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visit-new-york · 3 months

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The Great Blizzard of 1888, Madison Avenue and 40th Street, New York City.

The Great Blizzard of 1888, a winter tempest that battered the Atlantic coast of the United States from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine in March 1888, left an indelible mark in history. Inflicting over $20 million in property damage in New York City alone and claiming the lives of more than 400 people, including about 100 sailors, the blizzard was a catastrophic event along the Eastern Seaboard.

Following a mild winter, a convergence of a western snowstorm and a southern warm front gave rise to one of the most severe winter storms in American history. The onslaught commenced on the night of Sunday, March 11, with New York City accumulating 10 inches (250 mm) of snow by Monday morning. The storm persisted, eventually enveloping the city in a 22-inch (550 mm) snow blanket, while other regions experienced staggering accumulations of 40 to 50 inches (1,000 to 1,250 mm). Relentless high winds, coupled with temperatures well below freezing, intensified the perilous conditions. New York witnessed winds averaging 40 miles (65 km) per hour, gusting up to 80 miles (130 km) per hour, resulting in the destruction of power and telegraph lines and colossal snowdrifts reaching heights of 50 feet (15 meters).

Despite the escalating weather, many New Yorkers unaccustomed to blizzard conditions attempted to navigate the city for work. As the situation deteriorated throughout Monday, workers found themselves stranded on the streets, trains, elevated transit cars, and at their workplaces. With closures affecting shops, government offices, courts, Wall Street businesses, and even the Brooklyn Bridge, people sought refuge in overflowing saloons, hotels, and prisons.

The profound impact of the blizzard led survivors to gather annually until 1969 to commemorate its anniversary. Recognizing the vulnerabilities exposed by the storm, officials implemented measures such as placing power and telegraph lines, as well as public transit, underground. The Great Blizzard of 1888 became a transformative event that reshaped urban planning and disaster preparedness in the years to come.

#new york #newyork #nyc #new-york #new york city #ny #urban #manhattan #city #usa #United States #buildings #travel #journey #outdoors #street #architecture #Great Blizzard #visit-new-york.tumblr.com

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themotherofhorses · 4 months

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paloma: first meeting

— simon "ghost" riley x oc!silentdove reyes.

summary: he's not annoyed, per se, but ghost is just not really in the mood to chit-chat with the american airman scurrying around the base. at best, he tolerates them.

(or the first exchange between ghost and his montanan woman.)

warnings: none, aside from explicit language.

note: okay, so despite this being an obvious OC-insert series, i invite anyone and everyone to read it :D this is actually my first time tackling an OC-insert fanfic (as well as writing ghost) so im still trying to get the rhythm of things.

dividers by: @saradika

paloma (masterlist) | main masterlist

[2021]

Simon Riley won’t ever admit it — never aloud, anyway — but every time he steps foot on American soil, he feels more akin to a wolf draped in sheep’s clothing.

In his mind, he sticks out like a sore thumb. He is not a hero, really; unlike the lot teetering around the military base he is currently stationed at for the next five or so weeks, he is less flesh and blood, and more a phantom. Or something along those lines. Actually, that could explain why there is such little traffic aimed his way. But he doesn’t particularly care. His schedule lacks the room to voice any complaints.

Right now, his main concern is doing his job, and doing it right.

Two weeks back, Price had him fishing out his passport tucked away inside his bedside table. “Fancy a two month getaway to the States?” Great Falls, Montana, to be exact. High west, nearing the border of Canada, and surrounded by land he’s only ever seen in those silly ass spaghetti western movies.

The view is nice, he’ll admit. Beautiful, even. Exhilarating. He now understands why they refer to Montana as “Big Sky Country.”

Malmstrom is much smaller than he imagined, and homier too. The Air Force base is nestled within the city’s east side, offering its own museum and park. He’s quite grateful for the latter; the trails allow for his nighttime walks when the nightmares prove too shitty to sleep.

Great Falls is pretty as well. Price would like it, maybe Garrick too. He knows the two are big on history, and almost every inch of the city is drenched with some memory belonging to the old frontier days.

Upon arriving, the yanks provided him with his own private office, housed in the back of the 341st logistics readiness squadron. It’s nothin’ fancy, really, just a wee room furnished with a dark mahogany desk, two windows, a steel cabinet, the Montana flag to his left, and the American to his right.

Again, he’s not one to complain. Something’s something.

Earlier, one of the higher-up airmen, a Staff Sergeant Benson (he believes is the name), had handed him a folder jam-packed with a shit ton of mission statements — logistics, strategic planning, reports of previous global concerns, and reviews of the base’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. All the documents are dated in a time range varying between two months ago to 0800 this morning.

In the back of his mind, he can already hear Price chuckling.

“Have fun, Simon.”

Bloody bastard.

So now, Ghost sits hunched over the desk, feeling a little too damn big for it. All the paperwork is strewn about messily around him, with sticky notes, a pen, and some other random shit of his. No one has yet to visit him; until that happens, he feels little need to remain organized.

His boot taps against the floor. “—Initial efforts to clean polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from launch facilities at Malmstrom AFB are ongoing but seeing success…” Ghost reads under his breath. PCBs? That’s nice to hear.

“...after PCBs were detected on surfaces in launch facilities at all three of the command’s missile wings.”

