#GA 1880s

[sims-half-crazy]

Early 1881

After the excitement of last year and the reminder of how uncertain life can be the family had an updated portrait taken.

Thank you to @antiquatedplumbobs for the wonderful portrait studio! It has made taking portraits so much easier!

[nasa]

A Tour of Cosmic Temperatures

We often think of space as “cold,” but its temperature can vary enormously depending on where you visit. If the difference between summer and winter on Earth feels extreme, imagine the range of temperatures between the coldest and hottest places in the universe — it’s trillions of degrees! So let’s take a tour of cosmic temperatures … from the coldest spots to the hottest temperatures yet achieved.

First, a little vocabulary: Astronomers use the Kelvin temperature scale, which is represented by the symbol K. Going up by 1 K is the same as going up 1°C, but the scale begins at 0 K, or -273°C, which is also called absolute zero. This is the temperature where the atoms in stuff stop moving. We’ll measure our temperatures in this tour in kelvins, but also convert them to make them more familiar!

We’ll start on the chilly end of the scale with our CAL (Cold Atom Lab) on the International Space Station, which can chill atoms to within one ten billionth of a degree above 0 K, just a fraction above absolute zero.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Just slightly warmer is the Resolve sensor inside XRISM, pronounced “crism,” short for the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission. This is an international collaboration led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) with NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). Resolve operates at one twentieth of a degree above 0 K. Why? To measure the heat from individual X-rays striking its 36 pixels!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Resolve and CAL are both colder than the Boomerang Nebula, the coldest known region in the cosmos at just 1 K! This cloud of dust and gas left over from a Sun-like star is about 5,000 light-years from Earth. Scientists are studying why it’s colder than the natural background temperature of deep space.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Let’s talk about some temperatures closer to home. Icy gas giant Neptune is the coldest major planet. It has an average temperature of 72 K at the height in its atmosphere where the pressure is equivalent to sea level on Earth. Explore how that compares to other objects in our solar system!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

How about Earth? According to NOAA, Death Valley set the world’s surface air temperature record on July 10, 1913. This record of 330 K has yet to be broken — but recent heat waves have come close. (If you’re curious about the coldest temperature measured on Earth, that’d be 183.95 K (-128.6°F or -89.2°C) at Vostok Station, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.)

We monitor Earth's global average temperature to understand how our planet is changing due to human activities. Last year, 2023, was the warmest year on our record, which stretches back to 1880.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

The inside of our planet is even hotter. Earth’s inner core is a solid sphere made of iron and nickel that’s about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers) in radius. It reaches temperatures up to 5,600 K.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We might assume stars would be much hotter than our planet, but the surface of Rigel is only about twice the temperature of Earth’s core at 11,000 K. Rigel is a young, blue star in the constellation Orion, and one of the brightest stars in our night sky.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger 

We study temperatures on large and small scales. The electrons in hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, can be stripped away from their atoms in a process called ionization at a temperature around 158,000 K. When these electrons join back up with ionized atoms, light is produced. Ionization is what makes some clouds of gas and dust, like the Orion Nebula, glow.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We already talked about the temperature on a star’s surface, but the material surrounding a star gets much, much hotter! Our Sun’s surface is about 5,800 K (10,000°F or 5,500°C), but the outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, called the corona, can reach millions of kelvins.

Our Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona in 2021, helping us answer questions like why it is so much hotter than the Sun's surface. This is one of the mysteries of the Sun that solar scientists have been trying to figure out for years.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Looking for a hotter spot? Located about 240 million light-years away, the Perseus galaxy cluster contains thousands of galaxies. It’s surrounded by a vast cloud of gas heated up to tens of millions of kelvins that glows in X-ray light. Our telescopes found a giant wave rolling through this cluster’s hot gas, likely due to a smaller cluster grazing it billions of years ago.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Now things are really starting to heat up! When massive stars — ones with eight times the mass of our Sun or more — run out of fuel, they put on a show. On their way to becoming black holes or neutron stars, these stars will shed their outer layers in a supernova explosion. These layers can reach temperatures of 300 million K!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman

We couldn’t explore cosmic temperatures without talking about black holes. When stuff gets too close to a black hole, it can become part of a hot, orbiting debris disk with a conical corona swirling above it. As the material churns, it heats up and emits light, making it glow. This hot environment, which can reach temperatures of a billion kelvins, helps us find and study black holes even though they don’t emit light themselves.

JAXA’s XRISM telescope, which we mentioned at the start of our tour, uses its supercool Resolve detector to explore the scorching conditions around these intriguing, extreme objects.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

Our universe’s origins are even hotter. Just one second after the big bang, our tiny, baby universe consisted of an extremely hot — around 10 billion K — “soup” of light and particles. It had to cool for a few minutes before the first elements could form. The oldest light we can see, the cosmic microwave background, is from about 380,000 years after the big bang, and shows us the heat left over from these earlier moments.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We’ve ventured far in distance and time … but the final spot on our temperature adventure is back on Earth! Scientists use the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to smash teensy particles together at superspeeds to simulate the conditions of the early universe. In 2012, they generated a plasma that was over 5 trillion K, setting a world record for the highest human-made temperature.

Want this tour as a poster? You can download it here in a vertical or horizontal version!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Explore the wonderful and weird cosmos with NASA Universe on X, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[vintage-london-images]

Here we have a selection of colour photographs of Piccadilly Circus from the 1950s 60s and 70s.

Piccadilly Circus connects to Piccadilly, a thoroughfare whose name first appeared in 1626 as Piccadilly Hall, named after a house belonging to Robert Baker, a tailor famous for selling piccadills or piccadillies, a term used for various kinds of popular collars of the time. The street was known as Portugal Street in 1692 in honour of Catherine of Braganza, the queen consort of King Charles II but was known as Piccadilly by at least 1743. Piccadilly Circus was created in 1819, at the junction with Regent Street, which was then being built under the planning of John Nash on the site of a house and garden belonging to a Lady Hutton, the intersection was then known as Regent Circus South (just as Oxford Circus was known as Regent Circus North) and it did not begin to be known officially as Piccadilly Circus until the mid 1880's with the rebuilding of the Regent Street Quadrant and the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue. In the same period the circus lost its circular form.

