#Nina China

[chipstuetenmeer]

„Um uns herum war Sturm, jetzt ist es windstill, wenn wir reden.“

- Ennio x Nina Chuba, Fühlst du gar nichts?

[dollykiller]

Natalie Portman as nina sayers in "black swan"

[dollykiller]

Brigitte bardot at 19yo ♡

[itspileofgoodthings]

things I love about my apartment:

there is a tiny balcony

there is a railway track right next to the window so sometimes a train comes right by and it’s very exciting

the vibe is tasteful grandma chic

[afterglowsainz]

we used to have more pt. 2 | oscar piastri

part 1 part 3 part 4

pairing: oscar piastri x reader

summary: after oscar gets back with his ex you found yourself coping in the best way possible: running away

fc: different girls from pinterest

warnings: some very questionable work dynamics that i’m pretty sure are not accurate at all (good thing this is fiction and i can do whatever i want for the plot!)

a/n: thank you so so so much for all the love you gave to part 1! this story is like my baby and i’m truly so happy people liked it <3

—

liked by oscarpiastri, carlossainz55 and others

yourusername always ✨chaotic✨ in melbourne🦘

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username AHHHH i live for her weekly race posts

username the bag essentials ✨

username her ig is what my pinterest boards looks like 🥹

username manifesting this life truly

declanmurray first pic is unfocused

yourusername NO! WHAT?

username she’s so cool 😩

username the star girl of f1 ⭐️

lissiemackintosh i need that lipstick actually 😭

yourusername come and we’ll share 😭

[lissiemackintosh’s instagram stories] [yourusername’s instagram stories]

[caption 1: ✈️💗] [caption 2: lights out…]

liked by patriciooward, milesbaldwin and others

yourusername settling just fine 🍊🧿🍒

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username she’s working at indy now omg

username what nooo 😭😭 i love her in f1

username ahhh did not expect this at all

username as an indycar fan i love this

username and she posted a pic of the podium celebration i- ���💞💞

username okay but the hands on the last picture ???

username girl whoooo 👀

username probably one of her friends she always with

patriciooward that podium pic 😩

yourusername it was a cool champagne trick!

liked by oscarpiastri, alexanderrossi and others

milesbaldwin survived our first week in america

tagged yourusername, lissiemackintosh, miguelsossa and declanmurray

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yourusername against all odds!

username ohhh so they are ALL in indy

username the timing of this is very curious ngl 🤣

username right like the season JUST started

miguelsossa we’re perfect 😉

davidmalukas perfectly deranged!

lissiemackintosh wow buddy i thought we were friends

davidmalukas ohhh you’re saying buddy like an american already ☺️

yourusername 👀👀👀

oscarpiastri have fun mate 👍🏽

liked by nolansiegel, patriciooward and others

yourusername another week, another race day🏎🏁

tagged davidmalukas and lissiemackintosh

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username the way this could’ve been about china but no! she’s in america 😭

username obsessed with the fact she posts only in mclaren

yourusername luckily here i can be biased 🧡🧡

username OMG

username girl come back to f1 you’re gonna miss all the fun races!

username y/n at indy was a must i didn’t knew i needed

username an lissie and declan and miles and miguel and

username you can’t physically separate them i’m afraid (liked by yourusername)

liked by yourusername, declanmurray and others

patriciooward nice afternoon🧡

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username second podium in a row yesss

miguelsossa congrats mate! (liked by patriciooward)

username guys you lost me i’m in love with a mclaren 😔

username no i get you because this is me with oscar 😔

milesbaldwin feliz navidad pato! (or whoever you say it) (liked by patriciooward)

username close! welcome back sebastian vettel

username i’m that champagne bottle actually

yourusername ahhh so well deserved 🙌🏽

patriciooward thank you!

—

taglist; @heavy-vettel @a-beaverhausen @astroniii @chunkpiboli @theonottsbxtch @eclecticcreatorweaselsalad @charli123456789 @stopeatread @coriyaps @nina-or-anna-or-nora @ninasw0rld @loveelylani @marauders-wife @dramallama9 @mxdi0 @piastrigate @ladyoflynx @prudyhoo @idkwtdwml123 @southernbaguette @ellelabelle @emryb @fastfactory

[fatehbaz]

In 1833, Parliament finally abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, and the taxpayer payout of £20 million in “compensation” [paid by the government to slave owners] built the material, geophysical (railways, mines, factories), and imperial infrastructures of Britain [...]. Slavery and industrialization were tied by the various afterlives of slavery in the form of indentured and carceral labor that continued to enrich new emergent industrial powers [...]. Enslaved “free” African Americans predominately mined coal in the corporate use of black power or the new “industrial slavery,” [...]. The labor of the coffee - the carceral penance of the rock pile, “breaking rocks out here and keeping on the chain gang” (Nina Simone, Work Song, 1966), laying iron on the railroads - is the carceral future mobilized at plantation’s end (or the “nonevent” of emancipation). [...] [T]he racial circumscription of slavery predates and prepares the material ground for Europe and the Americas in terms of both nation and empire building - and continues to sustain it.

Text by: Kathryn Yusoff. "White Utopia/Black Inferno: Life on a Geologic Spike". e-flux Journal Issue #97. February 2019.