PCBs. Polychlorinated biphenyls — man-made and highly toxic, consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine atoms. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head as he flips onto the next page.

“We know they’re present on what appears to be otherwise pristine surfaces, due to the survey—”

—a sudden knock interrupts his reading.

With a curse on his tongue, Ghost sets down the report. He quicks a sneaking glance at his watch. 1342 hours. He’s due in a meeting at 1700.

“Come in.” His voice sounds low and raspy, the two words sounding more like a growl than a greeting. He’s not annoyed, per se, but Ghost is just not really in the mood to chit-chat with the American airmen scurrying around the base. At best, he tolerates them.

(In his mind, they’re all little Graves, ready to stir up a headache.)

The door slowly cracks open.

“Lieutenant Riley?” A female voice calls out — soft and cautious; Ghost’s chin drops against his knuckles. “Apologies for the disruption, sir, but I have some additional paperwork I need to drop off with you, at the request of my superior.” He grunts, and the airman then steps into his office, quickly shutting the door behind her before meeting his eyes.

It is entirely unlike him, Ghost knows, but his brain almost short-circuits right then and there. Two dark brown eyes, framed by thick lashes, peering up at him. Shit. He’d always thought brown was such a pretty eye color on a woman, but hers stretched further across common compliments.

Both of ‘em — they held no animosity, no uneasiness or fear, nothing.

That, itself, is quite fucking bizarre. He’s not used to that.

Ghost is .... well, Ghost. He knows the mask he is always donning on his face isn't exactly a sign of welcomeness. Just his mere presence is enough to startle the living shit out of rookies, baby recruits, wide-eyed sergeants, and the like. There is something inherently unnerving when you are unable to get a good reading of the person you're standing across from.

She’s brave, he thinks. Or merely oblivious to who he is.

“Here you go, sir,” the airman says while placing the packet of new documents down on his desk. Her lips are shaped prettily, plump and shining with a fresh layer of gloss, and across her nose is a splatter of faint freckles. Under a different circumstance, maybe he would’ve taken the time to try and count them all.

Ghost swallows hard, incapable (for what feels like the first time in his life) of mustering up an appropriate reply. “Ah, thank you, ma’am.”

The airman's brow lifts.

“Reyes,” she then corrects him with a kind smile, gesturing to the name badge sitting above her right chest pocket. Sure enough, in bold military lettering, reads Reyes. “My name is Senior Airman SilentDove Reyes. I am actually a cryptologic linguist analyst here on base; but sometimes I run errands for others, when not needed for a translation, of course.”

There is a slight chirp in her voice that Ghost picks up, along with the way she casually rocks back and forth on her feet. She seems awfully young, no older than 22, possibly 23, but even that's cutting it; a kid, compared to him. Maybe 5'7, with dark hair pulled back into two tight braids that fall at her belted waistline.

A stark contrast compared to him.

He's oddly curious now — about her age and first name and those long braids and why she stands before him, calm, collected, and sure — but he knows damn well this is not the time nor place for any questions. Both of them are on the clock, and it is likely she’ll need to report back to her supervisor soon.

He offers her a curt nod. “Well, thank you again, Reyes,” he states, keeping his voice flat.

“You are welcome, sir.” She turns to leave, but when her hand latches onto the doorknob, Reyes glances over her shoulder at him, “—oh, and Lieutenant? If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

–

The successful cleaning came after a bioenvironmental team at Malmstrom AFB …. Malmstrom AFB .. consulted with engineers and ….. and medical experts on the cleaning …. cleaning processes and–

–and agents most likely to effectively remove the chemicals….

He knows his mind is wandering off, in desperate search of that pretty senior airman from fifteen minutes ago. “Bloody fucking hell,” Ghost grumbles, leaning back in his chair. His head lolls back as he blinks upward, studying the ceiling overhead. The texture is popcorn, a creamy color, with a simple fan jutting down. One light bulb, probably a recent replacement.

Fuck. He doesn’t need this shit. Not one bit.

Five more weeks and he’ll be gone from here.

Ghost rechecks his watch, feeling a bit peeved at the time. 1411. He has several more hours until he can leave all this work shit behind for the evening, and maybe catch a short walk before hunkering down for the night. He doesn’t like sitting down for too long; it causes him to become restless. Agitated. Overthinking.

He doesn’t want distractions. He doesn’t need ‘em. Distractions ruin work ethic; clouding up the mind while fucking up all sense of responsibility. Price will have his ass if he – somehow – becomes compromised. And he'll never hear the end of it from Johnny.

Settling back into the paperwork, he decides that he won’t allow himself another second thinking about all that – the American airman and her pretty brown eyes and high cheekbones and first name.

Something tells him that’s easier said than done.