The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain or Eros at Piccadilly Circus was erected in 1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. It was removed from the Circus twice and moved from the centre once. The first time was in the mid 1920s, so that Charles Holden's new tube station could be built directly below it. The fountain returned in 1931. During the Second World War, the fountain was removed for the second time and replaced by advertising hoardings. It was returned again in 1948. When the Circus underwent reconstruction work in the late 1980s, the entire fountain was moved from the centre of the junction at the beginning of Shaftesbury Avenue to its present position at the southwestern corner.

Piccadilly Circus tube station was opened on 10th March 1906, on the Bakerloo line, and on the Piccadilly line in December of that year. In 1928, the station was extensively rebuilt to handle an increase in traffic. The junction's first electric advertisements appeared in 1910, and from 1923 electric billboards were set up on the facade of the London Pavilion. Electric street lamps interestingly however did not replace the gas ones until 1932. The circus became a one-way roundabout on 19th July 1926 and traffic lights were first installed on 3rd August of that year.

[l-just-want-to-see]

You’ll never recover from that kind of devotion.

Jason Grace: on family and the lack thereof, wolves that really are dogs, remembering and healing and the sudden inevitability of being remembered.

I Bet on Losing Dogs, Mitski / War of the Foxes, Richard Siken / You’re on Your Own, Kid, Taylor Swift / Trees II, McCafferty / Mowgli Taken in by the Wolves, 1937 / Space Dog, Alan Shapiro / Moon Song, Phoebe Bridgers / A Hymn to Childhood, Li-Young Lee / Susan Smith, wych elm / The Blood of Olympus, Rick Riordan / Saint Bernard, Lincoln / Lupa Capitolina in Ludus, Romania / The Odyssey, Homer (trans. by Emily Wilson) / quadruple dog art by @mxmorggo on Instagram / Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami / The Lost Hero, Rick Riordan / House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski / Vulnerability, @/kazerad / Euripides, Elektra / Jason seizing the Golden Fleece, Charles Natoire / Thalia (Grace) / I can’t find the source… / My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult / Seam, Tarfia Faizullah / In the Blood, John Mayer / The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, Michael S. Harper, Anthony Walton / Memento Mori, Crywank / And My Father’s Love Was Nothing Next To God’s Will, Amatullah Bourdon / Family Line, Conan Gray / Franz Kafka’s letters to his father / Kronos/Saturn, Peter Paul Rubens / Wolf and pup / American Teenager, Ethel Cain / LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK, Daniel Lavery and Cecilia Corrigan / Scott Street, Phoebe Bridgers / Tumblr, @/inanotherunivrse / Tomatoes, Shane Koyczan / Pinterest / Tumblr, @/heavensghost / Tumblr, @/tagdevilish / through sickness and in health… by Angelina Hajducky on Instagram / Jason (given name), Wikipedia / Human Acts, Han Kang / The gas pillar in the Carina Nebula, NASA / Tumblr, @/roach-works / Not Strong Enough, boygenius / Grit, silas denver melvin / Herakles, Euripides (trans. by Anne Carson) / Pelias sending forth Jason, 1880 / The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself, Brianna Albers / The Mark of Athena, Rick Riordan / Wolf in White Van, John Darnielle / The Oresteia, Aeschylus / Tumblr, @/orpheuslament / Anecdote of the Pig, Tory Adkisson / The Burning Maze, Rick Riordan / I Bet on Losing Dogs, Mitski / Icarus, The Crane Wives / The Three Graces, Edouard Bisson / For Your Own Good, Leah Horlick

[midnight-in-town]

Let's talk about the "Fenian brotherhood" theory !! :D

Firstly, in case you don't know about it, please go read the theory that our!Ciel's birth name might be Fenian/Fionn/Finnian by @azuresins. It is incredibly relevant to what I'm about to explain next !

TBH, I don't really care about discovering our!Ciel's birth name. However, I truly enjoy this theory and I think it makes a lot of sense, because I absolutely agree with the idea of Vincent supporting (secretly or not) Irish independence, turning him into a political enemy of Queen Victoria...

...which could be very much why he ended up dead.

This theory comes from a private convo with my friend, @dorkshadows and I'll sum up their thoughts (and some of mine) below the cut !

First of all, while we think Claudia, Vincent's predecessor, may have been a personal enemy of Victoria because of whatever happened when Albert died in 1861, Vincent strikes us more as a political enemy precisely because of Brown's comment in ch108.

After all, if our!Ciel, who just managed to thwart their plans of getting the sulin gas, is "more like his father everyday", then it makes sense that Vincent "got in the way" of some of Victoria & JB's war/political plans too. >_>

Now, about the Fenian Cycle book: it was an important symbol for Irish independence and the Fenian Brotherhood that started in the 19th century before it got dissolved in 1880. To quote Wikipedia:

"The Fenian Brotherhood traced their origins back to 1790s, in the rebellion, seeking an end to British rule in Ireland initially for self-government and then the establishment of an Irish Republic. The rebellion was suppressed, but the principles of the United Irishmen were to have a powerful influence on the course of Irish history."

But how would Vincent even get involved with it and why?

In the theory that OC's name is Fenian/Finnian, @azuresins mentioned that maybe it's all related to Cedric K. Ros having Celtic origins. Since we do have one sketch by Yana of one twin bringing the Fenian Cycle book to the Undertaker (the most likely candidate for Cedric K. Ros)...

...it might indeed be a partial answer.

There is another possibility though, entirely thought by @dorkshadows, which is that Rachel (and Ann) might have been of Irish origins too.

After all, a common stereotype for Irish people in many stories is red hair and it's hard to forget that it was a very distinctive characteristic of Ann, Rachel's sister !

In fact, one of their first interactions is Vincent telling Ann to be proud of that hair, which we were told she inherited from her dad, the twins' maternal grandfather.

So Vincent might have not just been talking about Ann's hair color in that scene, but more specifically about her taking more pride in her Irish origins. Obviously though, Dalles/Durless aren't very Irish names, but it is possible that their original family name got anglicized into a more traditionally English name.

In any case, Vincent met Rachel and Ann after already knowing their father :

So it's possible that Vincent was, as the Watchdog, investigating Lord Durless as a nobleman with Irish lineage and possible ally of the Fenian Brotherhood. After all, to quote this article, "the Fenians in England and the British Empire were a major threat to political stability". Then Vincent met and fell in love with Rachel, thus deciding to support the Brotherhood instead.

