#The Seven Years War

[tallmadgeandtea]

Went to Fort Ligonier yesterday, which is the reconstruction of a fort built during the Seven Years War and part of General Forbes’ expedition to take Fort Duquesne. The reenactment was for an attempted French siege in October 1758.

[afyermain]

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time tozz get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster— tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues,— north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?— Water— there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick— grow quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honour, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way— either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid,— what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way— he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:—act them thither?

[theforceawakens]

"Osha, you should be trained. Would you ever consider?"

[alien-enjoyer]

they are going to beat you (skizz skizzleman) to death

[sneakingpasta]

11 NEW DANMEI LICENSES AND A FINALE!!!! WE FEAST IN 2025

[kelvinthegoatt]

Forgot to post this but have Frederick doodle

[originalartblog]

Do you know who's also 15 has a final form values friendship above most things wants to keep everyone safe and has fought and won against multiple gods or god-like entities???

anyway I firmly believe a little bit of Sonic could have saved Chuuya.

[freakoont]

❝𝓦𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼❞

𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: 𝟕 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐬

𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫: 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: 𝐅𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟 // 【ＳＦＷ】 // 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫, 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 / 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜, 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝟑𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐖𝐚𝐫

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In a forest full of fairies and wonder, it'd come to no surprise that a sense of happiness filled the air wherever the Fairy King had gone. Gloxinia was flying through the trees, allowing his majestic wings to flutter behind him, looking for many little fairies as they hid from him.

His favorite game to play, hide and seek; Especially as he'd come across so many that were terrible at keeping quiet! They'd either just giggle to themselves or speak to one another; telling each other 'Keep quiet! He might hear us!'

"Caught you!" He'd speak as he would sneak up on them, giving them a sudden fright before putting their heads down at the idea of being found already.

"Aww man." "Boo!" "Hey lets go find the others!" They'd all speak in union before floating off.

The fairy king would cross his arms over his bare chest with a chuckle towards the fairies, watching as they'd fly off to play their own games. "Fairy king!!" Gloxinia was quick to turn to a few little pixies surrounding him with frightened and confused looks. "We felt something creeping around in the forest at the waterfall! It was a weird presence!!"

"Really?" He seemed to almost laugh it off and pat them all on the head, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." He assured before flying off through the forest. It couldn't be that bad, likely a demon. He can handle that.

Well, at the time he wasn't expecting to have met a fairy like them.

After some time, Gloxinia felt a suspicion creeping up his back. There wasn't a sign of anything strange lurking through the trees the longer he searched.

That's when he heard the smallest sounds of something moving towards the ground, walking slowly and bushes rustled. As soon as rushed to the area, it was just a fairy.

"What are you doing here?" Gloxinia asked confused but didn't get an answer from the certain fairy as they turned to him, their expression nothing he's seen before on a fairy. It was a poker face... They almost looked like they were shocked or confused by his sudden appearance. He didn't waste any time, "You haven't seen any demons or anything strange around here, right?"

"no," they spoke, their voice timid and almost on edge.

it felt like was a waste, Gloxinia didn't see anything odd going on, but there was something on his mind. This fairy, he's never seen before, didn't seem like they were much of a social person. He couldn't explain why, but they brought a sudden curiosity to him. "What's your name?" He asked, slowly levitating closer to the ground where they stood and sitting in the air with his wings fluttering behind him.

"(Y/N)." they spoke in a quiet voice.

"Well, I'm sure you already know who I am, Gloxinia, king of the fairies." He spoke, coming off with a light heartedness.

The fairy nodded their head, fiddling around with the edge of their clothes awkwardly before looking away, ".. well, I'm gonna go." They immediately turned to leave.

"How come?"

"I shouldn't be here."

Gloxinia seemed surprised by that answer, whatever did they mean? When he read their heart.. he read a sense of self guilt for being there.. All the fairies are welcomed in the forest. Before he could ask, he watched from behind, their wings made a quick and sudden flutter which made the buzzing sound similar to a bee. (Y/N)'s wings had a unique small shape, nothing he's seen before.. it was a little odd, their wings were much smaller than the average size. Often fairies, for their small size, had wings that were as large as them, this fairies wings didn't even stretch out to cover their back.

"That's a unique set of wings." He commented, pointing it out to them. They seemed to stop in their tracks, their back turned. They didn't answer at first; they didn't want to answer.

"..thanks."

"If it's fine to ask, what are you doing out here by yourself?" He levitated beside them, his arms crossed over his bare chest as he took a closer look at their face.

