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A heart’s a heavy burden to bear
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wintersblight reblogged
Have you ever watched Doctor Who?
The name isn't familiar. Is it a TV show? What's it about?
Oh, you'd love it, Neil. It's about a Doctor and his screwdriver. Really good stuff.
wintersblight reblogged
A woman whose epilepsy was greatly improved by an experimental brain implant was devastated when, just two years after getting it, she was forced to have it removed due to the company that made it going bankrupt.
Specifically, because she couldn't afford to buy the implant from the company. They basically took her implant back to recoup their losses. This is what happens when you privatize healthcare and health research. The group providing her with this implant should not have been able to go bankrupt in the first place, let alone repossess her implant to pay off their debts.
femmeharlequin-deactivated20240
This is what disabled people mean when we say that cyberpunk horror is just a reality for us. This woman was literally forced to undergo a surgery because she couldn't pay to keep the implant already inside her brain. How long till companies start repossessing pacemakers and transplants?
wintersblight reblogged
(May 12, 2023) We are raising money for a crowd funded research project investigating the cause of blueberry hermit crabs in Okinawa, Japan using trash found on the beach as “homes” instead of natural shells. These hermit crabs are endemic to the southern islands of Japan, and they act as coastal environmental engineers. They are endangered on several islands, and we want to try and understand why they are resorting to beach trash for shells. Please consider sharing this post and donating to the project. The fundraising will be active for the next 45 days (until June 26).
You can find all project details here: https://experiment.com/projects/blueberry-hermit-crabs-with-beach-trash-homes
We suspect that areas with high rates of tourism lead to beach combers collecting natural shells leaving nothing for the hermit crabs to use. It’s possible that overfishing of turbo snails which would naturally provide shells for the crabs may also be a factor. We will survey many sites across several islands in Okinawa to try and determine a cause of this behavior.
We will be working closely with national geographic photographer Shawn Miller (photo credits above) and several researchers in Japan. Additionally, we will complete extensive beach clean ups in the areas we study. Thank you so much for reading!
wintersblight reblogged
Artist: Michael Rosato The Harriet Tubman Mural (2019)
Location: The Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center, Cambridge Maryland
Black History Month Day 27
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“may, cover me in softness and sage my intentions. give me the courage to lean more into my purpose regardless of how high the journey takes me, inject love and patience into my endeavors so i can heal from everything that stands in the way of reaching my goals, be metamorphic.”
— iambrillyant
wintersblight reblogged
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.
I can’t begin to describe how happy and flattered and a little teary I am that this just broke 100k.
I may be the actual only human being on Tumblr with a post this popular that I not only don’t regret making, but am actually HAPPY whenever I notice a surge in its circulation.
I never intended this to gain any traction at all (you’ll notice there’s no sources or anything–this was a personal ramble, prompted in good humor by a friend after I jokingly said that I wished someone would give me an excuse to cry about Carpathia on Tumblr so I could get it out of my system.) I literally expected to get, like, maybe 20 likes and a reblog, from friends, indulging me in my nonsense.
It just….means a lot to me that it’s touched so many people. I see a lot of tags to the effect of “HOW DARE YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS AND MAKE ME CRY ABOUT A BOAT” that are often really funny, but overwhelmingly the tags on this post are from people saving it for a rainy day, or remarking in a sort of quiet awe that they never even really thought about her role in the story–and God knows I never did, I learned it by complete accident much as most of the people who’ve found this post.
And so many of you guys are taking strength and reassurance from the reminder not only that people are capable of amazing things together, but simply that kindness matters and that a simple, tiny act of compassion is never wasted. I’m just really glad to have been able to do that for some folks.
If I can just add one personal note. I need to emphasize something I only touched on in the original post.
I need to emphasize that Carpathia failed.
A lot of the tags and comments have a tinge of…despair, or guilt, or wistfulness about things like this happening so rarely. Or inadequacy, or just being overwhelmed or unhappy about not being in a position to step up in a comparable way. And I want to gently bring up the fact that this is still the sinking of the Titanic.
They did not get there in time. They did not save the ship. It can be argued that they may not even have saved a single life; we have no way of knowing. This was still a horrific maritime disaster mired in arrogance and incompetence and a lack of care.
If the response to this story shows anything, it shows this: It matters that they tried.
Even though they got there too late, even though the ship still sank. It matters that they tried. The difference between making the best reasonable speed after confirming the seriousness of the situation, and the miracle they pulled off–it matters. It makes all the difference. Even if it made no difference at all. Not one of you read this and concluded that I was stupid for caring so much when the Titanic still sank and all those people still died.
You don’t have to fix the world. You’ll likely be cold and sick and miserable and testy and scared, and unprepared, and in over your head, and entirely too small to be of any real use. It feels stupid, passing out blankets and coffee in the middle of an ice field knowing what just happened. It’s hard to feel anything but useless when all you can do is tap a wireless transmitter and promise help that you know will come too late.
It matters that they fought for those people. It matters that they cared, and it matters that they tried. It matters that they didn’t stop. If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have read this far.
wintersblight reblogged
There's a cooler full of orange slices.
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PLEASE READ!
The Lavender Clinic is the ONLY clinic in the state of Hawaii for the majority of trans and non-binary youth to receive gender-affirming care, and it is on the verge of closing THIS Friday (Feb 17th, 2023) if it does not reach it’s funding goal. This would be awful for the local lgbt community on the island.
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MARISSA’S 5K FOLLOWER CELEBRATION ↳ @steveroger asked: favourite marvel movie?
