#budapest my beloved

[littledrummerangie]

it's been one year since 5SOS had the KFC show 😭❤️

[aliesafenlock]

@hettie 🚋

Underpass in front of Keleti railway station, Budapest, 1970.  From the Budapest municipal photography company archive. 

[redflags-pinknails]

sometimes you gotta kiss the homies on the head to show em how proud you are

it’s the rules

[dianashnaiders]

DIANA SHNAIDER + 2024 WINS

HUA HIN | BAD HOMBURG | BUDAPEST | HONG KONG

[dramatic-dolphin]

this is the cutest thing i have ever seen. i need several.

[maximaxstreasurebox]

it was truly our hoyo impact.

[grubloved]

successfully cleaned the whole house and survived the family zoom call so i could make cookies and popcorn and have 7 (!!!!) friends from the community house over at once to watch a movie and play games. and i knit 2 shrimp!!!! HUGE day

[crinege]

FUCK having to take the 5 am train

but thank FUCK the 5 am train exists!!!!!

[dobbiamo-capire]

I wanted to ask you about sky Italy how much does the commentators and journalists love Charles vs Carlos? Like would you say there is an obvious favouritism -I don’t blame them if they do, Charles is literally a home grown talent and the only one I believe that came from the FDA to be a Ferrari driver-

Hi anon!

So it’s a weird mix right now. Before there was Vanzini (our main comm) that was 100% a Charles fan, he’s the one that gave the predestinato nickname so he really was in love with Charles. But we also have Marc Gene (spanish Ferrari persona) as a comm too (and he of course cheers for Sainz), so now the narrative is more pro-Carlos (when Vanzini talks about Charles too much, Marc is there to say “look also at Sainz that…”). But still let’s say 70% Ferrari oriented anyway

[noctarcanum]

piac core

[immediatebreakfast]

I love how Renfield is the oldest (59) and Mina is very likely the living youngest, and yet they bond so well. (It reminds me how well Mina befriended the 99 year old Mr Swales that he sought her company and felt care for her.) It probably contributed that Jack may have experience with interacting with "madmen" and studying, Mina had lived with and loved a "madman".

It's truly incredible how a simple conversation between an old man in physical cell, and a young woman in a mental cell put such a dent in the Count's plans that he had to flee to Transylvania once it was clear that nothing would stop the crew.

Even if the repercutions were huge in the narrative, in between the horror and the action it was just a visit (probably the first visit that Renfield had in a long time) to talk.

Reading again the entry I noticed how hostile Renfield is towards Mina at first,

"You're not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can't be, you know, for she's dead." - R.M. Renfield, september 30.

and even with everything one can say about sexism, and the building infantilization of Mina, let's remember that this is the first time Renfield meets someone that is specifically associated with Jack. Renfield's remarked abuser in both authority, and personhood in general. Also by probably being informed by Dracula himself that both Mina and Jonathan are the key players in this continuous attacks against his plans in England, on top of just almost correctly assuming that Mina must share the same opinion towards the mentally ill that society has.

Three strikes against Mina that she switfly defeats by treating Renfield like the person he is, and talking to him in a normal manner. After taking care of her beloved Jonathan, and being at Lucy's side most of her life Mina is aware of how the Other is viewed. Maybe as she saw Renfield, Mina thought of a worse reality where the man on the bed was her Jonathan in Budapest, maybe she saw how Seward reacted to Renfield's words, and realized what was actually layed out in the room. Or maybe Mina just saw an old man in need of an ear, and she just listened.

This is the first time that Renfield puts a face on a victim of the Count's games, he puts a voice on the young victim whose life is going to violently end in what he thought was supposed to be eternal bliss. Lucy is a distant dream for Renfield, the revenge against these people who dared to put up a fight against this old ancient evil that goes beyond all of their years combined.

Renfield never knew Lucy, but he knows Mina now.

Renfield sees the young Mina Harker, entering life with her equal young husband in hand, and trying to solve the murder of what he knows now was her best friend, and he reflects. He reflects on everything he has done, on what has passed, and what he can do tomorrow.

Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. - Mina Harker, october 2.

And the man is devastated to see how he is helping orchestrate the murder of another young lady to please the Count. He becomes desperate to leave (a request that is denied by both Seward, and Van Helsing), so the Count can't have access to the inside of the asylum. It doesn't matter if he looks like a coward by the time's literary standards because if the only way to at least save that young lady is by acting like one? Then Renfield might as well do it, he has nothing to lose sans his life.

I think that the key difference between Mina, and Jack when it comes to Renfield is empathy, and the ability to simply treat the other person with the same humanity you should be treated.

Jack may have studied, and climbed until he got to be the head of an asylum, but his own biases, mental problems, and ableism blurred the lines between patient and doctor so hard that he made Renfield's life a boring hell. From when their dynamic was introduced, to Renfield's death, the narrative dictated how Seward was putting both into a deep spiral in which, not even with Renfield's manipulations, none of them were going to come out in victory.