I'd add that Vincent supporting such a cause simply makes sense, considering that the Phantomhive family, too, might have been burdened by the Watchdog's duty generations ago, because of their "different" lineage (full theory here). On top of that, if you add the possibility that Cedric/UT also was of Celtic origins (many decades or centuries ago) and that Vincent knew Claudia's death was Victoria's fault, it only makes sense that he'd eventually politically antagonize the Queen (both for his parents' sake and for Rachel's).

@dorkshadows also pointed out that, to this day, we don't know if the twins' maternal grandfather is alive or dead in canon : he was important enough to be mentioned in Red's flashback but has been missing from the narrative ever since. Timeline-wise, he could be dead, especially since we never saw him in the Blue Memory arc (our!Ciel's flasback), but we never know with Yana (look at Claudia being hinted in panels ever since the circus arc and probably being incredibly relevant), so it's worth keeping in mind.

Then, moving on to ch132 we know that, when the twins were born, Rachel is the one who named them.

Coincidentally (read: it's probably not a coincidence xD), ch132 had the cover with Vincent reading the Fenian Cycle book to the twins and it's also the chapter in which Vicar Rathbone casually says that one twin/both twins (it's deliberately ambiguous in Japanese) have a name that is "rare for England" :

Many fans, myself included, thought that "Ciel" was the name being discussed there, but maybe they were actually talking about our!Ciel's celtic birth name ! To quote @azuresins, in that case that'd basically mean that, in that scene above, "Vincent said to an ENGLISH PRIEST [...] that people of Celtic origin deserved freedom, and to be treated better and that it probably was soon to come".

No wonder that Vicar Rathbone would immediately change the topic lmao ! xD

Vicar Rathbone be like

It is also very meaningful that Rachel decided to give the "Fionn/Fenian/Finnian" name to our!Ciel ("the spare"), as if to emphasize that he was free to make his own path in life, as the second son, unburdened by earldom. Choosing such a meaningful name might even be a parallel to Vincent's own situation with Frances as his spare, since both also have names with a meaning relating to victory and freedom.

Another important detail, as @azuresins already explained here, is that Fenian Cycle is also a tale of revenge and that our!Ciel parallels Fionn big deal, making it all even more relevant. And maybe Yana left other hints in her artworks too...

Finally, historically the Fenian Brotherhood officially got dissolved around 1880 (the twins were 5 years old), but it's always possible that, in Kuroverse, Vincent managed to make it thrive secretly as the Watchdog. The Fenian Brotherhood caused several incidents, including after 1880 (they assassinated a British Chief Secretary in 1882), so it wouldn't be impossible that the Queen eventually found out that Vincent didn't properly take care of them, because he was supporting them.

And when she found out? Well, she branded Vincent a political enemy and we know the rest (the household was massacred in 1885 and the killer most likely received help from real!Ciel, more details in the real!Ciel mastermind theory hehe).

The idea that Vincent ultimately became a political enemy of Victoria because he fell in love with Rachel makes their death...

...even more emotional to me, since Rachel probably died trying to protect Vincent. T_T

TL;DR that's the Fenian Brotherhood theory: because they supported an Irish rebellious group that wanted freedom, Vincent & Rachel were branded political enemies of Victoria and she & JB plotted their deaths, which led in happenstance to the RCMT.

(friendly reminder that the twins are 7, when Vincent asked Dee to look after them should he die)

I hope it was clear ! Thanks for reading. :))

[thequeenofthedisneyverse]

Technology from 1870-1899 (For Encanto fic writers)

So, A mutual of mine @miracles-and-butterfliess pointed out that everyone (including me) tends to forget that Encanto was literally made when the triplets were born. Which is literally 1900 or 1901. Regardless, it was the very beginning of the 19th century so let me tell you about the technology/things they would/wouldn’t have. (And please keep in mind that most of these may or may not have been imported into Colombia yet.) 

1870 - 1879

1872—A.M. Ward creates the first mail-order catalog. NO

1873—Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire. NO

1876—Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone. NO

1876—Nicolaus August Otto invents the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine. NO

1876—Melville Bissell patents the carpet sweeper. NO?

1878—Thomas Edison invents the cylinder phonograph (known then as the tin foil phonograph). MAYBE

1878—Eadweard Muybridge invents moving pictures. NO?

1878—Sir Joseph Wilson Swan invents the prototype for a practical electric lightbulb. YES? 

1879—Thomas Edison invented the first commercially viable incandescent electric light bulb. NO?

1880 - 1889

1880—The British Perforated Paper Company debuts toilet paper. YES

1880—English inventor John Milne creates the modern seismograph. NO

1881—David Houston patents camera film in roll format. NO?

1884—Lewis Edson Waterman invents the first practical fountain pen. YES

1884—L. A. Thompson built and opened the first roller coaster in the United States at a site on Coney Island, New York. NO

1884—James Ritty invents a functional mechanical cash register. YES?

1884—Charles Parson patents the steam turbine. NO

1885—Karl Benz invented the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine. NO (even before Encanto, Alma’s town looked rural so I doubt the automobile reached them yet.)

1885—Gottlieb Daimler invented the first gas-engine motorcycle. NO

1886—John Pemberton introduces Coca-Cola. NO

1886—Gottlieb Daimler designs and builds the world's first four-wheeled automobile. NO

1887—Heinrich Hertz invents radar. NO

1887—Emile Berliner invented the gramophone. YES

1887—F.E. Muller and Adolph Fick invented the first wearable contact lenses. NO

1888—Nikola Tesla invents the alternating current motor and transformer. NO

1890 - 1899

1891—Jesse W. Reno invents the escalator. NO

1892—Rudolf Diesel invents the diesel-fueled internal combustion engine, which he patents six years later. NO

1892—Sir James Dewar invents the Dewar vacuum flask. NO

1893—W.L. Judson invents the zipper. NO (zippers didn’t become popular globally until a little bit later; buttons, ribbons/laces and whatever else were still the norm/in fashion for fastening and tying (which is still the case in some places today)

1895—Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière invent a portable motion-picture camera that doubles as a film-processing unit and projector. The invention is called the Cinematographe and using it, the Lumières project the motion picture for an audience. NO?

