#LOST VILLAGE

[zanysmurf]

dont forget we could've (loosely) had hb dreamy in lost village

[raysomii]

We are the Smurfs we do the right thing!

The right thing

The right thing

The right thing

The right thing…

No wonder he gave her that salty “oh really 🤨” look

[putterpen]

What did you think of the Lost Village movie and the new SMURFS cartoon?

I liked the lost village movie a lot. Buuut I haven't seen the new smurfs cartoon yet.

[mucdj]

(Lost Village)

[gnb-pictures]

Arrancy-sur-crusne, Meuse, France, 10/30/2024.

Camera : Nikon D70.

[scots-gallivanter]

THIRTEEN

[The sandbank at the Scar in Loch Ryan] abounds with oysters of a most excellent flavour. They are found indeed all around the shores and might be got in great quantities would people drag for them.

REV. JOHN COULTER, Statistical Account of Scotland, Parish of Stranraer (1791)

STRANRAER STATION IS an ugly low-slung affair with a blend of concrete, sheet metal and girders straight out of the Cold War almanac of industrial architecture, where Harry Lime might hide from the Stasi. The last time I saw an eyesore this sore I was watching a film noir set in an abandoned steel town in backwoods Belarus, or somewhere similar, where they’d steal the passengers’ shelter if it wasn’t bolted down.

A bus driver had warned me as I blethered with him during a pit stop on the way from Dumfries: ‘Stranraer has been a ghost town for too long. I was born and bred there and have lived there all my life. You look at the weeds that grow along the harbour and it breaks your heart.’

The station is a woeful sight in a town that, for generations, was the gateway to Northern Ireland, and its sprawling, weed-happy concourse is on Dumfries and Galloway Council’s vacant and derelict land register.

Although the station is overdue a flattening, trains stop at Stranraer for Ayr, Glasgow and Kilmarnock. From here you can travel indirectly to Dumfries, Carlisle. London Euston and other destinations such as Manchester Piccadilly, Crewe and Birmingham New Street.

Limmy, the Glasgow comedian, was so shocked by the state of the station that he was lost for words. So he used a lot of adjectives beginning with F on his 2022 YouTube stream instead. The equally astonished Elaine C Smith, actress and comic, asked the audience during a show at the Millennium Centre: ‘Why do you put up with this?’

In fairness, Stranraer’s development trust has worked hard to reinvent the town, and to attract several million pounds of funding for an overhaul, and it published its ten-year plan in 2023. The author of the document admitted: ‘The East Pier with the railway station at its tip is a bleak arrival point for visitors, with a ten-minute walk to the station. The Pier’s ghostly presence is experienced locally as a symbol of the town’s declining fortunes and lack of vision for an investment in the town’s future.’

Stranraer has suffered emotionally, physically and environmentally since the ferries moved to Cairnryan in 2011. Since the first paddle steamer in 1863, ferries had been Stranraer’s raison d’ etre; in his contribution to the New Statistical Account in the 1840s, the Rev. David Wilson wrote of Loch Ryan having once had 300 sail boats in the bay at the same time.

Notwithstanding this monstrosity of a station, which is owned by the Crown Estates and leased by Stena Line, the area has so much potential. It always has had, not least because of its strategic location on a sea that has witnessed a fair bit of history and mystery and is 20-odd miles from Northern Ireland.

Coulter wrote in the Statistical Account for Scotland at the tail end of the 18th century something that could have been written today: ‘Strangers, struck with the beauty of this situation, and the many advantages that forcibly obtrude themselves on their eye, are surprised to hear that no manufacture is established here; but the scarcity and high price of fuel must be an eternal barrier to the establishment of any extensive manufacture in the town or neighbouring country, yet there are very good artificers of every kind, who supply the demands of the inhabitants and neighbours.’

In 2003, Stena Line ferried 1.4 million passengers on the Stranraer route. But the port of Stranraer died on the 11th of the 11th, 2011 with a big-money move up Loch Ryan to Cairnryan. Every year now Stena transport almost the equivalent of the population of Northern Ireland from Belfast to Cairnryan. There’s also P & O, which has operated from Cairnryan since 1973.

The sinking of the Princess Victoria roll-on, roll-off ferry in gale-swept seas on January 31st, 1953, is remembered by a memorial in Agnew Park, Stranraer. One hundred and thirty-three people perished when the ship went down off the Copeland Isles near Belfast Lough, having first sent out a distress signal off the Galloway coast north of Loch Ryan. There were only 44 survivors, all male.