---

When the Haitian Revolution erupted [...], slaveholding regimes around the world grew alarmed. In response to a series of slave rebellions in its own sugar colonies, especially in Jamaica, the British Empire formally abolished slavery in the 1830s. [...] Importing indentured labor from Asia emerged as a potential way to maintain the British Empire’s sugar plantation system. In 1838 John Gladstone, father of future prime minister William E. Gladstone, arranged for the shipment of 396 South Asian workers, bound to five years of indentured labor, to his sugar estates in British Guiana. The experiment [...] inaugurated [...] "a new system of [...] [indentured servitude]," which would endure for nearly a century. [...] Desperate to regain power and authority after the war [and abolition of chattel slavery in the US], Louisiana’s wealthiest planters studied and learned from their Caribbean counterparts. [...] Thousands of Chinese workers landed in Louisiana between 1866 and 1870, recruited from the Caribbean, China and California. [...] When Congress debated excluding the Chinese from the United States in 1882, Rep. Horace F. Page of California argued that the United States could not allow the entry of “millions of cooly slaves and serfs.”

Text by: Moon-Ho Jung. "Making sugar, making 'coolies': Chinese laborers toiled alongside Black workers on 19th-century Louisiana plantations". The Conversation. 13 January 2022.

---

The durability and extensibility of plantations [...] have been tracked most especially in the contemporary United States’ prison archipelago and segregated urban areas [...], [including] “skewed life chances, limited access to health [...], premature death, incarceration [...]”. [...] [In labor arrangements there exists] a moral tie that indefinitely indebts the laborers to their master, [...] the main mechanisms reproducing the plantation system long after the abolition of slavery [...]. [G]enealogies of labor management […] have been traced […] linking different features of plantations to later economic enterprises, such as factories […] or diamond mines […] [,] chartered companies, free ports, dependencies, trusteeships [...].

Text by: Irene Peano, Marta Macedo, and Colette Le Petitcorps. "Introduction: Viewing Plantations at the Intersection of Political Ecologies and Multiple Space-Times". Global Plantations in the Modern World: Sovereignties, Ecologies, Afterlives (edited by Petitcrops, Macedo, and Peano). Published 2023.

---

Louis-Napoleon, still serving in the capacity of president of the [French] republic, threw his weight behind […] the exile of criminals as well as political dissidents. “It seems possible to me,” he declared near the end of 1850, “to render the punishment of hard labor more efficient, more moralizing, less expensive […], by using it to advance French colonization.” [...] Slavery had just been abolished in the French Empire [...]. If slavery were at an end, then the crucial question facing the colony was that of finding an alternative source of labor. During the period of the early penal colony we see this search for new slaves, not only in French Guiana, but also throughout [other European] colonies built on the plantation model.

Text by: Peter Redfield. Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana. 2000.

---

To control the desperate and the jobless, the authorities passed harsh new laws, a legislative program designed to quell disorder and ensure a pliant workforce for the factories. The Riot Act banned public disorder; the Combination Act made trade unions illegal; the Workhouse Act forced the poor to work; the Vagrancy Act turned joblessness into a crime. Eventually, over 220 offences could attract capital punishment - or, indeed, transportation. […] [C]onvict transportation - a system in which prisoners toiled without pay under military discipline - replicated many of the worst cruelties of slavery. […] Middle-class anti-slavery activists expressed little sympathy for Britain’s ragged and desperate, holding […] [them] responsible for their own misery. The men and women of London’s slums weren’t slaves. They were free individuals - and if they chose criminality, […] they brought their punishment on themselves. That was how Phillip [commander of the British First Fleet settlement in Australia] could decry chattel slavery while simultaneously relying on unfree labour from convicts. The experience of John Moseley, one of the eleven people of colour on the First Fleet, illustrates how, in the Australian settlement, a rhetoric of liberty accompanied a new kind of bondage. [Moseley was Black and had been a slave at a plantation in America before escaping to Britain, where he was charged with a crime and shipped to do convict labor in Australia.] […] The eventual commutation of a capital sentence to transportation meant that armed guards marched a black ex-slave, chained once more by the neck and ankles, to the Scarborough, on which he sailed to New South Wales. […] For John Moseley, the “free land” of New South Wales brought only a replication of that captivity he’d endured in Virginia. His experience was not unique. […] [T]hroughout the settlement, the old strode in, disguised as the new. [...] In the context of that widespread enthusiasm [in Australia] for the [American] South (the welcome extended to the Confederate ship Shenandoah in Melbourne in 1865 led one of its officers to conclude “the heart of colonial Britain was in our cause”), Queenslanders dreamed of building a “second Louisiana”. [...] The men did not merely adopt a lifestyle associated with New World slavery. They also relied on its techniques and its personnel. [...] Hope, for instance, acquired his sugar plants from the old slaver Thomas Scott. He hired supervisors from Jamaica and Barbados, looking for those with experience driving plantation slaves. [...] The Royal Navy’s Commander George Palmer described Lewin’s vessels as “fitted up precisely like an African slaver [...]".

Text by: Jeff Sparrow. “Friday essay: a slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism.” The Conversation. 4 August 2022.

[shitouttabuck]

hi hi nina!! may i prompt number 20? (absurd terms of endearment)

rae!!! thank you mwah (also requested by an anon & @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove <3)

be there on the next train

buck/eddie | 1.7k | rated t | prompts: absurd terms of endearment | ao3

The day Eddie calls him that for the first time, Buck’s tearing through the hospital at top speed, narrowly avoiding mowing down nurses as he stumbles toward Eddie’s room.

He’s okay, Buck knows he’s okay, he’s just here on concussion watch and because he needed a doctor to reset his shoulder when it was dislocated at the house fire earlier. He’d been talking and coherent when Hen and Chim bundled him into the ambulance, reassuring them all that he felt fine, terribly unconvincing given the grimace, but no cause for major worry either.