1899—J.S. Thurman patents the motor-driven vacuum cleaner. NO (if you're running from being killed, the last thing you're going to bring is a vacuum cleaner) 

I remember a post listing the sort of jobs there would be in Encanto but I forgot so I’ll just list the ones I know (let me know if I need to add anything.): 

Seamstress/tailor

Embellisher

Field worker 

Teacher (of any kind; music, dance, art, etc)

Woodworker - wood carver

Toy maker

Construction worker

Joining a Local band/ Orchestra - being apart of a choir 

Carpenter 

Metal worker 

Jeweler (though I’m not sure if Jewelery of the diamond/gem kind is common in Encanto)

bladesmith/ knifemaker 

Inventor? (Inventors should exist in Encanto by now…just one other genius besides Mirabel?)

I know some of these are very obvious but I’m just giving people options okay? 

@miracles-and-butterflies you seem to know a lot more about this kind of stuff so if you have anything to add/take away or me to fix please let me know. I tried to search up “When was X invention imported into Colombia” and literally nothing of use comes up. 

[yellowstone-national-park]

This is an update on the hydrothermal explosion that occurred just before 10 AM on Tuesday, July 23, in Biscuit Basin, Yellowstone National Park.

National Park Service (NPS) field crews have completed a preliminary assessment of the conditions following the hydrothermal explosion at Black Diamond Pool. For a map showing the locations of the features in that area, see https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/map-major-features-biscuit-basin-yellowstone-national-park.

What happened? The July 23, 2024, hydrothermal explosion at Biscuit Basin resulted from water suddenly transitioning to steam in the shallow hydrothermal system beneath Black Diamond Pool and was not caused by volcanic activity. Seismicity, ground deformation, and gas and thermal emissions remain at their normal background levels, and there were no detectable precursors to this event.

The explosion, which sent steam and debris to a height of hundreds of feet above the ground, destroyed a nearby boardwalk and ejected grapefruit-sized rocks tens to hundreds of feet from the source. Some blocks closest to the explosion site are about 3 feet (1 meter) wide and weigh hundreds of pounds. The explosion was largely directed to the northeast toward the Firehole River, and the largest blocks of debris fell in that direction. The dark color of the explosion was a result of mud and debris mixed with steam and boiling water. Although visitors were present at the time of the event, no injuries were reported.

Black Diamond Pool and Black Opal Pool were affected by Tuesday’s explosion, and while they remain distinct features, the shape of Black Diamond has changed somewhat. Both pools are murky due to debris, and the unstable ground around their edges occasionally slides into the water. Just after the eruption, Black Diamond Pool exhibited minor roiling and water spouting. The water level in the pool rose over the course of the day, and by Tuesday afternoon the roiling transitioned to occasional bursts of hot water that reached about 8 feet (2.4 meters) in height.

What is happening now? By Wednesday morning, July 24, the levels of Black Diamond Pool and Black Opal Pool had risen enough that both were overflowing and sending murky water into the Firehole River. No water bursts from Black Diamond Pool were witnessed Wednesday morning.

What are ongoing hazards? Given the recent changes to the hydrothermal plumbing system, small explosions of boiling water from this area in Biscuit Basin continue to be possible over the coming days to months. USGS and NPS geologists will be monitoring conditions, mapping the debris field, and sampling water to assess any changes in the shallow hydrothermal system over the next several days.

Hydrothermal explosions typically occur in the park one to a few times per year, but often in the back country where they may not be immediately detected.

Similar, although smaller, hydrothermal explosions took place in 1989 at Porkchop Geyser in Norris Geyser Basin, and on April 15, 2024, from the Porcelain Terrace Area of Norris Geyser Basin. A small hydrothermal explosion occurred from Wall Pool, in Biscuit Basin, in 2009. Significant hydrothermal explosions, probably similar in size to that of July 23, 2024, occurred in the 1880s at Excelsior Geyser, in Midway Geyser Basin.

Yellowstone National Park has closed Biscuit Basin for the remainder of the 2024 season for visitor safety. Grand Loop Road remains open to vehicles, and other nearby thermal basins, like Black Sand Basin, are open. Additional Yellowstone National Park information about visitor access can be found at https://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm.

More information Yellowstone Volcano Observatory monitoring website: https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone

2022-2032 YVO Monitoring Plan: https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/sir20225032

Preliminary Assessment of Volcanic and Hydrothermal Hazards in Yellowstone National Park and Vicinity: https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20071071

Yellowstone National Park images from Biscuit Basin explosion site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/yellowstonenps/albums/72177720319112324/

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Helene wrote:  Stairs to the basement in the 1880's house our friends just bought (Ottawa, Canada). Steep, narrow, low ceiling, on an angle, nothing to hang on to except the gas line on the right. (Oh, great, hold onto the gas line.)

[merelygifted]

1st image: A view of Jupiter's south temperate belt and Great Red Spot, as captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on December 30, 2020.

2nd image: Jupiter as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope on June 27, 2019 (left). An illustration by the French artist and astronomer Étienne Léopold Trouvelot of Jupiter as observed on November 1, 1880 (right).

How Did Jupiter Get Its Great Red Spot? | Scientific American

...  This giant storm—the largest known in the solar system—is made up of two regions. One is an oval made up of reddish gases, and the other is a surrounding whiter, thinner band of gas (called the Hollow). The GRS lives in Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt, one of the many bands across the planet’s face that give it a striped appearance. These bands are latitudinal wind patterns akin to the jet stream on Earth, but they are more complicated because of Jupiter’s lack of surface, the enormous convective currents of gases rising and falling through the atmosphere and immense air-bending forces from the giant planet’s rapid nine-hour-and-55-minute rotation.

Unlike Earth’s hurricanes that can wander across sizable swaths of our planet, storms on Jupiter tend to stay in their latitudinal lane, confined by powerful jet streams. That confinement also sustains the GRS, making the storm extremely long-lived, but its actual age has been an ongoing astronomical enigma.

In 1665 Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini spotted—so to speak—a dark oval on Jupiter’s face. It was seen on and off again until 1713, and the recorded location of this “permanent spot” was the same as that of the current GRS. Cassini is credited with discovering it, though it may have been seen by another astronomer in 1632; if that is true, it lasted at least 80 years.

