#or at least pre war and mid war eight

[carolferrris]

How old is Hal Jordan really?

TL,DR: Hal Jordan was most likely mid to late 20s when he received the ring and approximately early to mid 40s when he became Parallax.

Few Notes:

I give precedence to mentions of aging + time passing in Green Lantern comics versus his appearance in others.

This will be pre Zero Hour continuity as he was retroactively deaged during that arc (and the timeline was shortened to 10 years).

I will be treating pre-crisis and post crisis Green Lantern comics as one continuity because the pre-crisis Green Lanterns survived the crisis

I will be assuming that at the youngest Hal was 18 when he joined the military because Hal has been shown to be rule abiding in that regard.

How Old Was Hal when he received the ring?

Pre-crisis, he was no younger than 28. Post crisis, he was no younger than 25.

In Green Lantern (1960) #36, it is established that Hal's best friend in the Air Force was a man named Bill who died in the Korean War. As this comic came out in 1965, if he joined during the last year (1953) of the war at age 18 (the youngest possible age), he would be 30 during this comic. While there was not any direct reference to time passing in issue 36, in Green Lantern (1960) #27, at most 3 and a half years had passed since he became a Green Lantern and at least two and half years had passed overall. This makes him no younger than 28 when he became a Green Lantern. This makes sense with other established timelines, such as the fact that Jim (Hal's "kid brother" as he calls him in Green Lantern (1960) #22) is already out of college and has been for a while and that Hal was complaining about kids these days in the 60s. He was written as an older character, with several issues contemplating on how much stuff has changed.

Post crisis, the main timeline changes happened in Green Lantern (1990) and the surrounding Green Lantern books. In Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn II #1, Hal is noted as having flown missions in Vietnam and for this to have happened several years before. In addition to flying in Vietnam, he was a test pilot which requires a college degree plus at least 3 years of military experience. He most likely was at the very least 25 during this point.

Timeline Mystery: When Did GL/GA Happen?

Green Lantern (1960) #76 (the first issue of Green Lantern/Green Arrow) most likely happened eight years after Hal became a Green Lantern.

This timeline assumes 3 years between Showcase #22 and Green Lantern (1960) #27 (the midpoint of the smallest amount of time possible and the largest time possible), takes note of the fact that there is a year between Green Lantern (1960) #42 and #52 (note: #52 is set pre Green Lantern (1960) #49, in which Hal self exiles himself from Coast City). In addition, it assumes 3 years between Green Lantern (1960) #49 and #74, taking into account the several six month/year long time mentions in those issues and the fact that Tom had three children within that time frame.

There being eight years between Hal becoming Green Lantern and gl/ga makes sense, especially since in Green Lantern Corps (1986) #201, it has been five years since GL/GA and in Green Lantern Corps #215, it has been 12 years since the start of the Solar Director arc which started in Green Lantern (1960) #8, which was over a year since Hal became Green Lantern but less than two.

How Old Was Hal when he became Parallax?

Hal was, at the very least, 41 when he became Parallax. He was at the very least 40 during Green Lantern (1990) #1 and there was a year long period between Green Lantern (1990) #1 and #48.

This number bases on the fact that he was at least 25, and there is fifteen years between Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn (1989) and Green Lantern (1990).

Hal being at the very least 40 makes sense because during this era he was supposed to be older. In fact, Adam Strange even teases him about going cosmic in his old age (Green Lantern (1990) #38) and he's called old by Guy (Green Lantern (1990) #25). Hal even complains about how much his back hurts and how it didn't hurt this much when he was 30 (Green Lantern (1990) #32). He's supposed to be older than this era, the one people look up to, the one who is tired of always doing what is right but hurts himself in the end. His age is an important aspect of the narrative. Erasing this weakens what the passage of time and growing up means to him.

#Hal Jordan

[cuddlytogas]

i think my favourite thing about the "nine guns" thing in OFMD is that, historically speaking, I... don't think it's that weird?

caveat that I am NOT an expert on historical battle/weapons/munitions. but I've dabbled, and the thing is, if you're living a life of violence that includes guns, but only of the single-shot, muzzle-loaded variety, having multiple pre-loaded guns on you makes perfect sense, and I'm fairly sure it was common!

most of the general history of the pyrates illustrations, as far as I can tell, give their subjects multiples pistols. usually it's two or four, so the six to nine Blackbeard carries in drawings is certainly unusually high, but for example, here's Ann Bonny and Mary Read, each armed with two pistols, a sword, and an axe; and Bartholomew Roberts, with a sword and four pistols:

but also, from my (brief!) reading, cavalrymen and army officers from the mid-C16th onwards were also issued with at least a pair (brace) of pistols! so carrying multiple pistols wasn't even just a pirate thing.

and it makes sense! even the quickest reloaders will take precious seconds to load powder, shot, and wadding into a gun, which is a risk in close combat. in war, you have more time and people, and can alternate lines of riflemen firing, then stepping back to reload while the other line fires; or you're firing from horseback and can make a quick retreat when your pistols are empty. but if you're boarding a ship and descending into a pitched battle for dominance, you haven't got the time or space for those tactics, and you sure as shit don't have time to stop and reload your pistol.

so of course pirates carried two or four or six pre-loaded pistols. that gives you two or four or six shots before you're stuck in a melee; two or four or six chances to take someone down without risking a stab wound. it's not like carrying multiple guns today, where each gun holds multiple bullets and can be quickly reloaded; each gun equates to one shot and one shot only. six flintlock pistols is the same firepower as a Victorian barrel revolver.

obviously, it indicates you live a particularly violent lifestyle if you're walking around with multiple pistols, but they're pirates: we already know they're violent. Blackbeard being depicted with even more than usual is telling, but it's not that extreme.

to illustrate, here's old mate carring six, six, and eight guns, respectively:

interestingly, the first two are from c. 1724/5, and the last is from 1736. so it looks like his reputation gained more guns over time, giving credence to OFMD!Ed's frustration with being depicted in an exaggerated manner.

so Ed in OFMD walking around with only one gun speaks volumes, but not necessarily in the way intended. either he's very confident -- his crew, reputation, and combat skills are enough that he'll only need one shot to subdue an enemy ship -- or he's practically inviting death (or both). which is... actually in line with the Blackbeard we meet in ep 4. "everyone else" is carrying a sword, maybe a dagger or an axe or other weapon, and at least two pistols. Ed Teach carries one gun and one knife, and if that's not enough, well, so be it. he hasn't tried dying yet.

I dunno, it's just like... one of those anachronisms (like the "we don't need a coming out story" thing) that I think about too much, and it sort of turns around and is accurate or insightful again despite itself. and I love it. <3

#Our Flag Means Death #OFMD #OFMD meta #Our Flag Means Death meta #Blackbeard #Edward Teach #Ed Teach #OFMD Blackbeard #OFMD Edward Teach #OFMD Ed Teach #history #pirates #pirate history #A General History of the Pyrates #Ann Bonny #Mary Read #Bartholomew Roberts #Togas does meta #i also thoroughly enjoy looking through these images #they're like. 100% not accurate XD #but it's fascinating to see how they're IMAGINED to look #with whatever accuracies they might still carry #like it's suuuuper interesting to look at just how they're dressed! #Roberts and the early Eds in their fancy clothes with fine patterns and big cuffs looking wealthy and powerful #and then Bonny and Read in their very simple sailor's slops but with the ALMOST feminine buttoned-up coats #and THEN. the blackbeard a decade later in very simple slops #like... which was it? (was it both?) why did the depiction change? #absolutely fascinating #and that's JUST the General History images on one page of wikimedia lol #by the by the illustration of major bonnet in the general history just has a sword and a RIFLE

[nbmsports]

Gatwick Airport to be hit by strikes at start of summer holidays | UK News

Almost 1,000 workers at Gatwick Airport, including baggage handlers and check-in staff, will stage eight days of strikes from later this month.Staff will strike in a dispute over pay, the union Unite announced, at the start of the school summer holidays. Significant disruption, delays and cancellations are "inevitable", the union said.The workers will strike initially for four days beginning on Friday 28 July and ending on Tuesday 1 August.A further four days of strikes are scheduled to take place from Friday 4 August until Tuesday 8 August. Hundreds of thousands of flights across Europe this summer are already in jeopardy following a vote by air traffic controllers to take strike action.

Image: Queues at Gatwick Airport. File pic Up to 12,600 flights every day - around a third of the journeys made across the continent during the peak summer holiday period - could be delayed or cancelled as a result of the industrial action.Workers at Eurocontrol, which manages European airspace, have said they will walk out in a dispute over pay, working hours and staffing issues.An industry source told The Times newspaper: "In a full-blown strike, 20 to 30% of flights would be at least delayed." The source added: "They are big numbers".Budget airline easyJet announced earlier this month that it had been forced to cancel 1,700 flights during the peak summer holiday season in response to the impact of air traffic control strikes in Europe and knock-on effects of the closure of airspace due to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Image: Passengers board an Easyjet airplane at London's Gatwick airport. Pic: iStock The airline said it would mostly consolidate some services to and from Gatwick Airport, its busiest operation, between July and September in a bid to eradicate the threat of disruption to its customers' holiday plans.It said that Gatwick flights had been most exposed to strikes in France.Ryanair, which has blamed the air traffic controllers' action for disruption to 1.1 million passengers, has previously called for the European Commission to intervene to protect services.Read more: 'Air rage' incidents almost triple in the UK Worst airlines for UK flight delays revealed What are your rights if your holiday is cancelled?A Eurocontrol spokesperson told Sky News earlier this month that a trade union "announced a period of six months during which industrial action could take place" in its network manager operations centre."No specific dates for industrial action have been announced; this was a pre-warning," they said.The company is "actively engaging with all social partners" and is "committed to finding solutions through social dialogue", the spokesperson added.Last month, security staff at Heathrow Airport called off all strikes and voted in favour of a pay deal. Members of the Unite union had been due to walk out across nearly every weekend from mid-June until the end of August.The pay deal included a 10% pay increase backdated to 1 January, effective from workers' July payslip; a further pay rise of 1.5% from October; and a guaranteed inflation-linked pay increase for 2024.

Image: Security guard members of the Unite union on the picket line at Heathrow Airport in March Unite said the agreement was equivalent to an increase of between 15.5% and 17.5 %, depending on staff pay bands.The deal also promised improved maternity and paternity pay, the end of switching staff between terminals without warning and the end of placing agency workers in security roles, as soon as Heathrow can make the changes.Meanwhile, at Birmingham Airport, around 100 security officers and terminal technicians will begin continuous strike action from 18 July.The strikes will severely impact the airport's security and terminal maintenance, leading to flight delays, the Unite union said. Source link Read the full article

[infinitedungas]

i have spent more of my precious time on this earth than i care to admit deciding which of the doctorwhos will say fuck

here are my findings, please enjoy

first doctor: swears once in a blue moon. always catches people off guard which he thinks is hilarious, cue much heeheehoohoo wehehehe

second doctor: a wholesome grandpa who has never said anything stronger than "fiddlesticks". gently bonks jamie on the head if he says a naughty word

third doctor: let off a litany of curses in front of the brigadier once, just to see what would happen (outcome: subject rendered puce and speechless)

fourth doctor: will let off a booming great “FUCKING HELL” when under stress but rarely in front of sarah jane. censors himself less around romana and definitely swears at K9

fifth doctor: absolutely does not swear, thinks it’s terribly bad taste and tegan swears enough for all of them anyway

sixth doctor: RIP peri and mel they put up with so much from this foul mouthed little rainbow gremlin. swearing intensifies when mel puts him on a diet

seventh doctor: swears with an impressive amount of creativity, mostly to get a laugh out of ace and usually in languages no-one else can speak

eighth doctor: swears often and with enthusiasm, prone to following with a ramble about the etymology of certain curse words

war doctor: has been through the wringer so hard that most swear words feel insufficient now, but will use a well-timed f-bomb now and then

ninth doctor: realises soon after his regeneration that northern accents were made for swearing. fookin ell rose it’s the fookin daleks

tenth doctor: keeps it extremely tame. most companions get a half-joking, half-serious “oi. language” if they swear - the exception being donna bc he quickly realises she is a lost cause

metacrisis doctor: canonically curses in the extended universe stuff and rose calls it “donna swearing”, confirming my suspicions that donna will say fuck and ten will not say fuck

eleventh doctor: absolutely does swear but people are always surprised / mildly scandalised by it because he looks about twelve

twelfth doctor: of course he fucking does, get in the fucken box clara we’re gonnae go shit up davros and his wee pepperpot cunts

thirteenth doctor: not a swear in sight. possibly got it all out of her system in the previous incarnation. yaz reacts with mock outrage if she even says “heck”

#we will never know for sure because it's a family show #and mister beeb says no swears before 9pm #so i declare all of this canon until proven otherwise #also i was tempted to do separate entries for book eight audios eight and film eight #or at least pre war and mid war eight #because eight varies so much #he contains multitudes #doctor who #first doctor #classic who #second doctor #third doctor #fourth doctor #fifth doctor #sixth doctor #seventh doctor #eighth doctor #doctor who edas #big finish audios #ninth doctor #tenth doctor #eleventh doctor #twelfth doctor #thirteenth doctor

[nightingaelic]

Companions reacting to A courier who loves nerding about guns and info dumping about how they work and when they were used in the war? So much so that one time they gasped in awe mid battle Becuase the legionnaire that was attacking them had a battle rifle, or an “M1 garand.” As Six called it.

TW: Guns, gore

Something changed, halfway through the team of legionary assassins that had surprised the courier and their companion beside their campfire in the desert. The vexillarius' first shot had missed, sealing his fate, and the veteran legionary that had rushed in to fill the gap had fallen afoul of one of the protective land mines placed before the sun went down. That left the black-feathered Prime decanus firing 10 mm rounds and swinging around a machete to fill the gaps, and the red-crowned centurion that was wielding some kind of semi-automatic rifle with obvious finesse.

It was this gun that drew the courier's attention, so much so that they gasped and abandoned cover, even as the centurion was still firing rounds. Amidst the bullets, the courier ran the decanus through with his own machete and turned on the man with the gun that sounded like thunder trapped inside a tin can. It took a few well-placed kicks and both barrels of a caravan shotgun before the centurion lay still. The courier pried the fallen soldier's rifle from his hands, held it up in the dim firelight and whistled, long and low.

"It's an M1 Garand," they said with reverence, looking down the iron sights. "Yep, eight-round clip, conversion to .308 for pre-war naval use. You beauty. How did you wind up in Legion hands?"

Arcade Gannon: "Same way everything winds up in Legion hands," Arcade answered, exasperated. "They took it. Because they could. Let's talk about how you keep tossing yourself into the line of fire just to get a good look at whatever's being fired at you, hmm?"

The courier ignored him and shot a round into the dusty earth, gasping in delight again at the soft clink of the automatically-ejected cartridge. "He was almost out," they said, checking the chamber and ignoring Arcade's startled yelp, before launching into a lengthy explanation of the gun's history.

"Christ." Arcade shook his head and turned back to the campfire, picking the fallen legionaries' canteens up as he went.

Craig Boone: "Attacks on NCR troops, most likely." Boone kicked the centurion aside and joined the courier in examining the gun. "Lieutenant Boyd at Camp McCarran has one. The NCR just calls them battle rifles."

"Here, look." The courier handed Boone the rifle and pointed at its various pieces. "It needs some refinishing, but most of the parts are original USGI - er, United States government issue - except the spacer block."

Boone nodded solemnly. If there was one thing he and the courier could talk about safely, it was weapons.

Lily Bowen: "Dearie!" Lily bellowed. "You can't keep jumping into things every time you spot some new, shiny gun to collect!"

"Lily," the courier protested, clutching the rifle close. "You can't find these just anywhere, nowadays. This'll run you over a thousand caps at the Gun Runners, and that's just for the ones they're currently making. Something this old needs to be taken care of."

"You need to be taken care of!" Lily argued.

"But Lily..."

"No buts!" Lily stomped over and easily deprived the courier of the gun. "Now go sit down and eat. You can have the gun again after supper."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: "There you go again, adopting antiques," Raul joked. "Good condition for a pre-war rifle."

"No kidding." The courier cast a glance at the centurion lying at their feet. "Whoever he was, at least he knew the value of this thing. Look, he even polished the stock and handguards regularly."

"Órale," Raul said with a nod, accepting the gun from the courier and feeling its weight. "Buen arma."

He made as if to snatch it away for his own, and the courier slapped his arm playfully. "Get your own, viejo."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: Cass rolled her eyes. "Well, third time this month they've sent a squad after you. It's about time they tried sending one with a bit better gear than the last few."

"Here, try this on for size." The courier tossed her the gun and checked the centurion over for other finds.

Cass caught the rifle easily and checked the chamber. "I've seen guns like this before. What's so special about this one?"

The courier launched into a dramatic re-telling of the gun's history, and Cass sat herself down by the campfire again with a smile.

Veronica Santangelo: "Oh, oh I remember this," Veronica said excitedly, holding her power fist up in the air like she was waiting for the teacher to call on her. "World War II... Korea... something about the clip being French?"

"En bloc," the courier corrected her with a grin. "It just means it ejects after the last round and locks the bolt open for reloading."

"Yesssss." Veronica pumped her fist. "I've picked up more from you about weaponry than I ever did from Knight Torres. She was always more concerned with power armor than with guns."

ED-E: The eyebot excitedly zoomed around the courier, emitting lower-toned beeps that sounded like coos of admiration. When the courier held the gun up for it to better examine, ED-E turned on its internal radio and began playing "Big Iron" by Marty Robbins.

The courier laughed. "Sure is, ED-E. Sure is."

Rex: The cyberdog sniffed the rifle carefully and let out a low growl, indicating his dislike of the one who, until a few moments ago, had been carrying it.

The courier glanced at the dead centurion and nodded. "Guys with hats, yeah. Or helmets, I guess. I remember. Don't worry, give it some time and it won't smell like him anymore."

Rex barked in agreement.

#m1 garand #battle rifle #fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #fallout companions react #fallout companions #fallout new vegas companions react #fallout new vegas companions #fnv companions #fnv companions react #arcade israel gannon #arcade gannon #craig boone #lily bowen #raul alfonso tejada #raul tejada #rose of sharon cassidy #cassidy #veronica santangelo #ed-e #rex #tw guns #tw gore

[minty-mumbles]

To Honor, In Ink

Summary: While the chain is staying in the Karakara Bazaar, Wild heads off to Gerudo town for the day. He comes back sporting a new tattoo.

Author's Note: This was inspired by some people talking about the boys getting tattoos, specifically @gaylactic-fire. Really, only the second half of this is about tattoos... oh well

Read on AO3 Here

EDIT: You can see Wild’s Tattoo Here

EDIT 2: @bunnyambushed drew Wild's tattoo as well! Check it out here

~~~

The group had stumbled in the KaraKara Bazaar late last night. So late that it had nearly been morning. The entire group was exhausted. They had come across a particularly vicious pack of infected Keese a few hours before they arrived, and it hadn’t turned out well for them.

Keese, even the infected ones, weren't that difficult to take down. Unfortunately, there had been a lot of them. The swarm had been at least a hundred strong, and the old verbiage that there was strength in numbers had some truth to it. Especially when there were a couple bokoblins hidden in the swarm you didn't know about.

Sky had ended up with an arrow in his arm, courtesy of those same bokoblins. The rest of the group had been quick to take them down, and at that point, Time had given Warriors permission to use the fire rod that Legend had lent him. That had taken care of the keese nicely. Legend had to wonder why they hadn’t just done that in the first place.

He groaned, pushing himself up from his comfortable bed. Wild had taken one glance back at the exhausted group yesterday, and silently slid the extra rupees across the counter to pay for the extra soft beds. Usually, there would have been an argument about one of their own spending extra rupees on the others unnecessarily, but they were all too exhausted to care. Wind had already fallen asleep on Warriors back. Hyrule had been swaying side to side, and Sky was only staying upright because Twilight was supporting him.

No one had protested the thought of even more comfortable beds.

Legend had to admit, the extra soft beds did wonders. That had been perhaps one of the most satisfying nights of sleep he’s had since they had been at his own house in his own Hyrule. He had been sharing the bed with Four last night, which he had internally rejoiced at. Many of the others had a tendency to take up more than their share of the bed space. Four was the opposite, liking to curl into a little ball to sleep.

The small hero was already gone from the bed when Legend woke. In fact, most of the group was already gone from their beds. The only ones still in bed were Twilight, and Sky, who was awake and propped up in bed, reading a book. He’d likely been confined to bed rest by Hyrule, at least for the mourning.

They had managed to heal the worst of Sky’s injury, but it wasn’t perfect, and he would need extra rest to be up to traveling again.

Legend suspected that they would be staying in the Bazaar for a few days. Not that he was complaining. These beds were damn comfortable.

He stood, nodding at Sky as he put his outer tunic and boots back on. Clasping his belt around his waist, he stepped out into the morning sun.

The sun couldn’t have been up for an hour yet, but Legend could tell it was already shaping up to be a scorching hot day. As they were in the desert, that was to be expected. Legend predicted that most of them would be shedding their outer layers before noon.

He could see Four and Time over by some merchant stands that were set up in the shade of the tree. Four looked like he was haggling over some fruit, while Time was chatting with some other customers.

Wind was already in the water, swimming around like a dolphin in the shallow pool in the middle of the Bazaar. Warriors were nearby, keeping an eye on him, dipping his feet in the pool as well.

Legend looked around curiously, not spotting either the cook or the traveler anywhere. He swallowed the reflexive panic that rose in his throat. The champion could be reckless sometimes, but even he was not blasé enough to say someplace was safe when it wasn’t, and he had assured them last night that no one needed to stay awake to keep watch.

Anyways, none of the others were panicking at all, so it was probably fine.

And now that he was paying attention, Legend could hear Hyrule’s voice coming from around the corner of the building. As he rounded the corner to investigate, he found not only Hyrule, but also Wild, and a man wearing a frankly astoundingly large pack.

Hyrule was bartering with the man over what sounded to be the price of some bugs. Legend recalled that Wild had pointed this kind of bugs out to the group, and called them Cold Darners. Apparently, they were very useful in the making of heat-resistance potions.

Legend knew he was usually one of the only ones of the group that paid attention when Wild spouted off random bug facts. Not that the others were trying to be offensive, and Wild never seemed disappointed when no one but Legend was listening to his lecture about different types of fish or flowers

Legend figured that the information just went in one ear and out the other for the rest of the group. He, on the other hand, paid strict attention when Wild spoke about the natural flora and fauna of his Hyrule.

These portals were unreliable, and if Legend ever got stranded in Wild’s Hyrule without the champion, he wanted to be prepared. This was the kind of information that you wanted to absorb when you could. He knew from experience that he might end up thanking himself for it later.

Apparently, Hyrule had also been listening to what Wild had been saying yesterday, because he was now forking over enough rupees to buy enough of the bugs to make heat-resistance potions for all of them. Legend was impressed by his forethought. Legend himself probably wouldn’t have thought of potions until he himself was already halfway to sunburned.

As the merchant wandered away, Hyrule offered the bugs for Wild to store in his slate until they were ready to make the potions.

Wild waved him off, and the three started moving back to where the rest of the group, including a groggy-eyed Twilight, was gathered around the pool. “I actually have some things to do in town today. I have a few things I need to get, and I have an appointment I need to make. I had thought I would need to reschedule due to all the, well...” Here he gestured vaguely to the group, and the rest of them hummed in understanding. ”But, ehh, we're here, so might as well go…”

He trailed off, pulling out his slate, considering its contents. After a moment, he shrugged off his thoughts. “Anyways, you’ll want to keep a hold of those things yourself, Hyrule.”

Time spoke up from where he and Twilight had joined Warriors in dipping their feet in the pool. Twilight and Warriors had already shed their outer layers to try and combat the heat, and Time apparently hadn’t even bothered to put on his armor at all. “Do they have a leader you could ask about any sighting of black blooded monsters? You might as well ask while you’re there.”

Wild nodded, a smile overcoming his face. “Yeah! I’m on pretty good terms with the Chieftess, Riju. We go sand seal racing sometimes.”

“Well,” Time began, “take one of the others, and ask her, and then do what you need to after.”

“Ahh,” Wild winced. “I’m probably going to take a while, and you guys won’t be able to get in, remember? Women only.”

“So how do you get in?” Warriors asked, brow quirked.

Wild snorted at that. “You’ve already gotten a hint, though. It shouldn’t be that hard for eight heroes of courage to figure it out, should it?”

“Hold on,” Warriors protested, ”since when have we gotten a hint?”

That actually got a laugh out of Wild. “You’ve held what I’ve used in your hands before, Wars. Figure it out.”

With that, he tapped on his slate, dissipating in strands of blue light before Warriors could protest.