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fairuzfan · 3 months

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I saw your post about the Henna Night, hope it's ok for this comment from a Palestinian living in Diaspora who spent her child/teen/young lady years living in Palestine. Every village/city/family in Palestine of course does things a little different than others, this is my own experiences from going to like 100 weddings, lmao. Imo there is simply no Wedding like a Palestinian Wedding, it's the cultural backbone of our society gatherings. I personally hate when people compare a Henna Night to a Bridal Shower bc it's not interchangeable at all, but I acknowledge that westernization as well as accommodation's of Palestinians living in Diaspora has lead to people comparing Henna Night/Bridal Showers and have interjected Bridal Shower stuff into our tradition. Imo Henna Night is way more fun than the actual Wedding, I always loved going to those more. So the Bride's side of the family prepares for the Henna Night by inviting close family, friends, and usually women from the Groom's side as well. The Bride's family spends the day before or the day of the Henna Night preparing Henna Platters. As well as small bags of candy & small bags/cones of Henna paste as things to give to guests. Depending on the wealth of the family sometimes there more stuff but those are the main things, but usually there is always something to give the guests like tea, coffee, sodas, and sweets. During the Henna everyone wears Thobes, it's so beautiful to see the different styles of our Thobes. The Bride looks so beautiful in a Thobe/Headdress, I love it. The Bride's family also prepare platters of Henna decorated with flowers that (usually) the old woman/matriarchs will have the honor of carrying it on their heads (some dance without holding onto the platters with their hands! so iconic) as the women dance in a circle around the Bride. The grandmothers, or whichever woman with a good strong voice who Zagreet (idk how to do transliteration) but its singing where the lead singer will call out lines like "Heeyee this girl is the most beautiful in the world! Heeyeee we have come to celebrate her happiness! Heeyyeee may Allah's blessings fall upon this most gracious girl!" the lines are always made up on the spot so the singer has to have a sharp mind, the singer will also make up lines singing about the Bride, her smarts, beauty, personality, her generosity, or the generosity of her family, compliments to the Bride's mother, etc. These are always ended with the Ululation (trilling sound) that all women make at the end. During the Henna Night there's lots of singing, dancing, music playing, it always takes place at the Bride's Mother's house so its just such a cozy feeling of womanhood/family & bringing in the women of the new groom's family into the circle. Old women sitting on cushions/chairs with their canes, someone has a tubla (hand drum) & is playing, little girls in their thobes running around, teens showing off their thobes, the Bride's family, sisters, cousins, aunts, serving sweets & drinks, the Bride being celebrated. Continued...

omgggg i love reading this so much thank you.

yeah the bridal shower is not a great analogy because bridal showers in like the us are... not at all a celebration i feel like of the women the same way henna night is. you're right weddings are the cultural backbone in a way that i think a lot of nonpalestinians dont realize because of how many traditions they use throughout the whole ordeal.

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gartenofbanny · 8 months

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Andrealphus's first appearance in Unhappy Campers was probably the most mediocre introduction in all of Helluva Boss thus far. Andrealphus had no build-up aside from a single line Stolas said in The Circus.

Instead, Andrealphus has been moreso built up as a character outside of the series entirely. Tweets made by Vivziepop releasing his design and describing his role

This is one of my main issues with Andrealphus's introduction as a whole. He wasn't introduced within the series itself but on Twitter. Keep in mind that he is supposed to be a major antagonist, and usually antagonists who are major have introductions within the series. But maybe he does have an introduction within the series with dramatic effect behind it..right?

Right?

When Western Energy released 13 seconds into the episode, Andrealphus just appears.

No entrance, no in-show introduction, no explained role, just nothing. Andrealphus just appears as if he's always been in the series. This is the worst villain introduction I've seen in Helluva Boss because there was no introduction within the show.

It's like the writers had no idea how to introduce him within the show and just tweeted who he is and what his role is and called it a day. That's not how any character introduction works because they're essentially spoiling their audience. Instead of building him up within season 1, giving the audience something to theorize and talk about, eventually paying off with an appearance they just do "Hey, here's this character that will appear in a future episode! Let us explain to you who he is instead of letting you put the pieces together yourselves!"

So, I'm going to bring up one of my favorite introductions to an antagonist in fiction. You all have heard of Dragon Ball Z, right? Well, here's how one of the main antagonists, Cell, was introduced.

youtube

Words can not express how much I love this introduction, why it has a great build up, and how it's fucking terrifying. But I don't feel like explaining right now.

So now that you all watched the video or have already seen it, Lets try something different. Remove the majority of the video, immediately cut to Piccolo facing Cell with Cell already absorbed the last citizen of the city and Piccolo about to fight Cell while screaming his name. That doesn't work because two things are missing.

And that is the build-up and

ACTUAL INTRODUCTION

This is why Andrealphus's introduction into Helluva Boss is mid (if you can even call it an introduction), Andrealphus had no actual introduction within the series aside from a throwaway line a couple episodes before and no actual introduction within the series either. Andrealphus just appears in Western Energy, and the episode acts as if like the audience already knows who he is and what he does.

Newsflash, we don't. Well, we know who he is, but that information was given outside the show. Because for some REASON, Viv and Spindlehorse write their characters outside of the show.