Still, Buck couldn’t ride with him to the hospital, having to finish their shift and wash off an inch of soot before hurrying to pick up Chris from school. Even rushing through his shower and haphazardly pulling on his civvies so not to alarm Christopher didn’t feel fast enough, and when Chris had started to kick up a fuss about being dropped at Pepa’s instead of coming with Buck to the hospital, he’d nearly torn his hair out.

He’d placated Chris with the promise that he’d try and get Eddie released this evening, happy as ever to volunteer to spend the night keeping watch at the Diaz house. Thirty minutes and several agonising red lights later, he’s here, barging right into this hospital room before any orderlies can stop him.

Hen blinks at him from her seat beside Eddie’s bed, eyebrows raised.

“You’re loud enough to wake the morgue,” she informs him, sipping her paper cup of coffee. “Bull in a goddamn china shop.”

Buck frowns at her good-naturedly, rounding the bed to Eddie’s other side.

He’s sat up against some pillows, bleary-eyed but smiling at Buck. “You came.”

“Of course I came,” Buck huffs, squeezing his arm gently.

“You always come,” Eddie agrees. His eyes are glassy from the mix of pain and painkillers, voice slurring ever-so-slightly. “Mi patito.”

Hen chokes on her coffee, coughs turning into laughter. “Your what?”

Eddie’s lips turn down at the corners as he looks at her, pouting. “He’s got the little tail, look.”

He gestures at Buck’s ass, and Buck cranes his head back to see what he’s pointing at. His shirt isn’t tucked in properly at the back, sticking out of the waistband of his pants in an upturned fold of fabric.

“Patito,” Eddie says again, nodding. “Little duckling.”

Hen snorts, dissolving into laughter as she doubles over in the tiny plastic chair. Buck shoves the hem of his shirt into his trousers properly, disgruntled by their amusement.

“Duckling, huh?” Hen grins. “I guess he does follow you around enough.”

“He followed me into the house today,” Eddie says, leaning back heavily into his pillows. It’s true—Buck had ignored Bobby’s shouts to stay put and raced back into the burning building after Eddie’s pained grunt had come through the radio, a badly-secured beam glancing off him as it fell. “Stupid as hell, but would’ve had a lot worse than a fucked shoulder if he hadn’t.”

Buck’s not sure if that’s a compliment or an admonishment, but it’s absolutely soaked with affection, so he doesn’t let himself dwell on it, smiling wryly back at Eddie.

Eddie’s studying his face, serious even if the corner of his mouth is tugging up on the right, smile inevitable.

“He’d follow me anywhere,” he says, confident, to Buck or to Hen or just the room at large. “Patito.”

Buck feels a sudden wave of embarrassment, caught out and called out on this thing that was never meant to be a secret but he hadn’t planned on saying out loud anyway, hoping no one would draw attention to the bottomless well of devotion he houses for Eddie. That he’d do anything and everything if only it meant he’d be beside Eddie for it. He’s scraped raw, naked under fluorescent lights for everyone to see.

Hen, perceptive to a fault, stands, ignoring Buck’s flaming cheeks and whatever shame is rolling off him right now.

“M’gonna check with the nurses about when he can be discharged,” she murmurs, leaving the room quietly.

Buck swallows, ducking his head as he sits. He doesn’t look directly at Eddie, instead fiddling with the scratchy blanket on the bed.

“Buck?” Eddie asks. Buck doesn’t look up. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, ’course not,” Buck says, shaking his head and smoothing out the blanket. “You’re right, I-I do follow you everywhere.”

“Okay,” Eddie says carefully. “Is that bad?”

Buck huffs a laugh. “No, no, it’s not. Just—revealing, I guess.”

Eddie’s silent for long enough that Buck chances a glance at him. His brow is furrowed deeply, and he’s frowning at Buck.

“I would follow you anywhere too, you know,” he says.

Buck’s heart flip-flops. He does know this, and it’s nice to be told, but he thinks all his endless adoration, the entirely unshakable loyalty with which he follows Eddie, comes from a considerably different place than Eddie’s. The roots of his wanting wrap around his heart and clench tight in ways Eddie’ll never be familiar with, steadfast friendship being the only thing he’s ever wanted from Buck.

“I know,” he says anyway, moving one hand to grasp Eddie’s briefly. “I know, Eds.”

A nurse bustles into the room, patient chart in hand.

“Alright,” she says, “hello there. Are you Mr Diaz’s partner? Will you be taking him home today? He needs regular monitoring tonight, but Firefighter Wilson mentioned your line of work, so he should be good to be looked after at home by his significant other.”

“Oh,” Buck says. “Um, yes. And no. Yes, I’m taking him home. No, I’m not his significant other—I’m just his, uh, work partner.”

“Oh! Sorry for the misunderstanding,” the nurse says cheerfully. “Shall we go over the concussion protocol before we get him discharged?”

Buck lets her run him through what to do and what to watch out for, well-versed in this rodeo but nodding in all the right places anyway. When she leaves to sort out the paperwork, he turns back to Eddie, who’s be quiet for this whole exchange.

“Actually, speaking of,” Buck starts, pulling the words out of his throat like barbed wire, “do you want me to call Marisol and, uh, let her know what happened?”

Eddie scowls at him. “Marisol? Why the hell would you call her?”

“Because she’s your actual significant other?” Buck says, frowning at the unreasonable amount of derision Eddie’s throwing his way. “And she might like to know that you were hurt?”

“She is not my significant other,” Eddie says, looking deeply unhappy.

Buck blinks. “What? Since when?”

“Since…” Eddie screws up his face as he thinks, and then screws it up in a different way when the pull of his muscles must aggravate the headache concussions so generously come with. “Since two Thursdays ago. The 14th. The day we had the fighter jet call.”

“Oh,” Buck says.

