#all about aviation

[69yard]

FACTS : Why Cabin lights in Flight are off during Take-off or Landing?

FACTS : Why Cabin lights in Flight are off during Take-off or Landing?

The main reason for dimming or turning off the cabin lights during takeoff and landing is to ensure passenger safety in the event of an emergency. Here are a few reasons behind this practice: Vision Adjustment: During takeoff and landing, the cabin crew may need to evacuate passengers quickly in case of an emergency. By dimming the cabin lights or turning them off, passengers’ eyes can adjust to…

[giddlygoat]

i’m my mind, mario’s casual fits are all checkered low-top vans, jorts and “eat sleep game repeat” or racing tour shirts and luigi looks like he puts granola in his yogurt. like visor caps and fanny packs. i’m talking socks with the sandals, people

[despazito]

i need to find a way to channel my interest in planes into cars so i can learn to drive

[touteytout]

this image just appeared in my head and i had to draw it

[bressynonym]

🍹

[typosandtea]

Vertibirds. 🚁⚙️🗡️🪽

So every wastelander and his dog know that the fallout 4 vertibirds crash more than settlements need help. But why is that? Here's my 2 caps on the matter. (Or: Bethesda doesn't understand aviation very well I think)

( So uh this is way longer than I expected, I was possessed🚁☢️:] )

TLDR: Horrific conditions for aviation, the difficulties of wasteland heavy maintenance, inexperienced pilots AND mechanics, and the WORST damn instrument layout I’ve ever seen

The Vertibird is designed as a fictional tilt rotor VTOL/STOL(Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing) aircraft which makes a ton of sense in the wasteland where suitable runways are rarer than hens teeth. One of Bethesda's primary visual design influences for the vertibird I suspect is the bell boeing v-22 Osprey.

This funky creature \/

This photo is from the Wikipedia page >Here< [ID: a photo of a v22 osprey aircraft in flight as seen from below and to the right, the aircraft is a medium tilt rotor aircraft with very large propellers, the aircraft is current in vertical take off or landing with the engines pointed straight up. The landing gear is extended, the aircraft is painted in air-force grey with the faint decal “marines” and the American army star on horizontal stripes and the squadron and registration barley visible on the empennage. The cargo and forward doors are open and a soldier is hanging out the front. End ID]

Now the Osprey has a bit of a reputation among people I’ve met who’ve flown in them, I've personally been told things like "if it's not leaking hydraulic fluid, that means you're out of fluid" and "its terrifying to fly in".

My screenshot. [ID: A screenshot of a fallout 4 vertibird, seen from front left in flight over bushland. the Player is manning the minigun and Paladin Danse is a Passenger. End ID]

Looking at the Vertibirds themselves we can make a few assumptions here.

The shape of the cowling and the noise they make indicates that the engines are some form of turboprop engine, likely requiring liquid fuel akin to Avtur(Aviation turbine fuel). Confirmed by the Instruments visible in the cockpit.

The most weight efficient way to move big parts is hydraulics so, they likely have complex hydraulic systems for wing positioning / AOA(Angle Of Attack) / engine angle. Likely also for landing gear since they have retractable gear in fallout 4.

That the BoS has modified them from the original design at least partially, allowing attachment to the Prydwen, likely other modifications too.

I strongly suspect that they have an APU(Auxiliary Power Unit) in the aft fuselage / empennage somewhere, since they have a massive air intake scoop on the top fuselage, they can self start their primary engines which either requires a ridiculous amount of electricity / amps or a source of bleed air. Bleed air is the most likely candidate for self start and is reasonably common on real turbine aircraft, APUs also allows for ground power without having primary engines running. Also confirmed by the instruments in the cockpit.

All of these points are well and good and common in aviation, even modifications (ie. STOL kits, survey aircraft, agricultural mods, skiis, ect). But modern aviation has some advantages that the BoS doesn't have: access to new off the shelf parts, proper verified documentation, proper test processes & facilities, and experienced personnel.

Don't get me wrong, I think Proctor Ingram is awesome, very knowledgeable and practically a miracle worker (especially with that one terminal entry about an engine failure field recovery she pulls off!!), but one chief engineer cannot maintain an entire fleet AND the Prydwen, she comments on how things are breaking often on the ship that she is very busy! Training of new engineers takes *years* to even get to basic level! Ingram can’t train anyone she is too busy keeping everyone in the air 24/7! So who is training all of these scribes? There must be a huge amount of time teaching and supervising even simple tasks! Even at their best the BoS wouldn’t be able to hope to be near the prewar standards of training! Even Ingram or other senior scribes would not be thaaaaat experienced, 10 years is not a long time to completely learn a new aircraft and implement systems & processes of maintenance. The point here is that there are inexperienced scribes maintaining these aircraft.

WOLRDS BEST CHEIF ENGINEER ❤️ \/

My Screenshot. [ID: A screenshot of proctor Ingram from fallout 4, she is standing in the Liberty prime control area. She is smiling. She is wearing her usual modified power armour frame. Preston is visible in the background with a clipboard and pen, he is wearing woody’s outfit from toy story. End ID]

Heavy maintenance in the wasteland, especially in an active combat zone would be an absolute nightmare, are the poor scribes doing overhauls on the flight deck?? Not really possible, so the BoS must have a ground facility at the airport somewhere. Also side note where is the rest of Boston airport? There is more to an airport than a terminal and 1 runway, where are all the hangars?? Likely underwater but still, no ruins??