-Insert Millie thread reference here-

Am I expecting Helluva Boss to have Dragon Ball Z's level of writing? No, it's Helluva Boss, lmao. But I did expect it to have a decent villain introduction, especially when the villain is really major. Helluva Boss has had pretty decent villain introductions and twists with Martha and Striker. Hell, in my opinion, the DHORK Agents had the best introduction thus far, but it just fumbled the bag with Andrealphus.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Andrealphus's introduction sucked and he's honestly just painfully boring as an antagonist overall, but that'll be a topic for a different essay. That's all I have for today. Thank you all for reading, and I hope you all have a great one! ❤️

#helluva boss #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #vivziepop criticism #vivziepop #helluva boss critique #helluva critical #vivienne medrano #helluva boss andrealphus #andrealphus #Youtube

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trainmaniac · 8 months

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flickr

'Vacs' on tour by CJ Rich Via Flickr: 50007 'Hercules' and 50049 'Defiance' power through theirold stomping ground of Maidenhead on the Great Western on 29 July 2023 with 1Z50 Ipswich - Paignton

#Vacs #Hoovers #Class 50 #50007 #50049 #1Z50 #GBRf #GB Railfreight #Maidenhead #Sir Nicholas Winton #GWML #Great Western Main Line #flickr

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the-ninjago-historian · 3 months

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New Article! Scrapped Season Concepts!

We've all heard of the scrapped Cowboy inspired season of Ninjago. But few know there was many more ideas that were ultimately scrapped! Today, we'll be looking at this scrapped season, along with many other abandoned concepts from Lego Ninjago artist Matt Betteker! And try to unlock some of the mystery behind them! Let's go!

1: The Dawn Of The Devourers, Lloyd vs Pancho, The Race, and Adventure

Clearly inspired by Western movies, this epic adventure seems it would have pitted the Ninjas against a Great Devourer riding band of outlaws, (One of which is named, Pancho) in search of perhaps some sort of treasure! This concept is extremely interesting, since it shows the existence of multiple Great Devourers! One of which looks a bit like Wojira! This season also seems to take inspiration from Incan civilizations, going by the jungle tomb-like building in the concept Adventure, and the Incan style Pyramids in the background of Lloyd Vs Pancho. Overall, this seems like it would have been an epic season. I can only imagine what the concept titled, The Race would have looked like animated. I honestly wonder why it was scrapped.

(I love the little detail of Cole manning the guns and Wu driving the wagon. Good father and son teamwork. Lol.😂)

2: The Lightning Temple and ThunderTown

What are these concepts for? Who's to say. It could be a very early version of Prime Empire. Going by the circuitry style painting on the temple in the concept called Temple Of Lightning, and the overall lightning themed atmosphere. OR, it could be an early design for the Island of the Keepers. Whose to say? But either way, it's a really cool concept and I'd love if they could reuse it some day.

3: Clockwork, The Ancient Ones Return, The Gold Army Meets Fibo, and The Gold Collector

This concept looked like Crystalized, Master Of The Mountain, and Hands Of Time all rolled into one!!! The gold and white color palette seems incredibly similar to Shintaro's. Meanwhile, clockwork patterns and style are reminiscent to Hands Of Time! And last but not least, the floating island looks almost like the Crystal Kings from Crystalized! This season would have had all sorts of crazy stuff! The main villain, (Known as The Gold Collector,) seems to have been very interested in two things. Gold, and Clockwork stuff. And it seems he or she would have been collecting gold to perhaps bring back the Golden Army shown in the artwork The Gold Army Meets Fibo. Who is this mysterious Fibo? A time traveler perhaps? Look at the flowing swirls of clock styled energy surrounding him. Very intriguing.🤔

If Ninjago had a steampunk inspired season like this, I would have been thrilled! It's to bad this concept was abandoned. But I would love to see what fans do with it!

4: Hunt For The Lava Hammer, and Cole Lava Blade

An early version of Master Of The Mountain, or something else? Going by the mining style machines and side characters in the backgrounds of both these pieces, this could have been a mining themed season centered around Cole. Even Cole's outfit is designed to look like a mining or construction outfit. Almost reminiscent to Lego City's Volcano Explorers line.

5: The Dragons Tribe, and Hunt For The Elemental Shurikens

There isn't much to say about this one. As we can't really take many clues from it. But going by Lloyd's outfit, and the lush green plant life, I believe this could be an early version of The Island. What really interests me is these Elemental Shurikens. What are they? Unfortunately, it doesn't say. But I'm sure they would have been interesting! Also, look at that dragon guarding her nest. The patterns on her are beautiful!

6: The Journey of Lloyd

All these piece were under one title. The Journey Of Lloyd. How mysterious.👀 So what is this collection of concepts? Just by looking, you can tell this was no ordinary season. The muted color palette and the more mature atmosphere all seem to point to something bigger. Was this perhaps a scrapped version of the Ninjago Movie? Or something else? Perhaps a Lloyd centric story, in which he goes an epic adventure all his own! Whatever's is was, it looks amazing. The love how much more mature and darker it feels. Surely a concept worthy of a nail biting, heart racing, action movie!

7: The Dragon Mask

A single concept amongst the others caught my eye. It didn't seem to fit with any of the other concept seasons. What is this dragon mask? It could be an early version of the Dragon Forms seen in Crystalized. But whose to say? Still, a very striking design! Feel free to comment your theories about it!

Want to look at the artwork straight from Matt Betteker himself? Here's his Art Station account with the exact art pieces we went over today.

Thanks for reading everyone!

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago lego #ink dragon #concept art #Matt Betteker #links #ninjago crystalized #ninjago the island #ninjago prime empire #ninjago hands of time #the lego ninjago movie #ninjago movie #lego ninjago movie #ninjago master of the mountain #trivia #Inky's Articles #scrapped concepts

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braininatankwithalaptop · 2 months

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I've just been having Undertale Yellow thoughts and I'm just filled with specific angst thoughts on the endings. Because no matter what

Clover is alone.