Despite astronomers’ ongoing monitoring of Jupiter, however, after 1713 this spot seems to have disappeared. The next known sighting of a storm at that latitude dates to 1831, well over a century later, when astronomers reported a dark spot there. (It wasn’t described as red until the 1870s!) This spot—our familiar, beloved GRS—has been continuously observed ever since, making it nearly 200 years old.  ...

[expertnuerodiver]

MXTX headcanons no one asked for!

Xue Yang, Shen Jiu, and Qi Rong would buy the last thing on the shelf if it meant someone else would have a bad day.

SVSSS

Shang Qinghua (Airplane) is either really good at math and was in math olympics as a kid or so bad he has to count two plus two on his hands, no exception.

Shen Yuan was a nerd in middle and high, no one can convince me otherwise. (He was bullied hardcore for it, most likely Pokemon, Yugioh, and D&D.)

Sha Hualing and Liu Mingyan are op in Just Dance.

MDZS

Nie Huaisang would LOVE Johannes and Michael’s.

Xue Yang would love any candy store, especially 5 and Below with all the cheap candy.

Modern day Wei Wuxian most definitely put a whoopee cushion on Lan Qiren’s seat back in his teen years and it worked. (Everybody holding in that laugh, even Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen.)

Jiang Yanli would have an aesthetic Pinterest account

Mo Xuanyu would LOVE Grindr

Xue Yang would have one of those secret candy stashes that kids have as he got older.

TGCF

Xie Lian in the modern world would love goodwill and thrift stores.

Qi Rong would be addicted to watching Rupaul’s Drag Race. (Probably where he learned how to do make up and come up with those snarky comments)

Shi Qingxuan also watches Rupaul’s drag race but only to think of designs and makeup ideas. (Unlike Qi Rong)

Hua Cheng would take as many language classes as he could

Xie Lian would LOVE creative writing courses

Pei Ming would LOVE Tinder

Xie Lian would accidently put diesel inside of a gas car (Rip)

If one of the gods hosted a decade party, probably Shi Qingxuan, Xie Lian would mess up the decade (E.G. 1880’s vs 1980’s)

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Art References for Chapter 5 of undernearth the sunrise (show me where your love lies)

Yes, hi- surprise epilogue time!

Moonlit Night on the Dnieper, Arkhip Kuindzhi, 1880

“Let me get your old bones up on the roof, grandpa,” Monty says, flashing Edwin a smirk.

“You are three years younger than us, do not act like we are cradle snatchers,” Edwin says with a roll of the eyes even as he fixes his gaze on the door to the roof, a determined glint in his eyes that sparkles against the dark attic like Kuindzhi’s moon over the Dnieper river. He unbuttons his suit jacket and rolls back the cuffs on his button-up to whistles from both Monty and Charles. “God, why do I put up with you two?”

“Because you love us,” Charles says at the same time that Monty says, “Because we’re fantastic influences and you know it.”

The Gates of Time Square, Chryssa, 1972

"The thing about going to England is that Monty kind of expected it to give him a new perspective on Edwin and Charles. To tell him more about the places that they grew up, the places that shaped them, the places that raised them.

And it has, in a lot of ways. It showed him the kind of people that they could have turned out to be but didn't. Because they were better than the world that they grew up in. Because they were more open-minded, because they were determined to become better people, because they have always been the brightest thing in every room they’re in, as neon bright as Chryssa’s tributes to the city that never sleeps."

Symphony of the sixth blast furnace, Evgeny Sedukhin, 1979

"Nowadays, Charles isn’t as nervous about taking up space. About knowing his own worth. He could have gone up to Simon and told him exactly what he thought and not been afraid of the consequences. 

But Monty deserves a place to be brilliant, too. A place to take up space without fear. A place to be as explosively bright as that Sedukhin painting he showed them last month in his Modernism textbook, rambling on about light and values and the tenets of Soviet Realism."

Young Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage, Gerrit Dou, 1660-65

"Monty thinks about Esther and Tommy and that studio apartment that should have meant freedom but instead kept him trapped within his mother's arms with only the illusion of freedom. He was a bird able to leave its cage, but never able to fly away from its master, like one of the several copies Gerrit Dou made of his ladies and parrots and cages."

Nocturne, James McNeill Whistler, 1870-77

"As they descend out of the clouds and onto a waking Atlanta, Georgia, where they'll transfer to their flight to London, Monty can’t help but think about Whistler’s Nocturne series, the grays and blue and golds, the early morning light bleeding into dark in the same way that Whistler’s nighttime scapes did."

The Boulevard Montmartre at Night, Camille Pissarro, 1897

"Monty has taken to driving to the sports foundation’s tiny office at the local high school in order to pick up Charles after his own shifts at the museum, where Monty finally went full-time at the end of the summer, leading to him finally being able to quit his gas station job. He’s been so much more at ease since then, finally in his element, bright as the lanterns flickering in one of the Pissarro paintings that Monty loves so much."

@deadboy-edwin @icecreambrownies @anonymousbooknerd-universe @ashildrs

@tragedy-machine @orpheusetude @jaysbraindump

@pappelsiin @itsbitmxdinhere @rexrevri @sweet-like-h0ney-lavender @saffirez

@the-ipre @sunnylemonss @days-light @agentearthling @helltechnicality

@sethlost @catboy-cabin @secretlyafiveheadeddragon @vyther15

@anything-thats-rock-and-roll @queen-of-hobgobblers @every-moment-a-different-sound

@nix-nihili @mellxncollie @tumblerislovetumblerislife @lemurafraidofthunder

@likemmmcookies @wr0temyway0ut @thelakeswillbreakourfall

[sims-half-crazy]

Late 1889

The family grew and healed this year. Eugene is almost done with school and he's managed to eek out a B for his grading report. Goldie isn't done with her finishing school so the wedding isn't going to be planned until both are done with their schooling. As the sun sets on another decade, the family looks to the next decade with hope and anticipation.

[nasa]

Confirmed: Summer 2023 Hottest in NASA’s Record

All three months of summer 2023 broke records. July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded, and the hottest July. June 2023 was the hottest June, and August 2023 was the hottest August.

NASA’s temperature record, GISTEMP, starts in 1880, when consistent, modern recordkeeping became possible. Our record uses millions of measurements of surface temperature from weather stations, ships and ocean buoys, and Antarctic research stations. Other agencies and organizations who keep similar global temperature records find the same pattern of long-term warming.