Back to maintenance, aircraft need a huge amount of care, way way way more than cars do. light civilian aircraft IRL need a full inspection every 100 hours of flight time, which adds up incredibly quickly! For example if you have a one hour commute twice a day that’s MR(Maintenance Release) hours reached in 50 days! You legally cannot fly out of hours. And a service for small aircraft takes about 3 personnel / 2 days and that’s without any major repairs or ADs (Airworthiness Directives) to address! $$$$! Aircraft operating in adverse conditions also need additional maintenance, and coastal areas like Boston, are considered adverse conditions since the salt air corrodes aluminum and steel like nothing else! Corrosion untreated will damage your aircraft and if left too long can destroy the structural integrity of aluminum parts. The spars of aircraft are aluminum often!

My photo. [ID: The inside of a Cessna 172 wing trailing edge is shown looking inboard at the aft root rib, which is primer green, it is backlit by torchlight, the fuselage and a orange scat hose are visible behind it, it has 3 irregular shaped holes in it, 2 are by design but the third medium sized hole in the center of the image is eaten away by corrosion. End ID]

Vertibirds, between being shot at constantly and having a complex deign with a lot of precision moving parts will need a lot of repairs; moving parts means lots of upkeep, grease and inspections! The BoS by 2287 must have some sort of manufacturing back in capital, they cannot still be using old parts from the enclave after 10 years of maintenance, that’s a lot of grease, paint and hydraulic fluid!!!

The BoS must also have a refinery of some kind because Avtur is a refined fuel with some important additives like biocide. Manufacture and storage of fuel is very important since fuel contamination will bring down an aircraft! (and has multiple times IRL! :[ ). Water, microbes, and algae are real dangers to engines, with free water being the most common. Poorly sealed tanks or improper fuel storage combined with a incomplete or missed pre-flight inspection can lead to fuel starvation, since water is heavier than fuel and tank outlets are at the bottom of the tank. If you loose an engine on a twin, may God help you.

This image is from Concordia Bioscience >Here< [ID: A photo of a sample of pale yellow Jet fuel in a clear container, the sample is contaminated with water and microbes and has separated into layers with water at the bottom, then microorganisms, and then Fuel at the top, the image is labeled as such. End ID]

Getting to the most likely crash reasons now (finally), In my opinion that is inexperienced pilots and; a horrific instrument layout.

While there must be some lancers in the BoS that have been flying for the whole 10 years that they’ve had Vertibirds, I think that is likely the exception not the rule, even if they crashed a fraction of the time that do in game that’s still A LOT of downed aircraft!

Experience is only gained in practice, and unfortunately for the BoS they are (self-declared) at war so resources are thin and safe zones are thinner. I suspect that there are a lot of very inexperienced pilots without the time for the experienced pilots to really teach.

Linking to my final point, experience on an airframe itself is also important, you want to be familiar with your aircraft, even among a group of the same model aircraft they will each have quirks, like slightly different instrument layouts, slightly different handling/feel i.e. "this one flies heavier / slower" (at least that's my experience with smaller civilian aircraft) I imagine that the apocalypse did nothing for improving manufacturing tolerances!

FINAL AND MOST DAMNING POINT:

Experience can only help lancers so much when veritibirds have such a strange instrument panel layout:

My screenshot. [ID: a screenshot of a instrument panel from a Fallout 4 vertibird. it is slanted on a approximately 30 degree angle. End ID]

A bit weird looking yeah? For reference Pilot is left seat and copilot is always right seat, this applies globally even in right hand drive countries.

lets take a closer look:

My Screenshots. [IDs: Three screenshots of the same Instrument panel as above, but zoomed in using a sniper rifle scope to get a better look. The first screen shot is the pilots side, the second the center, and the third the copilots side. End ID]

All righty! So reading from top to bottom, then left to right we have:

On the pilots side: A Rotor%RPM gauge, a VOR(Very high frequency Omni-directional Range) indicator, a DG(Directional Gyro), a HSI(Horizontal Situation Indicator), and then a huge AI(Attitude Indicator),

In the center section we have: presumably light clusters (likely master warnings & cautions, gear indicators, and other status lights), a second VOR gauge, likely magnetic compass as they are usually top centre (though I can’t see it being at all accurate with all of the steel around!), the engine instruments cluster, and the APU status / control panel at the bottom. unsure of what the 3 clusters of horizontal buttons are suppose to be other than input of some kind?

In the Engine cluster: Torque%, XMSN(transmission) oil temp / pressure dual gauge, a gas producer % RPM gauge with small integrated single percent dial (like having a seconds dial on your watch for accuracy) meaning the engines have free turbines (compressor not attached to the power turbine), a dual load / fuel psi gauge, a dual engine oil pressure and temperature gauge, fuel quantity in pounds, a turbine output temperature gauge (the hottest part of your engine), and a clock.