His heart isn’t sure what to do—glow bright at the thought of Eddie’s relationship crashing and burning, because Buck’s not as good a friend as he wishes he was, or sink even further at the fact that Eddie, even hopped up on heavy-duty drugs, can pinpoint with such precision the exact day they ended things, his unhappy face only further proof that the break-up was probably not his decision, if he’s so cut up about it. Which—

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck asks. “I’m sorry, man.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. Why are you sorry? Also, you didn’t tell me when you broke up with Natalia, so…”

“I did,” Buck protests. “I told you that day in the locker room, that day that—”

He cuts himself off, breathless for no reason.

He did tell Eddie in the locker room, the day that they had the fighter jet call. The 14th. Two Thursdays ago.

“Eddie?” he asks.

“I texted her from the station parking lot,” Eddie confesses. “After Chris’s date went home, I, uh. I went over to her place and broke up with her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck asks again, infinitely more hushed.

“’Cause you’d follow me anywhere, patito,” Eddie says softly, and his voice is so brimming with sadness, Buck’s chest aches. “Didn’t—didn’t know if this would be something you’d—actually want, or if you’d try anyway just because I asked.”

“Eddie,” Buck breathes, a quiet and desperate thing. “Eddie, you have to know—”

“I know you love me, Buck. And—whatever way that is, I’ll take it. Okay? I just—I couldn’t pretend that that thing with Marisol was anything more than me trying to—trying to—fill some gap while you were with Natalia. And I was a dick, but—you broke up with Natalia and I’m so tired of pretending. I’d follow you anywhere, patito, but I—I wish you’d follow me home.”

“Okay,” Buck nods, heart whirring with this new revelation and taking upon itself to glow, not in petty vindication, but with sweet, sticky happiness, honey-gold and sun-warm as it spreads from cell to cell, his whole body alive with it. “Okay. I’m following you home.”

“I know you are now,” Eddie frowns. “You have to make sure I don’t die in my sleep.”

“Jesus, Eddie, first of all, dark,” Buck laughs, “and, secondly, no, I mean I’m following you home. I mean I love you in every way. I mean I broke up with Natalia because everything was always about death and I want things to be about life and—that’s you. It’s been you for a long time.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, still frowning. “Does this mean you’re not sleeping on the couch tonight?”

“Do you want me to sleep on the couch tonight?”

Eddie shakes his head. “No, I’ve never wanted you to sleep on the couch. You’re always falling asleep on that damn couch. I want you to fall asleep in my bed.”

Buck laughs again. “I think we can make that happen.”

The nurse comes back in with discharge papers, Hen at her shoulder, and Eddie asks, “Hey, what’s the medical advice about making out with a concussion?”

Hen says, “Oh, for the love of God.”

And, Buck thinks, if you’re hand-in-hand with someone the way the two of them are, who’s following who doesn’t really matter, because they’re getting there together.

[youryurigoddess]

Aziraphale’s secret investigation and overlooked Clues

Remember this frame from Good Omens S02E06? Apparently Aziraphale had been using the empty carton box brought by Jim to store things in. It became a new home to at least two out of three “Lost Quartos” — the supposedly lost Shakespeare plays briefly but hilariously mentioned in the Good Omens book — as well as a very mysterious legal document.

Thought probably half of the Good Omens analysts here, including the ever so wonderful @fuckyeahgoodomens, who managed to find some information about the deceased John Gibson from New Cumnock (1855 - 1905).

Unfortunately the most interesting thing about this early 20th century provincial postmaster was his youngest child James (1894 - 1973), a quite famous stage (West End!) and film actor immortalized on screen in The Master of Ballantrae (1962), Witch Wood (1964) and Kidnapped (1963).

After that particular discovery the fandom-wide search seemingly led nowhere and the topic died a premature death.

And I almost figured it out seven months ago.

“But Yuri, you’re so clever. How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid?”, you probably want to shout across a busy London street at this point. Well, let me tell you. Much like Aziraphale, I'm blindingly intelligent for about thirty seconds a day. I do not get to choose which seconds and they are not consecutive.

Only tonight the stars have aligned in an ineffable way.

For those of you who don’t follow this account, some time ago I’ve realized that John Gibson isn’t the only testator whose estate was being investigated by Aziraphale right before The Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association monthly meeting.

If you watch S2 finale closely enough, you should notice that Crowley not only stress cleans Aziraphale’s bookshop — he also goes through the books and papers on his desk between the last three angels leaving the bookshop and Maggie and Nina’s intervention. A seemingly permanent arrangement of the props post-shooting, visible in detail both on Radio Times tour and SFX magazine photo shoot, sheds even more light on this detail.

The close-ups published after S2 release are legible enough to refer us to a much more prominent historical figure, Josiah Wedgwood (1730 – 1795) — an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the industrialisation of the manufacture of European pottery.

Long story short, I transcribed the handwritten pages abandoned on Aziraphale’s desk, found out the source and the full text of what could be identified as Wedgwood’s last will and testament, took a walk to visit his Soho workshop, and proceeded to write a lengthy meta analysis about it.

I was today’s years old when I realized that there’s something else connecting those two dead British men.

The Scottish Post Office Directory of 1903 recorded John Gibson from New Cumnock as a “stationer and china dealer” (above) operating from the shop located in the town’s post office building.

Indeed, a close look at his post office shop window in the Henderson Building (below, bottom left) reveals an artful display of fine china and pottery next to postcards printed by Gibson.

There are multiple ways to connect this surprising link with possible S3 plot points, obviously, but it’s getting late, so let’s just name the two most important ones.

