Lovedizzy2

SVSSS x Witch Hat Atelier AU

Master Shen meets an unexpected visitor...👀

What I really love about Coco's and Agott's dynamic is the play on the usual 'works hard vs naturally talented' dynamic that we can often see with these pairings. Despite what you might assume at first from her sense of superiority and the tropes that usually come with it, Agott isn't naturally talented, just as much as Coco isn't. Agott is an incredibly hard worker and so is Coco. What makes them different is that Agott harbors the weigh of her perfectionism. Nothing is ever good enough, neat enough, fast enough for her. She's harsh on Coco but she's the harshest on herself, buckling under the weight of her own expectations and even more so when those expectations are presented by others. She has worked incredibly hard, she's incredibly skilled, but she struggles to find value and satisfaction in her skill because she's always striving for something More.

Coco on the other hand is more than aware she's a complete amateur and has it beaten over her head constantly (in no small amount by Agott herself). She knows she lacks knowledge and practice and sometimes she does get discouraged because of it. But the expectation that Coco won't know things or won't be able to do them perfectly is as freeing for her as it can be demoralizing. Despite the insecurity, Coco is urged ahead by her wonder and love for magic. She's very quick witted and a fast learner and most importantly, she's not afraid to fail! She knows it's very likely that she will fail so she's no longer afraid of it, she just pushes ahead to the best of her abilities, eagerly soaking in things she has seen and learn and tries again and again and again until she finally figures it out, basing her value as a witch on that moment of figuring it out and not on all the failures that came before.

shen yuan transmigrated into a wife? he'll try to blend in and avoid his marital duties, while also accidentally reforming the system, and providing sex ed!

he transmigrated into a disciple? he'll stand up for binghe behind his back and sneak him food while thinking "don't mind me, just a random kind NPC" (he has already fully wife-beamed binghe)

You get to witness him talking himself into it in real time, going from, “look at him, that evil bitch, he's the worst person alive, so depraved, I have no compassion for such a heartless wretch," to, "well, I mean he’s never been ugly—but like how gross of AU me, like why would I jump into bed with—well, no okay I can see it. Yeah, okay I won’t lie, I definitely see the sex appeal. I’m just gonna…fake seduce him just to fuck with him a little bit. Yeah. That’ll show him. He’ll be so humiliated..." before immediately jumping to, "you know, I bet I could fuck him way better than AU me could.”

So a while back (I can’t remember exactly when but I think it was some time around the 40s/50s), a bunch of penguins escaped. A keeper left the gate open so a bunch of penguins just… followed them. And the people loved it. Look at these adorable birds outside their cage just following that guy around! So they get all the penguins back inside and realise that none of them really ran off, they just followed the keeper and went back inside and crowd thought it was amazing, so why not make it a regular thing? Get enough people there that if one of them goes to make a run for it (which at least one has in the past), they can’t get past the people, and let the ones who want outside have a little wander. So every day, they get a crowd, they open the gate, and whatever penguins want to get out can go, waddle about, squawk at people, and then hop back inside.

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 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.

Specifically, what if before the IAC, SQQ and LBH go on a mission together and encounter a cave with a rhyme puzzle thing. SQQ is super curious about it because he has no idea what the hell is going on with it or this cave, so he tries to figure out the answer. LBH, however, gets it right away. The answer is "Unconditional Love," (and SQQ is *very* angry about it. "Unconditional Love"?! Airplane, when he gets his hands on you-!!!)

Anyway, there's a sword inside. It's sentient and pure white and- okay, look, it's Xin Mo if Xin Mo was all about love and sacrifice of the self and non-murdery sort. Naturally, SQQ is catnip to it and now it's harassing him like a cat that wants your food; except it just wants his hands. Specifically it wants him to hold it so they can perma-bond. Forever. SQQ, unfortunately, is eventually harassed into grabbing it, and that's it. He's doomed to have this sword. This sword that only chooses someone who bares one. specific. trait.

So yeah, now LBH knows that there is Someone out there who his shizun loves unconditionally, and either he figures out real quick that it's him, or he goes days agonizing and glaring at everyone who looks at SQQ about it, Then figures it out.

day 5 (late): royalty