On the copilots side: a second Rotor%RPM dual gauge, a third VOR indicator, Airspeed in Knots and MPH, a RMI(Radio Magnetic Indicator) which uses VOR and ADF(Automatic Direction Finder) on compass, a second DG, a second HSI, and a teeny tiny altimeter right in the outboard corner.

the 4 instruments on the lower copilots panel are completely unlabeled

some things of note that are from game limitations:

most of the engine instruments don't have needles at all

the DGs and the RMI use the same background asset, resulting in the DG wrongly having 'VOR' and 'ASI' on its face, DGs are self contained air driven instruments that work on gyroscopic precession, not any outside data input.

all of the instruments with a compass face all say north despite this vertibird not quite facing north.

the AI is showing wings level despite this vertibird being crashed and on a ~30 degree angle

there are not engine controls at all not even flat assets, only flight controls.

There are a lot of instruments here and most of them are reasonably OK read individually, BUT there at least 1 key instrument missing and the layout outs emphasis on completely the wrong things:

WHERE IS THE VERTICAL SPEED INDICATOR(VSI)????? That's a pretty important gauge in a VERTICAL take off / landing aircraft!!!!!!!!!! It's one of the basic six pack!!! how was it omitted??? Speaking of the six pack why is there only one ASI and Altimeter?? and why are they tiny and ON THE COPILOTS SIDE ONLY???? the altimeter is LITERALLY the furthest instrument from the pilot in a vertibird, it should be right in front of the pilot!!! the easy to miss altimeter would make IFR(Instrument Flight Rules) flying incredibly dangerous! Also why are there four VOR based navigational instruments? VOR IS GROUND BASED NAVIGATION!!! unless the BoS has rebooted the multiple ground beacons for them to navigate from that's THREE dead instruments taking up space on the panel! the RMI is slightly more useful as ADF can tune to commercial radio frequencies, though these would need to be strong!

These poor inexperienced lancers are having to look all over the whole unnecessarily crowded cockpit for basic information that should be right in front of them, causing reaction delays and possible confusion. That delay could be the difference between whether or not they are flying home today.

-> Bethesda doesn't understand what half the instruments do and while they did a good job with most of the assets, in their quest to make it retro-future / visibly different from actual aircraft, they have completely destroyed any use of logic in the layout.

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Thanks for reading! Here’s a video of me yeeting Danse with the ‘Get out of my face mod’ as compensation haha

My Video. [ID: a video capture from fallout 4 in first person. It is night and is at oberland station facing the water treatment plant. The player is wearing power armour and the HUD is visible. The player is very close to Paladin Danse, he turns away from them and they shove him with the voice line “stay out of my way”. Danse flys a long way away while rag-dolling. The Gamer’s laughter can be heard while Danse is flying. The player follows Danse’s fall with the crosshairs. The player then walks backwards. End ID]

[lalalaugenbrot]

Attempt at a Comprehensive List of

Alexander von Humboldtʼs Potential Boyfriends

When if not now that Alex came 2nd in the @napoleonic-sexyman-tournament (what a time to be alive) would be the perfect time to finally thoroughly pick his private life apart. Strangely it has always been a mystery even to me (and of course overall it will remain a mystery until the end of times), but I still thought it was about time to at least get some order in the few things that we do know – mainly for myself but also, I dare say, for the public. You (the public!) will find a short text for every friend under the cut ￬.

disclaimers:

a) I tried to pick the most appropriate picture of everyone but please imagine especially the first ones a lot younger than they are in the pictures

b) it’s a potential boyfriends list, meaning: I’m not saying Alex definitely had romantic and/or sexual relationships with any let alone all of these men, it’s just a list of men where it seems at least possible; but ultimately, of course, we do not know and will never know

c) Alex lived for almost 90 years, and even though his textual remains can seem infinite, there is a lot we don’t know about him, especially his private life, not least because he habitually destroyed almost all of his private letters (which is also why for all of his correspondences we only know the letters he wrote but almost never the ones he received) − so I don’t think there’s any way this list is exhaustive (let me know if you think anyone is missing?)

d) Bonpland is not in this because Alex went out of his way to specifically state that his relationship with Bonpland was purely scientific

e) the point of this post isn’t to determine his sexuality, but since it has already come up, just a couple of words on him being on the asexual spectrum: that is perfectly possible and maybe not even unlikely, he said things about himself that could be interpreted as such (not wanting to marry, not having sensual needs); but I think it’s good to keep two things in mind about that: 1. not wanting to get married was a big thing in 1800, something you had to explain yourself for and not wanting to get married as a man also obviously meant not wanting a wife, it was by no means a question on whether or not wanting a significant other and/or sex; 2. the narrative of his sex-less life at least partly derives from the (mainly 19th/20th century) wish for him not to have been (actively) homosexual

f) I hate to be that person, but it has to be said: language and culture back then were much more emotional and expressive than we are used to today, so not everything that sounds super intimate or even romantic to us (language-wise) has to actually have been meant that way; of course this doesn’t rule out anything either but it’s a thing to keep in mind

g) if anyone is interested in sources or further reading on anything particular, do not hesitate to hit me up! But i’m not adding any of that to this post because 1. it’s already 2 km long and 2. this is tumblr dot com