~~~

Wild was gone for most of the rest of the day. Hyrule sat down shortly after he departed, and made the heat-resistance potions, which everyone had been thankful for.

Legend had been right in thinking it would be a hot day. The Gerudo scattered around the plaza seemed unaffected, but all the Hylians were sweating buckets. By mid-day, everyone had shed their outer tunics. Those of them who were able to tan, and didn’t burn after an hour in the sun even took off their under-tunics to try and cool off that little bit more. Legend himself would rather not look like a cooked lobster, so he had kept his tunic on.

Many of the younger heroes joined Wind in the pool, as well as Twilight. (Legend sighed internally when he saw that, and braced himself for the inn to smell like wet dog that night.)

Wild was gone for both lunch and supper, and the only one who had been willing to cook was Hyrule, they had bought some fruit and pre-cooked meat from the stands, and made a meal out of that.

It had been decent, but not as good as what they had seen the champion cook before. Legend had particularly enjoyed the bananas, but when he went back to buy a few more, the seller had glared at him suspiciously. Eyeing the way she was fingering her blade, Legend decided to go with another slice of hydromelon instead. The seller calmed down after that.

Warriors sat around for a good hour or two, trying to figure out how exactly the champion was getting into town. Legend didn’t really care one way or the other, but the puzzle of what he was using to get into town was good, and Legend couldn’t resist a good puzzle. He had run through all the weapons he had seen Wild use, and the items he had in that slate of his but he couldn’t come up with anything. The paraglider, maybe, but Legend didn’t think Warriors had ever held that. Warriors wasn’t able to think of anything either, by his dejected expression.

After the worst heat of the day was over, Warriors convinced Wind and Hyrule to come try sneaking into town with him. Legend tagged along, eager to see what shenanigans the three would get into. The look Time sent him told Legend that he would also be bailing them out of jail if they got in any trouble.

