#Life in Australia in 20th century

[lilianeruyters]

Kate Grenville || Restless Dolly Maunder

Longlist 2024 At first I was captivated by Restless Dolly Maunder. I loved the way Dolly’s way of speaking resembled the dryness of her Australian surroundings, I loved the fact that she was determined to make something out of her life. Somewhere halfway through I felt that she started repeating herself. Which in itself unfortunately was a fact in her life: as a woman she just could not beat the…

[arthistoryanimalia]

On the blog for #WorldReefDay: Vintage views of the Great Barrier Reef from 1930s Australian tourism posters:

Percival Albert Trompf (1902-1964) The Marine Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef 1933

see more posters via the blog link above!

[queerasfact]

Happy International Lesbian Day!

While we can't say for sure that all four of these women were lesbians, they all have a place in the history of women loving women. Click the links to check out our podcast on each of them!

St Brigid of Kildare - 5th-century abbess whose rejection of marriage and relationship with fellow nun Darlugdach has made her an inspiration to Irish queer women.

Nellie Small - 20th-century performer Nellie Small, who was recognised as one of Australia's best jazz singers, and lived for most of her life with her manager, Edith Meggitt.

Frieda Belinfante - Dutch cellist and WWII resistance fighter, who had relationships with several women throughout her life.

Audre Lorde - self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” who fought for women who, like her, were excluded from mainstream US feminism, whether because of class, race, sexuality, or disability.

[lihyot-am-chofshi-beartzeinu]

This was sent to my main but I didn't want this putrid shit on my aesthetic blog. @trudgemank99, I'm going to try to explain this as best I can without insulting you.

Zionism is not a fascist ideology, and it is not responsible for an "ongoing genocide".

You don't even know what Zionism is. Seriously, you and others like you straight up don't even know what it means. You don't know its history, you don't know its cultural and religious significance, you don't know its politics, you don't know how it has saved so many Jewish peoples' lives over the 20th century. How dare you apply your own made-up interpretation of it to give you an excuse to go around harassing Jewish people on the internet?

You know how I see you? I see you as a Nazi. Because you have replaced "Jew" with "Zionist" in your vocabulary, so that you can get away with the same hatred of Jews that has festered within society for thousands of years.

You claimed in that other thread that you cared about the Palestinians. But you don't, because instead of, oh, I don't know, donating to charities or uplifting Palestinian voices, or even supporting joint Israeli-Palestinian peace movements like Standing Together, Women Wage Peace and A Land For All, you chose to desecrate the images of dead and grieving Palestinians who are victims of the tragedy of the conflict to "prove" it was a genocide (it's not; the ICJ ruled that Israel must take steps to prevent actions that could be considered genocidal. War and civilian death is horrific enough on its own; you gain nothing by misrepresenting what it is.)

You couldn't even name a single person in those pictures when I pressed you. I don't even know if those photos were of the conflict, because you didn't link to any reputable sources or date the images or name the photographer. For all I know they could have been pictures of the devastating war in Syria, which have taken on a second life with people attributing them to Gaza. Either way: how dare you use the dead as props. They were real people with real families and friends left behind to suffer - they are not your "gotcha" gore card to play on the internet.

Despite all of that, I don't hate you. I don't hate anyone. I don't want anyone to die. I want the conflict to end but I am realistic about why it occurred and why there is no ceasefire yet (hint: it's because Hamas keeps refusing ceasefires, because they want to send as many Gazan civilians to their deaths as they can). There is nothing I can say or do on my blog that will work towards an end to the conflict, and nothing I can do or say in my real life that will end the conflict - because I don't have a direct line to Netanyahu's office, and calling my local politicians here in Australia will accomplish fuck all. Because Australia doesn't influence Israel, just as Israel doesn't influence Australia.

So how does ranting incoherently at Jewish people on Tumblr save Palestinians? Go on, answer how screaming at me demanding I call it a genocide helps anyone.

I'm not defending Israel. I don't need to. What I do talk about is fighting Antisemitism and anti-Zionism - because there is no difference between them anymore. You and people like you might keep using the word "anti-Zionist" (something that I consider to be grossly inappropriate and culturally appropriative, actually) but we all know that, deep down, you're just Jew-haters.

If you can't admit to yourself that you are operating on a basis of incoherent hatred for Zionists (aka Jewish people who believe in the existence of a Jewish homeland in our ancestral land of Judea; something, by the way, that is fully compatible with the existence of a Palestinian state) then I'll do it for you: you are a Jew-hater.

Oh, wait! You did admit it:

Thank you for this mask-off moment. Truly.