Wilhelm Gabriel Wegener (1767-1837)

18-year-old Alex met Wilhelm in 1787 during the one semester he studied at the University of Frankfurt (Oder). Wilhelm was a (protestant) theology student and on 13 February 1788 they made a “holy” oath to “eternal brotherly love”. They wrote each other very cheesy letters, very much in the Empfindsamkeit fashion of the time, proclaiming their eternal and ever-growing love for each other. There was no one on earth, Alex wrote to him once (and in Italian no less), whom he loved as ardently as him (“Non vi è uomo sopra la terra ch'io amì così ardammente che lei…”). He also told him that, ever since he had met him, it seemed to him that God had created people only in pairs, because no one else could ever compare to what he meant to him. In his letters Alex also repeatedly refers to the many hours spent together (“chatting”) in a certain armchair in Frankfurt and proclaims that he has never been happier than in that very chair.

They kept contact for a couple of years after their time in Frankfurt, but at some point their friendship faded out.

Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812)

Willdenow (a published botanist) and Alex met in 1788 in Berlin, when Alex had one day decided to just call at his house to ask him to teach him botany. Willdenow agreed and they became friends quickly, spent a lot of time together, and when Alex wandered through Berlin on his own to collect plants, he would afterwards bring them to Willdenow who would then identify them for him.

We do not know a lot about their friendship during that time (and maybe I only included him in this because I needed 9 tiles) but at least one phrase in Alex’s autobiography fragment calls our attention, not least because it’s highlighted by what I like to call a Streisand strike-through: “I became enthusiastically fond of him” or “I grew to love him enthusiastically” (“Ich gewann ihn enthusiatisch lieb”, written in 1801 and crossed out roughly 50 years later).

They stayed in contact even after Alex had left Berlin a couple of months later: in 1795 Alex became godfather of Willdenow’s son and in 1810 he convinced him to come to Paris to work on his botanical collections from the South America trip. Sadly, Willdenow fell ill in 1811 and died in 1812 in Berlin.

Karl Freiesleben (1774-1846)

Alex met Karl in 1791 in Freiberg, where both studied geology and mining at the renowned Bergakademie. Karl was the son of a local mining family and Alex learnt a lot from him about his new profession. They both were nerdy about stones and minerals in ways you couldn’t even begin to imagine. They gifted each other minerals, went down into the mines together, and in August 1791 they made a 200 km long geological expedition through the mountains of Bohemia on foot. But aside from pages-long enthusiastic rants about geology, Alex’s letters to Karl are also full of sentimental love declarations. He called him Herzens-Freisesleben, Herzens-Karl or Herzensjunge (roughly “my heart’s Freiesleben/Karl/boy”) and once finished a letter with: “going to bed now and I’ll be happy when I dream of you” — a passage Karl thoroughly struck through later, probably so no one else could read it, but someone deciphered almost all the struck through passages anyway (not all heroes wear capes!).

Karl and Alex stayed (sporadic and long-distance) friends for the rest of Karl’s life.

Reinhard von Haeften (1772-1803)

The above picture shows a snippet from one of Alex’s travel journals where he noted Reinhard’s birthday (“14 Mai R.”) because sadly we don’t have a picture of Reinhard. But let’s hear how Alex described him:

“This Reinhard v. Haeften has been my only and hourly company for a year now. I live with him, he visits me in the mountains. [...] I have already ridden 8 miles [60 km] just to see him for a couple of hours. He is very tall, taller than most men and he’s only 22 years old but looks more mature than me [at 25]. He has a very remarkable face and everyone finds him to be one of the most beautiful men, and I too think he’s beautiful, but most importantly I have never seen purity of the soul, kindness and courtesy being reflected in anyone’s features as much as in his.”

Alex and Reinhard met in 1793 in Bayreuth (where Alex now worked as a mining official) and they quickly moved in together. However, shortly before meeting Alex, Reinhard had also managed to make a baby with a married woman 4 years older than him. Alex was friendly with Christiane, the child’s mother and helped to keep the birth a secret. The boy (named Friedrich Gustav Alexander, Alex’s godson and surely named after him) had to spend the first years away from his parents. In the meantime, Reinhard continued to live with Alex, accompanied him on business trips and mineralogical expeditions and in 1795 they went on a two-month trip through Northern Italy and Switzerland. It was only with and through him, Alex wrote to Reinhard once, that he could live, only close to him that he could be fully happy.

Later, after Reinhard and Christiane had finally gotten married (and reunited with their son), Alex wrote him a very long letter, proposing for the three of them to (continue to?) live together with Reinhard as head of the family and to settle for quiet life in Switzerland, Italy, or some small town in the west of Germany. That plan never worked out, but “Rein” (as Alex called him), Christiane, their by now two children and Alex lived and travelled together for another two years while Alex was already preparing for his big journey.

After he had sailed for the Americas in 1799, he tried his best to stay in contact with them. In his letters, he called them his “Herzensmenschen” (again, roughly: “his heart’s humans”), wrote them that he was dreaming about them day and night and how much he wished that his – their – Rein could be with him to see all the marvels, too. But cross-atlantic communication was bad during that time and in both directions most letters never arrived.