Clover either drags their dying body to a wall to die with dignity, they're betrayed and killed by someone they thought was their friend after he killed Clover's chance to have a family, or they leave the underground empty and unable to connect to others (remember, LOVE means distancing yourself to more easily hurt others).

Sure, in neutral and pacifist, they briefly travel with Martlet and sometimes Ceroba, but they're either short lived or under false pretenses. Martlet tries so hard but ultimately does little to protect Clover, and Ceroba initially just tries to lead Clover like a lamb to slaughter. She does connect with them a little during the journey, but I feel like it's overshadowed by her plan to kill Clover. Clover at the end of a hard fight and betrayal is faced with an alcoholic widow begging them to kill her. That's rough.

I feel like in the pacifist ending, Clover's main reason to giving up their soul isn't because they really love the monsters, they're just extremely empathetic and care about the injustice dealt to monsters as a whole. The lines in the whiteout don't call to feelings of friendship or camaraderie that Clover experienced, but of how the monsters are suffering trapped underground, and they need Clover's soul to escape.

Frisk gets to end the Pacifist story with a loving family and all of monsterkind knowing their name. Clover's story ends in a tragedy as they can't connect any further with these people who might be the first in their life to care, and no one else would know as four monsters hold a funeral in private.

And ultimately how much does Clover's actions matter? Either they sacrifice themselves, or they have to kill everyone else to survive. There is no option between because Flowey is the arbiter of what happens and no neutral run is satisfying to him. He terrorizes Clover for funsies and then starts everything over again. Clover only gets the pacifist ending because of a whim from Flowey.

No matter what path is taken, Clover's story is ultimately a tragedy. They got to have some fun as a cowpoke, but it seems their story took more after The Great Silence than most other western media.

#uty #undertale yellow #undertale yellow spoilers #uty spoilers #clover #uty clover #I'm still a little salty kanako's storyline doesn't get resolved #I'm so tempted to try and make a fangame where pacifist clover sneaks into the true lab to save kanako #that should be uty's version of a true pacifist ending

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wifelinkmtg · 18 days

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There's "spaghetti western" and then there's whatever the hell this Chef Boyardee shit is

Hello! and welcome back to Wifelink. We're talking about Outlaws of Thunder Junction today, Magic's second product in a row set in a version of Nevada, and let me tell you something: I am not impressed. The mechanics are uninspired, the setting is undercooked, the story is overstuffed, and to top it all off the whole thing smacks of settler-colonialism. AND they yassified Vraska, the monsters!

WE WILL GET TO THE HOT WOMEN, BELIEVE YOU ME, BUT FIRST I AM GOING TO COMPLAIN SOMEWHAT, AS IS MY RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN, AS A HUMAN BEING, AND AS A GAMER

The mechanics we've discussed elsewhere, and I will skim over the main storyline except to say that very few of this Big Villain Heist Team-Up gets enough spotlight to justify their inclusion here beyond getting recognizable names on cards, and that Rakdos' presence on the plane alone ought to be an apocalyptic calamity. I appreciate Jace & Vraska going full blackpilled accelerationist, stealing a baby, and aiming to destroy the multiverse & start over (a novel hybrid of Raising Arizona and Doctor Strangelove,) but I also know, sure as the sun rises, that whatever happens with their villain arc will be a underwhelming let-down.

What I actually want to complain about, though, is the setting. Thunder Junction ain't real, and I don't mean it's fictional, I mean it's plywood facades on a backlot. It's the set for a cowboy film. You feel me? This ain't a plane, it's a god damned sound stage.

Lemme go over the facts: we know Thunder Junction has been settled for a bit over a year. A year! - and yet there's multiple towns, multiple railways, and an honest-to-god metropolis. Less than two years and we already have ghost towns! This is not the product of a bunch of people on various planes all individually deciding to seek a new life in the off-world colonies. All of this represents a staggering quantity of people, material, wealth, and labor, being moved between planes, directed and organized - but by whom? For what reason? How, even? The story is totally uninterested in these questions.

One of the few silver linings to the way the Phyrexian invasion storyline ended was that the Omenpaths had a lot of interesting potential! Different planes would come into direct contact with each other for the first time ever! Different technologies, different philosophies and religions, different kinds of magic colliding, coming into conflict, adapting and adjusting to each other. And after a couple of sets where the interplanar contact was limited to one or two particularly adventurous individuals, we finally get to see what interplanar contact at scale looks like here in Thunder Junction... and it just looks like a John Wayne flick. Did people not bring their culture with them? Is there a big rack of hats and boots and dusters right where people step off the Omenpath? Shuck off those old Ravnican rags, kid, get changed. You'll spoil the aesthetic. I mean, it's baffling.

Luxurious Locomotive (art by Leon Tukker). This is one of the few man-made parts of this plane that I can look at and know where it came from: this is a Kaladeshi design. More of this sort of thing would have made Thunder Junction feel more like a real place and less like a Sergio Leone joint.