Global temperatures are rising from increased emissions of greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide and methane. Over the last 200 years, humans have raised atmospheric CO2 by nearly 50%, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels.

Drivers of climate change, both natural and human-caused, leave distinct fingerprints. Through observations and modeling, NASA researchers confirm that the current warming is the result of human activities, particularly increased greenhouse gas emissions.

[chimaerakitten]

so @darlingofdots's awesome Temeraire!universe historian post mentioned the wreck of the HMS Allegiance and I have been thinking about where it is literally all day.

Not just where as in "somewhere in the South Pacific" (because duh) but also, specifically, how deep, and therefore how the wreck would be studied.

Because a lot of archaeologically significant shipwrecks are pretty shallow, since they're the wrecks we can dive to, either on normal air scuba tanks or mixed gas. The Uluburun shipwreck off Turkey, for example, sits between 44 and 61 meters deep, which is right on the edge for air diving. The archaeologists could only be at the bottom for 20 ish minutes at a time, two times per day, with careful decompression timing as they went up to avoid the bends and not-insignificant amounts of nitrogen narcosis at the bottom. Mixed gas goes deeper, 100 meters or so for some of the more available ones. (there's a Phoenician shipwreck off the coast of Malta that's about 110 meters deep, and was excavated by technical divers) Beyond that it's just commercial divers laying oil pipelines with the super $$$ gas at depths of up to 500 meters or so. Anything deeper than that is the domain of submarines and robots.

and really, all of that ^ paragraph is just tangential set dressing that I added because I like shipwreck archaeology, because knowing the Allegiance went down in the middle of the South Pacific meant it was always going to a be a submarines-and-robots wreck. The middle of the Pacific Ocean is uh. deep. but I wanted to find out exactly how deep.

so the map from Crucible of Gold puts the sinking at a little under 50°S and a little over 121°W, which the NOAA bathymetric data viewer says is just about 3000 meters deep

Since that's an extremely boring screenshot, here's the CoG map overlayed on a bathymetric map:

It's actually on a bit of a ridge there! which is why it's at 3000 meters and not deeper.

We do find and investigate wrecks at that depth and deeper these days. The Titanic is at 3800 meters, and it has been investigated extensively (though we also have a recent pretty major news story about why thats still difficult and uh, very dangerous) The USS Samuel B Roberts was found at 6895 meters, and perhaps most relevantly, the search for Malaysa airlines flight MH370 turned up two 19th century shipwrecks at 3500+ meters deep, over 2000 kilometers off the coast of Australia.

One of those wrecks was a wooden ship from either the 1870s or 1880s, and though, being wood, it was pretty badly decayed, its cargo (coal) and metal features (anchor and water tanks) were still extant. On the Allegiance, that would also include her guns and her metal keel (which would probably be the identifying feature TBH, the keel marking her as definitely a dragon transport)

That wreck is probably the best parallel to the Allegiance in other ways, being a wooden sailing ship with a wreck not only very deep but also very remote. It also probably went down due to an explosion, just like the Allegiance. They were common on coal-carrying vessels, and the sonar images showed the cargo was scattered across the seafloor like something catastrophic happened.

The Allegiance would be more remote than its real-world parallel, but anyone looking for it would be hunting for it specifically and would be armed with probably a decent idea of where she was when she went down, seeing as there were survivors who would have been very keen to remember where they were so they could know how close they were to land. Plus, much like the Titanic (though not to the same extent) there'd probably be funding to investigate the Allegiance once found, as she had a part to play in major political turning points on at least three continents. People tend to be interested enough to throw money at that sort of thing.

So, there you have it. It would take a pretty serious effort to find her, though not an impossible one, and once found she'd be investigated by shipwreck robots, which would bring back pictures and samples of her metal remains, with organic matter being mostly absent by the time she was found.

[bodhrancomedy]

A bunch of opening paragraphs to fantasy stories I've started because I am bad at finishing things.

" The streaks of crimson in the river were slowly thickening as we fought our way upstream. The bubbles weren’t even bursting anymore, whatever gas was lurking beneath the surface clearly couldn’t release. On one hand, I thought, that was a stroke of luck. It seemed unlikely that any of us – excluding young Sim since I noticed she was staring at the water with that worrying curiosity I’d come to know – were going to be poisoned by breathing it in. On the other, it might mean the river was going to explode. Stranger things have happened, and they often happened to us." - Soul-Glass

"It was the ferryman who met the bard first, a beardless lad in a ragged cloak, broadbrimmed hat, and carrying nothing save an iron knife and one small pack across his shoulders. He watched with mild interest as the bard picked his way down the grassy knoll and onto the black-wood of the small dock, coming to a halt directly before the little boat. Neither of them moved for a long while. Somewhere in the distance, an eagle screamed.  Finally, the bard spoke. “I wish to cross the river,” he said." - The Bard who Returned to Fairyland in Search of a Name

"Edendale University for Young Ladies: April 9th, 1911. Flora Beckett closed the lid of her luggage, cursed as it bounced, then looked about her room to see if there was anything she’d missed. It did not take long. The professors had long ago subscribed to the austere ideals of the ancient teachers and seemed to take the view that, if a student was comfortable, they were probably shirking in their work. The room was barely big enough for her bed, a footlocker, a little wash-bucket, and her old, bulky diving suit." - Flies in Amber

"The Sturm Islands, 1880 The gas lamp flickered disconcertingly.  Emmett Askren, captain of The Iris, groaned and rubbed a large, brown hand across his face. The blinking light ignited shards of pain in his retinas, the ebb and pull of the chatter in the tavern threatening to wash him out to the sea of a meltdown.  Carefully, Emmett placed his hands on the table and closed his eyes, pulling all his concentration down through his arms in the half-forgotten method from his childhood. While the Sturm Islands were hardly the seat of Suliland decorum, certain traits were unacceptable anywhere." - Tocktick

"The earth opened up on a Tuesday just before noon. By the time the sun had set, there was only one soul left in the village and this time the darkness was merely an absence of stars. Eventually, moonlight filtered through the warped slats of the water cask, silver strings stitching a fence between him and the inevitable truth." - Nostos & the Filigree Lantern