They didn’t have any luck, and were back at the bazaar in time for dinner, Legend’s wallet thankfully as full as it had been when they left.

~~~

Wild only showed up after dinner was over. The sun had already set when he finally made it back. Legend wondered what had taken him so long. He had mentioned an appointment, but hadn’t specified, so the group was left in the dark.

Wild strolled leisurely into camp, and plopped himself down at their fire. Legend could see, even in the dark, that he had switched out of his normal clothing into something that looked much more appropriate for the heat, if a little revealing. He barely wore anything except a pair of pants and a pauldron on his shoulder.

“You took a long time,” Twilight noted, “run into any trouble?”

“Nah,” Wild shook his head, then changed the subject. “I didn’t see any of you in town. Couldn’t figure it out?” He shot a smirk at Warriors, who had to shake his head in defeat.

“He tried sneaking over the walls plenty of times,” Legend supplied, smirking. “They eventually placed a guard on him, so he had to give up.”

Wild gave a grin at the mental image of Warriors sulking while under the strict gaze of one of the gate guards. “I could have told you that. I can’t tell you the number of times I got thrown back over the wall before I figured it out.” Legend could have told Warriors that too. He had, in fact, but the captain had seemingly taken that as a challenge. Legend hadn’t minded, as it was amusing to watch.

Eventually, he had gotten bored, though, and had struck up a conversation with the guards, hoping to wrangle some information out of them. Unfortunately, the guards did not; have anything to tell him. They had just insisted that there were no exceptions to the rule, not even the Hero of Hyrule. They insisted that they hadn’t even seen the man in a few weeks.

When he told Wild this, he unexpectedly chuckled, waving him off. “Yeah, they would say that, wouldn't they? They definitely saw me, they just wouldn’t have told you. Besides, where else could I have gotten this done? The artist there is the best one I know.” He stood, turning to display his bare back, and the fresh tattoo that was inked there.

Wind was the first up, nearly bouncing in excitement. “Wow! Did it hurt?”

Wild laughed “Yeah, getting a tattoo hurts. Thankfully I don't have any scars where it’s placed, so it was easier for the artist, and less painful for me.”

The rest of the group slowly gathered around to admire the design. It was placed along the upper half of his spine, between his shoulder blades. It was relatively simple, as it would have to be to get it done in one day. Four colored spheres in a neat row, with an animal within each one. The top one was blue, with an elephant. Then there was a red one with a lizard, a green one with a bird, and the last yellow with a camel. Vines with blue flowers that Legend had heard Wild call Silent Princesses wrapped around the outside of the design. It was simple but elegant.

“I got it in memory of the champions,” Wild explained unnecessarily. They all knew the tale of the other champions and their divine beasts. The symbolism was obvious. “The flowers are Zelda’s favorite, but they're also, uh, common symbols of mourning....” Here, he trailed off, looking like he was lost in memories. Legend cringed.

Ugh, feelings.

Now Wild was upset. Legend never knew how to fix these types of situations, but as the silence dragged on with none of the others saying anything, Legend drew himself up to interject. None of the Links were particularly good with words, or subtle, and even those who were the best with words, like Warriors or Twilight, could stick their foot in their mouth easily.

This meant that they, more often than not, choose to leave the talking to someone else. Unfortunately, there was no one else this time, and one of them would need to break the awkward silence that was no doubt only making the champion feel worse.

“Wow!” Wind, bless his good timing, chimed in before anyone could say anything. “It looks so cool! I want a tattoo too. Granny said I could get on when I turned sixteen, but she wouldn’t know. Will you take me? Please!”

Wild, thankfully looking less uncomfortable, smiled at the sailor. “I don’t think that you’d have the time. I talked to the chieftess while I was there, and got some information about increased Yiga attacks. As long as Sky is feeling better, we’ll probably leave tomorrow.” When Wind sighed in disappointment, Wild pointed out “And besides, you weren't able to make it into the town anyway, and the tattoo artist doesn't do out-of-town appointments.”

“Oh, right…” Wind trailed off, obviously thinking of other places he could possibly fulfill his goal of getting ink injected into his skin.

Personally, Legend could see the appeal in getting inked. Wild’s designs were beautiful, and had significant meaning to him. Legend thought he might not mind having a small hibiscus flower tattooed somewhere.

However, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would willingly put themselves through the pain of getting a small needle jammed into them hundreds of times. It seemed like an unnecessary pain to go through, and Legend wasn’t one to intentionally put himself in pain.

When he said such out loud, Warriors laughed. “What, are you too tender-skinned for that?”

Legend scoffed. “Well, I don’t see you with any tattoos either, pretty boy.”

“I do have some,” Warriors smirked. “Just not where you can see. Army regulations.” He stood, stripping off his tunic. Across his chest, detailed in a bright gold that glimmered in the firelight, was the crest of Hyrule. On his back was a depiction of the master sword in black and white along his spine.

“That\’s impressive work,” Sky hummed. “Not many people get tattoos in Skyloft. The rocks we need to make the ink with are rare, so people don’t usually bother. Only a couple of people actually know how to tattoo.”

“That makes sense,” Warriors said, shrugging his shirt back on. “I guess rocks are hard to come by on a floating island. They're a finite resource.”

Wild nodded. “The tattoo artist I went to requires you to bring the materials that she needs with you. She‘s good enough that people come from all over to get tattooed there, and she can demand you bring your own materials. Mostly a lot of charcoal, but also some plants and other kinds of rocks to make the ink colored.”

Hyrule piped up from where he was sitting. “Do you have any, Sky? Being a chosen hero of Hylia seems like it would be special enough to warrant a tattoo.”

Sky nodded, but didn’t elaborate, and the rest of them left it be. When someone in the group didn’t choose to elaborate on something, the rest of them knew better than to push them. They had learned that lesson the hard way. Even something as innocent as a tattoo could have bad memories attached to it for the heroes.

“What about you two?” Wind questioned, gesturing towards Twilight and Time. “You guys both have tattoos, obviously.”

Time replied with a completely straight face, staring at Wind. “These aren't tattoos. They’re scars, a gift from a demon I… encountered.” He said it with such a blank face that Legend could see even Twilight couldn't tell if he was being serious.

“Ah.” Wind said, squinting at the old man suspiciously, before he seemingly decided that it wasn't worth asking more questions. He turned to Twilight. “What about you? Your tattoos actually kind of look like the markings on Wolfie. He’s your pet, right? Did you get them in honor of him?”

Legend couldn’t help but snicker as he watched Twilight trying to sputter out an answer to that.

Four took pity on Twilight, and started to show off his own tattoos to change the topic of conversation- a cluster of four swords surrounding his right forearm. Each had a different color gemstone in its hilt, Green, Blue, Purple, and Red.

As the conversation moved on, visions of small hibiscus tattoos floated in the back of his mind. Maybe getting one wouldn’t be so bad, in an inconspicuous place.

Putting yourself in pain on purpose did sound stupid. But Legend had done a lot of stupid things in the past. Getting a tattoo in memory of someone, to honor them, didn’t sound like it would even begin to stack up against the other idiotic things he’s done.

And besides, he’d been in plenty of pain before. He was sure he could handle a needle, right?

#mint’s writing #my writing #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu fanficiton #lu wild #lu legend #lu warriors #lu time #lu twilight #lu wind #lu hyrule #lu sky #lu four #lu marin #lu #tattoos

[axiomofequality]

Hiya! I remember reading Laws of Survival! It was such a good fic! Do you have any other of the old classic eruri fics to rec? I wanna reread. Thank you!

Oh boy! Do I ever! Here are some canon fics (well, fics set in canonverse, or: canon pre-Erwin’s death) that I remember loving ~back in the day~. 

The Laws of Survival by pasiphile (120k) Summary: His friends are dead, and now he’s trapped in a world where he has no voice, no control, and no one on his side except for the bastard who forced him to join in the first place.Trust doesn’t just grow in one day.

He Chose Titans by masksarehot (400k) Summary: Erwin swore he would never again be distracted from his fight against the titans, but when an unexpected bond begins to form with Levi, he must decide whether he will follow his heart or his head.

Black Dog by stereobone (40k) Summary: A few days ago, he was going to kill Erwin. Now he's one of the only things Levi's got left.

Coup de Grace by Cherry (45k) Summary: The titans have been defeated, and Levi has dreams of seeing the sea and the lands beyond the walls. But Erwin lost more than his arm in the war. Knickpoint by stereobone (3k) Summary: When Erwin returns with his hollow right sleeve pinned up and his left fist clenching, Levi does not cry. Free (Like You Make Me) by thefangirlingdead (40k) Summary: There's a stark contrast between living within the walls and living without them, and it takes Levi a while of living on his own without them to figure out exactly what it is that he wants out life and his new found freedom. It takes him a while to figure out that it's Erwin that he wants.

Bridging the Gap by imawarlock (4k) Summary: A year ago, and Levi would have spat at Erwin’s feet. Now, he struggled to come to terms with the fact that he bent over oh so easily at just a single word from the other man.

Journey to the Sea by blueleviathan (20k) Summary: Commander Shadis sends Nanaba, a mid-rank officer from Flagon's squad, to continue Levi's auxiliary training as a new squad leader is chosen from the ranks. With Erwin absent on assignment for eight days, Levi finds himself very much alone, the loss of his friends still raw, never far from his mind.It's a different kind of pain that develops when Erwin finally returns into his life.

Sacrifice and Selflessness by imawarlock (7k) Summary: Relationships required sacrifice. Or at least, that was what Erwin had always heard.

Hold Me Down by orphan_account (70k) Summary: For Levi, trying to punch Erwin in the face was some sort of sick attempt at relieving his pain. He was asking for a punishment, and would gratefully accept it. For Erwin, it sparks an arousal that he knows isn't allowed under their professional requirements. It's only a matter of time before everything spirals far out of their control.

#eruri #snk #fic rec #answered #Anonymous #i also have a whole list of AU fics if anyone wants to see that as well.. #but also! #if anyone has any more recent eruri fics to recommend please share them with me! #(I'm talking anything from 2018 to now) #i'm back on my bullshit apparently

[greatworldwar2]

• KMS Bismarck

Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939.

The two Bismarck-class battleships were designed in the mid-1930s by the German Kriegsmarine as a counter to French naval expansion, specifically the two Richelieu-class battleships France had started in 1935. Laid down after the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, Bismarck and her sister Tirpitz were nominally within the 35,000-long-ton (36,000 t) limit imposed by the Washington regime that governed battleship construction in the interwar period. The ships secretly exceeded the figure by a wide margin, though before either vessel was completed, the international treaty system had fallen apart following Japan's withdrawal in 1937, allowing signatories to invoke an "escalator clause" that permitted displacements.

Bismarck displaced 41,700 t (41,000 long tons) as built and 50,300 t (49,500 long tons) fully loaded, with an overall length of 251 m (823 ft 6 in), a beam of 36 m (118 ft 1 in) and a maximum draft of 9.9 m (32 ft 6 in). The battleship was Germany's largest warship, and displaced more than any other European battleship, with the exception of HMS Vanguard, commissioned after the end of the war. Bismarck was powered by three Blohm & Voss geared steam turbines and twelve oil-fired Wagner superheated boilers, which developed a total of 148,116 shp (110,450 kW) and yielded a maximum speed of 30.01 knots (55.58 km/h; 34.53 mph) on speed trials. Bismarck was equipped with three FuMO 23 search radar sets, mounted on the forward and stern rangefinders and foretop. The standard crew numbered 103 officers and 1,962 enlisted men.[7] The crew was divided into twelve divisions of between 180 and 220 men. The first six divisions were assigned to the ship's armament, divisions one to four for the main and secondary batteries and five and six manning anti-aircraft guns. The seventh division consisted of specialists, including cooks and carpenters, and the eighth division consisted of ammunition handlers. The radio operators, signalmen, and quartermasters were assigned to the ninth division. The last three divisions were the engine room personnel. When Bismarck left port, fleet staff, prize crews, and war correspondents increased the crew complement to over 2,200 men.

Bismarck was armed with eight 38 cm (15 in) SK C/34 guns arranged in four twin gun turrets: two super-firing turrets forward "Anton" and "Bruno" and two aft "Caesar" and "Dora". Secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm (5.9 in) L/55 guns, sixteen 10.5 cm (4.1 in) L/65 and sixteen 3.7 cm (1.5 in) L/83, and twelve 2 cm (0.79 in) anti-aircraft guns. Bismarck also carried four Arado Ar 196 reconnaissance floatplanes in a double hangar amidships and two single hangars abreast the funnel, with a double-ended thwartship catapult. The ship's main belt was 320 mm (12.6 in) thick and was covered by a pair of upper and main armoured decks that were 50 mm (2 in) and 100 to 120 mm (3.9 to 4.7 in) thick, respectively. The 38 cm (15 in) turrets were protected by 360 mm (14.2 in) thick faces and 220 mm (8.7 in) thick sides.

Bismarck was ordered under the name Ersatz Hannover ("Hannover replacement"), a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought SMS Hannover. The contract was awarded to the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, where the keel was laid on July 1st, 1936 at Helgen IX. The ship was launched on February 14th, 1939 and during the elaborate ceremonies was christened by Dorothee von Löwenfeld, granddaughter of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship's namesake. Adolf Hitler made the christening speech. Bismarck was commissioned into the fleet on August 24th, 1940 for sea trials, which were conducted in the Baltic. Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann took command of the ship at the time of commissioning. On September 15th, 1940, three weeks after commissioning, Bismarck left Hamburg to begin sea trials in Kiel Bay. Sperrbrecher 13 escorted the ship to Arcona on September 28th, and then on to Gotenhafen for trials in the Gulf of Danzig. The ship's power-plant was given a thorough workout; Bismarck made measured-mile and high speed runs. As the ship's stability and manoeuvrability were being tested, a flaw in her design was discovered. When attempting to steer the ship solely through altering propeller revolutions, the crew learned that Bismarck could be kept on course only with great difficulty. Even with the outboard screws running at full power in opposite directions, they generated only a slight turning ability. Bismarck's main battery guns were first test-fired in late November. The tests proved she was a very stable gun platform. Trials lasted until December; Bismarck returned to Hamburg, arriving on the 9th, for minor alterations and the completion of the fitting-out process.

The ship was scheduled to return to Kiel on January 24th, 1941, but a merchant vessel had been sunk in the Kiel Canal and prevented use of the waterway. Severe weather hampered efforts to remove the wreck, and Bismarck was not able to reach Kiel until March. While waiting to reach Kiel, Bismarck hosted Captain Anders Forshell, the Swedish naval attaché to Berlin. He returned to Sweden with a detailed description of the ship, which was subsequently leaked to Britain by pro-British elements in the Swedish Navy. The information provided the Royal Navy with its first full description of the vessel, although it lacked important facts, including top speed, radius of action, and displacement. At 08:45 on March 8th, Bismarck briefly ran aground on the southern shore of the Kiel Canal; she was freed within an hour. The ship reached Kiel the following day, where her crew stocked ammunition, fuel, and other supplies and applied a coat of dazzle paint to camouflage her. British bombers attacked the harbour without success on the 12th.

The Naval High Command (Oberkommando der Marine or OKM), commanded by Admiral Erich Raeder, intended to continue the practice of using heavy ships as surface raiders against Allied merchant traffic in the Atlantic Ocean. The two Scharnhorst-class battleships were based in Brest, France, at the time, having just completed Operation Berlin, a major raid into the Atlantic. Bismarck's sister ship Tirpitz rapidly approached completion. Bismarck and Tirpitz were to sortie from the Baltic and rendezvous with the two Scharnhorst-class ships in the Atlantic; the operation was initially scheduled for around April 25th, 1941. Admiral Günther Lütjens, Flottenchef (Fleet Chief) of the Kriegsmarine, chosen to lead the operation, wished to delay the operation at least until either Scharnhorst or Tirpitz became available, but the OKM decided to proceed with the operation, codenamed Operation Rheinübung, with a force consisting of only Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. At a final meeting with Raeder in Paris on April 26th, Lütjens was encouraged by his commander-in-chief to proceed and he eventually decided that an operation should begin as soon as possible.

On May 5th, 1941, Hitler and Wilhelm Keitel, with a large entourage, arrived to view Bismarck and Tirpitz in Gotenhafen. The men were given an extensive tour of the ships, after which Hitler met with Lütjens to discuss the upcoming mission. On May 16th, Lütjens reported that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were fully prepared for Operation Rheinübung; he was therefore ordered to proceed with the mission on the evening of the 19th. As part of the operational plans, a group of eighteen supply ships would be positioned to support Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Four U-boats would be placed along the convoy routes between Halifax and Britain to scout for the raiders. By the start of the operation, Bismarck's crew had increased to 2,221 officers and enlisted men. This included an admiral's staff of nearly 65 and a prize crew of 80 sailors, who could be used to crew transports captured during the mission. At 02:00 on May 19th, Bismarck departed Gotenhafen and made for the Danish straits. The Luftwaffe provided air cover during the voyage out of German waters. At around noon on May 20th, Lindemann informed the ship's crew via loudspeaker of the ship's mission. At approximately the same time, a group of ten or twelve Swedish aircraft flying reconnaissance encountered the German force and reported its composition and heading, though the Germans did not see the Swedes. Code-breakers at Bletchley Park had confirmed that an Atlantic raid was imminent, as they had decrypted reports that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had taken on prize crews and requested additional navigational charts from headquarters. A pair of Supermarine Spitfires was ordered to search the Norwegian coast for the flotilla.

German aerial reconnaissance confirmed that one aircraft carrier, three battleships, and four cruisers remained at anchor in the main British naval base at Scapa Flow, which confirmed to Lütjens that the British were unaware of his operation. On the evening of May 20th, Bismarck and the rest of the flotilla reached the Norwegian coast. The following morning, radio-intercept officers on board Prinz Eugen picked up a signal ordering British reconnaissance aircraft to search for two battleships and three destroyers northbound off the Norwegian coast. At 7:00 on the 21st, the Germans spotted four unidentified aircraft, which quickly departed. When Bismarck was in Norway, a pair of Bf 109 fighters circled overhead to protect her from British air attacks, but a Spitfire was able to fly directly over the German flotilla at a height of 8,000 m (26,000 ft) and take photos of Bismarck and her escorts. Upon receipt of the information, Admiral John Tovey ordered the battlecruiser HMS Hood, the newly commissioned battleship HMS Prince of Wales, and six destroyers to reinforce the pair of cruisers patrolling the Denmark Strait. The rest of the Home Fleet was placed on high alert in Scapa Flow. Bismarck did not replenish her fuel stores in Norway, as her operational orders did not require her to do so. She had left port 200 t (200 long tons) short of a full load, and had since expended another 1,000 t (980 long tons) on the voyage. At midnight, when the force was in the open sea, heading towards the Arctic Ocean, Raeder disclosed the operation to Hitler, who reluctantly consented to the raid. The three escorting destroyers were detached at 04:14 on May 22nd, while the force steamed off Trondheim. At around 12:00, Lütjens ordered his two ships to turn toward the Denmark Strait to attempt the break-out into the open Atlantic. Upon entering the Strait, both ships activated their FuMO radar detection equipment sets. Around 12:00, the pair had reached a point north of Iceland. Prinz Eugen's radio-intercept team decrypted the radio signals being sent by Suffolk and learned that their location had been reported.

Lütjens gave permission for Prinz Eugen to engage Suffolk, but the captain of the German cruiser could not clearly make out his target and so held fire. Suffolk quickly retreated to a safe distance and shadowed the German ships. At 20:30, the heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk joined Suffolk, but approached the German raiders too closely. Lütjens ordered his ships to engage the British cruiser; Bismarck fired five salvoes, three of which straddled Norfolk and rained shell splinters on her decks. The cruiser laid a smoke screen and fled into a fog bank, ending the brief engagement. At 05:07, hydrophone operators aboard Prinz Eugen detected a pair of unidentified vessels approaching the German formation at a range of 20 nmi (37 km; 23 mi). At 05:45 on May 24th, German lookouts spotted smoke on the horizon; this turned out to be from Hood and Prince of Wales, under the command of Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland. Lütjens ordered his ships' crews to battle stations. By 05:52, the range had fallen to 26,000 m (28,000 yd) and Hood opened fire, followed by Prince of Wales a minute later. Hood engaged Prinz Eugen, which the British thought to be Bismarck, while Prince of Wales fired on Bismarck.

The British ships approached the German ships head on, which permitted them to use only their forward guns; Bismarck and Prinz Eugen could fire full broadsides. Several minutes after opening fire, Holland ordered a 20° turn to port, which would allow his ships to engage with their rear gun turrets. Both German ships concentrated their fire on Hood. Prinz Eugen scored a hit with a high-explosive 20.3 cm (8.0 in) shell; the explosion detonated unrotated projectile ammunition and started a large fire, which was quickly extinguished. Lütjens ordered Prinz Eugen to shift fire and target Prince of Wales, to keep both of his opponents under fire. Within a few minutes, Prinz Eugen scored a pair of hits on the battleship that started a small fire. Lütjens then ordered Prinz Eugen to drop behind Bismarck, so she could continue to monitor the location of Norfolk and Suffolk, which were still 10 to 12 nmi (19 to 22 km; 12 to 14 mi) to the east. At 06:00, Hood was completing the second turn to port when Bismarck's fifth salvo hit. Two of the shells landed short, striking the water close to the ship, but at least one of the 38 cm armour-piercing shells struck Hood and penetrated her thin deck armour. The shell reached Hood's rear ammunition magazine and detonated 112 t (110 long tons) of cordite propellant. The massive explosion broke the back of the ship between the main mast and the rear funnel; the forward section continued to move forward briefly before the in-rushing water caused the bow to rise into the air at a steep angle. The stern also rose as water rushed into the ripped-open compartments. In only eight minutes of firing, Hood had disappeared, taking all but three of her crew of 1,419 men with her. Bismarck then shifted fire to Prince of Wales. The British battleship scored a hit on Bismarck with her sixth salvo, but the German ship found her mark with her first salvo. One of the shells struck the bridge on Prince of Wales, though it did not explode and instead exited the other side, killing everyone in the ship's command centre, save Captain John Leach, the ship's commanding officer, and one other. The two German ships continued to fire upon Prince of Wales, causing serious damage. Guns malfunctioned on the recently commissioned British ship, which still had civilian technicians aboard. Prince of Wales scored three hits on Bismarck in the engagement. The first struck her in the forecastle above the waterline but low enough to allow the crashing waves to enter the hull. The second shell struck below the armoured belt and exploded on contact with the torpedo bulkhead, completely flooding a turbo-generator room and partially flooding an adjacent boiler room. The third shell passed through one of the boats carried aboard the ship and then went through the floatplane catapult without exploding.

At 06:13, Prince of Wales made a 160° turn and laid a smoke screen to cover her withdrawal. The Germans ceased fire as the range widened. Lütjens obeyed operational orders to shun any avoidable engagement with enemy forces that were not protecting a convoy, and the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen headed for the North Atlantic. In the engagement, Bismarck had fired 93 armour-piercing shells and had been hit by three shells in return. After the engagement, Lütjens reported, "Battlecruiser, probably Hood, sunk. Another battleship, King George V or Renown, turned away damaged. Two heavy cruisers maintain contact." At 08:01, he transmitted a damage report and his intentions to OKM, which were to detach Prinz Eugen for commerce raiding and to make for Saint-Nazaire for repairs. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered all warships in the area to join the pursuit of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Tovey's Home Fleet was steaming to intercept the German raiders, but on the morning of May 24th was still over 350 nmi (650 km; 400 mi) away. The Admiralty ordered the light cruisers Manchester, Birmingham, and Arethusa to patrol the Denmark Strait in the event that Lütjens attempted to retrace his route. In all, six battleships and battlecruisers, two aircraft carriers, thirteen cruisers, and twenty-one destroyers were committed to the chase. With the weather worsening, Lütjens attempted to detach Prinz Eugen at 16:40. The cruiser was successfully detached at 18:14. Seeing Bismarck, Prince of Wales fired twelve salvos at Bismarck, which responded with nine salvos, none of which hit. The action diverted British attention and permitted Prinz Eugen to slip away. Although Bismarck had been damaged in the engagement and forced to reduce speed, she was still capable of reaching 27 to 28 knots (50 to 52 km/h; 31 to 32 mph), the maximum speed of Tovey's King George V. Unless Bismarck could be slowed, the British would be unable to prevent her from reaching Saint-Nazaire. Shortly before 16:00 on May 25th, Tovey detached the aircraft carrier Victorious and four light cruisers to shape a course. At 22:00, Victorious launched the strike, which comprised six Fairey Fulmar fighters and nine Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers. Bismarck also used her main and secondary batteries to fire at maximum depression to create giant splashes in the paths of the incoming torpedo bombers. None of the attacking aircraft were shot down. Bismarck evaded eight of the torpedoes launched at her, but the ninth struck amidships on the main armoured belt, throwing one man into a bulkhead and killing him and injuring five others. The explosion also caused minor damage to electrical equipment. The ship suffered more serious damage from manoeuvres to evade the torpedoes: rapid shifts in speed and course loosened collision mats, which increased the flooding from the forward shell hole and eventually forced abandonment of the port number 2 boiler room. This loss of a second boiler, combined with fuel losses and increasing bow trim, forced the ship to slow to 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph).

Shortly after the Swordfish departed from the scene, Bismarck and Prince of Wales engaged in a brief artillery duel. Neither scored a hit. Bismarck's damage control teams resumed work after the short engagement. The sea water that had flooded the number 2 port side boiler threatened to enter the number 4 turbo-generator feedwater system, which would have permitted saltwater to reach the turbines. The saltwater would have damaged the turbine blades and thus greatly reduced the ship's speed. By morning, the danger had passed. As the chase entered open waters, British ships were compelled to zig-zag to avoid German U-boats that might be in the area. At 03:00 on May 25th, Lütjens ordered an increase to maximum speed, which at this point was 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph). He then ordered the ship to circle away to the west and then north. This manoeuvre coincided with the period during which his ship was out of radar range; Bismarck successfully broke radar contact and circled back behind her pursuers. The Royal Navy search became frantic, as many of the British ships were low on fuel. Victorious and her escorting cruisers were sent west, other British ships continued to the south and west, and Tovey continued to steam toward the mid-Atlantic. British code-breakers were able to decrypt some of the German signals, including an order to the Luftwaffe to provide support for Bismarck making for Brest. Tovey could now turn his forces toward France to converge in areas through which Bismarck would have to pass. Victorious, Prince of Wales, Suffolk and Repulse were forced to break off the search due to fuel shortage; the only heavy ships remaining apart from Force H were King George V and Rodney, but they were too distant.