You’ve probably heard of the Holy Grail, maybe from Monty Python or Good Omens S01E03 1941 flashback. Depending on the version of the story, if can be a cup, a chalice, a bowl, or a saucer — but almost always a dish or a vessel connected personally, physically and metaphysically to Jesus (unless you’re partial to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s idea that the Grail was a stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion).

A slightly more obscure dish related to the Son of God appears in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation as a vital part of His Second Coming. The Seven Bowls (or cups, or vials) of God’s Wrath are supposed to be poured out on the wicked and the followers of the Antichrist by seven angels:

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.

The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, “Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!”

The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.

The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.  (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - March 13, 2023

🐝 - Did you hear about the honeybee vaccine? It's creating quite the buzz! But seriously, it's a major breakthrough in the fight against American foulbrood and could save billions of bees.

1. Transgender health care is now protected in Minnesota

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed an executive order protecting and supporting access to gender-affirming health care for LGBTQ people in the state, amidst Republican-backed efforts across the country to limit transgender health care. The order upholds the essential values of One Minnesota where all people, including members of the LGBTQIA+ community, are safe, celebrated, and able to live lives full of dignity and joy.

Numerous medical organizations have said that access to gender-affirming care is essential to the health and wellness of gender diverse people, while states like Tennessee, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Florida have passed policies or laws restricting transgender health care.

2. First vaccine for honeybees could save billions

The US government has approved the world's first honeybee vaccine to fight against American foulbrood, a bacterial disease that destroys bee colonies vital for crop pollination.

Developed by biotech company Dalan Animal Health, the vaccine integrates some of the foulbrood bacteria into royal jelly, which is then fed to the queen by the worker bees, resulting in the growing bee larvae developing immunity to foulbrood. The vaccine aims to limit the damage caused by the infectious disease, for which there is currently no cure, and promote the development of vaccines for other diseases affecting bees.

3. Teens rescued after days stranded in California snowstorm: "We were already convinced we were going to die"

The recent snowstorms in California have resulted in dangerous conditions for hikers and residents in mountain communities. Two teenage hikers were rescued by the San Bernardino County sheriff's department after getting lost in the mountains for 10 days.

The boys were well-prepared for the hike but were not prepared for the massive amounts of snow that followed. They were lucky to survive, suffering from hypothermia and having to huddle together for three nights to stay warm.

Yosemite National Park has had to be closed indefinitely due to the excessive snowfall.

4. La Niña, which worsens Atlantic hurricanes and Western droughts, is gone

The La Nina weather phenomenon, which increases Atlantic hurricane activity and worsens western drought, has ended after three years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's usually good news for the United States and other parts of the world, including drought-stricken northeast Africa, scientists said.

The globe is now in what's considered a "neutral" condition.

5. Where there's gender equality, people tend to live longer

Both women and men are likely to live longer when a country makes strides towards gender equality, according to a new global study that authors believe to be the first of its kind.

The study was published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health this week. It adds to a growing body of research showing that advances in women's rights benefit everyone. "Globally, greater gender equality is associated with longer [life expectancy] for both women and men and a widening of the gender gap in [life expectancy]," they conclude.

6. New data shows 1 in 7 cars sold globally is an EV, and combustion engine car sales have decreased by 25% since 2017

Electric vehicles are the key technology to decarbonise road transport, a sector that accounts for 16% of global emissions. Compared with 2020, sales nearly doubled to 6.6 million (a sales share of nearly 9%), bringing the total number of electric cars on the road to 16.5 million.

Sales were highest in China, where they tripled relative to 2020 to 3.3 million after several years of relative stagnation, and in Europe, where they increased by two-thirds year-on-year to 2.3 million. Together, China and Europe accounted for more than 85% of global electric car sales in 2021

7. Lastly, watch this touching moment as rescued puppy gains trust in her new owners

By the way, this is my newly started YouTube channel. Subscribe for more wholesome videos :D

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That's it for this week. If you liked this post you can support this newsletter with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Let's carry the positivity into next week and keep spreading the good news!

[jennibeultimate]

Artistic Gymnastics Olympics 2024 WAG Qualification

Number of individual (EF&AA) finals per team

Team USA 🇺🇸 9 finals (Simone Biles VT, FX + BB, Jade Carey VT, Sunisa Lee BB + UB, Jordan Chiles FX, Sunisa Lee & Simone Biles AA)

Team Italy 🇮🇹 7 finals (Alice D'Amato UB,BB + FX, Manila Esposito BB + FX, Alice D'Amato & Manila Esposito AA)

Team Brazil 🇧🇷 6 finals(Rebeca Andrade VT, BB + FX, Julia Soares BB, Rebeca Andrade & Flavia Saraiva AA)

Team China 🇨🇳 6 finals (Qiu Qiyuan UB, Zhang Yihan UB, Zhou Yaqin BB, Ou Youshan FX, Qiu Qiyuan & Ou Youshan AA)

Team Romania 🇷🇴 5 finals (Sabrina Maneca-Voinea BB + FX, Ana Barbosu FX , Ana Barbosu & Amalia Ghigoarta AA)

Team Canada 🇨🇦 4 finals (Elsabeth Black VT, Shallon Olsen VT, Elsabeth Black & Ava Stewart AA)

Team Japan 🇯🇵 3 finals (Rina Kishi FX, Rina Kishi & Haruka Nakamura AA)

Team Great Britain 🇬🇧 3 finals (Becky Downie UB, Alice Kinsella & Georgia Mae-Fenton AA)

Team South Korea 🇰🇷 1 final (Seoyeong Yeo VT)

Team Netherlands 🇳🇱 1 final (Naomi Visser AA)

Team Australia 🇦🇺 1 final (Ruby Pass AA)