[jabberwockprince]

Who in ur pfp they kinda hot

Dylan Springbell, a minor character from an old webcomic (2010s) called Todd Allison & the Petunia Violet, who makes extremely fuckin funny faces and basically defined my teenage years

he's this kind of brash and very outspoken, combative violinist and a childhood friend of the protagonist and her brother. shows up pretty late in the webcomic but it's always such a treat to see him, like. look at his introduction

the webcomic follows these two neighbours, Petunia and Todd Allison, and their daily struggles in early 20th century Australia. Petunia, described as a very ordinary but perky girl, is fascinated with Todd Allison, pretty much the weirdest, most interesting guy in the world to her, and who works for the government investigating a terrorist named Violet

I want to stress the fact that most of the cast are poc, with the protagonist and most of the people in her life being aboriginal australian. which doesn't seem like much now, but back in the early 2010s this shit was revolutionary, especially because one of the themes the comic openly tackles is the racism and oppression indigenous ppl and other poc experience, the communities these minorities form to support each other, and feelings of resentment, hatred and displacement born from these aggressions

but its also full of whimsy and really funny, slice-of-life moments <3

there's a lot of characters but the main cast is very strong, every character is so unique and make very good first impressions.

the artstyle does change a lot throughout the whole thing, but listen. the fuckin covers. the paneling. the vibes. look look, these are just a few examples i had saved on my laptop

however. the webcomic is unfinished (there's only 17 chapters) and its been presumably abandoned by its author, nozmo. every single site that the comic was hosted on, including archives ran by fans here on tumblr (@tapvfans and @tapvarchive) are defunct or abandoned pretty early. the only way you can read it is through the wayback machine here

I've been archiving the main story, the sidestories and extra pages/zines for awhile now because this webcomic means a lot to me even a decade later, and so that ppl can have an easier time reading it, but i've only archived up to chapter 8 or so orz

anyway, if it caught your eye, I deffo recommend it. it was such a hidden gem <3

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Jack has brighid, kiwi does too probably, Matthew has Alistair and kinda not really Francis but does Alfred have anyone he'd consider a second parental figure? Or is his one and only parent high-strung and dubiously affectionate Lord Father? Boy was fucked from the start if that's the case lol

Brighid is very much in his life. She lived with him for years and years across the 19th and 20th century. Alasdair also has a very strong relationship with him and tbh I probably exaggerate Alasdair's attachment to Matt because I've got to give the boy something. Considering the Scottish influence in Australia, NZ and the US amounting to about as much importance.

But man, I've undersung Rhys! I haven't written much of it recently because I got a bit gunshy after I got into it with a Welsh guy at a discussion once who was very angry when I wrote about Cornish and Welsh influence on the British Empire because the whole double edged sword of empire for the Celtic fringe but y'know what, Welsh Methodists and other nonconformists really influenced especially American protestantism. And my favourite flavour and the thing holding Alfred's sanity together are Quakers.

So Rhys has this huge influence on Alfred and a supremely stabilizing one. If Alfred has normal opinions on anything, it's because the Quakers got to him before the evangelicals did. His batshit high literacy rate and idealism largely stems from that puritan and quaker need to fuck shit up. I'm not sure Alfred would consider Rhys as much of a parental figure as an adult considering how he stepped right into the hegemony Arthur vacated but there are occasions where Alfred whips out an ungodly accurate Welsh pronunciation. When questioned he just shrugs like "what? Like it's hard? Even Thomas Jefferson managed."

[planetsviews]

The Fascinating World of Extinct Animals: Stories of Lost Species and Conservation Lessons 🌍✨

The DODOD Introduction The story of extinct animals is both a testament to the fragility of life and a reflection of the ever-changing nature of our planet. 🌎💔 Extinct animals, those species that no longer exist, capture our imagination and serve as poignant reminders of the impact humans and natural events have on biodiversity. 🐾📜 In this article, we delve into the causes of extinction, profile some notable extinct animals, and highlight the importance of conservation efforts to prevent further losses. 🛡️🌿 Notable Extinct Animals 1. The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) Habitat: Mauritius, Indian Ocean 🏝️ Extinction Date: Late 17th century 📜 Causes: The dodo was driven to extinction by a combination of hunting by sailors and predation by introduced species such as rats, pigs, and monkeys. Habitat destruction also played a role. 🚢🐀🐖 2. The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) Habitat: North America 🌎 Extinction Date: Early 20th century (1914) 📜 Causes: Once numbering in the billions, passenger pigeons were hunted extensively for food and sport. Deforestation also destroyed their natural habitat. 🏞️🍂 3. The Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) Habitat: Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea 🌏 Extinction Date: 20th century (1936) 📜 Causes: Hunting, habitat destruction, and competition with dogs contributed to the decline of the Tasmanian tiger. Government bounties also encouraged widespread killing. 🐕🏞️ 4. The Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) Habitat: North Atlantic coasts 🌊 Extinction Date: Mid-19th century (1844) 📜 Causes: The great auk was hunted for its feathers, meat, and oil. Overharvesting of eggs and human disturbance of breeding sites also led to its extinction. 🌊🐦

