writersblock51 - Tumblr blog

[writersblock51]

Just finished this on Viki plus caught the epilogue elsewhere on the Internet to reduce ambiguity in the end.

Fantastic series with a fantastic cast, villains lurking everywhere and amazing heroic leads with friends who provide for a start to finish epic story.

Perfect review by @gizkasparadise

[writersblock51]

[writersblock51]

Seeing a steady rise of people using the library as we carry through summer break, so here's a quick thread from a staff member on little things you can do (for free!) to make life easier on staff. Let's go!

If you want to put a book back, DON'T put it back on the shelf! Put it on the return cart or bin, or give it to a staff member. Not only does this make it MUCH easier to catch misfiles and gather abandoned books in one trip, our budget is literally based on returns. Putting it on a cart gives us more money!

(To expand on the above: not only do we get paid more based on more returns, our book-buying budget for next year is based on what titles seem popular. Even if you don't check out a stack of books, putting it on the cart lets us know there's an interest so we can order more in that genre and support that author.)

Conversely, if you see a cart already full of books being pushed around by staff, PLEASE don't yank books off it or loiter around it. Carts are unwieldy and returns can build up quick, so let a shelver have space to move around and do their job.

(Again expanding on the above, especially please don't yank books off a staff person's cart if you see them pulling books off the shelf instead of putting them back. Books are pulled for a reason--hold requests for another patron, damaged, need to be relabeled, etc--so taking one can really throw off our list.)

If you rent a DVD and notice it's scratched or doesn't play, please tell us! We don't have the time or resources to watch every returned DVD, so we rely on patron feedback. Even a note tucked inside the case helps it get flagged for damage inspection when we're processing returns.

Pay attention to news related to your local branch! The VAST majority of book-banning demands we get are bulk lists from only one or two people--which means contesting them (or requesting a challenged book) also only takes one person.

Remind your friends that most libraries don't do late fees anymore! We want to be a safe haven for low income and disabled/nd people, so don't let being late or disorganized or poor or anything else discourage you. Bring your books back whenever you can, or just mention to a librarian if you lose it, and you're always welcome to come back.

[writersblock51]

An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home.

[writersblock51]

record profits are unpaid wages

[writersblock51]

More quality content here

CHRIS PINE laughing at memes of himself

[writersblock51]

I'm on this site, it turns out, for all of the Chris Pine laughing at himself stuff. Memes and photos of himself make him wheeze.

Truly, he's the best Chris

[writersblock51]

[writersblock51]

Loved this scene with the flashback - a wonderful conclusion to another terrific series on Netflix

Family ♥️ and what does being a "mom" mean

Hae-yi said, “You don’t need to come.” And you were just as nonchalant and said, “I wasn’t planning to.” Why couldn’t you just go together like other families? Anyway, you and Hae-yi are a match made in heaven.

CRASH COURSE IN ROMANCE (2023) dir. Yoo Je Won Episode 16 “You and I, the Union of Two Universes”

[writersblock51]

K-Drama Review: Love To Hate You

I could NOT STOP watching this drama. I watched it all in less than 24 hours. It’s the MOST bingy k-drama I’ve ever seen. There was not one point where I even thought about fast forwarding. There were no slow or boring parts. The female lead, Yeo Mi-Ran was GLORIOUS! She was SO fierce and feminist. She reminded me of Kim Yu-Ri from Law Cafe. The male lead, Nam Kang-Ho, grew on me so quick. The way I felt about him reminded me of Hoo Joon from So I Married My Anti-Fan. The fact that there were not one but two amazing couples to root for reminded me of Business Proposal (side note, Mr. Long-Haired second male lead was uncontrollably handsome and I need to see him as the male lead in a romcom asap). Love To Hate You was the perfect workplace, enemies to lovers, show business, contract relationship, comedy romance drama!

[writersblock51]

Always reblogging this when it comes around

#TheCarpathia

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.

[writersblock51]

This was just the first of his epic entrances as someone who saves her but also saves himself from the destiny he thought he deserved

They weren't one of my favorite couples at this point. I had no idea how much I'd grow fond of them as the series went on

Still one of my favorite scenes and one where I started shipping them when I first watched this.

Xiao Qi is both brave (he came to confront a crazy enemy to save his wife and jumped off a freaking bridge) and cool-headed (he had archers hidden!)

He is just a planner.

And Awu’s face as she sees this man she barely met and between whom and herself there is nothing but obligation forced upon both of them?! All the men in her life so far have failed her - her father, her uncle, her first love, even her brother. Xiao Qi breaks that pattern. He will always break that pattern.

And the way she warns him, the way she is brave for someone she has no feelings for?! They are amazing.

[writersblock51]

I'm rewatching parts of this again after finding it available on PBS Passport...

This scene could have turned out so differently yet - it was a surprise when I first saw it and is a funny and powerful turning point in their relationship upon rewatch.

Once again, the chemistry is insane, but what strikes me is not even his telling her sleeping self that regardless of whether she’s accepted him, he’s already accepted her (though that is amazing) but earlier when she assumes he’s stripping her not because she’s soaked through with booze but for other purposes and her reaction is to shove him because where were you on our wedding night. !!!!  It’s not “I don’t want to bang you,” it’s not “I did not want to marry you,” it’s “why did you abandon me?” and “if you abandoned me before, how do I know you won’t again” - it implies that what bothers her is being left (which makes sense, so many people abandon her; but I know since I watched this drama before, XQ never will) and also - you can only be abandoned by someone you wanted to stay. So yeah, she accepted him already.

[writersblock51]

I am envious of the person who gets to style Ahn Bo Hyun in Yumi’s Cells 2

AHN BO HYUN as GU WOONG YUMI’S CELLS 2 (2022)

[writersblock51]

Jo Bo Ah and Ahn Bo Hyun for Harper’s Bazaar March 2022 photoshoot

[writersblock51]

Fascinating food history - bread fraud!!

The only part that I remember learning about is how the term “a baker’s dozen” came about, so I should not be surprised by the far more expansive and sometimes criminal elements behind it.

I’ve been baking bread for my family for over 20 years, not knowing the long history of it in any kind of historical context.

My favorite bread cookbook is “The Bread Bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum. In the foreword to the book, Michael Batterberry (founding editor of Food Arts and Food & Wine magazines) writes: “As an elementary human need, bread runs a close third to air and water.”

It should not surprise me, really, that human greed intervened so awfully at times when it comes to bread and communities.

A loaf of bread made in the first century AD, which was discovered at Pompeii, preserved for centuries in the volcanic ashes of Mount Vesuvius. The markings visible on the top are made from a Roman bread stamp, which bakeries were required to use in order to mark the source of the loaves, and to prevent fraud. (via Ridiculously Interesting)

[writersblock51]

idle Jaskier-related notion:

Joey Batey is really approximately the same size and shape as Henry Cavill, and there are a number of clever techniques in pretty much all Jaskier's costumes to hide this fact and make him look about three or four inches narrower than he actually is. The costumers work really really hard to make him look that twinky, often with cleverly cut shoulder decorations that pretend he's trying to look bigger than he is and have the actual effect of making him look a lot lighter.

On a Doylistic level this makes sense, because it's hard to make Geralt look Huge and Imposing next to your non-combatant harmless sidekick if said sidekick is a jacked six foot burly man.

On a Watsonian level, however, the notion of Jaskier as this big meaty dude aggressively arguing with all his tailors to ensure that he looks as non threatening and foppish and entertaining as possible while also looking as sexy as he can (for a Jaskier definition of sexy, at least) is generating considerable entertainment for me this fine morning.