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usnatarchives · 1 month

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The WAVES of Change: Women's Valiant Service in World War II 🌊

When the tides of World War II swelled, an unprecedented wave of women stepped forward to serve their country, becoming an integral part of the U.S. Navy through the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) program. This initiative not only marked a pivotal moment in military history but also set the stage for the transformation of women's roles in the armed forces and society at large. The WAVES program, initiated in 1942, was a beacon of change, showcasing the strength, skill, and patriotism of American women during a time of global turmoil.

The inception of WAVES was a response to the urgent need for additional military personnel during World War II. With many American men deployed overseas, the United States faced a shortage of skilled workers to support naval operations on the home front. The WAVES program was spearheaded by figures such as Lieutenant Commander Mildred H. McAfee, the first woman commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Under her leadership, WAVES members were trained in various specialties, including communications, intelligence, supply, medicine, and logistics, proving that women could perform with as much competence and dedication as their male counterparts.

The impact of the WAVES program extended far beyond the war effort. Throughout their service, WAVES members faced and overcame significant societal and institutional challenges. At the time, the idea of women serving in the military was met with skepticism and resistance; however, the exemplary service of the WAVES shattered stereotypes and demonstrated the invaluable contributions women could make in traditionally male-dominated fields. Their work during the war not only contributed significantly to the Allies' victory but also laid the groundwork for the integration of women into the regular armed forces.

The legacy of the WAVES program is a testament to the courage and determination of the women who served. Their contributions went largely unrecognized for many years, but the program's impact on military and gender norms has been profound. The WAVES paved the way for future generations of women in the military, demonstrating that service and sacrifice know no gender. Today, women serve in all branches of the U.S. military, in roles ranging from combat positions to high-ranking officers, thanks in no small part to the trail blazed by the WAVES.

The WAVES program was more than just a wartime necessity; it was a watershed moment in the history of women's rights and military service. The women of WAVES not only supported the United States during a critical period but also propelled forward the conversation about gender equality in the armed forces and beyond. Their legacy is a reminder of the strength and resilience of women who rise to the challenge, breaking barriers and making waves in pursuit of a better world.

Read more: https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2023/11/06/historic-staff-spotlight-eunice-whyte-navy-veteran-of-both-world-wars/

#WAVES #Women’s History Month #Veterans #Women’s History #Military #U.S. Military #World War II

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zvaigzdelasas · 7 months

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While most Ukrainians battled against Germany during the war, it’s well known that the western region of the country collaborated with the Third Reich — and that thousands of those involved were allowed to resettle in Canada. [...]

When Anthony Rota, [...] introduced Hunka during Zelenskyy’s Sept. 22 visit, he called him a “veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today.”

And Hunka made the argument himself after Russia invaded his homeland last year. “In the last war, I joined the Ukrainian underground to fight Russia, so I was fighting the same people they’re fighting now,” he told a reporter covering a peace vigil in North Bay, Ontario, in March 2022. “Nothing has changed there. The same enemy. First Stalin was there and now this idiot,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. [...]

In a post for the SS Galichina veterans’ blog Combatant News, Hunka wrote that 1941 to 1943 — after Germany invaded Ukraine and before Hunka enlisted — were the happiest years of his life. He also recalled eagerly awaiting “the legendary German knights” to come and attack “the hated Poles,” using a slur for Polish people, in 1939.

Captioned photos from the blog show Hunka during SS artillery training in Munich in December 1943 and in Poland around the time of a visit by Nazi mastermind Heinrich Himmler. “I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles … I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway,” Himmler said during that visit, according to several historical accounts. Now, the Polish minister of education is looking into whether Hunka can be extradited and prosecuted for what happened during the war.[...]

[After the war,] Hunka made his living in the aircraft industry, working his way up to inspector at DeHavilland Aircraft in Toronto. After retirement, he visited Ukraine nearly every year, according to a profile of him in a University of Alberta newsletter announcing the donation made in his honor by his sons. The profile said he also served as president of the parish council of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Catholic Church in Thornhill, Ontario.[...]

In his mea culpa, Rota made it sound like Hunka was a constituent from his district [...] whom he did not know much about. “This initiative was entirely my own,“ Rota said[...]

But Rejean Venne, an independent Canadian journalist, wrote in his Substack newsletter this week that Rota and Hunka family members have had numerous chances to cross paths over the years. Among Venne’s examples:

- One of Hunka’s sons, Martin, was chief financial officer of Redpath Mining, a multinational corporation headquartered in Rota’s district. Redpath has contributed to Rota’s campaigns and Rota has provided government funding for recreational facilities operated by Redpath. (The company did not respond to inquiries from the Forward made Thursday.)

- Martin Hunka has also served as chair of the board of trustees for North Bay Hospital, which is located in Rota’s district and which Rota has supported. Hunka’s name can no longer be found on the hospital’s website and social media posts. (The hospital did not respond to a request for comment emailed Thursday.)

- North Bay Pride, an LGBTQ+ organization, gave an award to Rota nine months after Yaroslav’s granddaughter Leshya Lecappelain joined its board of directors. In 2022 and 2023, North Bay Pride received more than $100,000 in funding from Rota. (Asked about this, a spokesperson for North Bay Pride said Lecappelain had not been on its board for several years.)

“Rota’s response that this was a last-minute request doesn’t add up,” Venne said in an email interview. “The Hunka family appears well connected in Rota’s district.”

The Forward could not determine whether Hunka and Rota met before he was honored at Parliament. Rota and others at the House of Commons did not respond to several requests for comment sent Wednesday and Thursday. Efforts to reach Yaroslav, Martin and Peter Hunka, Lecappelain and other members of the family for comment were also unsuccessful.[...]

On Wednesday, the University of Alberta said it would return the CA$30,000 endowment that Hunka’s sons donated in 2019 in their father’s honor. The money was intended to fund research at the school’s Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies. But Per Anders Rudling, a university alumnus and expert on Ukrainian nationalism who teaches at Sweden’s Lund University, said the Hunka fund is just “the top of an iceberg.” In an email to the Forward, Rudling said the University of Alberta has “much larger endowments” honoring other figures connected to the Waffen SS unit. The “most problematic,” he said, is the Volodymyr and Daria Kubijovych Memorial Endowment Fund [Editors note: archive link - also "matched two-to-one by the Government of Alberta"] At CA$450,000 — about $334,000 — it’s 15 times larger than the Hunka fund the university is returning.[...] In a Facebook post Thursday, Rudling also questioned university endowments named for other Galichina Division veterans, including Roman Kolisnyk, Levko Babij and Edward Brodacky. Pointing to research he published in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies [Editors note: 1, 2], Rudling said, “I have tried to raise this issue in the past, to no avail.”

Asked about Rudling’s concerns, Michael Brown, a spokesperson for the University of Alberta, reiterated a statement in which interim provost Verna Yiu said the school is “reviewing its general naming policies and procedures, including those for endowments, to ensure alignment with our values.” Yiu also expressed the school’s “commitment to address anti-Semitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present.” The honors given to SS Galichina fighters extend beyond academia. One of the University of Alberta’s endowments is for its former chancellor Peter Savaryn, another SS Galichina member. In 1987, Savaryn was awarded the Order of Canada, among the nation’s highest honors, bestowed by Canada’s governor general, the representative of the British Crown. Mary Simon, the current governor general, has condemned the Hunka scandal as “a shock and an embarrassment.”[...]