5. The Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) Habitat: Northern Hemisphere (Europe, Asia, North America) 🌍❄️ Extinction Date: Approximately 4,000 years ago 📜 Causes: Climate change at the end of the last ice age reduced their habitat. Additionally, overhunting by early humans played a significant role in their extinction. 🌡️🏹 Causes of Extinction 1. Natural Causes Climate Change: Historical climate shifts, such as the ice ages, have drastically altered habitats, leading to the extinction of many species unable to adapt. ❄️🌡️ Natural Disasters: Volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, and tsunamis can create immediate and long-term changes to environments, wiping out species. 🌋☄️🌊 Predation and Competition: Evolutionary pressures, including predation and competition for resources, have naturally led to the extinction of less adaptable species. 🐅��� 2. Human-Induced Causes Habitat Destruction: Deforestation, urbanization, and agriculture reduce the natural habitats of many species, leading to their decline. 🏞️🪓🏘️ Overexploitation: Hunting, fishing, and poaching have driven many species to extinction by depleting their populations faster than they can reproduce. 🎣🏹💔 Pollution: Industrial waste, pesticides, and plastics contaminate ecosystems, causing health problems and deaths in wildlife. 🏭🧴🐢 Climate Change: Human activities such as burning fossil fuels contribute to global warming, affecting the natural habitats and lifecycles of many species. 🌍🔥🏭 Introduction of Invasive Species: Non-native species introduced by humans can outcompete, prey on, or bring diseases to native species, leading to extinction. 🐍🌱🌏 The Importance of Conservation The extinction of species has a profound impact on ecosystems and the services they provide. 🐾🌿 Biodiversity is crucial for maintaining ecological balance, pollination of plants, purification of water, and many other functions essential for life on Earth. 🌍💧 Conservation efforts are vital to protect the remaining species and prevent further extinctions. Here are some key strategies: Protected Areas: Establishing national parks and wildlife reserves to safeguard habitats. 🏞️🛡️ Legislation: Enforcing laws against poaching, illegal logging, and trade in endangered species. 📜🚫 Captive Breeding Programs: Breeding endangered species in captivity to reintroduce them into the wild. 🦏🐣 Habitat Restoration: Rehabilitating degraded ecosystems to support wildlife. 🌱🏞️ Climate Action: Mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 🌍🔥 Public Awareness: Educating people about the importance of biodiversity and conservation efforts. 🧑‍🏫🌿

Conclusion The history of extinct animals is a sobering reminder of the delicate balance of life on Earth. 🌍💔 While the loss of species like the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger can never be undone, we can learn from these events to better protect the remaining biodiversity. 🐾🌿 Through concerted conservation efforts, we can strive to preserve the natural world for future generations, ensuring that more species do not meet the same fate as those that have already been lost. 🌍💚 Join the Conversation! 🌟 If you found this article informative, please like, comment, and share it with fellow wildlife enthusiasts. Together, we can make a difference in protecting our planet's incredible wildlife. 🌟

The Mammoth

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

==

Just for fun...

There's a weird Noble Savage idealism which verges on a fetish, a perception that primitive peoples were all peaceful and harmonious... until European people came along.

But it isn't true. Look at your likelihood of dying a violent death in tribal societies.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2013/05/the-long-bloody-history-of-aboriginal-violence/

The long history of Aboriginal violence — Part II

TRIBAL warfare and paybacks were endemic. In "Journey to Horseshoe Bend", anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow described a black-on-black massacre in 1875 in the Finke River area of Central Australia, triggered by a perceived sacrilege:

"The warriors turned their murderous attention to the women and older children and either clubbed or speared them to death. Finally, according to the grim custom of warriors and avengers they broke the limbs of the infants, leaving them to die ‘natural deaths’. The final number of the dead could well have reached the high figure of 80 to 100 men, women and children."

Revenge killings by the victims’ clan involved more than 60 people, with the two exchanges accounting for about 20% of members of the two clans. (When Pauline Hanson, then member for Oxley, quoted this account in 1996, an Aboriginal woman elder replied, "Mrs Hanson should receive a traditional Urgarapul punishment: having her hands and feet crippled.")

Escaped convict William Buckley, who lived for three decades with tribes around Port Phillip, recounted constant raids, ambushes, and small battles, typically involving one to three fatalities. He noted the Watouronga of Geelong in night raids ‘destroyed without mercy men, women and children.’

