fuck up?" and when i compared accidentally picking up a pencil case without a tag on it in wilko, turns out it was a very minor fuck-up. yes, the cashier had to ask another worker to grab a duplicate so they could scan the barcode, but i didnt nearly kill the president during wartime via accidental friendly fire
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You have 90 minutes to complete. (original poem: r.a.)
In participation of the MCYT Recursive Exchange 2024 hosted by @mcytrecursive!
Inspired by know that all my love will be your breath (i will save you when your lights go out)
[text under cut]
1. Have you ever been in love?
(Please circle your answer.)
a. It's me and him
b. Our hearts beat in sync
c. Our lives intertwined
2. Do you understand what you’ve done?
(Please circle your answer.)
a. I couldn't do anything
b. I lost my balance
c. I doomed us both
3. It's been god knows how long since you felt phantom hands on your neck and there is no one in sight. If you were soul-bound to him and both of you died at the same time then why are you still waiting in the void?
Please answer clearly, in full sentences.
(Not a correct answer:I just wanted to see him one more time).
4. Define two (2):
Fate | The feeling of his forehead against yours
Curse | The moment you realise he isn't linked to you anymore
5. True or False:
i. It was your fault.
ii. You wish you had met him under different circumstances.
iii. You can’t regret a single moment that you had him.
iv. You would do it all over again if you could.
v. It ended long before either of you said anything.
thumbnails:
sketch cover thing for imgur link:
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i wish all fandom wikis a very migrate to miraheze or go fully independent
edit: i am getting way too many "what's wrong with fandom? 🥺" comments to respond to them all-- presumably mostly from people seeing this post without the reblog comments-- so please read this before asking that.
basically fandom/wikia is a corporation that hosts wikis bloated with intrusive ads, and they are actively hostile to both their users and to independent wikis (to the point of banning wiki admins for attempting to migrate to another platform & buying up specific domains so they can't be used). their use of SEO techniques means their wikis will usually show up as the top result in google searches, even above objectively superior wikis. they recently bought out Gamespot, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Metacritic, and others, and they will sometimes attempt to buy out independent wikis (like Bulbapedia)
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