HMS Ark Royal's Swordfish were already searching nearby when the Bismarck was found. Several torpedo bombers also located the battleship, about 60 nmi (110 km; 69 mi) away from Ark Royal. Somerville ordered an attack as soon as the Swordfish returned and were rearmed with torpedoes. As a result, the Swordfish, which were armed with torpedoes equipped with new magnetic detonators. Upon returning to Ark Royal, the Swordfish loaded torpedoes equipped with contact detonators. The attack comprised fifteen aircraft and was launched at 19:10. At 20:47, the torpedo bombers began their attack descent through the clouds. The Swordfish then attacked; Bismarck began to turn violently as her anti-aircraft batteries engaged the bombers. One torpedo hit amidships on the port side, just below the bottom edge of the main armour belt. The force of the explosion was largely contained by the underwater protection system and the belt armour but some structural damage caused minor flooding. The second torpedo struck Bismarck in her stern on the port side, near the port rudder shaft. The coupling on the port rudder assembly was badly damaged and the rudder became locked in a 12° turn to port. The explosion also caused much shock damage. The crew eventually managed to repair the starboard rudder but the port rudder remained jammed. With the port rudder jammed, Bismarck was now steaming in a large circle, unable to escape from Tovey's forces. Though fuel shortages had reduced the number of ships available to the British, the battleships King George V and Rodney were still available, along with the heavy cruisers Dorsetshire and Norfolk. Lütjens signalled headquarters at 21:40 on the 26th: "Ship unmanoeuvrable. We will fight to the last shell. Long live the Führer." As darkness fell, Bismarck briefly fired on Sheffield, though the cruiser quickly fled. Sheffield lost contact in the low visibility and Captain Philip Vian's group of five destroyers was ordered to keep contact with Bismarck through the night. The ships encountered Bismarck at 22:38; the battleship quickly engaged them with her main battery. After firing three salvos, she straddled the Polish destroyer ORP Piorun. The destroyer continued to close the range until a near miss at around 12,000 m (39,000 ft) forced her to turn away. Between 05:00 and 06:00, Bismarck's crew attempted to launch one of the Arado 196 float planes to carry away the ship's war diary, footage of the engagement with Hood, and other important documents. As it was not possible to launch the aircraft, it had become a fire hazard, and was pushed overboard.

After daybreak on May 27th, King George V led the attack. Rodney followed off her port quarter; Tovey intended to steam directly at Bismarck until he was about 8 nmi (15 km; 9.2 mi) away. At 08:43, lookouts on King George V spotted her, some 23,000 m (25,000 yd) away. Four minutes later, Rodney's two forward turrets, comprising six 16 in (406 mm) guns, opened fire, then King George V's 14 in (356 mm) guns began firing. Bismarck returned fire at 08:50 with her forward guns; with her second salvo, she straddled Rodney. Thereafter, Bismarck's ability to aim her guns deteriorated as the ship, unable to steer, moved erratically in the heavy seas. As the range fell, the ships' secondary batteries joined the battle. Norfolk and Dorsetshire closed and began firing with their 8 in (203 mm) guns. At 09:02, a 16-inch shell from Rodney struck Bismarck's forward superstructure, killing hundreds of men and severely damaging the two forward turrets. According to survivors, this salvo probably killed Lütjens and the rest of the bridge staff. A second shell from this salvo struck the forward main battery, which was disabled, though it would manage to fire one last salvo at 09:27. Lieutenant von Müllenheim-Rechberg, in the rear control station, took over firing control for the rear turrets. He managed to fire three salvos before a shell destroyed the gun director, disabling his equipment. He gave the order for the guns to fire independently, but by 09:31, all four main battery turrets had been put out of action. One of Bismarck's shells exploded 20 feet off Rodney's bow and damaged her starboard torpedo tube—the closest Bismarck came to a direct hit on her opponents. With the bridge personnel no longer responding, the executive officer CDR Hans Oels took command of the ship from his station at the Damage Control Central. He decided at around 09:30 to abandon and scuttle the ship to prevent Bismarck being boarded by the British, and to allow the crew to abandon ship so as to reduce casualties. Gerhard Junack, the chief engineering officer, ordered his men to set the demolition charges with a 9-minute fuse but the intercom system broke down and he sent a messenger to confirm the order to scuttle the ship. The messenger never returned, so Junack primed the charges and ordered his men to abandon ship. By 10:00, Tovey's two battleships had fired over 700 main battery shells, many at very close range. Overall the four British ships fired more than 2,800 shells at Bismarck, and scored more than 400 hits, but were unable to sink Bismarck by gunfire. The heavy gunfire at virtually point-blank range devastated the superstructure and the sections of the hull that were above the waterline, causing very heavy casualties, but it contributed little to the eventual sinking of the ship.

The scuttling charges detonated around 10:20. By 10:35, the ship had assumed a heavy port list, capsizing slowly and sinking by the stern. At around 10:20, running low on fuel, Tovey ordered the cruiser Dorsetshire to sink Bismarck with torpedoes and ordered his battleships back to port. Dorsetshire fired a pair of torpedoes into Bismarck's starboard side, one of which hit. Dorsetshire then moved around to her port side and fired another torpedo, which also hit. By the time these torpedo attacks took place, the ship was already listing so badly that the deck was partly awash. Bismarck had been reduced to a shambles, aflame from stem to stern. She was slowly settling by the stern from uncontrolled flooding with a 20 degree list to port. Bismarck disappeared beneath the surface at 10:40. Around 400 men were now in the water; Dorsetshire and the destroyer Maori moved in and lowered ropes to pull the survivors aboard. At 11:40, Dorsetshire's captain ordered the rescue effort abandoned after lookouts spotted what they thought was a U-boat. Dorsetshire had rescued 85 men and Maori had picked up 25 by the time they left the scene. A U-boat later reached the survivors and found three men, and a German trawler rescued another two. One of the men picked up by the British died of his wounds the following day. Out of a crew of over 2,200 men, only 114 survived. The wreck of Bismarck was discovered on June 8th, 1989 by Dr. Robert Ballard, the oceanographer responsible for finding RMS Titanic. Bismarck was found to be resting on its keel at a depth of approximately 4,791 m (15,719 ft), about 650 km (400 mi) west of Brest.

#second world war #world war ii #world war 2 #military history #wwii #history #german history #british history #bismarck #long post #kriegsmarine #naval history #naval warfare #battleship

[bethfuller]

I took your quiz and would love to see the descriptions/explanations for the other deities on the list! Your pantheon seems so cool!

That’s so sweet! I’d be happy to oblige :))

I largely made the eight of them up as I went, based on myself and my friends, and I like to think that most people have one or maybe a mix of these attributes… Of all of them I’d say the Temple is the most benevolent, and the Revenant the most feared. The Firebrand is the rarest by far.

1.  The Wayfaring Stranger - You wander through the world, desperately seeking attention and intimacy, but are ultimately never fully satisfied with the sphere of human connection. You enjoy your relationships, but never truly feel as though you belong the way others seem to. You spend half your time wondering if you have enough friends and whether they like you; and the other half pondering the strange detachment from everyone you know that descends on you more often than it should. Everyone who meets you is blessed by having done so, but ultimately you must move on. In the end, your destiny lies in the natural world, the sea, the grasses and stars, and in the act of wandering itself.

As a deity, you’re the patron god of travel, of weather, of the sea, of ending relationships, of loneliness and of dreams.

2. The Stargazer - Deep in a long term love affair with the constellations, you want to believe in tarot, astrology, the patterns of the stars and of destiny. Too often, though, you find that things don’t obey the roles ascribed to them, and the people in your life spin out of their orbits. You like to imagine that you’re in a film and that everything that happens is just part of a pre-written journey, subject to a formula and written in your favour. An in-born compassion for others shadows you wherever you go, as you put others first with a dogged faithfulness. You value things that help you escape. However, to truly find meaning you must let go of the people who hold you back, and accept that the stars are just stars.

As a deity, you’re the patron god of the night sky, of destiny, of order and logic, of certainty, of wishes and of guidance.

3. The Lost Child - You’re a wayward son, the prodigal leaving home, the empty place at your family’s dinner table. For your own reasons, you left the door wide open on your way out, the people in your life left staring at the mid-August brightness flooding in and suppressing the urge to follow. You’re grown now, and free, and you engage in all the joys of freedom with enthusiasm. Independence and practicality are vital to you, and you’ve come a long way on your own. Somewhere inside you, though, no matter how well you hide it, you’re still that kid who strayed from the path and you need someone to tell you you’re safe at last, that the world can’t hurt you anymore. Will you always walk with nostalgia for those endless childhood summer afternoons dogging your steps?

As a deity, you’re the god of forests, of liminal spaces, or children and childhood, of lost things, of summer and of time.

4. The Firebrand - You were born peaceful and serene, but somewhere along the way a match was struck and burns still. Rage flickers inside you when you read the news only to find that the perfect world you can see so clearly has been nipped in the bud for the hundredth time. So instead, you rally to your cause. You’ve never been one for suffering fools, least of all now when the world totters on the brink. You’re the type of person who can’t see yourself live to a ripe old age because your candle burns brighter than most, but it burns at both ends, and yours is a blaze of glory. You were born to be a revolutionary, and you know better than anyone that scorched soil is the most fertile. Make sure something grows from your strong sense of purpose.

As a deity, you’re the god of fire, of change, of renewal, of anger, of war, of revolution and of righteous justice. You have a gentler aspect, too - you’re the god of hope after destruction, like in Princess Mononoke when the long grasses and flowers grow where the ancient forest used to be.

5. The Mirror Shard - You would describe yourself as laid-back, pleasant, casual and above all funny. In fact, you pride yourself on the ease with which you move through life, your affability, the way you come across to others. You know you see the world in a unique way, and that few know what it truly feels like to be you. However, your childhood wasn’t easy, and that’s a fact you don’t broadcast. People didn’t love you the way they should have, and put their own wants and needs above your own. You were left out or burdened with too much responsibility for the child you were. Because of this, your friends are the most important thing in your life. Don’t allow yourself to lose hope in people because of your past, because cynicism will only get you so far. Protective walls are safe, but they inhibit the growth you know you’re capable of.

As a deity, you’re the god of friendship, of water, of rain, of forgiveness, of self-image, of wisdom and cleverness, of writing and of pain, and you are the god most commonly named when groups of friends come together.

6. The Revenant - At some point in recent years, you suffered what felt to you like a 'death', whether creative, social, emotional, spiritual or even literal, and you've been reborn. This reincarnation didn't come easy, and you're not entirely the person you were, but you sloughed yourself out of your figurative grave with the kind of vigour only a phoenix could have. When you sleep, you dream strange and vivid dreams, and your gaze now holds a certain intensity. When something takes your attention, it doesn't let go. Your kindness is endless, as is your love for vast things like the sea, the sky and the stars. You have a certain unshakable fixation with religion or higher powers, and the prospect of death doesn't scare you. In fact, you feel less fear than you should, and you've never felt more alive than you do now. 

As a deity, you're the god of life and death, of moving on, of growth and of courage.

7. The Robin and the Thorn - You would do anything to feel, as emotion is the hill you die on. Romance, love, song, art, film, running around for the hell of it - the things that bring a flush to your cheeks and make you breathless and bright-eyed are what you live for. You're a true Romantic, in the Keatsian sense, and you hold fast to the notion that the connections you make with the people in your life is all you truly have. You probably identify with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and you long to have your reckless, head-over-heels affections returned; to be loved the way you love. When you find a film or a song that makes you feel something you play it until you get sick of it, and you would work yourself to burnout to make something beautiful.

 As a deity, you're the god of platonic and non-platonic love, of romance, of art in all its forms, of joy and of youth.

8. The Temple - You are steadfast, kind and dependable, and have a habit of making people feel safe when they talk to you. They gravitate towards you because of the patience and calm you exude, and can trust you implicitly. You have a knack for saying the right thing, and have learned to bear your pain with a tolerance and grace that goes unnoticed by many but seen by the important few. You're allergic to drama and conflict, but know when and where to stand your ground. You tend not to be reckless and hasty, as the times you have done so in the past caused pain. You are prone to embarrassment - when you feel you've blundered the shame is almost overwhelming. Even though you may not see your own worth as clearly as you should, those around you are determined to stay with you because you make them feel like they're at home, accepted unconditionally. 

As a deity, you're the god of stability, of healing, of sanctuary and safe harbour, of faithfulness and commitment, of mountains, of fields, of growing old, of effort and humble reward, of autumn, of prosperity and kindness of spirit.

#Anonymous #long post #rip to me only posting art here #quiz #my weird little pantheon

[okay-victoria]

Status of Women in The Empire

Summary: LN gives some evidence women have a better status than they did in OTL Germany. It gives little to nothing in the way of evidence that we are in post-sexual-revolution territory. It presents little enough evidence generally that you can use this issue in your own story as you wish; however, using how humans actually work as your baseline, it would be a very definite handwave to think that gender equality is much more than marginally better than OTL would have been at the time, or that Tanya wouldn’t be negatively affected by it in some significant ways in daily life. On the other hand, the original story handwaves an eight year old enrolling in a modern military and getting promoted to a mid-ranking officer by age eleven, so as a reader, I’m obviously pretty down for handwaving some realism for the sake of a good story.

Evidence:

V1/C1

“The armed forces have a practical exception in place for just about everything.” <= I think in fanon the entire Empire as seen as this sort of “everything we do is logical” territory where gender discrimination would have had to be eliminated, but in reality it’s presented as the military, and they are making an exception for a rare and incredibly militarily useful type of person to be able to be put to use by them without gender discrimination stopping it.

V1/C4

“But in the far-from-gender-free world of “ladies first,” Tanya with her outwardly girlish appearance is, albeit only relatively, blessed compared to the other students” <= YMMV, but I would not describe modern society as a world of “ladies first”. Do people do/say it to hark back to pre-1960s chivalry? Sure. Is it really the standard we live by anymore? Not so much. Tanya seems to pretty definitely still be living in those days.

“Basically, apart from the mage branch, the army is a man’s world. Actually, even most of the mages are men.” <= this is notable because it is said when Tanya is in War College, at which point the war has been going on for long enough that available mages have been conscripted, so there is no selection bias that men have simply chosen to pursue a career as a mage more often than women. This is actually weirdly important because it either means:

Magic talent is like, an X chromosome trait and men are thus more likely to have it [in which case, it would probably be taken as natural evidence that men are superior and worsen the gender equality situation]; or

There in fact is a Youjo Konki-esque exception for married women and/or mothers. A nation has to still be relatively in the infancy of gender equality if Female Mage #102 has children with Infantryman #1,000,102 and the military decides that since it can’t leave these children parentless, it has to conscript the dude who is substitutable for literally anyone else and not the human weapon.

Tanya has a long-ish reflection on women in the military. Important points are, the rules have only been overhauled recently to make it practical for women to serve in combat. Women in combat didn’t really exist prior to this war, and women in the military were basically limited to noble/imperial families having their daughters serve out nominal duties. Whatever boost women as a whole get from serving in a capacity that people are used to seeing men in, it has not had time to transform society all that much.

V2/C2

“Women administrators are not uncommon, but in the Empire where gender equality still has a ways to go, their qualifications are always questioned.” <= YMMV as to what degree this is meant to be a statement on something that still troubles women in modern times, or something that indicates gender equality is not particularly close to modern.

V2/C5

“After all, now that I’ve been turned into a girl, I’m faced with this annoying military framework where men are superior. Just the thought of my promotions being blocked by an invisible glass ceiling is enough to dampen any desire I might have to act all girlish for propaganda…apart from that, the Empire’s personnel system has adapted extremely meritocratic principles for the war, in a way, so I’m more or less satisfied with it.” <= sort of same as above, YMMV on whether this is just Tanya realizing what life is like for a woman in modern society or meant as a “no, it was worse” point.

However, I will say this: I highly, highly doubt any men chosen for high military honors were photographed doing anything other than looking ultra manly in uniform. Women serving in modern militaries are not forced to put on showy dresses when they get their photos taken, they are treated, at least in photos, with the same respect as their male colleagues. The fact that anyone found it appropriate to only photograph the recipient of the highest military honor in cute girl clothes speaks to some deep discomfort with anyone outside the military seeing women not doing what they’re supposed to.

V6/C6

“The Imperial Army has already tapped all the population pools that can be mobilized, but it still has two options. One is to begin the general conscription of women. That said, they’ve already been mobilized in the industrial sector.” <= YMMV, again, on how willing a modern country would be to conscript women to fight a world war, but if you are as deep into a world war as the Empire is and no one’s trying it, at the least we can say the Empire is not the bastion of cold logic it fanonically is outside the military. Also, it pretty much seems like women working in large numbers has only become a thing because all the guys are off fighting, which very much sticks us in pre-1950s territory.

V8/C1

Andrew reacts surprised to see a female reporter from the Federation, and reflects that they are quite liberal in some ways <= while this is a non-Imperial guy, given his familiarity with the Empire, it would seem weird that if the Empire was particularly more advanced than his country that he would still be so surprised.

Other Working Knowledge Your Author Has On This Subject:

Women serving in the military, while certainly helpful to the cause of gender equality, by itself is not going to create a broad-based transformation in society. That sounds a bit like saying: As we all know, the US dropped any racist laws or regulations as soon as we started allowing non-white units in the military. After Elizabeth I serving as the Ruler of England, a very manly role that her tiny woman-brain didn’t fuck up too bad, the people who thought women were naturally stupider than men were quickly relegated to the margins and gender discrimination mostly became more of an annoyance than a real hindrance to the average woman’s goals. It just doesn’t work that way. And I’m not here to say that the US is a post-gender paradise, but the US, which has never had a woman president and is pretty slow about expanding military opportunities for women, nonetheless is a lot better on the gender equality front than some countries that have had women leaders and allow women a fuller range of military opportunities. There’s a lot more complexity to it than: My country respects military => military allows women => guess I’m going to stop being sexist

The same goes for something that isn’t about gender equality at large but how it relates to Tanya: The view that while gender equality may be non-advanced, Tanya specifically is exempt from dealing with it because she is “one of the boys”. It Does Not Work Like That. At All. And the further you go back in time, the less it worked like that. Within the military specifically Tanya will probably be alright, but society at large punishes men & women that break gender roles as brazenly as she does more than it rewards them. This is an entire essay unto itself, Google is your friend.

This is going to sound silly and facetious but I’m being dead serious, from what little we know of fashion in the YS world, it matches what would have been the case in the real world in the WW1 era. If society at large was really that different, that wouldn’t be the case.

There is no canon evidence that magic has made any scientific advancements outside the military sphere of influence. Before the advent of things like dishwashers, vacuums, microwaves, especially refrigerators, and especially laundry machines being common household items, the ideal family model was: one person makes money outside home, one person takes care of house. There wasn’t enough time in the day to work and run a household. Many women in poor households had to work, generally at the expense of being able to keep their own household running smoothly, and even then they often worked in capacities that allowed them to be at home or ones that allowed them the flexibility to take care of some of this stuff. It really just isn’t possible to have a society remotely approaching equality when one gender is automatically assigned to home unless necessary.

Same goes for something else - contraception. Women having access to a contraceptive device that they control is a major component of setting a society on a path towards equality. Birth control pills didn’t become widely available until the 1960s. Without being unable to at least kind of balance the outcome of sex (even between married couples) between men and women, women as a class have a hard time escaping from the housewife-mother archetype.

Not to get too political here, but the Empire matches OTL Germanic-Prussianness too much to ignore. Living under a military-worshipping, religiously-inclined traditional monarchy has not, in any real life example I’m aware of, gone hand-in-hand with anything other than a fairly conservative and patriarchal society, and I feel like the burden of proof is on the other side to explain why that isn’t the case in the Empire, and our original author makes approximately zero effort to do this.

Being X turns Tanya into a woman for the purpose of making her life worse. It seems simply illogical [although I guess Being X’s decision-making skills are questionable] that he would then drop her into a world that had undergone broad-based gender reform instead of a world that was just barely tweaked from our own in such a way that it would allow Tanya to serve in the military.

My conclusion: the most likely option is that gender equality is exactly enough better as it needs to be to allow the military to convince the lawmakers that they should be able to use a very rare & dangerous ability to be part of their arsenal without respect to gender, or age, and no more. That difference is not likely to make life for women significantly better than it was in the equivalent OTL time period.

#LN Reference

[minuteminx]

Revolutionary

Pairing: Preston Garvey/ Female Sole Survivor

Summary: In the aftermath of personal tragedies, Preston and Charlie both seek to make a difference in the Commonwealth and those around them. They could never anticipate the impact that they will have on eachother in the process.

Chapter Five: Coast’s Clear

Chapter Summary:    Charlie doesn't know many things for certain since she woke up in the future, but one thing she does know is that she will never watch someone she loves die again. Not if there's something she can do about it.

[First Chapter]

[Previous Chapter]

[AO3 Link]

“For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.”

― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

Quincy Ruins, June 2288

Charlie hadn’t lived in Massachusetts for long when the bombs fell.   She and Nate moved up from West Virginia in July of 2077, she’d gotten a position as a postdoctoral fellow in neuropsychology at Medford Memorial Hospital, more than a  little  excited to make use of her shiny new degree.  Shaun was born two months later.  After spending most of her life moving from place to place for her education, she was ready to settle down. She never made it that far.

Needless to say, she’d also never made it down to Quincy.  Though, at the moment, she desperately wished she had.

Preston had this way of looking at her sometimes when he thought she didn’t notice, a lingering glance over his shoulder, a careful observation of her face as if he expected to find some twinkle of pre-war nostalgia in her eyes when entering a new area, memories from a time when the air didn’t reek of sulfur and rotting flesh, and no one had to worry whether or not they’d be run out of their homes and mowed down by mercenary cults.  She could offer him no solace.  She could barely even look him in the eyes.

In more comfortable times over the past eight months since they had met, he simply asked her if she was familiar with locations or landmarks.  Once, he asked her if she had fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and she informed him that she was two hundred and thirty-seven years old, not well over five hundred.  His smile had wrinkled up his eyes that day as he laughed away the embarrassment.  Today, there were no stories to be told, no jokes or laughter, just Preston, Charlie, Amelia, a handful of other Minutemen and a large pile of ashes that used to have names.

“I don’t like this,” Charlie muttered, more to herself than anything.

She jumped when Preston replied, “Me neither.  Not one bit.”  

She hadn’t expected him to hear her, or even pay attention.  She could barely see his eyes from under the shadow cast by his hat, but she didn’t need to see to know that he wasn’t okay. He wasn’t one to wear the overwhelming grief he experienced on his face, anyway.  The last time they’d visited a Minutemen graveyard, as the Lexington Super Duper Mart had turned out to be, he had to excuse himself from a barricaded room filled with deceased members of the militia.  She found him in the feral-corpse littered hallway, green around the gills and sweating.  He didn’t have a weak stomach, but reminders of his loss seemed to impact him viscerally.  She wondered how he managed to keep his composure now, standing in the place where it all started.

She was drawn from her thoughts by a thunderous boom that left her ears ringing.  She hated that noise. Looking up towards the direction of the blast she saw a small, mushroom-cloud pouring up from a nearby building.  A fucking nuke. Hadn’t people learned a damn thing?

Charlie scanned the area for someone holding a Fat Man.  She’d been toe-to-toe with wielders of those atrocities enough times to know that she had to act, and fast.  Movement on the roof of the nearby church.  Just right if the belfry stood a large figure, someone in power armor, with the exact weapon.  Without another thought, she charged in his direction.  If she got close enough in range she could keep him from firing again.  He wouldn’t get another shot. Not if she had anything to do with it.