Historian Geoff Blainey concluded that annual death rates from North-East Arnhem Land and Port Philip, were comparable with countries involved in the two world wars, although Blainey’s estimate could be somewhat on the high side.

Other black-on-black massacres include accounts from anthropologist Bill Stanner of an entire camp massacre, an Aurukun massacre in the early 20th century, Strehlow’s account of the wiping out of the Plenty River local group of Udebatara in Central Australia, and the killing of a large group of men, women and children near Mt Eba, also in Central Australia.

Strehlow’s wife Kathleen Strehlow wrote:

“It would be no exaggeration to say that the system worked as one of sheer terror in the days before the white man came. This terror was instilled from earliest childhood and continued unabated through life until the extremity of old age seemed to guarantee some immunity from the attentions of blood avenger or sorcerer alike for wrongs real or imaginary…children were not exempted from capital punishment for persistent offences against the old tribal code.”

The Murngin (now Yolngu) in NE Arnhem Land during 1920s practiced a deadly warfare that placed it among the world’s most lethal societies. The then-rate for homicides of 330 per 100,000 (which Jarrett suggests could be grossly under-estimated) was 15 times the 2006-07 "very remote national Indigenous rate" of 22, and 300 times the 2006-7 national non-Indigenous rate. That Murngin rate was worse than in Mexico’s present Ciudad Juarez drug capital (300 homicides per 100,000), and more than three times worse than the worst national current rate (Honduras).

And they didn't even have to kill.

http://hawaii-guide.info/past.and.present/history/tahitian.takeover/

Hawaii Tahitian Takeover

Around 1000 A.D., Tahitians from the islands of Ra’iatea, Bora Bora, and Huahine arrived in Hawaii. With their larger statures, they easily overpowered the islands’ inhabitants, descendants of Polynesian settlers that had arrived several hundred years prior.

Although the Tahitians didn’t slaughter the natives, they reduced them to commoners, calling them menehune (an insult meaning “people of small status”) and imposed their own political system and customs on them.

The people who are purported to be Hawaii's "indigenous" or "first nations" or "first peoples" aren't. They're invaders, colonizers and occupiers who arrived second, subjugated the people who were already there and made them second-class citizens.

[scotianostra]

January 26th marks Australia Day.

Scots played many key parts in the story of Australia, we were convicts, soldiers and governors; orphans, free settlers and gold hunters; bushrangers, merchants and immigrants.

Although it is sometimes said of nineteenth-century Sydney that it was an English city, in contrast with the more Scottish city of Melbourne, people of Scottish origin have played important roles in the development and life of Sydney. They have been there from the very beginning.

For hundreds of years Scots have packed up their families and their belongings and sailed to Australia to start a new life.

When Australia needed workers between 1832 and 1850 about 16,000 Scots became ‘assisted immigrants’. They boarded chartered ships, like the 50-ton ship Stirling Castle, chartered from Alan Kerr and Company, Greenock, alongside skilled stonemasons, engineers, carpenters, blacksmiths and even professors. In the same period more than 20,000 Scots travelled to Australia as unassisted immigrants.

The majority of Scottish emigrants were from the Lowlands but around 10,000 Highlanders boarded chartered ships to Australia between 1837 and 1852.

The 20th century continued to see Scots migrate to Australia. In the 1920s Scots stonemasons helped to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Scots miners from Lanarkshire, Fife and Ayrshire worked in coal mines in New South Wales in the '20s and '30s. In 1929 Alexander MacRae, originally from Loch Kishorn in the Highlands, first produced the famous Australian swimming ‘cossie’ - Speedos.

In 1930 MacRobertson Chocolates created Freddo Frog. Macpherson Robertson, the founder of ‘Mac Robertson Steam Confectionery Works’ that later became simply MacRobertson Chocolates, was the son of a Scottish carpenter. He spent many of his early years in Leith and became an apprentice at a confectionery company. When his family moved back to Melbourne he started making sweets in his mother’s bathroom.

Robertson became a great philanthropist as well as a hugely successful chocolate maker. He sponsored the MacRobertson Air Race from London to Melbourne, and financed a combined British, Australian and New Zealand expedition to the Antarctic. A part of the Antarctic was named ‘Mac Robertson Land’ in his honour.

Today Freddo Frog is the most popular children’s chocolate in Australia.

After the Second World War thousands of Britons set sail for Australia. Between 1947 and 1981 more than a million Britons took advantage of an assisted passage scheme introduced by the Australian Government. Around 170,000 Scots left the country of their birth to become ‘Ten Pound Poms’ and start a new life Down Under.

During the past 24 hours there have been protests in Australia as part of a campaign to move Australia day to a date more fitting to the indigenous people of the country, names they give to January 26th include Survival Day, Invasion Day, Day of Mourning.