When the Hunka endowment was announced in 2020, the university said it would fund research on two “leaders of the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church,” Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. (A metropolitan is akin to a bishop.) Slipyi was a deputy in Ukraine’s 1941 self-proclaimed government, which pledged to work closely with Germany under Hitler’s leadership. Slipyi also assigned chaplains to SS Galichina and celebrated the unit’s inaugural Mass. After the war, the Soviets sent him to gulag prison camps. But Sheptytsky’s legacy is layered [sic]. He helped “dozens of Jews find refuge in his monasteries and even in his own home,” according to Yad Vashem, while also supporting “the German army as the savior of the Ukrainians from the Soviets.”

Harvard University also houses a Ukrainian Research Institute. Asked, after Alberta’s announcement, whether that institute’s funding would be scrutinized for Nazi ties, the university said in a statement that the institute had never received money from the Hunkas, nor had it received donations designated for research related to SS Galichina. Harvard did, however, in 1974 establish a fellowship and faculty position in European studies with money from a foundation named for Alfred Krupp, who was convicted of war crimes for using slave laborers from Auschwitz to build and work in a factory.[...]

In Canada, questions about the Ukrainian immigrants’ past dogged them for decades, and in 1985, the country launched a Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, known as the Deschênes Commission. Investigators were mostly limited to considering evidence gathered in Canada, and ultimately they came to the controversial conclusion that the Galichina Division “should not be indicted as a group” and that “mere membership” in the division was insufficient to justify prosecution or revoke citizenship.

This week, as Trudeau apologized for the Hunka salute, B’nai Brith Canada called for the full release of the commission’s report, which had been heavily redacted, along with other Holocaust-era records, in order to “restore public trust in our institutions.” “Canadians deserve to know the full extent to which Nazi war criminals were permitted to settle in this country after the war,” the group said Tuesday[...]

Why would Hunka’s family risk his humiliation, at age 98, by putting him under a spotlight? Did they not realize how his military record would be perceived and portrayed? “It’s arrogance. It’s not naiveté,” said Jack Porter, a research associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and himself a Jewish child survivor of the Holocaust, born in Ukraine. “They know what their father did,” he said. “It’s hubris, it’s chutzpah. They rationalize that these men were fighting communism. If a few Jews were killed, they also were communists.”[...]

More than 2.5 million Ukrainians died fighting against Germany. “There were many good Ukrainians; they should not all be stigmatized,” he said.

But he said veterans who fought under the Nazis like Hunka and his compatriots have been emboldened by the whitewashing of their history, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. “They’ve been hiding in plain sight,” he said. “They’ve been there for 60 years and nobody has touched them, so of course they feel OK.”

29 Sep 23

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bunkershotgolf · 1 month

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If you can't donate please at least re-blog this!

Can you spare $10 and One Minute of your time to help a Combat Wounded Veteran? via www.InspiringWarriorsGolf.org

#veterans #army #navy #air force #marines #golf #tiger woods #sports #sports betting

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poindexters-labratory · 5 months

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Talk about your version of William or I will spill hallucinogenic nightmare gas all over your blog =3

OKAY, FINE, YOU FORCED MY HAND

...heheheheh. >:3

Hurricane William Afton Lore Dump Part One

!!CW Warning!!: mentions of abuse, religious trauma, religious OCD, alcohol abuse, underage drinking and drug use, and addiction

William Anise Afton was born October 10, 1947 in a wooded area of Reading, a borough in Berkshire, England, to a shit awful family. This family consisted of his father (Edward), mother (Grace), and four older siblings (two older brothers and two older sisters), making William the baby of the family. The way they were shit awful, I'm not going to get into.

He went to Catholic school until he was twelve and developed a pretty big obsession with death during primary school because of a belief that what was happening to him with his family was his fault, making him guilty of sin, therefore condemning him to Hell at the age of nine. This resulted in obsessive thoughts that had him believe that everywhere he went, he was in mortal danger and had to prepare himself to die. He was petrified of dying because he always believed he was just meant to go to Hell and be tortured even before he got older.

Psychology bit: OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) can be a wide range of obsessive thoughts combatted with a wide range of compulsive behavior. In William's case, he has obsessional intrusive thoughts about death and Hell, which leads him to stay away from situations where he could die and be tortured for eternity, which is the compulsion. He avoided streets, stairs, heights, etc. the best he could for a long time.

When he was twelve, his father took him away after he discovered the at-home circumstances were horrible for the youngest member of the family. William then moved to London with his father, and they lived in the place where Edward worked, which was a mechanic shop he supervised for the owner of a small company.

Edward Afton had always been cold and old-fashioned, he was a veteran of the second World War, Irish, and very smart. He was also a mean bastard, an alcoholic, and emotionally unavailable for his traumatized son that he called Billy (even though that was nowhere near William's name, no matter how many times he was told it was a nickname). Not to mention that William confused him, and Edward didn't like things he couldn't understand.

William had always been... different. He was a shy and quiet boy, nose always in a book, (Will's favorites being Alice in Wonderland, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Wind in the Willows, and whatever books he could find with fantastical animals involved), had stereotypically feminine interests and habits compared to his older brothers when they were growing up, and had an odd obsession with rabbits.

Edward tried for a few years to "fix" him, to make Will "more like a boy". This included getting him involved in fixing cars, which William took to quickly, and bullying him out of his habits. Seemingly.

At this point in time, William was feeling a lot of shame for his lack of masculinity, self-conscious about his appearance, teenage hormones going haywire as he wasn't developing to fit the description of what people said a man should look like, and his father seemingly hating him more every day. This drew him to a group of boys that roamed the streets of London around his father's workplace. They were tough, toxically masculine, everything William thought he was missing.

This is where we mention William has always been charming and charismatic. He's learned it from the books he's read, movies he's seen, and stories he's heard. It's how he got money, food, books, and short-term relationships out of people whenever he wanted/needed it. The people he's charmed generally liked him, even though he was a stupid kid. At fourteen, he joined the rocker group that roamed around where he lived.

For a few years, to the age of seventeen, he ran around with them, dressed like them, did what they did, and became increasingly loud, impulsive, spiteful, incredibly violent, very tall, developed his father's drinking problem, and a drug addiction (that he kept secret). He dropped out of secondary school and had no plans other than someday soon he'd curl up into a ball and die somewhere. He didn't really care if he died at that point in time, William was too exhausted to care, and he lost his belief in a god and an afterlife. All of that shit he heard in primary school was just a scary story.

Then he met Henry in spring of 1964. Henry Emily was a twenty-year-old American student attending one of the universities for an engineering degree. He was working in that mechanic shop, the same one his father supervised; a trade offer given to him by the owner who knew Henry's father when they both served in World War II. The trade was this owner would pay for Henry's schooling while Henry (who was a mechanical genius apparently) would work in this shop.