In contrast, Mina has cared for Jonathan without any restrain, and has lived in service of what the situation demands of her at all times. She knows, as a young victorian lady, how to balance herself without trying to compete, or win the other person in the room with her. Mina only needed to genuinely talk to Renfield to break his heart because she gave him the respect, and honestly she expects for herself when talking.

[aliesafenlock]

@hettie I miss the old style 4-6 trams

Nyugati station, Budapest, 1986. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.

[mariacallous]

This summer, I traveled to Transylvania, on a Birthright-esque tour for young North Americans of Hungarian heritage. Almost everyone I told about the trip made some sort of Dracula joke. I rolled my eyes, knowing the region was much richer than this. But truth be told, I didn’t have too much yet to counter with. 

Here’s the history book version: Transylvania, now part of Romania, belonged to Hungary for more than a thousand years. It’s far larger than I had imagined – at around 100,000 square kilometers, the region is bigger than the whole of present-day Hungary itself, which ceded the region to Romania after WWI. There are currently around one million ethnic Hungarians who still live in Transylvania. The community speaks the language and passionately keeps their customs alive, from music to dance to crafts and, of course, food. 

And my version? It was easy to fall in love with Transylvania. From the moment I clambered off the small, tinny plane from Budapest at the small regional airport in Marosvásárhely, I was taken by its beauty. Rows and rows of golden sunflowers, framed by the verdant hills and rugged peaks of the Apuseni Mountains rolled by as we headed for our bed and breakfast. We spent a week learning about the Hungarian community in Romania, hiking, exploring cavernous salt mines and lakes, taking in medieval frescos and wandering cobblestoned streets.  

We also ate well — very well. 

Growing up, many of our cherished family recipes were very traditionally Hungarian (with a twist, to make them kosher), and the rich goulash, tender chicken paprikash and juicy stuffed cabbage we ate on the trip were familiar. Truth be told, aside from the dizzying assortment of wild blueberry and rosehip jams, I wasn’t really focused on dessert. 

That is, until I tried a pastry called somodi kalácsin a tiny village called Torockó. Lightly sweet and yeasted, with a cinnamon swirl, it’s as if cinnamon-raisin bread and babka had a baby. While every meal served by our grandmotherly hosts left us stuffed, I loved the folded bread so much that our guide got the inn to pack us a honey-glazed loaf to go. 

Transylvania was home to a sizable Hungarian-Jewish population. In 1910, according to The Museum of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania, the Jewish population numbered above 64,000. By World War I, Hungary itself had the second largest Jewish population in Europe at almost one million. By this time YIVO’s Encyclopedia of Eastern European Jews notes Jews were “fervently assimilated” to the language and culture (and, rather sadly, looking back now), “passionately identified with Hungarian nationalism.” 

Upon my return home to Los Angeles, I made it my mission to find somodi kalács. I knew that Jewish immigrants to the U.S. and Israel popularized other classic pastries from Hungary, such as chimney cakes and monkey bread (aka aranygaluska), and was hopeful I’d succeed.

While I haven’t (yet) found somodi kalácsin my city, I discovered that it’s available at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, the iconic Jewish bakery in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Like me, the Zingerman team tried somodi kalács for the first time in Torockó. The recipe, they found, dates back 400 years, when the village was a flourishing mining town, whose residents could afford the luxury of cinnamon and sugar. It’s typically served for Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, and until the 20th century, Zingerman’s notes, somodi kalács was the customary wedding cake. Theirs is a pretty traditional version. However, like my own great grandmother would do often, they sub the traditional lard for butter when greasing the pans, explained Managing Partner Amy Emberling.

At Zingerman’s, Emberling told me, it’s a beloved special item that they only bake a couple days each year. “Customers order many loaves of it and stock them in their freezer,” she said. And it’s not uncommon for customers to “let us know that they have not seen this since their childhood days in Hungary.” 

It’s also not uncommon to see patrons shed happy tears. I may have felt like shedding a couple happy tears myself when she shared their recipe.

[giaffa]

Get to know me tag

I was tagged by @bich-the-moss, thank you! 💖 (and sorry for the late reply, I forgot this in my drafts 🙈)

Do you make your bed?

Yep, every morning.

If you could, would you go back to school?

I'm very fond of my high school memories but I wouldn't go back to waking up at 6:30 am every day. Hell world.

Can you parallel park?

Nope 🙈 I have a driver's license but I haven't driven since 2019.

A job you had that would surprise people?

I did one year of civil service to help the local associations of ex-partisans and ex-deportees digitalise their archives. I had the opportunity to interview a survivor of Auschwitz, and an old partisan who fought in the Italian Resistance during ww2.

Do you think aliens are real?

I think there's a good probability that we're not alone in an infinite universe.

Can you drive a manual car?

Theoretically? My driver's license says I can. In practice? Not driving for 5 years will make you forget everything.

What is your guilty pleasure?

You can do whatever you want forever and there's no guilty pleasures.

Tattoos?