Sadly, Reinhard unexpectedly died in 1803 while Alex was still in America, meaning they never got to meet again. Alex stayed in contact with Christiane and the children − the only survivors of the shipwreck, as he put it − and wrote Christiane how he still remembered their time together, along with all the hopes and dreams that they had had and that despite the “all-robbing fate”, there was something unalterable in the depth of their love, that could only die with them. When Christiane remarried and had another son in 1806, she named him Gustave Louis Reinhard Alexandre. Alex continued to financially support Christiane and the children and in 1813, Reinhard’s son Fritz (Alex’s godson) visited Alex in Paris for three months.

Carlos Montúfar (1780-1816)

Alex met Carlos in 1802 in Quito and despite him having no scientific qualifications whatsoever, Alex chose Carlos to accompany him on his further journey. This decision offended botanist, geographer and astronomer Francisco José de Caldas (who himself had hoped to join the expedition) so much that he, in a letter to botanist José Celestino Mutis, famously called Carlos “[señor Barón de Humboldt’s] Adonis”, probably insinuating that Alex had picked Carlos purely for his looks, or even more.

Together with the rest of the party, Alex and his supposed “Adonis” travelled what today is Ecuador (where they climbed the Chimborazo), Peru, Mexico, Cuba and the USA. At least once during that journey (but perhaps regularly?) they shared a bed (as in some kind of temporary/mobile  accomodation) which we know because Alex explicitly says so in his travel journal when he describes a night in which Carlos had very bad stomach cramps which Alex tried to ease by heating handkerchiefs over the fire for him in the middle of the night.

Carlos accompanied Alex back to Europe in 1804 and stayed with him in Paris for a couple of months (where they most likely both attended Napoleon’s coronation) until he ultimately left to go to Madrid. But since Carlos had trouble getting money from South America, he still had to rely on Alex’s support. However, over time his contact to Alex seems to have broken off, because in a letter from 1806, Carlos complained about Alex not answering him anymore (“¡Qué largo silencio!”) and then told him, quite dramatically, that he was running out of money, and that he, Alex, was his only friend, his only hope, and the only person he knew in Europe who could tell him what to do. Whether all of Alex’s letters had gotten lost in the mail and whether Alex ended up helping him out or not, I think we don’t know. (But knowing him as I do and since he after all kept that letter, I’m sure that he did.)

Later, Carlos went back to South America, where he (alongside Símon Bolívar) fought to liberate the continent from the Spanish Crown − a fight he unfortunately didn’t survive: he was captured and executed by the Spanish in 1816.

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)

Alex and Gay (that’s what Alex called him, no pun intended) first met in 1804 in Paris, just after Alex’s return from America. Before, Gay had done two things: 1. contributed to a harsh critique on one of Alex’s papers, 2. ascended 7016 m in a hot-air balloon to investigate the air up there − a world record at the time and more than 1000 m higher than Alex had been on the Chimborazo, which had then also been a world record (in recorded European history).

Evidently, these were the best conditions for them to totally hit it off: they almost immediately started to work on the evaluation of Gay’s balloon ascent and often spent entire days working together in Gay’s room, from 9 am until after midnight. In a letter to his father, Gay wrote that Alex was the man with the best heart he had ever known, that their tastes and sentiments were absolutely the same − and that their hearts felt a great need to see each other very often.

After the publication of their paper (in which they, without fully realising it, also first identified the chemical composition of water: H2O), they (and another friend) went on a six-month field trip through Switzerland and Italy − where they were lucky enough to witness both an earthquake and a resulting Vesuvius eruption. They ended their journey in Berlin where Gay stayed at Alex’s for a couple of months and even started to learn German until he unexpectedly had to leave for Paris. His absence, Alex wrote after Gay had left, pained him a lot.

When Alex finally returned to Paris as well, they shared a single room at the École Polytechnique and even after Gay became a father in 1808 and married in 1809, Alex continued to (at least occasionaly) live with his family for many years. Gay’s first son (born in 1810) was named Jules Alexandre and while I have no proof that he was named after Alex, I think it’s safe to assume. Alex seems to have also been very intimately integrated into the family life, because he once wrote to Willdenow (with a humorous undertone of course): “We are always pregnant and just had a girl again. Right now we’re not feeling anything though.” Alex was also there to help when an explosion in a laboratory accident injured Gay’s eyes so badly that Alex and another friend had to take him home in a blindfold.

No letters between the two have survived (that we know of), but we do know that in the years after they first met, Alex considered Gay his best friend and “one of the kindest beings in the world”, that he named an American plant genus after him (Gaylussacia), and that they used “tu” with each other (which was very uncommon in France at the time except for childhood friends and family). They stayed friends for the rest of their lives and formed a kind of trio with Arago (see below).

Karl von Steuben (1788-1856)

We don’t know when exactly they first met but according to Alex they started to see each other daily in 1812 at the studio of painter François Gérard, where Alex had then started to take drawing lessons. Steuben, a young aspiring artist, lived and worked at Gérard’s studio. According to Alex, they “drew and painted” together “daily” for at least one or two years. Withdrawn from all other society, he wrote, this was now his “only joy” (interestingly almost the exact same wording he had used to describe his relationship with Reinhard 20 years earlier). However, it had perhaps been one of Alex’s exaggerations because he at least seems to have attended the famous salons Gérard held at his studio, where all the cool Paris people came to hang out. Alex reportedly talked incessantly, stayed late into the night (the main thing usually didn’t get going until midnight) and was found there again, freshly dressed and shaved, already at 7 in the morning.