"It had taken almost a century of denial – and nearly two more of experimentation – before Palamon Keeper accepted it was, in fact, impossible for him to die. He couldn’t seem to maintain an injury either. Yes, he bled and bones broke, but the skin and sinew always knitted itself back together again in a matter of days without a single scar to be seen. Trying to drown himself achieved nothing more than informing him that his lung capacity was the same as it had ever been, but now he’d trap himself in a never-ending cycle of gasping pain and unconsciousness until he ran out of river." - The Way Through the Woods

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Chapter 2 - She Sells Sanctuary

[can also be read on AO3]

Summary: Rory meets with an arms dealer in Algeria who has inside information about a weapons deal between Iran and Russia

Warnings/Tags: Minors DNI, swearing, Afrikaans slang, smoking

Pairing: Captain John Price x Fem!OC - 3rd person POV (Rory Sinclair)

Word Count: 2.4 K

A/N: the further continuation of Rory's story, this follows and expands upon the COD: MW2 reboot canon. Told from Rory's POV. Author's first time writing a South African character, please excuse any mistranslations of Afrikaans slang used.

October 28, 2022 10:49 - Algiers, Algeria

The casbah was a popular tourist destination at this time of year. A plethora of bodies passed back and forth – people shopping, taking holiday snaps – civilians entirely oblivious to their surroundings as Lieutenant Rory Sinclair of the 141 moved amongst them, headed towards one of the many cafes in the center of the quarter. For the end of October, it was unseasonably warm for her tastes, feeling more like early summer before midday had even struck, yet the sky was a crisp, sharp autumnal blue with little cloud cover in the sky – that same bright powdery shade that made her think of John’s intense stare. 

It was a sad state of affairs when she’d been kept apart from him for too long on missions of her own. A not uncommon thing considering she could handle the espionage side of the work without sticking out like a dog's balls when compared to a 6’4” juggernaut in a face mask, a beefcake Scot with a mohawk, or even her own partner, a man who sported facial hair more fitting for the 1880’s and was rarely spotted without his signature boonie hat. At this point, it was just her and Gaz capable of slipping into a crowd unnoticed, and she had more experience under her belt doing so. No, instead, she had to spend the last two weeks separated from the dear Captain – who had promised her years ago that wouldn’t be the case (bloody liar) – while he was off galavanting with Gaz, chasing down AQ cells in Amsterdam.

Readjusting her dark aviator sunglasses that had begun to slip down the bridge of her nose, she scanned her surroundings, casually rolling up the sleeves of her light jacket as if she were only just starting to be affected by the heat. It was an added layer she surely didn’t need, but considering she was strapped to the nines in weapon harnesses underneath, it was a necessary evil. Brushing her hand through her hair, fighting against the breeze, she made sure to adjust her part the right way so that her earpiece stayed out of sight. Sturdy boots thumped against the old pavement stones, cobbles that were likely older than most in London at this point. There was a part of her that wished she could take the time to appreciate the scenery, relish in the history around her— instead, the job came first. 

A cigarette dangled from her lips as she strolled through the crowds, her fingers curling around it as she pulled it away to flick off the ashes, exhaling a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth. The gun tucked in the waistband of her skinny jeans, resting against her back, was a reminder that she was here for business, the kind kept thoroughly off the books. Pretending to window shop, her mobile finally dinged with the notification of a received text message. 

Meeting’s on. He’s waiting for you. 

She dropped her cigarette on the ground and stomped it out with her boot before carrying on, passing under the clotheslines draped across buildings and the fluttering material above her drying in the morning sun. 

The menthol hit of mint tea perfumed the air around her, coiling and mingling with the scent of coffee as she drew closer to the center. At one of the tables outside the cafe, two men sat under the protection of a large parasol, neither appearing as though they fit the surroundings at all. At least she attempted to be inconspicuous. Nikolai, dressed in a black leather pilot jacket and his golden chain around his neck, gave her a little nod from across the crowd. Sitting across from him was a man dressed in a navy linen suit, wrinkled with the heat, and brown leather dress shoes polished to a shine. So much for keeping their business low profile. What stood out most – besides the suit, of course – was his otherwise unkempt appearance: shaggy brown hair, mussed and wild from the wind, and a beard, patchy with stubble, that needed a trim. He was a cowboy playing gangster, and she could see it from a mile away. 

Of course this was the type of prick Nik would have contact with. Hazel eyes rolled and she sighed heavily, brushing past the others in the crowd. She was already none too pleased about this meeting, but in their line of work there was no retreating from the dubious contacts. Alas, sometimes they were the best sources of info, even if it meant hours spent thoroughly checking the veracity of the claims.

Taking her seat at the little bistro table as the apparent Guest of Honour, Rory sat back in the creaking wooden chair, pushing her sunglasses up and onto the crown of her hair. “Mr. Botha, I presume,” she said, reaching a hand out to shake.

“Call me Niel.” His thick Afrikaans accent rolled off his tongue in a low drawl, as he unbuttoned his suit jacket with one hand smoothly and took her hand in his other, giving it a swift shake. 

His hands were surprisingly soft, smooth. But then again most peoples’ were when compared to Price and the others she was close to, men whose hands were rough and calloused with the nature of their work. 

A young waiter came out and placed a steaming cup of mint tea on a saucer on the table in front of her, his head ducked down, doing his best not to make eye contact with any of them at the table before quickly departing. 

They’ve likely already been made. “Took care of ordering for you,” Nik mumbled. 

“Ta,” Rory said, lifting the tea to her lips and blowing away the steam. 

“So, this is my contact?” Botha gave Nik a sideways glance. “Not exactly what I was expecting.”

She sipped her tea and wet her lips, placing the cup back on the saucer with a quiet clink and leaned back in her seat, draping her arm over the backrest of the chair. Crossing her legs, she let her foot swing casually as she tossed down the first challenge with the lift of a brow. “And just what were you expecting, exactly?” 

Botha adjusted his shoulder, fixing his suit jacket before crossing his ankle over his knee as if mirroring her gesture. “Name like Rory, thought you’d be a mick, at least,” he said with a lazy shrug of his shoulder.

The stoic exterior Rory wore crumbled only slightly, her lips curling at the corner into a smirk. “Fair point.”

“Don’t look like any soldier I’ve met before either, ‘specially not the ones doing any real work.” He looked at her appraisingly and sneered. “Look more like those choty goty they set up Instagram accounts for to propagandise teenage boys just trying to skommel.”