I have a tiny treble clef tattoo on my wrist, I made it with some ink and a needle when I was 14 to match with some friends lol

I'd love to have more tattoos, but I'm always saving money for concert tickets.

Do you like puzzles?

I get easily bored with puzzles and board games, and my competitivity is almost nonexistent, so they're not all that fun to me. I enjoy them just if the shapes/colours feel interesting.

Any phobias?

I have arachnophobia but the problem isn't the spider, it's the web. With spiders in general my fight response kicks in and I usually get rid of them, but if I see a spiderweb (or something similar like processionary caterpillars) my flight response skyrockets off the charts.

Sometimes I also get anxious if I have a lot of physical mass over my head, like in caves or at the ground floor of a very tall building. It's not claustrophobia or speluncaphobia because I'm completely fine with tight or dark places, it's more similar to thalassophobia (which also gets to me sometimes).

Favorite childhood sport?

Fencing! I took a junior fencing class for 2 years when I was in middle school and it was super fun! I would've loved to keep attending but it was too expensive and the instructor was the most annoying person I've ever met.

First thing you wanted to be growing up?

A witch. I was convinced it was a legit career path, and tbh maybe I was right.

Do you talk to yourself?

Sometimes I do, but I usually prefer to sing or talk to my plants.

What movies do you adore?

Viktor und Viktoria, The Prestige, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Orlando, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Coffee or tea?

Tea <3

Favorite color?

Red + black + purple combination my beloved ❤️🖤💜

no pressure tags: @curiouscalembour @valleydoll777 @the-paisley @hurdygurdywizard @kissingmonsters @velvetlinedbox @mirillel @sleeeepy-demon

[jinxquickfoot]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

Oooh picking favourite fics is so hard! I decided to leave out any collabs because I couldn't pick, so in no particular order:

A Pair of Aces

“There’s no one else I can ask. Please.”

It’s the please that has stuck in Tony’s mind, long after the phone call with Steve had ended.

“I know what HYDRA made him do. But it wasn’t his fault. He doesn’t deserve this.” ----------------------------------- When Ross captures Steve and Bucky after the fight in Siberia, Bucky is sold to Selby in Madripoor, with Tony, Sharon and a high-stakes poker game as his only hope of rescue.

Why I like this fic: It's still new so it still has 'new fic' shine to it before I re-read it and find all its flaws. Civil War Fix-Itss my beloved.

2. The One Where Clint is Tony's Weakness

“Do you know who I am?”

Clint twisted Stone’s arm back further, making him yelp in pain. “I know exactly who you are, Stone. And this is me passing on a friendly message from all of us at Avengers Tower—leave Tony alone." -------------------------------------- When Steve, Natasha, and Sam's mission to take down HYDRA fails, it's up to Tony and Clint to escape their respective captors and rescue their friends.

Why I like this fic: I give myself kudos for how intricate the plot of this one turned out and a couple of very creative whump scenes. No, I have not forgotten about the sequel. It will appear one day.

3. Budapest

Whoever they were, they were getting better. Every round of the simulation they learned a little more, took a little more, built up the world around him into something he might just believe. But they couldn’t do it all. They always got at least one detail wrong, and then Clint would know, he’d know. And then the assholes would wipe his mind and start again from scratch. -------------------------------------- Turns out it's difficult to derail a hostage situation when it's a friend doing the hostage-taking.

Why I like this fic: I love how mind-bendy this one is, it's one of the more complicated plots I've had to do and work with, and it has a happy ending.

4. Dollhouse

The torture bingo card.

It was an old joke that had been passed around the SHIELD agents with a darker sense of humor. Phil had disapproved. Fury had pretended not to know. Clint had joined in right away, only to find he had been able to fill out half the squares before the game had even begun, courtesy of a life of bad cards, poor decisions, and worse luck.

No one was ever supposed to win. -------------------------------------- The Barton family gets an uninvited guest, and it has no intention of leaving.

Why I like this fic: Spookiest thing I've ever written and it manages to include so many character.

5. Let's Whump the Spider-Kid and Friends!

Thanos is defeated, the world is saved, and all the Avengers are set to live happily ever after in their Tower. If only their team didn't include a danger magnet in the form of Peter Parker.

OR

31 days, 31 ways to hurt our favorite Spider-Kid, with bonus whumping of his super friends and excessive use of puns.

Why I like this fic: I know it's kind of cheating to include a one-shot collection but this does work as a multi-chapter fic as well. For all the angst and whump and such, it's nice to flex the comedy muscles too and go for something a bit more light-hearted and fun.

[pereczke]

🥀The Foundations of Decay by My Chemical Romance🥀

Inktober Day 6 🖋️

We went for a short trip to Fiumei Road cemetery here in Budapest about two years ago. Many famous and beloved hungarian artists are buried here. I got my eyes on Blaha Lujza’s grave. Her sculpture was laying in a comfy bed surrounded by angels and other figures. It was full of flowers, it looked beautiful so I took some photos and today one of them was my reference for this illustration for MCR’s songs from the return era.