Team France 🇫🇷 0 finals (this hurts so much 😭)

Countries with finals without team:

Germany 🇩🇪 3 finals (Sarah Voss AA, Helen Kevric UB & AA)

Algeria 🇩🇿 2 finals (Kaylia Neymour UB & AA)

Belgium 🇧🇪 1 final (Nina Derwael UB)

North Korea 🇰🇵 1 final (Chang Ok An VT)

Bulgaria 🇧🇬 1 final (Valentina Georgieva VT)

Portugal 🇵🇹 1 final (Filipa Martins AA)

Hungary 🇭🇺 1 final (Bettina Lilli Czifra AA)

Colombia 🇨🇴 1 final (Luisa Blanco AA)

[hernakedmuse]

Punk!Bimbo Reader Headcanons Part I

She moved to Hawkins from Queens in her Freshman year

When she arrived everyone was mean to her, she showed up with chopped off cropped hair styled a little Betty Boop, a Sex Pistols t-shirt that had her thrown in the principal's office, and maroon doc martens all beat up.

Girls would hit her in the locker room and call her derogatory names and guys would call her a slut especially because of her well endowed breasts and punk appearance.

One day, Horror!Bimbo is in the girl's bathroom skipping class to have a smoke, she's fixing her lipstick when she smells smoke, sees the bathroom window open and hears crying.

She opens the stall of the handicapped one to see Punk!Bimbo sitting on the toilet, just sitting, with headphones on, tears messing up her mascara, clutching a cigarette with chipped red nails in a cute, ripped Iggy Pop shirt, a small jeans shorts, ripped fishnet stockings, and docs, oversized army jacket around her elbows and a cool homemeade nose piercing.

She liked this girl and eyed her cadillac red lipstick, she wants it. "You're crying, is the song very sad?"

Punk!Bimbo was ready to cuss out and fight the bitch who interrupted her when she saw it was the Whore of Hawkins High, that was what they called her but Punk!Bimbo thought it was misogynist and ridiculous, and who gave a fuck what anyone did with their own life, God forbid! Oh how she hates the midwest.

The girl had a vacant yet kind look in her eye and looked unbothered and intrigued, so Punky answered. "No, it's angry, it's um--Black Flag, Rise Above by Black Flag."

Horror!Bimbo took out her own cigarette, wrapping her black cherry lips around her own and lit up with her lavender colored lighter. To Punky she looked like a stripper rendition of a corpse bride and she LOVED it, who was she? Truly? "Can I listen? You can listen to my tape, it's uh- *giggles* Nina Hagen--"

"I love Nina Hagen!" Punky exclaimed interrupting the gore whore.

Horror!Bimbo sat on Punky's lap with ease and took her head phones while giving hers to Punky. "They steal my panties and tell everyone I give blow jobs for 50 cents-- one time the principal tried to look up my skirt, I asked him why he was looking up there and I got suspended and a rumor of me fucking him went around, now his wife gives me dirty looks at my dad's grocery store." Her wispy, ghost-like voice explained which horrified Punky, how could anyone treat someone like that? Especially someone so sweet. "They call me a slut and a dyke, I don't care about that though those aren't insults to me, but it's the hitting you know? They like to fuck with me and- I'm so tired, I'm not sad I'm tired, fucking tired and something's gotta change."

Horror!Bimbo blew a smoke ring. "So hit back, bash them in the head for once, you're gonna get in trouble anyway. Bash their brains in watch the blood run." She giggled like a maniac.

Punky laughed. "You're crazy."

"I know!" She moaned "Please try and tell the mental hospitals I've been applying at that!'

They've been best friends ever since.

Punky decided to follow in Moth's footsteps and played up the bimbo look. Cut her hair in a blunt, China bob, dressing revealing like California's Angelyne and spin some Debbie Harry into her look which was absolutely lethal with her va va voom body, her overdeveloped hips and tits, makeup always vampy, clothing rockabilly.

She really started fighting back when her mom's boyfriend tried to molest her in her sleep one night, she put a cigarette out in his eye. Her mom kicked her out, this was junior year, and Horror!Bimbo took her in for a month until her mom begged her back and told her she was right that Rodney was no good.

She blamed Punky though for looking so easy, Punky bit back her feminist rant and let bygones be bygones with her mother but when school came, when Carol tried to grab her by the hair because her boyfriend wanted her to blow him, she took Carol by the hair and slammed her head against the locker and pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach with her thrift store, leopard print stilettos, she beat the ever living shit out of Carol as she let out bloodcurdling screams in the hall, she never forgot when Carol tried to set her up to get gangraped at a party and never forgot when Steve Harrington saved her that night.

Carol had to be taken to the hospital, she had two broken ribs, one missing tooth, a broken nose, broken arm, and a concussion from Punky's rage alone.

Nobody messed with her again.

She started an apprenticeship at the only beauty parlor in town and sings lead for a punk band started by community college students from the next town over, they call the band Hellcat, which was a nickname Punky earned.

The Beauty Parlor is a couple doors down from Family Videos

A certain big haired employee was enamored with the vixen in the tight pin up clothing and the vampy bob who swayed her hips down the street to her job. He'd bring her food sometimes from Benny's, give her his employee discount when she came in for videos, sometimes just pay for it himself.

"Let me know when you wanna book an appointment with me Stevie" She'd tell him with a smirk on her cadillac red lips, a wink, and a saucy little hip sway. She was like Elizabeth Taylor, Vikki Dugan, and Elvira wrapped in one, she was a centerfold come to life, he'd do anything for her, let her do anything to him.

If only she knew after that terrible night at the party, he would follow her home every night after that to make sure she got home safe.

Her silent protector.