In the meantime, Alex had started to torment basically everyone around him to commission Steuben to paint them, their sons, daughters, fiancés etc. to help Steuben support his poor mother in St. Petersburg. In 1814, even Alex’s brother noted that Alex had suddenly become strangely interested in art. In the same year, Alex became godfather to Steuben’s newborn son Alexander.

However, the biggest commission Alex got Steuben was a life-sized full-body painting of himself, which he intended to gift to his sister-in-law. It took 7 years to finish and in the end Alex’s brother had to pay for transport and framing because Alex had run out of money. Neither his brother nor his sister-in-law were overly enthusiastic about the likeness of the painting or Steuben’s talent in general but they still put it up in their home because after all, as his brother put it, they loved Alex and always liked a picture of him around.

Alex and Steuben stayed in at least loose contact for many years and Alex occasionally even still tried to get him commissions. Steuben’s painting of Alex hung in the Humboldt residence in Tegel for over a century before it was ultimately destroyed in WWII. Apparently though, another Alex portrait by Steuben from 1815 still exists in a private collection somewhere.

François Arago (1786-1853)

Arago, a young astronomer, was on a scientific expedition through Spain when he got entangled in the Peninsular War: mistaken for a French spy, he got arrested and incarcerated, managed to flee, was captured again, transferred, released, drifted off at sea to Algeria, all the while managing to hold on to his most valuable possession: his scientific records, which he kept hidden under his shirt at all times. When Alex heard about this (the two had never met before), he was so impressed by his courage and determination that he sent a letter to congratulate him — and to offer him his friendship. And in fact, one of the first things Arago did when he finally returned to Paris in 1809 was to go and meet Alex. It was the beginning of a 44-year-long friendship. They saw each other almost daily, worked together at the observatory, planned an expedition to Tibet (which never happened), and actually travelled at least to London in 1817 to visit Alex’s brother, who commented to his wife: “Alexander has arrived yesterday. But he isn't staying with me, even though his room had already been prepared. You know his passion to always be with one person who is his favourite at that time. Now he has the astronomer Arago who he doesn't want to part with (...) So they're staying at a nearby inn.” Just as with Gay, Alex and Arago used “tu” with each other and after Arago had gotten married in 1811, Alex was close with his wife and children as well as with his siblings, nieces and nephews — in some letters he even considered himself part of the Arago family.

When Alex was forced to move back to Berlin in 1827 to work for the king, he wrote Arago desperate letters on how much their separation pained him, how much he missed him every hour of every day. In the following 26 years, Alex’s letters to him were full of yearning pleas for just a couple of lines of his hand, which, as he wrote, always made his heart flutter. However, Arago often didn’t respond for months, but when he did, he at least knew to reassure Alex, writing things like: “Outside my family, you are, without any comparison, the person I love most tenderly in this world.” Alex kept a portrait and a large Arago bust in his study in Berlin, and until his late seventies, he travelled to Paris regularly (that is, every few years), first and foremost to see Arago. (Actual quote from 78-year-old Alex in a letter to his niece: “Every morning at half past eight without interruption, I’ve been at Arago’s in the observatory, today for the 62nd time.”) According to Arago, he and Alex have only been angry with each other one single time in all those decades and even that went over in an instant.

They saw each other for the last time in January 1848, on the last night of Alex’s last stay in Paris. When Arago fell ill five years later, his family informed Alex of his worsening condition — but Alex couldn’t travel to Paris to see him one last time. Even over a year after Arago’s death, Alex wrote that the memory of those last moments in January 1848 vividly came back to him during the night at least once a week. He outlived his friend by 6 years.

[tired-fandom-ndn]

I can't decide if being offered alcohol and drugs constantly by adults for years (and even being forced into accepting by a fucking teacher) would make the Bad Kids just completely lose all interest in those things because they aren't forbidden and cool anymore or if they would just treat drinking and hard drugs completely casually to the absolute bemusement/vague horror of everyone around them.

[calkale]

friend is gonna teach me how to ride horses cause i’m not gonna be a fighter pilot anymore and don’t have to worry about getting hurt now 🗣️🗣️🗣️

[that-squishy-robot]

I’ve been thinking to much about a modern AU where Grogu is 15 instead of a baby. Luke is a cop and Din is (REDACTED)(literally no one knows what he does. ) or maybe he’s a fire fighter.

Grogu gets arrested because he took Din’s motor cycle out for a test drive and slightly wrecks it. (It’s actually his, but he can’t have until he’s 18).

Luke picks him up and is waiting for him at the police station. He’s there like wow, this kid is literally me when I was his age. But Luke was that way because his father is the police chief, and he was always striving to keep up with him. So hey, maybe Grogu needs someone another parental figure in his life, and Luke tries to bond with him in hopes it keeps the kid out of trouble.