There's a side story, No Tells, by Isaac Fellman, which I quite like actually: it's about guilt and betrayal and the inevitable regrets of having moved into a queer housing co-op, and one of the things that makes it great is that we know where Yuma came from (New Capenna), we know why he left (the limitations of "be gay do crimes" as praxis under capitalism), and we know what he brought to Thunder Junction with him (cocktails, pool tables, and his co-op's emergency funds). Fellman has written nothing else for Wizards and doesn't play Magic, and even so he's done more to make Thunder Junction feel like a real place situated in a real history than the rest of the story team combined - which goes to show, one, that we should only let trans people write magic story for the next decade or so, and two, that what I'm asking for in terms of worldbuilding is not unattainable, or even that difficult.

And all of this ties into the colonialism, right? Thunder Junction is being colonized, and asking questions about who benefits, who's sponsoring this breakneck settlement of the plane, what they're after and so forth would require the story to take a good hard look at the process of colonization itself, and Wizards is flatly unwilling to engage with anything that thorny in their products. So, just as Ixalan involved a limp-wristed slant reenactment of the Spanish conquest of the Americas - but it's fine because they're the bad guys and they're technically not even trying to colonize Ixalan and they don't win anyway so no one gets hurt! - Thunder Junction is attempting to present a Disneyland version of Western colonialism. Untamed wilderness! Bringing civilization to uninhabited deserts! How cool and heroic these hard frontiersmen and -women are! I'm told they brought in Navajo cultural consultants for the Atiin, a fantasy equivalent, and I hope those folks were well compensated! The Atiin seem cool, and the one Atiin character we spend any time with is well-written, but the Atiin are not indigenous to Thunder Junction. They're not being colonized. And if there weren't anybody being colonized, I'd probably still dislike the colonial vision of a wild land inhabited only by animals, just waiting for us to shape it to our will with railways and violence, but there is in fact a native race of sapients on Thunder Junction, and these cactus folk get no voice in the story, so if they have some kind of opinion on the rapid colonization of their home and the clear-cutting of their cactus forests, we don't get to hear about it.

Prickly Pair (art by Brian Valeza) Too much of the extremely-limited presence Thunder Junction's only indigenous sapients have on the cards is devoted to cactus-based puns like this one, which is pretty distasteful given, you know, the colonialism.

I'm talking about colonialism not because I think that replicating colonial myths in fantasy fiction is an unethical thing to do - although it is - but because you can see, right, that Thunder Junction's lack of verisimilitude is intertwined with the colonial vision of the world at play here, yeah? The story wants to have cool cowboy shootouts and train robberies and it does not want its cowboy fantasy to be complicated by uncomfortable realities, so it has to avoid all of the basic worldbuilding questions that would tell us who the colonization benefits and how they're profiting off the plane, and in the end we're left with nothing but an empty aesthetic, like a duster hanging off a scarecrow, blowing in the wind.

ANYWAY SO WOMEN

To be honest, under the circumstances I'm not really feeling like giving the fine women of Thunder Junction my usual more elaborate treatment, so we're going to lightning-round this shit, which is at least thematic.

Blood Hustler (art by Anna Pavleeva)

Vampire MILF.

Rattleback Apothecary (art by Loïc Canavaggia)

Snake MILF.

Wrangler of the Damned (art by Michal Ivan)

Cis lesbian haircut, good with a rope.

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds (art by Ryan Pancoast)

BIG

#outlaws of thunder junction

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unhonestlymirror · 8 months

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We honestly don’t mock “realists” enough for getting absolutely everything wrong about reality - especially regarding russia’s war.

I’m no academic, but we can all spot a grift as blatant as “realism”.

Realists say they just describe the world as it is - shaped by “great powers” - yet are constantly angry that the world isn’t how they’d like it to be - and that people in smaller nations actually have agency too. In a desperate attempt to prove their analysis, they’ll cheer on and collude with a so-called “great power” in the hope it can destroy international law and the rules-based order of co-operating sovereign states that is so inconvenient to their analysis.

Hence they still publish pure delusions like this, written as if it’s Ukraine that’s invading russia (at the West’s behest) and has the luxury of giving up the war. It throws out every Kremlin line in a weak attempt to discourage resistance to russia’s genocide.

Articles by realists encouraging a deal with russia that would reward its aggression always suddenly increase exponentially when russia needs to pause Ukraine’s momentum. It’s so predictable.

The obscured face on the cover of this article is an accidental reflection of how they prefer others unseen.

The article focuses in on analysing Ukraine’s counteroffensive by summarising every critical western report over recent months, alongside analysis from western realists. Out of the many people who provide their analysis in this article, there are ZERO Ukrainians asked for their perspective. Only one anonymous Ukrainian official and a tweet from Zelenskyy are quickly referenced to support her narrative.

The article has ZERO consideration for the reality of Ukrainians under russian occupation who face mass murder, mass repression, mass deportation, torture, sexual abuse and the elimination of their culture and nationhood. Lynch’s main argument means that Ukraine should settle for this - yet addressing this reality never crosses her mind.

Out of thousands of words, there is one reference to “many atrocities” from someone’s quote but in a paragraph with vaguely conspiratorial analysis of the media controlling the narrative. “Scepticism” has been “suppressed” says Lynch.

Lynch is using carefully worded atrocity denialism.