She tangled with very few Gunners on her way to the church, thankfully.  Most of them were distracted by the small militia that accompanied her.  A couple of grunts took shots at her once she made it inside, but they missed and she fired back, hitting each of them once.  She didn’t stop to make sure they were incapacitated.  There wasn’t time. She needed to get to the roof.

The stairs that led to the belfry were worn and rickety.  In less of a panic, she probably would have made her way up them gingerly, avoiding the obvious areas of dry rot.  Still, she managed to make it to the top without event.  She hoped the luck would stay on her side just a little bit longer.  She just needed to take out the Gunner with the Fat Man, or at least distract them long enough to protect the Minutemen. Her Minutemen.

“Hey,” Charlie shouted, pointing both of her pistols at the man loading a mini nuke into his gun, “Asshole!”

“What the--” he looked up from what he was doing just in time for her ballistic round to strike him between the eyes.

“Yes,” she said under her breath.  How had she gotten to the point where she felt relief at another person’s death?  Is this what the Commonwealth made of all its inhabitants?

She moved in closer to examine the man’s corpse, still standing erect in the power armor shell. A whole lot of good that did him. He was a relatively young man, mid-thirties, and she wondered if he had a family.  MacCready had been a Gunner once, he’d told her as they sat drinking whiskey in The Third Rail, bloodstained and bathed in red neon light.  It was a gig, a way of making money to support his young son when he had no better options.  What if this man had been just like him?  Charlie didn’t want to think about it.

Noting a fully loaded, modified laser pistol on the ground near the dead Gunner, she picked it up, discarding both of the 10mms in her hands.  They’d just been spares, and she was out of ammo anyway.  She also looted a stimpak and a good chunk of caps before standing up and adjusting her belt.  A loud crash of metal and puffing of hydraulics rose up from the street beneath her and she rushed to the edge of the roof, crouching to keep out of view.  

Preston. A more practical person would have noticed the handlebar mustache wearing the T60 first, the actual source of the commotion, but then again she never claimed to be practical.  Why was he alone?  Why hadn’t he fallen back to the gates with everyone else, where it was safe?  She’d run at a man shooting nukes to protect him and there he was out in the wide open, staring down who could only be the notorious traitor Clint, if the militia hat and sheer aura of son-of-a-bitch were any indication.  It was out of character for Preston to be so reckless.  Maybe he’d forgotten that was her job.

The two men spoke, but she was too far away to make out any of the conversation.  She’d never seen Preston look so visibly angry or shaken.  She needed to get to him before something bad happened, but she needed to be careful.  Frantically, she dug through her various pockets looking for one item in particular. Hoping, praying she still had it.

She smiled and let out a sigh of relief as she pulled the stealth boy from her satchel.  That Railroad operative, Deacon, had given it to her as a welcome gift when she’d agreed to help him out.  At the time, she’d shrugged it off as a passive aggressive commentary on her lack of discretion.  She’d have to thank him next time they crossed paths.

Charlie rushed back inside the church tower, and down the rickety steps as quickly as she could, flipping open the cap of the stealth boy and pressing the button as she did so.  By the time she reached the street, she was completely invisible.  Later, when she and Preston were safe and sound back at Sanctuary, she’d ask Sturges how it worked.

As she crept her way up behind Clint, the man reared back and punched Preston so forcefully it sent him flying into an old junked out Corvega parked nearby.  She brought her invisible hand to her invisible mouth to keep herself from gasping audibly.  As far as she knew, stealth boys weren’t sound proof.  She took some deep steadying breaths, ignoring the burn of tears in her eyes.  Now wasn’t the time to lose her shit.

Moving into position directly behind Clint, she noticed Preston’s eyes on her.  He must have noticed the movement in the air.  She lowered the stealth field, watching relief wash over his face as she smiled and drew her finger to her lips.  Clint would not take him away from her.  She wasn’t in a cryochamber this time, and she would not stand helplessly by and watch someone she loved die.  Never again.

“What’s so fucking funny,” she heard him ask Preston who was, despite it all, laughing.  

“Nothing man,” Preston answered, slurring his words in a way that made Charlie uneasy, “Nothing at all.”

She took that opportunity to fire, aiming her fancy new pistol at the legs of Clint’s power armor.  She had noticed that they were damaged as she moved in, knew it wouldn’t take much to disable them.  Sure enough, after a half-dozen or so shots, the T60’s leg’s locked up, forcing the man to jump out.  He turned in her direction as soon as he did so.

“You little bitch ,” he snapped, and christ, if Charlie didn’t hate being called a bitch.

He tried to raise his weapon and fire at her, but she’d already pulled the trigger, launching a blast of burning red energy into his chest, and filling her nostrils with the sterile scent of ozone.  She holstered her weapon and hovered over him for a minute, shaking her head.  “I’m not a bitch.”

Charlie then brought her eyes back up to Preston, where he sat leaned up against the car, worry tightening her chest.  It wasn’t a good sign that he hadn’t even tried to stand up yet, so unlike him to not make an attempt to brush off his injuries and press forward.  She ran over and knelt down in front of him, cupping his face in her hands and turning it to the left, then the right to check for any signs of external bleeding.  When she saw nothing more than a couple of superficial scrapes she brought up her pip boy and flashed a bright beam of light into each of his eyes.

Shit , she thought, but hid her worry behind a laugh as he flinched and squirmed away from the light.   Only one of his pupils had responded to the flash, which meant that he had a concussion at the very least.  She refused to entertain the other possibilities at the moment.  The tears she had held back just minutes earlier returned to her eyes, and she didn’t fight them this time.

“You’re okay,” she told him, kissing his forehead reflexively, “Looks like you might have a concussion, but you’re safe.  I’m here.”

He blinked up at her a few times, and she wished she could live up to that version of her that reflected in his eyes.  She wished desperately that she could be everything he needed her to be, but with Shaun, and the Institute, and--

“You’re really scary sometimes,” he interrupted her snowballing thoughts, a smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth, “You know that?”

She knew she shouldn’t take any of his concussed statements seriously, but an embarrassed laugh bubbled up from her chest, and she couldn’t hold his gaze.  “I’m sorry, I just… I’d just watched Clint knock you into the car, and he was about to kill you, and I just…”

She trailed off, internally chastising herself for failing to conjure up a coherent response.  She wasn’t even the one with the head injury.  A gentle tap, and tug at her chin guided her eyes back to Preston.  He let his hand linger where it was as his smirk turned into a full-on smile.

“No,” he said, laughing softly, and shaking his head, “It’s kinda hot.”

Heat rose to her face and she snorted gracelessly at his compliment.  She didn’t know how or what to feel, couldn’t put her finger on why his affection made her so overwhelmingly sad.  She shrugged it off and wiped a tear from her face. “Jesus, you hit your head harder than I thought.”

He didn’t respond, and his eyes fluttered closed instead, hand falling limply from her face.  Panic surged up into her chest and she leaned forward to catch him from falling over on his side.

“Preston,” she called out frantically, as she repositioned herself so that she could ease his head down onto her lap, removing his hat and setting it on the ground by her hip. “Preston?”

Again, no response.  “God damnit,” she snapped, slamming the side of her fist into the metal of the car door behind her, body finally giving into the sobs she’d been fighting, sobs that weren’t solely in response to present events.  She doubled over, knuckles turning white around the fabric of his duster she clenched in her fists.

“I’m sorry, Preston,” she whimpered, knowing he couldn’t hear her, knowing it didn’t matter because she would continue to let him down. “I’m so sorry.”

Charlie stiffened at the sound of footsteps, straightening up to see Amelia, her long brown hair flying out of it’s braid, followed by the others who’d accompanied them.  She found herself wishing MacCready was there, Codsworth, Sturges, anyone except the contingent of unfamiliar faces peering down at their commanding officer having a temper tantrum. Amelia glanced between Charlie and Preston, pretty blue eyes filled with concern.

“He’s okay,” Charlie explained, scrubbing tears away from her swollen face, “Just unconscious. He hit his head pretty bad.”

“What happened?”

“Clint-- at least I think that guy over there’s Clint-- hit Preston so hard he sent him flying into this,” Charlie pointed to the car behind her and watched as Amelia approached the body of the man Charlie’d just killed.

The woman frowned, shook her head, and kicked the corpse before returning to Charlie’s side. “That’s Clint alright, the bastard.”  She offered Charlie a reassuring smile, and then glanced down at Preston, “You got a stimpak on you, General?”

Charlie recalled the one she picked up from the Gunner she’d taken out.  She could have slapped herself for not thinking of it sooner.  She reached into one of the pouches on her belt and pulled it out, showing it to the other woman.  

“Perfect.  Let’s give it to Preston, just in case he’s more banged up than he looks.”  She took the syringe from Charlie’s shaking hand gently and removed the cap, and jammed it into Preston’s upper arm.  He jerked slightly at the pain, but didn’t stir.  Amelia continued speaking, “What do you say we have a couple of the boys move him someplace comfy?  There are some abandoned apartments up the street.”

“Yes.” Charlie nodded.  “What about the--”

“Coast’s clear.  Any of the Gunners we didn’t kill ran off.” Amelia smiled.  “Quincy’s ours again.”

#fallout 4 #preston garvey #preston garvey x sole survivor #preston garvey x f!sole survivor #revolutionary #update #my writing

[huntertales]

Part One: Slippery Little Snake. (Dog Dean Afternoon S09E05)

Episode Summary: While investigating two bizarre murders, Y/N and the boys realize there is an eyewitness to both gruesome deaths--a German Shepard. Anxious to find out what monsters they are dealing with, the three look up a spell that can help communicate with the dog. When Dean decides to be the one to perform the spell, he quickly realizes it comes with side effects no one saw coming.  Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader Word Count: 4,356.

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Best cure of all.”

You grimaced at the sight of Dean’s infamous hangover cure he swore was the key to getting over the consequences of drinking from the previous night before. You and the boys had given Kevin a chance to cut loose and enjoy himself away from his responsibilities in hopes it might help make the kid feel more refreshed. Only it seemed the opposite reaction happened. Kevin complained of a headache that wouldn’t go away and feeling nauseous to the point he feared he might throw up. You didn’t think he would have taken it so hard, and he was such a lightweight. Luckily through the complaints of an upset stomach and how the room spinned he managed to keep down the food you offered him.

Dean suggested an infamous Winchester speciality that might be able to kick this hangover in its ass, his own words. You watched in disturbance as Kevin drank two glasses of the stuff. The sight made you flashback to your younger pre-hunting days where you were a lightweight compared to the way a Winchester could handle their alcohol. Dean always could drink you under the table, not that you tried to keep up with him when you drank with him. The next morning you suffered the consequences almost exactly like Kevin had. Dean swore the drink he created helped. You swallowed it down and a few minutes later you threw up everything you had drank from the night before, and anything else that hadn’t digested yet. You admitted the stuff made you feel better. But you wouldn’t touch that stuff ever again.

You told Kevin to keep resting up and sleep off the hangover for a little while longer. When you were sure the kid was going to be fine on his own, you and Dean made your way to the war room where Sam had been occupying for a little while. He sat at the table with his laptop open and doing a little bit of research, hopefully accomplishing something better than the fiasco you had endured just a few minutes ago.

“Wow.” Dean’s approaching voice made his brother turn his attention away from the screen for a moment to see the both of you appeared to be beside yourselves in what you just went through. Sam gave you a confused expression, wondering what the problem was. “Kevin. Just poured some buffalo milk down his gob twice.”

“Buffalo milk?” Sam repeated what his brother just said, not exactly sure if he wanted to know where the man managed to get his hands on the suff. You sat on the edge of the table as Dean placed his hands on the back of an empty rolling chair next to his brother and leaned his body forward.

“Yeah, Dean’s infamous hangover cure-all. It’s apparently got everything in it. Except buffalo milk. God, the smell of it alone brought me back to my early twenties.” You mumbled, your nose scrunching up at the past memories you wished stayed buried. “Hopefully it’ll help Kevin from puking anymore of his guts out.”

“How is that kid still recovering from Branson?” Sam had seen his fair share of lightweights in his time, but there might have been nobody who couldn’t tolerate alcohol the way Kevin showed he wasn’t able to. You shrugged your shoulders from the lack of answers. The poor kid was a lost cause. You figured he would have taken the first chance he got to crawl into a bottle in some kind of attempt to bury the trauma that came from the chaos that ensued.

“What can I say? He’s an amateur.” Dean said. You scoffed as your reaction, feeling that was an understatement from the way you left the poor kid. “The slippery nipple shots at the Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede nearly killed the guy.”

“All right. Well, I got something that’s gonna get us back on the road.” Sam offered a change of subject to something he thought his brother might be interested in hearing. The older man took a seat next to him as you leaned over to take a quick peek at the screen, wondering what kind of case it was.

“Great.” You said. “I’ve been itching to stretch my legs and get out there again.”

Dean turned his head to your direction when you voiced your happiness of tagging along. The man was hesitant about letting you back out there after the favor Ezekial had done for him, and the warning of the consequences of furthering his stay. “You sure you’re ready for that?”

You furrowed your brow from his question, “Why would I not be ready for that?”

“Aren’t you kind of running on empty?” Dean asked in concern.

“Yeah, but the last three nights straight, I had eight hours of shut-eye. And for a hunter, that’s like twenty.” You tried to talk the man into letting you do your damn job without restrictions. You looked over at Sam to see the young man was hesitant himself about giving you the chance to tag along on a hunt. You rolled your eyes from the way they were acting. “Trust me, guys. I feel good.”

“Well, that’s great and all, but you’re still recovering from the trials. I think you ought to pace yourself, you know? And the sooner you heal…” Dean reminded you of a little fact he thought slipped your mind. You crossed your arms over your chest at the flimsy excuse he thought was going to work on you. When he trailed off and fell silent for a moment, you raised your brow in curiosity as to what he was going to say next. “Sam and I just want you back to your old self.”

“I am, guys. I know my body better than anyone else. Not to mention the fact that Kevin’s back on the heaven spell. Crowley’s locked up. We should be out there doing what we do best.” You said. The boys thought otherwise from their unspoken actions that said more than they were willing to admit. You rolled your eyes in annoyance as Dean leaned back in his seat and kicked up one of his legs to the table. The man tried to get a word into the argument, but you stopped him before he could. “Sammy, what’s this case you got for us?”

“Uh, a taxidermist named Max Alexander mysteriously crushed to death. Nearly every joint in his body dislocated, every bone broken.” Sam read off the gory details that caught his attention in the first place. “Poor guy is a human pretzel.”

“Tell me, Dean, what’s got that kind of strength?” You asked him, curious to see what his response was going to be since he had so much to say just a minute ago.

“A demonic luchador?” Dean made little effort into trying to make an education assumption to what might be the cause behind the out of ordinary death.

“Shop’s a couple hours away in Enid, Oklahoma.” Sam said. “We should at least check it out.”

“Unless the boss man thinks there’s some reason we shouldn’t.” You directed your gaze back over to the older Winchester to hear what he had to say. A smile crept to the edges of your lips from the way he fell silent. The response to his defeat. You slid off the table and back to your feet to get started on the packing that was ahead of you. Before you did, you wanted to make one thing clear. “Don’t forget the fact that I kicked your ass just the other day. And I’ll gladly do it again.”

You went on your way from stating the small fact you thought was enough proof to get you back on hunting without them worrying about your health. Dean let out a heavy sigh and ran a hand down his face from your ever growing stubborn behavior. “I swear, I don’t even know why I even bother with her.”

+ + +

You and the boys arrived in Oklahoma a few hours later, the first stop on your list was checking out the crime scene that was still crawling with cops. The first suspicious thing you noticed before even walking into the building was the threat painted on the front entrance of Max Alexander’s taxidermy business. “Die Scum” was written in all capital letters. Whoever painted the threat wanted to get their message across loud as possible. And someone made sure to keep to the painted words. You wondered if it was done by the same person. A few monsters liked to taunt their victims before going in for the thrill of the kill.

Sam noticed something in the letter M that was worth pointing out. You noticed it was an upside down triangle with what appeared to be a paw print. He snapped a quick picture with his phone for future research and headed inside with the rest of you. Taxidermy was something you didn’t give much of a second thought about. However when you stepped into Max’s business, you found yourself surrounded by endless animals of all sorts, all dead and stuffed for display. Animals’ heads mounted to the wall, birds frozen in mid flight, wild cats bearing their sharp fangs appearing as if they were ready to attack. There was some sort of strange craft to stuffing a dead animal and making it look realistic.

“Well, the creep factor just skyrocketed.” Dean mumbled, eyeing the dozens of dead animals surrounding him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” A sheriff stopped the three of you, not sure who you were. 

“How are you? I’m Special Agent Chaplin.” You introduced yourself to him, flashing your fake FBI badge to the man. “These are my partners Agent Michaels and DeVille.”

“The body’s already been to the morgue. Just wrapping it up with Dave Stephens. He’s the one who discovered the boy.” The sheriff explained. You looked over to see an older man leaning against the register, still distraught from the events he thought would have never happened in a million years. “Such a shame. I used to go hunting with Max. He was a real good egg.”

“Sorry for your loss.” Dean gave his condolences to the officer. “You mind showing my partner around? Agent Chaplin and I have a couple of questions for Mr. Stephens.”

The sheriff nodded his head and gestured for Sam to follow him into the next room where the murder took place. You and Dean approached the older man, figuring he might know a thing or two that might be helpful in discovering if this case might be worth your while.

“Dave Stephens?” You asked. You and Dean flashed your badges once again at the man, “My partner and I have got a couple of questions for you if that’s all right.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.” Dave responded without an ounce of hesitation. “Max was a real pal.”

“Hunting buddy?” You wondered. You smiled ever so slightly when you saw his expression immediately change into surprise from how you were able to answer correctly in one guess. You had a feeling it was a common hobby among the locals from the sight of this place. “So, about what time did you discover the body?”

“About nine A.M.—my usual pickup time.” Dave answered. “I come in every Wednesday and Sundays to collect the entrails.”

You furrowed your brow from the terminology. “The entrails?”

“The animal organs. After Max would dig them out and work his magic.” Dave said. “He was a real artist, you know?”

You discovered what kind of magic Max was able to do with the creatures he was given. You found your attention lingering away from the conversation for a moment when you spotted Sam exploring the man's collection. You quickly bit your bottom lip to keep a smile from spreading across your lips at the little creature he was holding that appeared to be dressed as a character from Game of Thrones. Sam amused himself from the expression that crossed his face. Dean found it nothing more than bizarre as to why a grown man would waste his time putting so much effort into such a thing.

“Strange thing is, though,” The both of you quickly turned your full attention back to Dave to hear what else he had to say, pretending as if you were distracted by something childish. “bins were empty this morning.”

“Why is that strange?” Dean asked.

“Well, because it’s a Sunday. Weekend hunts are pretty much a given in this neck of the woods, so they’re usually chock-full of guts.” Dave explained as to why it was out of the ordinary for him.

“Any chance Max could have cleaned them out himself?” You wondered.

“No. It’s a biohazard. You can’t just throw the stuff out.” Dave said. You were learning all sorts of things about animal organs today, more than you ever wanted in your entire life. “You gotta burn it.”

“Huh. The more you know.” You gave him a polite smile from his explanation you could have gone without. You looked over to the sheriff when he approached the three of you again. “Is there anything else missing from the shop?”

“No.” The sheriff said. “The register was full, and the safe was intact. And all of Max’s trophies were still on the walls.”

“And was there anybody else here when you showed up?” Dean asked. 

“No one. No, other than the Colonel.” Dave chuckled and looked over his shoulder to Max’s pet. You felt a smile stretch across your lips at the sight of a German Shepard. 

Sam finished up his search around the crime scene and headed back over to you and his brother. You smiled at the sheriff and Dave, excusing yourself and walking over to another part of the shop where there was nobody else around to have a private conversation of your own to discuss what you found. You had a feeling this was going to be a worthwhile case after all. Everything was adding up with unusual circumstances.

“Okay, so,” You stood with your back to the crime scene, catching up with the younger man about everything you were able to learn in the short time. “We’ve got a thief who’s jonesing for animal parts, we’ve got a pagan symbol, and we’ve got a human pretzel.”

“Yeah, it all sounds very witch-y, but I wasn’t able to find a hex bag.” Sam said, putting a hole in his own theory to what might be to blame for the taxidermist’s death.

“All right, well, let’s keep digging. But not here.” Dean suggested. He didn’t move right away. You noticed his eyes wandered up to a part of the shop that kept his attention. You followed his gaze to see the man was staring at a stuffed owl hanging up on a high shelf, its yellow eyes fixated on the huner in a way that made him uncomfortable. “I don’t like the way that one’s looking at me.”

You stifled a laugh from his paranoid behavior and softly nudged him in the arm to get moving. The three of you still needed to get settled into a motel and started on research to figure out what was the cause of Max Alexander’s death. You took one more curious glance at the owl before heading out the front door.

+ + +

“Okay, that symbol in the graffiti, it’s…not wiccan. It’s copywritten.” Sam worked right away on trying to figure out what the strange symbol you had seen back at the crime scene. The search took little effort into finding its source. You walked over to the man, dropping the shirt you pulled out from your bag you pulled out to change into and out of your fed clothes. He held out his laptop for Dean to take so the both of you could take a look at the homepage for yourselves. “Local animal rights group, Enid’s answer to PETA.”

“S.N.A.R.T.?” Dean read off the animal rights’ group and its terrible name they thought was a good idea. It stood for Showing No Animal Rough Treatment. You didn’t know if you should laugh or at least give them credit for trying to be original. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“Well, it makes sense that an animals-rights group would have an axe to grind with a taxidermist.” Sam said.

“Why?” Dean asked, not seeing the connection between the two. “The animals’ already dead.”

“Yeah, but hunters are what keep them in business.” You added on. “Now the question is, are those bleeding hearts actually witches or just hippies?”

Dean glanced up from the laptop screen and to you, proposing a question. “What’s the difference?”

+ + +

The difference between the two that one was capable of murder. You took doubt in the fact that a group of animal rights activists would go far as committing murder. But when you added the element of witchcraft that’s when the lines between right and wrong started to grow blurry. You and the boys decided to speak to a couple of the members after tracking them down to a vegan bakery called Gentle Earth. Business was booming with customers enjoying a plant-based meal inside and passing by a couple of women walking out with a cup of all organic and overly expensive coffee, ethically sourced you guessed.

“Always knew I’d find the source of all evil at a vegan bakery.” Dean muttered. The man felt out of his element from the people he was surrounded by.

Sam sniffed the air, finding an odor he couldn’t place his finger on. “What’s that smell?”

“Patchouli. Yeah, mixed with depression from meat deprivation.” Dean said. You rolled your eyes from the way he was acting in such an immature fashion. His strong beliefs were radical as those who thought eating animal products were cruel and unusual. The man drew your attention to the front counter when he spotted the owners waiting on a few customers. He was quick to point out a fashion accessory that was a bit odd from the setting that didn’t require them. “Hey. You know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people. And douchebags.”

You let out a quiet sigh and shook your head from the way he was acting, heading up to the counter to have a discussion with the owners. “Olivia and Dylan Camrose?” You asked the couple. Olivia nodded and smiled. “You two are members of S.N.A.R.T, correct?”

“Founders and co-presidents, actually.” Olivia corrected you about the role they played in the activist group. She playfully bumped shoulders with her husband, both of them sharing matching smiles from the hard work they loved doing. Olivia reached out and grabbed a brochure that was kept near a display of their desserts, presuming all of you were curious for being part of a good cause. “Can we interest you in some literature?”

You politely shook your head. “Or a flaxseed scone?” Dylan asked. You looked down at the pastry that appeared to be tasty at first glance, until you heard the lack of ingredients that made it vegan. “It’s wheat-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, and surprisingly moist.”

“Let me stop you right there.” Dean was quick to end this conversation before he could get roped any further into this hippie lifestyle he wanted nothing to do with. He pulled out his badge to flash it at the couple and got to the reason why you were here in the first place. “We’re here to investigate the death of Max Alexander, a local taxidermist.”

Olivia placed the brochure to the counter, her body growing stiff at the unexpected news. “He’s…dead?”

“You knew him?” You asked.

“Ish. Um…” She glanced over to her husband before finishing her response. “small town.”

“Well, he was murdered last night, and a S.N.A.R.T. logo was found at the crime scene.” Sam informed the couple. All though their eyes were covered with a pair of dark shades, the man could see the couples’ body language change in a way that made him suspicious. “You two wouldn’t have to know anything about that, would you?”

The couple thought it would be best for everyone to move this conversation somewhere else. All of you moved to an empty table in the middle of the bakery to hear their side of the story and fill in the gaps of that night.

“His business is funded by hunters. And you know how hunters are.” Dylan immediately lost you from the point he was trying to make. He was more than happy to elaborate on his view of them. “They’re selfish dicks who define themselves by what they kill.”

You had to admit you were a little offended by their presumption, despite the type of hunters who they were talking about was the complete opposite of what you did. “And as animal advocates, we couldn’t stand for that.” Olivia added on.

“So, you killed him?” Sam questioned the couple. 