History Bit: The 1960s was regarded as the "counterculture decade" in America, and in England, "The Swinging Sixties". There were massive differences between the two countries' views on the changing world and the changing cultures between them. One of the biggest things that caused this culture shift was widespread television access, giving the younger generation access to the world around them. American society was also thrown into the Vietnam War with the draft being set in place in 1966. There were many American movements in the decade, such as civil rights, anti-war, and gay rights, all seen as a direct attack on the "American way of life". England didn't have much involvement in the Vietnam War, the new generation was trying to move past the post-war era their parents came from. This will become relevant later.

William and Henry met on the circumstances that Will was trying to steal some of his stuff. From all Will's rummaging around in his stuff, he discovered some drawings of Fredbear (at this point, just known as Fred). This seemed to snap William out of this stupor he'd been in because he also had an animal character he'd draw. A golden yellow rabbit with purple eyes, that wore a little bow and waistcoat. He just called it Bunny (generating names wasn't his strong suit).

William couldn't pass up on the opportunity to meet someone that actually liked the same things as him. So, they talked. And then talked some more. And then spent the entire day together. And then they became best friends. Henry was reserved, calm, and headstrong, able to balance out William's high energy and impulsive nature.

The two of them could talk for hours on end about their animal characters (autistic people at their finest), pretty soon associating them with the other. Animatronics just started as a joke, both of them having an appreciation for Walt Disney and his Audio-Animatronics. Then it kind of stopped being a joke when Henry started brainstorming ideas for how a giant singing bear might actually work.

History Bit: Walt Disney coined the term "Audio-Animatronic" in 1961, the first of their kind being Disney's "Enchanted Tiki Birds" debuting in the Disneyland Resort, June 23, 1963.

Throughout the year, they became closer, and William started to feel more and more like a person living a life instead of going through the motions to survive. His mental health started to get better and he was slowly starting to express himself in the ways that he wanted to. He broke away from the rocker subculture and gained some social independence, doing what he really enjoyed doing, which was talking to Henry about Fred and Bonnie (Bunny renamed), reading on everything to help them on their journey to making a giant animatronic, drawing the two characters together, being Henry's best friend, and he was very happy.

Henry invited William to come back to his hometown in Utah (which William had never even heard of) and their goal became getting him across the Atlantic, slowly working off of his addictions and dependences. They were talking about owning a restaurant now with Fred and Bonnie as entertainment, everything was going to be perfect. But then there was a wrench in that plan.

William got mixed up with an upper-class girl slightly older than him, nineteen-year-old Claire-Marie Schmidt. He got her pregnant and neither of them wanted to abort the pregnancy and William didn't want to leave her to deal with this by herself because this was his fault, so Claire hung around to the displeasure of Henry.

Henry is just like William in a lot of ways. First of all, he gets jealous easily and second of all, he's lonely. All of William's attention seemed to get taken away by Claire and this unborn baby, and he felt abandoned. Not to mention that William and this girl had to get married per traditional values of Claire's father which they both respected. The baby was due in July and Henry was graduating in May, leaving soon after that. William could only pick one or the other. And he chose his wife. It was a painful and bitter goodbye at the airport, and William had to watch his one friend leave, not sure if he'd ever see or hear from him again.

He saw him again after about three minutes.

Henry cancelled his flight last second because he couldn't make a huge mistake like this. They made plans for all three of them to fly to Utah and that summer they did.

As soon as Claire got to close her eyes in the bed within the Emily ranch house, the contractions started, and Michael John Edward Afton was born a few weeks early in that room. When William laid eyes on Michael for the first time, something changed. Nothing else mattered more than who was in his arms right now, he loved nothing more. Of course, William got huffy when they had to give Michael back to Claire.

William and Claire had an interesting relationship. They didn't love each other like a married couple would, they were very good friends if anything. They confided in each other, told each other their problems, but William was a gay man and Claire knew this, and had no issue with it. They loved each other as good friends, they weren't romantically or sexually inclined to the other, so they formed an agreement that she could do what she wanted, and he could do what he wanted. And it worked for a while.

Part 2 ->

#fnaf #william afton #claire afton #fnaf hurricane #michael afton #henry emily #i really like history #rabbits #fursona art

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shuttershocky · 5 days

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Top 3 characters from any MOBA you've played gameplay-wise

Ooh this is ridiculously hard... Ive played so many over the years that I liked...

1.) Shoichi (Eternal Return) — The only video game character archetype I like more than a gunslinger is a swift dagger wielding assassin, and Shoichi took that to the utmost extreme.

Blindingly fast, incredibly squishy, and extremely prone to dying off of a single mistake, Shoichi's whole deal was that he could reset a short range, instant dash by dashing over a dagger that he drops, while his Stab, knife throw, and spinning ult all dropped daggers around him (like a modified Katalina, from League of Legends).

He's so squishy that if he misses one of his skills and runs out of dash resets, he's quickly killed, meaning his gameplan was always to ambush a target with a full combo of all his skills as fast as possible, hopefully killing them before they even properly realized they were being attacked.

This feast or famine playstyle made him a big balance problem for ER, and he tended to either instantly kill a target, or miss one skill / run out of damage on a tankier target and then just die pathetically, but that's what made playing him so fun.

He's the closest a video game has truly got to really capturing Tohno Shiki as depicted in Tsukihime, far more so than Melty Blood's. I've uploaded a few Shoichi clips here on this blog, i'm not as fast as the pros are but I'm still real proud of them (especially the 1v2s or 1v3s ive won)

2) Rubick (Dota 2) — As the original MOBA upon which all others descended from, Defense of the Ancients contains a lot of Heroes with designs that became nothing less than genre-defining, such as Pudge's meat hook being replicated throughout many, many games, from League's Blitzcrank to Overwatch's Roadhog to Super Monday Night Combat's Veteran

Rubick however, is a character based around having an incredibly generic skillset, but with the most unique ultimate in Dota. He's got an instant stun that does no damage but can move enemies around, an honest nuke that bounces, and a passive that boosts his cast range, little in the way of an identity. But, Rubick's ultimate, Spell Steal, lets him copy the last spell an enemy hero used (including their ultimates) and temporarily use it in battle.

This makes Rubick's gameplay completely change every single time, as his possible moveset is determined by the enemy's lineup instead of him. His generic but crudely effective regular skills are meant to combo with as many different stolen spells as possible, creating a real chameleon of a mage that can use even your own ultimates against you.

Due to his simple basic skills, playing Rubick is very easy, but due to his ultimate, playing Rubick well requires mastery of basically every other spell in the game, and Dota is notorious for being the sort of game where it's quite easy to grief your own teammates with a bad spellcast.

I have played this character for a ridiculous number of hours since he first got ported from Dota 1 to 2 back in 2012, and I'm still only able to grasp him at a surface level. I love the pursuit of mastery far more than actually getting good, which is why I've been hot garbage at Dota for over 12 years now and I've never tired of it. Rubick is that feeling in a single hero.

3) Captain Spark (Super Monday Night Combat) — Although it pains me not to put a representative of my love Gigantic in here, Captain Spark remains unmatched. A Rocketeer + Shark Boy and Lava Girl parody, Captain Spark took the very common trope of the teleporting assassin in 2D MOBAs, and took it into 3D space.