[dollykiller]

Wedding dress

[felinetteagain]

The Guardians of the Miraculous can be wrong too, or

there are several reasons why Kwami Longg should belong to another owner.

Earlier I wrote that Adrian is only a temporary owner of the miraculous black cat, but now I want to share my guesses about the true bearer of the miraculous Dragon and what qualities a person should have to be given such an honor.

Let's start with who Long is? Long (dragon) is a fictional animal, but it has the greatest influence and impact on the people of China 🇨🇳. In Ancient Centuries, Long was a totem worshiped by the people of China . In their eyes, Long was a God, holy and sacred, able to command rain and wind, ride on fogs and clouds.

So in our show, Kwami Longg gives the owner of Dragon Miraculous the power to use the elements of water, wind and lightning.

In the special episode Miraculous Shanghai, we were introduced to a girl named Fei 🇨🇳. She was found as a baby by Wu Shifu on the doorstep of his martial arts school and raised by him as his adopted daughter. Wu Shifu trained her in martial arts 🥋 and raised her to uphold the values ​​of Miraculous and one day become the guardian of the Sacred Cave.

She later becomes the superheroine Ladydragon. She can transform into a dragon as long as she possesses the value of justice. In her dragon form, she can fly and can control the elements of storm (wind, water, and lightning). Dragon is the most powerful form that Prodigious grants her.

Fei has a deep need to help people in any way she can, even strangers.

Fei is well trained in kung fu and is very strong.

As for the superheroine Paris-Ruyuko, Kagami Tsurugi, this girl is from Japan 🇯🇵.

She practices fencing. She is quite emotional and prone to rage, does not tolerate defeat, is too trusting and naive, easily falls under the influence of others. Without thinking, she often rushes into fights with supervillains, as a result of which she ends up defeated.

Kagami receives a miraculous dragon from Ladybug in the episode "Ikari Gozen" to free himself and defeat Ikari Gozen and is later sometimes summoned to fight villains together.

She is cold and arrogant towards other people.

Because of her naivety and frivolity, she confides in strangers other people's secrets, without thinking about the consequences.

And the third character I wanted to mention is a girl named Socqueline. Like Marinette, she is half Chinese 🇨🇳 and half French. She practices martial arts 🥋, is confident, smart, and is not afraid to stand up to bullies.

Socqueline was the only person in school who protected Marinette from Chloe. She is a big fan of Ladybug and admires her work. Because of her admiration and her desire to help, she has dressed up as Ladybug many times and done many good deeds.

Episode (504)

Socqueline: I'm sorry I impersonated you. I just wanted to help.

Ladybug: I know. I'd just rather you'd help me in some other way without putting yourself in danger. You're already amazing even without needing a suit. Thanks for your help.

So, did Ladybug make a mistake by giving the miraculous dragon to Kagami again (ep. 526)? After all, in order to be a worthy owner of the miraculous, you must first of all have a pure heart, a desire to selflessly help people, have patience and endurance and, most importantly, devotion. Since Kagami is not suitable for this role because she does not correspond to the above-mentioned human qualities, Socqueline is the one who will become a worthy bearer of the miraculous Dragon, because she is so similar to the Fei.

[valtsv]

What’s on your “to read” list right now? I always love to hear about what you’re getting into, I think it’s very nice the way you pursue knowledge

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (currently rereading), All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes, The Outside by Ada Hoffman, Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Movies by Nina Nesseth, Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag, Crime and Punishment, Moby Dick, The Pornography of Death by Geoffrey Gorer, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead ^_^

[anarchywoofwoof]

can't believe i haven't seen a post about this yet.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus. The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation. Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.

...

Some Filipino healthcare professionals and former officials contacted by Reuters were shocked by the U.S. anti-vax effort, which they say exploited an already vulnerable citizenry. Public concerns about a Dengue fever vaccine, rolled out in the Philippines in 2016, had led to broad skepticism toward inoculations overall, said Lulu Bravo, executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination. The Pentagon campaign preyed on those fears. “Why did you do it when people were dying? We were desperate,” said Dr. Nina Castillo-Carandang, a former adviser to the World Health Organization and Philippines government during the pandemic. “We don’t have our own vaccine capacity,” she noted, and the U.S. propaganda effort “contributed even more salt into the wound.”

the united states of america is a terrorist state.

[rey-jake-therapist]

Nina from Black Swan vs Will from Hannibal

Another parallel no one asked for: Black Swan and Hannibal, or more precisely, Nina and Will.

I rewatched Black Swan yesterday. And wow, it's not because I'm currently in my Fannibal era but the parallels between Nina's story and Will's just jumped straight at my face. They're so (tragically similar).

They both suffer from an illness but don't know it. For Nina, it's likely to be a mental illness that remained undiagnosed and gives her hallucinations when she's under great stress. Also she's prone to self harming, as we see several times during the movie. For Will, it's encephalitis, which under Hannibal's 'treatment' gives him similar symptoms.

They both hate themselves and express it by engaging in a process of self destruction. They're both very good at their job. To do it right, they're forced to dig deep inside themselves and confront themselves to things which existence they denied all their life. Their job slowly but surely destroys them, they know it but they refuse to stop because they believe it's the only thing that gives them a value. What drives Nina is to be 'perfect', an unreachable goal in essence; what drives Will is to save lives thanks to a gift he has, but he can't save everybody. Worse, he can't seem to be able to save himself, his 'gift' turning out to be more of a curse for him.