In the 19th century Cairnryan, once called Macherie, had been an important staging post on the coach route to Ayr, with half a dozen inns along a short stretch of coast, and the hamlet had also gained the unwanted reputation as a hotspot for highwaymen.

Innermessan was a burgh of barony, a thriving medieval settlement near Cairnryan, of which there is now little evidence. Andrew Symson, a minister and historian, described it in 1684 in his Large Description of Galloway as ‘of old the most considerable place in the rinds [sic] of Galloway and the greatest town thereabout, till Stranraer was build'. It may well also have been the site of the Roman town, Rerigonium. Nowadays, there’s nothing to highlight its erstwhile importance: it is a farm and a caravan park with a motte and tower nearby.

Loch Ryan, the Abrauannus of the cartographer Ptolemy, once teemed with herring, oysters, skate, cod, lobster, crab and turbot to the extent that boats came down from the Highlands to get a slice of the action. Even ministers wanted a cut. On November 16th, 1762, George Blair, minister of Clayhole, a village that has since been swallowed up by Stranraer, won a case at the Court of Session against the inhabitants. In a throwback to the days when herring were used as currency, Blair claimed five per cent of all the fish caught, as part of his stipend. This system of ‘Christ’s dole’ was so controversial it caused riots in Eyemouth.

Loch Ryan is renowned as the domain of one of the world’s most precious native oyster beds, which is celebrated in an annual oyster festival in Stranraer.

Today I have a ramble around the Stena ferry-point to Northern Ireland (there are two, one for P & O and one for Stena); a pigeon coos from the lea of a fir tree off the main drag, next to an abandoned pier from which (I had read) someone had to be rescued while out fishing beyond the No Entry signs. I try hard to visualize a thousand warriors clamouring up the loch in 18 boats, thirsty for the blood of ‘traitors’, as happened in 1307 during the wars of independence. The patriots were captured in Stranraer, and executed, and the heads of two brothers of Robert the Bruce, Alexander and Thomas, were sent to Edward 1st as trophies.

It is conceivable the Vikings had sailed the loch too: the ninth-or tenth-century Kilmorie cross, found on the west bank, has carvings inspired by both Christian and Viking ideologies.

At the time of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 William of Orange’s fleet sheltered in Loch Ryan, and Winston Churchill used it when he departed from Stranraer in a Boeing flying boat in 1942 en route to America; and at the end of the war, as part of Operation Daylight, dozens of U-boats were taken there to be scuttled in the North Channel.

Cairnryan was the nerve centre at which over a million tons of surplus munitions were loaded onto boats for disposal at sea. The railway wagons that brought them there were labelled ‘Davie Jones’s Locker’. The cocktail of armaments was dumped over many years in Beaufort’s Dyke, a subterranean sea trench several miles west of the peninsula. Crewmen who had worked on board the ships that disposed of shells, bombs, landmines, grenades, and rockets later claimed that hundreds of thousands of tons were dropped short of the deep water to save time. Munitions regularly wash up on Scottish beaches. In 1995, when British Gas was laying the Scotland-Northern Ireland gas pipeline, phosphorus bombs washed up in Kintyre. Anti-tank grenades have made their way to the shores of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. (This didn’t stop Boris Johnson backing a plan for a bridge to Northern Ireland, which died a death.) The operation was handled by 13th Company, Royal Pioneer Corps, based at an army camp which is now a holiday campsite behind the Loch Ryan Hotel.

In 1957 and 1958, Cairnryan was used for Operation Hardrock to build components for a rocket-tracking station on St Kilda, to serve the South Uist Missile Range, but military activity came to an end in the early 1960s, when infrastructure, such as cranes and railway tracks were abandoned, then dismantled, leaving a post-industrial landscape that didn’t quite square with my thoughts about Bruce’s beheaded brothers.

Latterly, Cairnryan was a base for breaking ships, even Russian submarines. HMS Centaur, HMS Bulwark, HMS Eagle, and HMS Ark Royal were all sent there for decommissioning. The Ross Revenge was saved from the scrapyard when Radio Caroline bought it and took it to Santander to be converted to a radio broadcasting ship, which stayed permanently at sea from 1983 until 1991.

For collectors of useless information:

(1) the comedian Tony Hancock had a lowly position with the RAF at Wig Bay on the opposite bank of Loch Ryan. He told people he was fuel controller when all he did was kindle the braziers.

(2) In 2018 the thighbone of a woolly mammoth was found on the shore of Loch Ryan, 45,000 years after it died: proof that the species had found its way to Scotland.