With the ability to blink through walls and floors, Spark played with the 3D space in a way nobody else in Super Monday Night Combat could touch. He could come from anywhere, at any time. There was nowhere you could run where he couldn't follow, and catching a guy that could simply blink to another part of the map made chasing him almost impossible. It's the closest anyone's really gotten to replicating the idea of fighting a comic book speedster, where you have to catch them by surprise, or lure them into a fight they can't easily escape from and overpowering them with bulk.

One of my favorite moments playing as Captain Spark is when another player caught me offguard and pushed me off the map to my certain death. I simply looked up as I was falling, teleported through the floor, and ended up right behind the guy as they turned around assuming I was already dead. I shot them with Spark's secondary ray pistol just to get their attention, and when they turned around, I grabbed them and tossed them off the cliff they just chucked me from (because hey, one of Spark's skills is to grab and flip an enemy behind him, perfect for such situations).

I miss SMNC. Video games sure haven't made a weird Shark Boy wearing Rocketeer cosplay kind of character again.

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niuniente · 10 months

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I stumbled upon above image from this blog and went “Huh, that’s exactly how my fingernails grow. I know it can be a sign of a severe health problem but doctors haven’t found anything and my fingernails have looked like that for my whole life”. (I’d like to grow my nails long but I can’t because the pressure of the curving is too much and painful.)

(and here’s a pic of healthy nails, growing as they should)

I checked the origin of the photo and found the blog I just mentioned. It’s run by an English person who was diagnosed with BJHS - Benign Joint Hybermobility Syndrome. I read all the person’s experiences and symptoms and yikes! That’s me! (with overlapping IBS and iron deficiency which can’t be treated)

“Benign meaning “it will not kill me,” not that it’s all fluffy-kittens-and-sunshine. Joint Hypermobility meaning my joints move too much in the wrong ways (yes, “double jointed,” though of course I have only a single set of each joint). Syndrome meaning that this problem creates a cascade of other issues throughout my body. BJHS is a connective tissue-based disorder. Somewhere along the line, my genetics have made it so that I don’t either produce enough of, or don’t process completely, the protein collagen. Collagen is like the scaffolding for every connective tissue in your body. Connective tissues include: skin, muscles, ligaments, tendons, hair, bones, eyes, blood vessels, spinal discs, cartilage, the intestines, the heart, the liver… basically, everywhere. In fact, I can’t actually name a part of the body that doesn’t contain it.”

Here are the blog person’s experiences VS my experiences

Insomnia: did I mention the hyper-wired, jazzed-up, over-talkative, never-shuts-down nature of my brain? That I get more hyper the more exhausted I become? That I used to sleep so lightly that my roommate in college could wake me up by writing in her journal? Did I mention that, without the right meds, I probably get one or two nights of truly deep, restful sleep… a year? Me: Yup! I sleep so slightly that when I had a flatmate, I woke up when she touched the handle of her door. Though my insomnia isn’t as bad as this persons, I do regularly need melatonin to sleep normally. Otherwise I can’t fall asleep until 8am, even if I was super tired during the day. Otherwise I sleep well.

Liver metabolism: I have serious problems processing medications, as I have a liver that is slow to metabolize chemicals. I cannot take a very long list of drugs, including most pain killers. This also includes naturopathic treatments… even my own hormones! I get side effects (or no effects) with everything I take. As my naturopath likes to say: “You just walk by a chemical, and it affects you.” Me: My shiatsu healer said that my liver is not working properly. I have hormonal problems. Even with the IUD I still get them monthly, though IUD has improved my health tremendously.

Complex PTSD and anxiety: like the stuff combat veterans get, only not quite. Caused by excessive exposure to stressful situations that one cannot escape, like, say… a bully at work (not saying that was my situation. Just as an example…). Though I received great treatment, people with BJHS are prone to stuff like this: fight or flight, remember? Me: I’m getting better but I’m 24/7 anxious more or less. I hope I can continue having anxiety medication for “bad things” like traveling. Do you know how annoying it is that you love traveling and have traveled the same journey for 10+ years and your anxiety still says “Okay but this time, something bad CAN happen!!” I was also pretty much mute for 12 years. My muscles are tense 24/7 due hyperactive nervous system and anxiety.

Heart palpitations: yucky, but harmless Me: Sometimes they happen, ugh...

Irritable bowel syndrome Me: TELL ME ABOUT IT QoQ The IUD has helped with this, too, as apparently I also have endometriosis which causes IBS to some.

Sinus problems and severe allergies (go immune system, go!) Me: YUP! Just got finally an allergy medication after sneezing daily, 20 times a day for 30 years. I new life has began! My nose isn’t running! I don’t need to have a truckload of tissues everywhere!

GERD (bad acid reflux) Me: And it gets worse with hormonal changes... I’ve got 4 different medications for this.

Poor balance and an inability to fully understand where my body is in relation to everything else. Me: Not really my issue but I do get clumsy with hormonal chances. It’s a common joke between me and my sister by now.

An inability to regulate body temperature, including both freezing extremities and excessive sweating, sometimes at the same time Me: This is genuinely THE WORST! It’s -30C outside, I go there half-naked, walk for 3 minutes and I’m sweating like a little big. All my clothes are trenched with sweat in 10 minutes. I’m inside and it’s 23C and I need wool socks and wake up with a sore throat because it’s too cold. I also “catch” the temperatures easily and shower (or sauna) is then the only option. If I catch “cold”, I will not warm up no matter how warmly I dress and sit in front of a heater. If I catch “hot”, I will not cool down even if I sat in front of a fan naked with ice-cubes on my body.

Hair that breaks easily and nails that are bent and curl off the tips of my fingers, as well as fingers that wrinkle like I’ve been in the tub for days Me: Yes. I need to use hair oil daily and baby oil for body and my eyes are like Sahara desert. Nails curve and my fingers are always wrinkly.

I have painful big toe joints, so no high heels for me. Walking long distances can be a disaster, so good shoes are very important. I suffer from plantar fasciitis, which means the bottoms of my feet hurt, especially in the morning. Me: Same. I went to doctor to complain how my toes hurt but they couldn’t find anything. My soles hurt extremely easily - like 5h walking and I’m already in pain. Doesn’t matter if I’m 45kg or 100kg in weight, it still hurts the same. Fingers hurt all the time.

My immune system is hyper-active as well, mounting elaborate, full-scale mucus or lymph node or other responses to mild colds and viruses. I’m sick a lot longer than normal people, and a lot more seriously, yet it’s not due to a poor immune system, but rather one that’s too strong. Me: Same. Last time I was sick was in 2017. It was just a normal cold but it took 4 weeks from me to recover. I was bedridden for a week. I’ve not gotten covid and despite my shitty bowl I don’t get sick easily. I don’t remember the last time I was sick prior 2017. Probably in 2007? With a bit runny nose though.

Loose connective tissues mean joints that move too easily, which means pinched nerves and pain. Think about how it feels when you throw your back out, or get carpal tunnel syndrome. Now imagine this feeling all over your body. My nerves get pinched, causing several types of pain. I get back pain, obviously. I get numbness and mild paralysis in my thighs and hands. I get weakness in my legs and arms, and sciatica/restless leg sensations if I sit too long. Worst of all, I get parasthesia in my fingers and toes (that’s the tingling, painful sensation you get when you sit funny and your foot goes numb, then starts to wake up). I have this sensation, in varying degrees, all the time. Me: I’m literally in pain all around my body from neck below, for 24/7. Only the level of pain differs. I get easily numbness to arms and legs. I’ve started to suffer of restless legs and middle body with heavy jolting, especially if I’m tired. If I’m stressed and go to sleep, my nose and lips switch a lot.