And we see through it all. We remember how bad all their past predictions were - from their mockery of people concerned about the invasion to their expectation of a swift victory for russia. Instead, we see the hubris of a “great power” and the agency of Ukrainians determined to fight for their own future.

Ironically, realists just can’t compete with reality.

I don’t think these realists are as dumb as they pretend to be. They could structure a proper argument and write a half decent article if they wanted to. They know an article analysing Ukraine should have Ukrainian perspectives (especially when using their bodies for the click bait cover). They know it would be more credible to at least address the “counter argument” about what happens when a genocidal invader is unopposed.

They choose not to because realism is - let’s get real about this - just an ideology focused on denying agency to people deemed not to live in “great powers”.

Reality is so disappointing to them.

I forgot to add that Lynch’s article characterises the nature of the war as merely “primal for both Russia and Ukraine”.

What does that even mean? It’s an odd description that serves no purpose except to portray false equivalence between those who chose to wage a war of aggression and those defending themselves from genocide. She knows exactly what she is doing.

#hetalia fandom this you?#stop russian aggression #support ukraine #genocide of ukrainians #russia is a terrorist state

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er1chartmann · 5 months

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Heinrich Himmler's time line

This is Heinrich Himmler, the Head of the SS, timeline:

1900: He was born on 7th of October in Munich.

1905: His younger brother, Ernst Himmler, was born.

1913: he attended his father's school in Landshut, the town where the family had moved.

1919: From April 1919 Himmler joined various Freikorps, to "erase the shame of Versailles" and overthrow the "Marxist dictatorship". These enlistments were partly due to the guilt he had for not being able to fight in the Great War

1919: In August 1919 he was already working on a farm near Ingolstadt, but his work on the farm did not last long; On September 4 he fell ill. He had paratyphoid fever.

1919: On 18 October he was accepted as a student in agriculture at the University of Munich

1922: After completing his university studies in with a diploma in agriculture, he immediately found work at a fertilizer company, Stickstoff-Land

1923: He joined the Nazi Party in 1923, card N 156.

1923: He take part in the Failed Munich Putsch, but, while Ernst Röhm and Adolf Hitler were arrested, Himmler was considered an insignificant supporting actor and therefore did not suffer punishment.

1925: He was fired and, unemployed, decided to join Erich Ludendorff's new political formation, the National Socialist Liberation Movement.

1925: During that period he also met Gregor Strasser, of whom he soon became his personal secretary.

1925: An official of the Lower Bavarian Gau, based in Landshut, he took steps to revitalize the National Socialist sections in the area. He was promoted to vice-Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria-Upper Palatinate

1928: He married Margarete Boden

1929: He was appointed Reichsfuhrer SS by Hitler.

1929: His daughter, Gudrun Himmler, was born

1931: He commissioned Reinhard Heydrich to establish the SD.

1933: When the National Socialist Party took power in Bavaria on March 9, 1933, Himmler took control of the police.

1934: In May 1934, he had command of all police forces, with the exception of Prussia.

1934: He was one of the main organizers of the Night of the Long Knives

1934: As a reward for his role, Himmler gained control of the Gestapo, the secret political police.

1934: he gave the order to search the length and breadth of western Germany, until he found the ruins of the mountain fortress of Wewelsburg

1935: On December 10, 1935, "Lebensborn e.V." was founded in Berlin.

1936: Himmler was appointed Chef der Deutschen Polizei, or commander of the entire police, political and secret activity of the whole of Germany. In this new function, Himmler could participate in meetings of the Hitler government, since his position was equivalent to that of a minister.

1936: In the summer of 1936, he had the thousandth anniversary of the death of Henry I the Birdcatcher celebrated in Quedlinburg.

1936: Himmler issued a decree to proceed with the reorganization of the German police.

1937: At the end of the renovation works, Wewelsburg had transformed into a true shrine, with dozens of statues of Henry I the Birdcatcher, Frederick of Hohenstaufen and other German heroes.

1938: on 28 October 1938, Himmler had a note spread among all SS members, according to which it was a duty for every SS man to procreate at least four children to preserve his good blood before leaving for the front.

1939: The ''Operation Himmler'' begins the Second World War

1942: Reinhard Heydrich held the Wannsee Conference, where the so-called ''final solution'' was organized

1943: on October 4 and 6 he gave the Posen speeches.

1945: Himmler appeared for the last time at Hitler's Führerbunker in Berlin on 20 April 1945, on the occasion of the Führer's birthday

1945: A few days later, on April 23, Himmler met Count Folke Bernadotte, proposing German surrender on the Western Front but not on the Eastern Front; the Western Allies were careful not to take Himmler's peace proposal into consideration; however the offer made was spread through the press and, on 28 April, Radio London announced: "The Reichsführer of the SS claims that Hitler is dead and that he is his successor". In Berlin, a Hitler in the throes of an uncontrollable rage relieved him of all his political and military duties and ordered his arrest and shooting, orders which were not carried out due to the difficult stalemate in which they found themselves all departments of the army of the Third Reich.

1945: He killed himself on the 23 of May, 1945.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler: the sinister life of the Head of the SS by Heinrich Fraenkel and Roger Manvell

If you don't like it go with your life :))

Note: If I get new information from my research I will edit the post :))

I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM, FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL POST

#reichblr #austrian painter #heinrich himmler #ww2 germany #studyblr #hamsterblr

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ezra-fell-and-co · 8 months

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Aziraphale & Shostakovich

The moment in the record shop when Aziraphale said he was picking up a Shostakovich record I had So Many Thoughts.