“Of course not.” Olivia said. She was awfully quick to shoot down the accusation that was simply false. “S.N.A.R.T. doesn’t tolerate violence.”

“Huh. This is coming from a couple who spray-paints death threats.” Dean said, bringing up the red flag that seemed out of character for someone who advocated for the complete opposite for animals lives.

“It was a scare tactic.”Dylan defended himself. “We just wanted to spook him.”

“Turns out we were the ones who got spooked.” Olivia admitted. You wondered exactly what she meant by that, causing her to elaborate even further on her story. She passed a glance over at her husband, who nodded his head, feeling it was the right thing to do in order to set the record straight. “Well, last night, when we were tagging the joint, we heard this noise.”

“A hissing noise.” Dylan added.

“It freaked us out, so we ran into the alley.” Olivia continued on.

“But someone attacked us.”

“Sprayed us in the eyes with mace.”

“And it's not like we could go to the cops.”

“So, now we look like total douchebags because we have to wear our sunglasses inside.” Olivia gave the reason why the couple was forced to wear the dark shades indoors, making them feel exactly like what Dean had said earlier. You didn’t even bother looking over at the older man to see his smug smile at his judgement that turned out to be right.

The couple took off their sunglasses to show the damage that had been done to them from the surprise pepper spray attack. You winced at the scarring around their eyes that sure didn’t look like it was caused by something like pepper spray. It almost appeared to be acid burns from the extent of the physical damages. Dean subtly wagged his index finger, signaling for them to put the shades back on after finding the burns a little too uncomfortable to keep staring at.

+ + +

You did a little research of your own after you made it back to the motel and changed out of your fed clothes for some jeans and a shirt. Something about the burn like wounds the couple had gotten didn’t seem to add up. And you were right about your suspicions.

“Necrosis?” Dean read off the medical term you discovered, wondering what it meant.

“Premature death of tissues—that’s why their eyes were all messed up.” You said. “And it’s not caused by mace.”

“All right.” Dean twisted off the cap to his beer and tossed it to the sink. He leaned over your shoulder and placed a hand on the table to steady himself in doing so. He read off the medical information about black eyes from the page you pulled up. "What causes it?"

“Right here.” You placed a finger on the screen and began to read off something from the paragraph that might explain the reason behind the couples’ painful looking burns. “‘Blunt force, radiation, venom.’”

“As in ‘snake’?” Dean guessed from the sounds of it.

“The taxidermist was constricted. Olivia and Dylan heard hissing, and they were sprayed in the eyes. By venom. Sounds snake-y to me. I say if it does turn out to be that, we should skin it and turn it into a fabulous pair of boots.” You suggested. Dean chuckled at your joke, taking a seat from across from you at the table. “Bet S.N.A.R.T would love that.”

“Okay, so…what are we talking here,” Dean said, deciding to get serious for a moment to try and figure out what you might be hunting. “Some sort of freaky-ass snake monster?”

“Maybe.” You mumbled. You fell silent for a moment trying to figure out how all of this added up to make proper sense with what knowledge you had about the reptilians. “The weird thing is snakes either envenomate or constrict. No snake does both.”

“Correction,” Dean said. “freaky-ass mega-snake monster.”

You quietly chuckled to yourself before throwing out your best guess as to what it might be. “It could be a vetala.”

“Yeah, but they’re not afraid to sink their fangs in. Taxidermist was bite free. It doesn’t really fit the profile.” Dean reminded you about the small detail. You nodded your head. A sigh fell from your lips at the lack of leads you had at the moment. Dean came to your rescue of adding another pair of hands to the night of research ahead for you and Sam. “Call Kevin. Have him look some stuff up.”

You shut your laptop and reached for your phone when you decided to do just that. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of hands on the case while you figured out what you were hunting. You just hoped the poor kid still wasn’t feeling hungover. The internet only had so much information at your fingertips, the Men of Letters’ library would hopefully have the answers you were looking for. You needed to find out and quick, before another life could be taken. 

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[abbottikeler]

The Ikelers: A Family Chronicle, 1753-2018 (Part II)

The Second Generation: from Eichler to Ikeler and Agler

    The second generation, Hieronymus’ three sons and the younger Wilhelm, his brother’s only child, naturally divide into two half-generations, since the older boys were born ten years or more before their younger brother and first cousin.  Though all of them must have spoken more fluent English than their parents, the personalities of the older two were primarily influenced by the trauma of displacement from German culture and the even greater trauma of indenture in their childhood, while the younger two grew up free-born, in a rising tide of political rebellion and open warfare.     One sign of the difference is in their choice of wives: the older two married the daughters of fellow German immigrants—in Conrad’s case, a girl with the same Christian name as his uncle’s wife—while the younger boys chose daughters of English settlers.  Moreover, Conrad and the elder Wilhelm reached manhood and sired their first children under relatively secure British rule in 1770, whereas Jerome and his young cousin Wilhelm attained their majority under an entirely new, indigenous government.  The disparity of influences is manifest particularly in the behavior of Wilhelm and his much younger brother Jerome: the former sided with the English during the war and was locally known as “William the Loyalist,” while Jerome caught the nomadic spirit of the restless new nation, migrating briefly to Pennsylvania and then pushing westward into the frontier, eventually settling in what is now Iowa.     Here, another caveat.  Since, of the four children of Hieronymus and his brother Conrad, I am descended from the elder Wilhelm, I have not undertaken any extensive research into the other three lines.  Suffice it to say that since Wilhelm’s elder brother had only daughters, all born in New Jersey with their maiden surname changed to Ikeler, pursuit of his descendants, though difficult, would have to begin there.  The descendants of his cousin Wilhelm (all eight of his children born with the surname Agler) might be more difficult to trace since I can provide no information beyond their names, their dates of birth, and their wives’ names.  Jerome’s descendants, which I’ve included in the accompanying tree down to his grandson James, would probably be the easiest for someone in that branch of the Agler line to research.     Even for Wilhelm’s elder and younger brothers, I have only the sketchiest additional evidence.  Conrad was apparently widowed in New Jersey sometime after the war and, according to Pennsylvania tax records from 1805 and 1808, spent his last years on 100 acres of land offered him by Wilhelm on adjacent land in Columbia County—dying, most probably, at 57 or 58 in 1806.  Jerome also spent some time near his brother Wilhelm in Pennsylvania, where his wife Rebecca gave birth to their first child, Daniel, in 1802.  Shortly thereafter they picked up stakes and traveled further west, settling eventually on the far side of the Mississippi.       To be clear, for the rest of this narrative, I’ll be focusing exclusively on Wilhelm and the direct line of his descendants that leads to my own and my brother’s immediate family.       The most important question to ask about this second generation of German-Americans is why each of the four men, born with the surname “Eichler,” chose to change it, either to “Ikeler” or “Agler.”  The answer to that question lies with Hieronymus’ second son, Wilhelm, and to a lesser extent, Wilhelm’s uncle Conrad.     As early as 1773, Wilhelm, being a second son, moved away from his parents and his elder brother to his own farm in Sussex County, a day’s ride north and closer to Belvidere and the Delaware River.  He appears in a contemporary census as “Wm Ekler,” a resident of Oxford Township.  More important perhaps, he joined a different Lutheran congregation and baptized his remaining children there—in the St. James or Straw Church near modern day Phillipsburg.  Many members of that church, both English and German, were fiercely committed to British rule—a marked difference from the Oldwick congregation whose pastors in the immediate pre-war period agitated openly for the revolutionary cause.  Once war commenced, perhaps emboldened by an uncle in the British infantry, Wilhelm openly declared himself a loyalist.  Even for a simple citizen farmer like Wilhelm, such a political stance quickly became untenable.  In 1778, the New Jersey revolutionary authorities empowered themselves to seize the property of all loyalists and their dependents, effectively bankrupting them and driving them underground or out of the colony.   In a newspaper notice published on 10 December 1778, “William Eikler” is included in a list of 63 loyalists whose properties are to be seized immediately following the first of March, 1779.  The notice is signed by William Bond and George Warne, Commissioners for the County of Sussex.  At this point in their lives, Wilhelm and his wife, Maria Elisabeth (nee Bengert), had three living children—Andrew, 6; Barnabus, 4; William, 1, and another on the way.       What did they do?  Where did they go?     With currently available information, it’s impossible to settle those questions definitively, but a review of circumstantial evidence suggests the likeliest answers.  Public record of the Wilhelm Eichler family disappears entirely for the next 13 years, returning first with notice of the marriage of Wilhelm’s first and third sons in New Jersey in the early and mid-1790s; then with the marriage of his only daughter, Elizabeth, to William Welliver in Jerseytown, Pennsylvania in 1797; and finally with the reappearance of Wilhelm himself (now William Ikeler) on the list of members of the Derry Episcopal and Lutheran Church in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania in 1798.  Thereafter, until his death in 1808, William and all four of his children appear in numerous tax records and deeds of sale as land owners in Greenwood Township and neighboring Mt. Pleasant, several miles north of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.       Whatever happened to Wilhelm in the intervening years, it appears his wife and children remained in New Jersey at least until the mid-1790s, probably with Elizabeth’s parents or with Hieronymus and Wilhelm’s older brother, Conrad, on the original family farm.  Wilhelm’s younger brother, uneasy with a sibling declared persona non gratia and an uncle serving in the British army, apparently decided it prudent to reach his majority under the surname “Agler”--quite distinct from the suddenly notorious “Eichler”—an improvisation his young cousin Wilhelm adopted as well.     But what of the fugitive, bankrupt Wilhelm?  There is no evidence he escaped to Canada either during or after the war—only that 19 years after his worldly goods in New Jersey were confiscated he resurfaced as a modest farmer with a local church affiliation not far from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania in 1798.    Fortunately, there is a weight of circumstantial evidence to suggest a plausible answer to his whereabouts in the interim.  Among his contemporaries in the congregation of the St. James “Straw” Church in New Jersey was one Daniel Welliver, recently returned from three years on the Pennsylvania frontier.  He had ventured into that unsettled territory in 1775 to reconnoiter the land granted his grandfather by William Penn, and deeded to him and his cousin in 1749.  After three years, and much tension with the local native-Americans, he heeded the warning of a friendly tribe to get out before things turned violent.  He returned to New Jersey in 1778. A short time later the Whitmayer family, who had been his near neighbors on the frontier, was indeed attacked, most of them murdered and the rest kidnapped.     Daniel was undaunted, however.  He had been impressed by the fertility of the land, the proximity of fresh creeks for irrigation and fishing, and a large navigable waterway nearby (the upper Susquehanna).  Once a treaty had been negotiated in 1780, pacifying the local native-Americans, he brought his young family back to that promising country some 100 miles west northwest of Sussex County.       Where he and his cousin Adam established their farms came to be known as Jerseytown, since most of those who settled there were his neighbors and friends from the New Jersey colony.  William Baillie, in a recent study of modern day Madison Township, PA, which includes Jerseytown, describes its early inhabitants as a mix of English and Germans, many of them loyalists who were tolerated by their neighbors and felt relatively safe, on the frontier, from pursuit by the revolutionary authorities.       The coincidence of Wilhelm’s looming fugitive status in 1779 and Daniel’s fortuitous return to the same congregation with news of a promising new place to settle, suggests an escape to the Pennsylvania frontier may have been discussed between them.  Further, the fact that Daniel married his eldest son, William, to Wilhelm’s only daughter in that very place 18 years later—thus confirming close ties between the men—allows us to posit a likely answer to Wilhelm’s whereabouts during the missing years.     Moreover, if we presume Wilhelm left for what would become Jerseytown either in 1779 or 1780 and worked as a paid laborer on Daniel’s farm until it was safe in the late 1790s to resurface as an independent land owner and acknowledged church member, it would explain a number of puzzling phenomena in the last half of his life.     Question: Why did his wife give birth to no more children after 1779 though she was still in her late twenties when her daughter was born?  Answer: As in the cases of indentured service a generation before, she and her husband were almost certainly apart—she in New Jersey and he in Pennsylvania for a period of at least 15 years.      Q. Why in the late 90s did he belong to a congregation that was a half-day’s buggy ride away from his Greenwood farm?  A. Because it was near Jerseytown where he had been living and working since 1780.     Q.  Why does he resurface as “William Ikeler” in all documents after 1797?  A. Because he wished to evade identification as the loyalist Wilhelm Eichler, but, feeling relatively safe from detection in another state, he also wanted to keep the English pronunciation of his surname as close to the German as possible.     Q. How was it possible for him to afford a 300-acre farm and a large “log house and barn” in Greenwood according to the 1802 tax records?  A. He purchased it with a fraction of his saved wages from working for Daniel Welliver.     Q.  How was it possible for him to own an additional 350 acres and distribute that land among his two married sons, Andrew and William, and his older brother Conrad—according to the 1805 tax records?   A. He purchased that land with “450 pieces of gold or silver” from John Hubley, another Greenwood farmer, on May 15, 1804, according to a deed held by his great grandson, I.B. Ikeler, and published in the Bloomsburg newspaper on December 6, 1908.     Q. But how did he come to have such a store of hard currency?  A. It was probably the remainder of his hoarded, 15-plus years of wages earned on the Welliver farm and earmarked as a nest egg for his wife and children when it was safe for them to join him in Pennsylvania.     Q. What other evidence is there, besides their membership in the same New Jersey church and the marriage of his daughter to Daniel’s son, of a close, mutually beneficial relationship between Wilhelm Eichler and Daniel Welliver?   A. When Wilhelm’s estate was divided in November, 1810, the largest portion of land was given not to his sons or his wife, but to his son-in-law, William Welliver.   Daniel’s son (already with a sizable holding from his own father) received an additional 245 acres of Ikeler land, but the 1811 tax records show Wilhelm’s own dependents got much less:     Andrew (son): 130 acres plus log cabin     Barnabus (son): 35 acres     William (son): 180 acres plus log cabin     Elizabeth (his widow): 60 acres, plus log house and barn A further indication of the tight friendship between the Ikelers and the Wellivers from the 1780s onward is the note, both in the will and the tax records, of their farm properties abutting each other on several sides.     So it seems that like his father, who had to start over twice to establish his independence (from tenant farming in Germany and indentured service in the British colonies), Wilhelm had to make two new beginnings of his own: first as a second son and small farmer in colonial New Jersey, and once again, after financial ruin and years of enforced separation from his wife and family, as a U.S. citizen on the frontier of rural America.       Did he curse the fate that had robbed him of his own land and compelled him for so long to till another man’s fields?  Or did Wilhelm, through those years away from his loved ones, and always fearful of discovery by government agents, steel himself with an old German adage: aller Anfang ist schwer—every beginning is hard?

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 12

The Flat Five

It’s November, and the culture is telling us to be thankful again, at least from a distance. We’re a prickly, argumentative bunch here at Dusted, but I think we can all agree on gratitude for our health, each other and the music, good and bad, that comes flooding in from all sides. So while we may not agree on whether the best genre is free jazz or acid folk or vintage punk or the most virulent form of death metal, we do concur that the world would be very dull without any of it. And thus, seasonably overstuffed, but with music, we opine on a number of the best of them once again. Contributors this time include Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Mason Jones, Patrick Masterson, Jonathan Shaw and Justin Cober-Lake. Happy thanksgiving. 

Cristián Alvear / Burkhard Stangl — Pequeños Fragmentos De Una Música Discreta (Insub)

Pequeños fragmentos de una música discreta by CRISTIÁN ALVEAR & BURKHARD STANGL

The acoustic guitar creates instant common ground. Put together two people with guitars in their hands together, and they can potentially communicate without knowing a word of each other’s language. They might trade blues licks, verses of “Redemption Song,” or differently dire remembrances of “Hotel California,” but they’re bound to find some sort of common language. This album documents another chapter in the eternal search. Cristián Alvear is a Chilean classical guitarist who has found a niche interpreting modern, and often experimental repertoire. Burkhard Stangl is an Austrian who has spent time playing jazz with Franz Koglmann, covering Prince with Christoph Kurzmann and realizing compositions that use the language of free improvisation with Polwechsel. This CD collects eight “Small Fragments Of Discreet Music” which they improvised in the course of figuring out what they could play together. Given their backgrounds, dissonance is part of the shared language, but thanks to the instrumentation, nothing gets too loud. Sometimes they explore shared material, such as the gentle drizzle of harmonics on “No5.” Other times, they find productive contrasts, such as the blurry slide vs. palindromic melody on “No6.” And just once, they flip on the radio and wax melancholic while the static sputters. Sometimes small, shared moments are all you need.

Bill Meyer

 Badge Époque Ensemble — Self Help (Telephone Explosion Records)

Self Help by Badge Époque Ensemble

 Toronto collective Badge Époque Ensemble display the tastefully virtuosic skill of a particular strain of soul-inflected jazz-fusion that politely nudged its way into the charts during the 1970s. Led by Max Turnbull (the erstwhile Slim Twig) on Fender Rhodes, clavinet and synthesizers with members of US Girls, Andy Shauf’s live band and a roster of guest vocalists, Badge Époque Ensemble faithfully resurrect the sophisticated sounds of Blue Nun fuelled fondue parties and stoned summer afternoons by the pool. Meg Remy and Dorothea Paas share vocals on “Sing A Silent Gospel” which is garlanded with Karen Ng’s alto saxophone and an airy solo from guitarist Chris Bezant; it’s a track that threatens to take off but never quite does. The strength of James Baley’s voice lifts the light as air psych-funk of “Unity (It’s Up To You)” and Jennifer Castle does the same for “Just Space For Light” during which Alia O’Brien makes the case for jazz flute — Mann rather than Dolphy — with an impressive solo. The most interesting track here is the 11 minute “Birds Fly Through Ancient Ruins” a broodingly introspective piece which allows Bezant, Ng and bassist Giosuè Rosati to shine. Self-Help is immaculately played and has some very good moments but can’t quite get loose enough to convince.

Andrew Forell  

 Better Person — Something to Lose (Arbutus)

Something to Lose by Better Person

Like any musical genre, synth-pop can go desperately awry in the wrong hands. The resurgence of all things 1980s has been such a prevalent musical trend in recent years that it takes a deft touch to create something that taps into the retro vibe without coming across as smug. Under his Better Person moniker, Berlin-based Polish artist Adam Byczyowski manages to summon the melancholy vibe of 1980s classics such as “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, and “Drive” by The Cars, reimagined for the 21st century and set in a run-down karaoke bar. This succinct and elegant half-hour set pivots around atmospheric instrumental “Glendale Evening” and features three Polish-language tracks — “Na Zawsze” (“Forever”), “Dotknij Mnie” (“Touch Me”), and “Ostatni Raz” (“Last Time”) — that emphasize the feel of cruising solo through another country and tuning into a unfamiliar radio station. There’s roto-toms, glassy synth tones, suitably melodramatic song titles (including “Hearts on Fire,” “True Love,” and “Bring Me To Tears”), plus Byczyowski’s disaffected croon. It all creates something unexpectedly moving.

Tim Clarke

 Big Eyes Family — The Disappointed Chair (Sonido Polifonico)

The Disappointed Chair by Big Eyes Family

Sheffield’s Big Eyes Family (formerly The Big Eyes Family Players) released the rather fine Oh! on Home Assembly Music in 2016. Its eerie blend of folk and psych-pop brought to mind early Broadcast, circa Work and Non Work, before Trish Keenan and James Cargill started to explore more experimental timbres and themes of the occult. Bar perhaps the haunted music box instrumental “Witch Pricker’s Dream,” Oh!’s songs cleaved along a similar grain: minor keys, chiming arpeggiated guitar, spooky organ, in-the-pocket rhythm section, plus Heather Ditch’s vocal weaving around the music like smoke. The Disappointed Chair is much the same, enlivened with a touch more light and shade, from succinct waltz “(Sing Me Your) Saddest Song,” to the elegant Mellotron and tom-toms of “For Grace.” “From the Corner of My Eye” is stripped right back, with an especially affecting guitar line, plus Ditch’s vocals doubled, with the same words spoken and sung, like a voice of conscience nagging at the edge of the frame. It’s a strong set of songs, only let down by the boxy snare sound on “Blue Light,” and on “The Conjurer,” Ditch’s lower register isn’t nearly as strident as her upper range.

Tim Clarke

 Bounaly — Music For WhatsApp 10 (Sahel Sounds)

Music from Saharan WhatsApp 10 by Bounaly

The tenth installment in Sahel Sounds’ Music For WhatsApp series introduces another name worth remembering. In case your attention hasn’t been solely faced on the ephemeral charms of contemporary Northwest African music in 2020, here’s the scoop: Each month, Sahel sounds uploads a brief recording that a musician from that corner of the world recorded on their cell phone and delivered via the titular app, which is the current mode of music transmission in that neck of the woods. At the end of the month they take it down, and that’s that. This edition was posted on November 11, so set your watch accordingly. Bounaly is originally from Niafounké, which was the home of the late, great Ali Farka Touré. Since civil war and outside intervention have rendered the city unsafe for musicians of any speed, he now works in Mali’s capital city, Bamako, but his music is rooted in the bluesy guitar style that Touré championed. Accompanied solely by a calabash player and surrounded by street sounds, Bounaly’s singing closely shadows his picking, which is expressive without resorting to the amped-up shredding of contemporary guitarists like Mdou Moctar.

Bill Meyer  

 Cash Click Boog — Voice of the Struggle (CMC-CMC)

Last year, Cash Click Boog made a few very noticeable appearances on other people albums (especially on Lonnie Bands’ “Shred 1.5” and Rockin Rolla’s First Quarter) but his own Extras was a minor effort. This Californian rapper was always a dilettante at music, but that was his main appeal and ineradicable feature: you always knew that he’s always caught up in some very dark street business, and he appears in a booth once every blue moon, almost by accident. He is that sort of a player who always on the bleachers, yet when they let him on the field he always does a triple double or a hat trick (depending on a kind of sport).

Voice of the Struggle was supposed to be his big break, the album in which he would expend his gift for rapping while remaining in strictly amateurish frame. Sadly, Boog has chosen another route, namely going pop. He discards his amateur garbs almost completely and auto-tunes every track. If earlier he was too dark even by street standards, now almost all the tracks could be safely played on a radio. The first eight songs are more or less pop-ish ballads about homies in prison, tough life and the ghetto. By the time we reach the last three tracks where Boog recovers his old persona, it’s already too late. The struggle remains but the voice is gone.

Ray Garraty 

 The Flat Five — Another World (Pravda)

The Flat Five musters a great deal of Chicago musical fire power. Alt.country chanteuse Kelly Hogan, Andrew Bird collaborator Nora O’Connor and Casey McDonough sing in Andrews Sisters harmonies, while NRBQ mainstay Scott Ligon minds the store and Green Mill regular Alex Hall keeps the rhythm steady. The sound is retro —1930s radio retro — but the songs, written by Ligon’s older brother Chris, upend mid-century American pieties with sharp, insurgent wit. A variety of old-time-y styles are referenced — big band jazz, country, doo wop and pre-modern pop — in clean, winking style. Countrified, “The Great State of Texas” seems, at first, to be a fairly sentimental goodbye-to-all-that song, until it ends with the revelation that the narrator is on death row. “Girl of Virginia,” unspools a series of intricate, Cole Porter-ish rhymes, while waltzing carelessly across the floor. The writing is sharp, the playing uniformly excellent and the vocals extra special, layered in buzzing harmonies and counterpoints. No matter how complicated the vocal arrangements, no one is ever flat in Flat Five.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sam Gendel — DRM (Nonesuch)

Normally, Sam Gendel plays saxophone in a classic jazz style. You might have caught him blowing dreamy, airy accompaniments on Sam Amidon’s last record, for instance, or putting his own spin on jazz standards in the solo Satin Doll. But for this album, Gendel experimented with ancient high tech — an Electro Harmonix DRM32 drum machine, some synthesizers, a 60-year-old nylon-string guitar —t o create hallucinatory fragments of beat-box-y, jazz-y sound, pitched somewhere between arty hip hop and KOMPAKT-style experimental electronics. “Dollars,” for instance, laces melancholy, Latin-flavored guitar and crooning with vintage video-game blips and bleeps, like a bossa nova heard dimly in a gaming arcade. “SOTD” dances uneasily in a syncopated way, staccato guitar runs paced by hand-claps, stuttered a-verbal mouth sounds and bright melodic bursts of synthesizer. “Times Like This” poses the difficult question of exactly what time we’re in—it has the moody smoulder of old soul, the antic ping and pop of lush early 00s electronics, the disembodied alien suavity of pitch-shifted R&B right now. The ringer in the collection is a cover of L’il Nas’ “Old Town Road,” interpreted in soft Teutonic electro tones, like Cluster at the rodeo. It’s odd and lovely and hard to get a bead on, which is pretty much the verdict for DRM as a whole.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kraig Grady — Monument of Diamonds (Another Timbre)

MONUMENT OF DIAMONDS by Kraig Grady

The painting adorning the sleeve of Monument of Diamonds is entitled Doppler Effect in Blue, and rarely has the cover art’s name so accurately described the sound of the music paired with it. The album-length composition, which is scored for brass, saxophones and organs, consists almost entirely of long tones that Doppler in slow motion, with one starting up just before another peters out. The composer, Kraig Grady, is an Australian-based American who used to release albums that purported to be the folk music of a mythical land called Anaphoria. Nowadays he has no need for such subterfuge, since this lovely album holds up quite well on its own merits. Inspired by Harry Partch and non-Western classical music systems, Grady uses invented instruments and strategically selected pitch intervals to create microtonal music that sounds subtly alien, but never harsh on the ears. As the sounds glide by, they instigate a state of relaxed alertness that’ll do your blood pressure some good without exposing you to unnecessary sweetener.

Bill Meyer  

 MJ Guider — Sour Cherry Bell (Kranky)

Sour Cherry Bell by MJ Guider