#niu's life #over the years I've tried to figure out what's wrong #but it seems - also by docs - that there's plenty of wrong #I guess whoever assembled my body must have done it on Monday #after a rough party weekend with eyes closed

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tikiloowho · 7 months

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Between the various content creators out there, my QSMP blogging will likely be most revolving around Philza's character and how he is involved in lore. [This does not mean that I will only have predictions about Philza. - I watch a lot of POV's] I have been a long time Crow but from an outside perspective. I was never really into MCYT content back in the day but I saw a lot of it in passing and mostly only consumed Philza or Techno content. QSMP was the deep end apparently as it's all my brain has room for these day's. (Thus is the nature of hyper fixations) All this being said. I have a lot of thoughts about Philza's character and how he is connected to the QSMP. Sure, he's not the most exciting to watch and has spent quite a bit of time on the server simply caring for his children. The kind man up on the wall. But amongst the crow's this is simply just the surface level to the types of characters Philza tends to play as. The most important quality he carries is "Less is more" Philza doesn't ever show all of his cards. He's honest yet he's careful with what he says and how he says it. He's hyper aware of his actions and how they can have lasting effects on others and the world around himself. This is carried over from his past SMP's and lifetimes within hardcore. Every action has a reason that is decided on in a split second. We all have seen Etoiles react to Philza's movements and how he praises the way phil plays the game in all aspects, but Etoiles isn't wrong. Philza moves with purpose, every step, turn, glance, zoom and shift is done with intention. Though he himself is unaware of how subconscious this is. Phil is ALWAYS aware of what is going on. At the risk of death, he cannot afford to miss a detail. Hardcore is the main cause of this. At any moment, something could kill you if you're not careful and Philza has this mentality so baked into him that it's second nature. We joke that he's got a bird brain but really the high ground prevents most mobs from reaching you. A height advantage gives him the chance to react first if forced into a combat situation. A chance to escape if he wished it. He doesn't stay still as being stationary makes you an easy target. All of this really just comes down to experience with the game. Philza has consistently played minecraft for many years and this veteran status provides him a level of game sense that few others carry. He's not the number 1 PVP player or the greatest builder of all time. He's not the number one Parkour player or the best MCC competitor. However, He is good at all of these things. He is a jack of all trades with a mastery of the Elytra. This makes him a force to behold and there are many players on the QSMP who have not see him at his full potential. I am excited to see how things progress and I am certain i share the consensus with many other crows. One day, Philza will have his wing's back and it'll be an entirely different ballgame for the QSMP. I do get the sensation we may see wing's sooner rather than later. The admins really seem to be referencing his "Grounded" status a lot and from past observation, the team doesn't just poke fun without underlying reasons. I'll end my rambling here.

#qsmp

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girlytips · 10 months

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Where in the world is Ribon?

As you've noticed, for the last about three months, the blog has gone back and forth between guest writers and queue. The blog was moved (without my knowledge) and longform writing stopped. Recently, girly.zyoshi also went on break. So where have I been? Is this the end of Ribon-tan and girly kei tips?

Short answer: No. I'm not quitting girly tips, and I don't intend to any time soon. That being said, some things will be changing.

When I started girly-kei-tips, it was a spin off blog of girly-kei-otd, in the style of old school jfashion blogs like fairykeitips, lolitatips, menheratips, etc. I'd been wearing Girly and lurking in the "larme kei" community for years, but what finally pushed me to gather resources for people looking to get into the style was the overwhelming influx of misinformation about a select few substyles and silhouettes. The jfashion community has grown in the years since tiktok, and with it has grown the number of newbies and misinformation- as well as a new "veterans correcting incorrect info is elitist gatekeeping" sort of idea circulating, at first most prevalent with baby gyaru, then lolitas, and now with menhera and Girly. I wanted to find a way to teach people new to jfashion about Girly and create a community of wearers that was as active as the "larme kei" communities of the mid 2010s were. So after an interest poll on girly-kei-otd, I wrote my first major article about the (at the time) current misconceptions newcomers to Girly had.

It circulated much faster than I expected it to! Of course, since posting that I have been bombarded with harassment, from simply reblogging with such creative stantwt-esque rebuttals as "me when i lie" to attempted doxxing, death threats, and full blown conspiracies trying to assert that I'm actually like 10 other people, not really mentally ill, hate Japan, dont really wear jfashion, etc. However, that's never effected me as much as seeing the information I translated and broke down reaching platforms I'm not even on, and encouraging people who were new to or had stepped back from Girly to rejoin the community! This only motivated me to keep going, so I did!

However, no amount of passion for something can entirely combat the reality that I am a mentally ill and disabled person who has been juggling recovery, university, a job, an irl social life, and suddenly being thrust into the position of "spokesperson for the Girly community". I became incredibly burnt out due to the sheer amount of having to repeat myself over and over, as well as a lack of energy due to struggles with mental and physical health entirely unrelated to the project. When I had an unrelated severe bpd episode, I knew I needed to temporarily step back. I had two friends who run their own jfashion projects take over for me so I could focus on survival and recovery- but it had an unintended consequence.

Unfortunately, the most common conspiracy theory used to devalue any information I give or agree with is that I am the entire Girly community, and the menhera community as well. So, when the responses from my blog seemed less like Ribon and more like runners of other popular blogs, this seemed to validate that belief in some. On top of that, language barrier issues as well as differences in opinion lead to seemingly contradictory information coming out of girly tips. Suddenly, every time I was meant to come back, I had to deal with another misunderstanding, edit another post, freak out thinking my blog was deleted when it was actually moved- no one was being malicious, there were just too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak. This just made my mental state deteriorate even more, and make me feel even more unfit to resume activities.

This level of burnout lead me to take the extended break that I took, and starting girly.zyoshi really helped me get out of that rut- but then Instagram began to not show our posts. Apparently, this is common with kaiwai accounts- frequent posts with similar hashtags get marked as spam. After discussions with customer support, the solution was to take a break from posting so that the account doesn't get nuked before starting back over. Unfortunately, combined with my absence from the blog, this made it look as though I had abandoned my projects entirely.

So, what now? Well, I'm going to be back to making original posts and answering questions again. However, to prevent a burnout from happening again, it's never going to go back to the insane frequency of original articles I was putting out in the beginning months. The kaiwai account is also resuming activity- but limited to 2 or 3 posts a week! And yes, the Discord, which was deleted many months ago, will be staying down. To make up for this lack of original content, I'll continue to leave the blog running a daily queue as well between posts.

While I have the opportunity to do so, I'd also like to make one thing clear, AGAIN. I do not hate mentally ill people. I do not hate people who "fit" the landmine stereotype. This is a fact that seems to have been overlooked in favor of the "don't listen to that person, they just hate people who struggle" approach to combatting the information I provide. I also do not condone harassment, EVER. I don't care what for. Before deleting the Discord due to member safety concerns, I had to re-enforce that rule many times. Someone identifying as jirai or spreading the misinformation that jirai is a fashion or a movement is ABSOLUTELY not an excuse fo make fun of them. If you came to the conclusion that it is justified to bully people who post misinformation because of my blog, you have severely misread the purpose of my blog and I do not want you here.