Gammeya Dharawal man, Jacob Morris, said there isn’t one emotion that fully captures the day.

"It's a day of teaching. It's a day of celebrating as well. We're not up there celebrating the Union Jack, we're celebrating us," he says.

But the day also reminds Jacob of the treatment of First Nations people throughout history.

"Anger … that is still what is felt today and that comes from the sadness, trauma and the hurt," he said.

[raptorfae53]

Ãrohwan Trapinch, Vibrava and Flygon. (Bug - Dragon)

Far removed from its mainland relatives desert origins, this pokemon line is adapted for a life in the trees, sporting an extra set of arms,clever nimble claws and long prehensile tail,with their wings vestigial and osteoderm-like, rendering these pokemon flightless.

These pokemon sport voracious appetites and have made themselves an enemy of farmers since humans first arrived in Ãrohwa by devouring all manner of crops. With the advancement of technology in the aftermath of the great cataclysm however these pokemon have grown wary, with their numbers declining rapidly as a result of their former victims ire to the point they have been considered extinct a few times in the last century. (Every time a search is put out a few are found,with one particularly sparse search ending after a flygon,relaxing on a particularly brittle branch,fell out of a tree and onto a passing conservationist)

To those with the luck (or lack thereof) to be training an Ãrohwan Flygon, this food based motivation is everything to training one of these pokemon. Like many dragon types training can be long and drawn out, not helped by the self centered attitude most Ãrohwan Flygon have. Having experience with strong pokemon and having said strong pokemon on hand as well as instilling a rewards system for a job well done are known to work exponentially in training this evolutionary line, and if trained well can result in a strong battler and companion,just make sure you keep snacks on hand!

Design inspiration down below:

Flygon is a personal favourite pokemon of mine and it seems the eternal middle child of the 2000s pokemon games dragons. No fancy mega evolution/temporal variant like fellow hoennite (hoennese?) Dragons salamence and altaria and the misfortune of being the same type as garchomp with lesser stats,hence folks gravitating towards it or the plethora of other hoenn or sinnoh dragons (including a trio of actual gods) over it, so I felt it fair to throw the poor guy a bone as well as finally bestow upon it a regional variant with the bug typing people have been confused it didn't have since 2002 (something something antlions).

The main reasoning for said typing is one of its primary inspirations, the coconut rhinoceros beetle.

Native to mainland Asia but introduced to much of the Pacific including Samoa and Tonga where parts of Ãrohwa are based upon. This beetle has been a scourge of these islands crop plantations since it arrived, munching through palm plantations with reckless abandon, free from predators such as shrews and click beetles since the beginning of the 20th century, a voracious creature befitting a dragon.

The other inspiration for this regional form are mekosuchine crocodilians .

You're first reaction to that information was probably what on earth a mekosuchine is?

Simply put mekosuchines were a family of crocodilians found in Australia and the Pacific until as recent as 3000 years ago (with a specimen belonging to the family found in the same St Bathans assemblage as the inspiration for an earlier 'mon koikekkai,hence the inclusion in a NZ based region) that encompassed a wide range of niches both semi aquatic like you'd expect a crocodile to do, and terrestrial, with the genus the family is named for, mekosuchus itself speculated by some to be arboreal:

Anyways I hope you like the first of the regional variants I've thought up for this region because these three won't be the first or last, unlike some (paldea), see you soon with some more art!

[al-hekima-madara-blog]

The Axis of Genocide

The satanic entity, the United States of America, The United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Netherland. All of them have in common a history of colonisation, slavery, deportation and annihilation of population in America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania during the last centuries. They continue in present what they have always done in the past.

Today you are with or against the Genocide in Palestine. There is no nuance, no "I don't know", no "It's too complex" no "I don't care it's far" no "I need to preserve my mental health", "it's not black and white". Yes it is black and white and Yes I don't care about your mental health when children are getting amputated without anesthesia. The statistics of deaths, the number of bombs in such small civilian area, the amount of children butchered, the journalists killed have beaten new records unheard since the 20th century in less than 4 months.

For the first time in Human History, victims have livestreamed 24h/24 their own deaths and suffering for 115 days. And the other side has also livestreamed their absolute cruelty and obscenity from their fake zionist entity and the moral decadence of the West, their shameless and baseless lies. It's a life or death situation and yes I use religious term : it's the Good versus Evil. If you can't see it blatantly, if you close your eyes to what is happening today, please shut your mouth when you want tomorrow be performative about the rights of racial minorities, the rights of women, the rights of children, the rights of persecuted groups. Shut your mouth forever and keep talking about your stupid fandom shipping "war" that no one care included the real author of the fiction. As noticed by @margretescrimsonatelier I'm very happy that the same brainless trolls who keep our name in their dirty mouths for a whole year, are today absolutely silent about a real life genocide, a real oppression. They have nothing to say. They were waste of space from day one, they keep confirm me the absolute vacuity of their existence.