The symphony he's listening to is Symphony No.5 in D Minor, Op. 47, composed in 1937 and premiered in Leningrad to a thirty+ minute long standing ovation. Prior to this piece, Dimitri S. spent many nights sleeping in the hallway outside of his apartment so that his family wouldn't see if the government police in charge of enforcing Stalin's brutal rule came for him in the middle of the night. His last pieces had been received harshly by critics and called unpatriotic, which was just about the worst thing a composer living during The Great Terror (1936-1938) could do. Those who were not loyal to the regime and explicitly portrayed it in their art were branded as traitors and sent to gulags or were straight up executed.

The San Francisco Symphony describes the 5th symphony as "the story of a fall from grace and redemption.". Shostakovitch has gone from being a golden example to being eyed as a traitor almost overnight, the 5th Symphony becoming his redemption back into good graces.

So basically Dimitri S. was a man with contrasting ideologies to the powers that be, so to say, who was living under the threat of death, torture, or excommunication from his homeland. Haha, so weird that Aziraphale would want to listen to his music specifically.

(If you've never listened to Symphony No. 5, I highly encourage you to go listen!)

To set the scene-

From The Houston Symphony's 2018 Fighting the Barbarian Artist article on Symph. 5:

"In January 1934, Dmitri Shostakovich scored one of the biggest triumphs of his career with the premiere of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, a work official critics hailed as the first great Soviet opera. Based on a nineteenth-century novella by Leskov, it follows the misadventures of Katerina, the illiterate wife of a well-to-do country merchant who is driven to murder in order to be with her handsome but unworthy lover, the laborer Sergei. By turns satirical and tragic, Lady Macbeth explored themes of oppression with a potent combination of sex, violence and some truly beautiful music that played to full houses for two years. Then on January 26, 1936, Stalin went to see it. Two days later, on page 3 of Pravda (“Truth”—the newspaper that continues to serve as the official mouthpiece of the Russian Communist Party to this day), Shostakovich found an anonymous review of Lady Macbeth headlined “Muddle Instead of Music.” One representative quote declared that the opera “tickles the perverted tastes of the bourgeoisie with its fidgety, screaming, neurotic music…”" ...

There is debate about if Stalin himself wrote the review to make a point, or if he just signed off on it being printed. It's also unclear if Shostakovitch was being targeted specifically, or just because of his notoriety to prove that no matter how big a name you are you're not safe if you don't fall in line, or if he was just being used as a pawn in the ongoing power struggles of the day.

Either way, he was very aware that he was in danger. A friend of Stalin's was vanished when he wrote to Stalin in defense of Shostakovitch's work after the fateful review.

The 5th was a result of Dimitri knowing he needed to get back into good graces, so he had to give them something that they wanted. Or at least something that sounded like what they wanted.

Symphony No. 5 is very sneaky in how it subverts the expectations and requirements of Stalin's Russia.

For one, it's form- a symphony is a very structured form and very Western, popularized by Beethoven and co. It's also instrumental, which allowed Shostakovitch to hide a lot of references, subversions, and musical sarcasm/critiques without the untrained critics and government officials being any the wiser.

D minor, the main tonality of the symphony, has been described by various music theorists about what kind of emotional experience it portrays. John Mattheson in 1713 described it as "Serious, Pious, Ruminating. Melancholy, feminine, brooding worries, contemplation of negativity."

However, for our purposes, Aziraphale is listening to the fourth movement, which is also the most political. (More excellent write ups about the entire work can be read here, here, here, and here. There is a PBS documentary about it here.) ((It also shifts to an ironic D Major as one point, which Mattheson describes as "Triumphant, Victorious War-Cries. Screaming hallelujah’s, rejoicing in conquering obstacles. War marches, holiday songs, invitations to join the winning team."))

The fourth movement is bombastic, letting the brass section loose right at the start. The main theme in this section is from an unpublished song that Shostakovitch had written as a setting for a Pushkin poem. The piece as a whole and specifically this movement is a direct critique of Stalin himself.

The poem?

With sleepy brush the barbarian artist The master’s painting blackens; And thoughtlessly his wicked drawing Over it he is daubing. But in years the foreign colors Peal off, an aged layer: The work of genius is ‘gain before us, With former beauty out it comes. Thus my failings vanish too From my wearied soul, And again within it visions rise, Of my early purer days.

Which I think speaks for itself in what kind of mentality Aziraphale might have listening to the symphony.

I'm not sure which recording he listens to, but in the record shop we are shown that it's a record with a blue label on the disk. There are several recordings that have blue labels including the 1972 Moscow Philharmonic with Kiril Kondrashin and the 1989 Scottish National Orchestra with Neeme Jarvi. Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic have a very famous recording as well.

But I think the most likely is the 1962 Vienna Philharmonic with Constantin Silvestri. Why? Well, here's the record:

#good omens #good omens meta #aziraphale #myne posts #also shosty wore a similar style of round little glasses like a wears while listening to the record #this is a very nonexhaustive post just what i can research in a hour or so and not fall too deep down the rabbit hole lol

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