I myself am severely mentally ill. I struggle with many aspects of illness that are the most fetishized in the landmine lifestyle. I have diagnosed BPD, as well as a severe dissociative disorder and cPTSD. I am not against mentally ill people doing their best to survive. I am not "anti" anyone's coping mechanisms- after all, even bad coping mechanisms are better than no coping mechanisms and can be the difference between life and death. I do not have anything against people like me- people who struggle to maintain healthy relationships, who struggle with chronic suicidal ideation, who have mood swings, etc. I have nothing against people who are stuck in unhealthy lifestyles because the alternative is death. My issue is the trying to make struggling with these illnesses and living dangerous lifestlyes cute and trendy- which is what the Japanese jirai scene is all about. Wherever you are in life- if it's living a "landmine lifestyle" of binge drinking and unsafe work, or if you're coping healthily, or somewhere in between- it's okay. You're okay, and I'm proud of you. What's not okay is trying to sanitize what the lifestyle and term are- they aren't feminist, they aren't safe and fun, they aren't cute and desirable. And it's also not okay to try to spread misinformation about fashions to try to support this Western fanfiction that there is a feminist fashion and culture movement called landmine about freeing mentally ill girls by denying that Girly/girly kei exists.

I hope this helps explain some things, but I haven't proofread. So please, if you have any questions, anon asks are on for the time being. Thanks so much for your support, and I'm excited to see you in a text post I have in the works! -Ribon

#girly kei #jfashion #ガーリー系 #ガーリー #ribon tan #update

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socially-awkward-skeleton · 11 months

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Tagged by: @inafieldofdaisies this weekend and today and @cassietrn (Thank you both so much!!)

Tagging: @clicheantagonist @adelaidedrubman @direwombat @ivymarquis @strangefable @vampireninjabunnies-blog @wrathfulrook @trench-rot @josephslittledeputy @shallow-gravy @derelictheretic @strafethesesinners @henbased @florbelles @harmonyowl @josephseedismyfather @schoute @poetikat @confidentandgood @thesingularityseries @jacobsneed @megraen @detectivelokis @locustandwildhoney @voidika @v0idbuggy @aceghosts @nightbloodbix @corvosattano @stacispratt @fourlittleseedlings @marivenah @inquisitors-grave @purplehairsecretlair @nightwingshero @jacobseed @madparadoxum @shegetsburned @locustandwildhoney @turbo-virgins @kyber-infinitygems (no pressure of course) and anyone else who I might have missed or who has something to share please consider this an open tag, I'd love to see what you're working on :)

Chapter 29 is being edited, so have a snippet of chapter 30 (which I only just started working on last night so it’s VERY rough)

Welcome to Kit’s third trial told from Jacob’s POV

(cw: violence, blood)

Jacob stood out on the balcony of his office, looking down on the ants that scurried below as the last few preparations were made. Standing behind him, Staci stood shrunken amongst several handpicked members of Chosen. Pale, sunken eyes were trained on her cage, watching her reaction to the events unfolding around her. While the others still sat in their cages, blind to the Peggies’ movements around them, Kit stood at the bars focused on her captors actions as they barred the gates and started moving weapons out into plain sight of the “recruits”. This wasn’t the usual protocol and it was clear she was on high alert, combat readiness taking over. He’d warned her this day was coming, that he’d give her the time to get back up to strength and then she’d have to fight. Fight for her life once again.

With all the personnel back in the safety of the Veterans Center, he pulled the small, wooden music box from the back pocket of his jeans. Giving Kit one last fleeting look, he opened the lid and the opening chords began to play to “Only You”.

Like a dog whistle being blown at a frequency only they could hear, the recruits began to react, climbing the bars of their cages like it was feeding time, a frenzy taking over them, except Kit. There was always a certain calm about her, and while the others became lesser beings – bottom dwellers – she became more.

It was remarkable, something he’d never seen before in all of his testing with the Bliss and the conditioning. He’d run trials on nearly every species of animal available to him in Hope County, tested it on dozens of people before the Reaping had ever even been called down, and never once had any of the others remained controlled like her.

The anger, the violence, that was what he expected, a fugue state of uncontrolled and unbridled rage fueling an individual. But not with Kit, no Kit became more of what she already was, as if her father’s training had already distilled her down to the perfect soldier that he’d been looking for for all this time.

The empty shell she said she was.

Bottomless red.

The weapons were carted out by armed guards, and the cage doors opened one by one. The recruits had enough sense to stand there, waiting until the guards had moved out of the way – they weren’t the intended target – before running out into the maze of cages. A wave of bodies swarmed to get their hands on whatever they could grab as weapons. As they worked themselves up, tearing at each other for the best of what was available, Kit ran to the crates left over to the side where the others hadn’t been looking.

He knew she’d be smart enough not to run into the hordes, not yet anyway. She’d been watching the guards, taking note of where they’d left the weapons caches while the others shook at their bars like wild baboons. She had a tactical mind, easily adaptable to most situations, able to come up with a plan B and C in a moment’s notice.

Good.

Slipping a combat knife down the side of her boot, she grabbed a handgun, checking the magazine before sticking it down the waistband at the back of her jeans. Peaking over her shoulder, she watched as the others started to attack one another, clearing the number of threats for her. She grabbed the assault rifle from on top of the crates and swung the strap over her shoulder.

She had her favored tools that she used on every job, even under the effects of the conditioning that part of her hadn’t changed. A real soldier had to put trust in their weapons, it meant life or death on the battlefield.

Jacob gave two short waves of his pointer and middle fingers and his men moved to the wooden railing, shoving Staci forward with them, joining the Herald as they watched the trials happen in their own backyard.

Turning his head enough to see Staci’s reaction, a small smirk pulled at the corner of his lips as Staci’s eyes grew wide watching the mass of people begin to run at her, flailing wildly, not even bothering to aim as they hip fired and sprayed bullets in her direction.

Staci grabbed at the railing, sweat forming on his brow. “They’re gonna - they’re gonna kill her,” he exclaimed.

Jacob shook his head, stoic, he showed no signs of fear even as the Deputy took on fifty people alone. “No, they won’t.”

Dark eyes flared up at Jacob, manic with fear. “There’s too many of them.”

Grabbing the back of Staci’s head, his fingers clinging to the shaggy brown hair of the younger man, Jacob forced him to witness the bloodshed down below. “Just watch,” he growled.

Bullets sprayed, ricocheting off metal. Nothing but shouting and screaming echoed out across the grounds, like demons from Hell had found their way up to the Earth. Blood splattered across supply crates and on the barriers that closed off the rest of the courtyard from the current festivities. Recruits ripped and tore at each other, using the barbed wire that encircled the walls around the cages as weapons all the same. The dirt on the ground was stained crimson as knives were pulled from chests and guts, and throats slit painting passersby in red.

So much red.