If you accept the genocide in Palestine because "what can we do?" tomorrow it would be you for any false reason. Your country, your land, your history, your minority who would be stolen and slaughtered in front of billions of viewers in complete apathy since we already saw it in 2023 and no one moved. Tomorrow we will gaslight your death as we're gaslighting right now Palestinians massacre today. So be human, resist or die.

Your silence is a consent.

Like/share/comment posts about Palestine in all your social medias

boycott all companies funding the satanic entity

Learn about the colonisation of Palestine from 1948

March in your city for Palestine

Disturb your representative in public space

Educate your family and friend circle

Donate to trustful organisation like UNRWA.org HERE

[marykk1990]

My next post in support of Ukraine is:

Next site, the Bukovynian Diaspora Museum in Chernivtsi, Chernivtsi Oblast. Established in 1992, it focuses on the waves of emigration from the Bukovyna region over the late 19th to mid-20th century. It also focuses on some of the different countries they emigrated to, such as the US & Canada, and countries in South America, Europe & Australia. A lot of the collection was donated by descendants of people who emigrated and includes things like photographs, letters, and personal items.

#StandWithUkraine

#СлаваУкраїні 🇺🇦🌻

And here's another pic of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Olena Zelenska from way, way back in happier times. Looks like they were dressed for a wedding or something, maybe? I hope that soon, all of Ukraine can get back to a normal life free from muscovy terrorism.

#СлаваУкраїні 🇺🇦🌻

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

True Stories Left Out Of Biopics To Make The Person Look Better

Gandhi - the film assumes that Mahatma Gandhi was morally pristine because he was starving all the time. Not the case. As it turns out, the brave, peaceful hero of Colonial India was actually kind of a pervert. As a 'test' of his piety and purity, he would sleep next to young girls - including his grand-niece - and force himself not to touch them or become aroused. This disrespect for women fell in line with his documented assertion that menstrual blood is a "manifestation of the distortion of a woman's soul by her sexuality." Oh and he also believed that Black people are sub-human.

The Miracle Worker -  A 1962 film about tutor Anne Sullivan teaching Helen Keller about friendship etc.  Helen Keller is considered to be one of the most heroic people of all time, and for good reason: though blind and deaf from a young age, she went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts and inspire people across the country through lectures and writings. Despite her own disadvantages, however, she still didn't believe that other disadvantaged people should be allowed to coexist with normal citizens. In the early 20th century, as the international public began to embrace eugenics - AKA the process of filtering out undesired traits from the gene pool through breeding and genetic experiments - Keller was one of the first to write: "It is the possibility of happiness, intelligence and power that give life its sanctity, and they are absent in the case of a poor, misshapen, paralyzed, unthinking creature.” She also added that allowing a "defective" child to die was simply a “weeding of the human garden that shows a sincere love of true life”...

A Beautiful Mind - A biopic on John Nash, this beautiful, heartfelt movie about overcoming mental illness and finding true love was also about a  man who hated Jewish people and inappropriate advances. Although John Nash and his wife deny any allegations that he slept with men, the records prove otherwise. Several of his male friends from young adulthood have gone public about Nash's awkward passes at them. There's also plenty of proof that Nash had ill feelings towards Jewish people, but he has since blamed those actions on being crazy.

The Iron Lady - The 2011 biopic about Margaret Thatcher aka the Iron Lady seemed to fall to include Thatcher's toxic attitudes towards non-whites and non-straights. According to close associates of the Iron Lady she stubbornly stigmatized LGBT people in legislation and encouraged Australia to block immigration from Asia. 

‘Straight Outta Compton' - Left Out Dr. Dre's History Of Assault

[myhauntedsalem]

6 Dark Places Aleister Crowley Performed His Particular Brand of Magick

Born in the late 1870s, England, Aleister Crowley was one of the great characters of the 20th century—a poet, a magician, a journalist, an alchemist, a philosopher, a spy, a self-affirmed drug fiend, and a sex addict. He was also known as “The Great Beast” and the “wickedest man in the world.” He played a major role in the creation of alternate religions like Wicca, the A∴A∴, and the Ordo Templi Orientis, and he founded the Order of Thelema, a semi-Satanic cult whose famous edict was “do what thou wilt.”

Crowley is to the occult as Tolkien is to fantasy—he set the stage that everyone else plays in. Basically, if you’re dabbling in things dark and dastardly, Aleister was probably there first.

In all of his doings, Crowley traveled a lot. He pursued exploits in Egypt, India, the Far East, Australia, all over Europe and North America, dotting the map with sex magick and weird stunts. Here are a six places in the Atlas where the infamous occultist left his mark.