MJ Guider’s second full length is diaphanous and monolithic, its monster beats sheathed in transparent washes of hiss and roar. “The Steelyard” shakes the floor with its pummelling industrial rhythms, yet shrouds Guider’s spoken word chants with surprising delicacy. “Body Optics” growls and simmers in woozy synth-driven discontent, while the singer lofts dreamy melodic phrases over the roar. There’s heft in the low-end of these roiling songs, in the churn of bass-like synthetics, the stomp of computer driven percussion, yet a disembodied lightness in the vocals, which float in pristine purity over the roar. Late in the disc, Guider ventures a surprisingly unconfrontational bit of dream pop in “Perfect Interference,” sounding poised and controlled and rather lovely at the center of chiming, enveloping synthetic riffs. Yet the murk and roar makes her work even more captivating, a glimpse of the spiritual in the midst of very physical wreck and tumult.

Jennifer Kelly

 Hisato Higuchi — キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? (Ghost Disc) 

キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? by Hisato Higuchi

Since 2003, Tokyo-based guitarist Hisato Higuchi has quietly released a series of equally-quiet albums, many on his own Ghost Disc label, which is appropriately named. Higuchi's work on this and the previous two albums of his "Disappearing Trilogy" is a sort of shimmering, melancholy guitar-and-vocal atmosphere — downer psych-folk in a drifting haze. His lyrics are more imagery than story, touching on overflowing light, winter cities, the quiet world, and the transience of memories. As the guitar floats slowly into the distance, Higuchi's voice, imbued with reverb, is calmly narcotic, like someone quietly sympathizing with a friend's troubles. These songs, while melancholy, convey a peacefulness that's a welcome counterbalance to the chaotic year in which we've been living. Like a cool wind on a warm summer evening, you can close your eyes and let Higuchi's music improve your mood.  

Mason Jones

 Internazionale — Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade) (Janushoved)

Wide Sea Prancer (At The Blue Parade) by Internazionale

It’s been nearly half a decade since Copenhagen’s Janushoved first appeared in these annals, and in that time, a little more information — and a lot more material — has cropped up to lend some context to the mystery. The focus, however, steadfastly remains with the music — perhaps my favorite of which among the regular projects featured is label head Mikkel Valentin’s own swirling solo synth vehicle Internazionale. In addition to a reissue of 2017’s The Pale and the Colourful (originally out on Posh Isolation), November saw the release of all-new songs with Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade), 14 tracks of gently abrasive headphone ambient that carry out this type of sound very well. Occasionally there is a piano (“Callista”) or what sounds like vocals (“El Topo”), but as it’s been from the start, this is primarily about tones and moods. Notes for the release say it’s a “continuation and completion of the narrative set by the release Sillage of the Blue Summer,” but it’s less the narrative you should be worried about missing out on than the warmth of your insides after an uninterrupted listen.

Patrick Masterson    

 Iress — Flaw (Iress)

Flaw by Iress

Sweeping, epic post-metal from this LA four piece makes a place for melodic beauty amid the heaviness. Like Pelican and Red Sparrows, Iress blares a wall of overwhelming guitar sound. Together Michelle Malley and Alex Moreno roust up waves and walls of pummeling tone as in opener “Shame.” But Iress is also pretty good at pulling back and revealing the acoustic basis for these songs. “Hand Tremor” is downright tranquil, with wreathes of languid guitar strumming and Malley’s strong, gutsy soprano navigating the full dynamic range from whisper to scream. “Wolves” lumbers like a violent beast, even in its muscular surge, there’s a slow, anthemic chorus. Likewise, “Underneath” pounds and hammers (that’s Glenn Chu on drums), but leaves space for introspection and doubt. It’s rare that the vocals on music this heavy are so good or so female, but if you’ve liked Chelsea Wolfe’s recent forays into ritual metal, you should check out Iress as well.

Jennifer Kelly

Junta Cadre — Vietnam Forever (No Rent Records)

"Vietnam Forever" (NRR141) by Junta Cadre

Junta Cadre is one of several noise and power electronics projects created by Jackson Abdul-Salaam, musician and curator of the long-running Svn Okklt blog. As the project’s name implies, Junta Cadre has an agenda: the production of sound that seeks to thematize the ambiguities of 20th-century radical, revolutionary politics. The project’s initial releases investigated the Maoist revolution in China, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Vietnam Forever shifts topics, to the American War in Vietnam, and tactics, including contributions from other prominent harsh noise acts and artists: the Rita, Samuel Torres of Terror Cell Unit, Leo Brucho of Controlled Opposition and others. Given those names, Vietnam Forever is as challenging and rigorous as you might expect. Waves of dissonant, electronic hum and fuzz accumulate and oscillate, crunching and chopping into textured aural assaults; wince-inducing warbles and needling feedback occasionally assert themselves. Abdul-Salaam’s harsh shout cuts in and out of the mix. The tape (also available as a name-yo’-price DL on Bandcamp) presents as two side-long slabs of sound, both over seventeen minutes long, both completely exhausting. At one point, on Side A, Abdul-Salaam repeatedly shouts, “Beautiful Vietnam forever!” It’s hard to say what he means. An affirmation that Vietnam survived the war? That its people and culture endure? Or that the U.S. can’t seem to shake the war’s haunting presence? Or even a more worryingly nihilistic delight in the war’s carnage, so frequently aestheticized in films like Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Da Five Bloods (2020)? The noise provides no closure. Maybe necessarily so.  

Jonathan Shaw  

 Bastien Keb — The Killing of Eugene Peeps (Gearbox)

The Killing of Eugene Peeps is a soundtrack to a movie that never was, a noir-ish flick which winds restlessly through urban landscapes and musical styles, from the orchestra tremors of its opening through the folky group-sing of “Lucky the Oldest Grave.” “Rabbit Hole” wafts by like an Elephant Six outtake, its woozy chorus lit by glockenspiel notes, while “God Bless Your Gutters” conjures jazzy desolation in piano and mordant spoken word. “All the Love in Your Heart” shimmers like a movie flashback, a mirage of blowsy back-up singing, guitar and muttered memories. “Street Clams” bristles with funk and swagger, an Ethio-jazz sortee through rain slicked streets. What’s it about? Musically or narratively? No idea. But it’s worth visiting these evocative soundscapes just for the atmosphere. It’s a film I’d like to see.

Jennifer Kelly

 Jesse Kivel — Infinite Jess (New Feelings)

Nostalgia haunts the new solo album from Kisses guitarist/singer Jesse Kivel. Infinite Jess is full of that knowing melancholy of The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout and The Pale Fountains that was so magnetic to a certain brand of sensitive young thing seeking to articulate their inchoate visions of a future steeped in romance and adventure. Think wistful mid-tempo songs wrapped in cocoons of strummed guitars, shuffling percussion and wurlitzer piano fashioned into a catalogue of adolescent radio memories. These tunes are topped by the understated sincerity of Kivel’s voice and lyrics which effectively evoke the place, time and emotion of his vignettes. The production suffers occasionally from a distracting reliance on too perfectly rendered tropes — overly polite drum programming, thumbed bass, blandly smooth electric piano — but the overall effect is oddly beguiling. Infinite Jess closes with a charmingly wobbly instrumental cover of Don McLean’s “Vincent” played on the wurlitzer that captures the poignancy of the melody and serves as a fitting epilog to the record.

Andrew Forell

 Kyrios — Saturnal Chambers (Caligari Records)

Saturnal Chambers by KYRIOS

The corpsepaint-and-spiked-codpiece crowd are still making tons of records, but fewer and fewer of them are interesting or compelling. The retrograde theatrics and cheap pessimism can be irritating enough (I’d rather be reading Schopenhauer, thanks); it’s even more problematic when the songs can muster only the vividness and savor of stiff leftovers from the deep-freezer’s darkest and dankest corners. Still, every now and then a kvlty band that follows the frigid dictates of black metal’s orthodoxy creates a set of songs worth listening to. This new EP from Kyrios is super short, comprising three tracks in just under 10 minutes that pull off that neat trick: when it’s over, you want to hear more. Sure, the dudes in the band call themselves silly things like Satan’s Sword and Vornag, but the tunes are really good. Check out the churning strangeness of “The Utterance of Foul Truths.” Kyrios claims Immortal, Enslaved and Dissection as primary influences, and the band recognizes the stylistic debt they owe to Deathspell Omega (let’s hope Kyrios digs the twisted guitars and weird-ass time signatures, but passes on the National Socialism declaimed by that French band’s vocalist). Stuff gets even more engaging when bleeping and blooping keyboards vibrate at the edges of the mix, giving the songs a spaced-out vibe. “Saturnal Chambers”? Maybe Kyrios has met the astral spirit of Sun Ra somewhere along their galactic journeys into the heavenly void. He liked bleeping, blooping noises and gaudy costumes, too.

Jonathan Shaw

 Matt Lajoie — Light Emerging (Trouble In Mind)

Light Emerging by Matt Lajoie

The second volume of Trouble In Mind Records’ Explorers series is, like its predecessor a cassette that comes concealed within a brown slipcase. Like many other discretely wrapped products, the fun is on the inside. This time, it’s a tape by guitarist who understands that toes aren’t just for tapping. At any rate, I think he’s managing his pedals with his feet. Most likely Lajoie has spent some quality time listening to mid-1990s Roy Montgomery. But since a quarter century has passed, he doesn’t just stack up the echoes. Sped-up tones streak across the surface of this music like swallows zooming close to that sheet you hung on the side of your barn the last time you had everyone over for a socially distanced gathering to watch Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Wait, did that really happen? Maybe not, but if someone were to make a fake documentary about the hanging of the projective surface, this music is suitably epic to provide the soundtrack.

Bill Meyer

 Lisa/Liza — Shelter of a Song (Orindal)

Shelter of a Song by Lisa/Liza

Lisa/Liza makes a quietly harrowing sort of guitar folk, singing in a high, ghostly clear soprano against delicate traceries of picking. The artist, real name Liza Victoria, inhabits songs that are unadorned but still chilling. She sings with childlike sincerity in an ominous landscape of dark alleys and chilly autumnal vistas. She wrote this album while chronically ill, according to the notes, and you can hear the struggle against the body in the way her voice sometimes wavers, her breath comes in sudden intakes. But, as sometimes happens after long sickness, she sometimes strikes clear of the physical, achieving an unearthly purity as in “From this Shelter.” A touch of plain spoken magic lurks in this one, in the whispery vocals, the translucent curtains of guitar notes, though not much warmth. “Red Leaves” is earthier and more fluid, guitar flickers striking out from a resonant center, and the artist murmuring dreamily about the beauty of the world and its transience.

Jennifer Kelly

Keith Morris & The Crooked Numbers — American Reckoning (Mista Boo)

It's easy to imagine Keith Morris as perpetually frustrated. His last album, after all, took on psychopaths and sycophants, and the title of his new release American Reckoning doesn't suggest happy thoughts. There's plenty of bile on these five tracks, of course, but Morris approaches the album like a scholar. The opening verse describes the US as “Machiavellian: the mean just never ends” before referencing Othello and Yo-Yo Ma (the latter for a “yo mama” joke). If Morris and the Crooked Numbers just raged, they might be justified, but they'd be less interesting. Instead, they use a wide swath of American musical styles to thoughtfully consider racial (and racist) issues in our contemporary society. “Half Crow Jim” turns a Southern piano tune into a surprising tale about the fallout from slavery. It's a sharp moment, and it highlights that the only disappointing part of this release lies in its brevity. Morris has said he has more music on the way, and if he continues to mix styles, wordplay, and cultural analysis, it'll be worth a study.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Tatsuya Nakatani and Rob McGill — Valley Movements (Weird Cry)

Valley Movements by Tatsuya Nakatani / Rob Magill

In most percussion ensembles, the gong-ist is a utility player, charged with banging out a note once or twice per composition for drama and ideally not screwing it up. Tatsuya Nakatani works on a wholly different level, transcending the possibilities of this ancient, archetypical instrument with vision and an unholy technique. More specifically, his set-up includes at least two standing gongs, each about as tall as he is himself. He plays them with mallets, standing between, in blur speed rolls that range all over the surface of the instrument. The sound he evokes is distinctly unpercussive, more resembling string instrument glissandos than any form of drums, a full-on high-register wail of sound that he sculpts and roils and coaxes into compositions of incredible force and complexity. He also plays a bunch of other percussion instruments, little drums and cymbals which he layers on top of each other so that when he strikes one, the others resonate. It is quite an experience to see him at it, and if you ever get a chance, you should go. Here, he works with the saxophonist Rob McGill unfurling a single 40-minute improvisation at a studio in the appealingly named Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. McGill is an agile player, laying alternately lyrical and agitated counterpoints onto Nakatani’s rhythms, carrying the tune and threading a logical through line through this extended set. He finds frequencies that complement Nakatani’s antic, nearly demonic drum sounds and knows when to let loose and when to let his partner through the mix. The result is a very high energy, engaging adventure in sound that evokes a rare response: you wish you could hear the drums better.

Jennifer Kelly

 Overmono — The Cover Mix (Mixmag)

Mixmag · The Cover Mix: Overmono

It’s a really weird time to be advocating for club music of any kind, but Overmono’s Everything U Need EP out recently on XL again showcases what the fraternal duo known better as Tessela and Truss do best: melding thoughtful percussion patterns with these airy, gliding synth melodies that work at home just as well as in the club (theoretically, anyway). It’s not just original material they do well, though; whether it was the Dekmantel podcast a few years back or their live cassette from Japan or this mix for Mixmag, Ed and Tom Russell also have a knack for pacing in their sets. This one features stuff from the new EP as well as three unreleased tracks (not counting the Rosalía remix, which remains one of the year’s most addicting) and names both old and new — listen for DJ Crystl’s 1993 jungle jam “Deep Space” sidled up next to Smerz’s new skyscraper “I Don’t Talk About That Much.” If that sounds like everything you need, lock in and let Overmono do the hard work. Truly, they do not miss.

Patrick Masterson

 Pole — Fading (Mute)

As Pole, Stefan Betke’s work has always been both comforting and disconcerting. The amiotic swells and heartbeat bass frequencies generate a warm human feel in his music despite their origins in serendipitously damaged equipment. Fading, his first album in five years explores Betke’s reactions to his mother’s dementia and reflects on the nature of personality, memory and soul. Building on his trademark glitchy beats and oceanic bass tones, the eight tracks echo a consciousness unmoored by the fog of unfamiliarity that smothers and distorts but never completely submerges awareness. “Tölpel” (slang for klutz) evokes impatient fingers tapping out the guilty resentment of the forgotten and the frustration of the forgetful. The title track closes with a woozy waltz punctuated by recurrent sparks. Fading is a deeply felt work; somber, reflective, stumbling towards understanding and acceptance, alive to the nuances and petty nettles of grief and above all beautiful in its ambivalence.

Andrew Forell

Quakers — II: The Next Wave (Stones Throw)

II - The Next Wave by Quakers

After eight years of silence following 2012’s self-titled debut, Stones Throw production trio Quakers (Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as Fuzzface, 7-Stu-7 and Katalyst) dropped the 50-track beat tape Supa K: Heavy Tremors out of nowhere in September and now, just two months later, are back with another 33-track behemoth that allows a litany of emcees to shine. Calling this The Next Wave is a bit of a stretch when you consider many of the voices on here are from guys who’ve been in the game for years or even decades (Jeru the Damaja, Detroit’s Phat Kat and Guilty Simpson, Chicagoan Jeremiah Jae, etc.), but even so, the dusty grooves and Dilla loops prove perfect foils for many of those who hit the mic. My favorite might be Sageinfinite slotting in with the organ grinder “A Myth,” but even if you don’t like it, everyone’s in and out quick. If you’re burned out on Griselda, give this a go for 1990s vibes of a different kind.

Patrick Masterson   

 Rival Consoles — Articulation (Erased Tapes)

There are deep pockets of silence in “Articulation,” ink black stops between the thump and clack of dance beat, sudden intervals of nothingness amidst limber synthetic melodies. London-based producer Ryan West, who records as Rival Consoles, layers sound on sound in some tracks, letting the foundations slip like tectonic plates on top of one another, but he is also very much aware of the power of quiet, whether dark or luminously light. Consider, for instance, his closer, “Sudden Awareness of Now,” whose buoyant melody skitters across factory-sized fan blasts of whooshing sound. The rhythm is light footed and agile, pieced together from staccato elements that hold the air and light. Like Jon Hopkins, West uses the glitch and twitch to insinuate the infinite, chiming overtones and hovering backdrops to represent a gnostic, communal state of existence. “Vibrations on a String” may jump to the steady thump, thump, thump of dance, but as its gleaming plasticine tones blow out into horn blast dissonance, the cut is more about becoming than being.

Jennifer Kelly

  Sweeping Promises — Hunger for a Way Out (Feel It)

Hunger for a Way Out by Sweeping Promises

The title track bounds headlong on a rubbery bassline, picking up a Messthetick-y blare of junk shop keyboards. All the sudden, there’s Lira Mondal unleashing a giddy screed of angular pop punk tunefulness, her partner in Sweeping Promises, Caulfield, stabbing and stuttering on guitar. In some ways, this band is straight out of late 1980s London, jitter-flirting with offkilter hooks a la Delta Five or Girls at Our Best. In others, they are utterly modern, lacing austere pogo beats with lush, elaborate vocal counterpoints. “Falling Forward” is a continuous rush of clamped in guitar scramble and agile, bouncing bass, anthemic trills breaking for robotic chants; it’s a mesh of sounds that always seems ready to collapse in a heap, but instead finds its antic balance just in time.

Jennifer Kelly

Martin Taxt — First Room (SOFA)

First Room by Martin Taxt

Sometimes a room is more than a room. In the matter at hand, it is a space that proposes a state of mind and a consequent set of experiences. It is also the score for a piece of music that extrapolate that state into the realm of sound. The cover of First Room depicts a pattern of tatami mats that you might find in a Japanese tea room. Martin Taxt is a microtonal tubaist and also the holder of an advanced degree in music and architecture (next time someone tells you that some good thing can’t happen, remember that in Norway you can not only get such a degree; you can then go ahead and present a CD that shows your work. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in our society.). This music takes inspiration from the integrated aesthetic of the tea ceremony, using carefully placed and deliberately sustained sounds to create an environment in which subtle changes count for a lot. The album’s contents were created by mixing together two performances, one with and another without an audience. Taxt and accompanist Vilde Marghrete Aas layer long tones from a tuba, double bass, viola da gamba and sine waves. Their precise juxtapositions create a sense of focus, somewhat like a concentrated version of Ellen Fullman’s long string music, and if that statement means something to you, so will this music.

Bill Meyer

 Ulaan Janthina — Ulaan Janthina II (Worstward)

Ulaan Janthina (Part II) by Ulaan Janthina

Part two of Steven R. Smith’s latest recording project echoes the first volume in several key aspects. It is a tape made in small numbers and packaged like a present from your favorite cottage industry; in this case, the custom-printed box comes with an old playing card, a hand-printed image of jellyfish, an old skeleton key and a nut. And Smith, who most often plays guitars and home-made stringed instruments, once more plays keyboards, which enable him to etch finer lines of melody. The chief difference between this tape and its predecessor is the melodies themselves, which have begun to attain the evocative simplicity of mid-1970s Cluster.

Bill Meyer

 Various Artists — Joyous Sounds! (Chicago Research)

Joyous Sounds! by Various Artists

It’s been less than two years, but Blake Karlson’s Chicago Research imprint has already made its presence known both in the Windy City and beyond as fine purveyors of all things industrial, EBM, post-punk and experimental electronics. There were two compilations released within days of one another toward the beginning of October, and while Preliminaries of Silence veers more toward soothing ambient textures, Joyous Sounds! is more upbeat and rhythmic (Bravias Lattice’s “Liquid Vistas” is a beautiful exception). My favorite track is Club Music’s “Musclebound” (not a Spandau Ballet cover, as it turns out), but the underlying menace of Civic Center’s “Filigree” and Rottweiler’s pummeling “Ancient Baths” sit alongside merely unsettling fare like Lily the Fields’ “Porcelain” well. If you’re not already aboard or just have a Wax Trax-sized hole in your heart, you have a lot of work ahead of you with this label’s consistently superlative output.

Patrick Masterson

  Kurt Vile — Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (Matador)

Given John Prine's passing from COVID-19 this year, the new Kurt Vile EP might be received as a tribute to the late artist, with extra significance coming from Prine's appearance here. Four years in the works, Speed, Sound, Lonely KV offers more than just tribute, though. Prine's guest spot (if you could call it that) on his own “How Lucky” certainly makes for a moving highlight, the two singers fitting together nicely as Prine's gruff tone balance's his partner's smoother voice. Vile also covers Prine on “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” and he adds “Gone Girl” by Cowboy Jack Clement as he takes further cosmic steps.  

His two originals here complete the record, and, mixed in with the covers, draw out the lesson. Vile's entire EP blends the country influences with his more typical dreamy sound, the guitar work bridging the gap between a songwriter's backing and something more ethereal. Nashville, it seems, has always suited Vile just fine, and hearing him embrace that tradition more immediately adds an extra layer to his work. Putting a cowboy hat on his previous aesthetic puts him opens up new but related paths for him, and the five tracks here could play on either a Kris Kristofferson mix or a laid-back indie-rocker playlist. Either way, they'd be highlights on an endless loop.

Justin Cober-Lake

 WhoMadeWho — Synchronicity (Kompakt)

Danish trio WhoMadeWho — drummer Tomas Barfod, guitarist Jeppe Kjellberg and bassist/singer Tomas Høffding — make enjoyable indie dance music that suffers somewhat from lack of personality and a tendency toward a middle ground. That may be due to an effort to accommodate a roster of Kompakt-related collaborators including Michael Mayer, Echonomist and Robag Wruhme. While there’s nothing bad and some pretty good here, the individual songs flit by, pausing briefly to set one’s head nodding and feet tapping, before evaporating from the mind. “Shadow of Doubt” featuring Hamburg’s Adana Twins has the kind of driving bass that anchored New Order hits but also, unfortunately, the unconvincing vocals only Bernard Sumner could get away with. More successful moments like the eerie piano riff and jazz inflections of “Dream Hoarding” with Frank Wiedemann, the arpeggiated house of “Der Abend birgt keine Ruh” featuring Perel and miserablist Pet Shop Boys inflected closer “If You Leave” do stick. Synchronicity might work well on the dance floor, but it doesn’t quite sustain at home.

Andrew Forell

#dusted magazine #Cristián Alvear #burkhard stangl #bill meyer #Badge Époque Ensemble #andrew forell #better person #tim clarke #big eyes family #bounaly #cash click boog #ray garraty #the flat five #jennifer kelly #sam gendel #kraig grady #mj guider #hisato higuchi #mason jones #patrick masterson #internazionale #iress #junta cadre #jonathan shaw #bastien keb #jess kivel #kyrios #matt lajoie #lisa/liza #dust

[mymarvelbunch]

Be Your Own Hero - Steve Rogers x Reader (part 6)

Masterlist

Summary: You’ve lost all your family and most friends in The Decimation. Refusing to believe their deaths are permanent, you dedicate years to find a way to reverse it. Upon finding something that might help, you search for the Avengers’ help. It’s Steve Rogers x Reader, but in reality it’s mostly Badass!Reader. Also, Non-American!Reader.

Warnings: none!

Note: Y/Co = your country. Y/Ci = your city; Y/N/L = your native language.

Previously: “As I was saying... Tony and his new team managed to build that time machine.” You and Steve exchanged glances and smiled wide. From your side, you heard Danvers say, “Let’s get it started, then.”

Part Six

Two days later

Everything was surreal. You were surrounded by heroes: Iron Man, War Machine, the Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, Captain Marvel, Valkyrie, Nebula, Rocket, Ant-Man... And you were among them. Part of the team, with a Quantum Suit and everything. Almost an Avenger yourself.

You took a couple deep breaths and brought yourself back to reality. The team was discussing how they’d get the Stones.

“Okay”, Natasha began, paper and pencil in hand. “First Stone, Space. The Tesseract. Let’s list all occasions in which one of us came in contact with it.”

“1945″, Steve said. “It was in Red Skull’s possession. I don’t remember if it was in the plane when I crashed it, though.”

“1995″, Danvers added. “My... mentor had kind of stolen it, and a reactor with the Stone inside exploded. My powers come from the it actually. And then Goose - an alien cat, if anyone’s wondering - swallowed it.”

“Well, your cat must have puked the thing, because Loki was after it in 2012, and it was back in SHIELD’s possession″, Barton said, seemingly undisturbed by an alien cat eating an Infinity Stone. “Then Thor took it to Asgard.”

Thor nodded. He already looked a lot better than when they found him. “It remained in Odin’s vault until we fled Asgard. Loki took it for some reason and... died trying to protect it from Thanos.”

A couple ‘I’m sorry’s were heard. “I don’t know when or how dad found it in the ocean”, Stark said eventually, “but I’m 90% sure it was already in SHIELD’s hand in the 70s.”

Natasha nodded slowly. “So, 1945, the 70s, 1995, 2012 and any time period between 2013 and 2017. Anything else?” Silence. “Okay, next Stone, Time.”

“Easy”, Stark said. “Strange.”

“Not always”, you replied. “He only became its guardian in mid-2016. It belonged to a woman before then. She lived in the same New York Sanctum, though, I think.”

“So we have pre-2016 and post-2016, same place, different guardians”, Natasha said. “Reality Stone?”

Thor adjusted himself in his chair. “It possessed Jane Foster in 2013. We took her to Asgard, so if we pick a place it’s probably the safest. Lady Sif was the one responsible for getting the Stone away from Asgard after that, since the Tesseract was already in our hands. Sadly, she only told its location to Loki, and both are gone.” He glanced at Rocket.

“Thanos took from Knowhere, from the Collector, I think.”

“Asgard in 2013 and Knowhere after that, then”, Natasha said. “Next, Mind Stone.”

“Loki’s scepter from 2012 to 2015, when it was put in Vision’s head”, Stark summarized.

“That scepter was in HYDRA’s hands for quite some time, though”, Steve added. “It was how Wanda and Pietro got their powers.”

Natasha nodded. “Power Stone.”

“Morag, 2014″, Rocket said. “That’s when Quill stole it. Then we left it in Xandar for safety. Didn’t end up so well, but the Stone can be found there until... well, I wouldn’t risk 2018, so 2017.”

“Anything else? Nebula? Carol?” Both women shook their heads. “Okay. Soul Stone.”

“Vormir”, Nebula said. “It was supposedly a mystery, but Gamora somehow found out and told Thanos so he’d stop torturing me.” Her robotic face let her guilt clear.

“Thanos killed Gamora, though”, Stark added. “Didn’t he? Isn’t that why Quill punched him back in Titan?”

Nebula nodded. “Yes. Thanos took Gamora to Vormir. Came back with the Stone, without her. The Stone had been there until then.”

Natasha nodded. “Guys, I think we have a plan. There are three Stones in New York in 2012: Time, Space and Mind. Three Stones in other planets in 2014: Power in Morag, Reality in Knowhere, Soul in Vormir. Alternatively, we can travel to 2013 to get Reality instead. What do you think, guys?”

Everyone began to nod, much to your surprise. There was a fatal flaw in that plan. “Guys? Aren’t we forgetting something here? Thanos killed his daughter in Vormir and came back with the Soul Stone. Doesn’t that ring any bells?”

Rocket snorted. “Thanos didn’t care for any lives aside his own. He probably killed Gamora so she’d never tell anyone else about Vormir.”