Frozen in her seat, she stared at him as if she’d just made contact with an alien instead. “Beg your pardon?”

“Have a wank,” he restated the point he was trying to make in terms she would understand, motioning lewdly with his hand, simulating the act before checking his nails for the non-existent dirt underneath them.

“Lovely.” She grimaced, hiding her expression of disgust by taking another sip of her tea. “Let’s cut to the chase, yeah?” Leaning forward, she pushed her drink aside and clasped her hands together on the table, causing it to tip towards her. “Certain interested parties I work with have a stake in what occurred between the Russians and Iran in Al Mazrah. Heard through the grapevine you've been rather accommodating to both sides, completing transactions for them so they don’t have to get their hands dirty.”

“Interested parties?” Botha scoffed and took a sip of his coffee. “Who do you think you are?” He glanced over at Nikolai once more. “Who does she think she is?” His attention returned to her once more, a devilishly smug expression tugging his mouth into a lopsided grin. “I’m not some fokken spy, I don’t need any of this cloak-and-dagger bullshit.” Waggling his finger back and forth at her before pressing his hand to his chest, his fingernails clearly well-manicured. “I’m here to protect my own ass. And I’m willing to go wherever I think they can do the best job.”

“Including a British Special Forces Task Force?”

“Who just so happen to also be tied up with the CIA and the US military– if I’ve got my facts right. And, who are more than willing to work with those of a certain less than ethical persuasion.” He glanced at Nikolai, sighing as he scratched at the underside of his jaw, his nails dragging through heavy stubble. “Let’s get this straight, I’m no fan of Captain Price. But, I also know beggars can’t be choosers. I’ve made a few deals with Nikolai in the past, I’m certainly no goody two shoes, I go where the bucks flow. And now, I’m stuck with you lot so I can find my way out from being tied up with AQ. Rather be considered an enemy to them than you bastards.”

“No goody two shoes?” She huffed out a bitter laugh. “You mean being an arms dealer?”

He grunted with distaste at the term. “So crude. I act as a middleman. A service connecting buyers and sellers, and helping with the shipping and transport of select, exotic goods.”

“Fucking hell,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “I didn't come here to debate the chosen term for your area of employment, Mr. Botha. You can call yourself a bloody entrepreneur for all I care, I’m just trying to gain some valuable intel and decide if it’s worth our time putting your arse under any sort of protection.”

“Jesus, it's like working with the Captain himself. So cut and fokken dry, aren't you? O man, and thinking you're the kings of the jungle out here while you’re at it.”

“Lions? Hardly— always thought of Price as more of a grizzly bear, quite frankly. Aggressive, territorial. Roar that’s just as bad as his bite. Not to mention, incredibly adaptable.”

“Well, if Price is a bear, then what are you, Lieutenant?”

Her smile was a dangerous thing, a threat. Eyes all agleam with that predatory lupine spark she had when facing down the enemy. “Depends on the situation, really. Now—” Taking a moment, she slipped her metal cigarette case from her pocket and flipped it open, pulling a cigarette from the protective cradle, and placed it between her full lips. “I'm sure you're aware of what happened with Ghorbrani, yeah?” Words coming out slightly muffled by the smoke in her mouth that jostled about as she spoke. 

Glancing up at him, her large doe eyes met Botha’s through the flickering flame of her lighter that had sparked to life as her thumb rasped over the flint. The fire danced over the tip of her cigarette, burning it to orange embers. 

“I'm aware of the dent that happened in my bank account. Yes.” He sighed and flinched at the metal snap of Rory closing the cigarette case. “Especially now that Zayani’s running things.”

“Not a fan?” She pulled the cigarette away and blew out a stream of smoke, leaving it to curl around her face in a veil and drift off into the late morning air.

“He’s mad.”

“Says the man who’s worked with all manner of despots.” 

“Don’t act like you’re squeaky clean. We both know our money’s painted red, and by the looks of things, that doesn't seem to be hanging over your head too heavily.”

“I make do, but this isn’t about me.” Pointing her fingers that held her cigarette at him, she put the focus squarely back on his shoulders. “You said you had information that would make this all worthwhile, care to share?”

“Not even bothering to rub honey on my mouth, huh?” He stabbed his tongue into his cheek and rapped his knuckles against the wood of the table, hesitating in answering. “The Russians. Apparently, they got their hands on something they weren’t supposed to, and handed it off to Zayani themselves. Hassan is a little too close to AQ for my own tastes, and if the Russians are still willing to deal with him despite the fact AQ have the Ruskies as enemy number one… well, it’s become all too much of an inbred fuck-fest for me to want to be involved anymore.”

“Quite the tangled web.”

“It’s koek. I have a hustle, this is all backdoor and black ops shit that your type get their broekies in a twist about and then deal with. It’s time for me to voetsek.”

She took another sip of her tea and a drag of her cigarette, letting him sweat. “Do you have any idea what the Russians found? Was it weapons, intel?”

“Whatever it was included shipping containers.”

Her brow lifted, but otherwise her poker face never slipped. “Shipping containers, eh?” That bit of information sparked something in her head. Just that morning she had received information from Laswell about the same thing in Al Mazrah.

Absorbing and planning, Rory glanced over at Nikolai and noticed the way the Russian sat stiff, his finger kept curled around the cigarette in his mouth as if he were watching something. Turning her head slowly to look out into the crowd, he leaned into her, his other hand clutching her elbow under the table. “Red track jacket. Black hat. Two o’clock,” he murmured quietly. 

Keeping her calm demeanour, she gazed out into the masses, noticing the man by the description given. It was clear they were being watched, and considering what the discussion topic was her gut instinct told her the threat was coming from only one place. 

Clearing her throat, she pushed away from the table. “Well, I hate to cut this short, but apparently we seem to have gained an unwanted appendage. So, I need to deal with that little problem before we can discuss this any further.” She stood up and placed her hand down on the table, her fingertips pressing to the solid wood surface as she laid down the law with the arms dealer. “Stay in town, Mr. Botha. Don’t go too far. Nik’ll be in touch.”

With that, Rory and Nikolai excused themselves from the cafe and headed out towards the center square. The streak of red through the gathered crowd towards the exit that led into the dizzying maze of streets and alleys of the casbah was all the proof they needed to begin the hunt. 

tagging @taciturntraveller