1. 36 Blythe Road

LONDON, ENGLAND

Though he was interested in the occult from childhood, Crowley’s first foray into organized magic (or “magick,” as he preferred to spell it) was with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Well liked by its co-founder, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, Crowley advanced in the ranks very quickly. However, not everyone was a fan. The London chapter, which had already found faults in Mathers’ leadership, particularly disavowed him for the eccentric, bisexual Crowley. This caused a decisive rift between two factions of the Order, but Mathers wasn’t ready to concede his leadership.

In 1900, while the poet and London chapter leader W. B. Yeats was heading a meeting, he was attacked by an “astral siege” from none other than Aleister Crowley. Crowley, wearing a black Osiris mask and a kilt, and his mistress burst into the temple, casting spells and brandishing daggers. They intended to take the temple for Mathers’, but were unsuccessful. The police came, the scuffle went to court, and the London chapter of the Golden Dawn won (as they paid the rent on the space). Now the nondescript George’s Cafe resides in the former site of the secret society’s temple, with no indication of its former life.

2. Boleskine House

INVERNESS, SCOTLAND

Boleskine House was steeped in darkness long before Crowley moved in. The manor is allegedly built atop the ruins of a 10th century church that burnt to the ground during a service, killing all the congregants inside. Crowley bought Boleskine House to seclude himself and perform magic from The Book of Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. It was during this period that Crowley became famous for his occultism and black magic, both around the Scotland and later, the world. Sometime during this period Mathers called Crowley to Paris. He left without dispelling the “12 Kings and Dukes of Hell” he had summoned, and many locals blame the house’s unlucky history on evil spirits left behind.

First, Crowley’s housekeeper’s two children died mysteriously and abruptly. Crowley also bragged that one employee of the estate who had long abstained from alcohol got drunk and attempted to murder his entire family. After the house had changed hands, it still wasn’t free of dark energy. In 1965, the army major who owned the house committed suicide by shotgun. The next owner, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, spent very little time at the estate, instead bequeathing it to a friend who didn’t mind the unexplained creaks, groans, and various ghostly apparitions, but was bothered by the Crowley and Page fans who frequently attempted to break into the house and defile the grounds. Later owners dismissed any notions of hauntings or witchcraft at the house, but in 2015, the residents returned from a shopping trip to find the house completely in flames.

3. Crowley’s Magickal Retirement

HEBRON, NEW HAMPSHIRE

In 1916, Crowley spent four months at the home of renowned medium Evangeline Adams in what he called a “magickal retirement.” This didn’t mean taking a break from cocaine, heroin, sex magick, and prolonged rituals. Quite the opposite in fact. In Hebron, Crowley doubled down and did a great deal of writing, poetry and magical instruction alike. He was even a ghost writer on several of Adams’ books of astrology.

4. Esopus Island

HYDE PARK, NEW YORK

In another magickal retreat, Crowley spent 40 days and 40 nights (a la Jesus Christ) on a tiny island in the Hudson River. His mission was translating the Tao Te Ching, a 4th century Chinese philosophical text. He hadn’t brought much food but had packed plenty of red paint, and also put himself to work painting Thelemic graffiti on the island’s rocks. Curious families watching the bald, robed man on the island from the banks of the Hudson began bringing him rations. He was also visited by fans and artists, who brought him food, drugs, and company.

Much later Crowley reported experiencing visions of his past lives during his stay on Esopus Island, all of which were somehow very influential figures. His former selves included legendary Taoist Ge Xuan, Renaissance Pope Alexander VI, alchemist Alessandro Cagliostro, and the magician Eliphas Levi. Today, the island is open to the public so long as they can reach it by boat. There are even camping amenities for those who wish to follow in the footsteps of the infamous occultist.

5. Boca do Inferno

CASCAIS, PORTUGAL

Any eccentric worth his salt has to fake his own death at least once. When visiting Portugal in 1930 and feeling annoyed by his current mistress, Crowley gave appearance he had committed suicide at the Boca de Inferno (“Mouth of Hell”) caves. His friend, poet Fernando Pessoa handed Crowley’s suicide note to newspapers, helpfully explaining the magical symbols and translating the mangled Portuguese to police and media alike. Three weeks later, Crowley reappeared at the opening of an exhibition of his works in a Berlin gallery, suggesting this whole affair was more publicity stunt than anything else. Today, there is a small white plaque mounted on the rock provides the text of Crowley’s note: “Não Posso Viver Sem Ti. A outra ‘Boca De Infierno’ apanhar-me-á não será tão quente como a tua,” which translates roughly to “Can’t live without you. The other mouth of hell that will catch me won’t be as hot as yours.” That might be touching if any of it were genuine.