But Grogu is just “What? No. My dad is great. I fucking love my dad.” And “My dad is going to come pick me up, and he’s going to be so disappointed in me. He’ll tell me he’s happy I’m ok, and that he’s disappointed in me. Then he’s going to give me the look, and I’m going to cry…. Then he’s going to call uncle Boba and he’ll be disappointed to.”

When Din gets their to pick him up after breaking several traffic laws in a panic, he looks terrifying. Luke is concerned for Grogu’s safety because this guy looks like he could be in the Mafia. He’s not… probably anyway. But he bee lines straight for Grogu and hugs him. He was so worried he wasn’t even speaking English for at least 3 minutes.

Luke falls head over heels in a second.

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 1, Side A, Match 8

propaganda under the cut!

Aviskull:

MY URL IS THE AVISKULL GUY FOR GOOD REASON!! They are canonically childhood friends who left a team together to form their own. Skull got a lil possessive over Avi when two other silly goofy teams started fighting over him. Also there's 41 works of this ship on ao3 and I've written 21 of them with more on the way. I want them to at least get kinda far for my own self-validation because this is a rarepair in an already small enough fandom compared to others.

Sourin:

okay so i have a picture to crack explain the sourin supremacy

but i also have legitimate reasons lmao

1. sousuke and rin both GET what it's like to want something so bad but not be able to achieve it. they know each other's pain so well, and they know just how much effort the other person puts into swimming. AND THAT MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING STRENGTHENS THEIR BOND SO MUCH!!! this is also the reason why they are each others' comfort person because the other just GETS it, no need for any explanations

2. they're passionate as fuck about the same thing (swimming) and they help each other train harder and swim better,,, like get you a couple with the same obsessions as you!!!

3. THEY SWAM A RELAY TOGETHER and that means a lot in swimming because IT'S BASICALLY SMTH A TEAM DOES WHEN THEY HAVE ABSOLUTE TRUST IN EACH OTHER AND THEY DEPEND ON EACH OTHER AND THEY LOVE EACH OTHER AND IT'S BASICALLY THE SWIMMING ANIME EQUIVALENT OF I LOVE YOU

4. when sousuke told rin about the shoulder injury he was literally so devastated because his love couldn't follow his passions anymore,, AND WHEN SOUSUKE RECOVERED FROM THE SURGERY RIN LEGIT CRIED HAPPY TEARS!!! and sousuke was always there for rin w/e he had a slump bc he compared himself too much to haru and others,,, like gods they care so much for each other

5. sousuke is the earth and rin is the fire,,, AND RIN LIGHTS A FIRE IN SOUSUKE WHILE SOUSUKE GROUNDS RIN LIKE PLEASE THE MOTIFS ARE LITERALLY RIGHT THERE EVEN IN THEIR COLOUR SCHEMES (teal + maroon) 

in short: sourin supremacy because these two bois are so perfect for each other

[davidlikebowie-noturaccountant]

that reblog on tbe tlp and dps post i made had me pondering over it for 10 minutes and im about to explode PLEASE SHARE MORE OF YOUR THOUGHTS BECAUSE THEY ARE SO TRUE AAAA

oh my GOD happily i love yapping about this??????

okay first my credentials: i have watched dead poets society 200+ times (i stopped counting, but i have it completely memorised beat for beat), i’ve read the novelisation, i’ve watched the little prince 50+ times and it’s one of my comfort movies, watched it on the plane like two days ago, and i own eight copies of the book in five different languages <3 so

more thoughts below the cut

NOW

i will say there are more obvious parallels to draw between dps and the tlp movie BUT the book has the same innate messaging in a way that is very very special to me. gonna start off with the more obvious things and then get more niche and specific and i will TRY TO MAKE SENSE.

so movie-wise, the aviator serves as the keating figure without a doubt (i would argue this is true in the book as well, but as the book lacks the mother/daughter-little prince all grown up/weird silly second dimension plot line, this parallel is more nuanced and i need to explain it more deeply) and the little girl is neil (though. in the book. undoubtedly the little prince) and her mom is mr perry etc. TODD IS THE FOX IN BOTH THE MOVIE AND THE BOOK AND I WILL ELABORATE but for convenience sake im splitting this up into movie thoughts and book thoughts so they dont get muddled

movie:

one of my favourite things about the little prince movie even though it adds like a whole plot that is not in the children’s book is that it conveys the message of the book VERY well, and a message with THAT MUCH NUANCE is really hard to put through, especially in an animated children’s movie. that being said, i feel like a lot of people don’t really THINK about it, just in the sense of knowing there’s a vague message but not really dissecting it, especially not in the same way that people dissect dead poets society. which i think is really interesting because their messages are fundamentally REALLY similar, with the little prince talking a lot about keeping your mind from getting closed with age and never forgetting wonder and creativity and interest. letting yourself be propelled by knowledge but not in a way that prioritises practicality over pure joy, and then dead poets society specifically preaching (though i’m loathe to use that word) to OPEN your mind THROUGH wonder and creativity and interest, to actively prioritise the joy over practicality at any moment you CAN.