Nebula shook her head. “Y/N has a point. Gamora was Thanos’ favorite. He never killed me, who he always despised and saw as inferior. He wouldn’t kill my sister if he didn’t deem it absolutely necessary.”

“He did say he was forced to kill her in Titan”, Stark added.

“See?”, you said. “Besides, the Stone’s named Soul. What if you need a soul to get it? That would explain all the secrecy behind its location.” You stood up. “No, there must be another way to get that one. A way that doesn’t risk lives. That’s what you said, right, Stark? We won’t risk lives.”

Stark nodded and stood up too. “Yes. I agree with Y/N. However, the only other times any of us has seen the Soul Stone are after Thanos gets it. Nebula and I saw it in Titan... that’s it!”

Everyone turned to Stark, who turned to Nebula. “Nebula, remember when we almost took the Gauntlet off Thanos’ arm?” She nodded. “If we manage to go to that specific point, we can at least get our hands on the Soul Stone, if not on the whole Gauntlet. And Strange was still in possession of the Time Stone, meaning we could just ask him. That way we don’t have to find out if getting the Soul Stone in Vormir requires sacrifice or not.”

Smiles could be seen all over the room. Banner was the first to speak after it: “Well, we shouldn’t send Stark and Nebula there, though. It might be confusing, and we can’t afford wasting time with that.”

“That’s an easy choice, honestly’, you said. “Send Danvers, Thor, Valkyrie and you there. You four have more than enough power to help the guys.”

“Lady Y/N is right”, Thor said, standing up. “I may not be in my best condition, but with Stormbreaker I can help stopping Thanos. I know exactly what to do this time.”

Valkyrie and Danvers agreed. Banner asked to stay away from the fight, and everyone conceded. The trio suited up. Stark and Nebula set the timer and described the scene they’d find. “Remember”, Stark said, “you have to get at least the Soul Stone. All the others can be safely found in other timelines, though it would save us a lot of work if you managed to get more. If possible, try to ask Strange for the Time Stone. He surely knows what we want to do with it.”

“Be safe”, you added.

“Look out for one another”, Steve added as well. You two exchanged glances.

They nodded, and Banner activated the time machine. “3... 2... 1...”, and they disappeared. After a minute, they came back, puffing. It was Danvers who spoke up first, excitedly. “We got two of them! Soul and and Reality!”

Valkyrie spoke second, huffing. “There was no way to ask the wizard for the Time Stone. Everything was a mess.”

Along with Thor, they told how they didn’t reach Quill in time to stop him punching Thanos, so it was a tough fight to get close to him. It was Danvers who got hold of the Soul Stone, while Thor grabbed the Reality Stone. Valkyrie managed to knock Thanos unconscious, allowing them to adjust their timers to get back. Strange was busy using the Time Stone to fight, so they weren’t able to get it from him.

“Well, we avoided the most complicated ones”, Natasha said. “No potential sacrifice to get the Soul Stone and no attacking Jane Foster to get the Reality Stone.”

“Damn, that one would have been awkward”, Rhodes commented. “Okay, now we need to get Space, Mind, Time and Power Stones. Do we stick to the original plan?”, he asked, looking at you.

“I don’t see why not”, you replied. “Like Natasha said, the worst part is over. By the way, Thor, Valkyrie, Danvers, you can rest. It should be easy from now on.”

Oh, how naïve you were.

.

Since they planned on getting the Space and Mind Stones mid-Battle of New York, it would be best to send the original Avengers, who knew where and when to be. Banner was voted out, thanks to his new looks, and Thor was left to rest. Natasha, Steve and Clint would go, along with Scott, whose powers could be useful. Stark and Rhodes would head to 2017 to negotiate the Time Stone with Strange, since no one knew how the previous guardian would react to them. You and Nebula would head to 2014 Morag to retrieve the Power Stone.

“I mean, when else will you be able to go to space?”, Steve said, making you smile wide. You were so excited Nebula asked for a delay for you to calm down.

Banner and Rocket would stay behind to coordinate everything. Rocket didn’t want to travel in time again, after being the one to test the machine. After a minute, you managed to get yourself back together. The eight of you gathered around the platform. Steve was responsible for the pep talk:

“Three years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the stones, get them back. One round trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know, that doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we're going to win. Whatever it takes. Good luck.”

You and Natasha smiled at him. Scott praised him, and Barton laughed for the first time since you’ve met him. “See you all in a minute”, Natasha said, excitement clear in her voice and body language.

You felt dizzy as you spiraled inside the Quantum Realm, but, before you could blink, you were already out. You found yourself in a purple desert planet, with no sign of life except for a temple-like building. It was a disappointing sight, so you simply turned to Nebula and asked, “Is the Power Stone inside that place?”

She nodded and you followed her. She pulled you to hide behind some sort of ruin. Confused, you followed her gaze to find a masked human-like being singing and dancing around with a gun.

“Do you know who he is?”, you asked. The song sounded familiar.

“Peter Quill”, she answered in a whisper. “Half-human, half-something I can’t remember. He’s the one Tony said to have punched Thanos when we heard he killed Gamora.”

“Oh”, you said. “Okay.” You kept watching. “He needs to take some dancing classes.”

“He’s an idiot”, she deadpanned.

“Oh c’mon, he’s not that bad. And his taste in music is good.”

Nebula rolled her eyes at you and stood up. “We can’t wait on him forever.” That said, she shot him in the head. “He’s going to be unconscious for an hour. Let’s go.”

Relieved that the poor guy wasn’t dead, you followed her inside the building. The Power Stone was in the center, covered by an orb-thing, on some sort of alter, with no protection whatsoever. “Are you sure we’re not walking into a trap?”

“Quill took the Stone effortlessly. All he had to face was some Krees.” As she said that, Nebula walked straight to the altar and extended her hand to grab the orb. Her cibenetic arm burned, but she managed to grab the orb before it fell apart. You two looked at each other in the eye. “I wasn’t always like this”, she offered, as if the sight of her arm was something to fear.

“We live with what we’ve got, I guess”, you replied, smiling. “I hope you didn’t feel pain, at least.”

“Pain distracts you from battle”, she said. “Thanos only allowed me to feel pain if he was the one inflicting it, so... no, I didn’t feel pain.”

“Sounds like a comfort to me.”

She didn’t answer, but you could see a ghost of a smile in her lips. She placed the orb in her pocket and you two suited up again. “Okay”, you said, “3... 2-”

You interrupted yourself as Nebula fell on ground, looking like she was convulsing. You heard the Pym Particle bottle from her suit break. “Nebula!”, you shouted as you reached her, kneeling before your teammate. “Are you okay?”

As if answering your question, her cibernetic eye projected something. It was Nebula herself, standing by Thanos’ side, with another female-like alien. “Gamora”, you heard your Nebula say.

The conversation between the three was clear: they knew Future Nebula was there and had time traveled. Also that she wasn’t on Thanos side anymore. They wanted to get her.

“This is not a live projection”, Nebula said, standing up. You stood up as well. “They must be already on their way here.”

“Then switch your timer with mine”, you replied. Nebula turned to you with wide eyes. “You can’t be taken, Nebula. What if they send past you to fool our friends? If anyone is kidnapped, it’s got to be me.”

“I can’t let you fall into his hands. You will die.”

“So will you!”, you shouted. “My mission is done, Nebula. I did everything I could to bring my family back. But yours isn’t. Go back with the Stone and make our wish.” A huge noise was heard. “They’re here, aren’t they?” Nebula nodded. You took your timer off and gave it to her. “Go!”

Reluctantly, she took it and gave her broken timer to you. “I’ll come back for you, Y/N. We don’t risk lives.”

“Bring everyone back first”, you screamed, trying to be heard in the midst of the noise. Someone was entering the temple. “Only then you come back for me. Now go!”

With no hesitation this time, Nebula left. Still suited up, you grabbed a knife Natasha gave you and stabbed your new timer. It was the last thing you did before everything went black.

Next

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Cliffhanger! You thought everything would be easy? hahahahahaha

I had thought of this part long before I started writing this imagine, and it was the one I was looking forward too the most, due to the major changes made.

Part 7 won’t be told from the reader’s POV, but from Steve’s (and probably Nebula’s). We go back to reader’s POV on part 8!

Edit: I fixed a small detail on parts 6 and 7. Originally I had the Mind Stone being collected in Titan, but it was the last Stone Thanos got, on Earth. I made minor corrections so it would fit movie canon in this aspect.

Taglist (open!): @autobotgirl15-blog​ @starstrucknature @cheeseburgersstuff​ @aamzter2013

#Steve Rogers #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #captain america x reader #captain america #captain america x you #captain america x y/n #marvel imagine #marvel #natasha romanoff #nebula #avengers: endgame

[thecollegefootballguy]

The Real Big Ten West

Hello everybody. I enjoyed my look at the various three-way rivalry series in college football and I came to the conclusion that there should be a few more.

One of the three-way rivalries that absolutely needs a trophy is the original Big Ten West: Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. All three of these schools consider each other rivals and have some of college football’s oldest and coolest rivalry trophies: Paul Bunyan’s Axe and Floyd of Rosedale.

I propose a new trophy be created and handed out to the winner of the three-way series. Call it something related to that region or those schools. Something original like Floyd Bunyan’s Axe. I’m gonna go ahead and say that the rules governing the trophy be modeled around the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy or the Michigan MAC Trophy. The simplest tiebreakers are often the best, so if a tie comes up just leave the Trophy in the hands of the current champion.

Of course I took the trouble to chart out the history of this fake trophy, so let’s go and see who wins Floyd Bunyan’s Axe.

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The Early Days: 1890-1917

We begin our story on November 5, 1890, the first time that Minnesota and Wisconsin met on the gridiron. The Golden Gophers won 63-0. A year later Minnesota and Iowa played for the first time, a 42-4 Gopher victory. It took three more years to complete the circle when the Badgers and Hawkeyes played, a 44-0 Wisconsin win.

Minnesota and Wisconsin were founding members of the Western Conference in 1892. It was the first ever college football conference and the original incarnation of the Big Ten. Iowa joined in 1899 and were very much treated like a junior partner for some time.

Minnesota and Wisconsin immediately dove into a competitive rivalry. Their game began being played later in the season, though usually it wasn’t the end of season game. The Gophers and Badgers traded off streaks in the series, with no team dominating for more than four years.

The Iowa rivalry took much longer to develop as a program. Those early meetings turned out to be one-offs. After their first game in 1891, the Hawkeyes wouldn’t play Minnesota again until 1901. Even then it was an on-again, off-again kind of thing. Wisconsin played Iowa even less frequently.

Under head coach Henry Williams, the Gophers turned into one of the top teams in college football. In Williams’ first season in 1900, Minnesota went 10-0-2. In 1903 they were again undefeated with an impressive 14-0-1 record, with the one tie coming against fellow undefeated Michigan. In those early years, the Wolverines were Minnesota’s biggst rival. Both schools were two of the first big national powers outside of the Northeast.

In 1904, the Golden Gophers were a perfect 13-0 and claimed their first ever national championship. It was a definite high point under Williams. The Gophers would win five more Western Conference championships but wouldn’t again compete for national titles until the 30′s.

This whole time, Iowa remained marginalized by Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the rest of the conference. The Hawkeyes had several good seasons but were clearly far behind the others, who would not have considered Iowa rivals back then.

Floyd Bunyan’s Axe Record Minnesota: 16 Wisconsin: 12

Minnesota and Wisconsin completely dominated Iowa in this era. Of course, neither team played the Hawkeyes all that much in this span which contributes to this disparity, but when they did play Iowa couldn’t manage a single win.

Despite the Gophers’ national championship period in the early 1900′s, Minnesota only just edges out Wisconsin. The Badgers were able to get the better of their rivals in the late 1890′s and late 1900′s.

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Iowa Joins the Fray: 1918-1931

In 1916, Iowa hired former Yale national champion coach Howard Jones to come to Iowa City. Jones immediately flipped the dynamic between the Hawkeyes and their would-be rivals. Iowa beat Minnesota in 1918, their first win in the series. They won their next four games against the Gophers and five of the next six. Howard Jones left Iowa following the 1923 season, but that was after two undefeated seasons in ‘21 and ‘22.

In 1924, the Hawkeyes played Wisconsin for the first time in seven years, and finally notched their first win over the Badgers. UI and UW would meet for the next five seasons. They weren’t annual rivals yet, but the series was beginning to be played on a more regular basis.

By the mid-20′s Minnesota reasserted themselves as both Iowa and Wisconsin receded to the bottom of the Big Ten. The Gophers weren’t yet back to challenging for the conference championship every year but they won a league title in 1927 under Clarence Spears, who would later coach the Badgers in the mid-30′s.

Floyd Bunyan’s Axe Record Minnesota: 21 Wisconsin: 13 Iowa: 8

Iowa makes a splash under Howard Jones, winning five trophies in a row and seven of eight from 1918 to 1925. Never mind that half of them via tiebreaker scenarios, but if Wisconsin wanted the trophy they should have played the Hawkeyes. 1925 itself was a weird year because both Minnesota and Wisconsin tied with a 1-0-1 record in the eligible games, but 0-2 Iowa got to keep the trophy because no winner could be declared.

Minnesota did a good enough job in the late 20′s, though it was mostly because both the Badgers and Hawkeyes fell towards the bottom of the standings. Wisconsin was pretty miserable. The Badgers should have had some kind of claim on the tiebreakers that Iowa won from 1920-22 and 1925, but it didn’t play out that way.

Minnesota was able to distance themselves from Wisconsin in the all-time standings, and at the same time formerly hapless Iowa was able to make up a lot of ground despite remaining in last place. At least Iowa was finally able to start playing the Golden Gophers on a yearly basis from this point on.

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The Bierman Era: 1932-1949

In 1932, Minnesota hired star Tulane head coach Bernie Bierman to replace the departed Fritz Crisler. Bierman wasted absolutely no time turning the Gophers back into a powerhouse. Minnesota went a unique kind of undefeated in 1933, going 4-0-4. The following years, the Golden Gophers smoothed over those ties and began to properly win out.

Minnesota went 23-1 from 1934 to 1936, winning back to back to back national championships. The Gophers were a perfect 8-0 those first two seasons and were awarded the first ever AP National Title in 1936 despite a 7-1 finish. Minnesota won Big Ten championships in the following two years, but didn’t claim any AP titles.

After a reset year in 1939, the Golden Gophers again went undefeated in 1940 and 1941, and claimed national titles both seasons. Minnesota was suddenly the hottest program in the country, having won five championships in eight years. It’s interesting to think what would have happened if World War II didn’t come and mess everything up.

Bierman was drafted into the Army, where he served as the coach of the Iowa Pre-Flight team in 1942. The Gophers muddled through several so-so seasons before Bierman came back in 1945 to again turn things around. Unfortunately Minnesota wasn’t as good this time around. While competitive, the Golden Gophers were unable to win another Big Ten or national championship before Bierman retired in 1950.

For the most part, Wisconsin and Iowa fell between average and below average during the Bierman era. However, the Badgers did manage an 8-1-1 campaign in 1942 that saw them finish 3rd in the AP poll. The loss was against Iowa. Wisconsin was awarded a national title by the Helms Athletic Foundation, likely for beating #1 Ohio State.

Floyd Bunyan’s Axe Record Minnesota: 36 Wisconsin: 15 Iowa: 9

Minnesota completely dominated its rivals under Bernie Bierman. The Golden Gophers were more in competition with Michigan and Ohio State for mastery of the Big Ten than with their regional rivals and that’s more than reflected in the all-time standings.

As all three of the rivalries were strengthened during this period. A trophy called the Slab of Bacon was introduced between Minnesota and Wisconsin starting in 1930. The Slab showed either an M or W depending on the way it was hung and the winning team was able to claim they “brought home the bacon” upon winning. It’s so charmingly Midwest. The Slab was lost in 1942 following a rare Badger victory during this period. In 1948, the Slab was officially replaced by a new Trophy, Paul Bunyan’s Axe, which would become one of the more iconic travelling trophies in football.

In 1935, Iowa and Minnesota began competing for Floyd of Rosedale. It was a friendly gesture meant to smooth over an ugly racial incident between Minnesota’s team and fans with Iowa’s star halfback Ozzie Simmons. The first year a real pig was exchanged, and then a large bronze trophy was made to be passed down through the subsequent years.

In 1937, the Hawkeyes and Badgers finally started playing on an annual basis, completing the proper 3-way rivalry.

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The Age of Parity: 1950-1976

Well, it wasn’t quite real parity, but each team got some licks in. Following the retirement of Bernie Bierman following the 1950 season, Minnesota hired Wes Fesler who didn’t win and was then fired him three years later. Fesler was replaced by the much more capable Murray Warmath.

Warmath would stay in Minneapolis for nearly two decades, and was the Gophers’ last coach to truly achieve greatness. Minnesota wasn’t a consistent powerhouse, but they would ping pong up and down the standings, sometimes competing and sometimes failing. In 1960, the Golden Gophers were managed an 8-1 record in the regular season and were accorded their most recent national championship by the major polls. Of course they then lost the Rose Bowl to #6 Washington, but hey, things were different back then.

Minnesota would make and win the Rose Bowl in 1961, and would tie for the Big Ten championship in 1967, but after that they entered a period of decline that they really haven’t ever recovered from. Never again would the Gophers be a true blue blood program.

One of the teams that the Gophers beat in 1960 en route to their “championship” was Forest Evashevski’s #1 Iowa Hawkeyes. Iowa hired Evashevski in 1952 and immediately broke back into the upper crust of the Big Ten. The Hawkeyes made and won their first Rose Bowl following the 1956 season, wrapping up a 9-1 campaign and a #3 ranking. Two years later Iowa achieved a final #2 ranking behind an 8-1-1 season and another Rose Bowl. The Football Writers Association sought fit to award Iowa a national championship for their year, though the consensus title went to undefeated LSU.

The Hawkeyes ended the 1960 season in the top three and a share of the Big Ten title once again, though they had to see their rivals crowned national champions. Following the season, Evashevski stepped down as coach to become Iowa’s AD. Evashevski wasn’t capable of hiring a coach as good as himself, and the Hawkeyes entered a tailspin for the whole of the 60′s and 70′s, passing through a series of coaches, some of whom hated the domineering Evashevski.

Despite both Iowa and Minnesota hiring two of their best coaches near simultaneously, Wisconsin was able to keep up with their rivals for the most part. The Badgers would never go undefeated, but they would occasionally win the Big Ten and make Rose Bowls in the 50′s and 60′s. Wisconsin was led by Ivy Williamson from 1949 to 1955, and went 41-19-4 in that span with a Big Ten championship in 1952.

Milt Bruhn was in Madison for a decade and took the Badgers to two more Rose Bowls in 1959 and 1962. #2 Wisconsin’s 37-42 loss to #1 USC in Pasadena cost them a national championship.

As the 60′s turned to the 70′s, all three programs began long periods of decline.

Floyd Bunyan’s Axe Record Minnesota: 45 Wisconsin: 28 Iowa: 14

This two and a half decade period is easily the most competitive between all three teams, though for different reasons. Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin all had outstanding seasons in the 1950′s and early 60′s. The trio won or tied for several Big Ten titles in this span. However, by the mid-60′s each team was on the way out, and each series remained competitive mostly because all three were clustered together towards the bottom of the standings.

Football in the Big Ten was more and more centered around the twin suns of Michigan and Ohio State, who attracted the best talent and dominated the conference for the next several decades. One or more of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin may have been able to attract or develop better players, but they were also boxed out by Nebraska and Oklahoma of the Big 8, who snagged all of the best guys in the Western half of the Midwest the same way UM and OSU dominated the Eastern half.

Wisconsin wound up with 13 Trophies compared to Minnesota’s 9 and Iowa’s 5. The Badgers did have the most help from tiebreakers, while the Hawkeyes received none. This leads to more of a stratification in our all-time standings. Wisconsin has double the number of trophies as Iowa, but nearly half as many as the Gophers who hold a commanding lead.

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The Fry Era: 1977-1996

Iowa was pretty terrible in the mid-70′s, but so were Minnesota and Wisconsin. That all changed in 1979 when former SMU and North Texas State head coach Hayden Fry came to Iowa City. Fry took two years to straighten things out but then Iowa turned into a competitive force in the Big Ten.

The Hawkeyes went 8-3 in 1981 and tied Ohio State atop the league standings, earning a Rose Bowl berth. Iowa won at least eight games a year for the next six seasons. From 1981 to 1988 the Hawkeyes attended eight straight bowls and finished ranked seven times. 1985 was the apex: Iowa went 10-1 in the regular season, at one point rising to #1 in the polls before falling to Ohio State. The Hawkeyes won the Big Ten outright but lost to UCLA in the Rose Bowl to sink to 10-2 and #10 in the final AP.

Iowa would win the Big Ten again in 1990 despite an 8-4 finish, and in ‘91 the Hawkeyes went an impressive 10-1-1. They’d never again reach these same heights under Fry, but Iowa continued to be a presence in the conference throughout the 90′s.

And what were Minnesota and Wisconsin doing while the Hawkeyes were nipping on Michigan’s and Ohio State’s heels? A whole lot of nothing. The Golden Gophers were treading water through the 80′s and 90′s. They weren’t always that bad, but they were almost never good either. The Badgers were usually even worse. Outside of a few 7 wins seasons in the early-80′s Wisconsin was a regular bottom feeder.

However, everything changed when Barry Alvarez was hired in 1990. It took Alvarez a few years to clear away the rot, but he turned the Badgers back into a regular powerhouse. Wisconsin went 10-1-1 in 1993 with a win over UCLA in the Rose Bowl.

Floyd Bunyan’s Axe Record Minnesota: 48 Iowa: 31 Wisconsin: 28

As you can see, Iowa made up a ton of ground, leaping over Wisconsin in the all-time standings by absolutely dominating the 80′s and 90′s. There was some weirdness from 1978-81. For four straight years Minnesota beat the Hawkeyes, but lost to Wisconsin while Iowa beat the Badgers. This led to a three-way tie every year so the Hawkeyes got to keep the trophy each time, having won it in 1977.

Minnesota won a couple trophies here and there but really, this was the Iowa show. Much of this success can be attributed to the Hawkeyes’ complete domination of Wisconsin. Iowa didn’t lose to the Badgers for 20 years from 1977 to 1996. At the very worst they would tie the Gophers in the standings during this period.

Like I said, Barry Alvarez had Wisconsin turned around by 1993, but the Badgers weren’t yet able to capitalize on their success by beating the Hawkeyes. The series took a two year hiatus in 1993-94 from a scheduling hiccup following Penn State’s entry to the league, which was probably Wisconsin’s best chance to beat Iowa until close to Fry’s retirement.

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Kirk Ferentz vs Wisconsin: 1997-2019

The Badgers really came into their own at the end of the 90′s, winning two straight Rose Bowls following the 1998 and ‘99 seasons and finishing in the top 5 both years. It was easily their best period in program history in over 50 years. It came right as Iowa began to fall off towards the end of Hayden Fry’s tenure.

The legendary Fry had pulled Iowa out from irrelevance, but it was his time to go. The Hawkeyes went a pathetic 3-8 in his last season in 1998, but that only brought down his all-time record in Iowa City to 143-89-6. Fry’s replacement was Kirk Ferentz, who was a disciple of Fry’s in the early 80′s before becoming an NFL OL coach.

After a couple of transition years, Iowa was once again back on top, competing with Michigan, Ohio State, and rival Wisconsin for the top spot in the league. The Hawkeyes tied for the Big Ten title in both 2002 and 2004, though they weren’t selected for the Rose Bowl either season. Iowa was never a consistent contender for the conference championship, but Ferentz has kept them above .500 for the better part of two decades. The Hawkeyes did make the Rose Bowl in 2016 after finishing as league runner up behind Michigan State.

Barry Alvarez retired following the 2005 season and a career 119-72-4 record, handing over the reigns to DC Bret Bielema. Bielema was able to keep the train rolling, and the Badgers surged forward as both Ohio State and Michigan hit rough patches in the late 2000′s and early 2010′s. The Badgers attended three consecutive Rose Bowls from 2011 to 2013 before Bielema left for Arkansas. Gary Andersen’s brief tenure gave way to another Alvarez disciple, Paul Chryst, who has won 10 or more games in four of his five seasons in charge.

Minnesota hasn’t done as well. Glen Mason was able to pull the Gophers back into respectability in the early 2000′s, but was fired all the same for not continuing to improve. His successors have been far less successful. Indeed Minnesota almost seems cursed. The Gophers are on the far Northwest edge of the conference, unable to draw 4 and 5 star talent to Minneapolis as long as OSU, Penn State, and Michigan are sucking up all the oxygen, and nearer rivals Iowa and Wisconsin are plucking up all the good 3 stars.

Jerry Kill was building a strong program but he was forced into retirement by health issues. Kill’s replacement, Tracy Claeys, was doing nearly as good a job but was fired for bungling the PR in a criminal case involving his players. PJ Fleck also seems to be pointing the Golden Gophers in the right direction, but time will tell if they can keep up with their rivals.

Floyd Bunyan’s Axe Record Minnesota: 48 Wisconsin: 44 Iowa: 38

As you can see, it has been all Wisconsin and Iowa in this new century, and mostly Wisconsin at that. The Badgers have won 16 trophies to the Hawkeyes’ 7 in this span.

Minnesota has seen their large lead in the all-time series standings quickly erode. Only 10 titles separate the Gophers and third place Iowa. It really does come down to coaching. Minnesota hired dud coach after dud coach starting in the 70′s and have never been the same. The few good coaches they have either leave (Lou Holtz) or are forced out by unforeseen circumstances (Kill, Claeys). Glen Mason’s firing is really on the Gopher administration, that really shouldn’t have happened.

Meanwhile, Iowa and Wisconsin have made stellar hires. The Hawkeyes moved from strength to strength when Hayden Fry turned over the reigns to Kirk Ferentz. Those two men have kept the Iowa competitive for the past 40 years. Wisconsin’s revival under Barry Alvarez has similarly been sustained by his successors.

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It’ll be interesting to see where this three-way rivalry goes from here. My money is on Wisconsin staying on top, the Badger brand is strong and there’s no guarantee that Fleck will have Minnesota being able to compete on a yearly basis. Ferentz has to retire at some point, so Iowa has to once again hit a slam dunk hire to stay in the running.

Since their accession to the league in 2011, Nebraska has made this something of a four-way rivalry. The Cornhuskers transformed their existing on-again, off-again out of conference rivalries with Iowa and Minnesota into trophy games to replace their old Big 8 rivalries.

Whether Nebraska is or isn’t a part of the equation doesn’t matter too much to me, but Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin absolutely should make a three-way rivalry Trophy. Maybe don’t call it Floyd Bunyan’s Axe, but do it!

Thanks so much for reading. I'll be doing a few more of these hypothetical rivalry trophies because, well, we might not be getting real football any time soon.

-cfbguy

#college football #Iowa Hawkeyes #Minnesota Golden Gophers #Wisconsin Badgers