"..I'm walking through the forest..?" They seemed confused by his question.

"Why not just fly?"

(Y/N) seemed hurt by the question almost, looking down awkwardly as their wings made another buzzing sound of a bee for a slight moment. ".. I can't fly."

Gloxinia definitely wasn't expecting that for an answer, "what?"

"My wings are too weak to carry me no more than like three feet above the ground."

He thought about their words, pondering on it. "Is that why you're out here? By yourself?"

They were quiet, staring at the ground. "I'm an outcast compared to all those fairies. I mean, what's a fairy if they can't fly? They're just.." (Y/N) stopped their words, their hand, almost unconsciously, reached back as their fingers were touching the area where the wings sprout of their back.

Gloxinia thought about it for a moment, there didn't seem to be any sign of actual guilt or anger to signifying they were lying.. but when he read their hearts, there was sign of self hatred, insecurity and envy.. Actually, he felt a feeling of jealousy begin to grow as they stared at his own wings..

"how long have you been like this?"

"a few hundred years.. why?"

He didn't give a answer to your words, thinking for a moment. Although he couldn't help them with how they thought about the idea, but.. "why don't you join the other fairies and me? We're playing a few games."

He watched as their expression almost seemed surprised by the sudden invitation, "didn't you hear me..? I'm an outcast. I can't fly-"

"So?" He cut off their words, he had a almost disappointed look to how they were thinking but his expression still soft, tilting his head withal a little smile. "That doesn't stop you from joining in some fun." Their eyes lit up slowly, which made him smile. He watched as their eyes lit up slowly for a moment, which made him smile. It was like they suddenly got a spark of happiness, something they'd never expect.

(Y/N) didn't say anything, looking down at the ground almost pondering on what to do.

Gloxinia smiled faintly at the expression they made, that spark of happiness almost made him chuckle out loud. They seemed to be confused, and he couldn't blame them. He let them think in silence for a few seconds before speaking.

"do you think, I'll ever get the chance to feel like a real fairy?"

He laughed off their question for a moment, waving his hand in defense to show he didn't mean any offense as they looked surprised and almost offended by the way he responded.

"Well.. wings or not, you're still a fairy by blood which is enough in my book. Now, are you gonna take my hand to join me in a game of tag or I'm gonna have to drag you myself, little flower?" He spoke as he held his hand out in invitation to them again with a grin.

"so you gonna come with me or not?"

[magnusbae]

“ I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets. Scorched to the root. ” –Sylvia Plath

[illustratus]

British soldiers make the arduous ascent of the Heights of Abraham to take Quebec, 1759 by Peter Jackson

[bantarleton]

The Battle of Bushy Run by Robert Griffing.

On August 5 1763, near the Bushy Run Way Station, Henry Bouquet and his 400 men, many of them Scottish highlanders, were ambushed in the wilderness by various Native American tribes including the Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, and Mohicans. The first day of the battle ended in a decisive victory for the Native American tribes, but on August 6, Bouquet devised a strategic plan that led to a British victory. Following the Battle of Bushy Run, Bouquet went on to provide successful assistance to the besieged Fort Pitt. From the Bushy Run Battlefield Museum.

[backpackingspace]

I am once again thinking about how odysseus who witnessed the horrors that the captured women went through (one of his main duties in the iliad was taking the women back home and making sure they were as comfortable as possible and safe because he was the only one trusted not to violate them further due to his devotion to penelope. And in the odyssey part of the reason circe sent him to the underworld was so that he'd have to listen to all these women's stories (before he could talk to the prophet) ). Who was one of the few that saw women as people and respected their space and opinions. And was then put in those exact same situations. I don't have the motivation right now to do a full literary analysis of this (I'll site the sources too) but oh man one day I'm going to write a full essay on this.

[trlvsn]

what really kills me about ace attorney is the time. the length. the lasting effects of it all. seven years of disbarment. fifteen years of believing you killed your father. how long was simon imprisoned? how long did lana skye have to live in fear and obedience? how long was diego armando in a coma? we remember the numbers, but are we as aware as they are of how much that time has blended into their identities, how it's now at their cores, the most horrible parts of their lives being so big and important, not just something that can be let go of and erased. they all fucking came back wrong and they will never be the same but the game goes on and they live to the best extent of what they can be now. ace attorney reminds me to say "it is what it is" more and i think that's beautiful

[robinante]

One day I’m going to honor my promises and make a master post of book recommendations based on Dimension 20 seasons.