As the feral things clawed through the meat that scattered the ground, Kit appeared in the milieu. The cold, unfeeling machine made for only one thing. Dispatching their numbers swiftly and easily, she was brutal in her executions. Quick shots to the head, not wasting time on grotesque scenes of violent debauchery like the others. She enjoyed the death, there was no denying that, but she saw no sense in making a show of it. They were nothing more than cannon fodder to her, pests that needed to be wiped out of existence. Bodies dropped like flies, her boots stomping over the half dead to cleave her way through the others that still stood in her way.

Excellent.

Jacob gripped tighter at the hair on the back of Staci’s head pulling a hiss from the younger man, his eyes welling with tears of pain.

Blood spilled seeped into the ground, fertilizing it for war. Her territory marked, she was covered in the remnants of the lives she’d stolen. The moaning of the nearly dead like a Gregorian choir singing of her arrival.

"But - but all the recruits?"

Staci tried to turn his head to look at Jacob, but the grip he still held on him made it impossible to move. Not that seeing his face would do much, he wore the same emotionless stare he always did.

"Don't need them if we have her."

"But I - I thought they were supposed to be getting saved? Proving their strength?"

"They are, Peaches. Compared to her they don’t stand a chance."

Leaping over crates, taking cover from the last few prisoners left with guns, she dove out from behind the cement barricade and fired her rifle, getting quick, clean head shots as she made her way through the end of the maze of cages.

Arriving in the courtyard out front where the trucks usually stopped to make their deliveries, Kit stopped dead in her tracks, staring up at a man crucified upon a post with a potato sack over his head. Muffled wails carried across the wind from his gagged mouth. Taped to the bag, hanging where his own face should be, was a wanted sign for Eli.

For a split second Jacob stopped breathing, waiting to see what she’d do. This was what it all came down to, where how far the conditioning sunk in would be proven. A step away from her loyalties being tested.

Slipping the strap of her rifle from her shoulder, she tossed the weapon to the ground. She pulled the handgun from the back of her jeans, taking a breath to line up her shot, and letting off two shots right between the eyes in rapid succession.

Perfect.

#wip wednesday #cw violence #far cry 5 #american beasts #chapter 30 #jacob seed #staci pratt #oc: kit cross

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shilo-bathroy · 8 months

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Tf2 IDOL AU:

- Scout's always wanted to be an Idol, it's been his dream above anything else. His inspiration is a veteran Idol named "Laurent" but he quit after being doxxed, deciding to stay free from the camera. Scout misses Laurent, but other than that, Scout has the young idol type. His small town boy next door personality gives him a charm that younger fans fall for. His focus songs tend to be confident.

- Soldier has the energetic idol type, happy-go-lucky but incredibly chaotic. He has the loudest presence in the group but struggles deeply with trying to find an audience since a lot of people think he's obnoxious. His focus songs tend to be chaotic in nature.

- Pyro has the cutesy idol type, obsessed with all things adorable and cute. Oftentimes people gift Pyro cute stuffed animals and food, and Pyro accepts them with no hesitation. Their idol songs are very cute and silly.

- Engineer has the mature idol personality, being one of the older members. He has a fatherly personality, having been part of a few other idol groups before. He launched an independent career but missed the idol scene, and joined TF in turn. His idol songs have a theme of family and growing up.

- Demo has a down to Earth idol personality that makes him really relatable to fans. During interviews and other personality shows, he gives the fans advice and runs a blog where he talks about his life. His idol songs tend to be about issues that are more relatable.

- Heavy has a big brother type idol personality, he's very sweet and caring but struggles deeply with being more than that to the eyes of his fans. His idol songs tend to be about caring about people but has been working with Pauling to try and be more.

- Sniper has a more introverted idol personality, quieter and more soft. He struggles with being more open and loud during interviews and as such, has been rejected from most idol groups. Pauling saw potential in him (and understood him) so she took him into TF. His idol songs focus on trying to find a voice, though he hasn't had one yet despite Pauling urging him to.

- Spy was formerly known as Laurent, an idol who's obsessive fans doxxed and harrassed him and his family. It led to him having to divorce his wife and distance himself from his family for safety reasons. He rejoins the idol industry as Spy, a masked idol who has a mysterious personality. His focus songs are about identity and the darker aspects of the idol industry.

- Medic has a darker personality compared to the other idols, with a tendacy to make jokes that make people geniunely concerned for him. He appeals to the more macabre idol fans and his focus songs tend to be the edgier ones.

- Pauling has always wanted to be an idol but found being a manager to be far far more interesting. She hated how the idol industry was run and began TF as a way to combat the treatment of current idols. She keeps getting offers to get bought out by Mann Co., a large Idol Corporation known for their bad treatment of their Idols. Pauling is trying to keep the Corporations away from her little Idol Group.

- TF gives all their idols code names to try and give them at least a small amount of anonymity. TF runs very different from most idol groups since Pauling runs it and refuses to sell out.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #sniper tf2 #sniper #scout #scout tf2 #heavy #heavy tf2 #engineer tf2 #medic tf2 #spy tf2 #ms pauling #miss pauling #soldier tf2 #pyro tf2 #demoman tf2

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t0rschlusspan1k · 12 days

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In occasion of the 30th anniversary from the Rwandan genocide I couldn't refrain from presenting you with this book I read a couple of years ago. It's a memoir/report by Clea Koff, a forensic anthropologist, who worked on the mass graves of the most important massacres in recent history: Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo.

From Penguin Random House Canada:

Published ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, The Bone Woman is a riveting, deeply personal account by a forensic anthropologist sent on seven missions by the UN War Crimes Tribunal. To prosecute charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, the UN needs proof that the bodies found are those of non-combatants. This means answering two questions: who the victims were, and how they were killed. The only people who can answer both these questions are forensic anthropologists. Before being sent to Rwanda in 1996, Clea Koff was a twenty-three-year-old graduate student studying prehistoric skeletons in the safe confines of Berkeley, California. Over the next four years, her gruelling investigation into events that shocked the world transformed her from a wide-eyed student into a soul-weary veteran — and a wise and deeply thoughtful woman. Her unflinching account of those years — what she saw, how it affected her, who went to trial based on evidence she collected — makes for an unforgettable read, alternately riveting, frightening and miraculously hopeful. Readers join Koff as she comes face to face with the human meaning of genocide: exhuming almost five hundred bodies from a single grave in Kibuye, Rwanda; uncovering the wire-bound wrists of Srebrenica massacre victims in Bosnia; disinterring the body of a young man in southwestern Kosovo as his grandfather looks on in silence. As she recounts the fascinating details of her work, the hellish working conditions, the bureaucracy of the UN, and the heartbreak of survivors, Koff imbues her story with an immense sense of hope, humanity and justice.

I also recommend you watch the video and read the articles and posts I shared earlier on my blog to better understand how this horror came to be:

Rwanda: From colonialism to genocide (documentary + article)

Emmanuel Macron's declarations

Some other book recommendations:

[FR] Maria Malagardis, "Avant la nuit"

[FR] Dorcy Rugamba, "Hewa Rwanda: Lettre aux absents"

Fiston Mudacumura, "Born Hutsi: My Imbroglio"

Thank you for your attention.

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terrence-silver · 10 months

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could we get more terry with clingy beloved? My fav duo Love your blog♥️

---

He did the unthinkable. He just did it.

He pretended to have sprained his ankle, mid-training.