[dykelizard]

at what point during their travels do you think nami gets luffy and zoro matching backpack leashes that look like this:

[bixels]

In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he's really rehabilitated his image as this 'heart of gold' businessman (he's the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.

He's successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a "deserted island" (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he's running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for "using his services"). At worst, he's using you to set up company towns. For god's sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don't worry, he's repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn't sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!

You're no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you're his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You're even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren't a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn't even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew's shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he's telling you're the "resident representative"; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community's progress. That what you're doing is in everyone's best interest (but most importantly, his).

Since NH's release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn't a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You're forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There's no conflict of interest here!

But hey, if you're tired of being the landlord/business mogul's goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that's what the Animal Crossing franchise needs! More vacation homes!!!

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

RE9 AU where the game is centered around the winters family with mia as the antagonist trying to bring back ethan and rosemary as the protagonist trying to stop her...

[justkillingthyme]

🎩New Game 🧩

[zanysmurf]

[ducksdontdraw]

Hyrule Polaroids part 2 📷

part 1

[nukbody]

1670

First loop

@k-0re 's beautiful art gave me this idea

[captainrufflebanger]

Assorted re8 art I drew between November-December 2021 when I final overcame my art block of 5 years! I should really give that re8 x Chicago art another try because I was cooking something good back then 🤔

[feroluce]

On Sampo's name (ALL of his names!)

I feel like everyone who's a fan knows the meaning of Sampo's full name by now- the sampo was a legendary item that could magically make endless supplies of gold, flour, and salt, all priceless items at the time! So it works perfectly for a scammer businessman like Sampo. ☆

"Koski" is the Finnish word for "water rapids" which might seem kinda random but actually makes sense for him, since Aha and the Masked Fools are also referred to with water terms:

This kind of analogy isn't specific to only Aha and the Masked Fools, but it does still tie them together. So water rapids fits perfectly! Sampo wants to stir the pot! He likes to shake things around and spice things up! He's taking that stagnant pool and turning it into water rapids! It would actually explain his ridiculous hair color, too; a dark blue wave tipped with white foam haha

EDIT: an amazing contribution from @ricochetlovebombs, who heard it from hoyolab user Rattaboy. If you interpret his first and last name together, instead of separately like I did, you would get something like "money river."

In other words, Sampo's name literally means CASH FLOW SKXJMDMDMD

What I really wanted to talk about is his drag alias name, though, Brughel Poisson, because to me that's where it gets really interesting.

So like in the English version, Sampo goes by Brughel Poisson when he's in disguise. Searching for just "Brughel" itself doesn't seem to get you much at first: a Flemish and Dutch Renaissance painter named Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who was famous for his landscapes and peasant scenery, especially Hunters in the Snow and The Blue Cloak.

He's referred to as "the Elder" because he had a son also named Pieter Brueghel (the Younger), and he began a long line of painters, all named Brueghel. Some of them did original work, and many of them created reproductions of the Elder's art to sell. The Elder was also famous as a printmaker. All of this is hilarious when you remember that Sampo is an infamous counterfeiter and has sold a relic called the Parallel Universe Printer JSKZJSMD

There is also something called Brueghel's Syndrome, named after one of Brueghel's paintings called De Gaper, which pictured a man yawning widely. It's a condition that causes the mouth to open and gape uncontrollably, twisting a person's countenance into a distorted mask of their usual face.

Tumblr doesn't have a way of censoring pics like twitter, so for the sake of the medically squeamish, I'm just showing De Gaper here. But if you look up Brueghel's Syndrome, you can find pictures of actual patients, some of whom really do make faces resembling Aha's comedy and tragedy masks!

In the Chinese and Japanese versions, his alias last name is a lot more silly- In those, "Sampo" is phonetically written as "san-bo" and "san-po." And in disguise, his last names are phonetically written as... "Bo-san" and "Po-san." The Chinese version uses different tones, but still. This smug asshole seriously just decided to write his own name backwards and called it a day NDMKXMDMD

In the English version, Poisson itself is kind of a reused Hoyo asset- it's also the name of Navia's fishing village in Genshin Impact. Which is a really silly name for a village, because it literally just means "fish" in French smzjxkdkdk but!

Again, more water imagery. And in English, if something is suspicious, we say that it's "fishy," which is perhaps the most fitting association yet for someone as shady as Sampo ☆

And for a good while I thought that was the only connection. But then. My beloved @hydrachea, who is an actual native French speaker, dropped this on me right after April Fool's Day:

Poisson is literally the word you use to pull an April Fool's prank.

[vaccariia]

A Family Portrait