Thor dir. Kenneth Branagh
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I love that phenomenon where ur talking to another neurodivergent person for the first time and u haven’t quite grocked their flavor of brain yet and they haven’t grocked yours and you’re both using your Acceptable Friendly Person Getting To Know You Script on each other but of course those scripts have been calibrated mainly for use with, like, normal people, so you just end up being like two conversational roombas bonking gently off one another like “hello fellow human” “hello fellow ‘hello fellow human’” until you both at some point manage to adjust your programming and actually like, communicate
It’s like when I was a kid I had two furbies and when you put them next to each other they’d just natter nonsensically past one another for a bit and then at some point one would abruptly recognize the other with its furby sensor or w/e and it would shout “DANCE!” and the other one would flap its ears and reply “HEY, DANCE” and then, in perfect unison, they would begin to rock back and forth while chanting “doot doot doo doot doot doo”
It’s exactly like that. I love it. Crazy people are the best, we are super excellent, i love us, i love crazy ppl
I wrote this post in my head while having a major dissociative episode in the bathroom and its the best and truest thing Ive ever said
wintersblight reblogged
Cookie season starts March 1 :)
witchy--mama
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pnkvaseline
“When the handle has snapped off the basket that held all your eggs…” gone girl tier monologue
Reblogging this again because so many people seem to miss the point: the point isn’t “don’t get married” or “Prince Charming doesn’t exist.” The point is that 50%+ of marriages end in divorce and it’s naive to think “oh, that’ll never be me.” That’s what this video is about. It’s about thinking that you’re the exception because you’re special. You’re not.
“But I am! Everyone tells me that I’m special. I’m beautiful and smart and funny and I’ve done everything right. These bad things would never happen to me!”
Watch the video again.
True, you might be lucky and you might live a fairy tale life. But what if you didn’t?
I’m a woman turning 40 this year, and I’ve lived a fairy tale life so far. I met my future husband in high school and we’ve been inseparable ever since. We supported each other through all-nighters and final exams in college, celebrated each other’s first jobs, traveled the world together, kissed under the Eiffel Tower and snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef. We got married and had two beautiful children who get compliments and free candy everywhere they go. We have jobs that give us personal satisfaction. We have a little place to call home that we own free and clear. We still hold hands after 20+ years together.
Despite all this, I still have a backup plan in case anything ever goes wrong.
Why? Because I just need to look at my mom and her generation to see what could easily happen to me, and what happens to many women. My mom did everything right too. She was young, beautiful, smart, hardworking, and kind. She went to college, got a job, got married, and had kids. She cooked, she cleaned, she drove us to piano lessons and art lessons. She showed up at our recitals and she was there on graduation day.
And she was miserable. (Still is.) Because the happiness that was promised to her if she did all this, if she sacrificed her life for her husband and her family, if she was a good wife, did not materialize. Instead she was left an old, lonely woman in a loveless, debt-ridden marriage.
My father was not a bad man. He never beat or abused my mother, he didn’t do drugs or drink excessively, he had no gambling or other vices, he was present in our lives, and he brought home a paycheck. But he was also stuck in a marriage where the love had fizzled under the never-ending burden of dishes and laundry and mortgage bills. Under arguments of whose turn it is to clean up the kids’ vomit and why did you spend money on this and how are we going to pay for the new transmission now. So when a younger woman started giving him attention and didn’t care why he forgot to take out the trash yet again, he started buying gifts for her. Expensive makeup, Louis Vuitton handbags, and the like. He was sad and lonely, and the woman was sweet to him. Meanwhile, my mom who was trying to get us to all of our dentist appointments and parent-teacher conferences, got nothing for Christmas. (She didn’t get him anything either.)
My father was not a bad man. He looked like a good man when they got married. I see their old photos from when they were young, before they had kids and a mortgage, and they looked happy. It hurts to look at their hopeful faces and know how things turned out in the end.
My mom’s story is not unique. All of my aunts are either depressed, divorced, or stuck in loveless marriages. Same with my friends’ parents. My mom recently reconnected with some friends whom she had not seen since college, and these five women were shocked to discover that they all had the same story: graduated from school, got jobs, got married, had kids, and became good wives, only to be bitterly disappointed by their husbands’ lack of partnership. They did what they were supposed to do, they carried their families on their backs, and they ended up with very little to show for it.
This video is about how common this scenario is, especially for idealistic young women who believe that this would never happen to them because they’re special. My mom was special too. So were my aunts. Everybody thinks they are special. Everybody thinks they’ll be the one to beat the odds.
And maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones. My mother looks at me, and she’s told me point blank, “You have a better fate than me, and for that I’m grateful.” When I look at my mother and the women of her generation, I see the lessons they learned the hard way and paid for dearly so that I can learn from their experience and avoid a similar fate. That’s why I cringe when I hear young women dreaming of a traditional life where they put their whole lives into their husband’s hands. I want to shake them and say, “Did you learn nothing from your mother’s sacrifice?!?!”
I still dream of living a fairy tale life, of growing old with my husband and being surrounded by our children, but I don’t forget the lessons of the women in my family who came before me. I have my own career, I have my own savings, I have no debt, I have maintained my health, I have maintained my own interests, and I have maintained my own social relationships. I can walk on my own two feet if I have to.
The point isn’t to not believe in fairy tales. The point is, don’t be so arrogant and naive to think that you are owed a fairy tale life. You aren’t. Work hard to build the life you want to live, but do it with your own two hands. Don’t blindly put your entire life into someone else’s basket, because it’s easy for someone else to let you down. Carry your own fucking basket, because you never know when you’ll need to be able to walk on your own.
wintersblight reblogged
Games media is so fucking weird dude
sorry not sorry