Of course, the very notion Terry Silver would have combat mishap during his strenuous, routinely exercises, least of all, that he'd be hindered by it, slowed down by it, limited by pain in any sense was preposterous and entirely laughable, but you didn't need to know that. You really didn't. Or if you did, it was simply better that you were occasionally led to forget what his body could really endure. The same way you didn't need to know the fact that his injury was entirely made up. Invented. Just for you. Because of you. For this occasion. He supposed he enjoyed it. The way you instinctually jumped around him when you perceived him down. When you thought he needed it. When you thought him, and the word sat like a living wound on his tongue --- weak. Was this was what weak was? Being doted on? You giving his sparring partners the wry looks because you were convinced they carelessly injured him during their allotted training hours even though he went around injuring them several times mid-session instead of it being the other way around and they were simply paid to take it like professionals should? Touching him, carefully, as if fearing to break him? Cooing him? Helping him to a nearby seat like he was some sort of martyr having just gone through penance even though there was literally nothing wrong with him and he didn't even need to put in too much acting to convince you of the opposite? A mere 'Ow' was often enough to send you spiraling like an expertly programmed robot. If this is what collapse meant, Terry rather relished his time down there, trying very hard not to show his satisfaction anywhere on his face and finding it even harder to control it manifesting on his body when your expression furrows in worry and he feels himself harden.

-"I'm not leaving your side until I'm certain you're okay."-

You say, with conviction, cradling his whole foot after practically shouting for the staff to call a doctor. Oh. That felt good. It felt good to see you catastrophically overreact.

It felt warm.

His chest filling with tingles. He imagines himself a giddy school girl with a scraped knee, being lifted up and carried by the brave class jock. How was it that you didn't notice his foot was absolutely alright --- in prime condition, same as always --- and that the surface of his skin didn't even do as much as grow red from the pressure of whatever impact it supposedly suffered? How did you not notice? It was great that you didn't --- infinitely amusing, a testament to his skills, in fact --- but were you wrapped around his finger to the degree that he could tell you anything, just about anything, and you'd believe it? Staunchly? That the sky was made from dogshit and ice cones? That a Blackbelt and a former Black Ops Veteran just goes around, tripping and falling over himself randomly, like some sort of klutz? Terry supposed that was the case, deciding to amp up the pressure and play the role of the martyr just a bit more, acting hard to get and unnecessarily humble. Just to reap a bit more of what you had to offer. -"Huh? No. That's fine. I'll walk it off. Karate's all about walking it off. Walked off worse."- He clicks his tongue, ever the good sport, shaking his head, pretending to be in pain and acting courageous about it, waving his hand, putting in an Oscar-worthy performance in the department of fake limping. It takes every bit of willpower in him not to laugh when he spots Margaret from the other end of the lobby giving him a speculative, unimpressed gaze. -"Out of the question, Terry!"- You're adamant, holding him by his hand and easing him back into his seat. And that point, it was hard not to burst. -"You've been pushing yourself too hard and now look what happened!"- You stare down at his completely healthy foot like it was about to be amputated or some bullshit, pointing at it with your nose, outraged and oh so sweetly delusional.

-"Now you're in pain."-

You add, with the sort of grieved, whiny voice that could melt an iceberg.

-"Pain's a part of training."-

He pretends to nobly relent all while entirely pain-free, never confessing to there being any ache in the first place even if only for the purposes of the lie itself, not wanting to appear too much of a mush even while going out of his way to appear as just that, maintaining a careful balance between the two, tip toeing the line between artificial victimhood and a knightly sort of deliberate Zen detachment to keep you titillated further, feeling the warmth in his chest grown even hotter at the attention you provided, never taking his eyes off of you, concocting plans of what he can act like he hurt tomorrow next, finding that he rather liked this game.

#clingy beloved and a terry silver who adores being clinged upon?#it is good #also fitting gifset #terry canonically has a knack for pretending to be weaker than he actually is when need be #terry silver #terry silver x reader #terry silver x beloved #tw; manipulation #tw; fake injury #cobra kai #kk3

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ofdarkestdesires · 6 months

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So which of your RWBoys is gonna get head cheerleader Neopolitan all to themselves?

Damn you damn you damn you—

So, the RWBoYs of this blog, to be clear, are:

Stark Ryder, ex-criminal who fanonically was Torchwick’s partner and had a friendly rivalry with Neo for years.

Fenris Silbern, an ex member of the White Fang who turned to the path of vengeance after his leader was murdered, similar to the shortstack herself.

Hozukimaru Wukong, father of Sun, visiting professor at Beacon, and more than eager to pin the sexy student to a desk during some after-school lessons.

Russet Vulcan, a tried and true veteran and combat instructor who would love to put the sexy cheerleader in her place.

There’s also Baelz and the members of Team CORS, and of course, they want a slice of the sexy ice cream queen—but this isn’t their fight. Perhaps another day…

Now, of these four, all of them have their own special merits. I can imagine so many scenarios that fit them all…but when it comes down to it, there’s only one man that cheerleader Neo belongs to—

Not Enough Alcohol in the World || No || Maybe if I were wasted || Maybe || Eh…Sure || Yes || TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF NOW!

“I’ll enjoy seeing you in my office after class, Miss Politan~”

#hozukimaru wukong

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deitiesofduat · 2 years

Photo

[12] -- SOBEK

✦ TITLE: Lord Sobek -- The God of the Nile, Warfare, and the Military

✦ SACRED ANIMAL: The Crocodile ✦ DIVINE WEAPON: Spiked Cudgel ✦ NOTABLE EPITHETS: "Lord of the Marshland; Who Rises From The Floodwater; Protector of the Innocent; Whose Attack Cannot Be Repelled" ✦ PROFILE: https://deitiesproject.com/portfolio/sobek/

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Lord Sobek, a veteran of Ra’s royal guard, is the son of Neith, and the older step-brother of Anuket.

The warrior god Sobek is respected for his unrivaled strength. He relishes the thrill of battle, and this sheer intensity can seem intimidating. Outside of combat, the giant crocodile is relaxed and gregarious, and it doesn't take long to feel comfortable in his presence.

DEITIES x OC_TOBER -- Deity Profiles [Full Character Lineup]

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Haha so like… the accelerated rate at which Sobek grew on me as a character is a bit unreal, in hindsight, but I should have seen it coming the more I developed him 😂

Like I mentioned in my character inspiration meme, I have a weakness for the 'bruisers with a heart' trope, which is basically what I channeled into Sobek. I was pleasantly surprised to see most of this bias held up in the real mythos for Sobek as a god -- being both greatly feared for his aggression, and widely respected for protecting the vulnerable and innocent.

I did a massive round of fun facts for Sobek in the past, and while some of them are a little outdated (he's currently more of a bachelor now, but might look into settling much farther into the future), most of them still hold up -- such being the tallest of the cast with the most physical strength (Sekhmet still has him beat on sheer endurance tho, dw).

I also still have a collaboration in the works with a friend that features Sobek, too -- still no ETA on it, just this thumbnail from the blog with absolutely no other context:

#Deities of Duat #DEITIES Project #DEITIES Profiles #design references #Sobek #characters #crocodile #deities #artwork #egyptian gods #egyptian mythology #mythology #kemetic #Sebek #suchos #OC_tober #OC_tober 2022

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