They both have an authoritarian figure in their life who smothers them and project their past failures on them (the creepy mother who forces her into staying a child while guilting her for being born for Nina, Jack Crawford who watches him destroy himself, and uses him in a goose chase against the Ripper for Will). Both Nina's mother and Jack Crawford treat Nina/Will as, in Hannibal's words, "their finest china, used only for special guests". There's something deeply disturbing in the way Nina's mother keeps disrespecting Nina's boundaries while she's a woman in their 20s, that's not existent with Jack Crawford (though it could be argued that when he insists that Will keeps using his empathy disorder to solve crimes even after Will clearly tells him it harms him, he also disrespects Will's intimacy in a way), but it's about the influence they have on Nina/Will. They also have in commun the fact that they know something's wrong with the person they're supposed to protect, but choose to do nothing about it because it doesn't serve their personal agenda. Nina's mother for example, knows it's not the first time that Nina engages in self harm and yet, the only thing she does is yelling at her and shaming her. Jack Crawford watches Will's mental and physical health get worse and worse, but chooses to ignore the warning signs and to pretend he believes Will when he claims he's 'fine'. When Will expresses his discomfort he's deaf to his distress and proposes him with disdain to quit, knowing that's not what Will wants.

They both have a smoking hot DILF man in their life who pushes them to accept the darkness in them. Both male figures are abusive in a different way (Thomas has no respect for Nina's boundaries, forces her to kiss him and touches her in a very inappropriate way, then humiliates her based on the idea that she's not "fuckable" enough to be the Black Swan; Hannibal manipulates Will through brutal therapy methods), but their goals are similar. Thomas feels that Nina represses a lot of things and wants her to listen to her pulsions so she can be both the White and the Black swan Queen. Hannibal feels that Will secretly enjoys killing and wants him to admit it so he can embrace his true self. Both men are... Bad men lol and they end up doing more harm than good. One could argue that without them neither Nina or Will wouldn't have learnt so much about themselves, but the price to pay came very high: Nina stabs herself during an hallucination and Will jumps off a bridge with Hannibal, to free themselves.

Both Nina and Will suffer from a similar type of hallucinations: they are face to face with a darker version of them, who sometimes takes someone else's face: the dancer Lily for Nina, Gareth Jacob Hobbs for Will. In both cases they're characters for whom they have ambivalent feelings: Nina is extremely attracted to Lily but in her paranoia believes she conspires to steal the role from her, while Will sees Gareth Jacob Hobbs as an horrible murderer but can't help but feel he's becoming one with him. They both hallucinate that a monster lives inside of them and tries to dominate them at some point.

Both Nina and Will discover they're attracted to a person of the same sex while also considering this person as an enemy. Actually in Nina's case I think it's more a case of internalized homophobia, nourished by her abusive mother who always kept her away from the external world and from exploring her sexuality, and probably fed her with fairy tales about a fair noble prince who will take her on his white horse one day. Surely her mother never discussed sexuality matters with her, considering that even though Nina's in her 20s she keeps treating her like a literal child. Where Will considers himself straight, Nina probably never even allowed herself to question her sexuality. When Thomas very rudely asks her if she's a virgin she blatantly lies because she realizes that telling the truth will make her look weird; and I got the feeling in this scene that she was disappointed not to have sex with him that night, not because she had a crush on him, but because she wanted to seem "normal" to him, and for the world in general. But it's very clear she's not attracted to him, or to any other men. The only person she wants is Lily, a woman. And since the idea of being sexually attracted to Lily terrifies her, and also because Lily isn't interested in her that way, it makes very much sense that in her craziness Lily becomes her enemy.

For Will, it's a bit different: the problem with Hannibal isn't so much that he's a man (as I say I think Will considers himself straight by default but I don't think it would stop him from admitting his feelings for Hannibal were the circumstances different), but that he's a serial killer and a cannibal. Will's goal is to save people from killers like Hannibal. That's what drives him and I don't think that it will ever change. So Hannibal is Will's natural enemy, in a way. That's the tragedy of this romance: they can't be without the other but they also can't be together BECAUSE what drives them is completely, utterly different, opposite even. At least that's the significance of the double suicide in The Wrath of the Lambs. They survived and Will has apparently decided to renounce his main goal to co murder and eat Bedelia du Maurier in a season we'll probably never see, but I can't see how doing that could turn good for him. Will will never be like Hannibal imho, no matter how hard he tries :(

And yet I can find another similarity: Lily is everything that Nina wishes she is: free, attractive, with no self put boundaries. I think Will also envies Hannibal to be the way he is, and that a part of him wishes he could become like him. He wants Hannibal to change him, but it goes against his main goal (saving people), hence his internal struggles.

Both Nina and Will choose suicide as their way out, completing their tragic arc. For Nina of course it's a poetic mirror of the Swan Queen's fate; the queen, reduced to stay a swan forever because her lover was seduced by the Black Swan, throws herself off a cliff (!) and finds freedom from her curse in death. Nina, however , kills herself believing she's killing her enemy, the message being of course that the only enemy she's got is herself (doesn't Hannibal tell Will something like that at some point? That he's his worst enemy?). Will kills both his internal enemy, the part of him he can't accept (the Will who enjoys killing and wants to kill again to feel powerful), and Hannibal, the man who's by definition his enemy, but also the man he can't live without because he's the only one who accepts the darkness he has in him.

Finally, both Nina and Will believe they reach their goal when they 'die': Nina's talent for dancing reached perfection in her final performance; Will jumps taking Hannibal with him thinking he's saving the world from Hannibal. Both endings are tragic, because they lie on the same sad conclusion: they couldn't accept themselves enough to live with themselves, so they embarked on a journey of self destruction that lead them to their death, wether it's a physical or metaphysical death we're talking about. Nina may be still alive at the end of Black Swan, and we know Will still is. But what part of them survived the fall?