(emphasis on when you CAN, though, because as keating says, there’s a time to be cautious and a time to be daring. sucking the marrow out of life does not mean choking on the bone. which, incidentally, is very similar to something that the aviator mentions in the book, i’ll come back to that)

as such, both movies center a child who is bearing the burden of these undue expectations that for most of their lives up until the point in the movie, they’ve happily pushed themselves to meet in order to keep the peace in their lives. they were perfectly happy (to an extent) being the child they were being asked to be. that is, until someone ACTIVELY shows them there’s more to it than that.

in fact, while one of these is an animated face in which there is not a clear view of much but the eyes and the other is an actual person, these are screen grabs of both movies in the first moments in which they are exposed to that which is going to show them there’s more than that, and i’d be inclined to argue they’re very similar. mild shock overtaken by awe, fixed stare on what they’re consuming (as far as the first page of the little prince vs keating quoting whitman)

this is when they’re starting to realise that they are more than a machine to please the adults in their lives (who are also written very similarly, with, of course, one notable exception: the mother is the one who ultimately realises she was not being fair to her kid, whereas mr perry doubles down and… well. you know.)

this awe-riddled inspiration, the epiphany of the Creative World being real and something they’re allowed to explore and enjoy is facilitated by both the one who did the introduction (the aviator/keating) and support and camaraderie with someone else (the fox/the poets) (yes i know the fox does not technically talk, however, it is clearly a sentient creature in the movie that provides comfort and companionship to the little girl and therefore i will in fact argue that it counts)

NOW i know i said todd is the fox in both iterations but in the movie i dont think the fox is limited to parallels SOLELY with todd, for instance, it very much encourages the little girl to continue with the story, with the aviator, and while it is occasionally like, covering its eyes out of fright, it’s largely serving to push her out of her comfort zone. as such. the fox is both todd and charlie. (the other poets as well but less so in the sense that i can NAME them and draw specific parallels, so mostly todd and charlie)

it is absolutely no secret to us that charlie and todd are the ones closest to neil in the movie, and that charlie and neil’s closeness definitely pre-dates neil and todd’s, and charlie takes neil’s idea of doing the dead poets society and RUNS with it, (lovingly) bullies everyone into coming, gets it to happen and sort of yells over any doubt that neil could have had that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. todd is supportive but wary, and while the fox in the movie is not in the same capacity as todd in this sense i think there are certainly scenes where we see it just sort of become overwhelmed with what’s going on (like the first time they mess with the plane)

i could go into depth about the whole grown up world thing but that would make this much much longer

the rest of my thoughts are very much related to both the book and the movie and thus i will continue but centre them on the book

book:

i mentioned the messages of the little prince compared to dead poets society above and i just think that’s such a big thing for me because they really do mirror each other and showcase similar thoughts, this idea of the aviator sort of being forced to pursue “practical” things (i think specifically the book cites arithmetic and geography? i can’t remember right this second but i know arithmetic is one of them) and how even though he WAS forced to sort of let go of his personality that was creative, he never really did. he just was careful with who he let see it. which is very keating coded tbh like let’s be real if nolan knew what he was like he NEVER would have gotten that job. but i think specifically because he knew this already and was sort of reminded of it by the little prince LEARNING it it’s very much neil and mr keating. this is why i really think todd is the fox, you have the whole conversation in the book about taming (which i know is kind of in the movie but the book centres it in a way that is slightly different)

to tame people is to change. i will be unique in all the world. to me you will be unique in all the world. you are responsible forever for what you have tamed. when you leave i will cry. etc etc etc

todd and neil tame EACH OTHER. obviously todd is not neil’s first friend, but they have a relationship clearly different from neil’s with the other poets (romantic headcanon or not) because they really have TAMED each other.

also. i think mr perry views neil as his rose. that’s a whole other dissertation.

but. i think the reality is that the movies/book both centre creativity and seeking to understand pure thought in a way that is like two sides of the same coin, but there’s such little overlap that maybe it doesn’t feel obvious?

at the end of the day, there’s really no convincing me that

“what is essential is invisible to the eye, it is only with the heart that one can see rightly”

is not in fact another iteration of

“we don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute…. medicine law business engineering…. poetry beauty romance love, these are what we stay alive for”

because they’re so similar at their hearts.

tldr: the little prince and dead poets society actually carry similar characterisation and messages and i think that speaks a lot about both pieces of media, especially considering that one is literally meant to be for children. it’s almost like tlp is a precursor to dps. a warning to which dps is the result of ignoring. if that makes sense. i’m not sure any of this made sense but THANK YOU FOR ASKING

[scredgirl]

A Call of Cthulhu party can be a railroad heiress with a mysterious death to solve, an Egyptologist with impeccable knife throwing prowess, an aviator who wants no part in mythos but is doing the work anyway, and the ex girlfriend who is trying to outsteal artefacts from them all.

[hueseok]

.

[thebusylilbee]

me : "flying private jets and using super yachts is quite literally a crime against the planet and humanity"

some immoral cunt almost immediately : "you're just jealous bc you wish you could commit the crimes against the planet and humanity yourself :))) check And mate haha :)))))) because obviously ecological crimes are so inherently sexy and cool why would anyone not want to do them ever :)))) I am very smart :)))))"