6. The Abbey of Thelema

CEFALÙ, ITALY

Crowley’s magickal career came to its peak in a little Sicilian town. For a small amount of money, he, his two lovers, their small children, and miscellaneous followers moved into one story house facing the Mediterranean sea. They called it the Abbey of Thelema. The common room was dedicated to ritual practices and held a scarlet “magick” circle marked with the sign of the major Thelemic deities. Crowley’s own bedroom, labeled by himself as “la chambre des cauchemars” (or “the room of nightmares”) was entirely hand-painted by the occultist with explicitly erotic frescos, hermaphroditic goblins, and vividly colored monsters. This private room was used for specific night initiations involving psychoactive drugs which gave terrifying cinematic life to this Bosch-like vision of hellish debauchery.

Crowley considered his temple a school of magick, and gave it an appropriately collegiate motto: “Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum”—”A College towards the Holy Spirit.” The Cefalù period was one of the most prolific and happy of his life, even as he suffered from drug addiction and had to write the scandalous Diary of a Drug Fiend to finance his community. The growing interest in dark magic and the occult provided him with an ample student body (pun intended). But in 1922, the experience in monasticism ended when Raoul Loveday, a young disciple, tragically died from typhoid fever contracted from drinking contaminated spring water, though Loveday’s wife maintained it was from drinking cat’s blood.

Crowley and his people were evicted by Mussolini’s regime in 1923. The dictator had no sympathy for pornographic art or mysticism. Once the Abbey closed, the villagers whitewashed the murals, which they somewhat correctly saw as demonic. This erased much of the history and work of Crowley in Cefalù. The Abbey of Thelema is still there, a hidden monument of mysterious, magickal decay.

[theakandrewscollection]

John Willie : A Bizarre Life (books, 2024)

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By Jane Garrett

"With his iconic art and the groundbreaking content of his Bizarre magazine, John Willie is perhaps the person most responsible for introducing fetish style to the mainstream. Illustrated with examples of John’s work, this in-depth exploration shines the spotlight on the man behind the drawings of buxom beauties and the photographs of expertly executed erotic bondage, delving into• his early life from his 1902 birth in England as John Coutts through his education, military service, immigration to Australia, and employment as a seaman and laborer;• the chance encounter with a network of high-heel fetishists that incited John’s discovery of his community and his calling in the world of erotic art;• his relationship with model, wife, and muse Holly Faram;• his move to the United States and his place in the mid-20th-century fetish scene populated by artists, publishers, editors, and models such as Charles Guyette, Robert Harrison, Edythe Farrell, Irving and Paula Klaw, Bettie Page, and Eric Stanton;• the debut of his groundbreaking Bizarre magazine in 1946, through which he created a space for like-minded people to share and celebrate fantasies—from high heels and cross-dressing to blindfolds and bondage—that the mainstream world found “bizarre”;• his career-long struggles against the forces of governmental oversight;• and how the murders by so-called “Glamour Girl Killer” Harvey Glatman—who posed as a bondage photographer to lure his victims—helped spur John’s eventual disillusionment with the world of fetish art he helped build.Ahead of his time, John's influences can still be seen in the worlds of art and fashion, and he was an advocate for freedom of expression in dress, gender identity, and sexuality—issues that are still hotly debated today. Drawing heavily from John’s extensive interactions with researchers at the Kinsey Institute, Garrett provides a close-up portrait of the artist whose ideas have fed the erotic fantasies of generations of people.Size: 6.0in x 9.0in | Pages: 176 | 61 color & b/w imagesBinding: HardbackISBN: 9780764368332"

Avalable for pre-order, comes out in October 2024

[pretend-pretend-vampire]

TBSE character creation update

just got out of the character creation session for The Black Swan Event chronicle! due to a health emergency, only 3/4 players could attend, but it was a blast! I explained a bit of the city's real life history, as well as what I've pieced together myself for the history of kindred in the area (I want it to be my own, not associated with the local larp or what scraps there are in wod canon). so far, we've got:

Y, a caitiff shovelhead from the early 20th century. she was captured by the camarilla and tortured in a pit for 100 years. she's illiterate. she's stunning. she has a gang of 4 lesbian protectors.

ada nilsen, a gangrel who was a european immigrant in the 1940s. she was Embraced after coming to australia. she's very strong. she's bloodthirsty. she's good at both making and using blades.

nico, a brujah who is a more recent neonate. he wants vengeance on his sire for mysterious reasons. he's scrappy. he has stigmata. he's a bloodhound. he's even a homosexual.

I'll update after I've helped the remaining player with their character, which should be in about a day's time!

this is great fun, I can't wait to subject them all to my various evil schemes (:< and they can't wait to let me! I love the collaborative spirit