#c 215

[snowyblondie215]

Mines are Rei, shinji, ritsuko, kaworu, lilith, kensuke and shigeru ^w^

Happy pride month btw, the LGBT community is amazing, beautiful and super cool!!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️💕💕

For those who doesn't know, Maya, Shigeru and Makoto are this guys:

If you like my content and wanna support it, follow me,press the heart/reblog button and leave a comment below here 👇

[gayarograce]

Honestly, if the boiling point of water at sea level isn't even a clean 100 °C, then what the hell is even the point of arguing?

[duyenvienvien]

[nonsensical-pixels]

it's finally done!! @misa_caliente on the simscord requested this agesss ago, and i've been working on and off on it ever since. have @pierisim's incredible pantry party converted from ts4 to ts2, in 48-item entirety! as a kitchen clutter addict, i am IN LOVE!!

this has honestly been so, so rewarding. all items are either decorational, found under appliances -> misc, or functional shelving, found under surfaces -> misc. you get 43 items of kitchen clutter and 5 new shelves, all with slots thanks to @hugelunatic's awesome slots tutorial! i've included a readme and collection file for ease of browsing the catalogue, but peek below for a very extensive list, plus unedited previews 😃

DOWNLOAD: SFS | MF 🫙

credits go to @pierisim for the absolutely iconic ts4 meshes & textures, and to @hugelunatic for their incredibly helpful slots and repository tutorials! 🥰

ITEMS INCLUDED

they're also in a readme in the download, and shown in a collection file, but if you reallyyy want to see what you're downloading...

Baskets -> 782 polys, 10 swatches, $75 Bottles Pack -> 524 polys, 6 swatches, $60 Bowls -> 522 polys, 12 swatches, $125 Can -> 49 polys, 8 swatches, $38 Cans Pack A -> 443 polys, 17 swatches, $38 Cans Pack B -> 103 polys, 17 swatches, $38, repo'd to Cans Pack A Cans Pack C -> 205 polys, 17 swatches, $38, repo'd to Cans Pack A Cans Pack D -> 443 polys, 17 swatches, $38, repo'd to Cans Pack A Cans Pack E -> 147 polys, 17 swatches, $45, repo'd to Cans Pack A Pile of Dishes -> 524 polys, 12 swatches, $125 Dustpan -> 287 polys, 14 swatches, $35 Food Box A -> 13 polys, 6 swatches, $49 Food Box B -> 13 polys, 8 swatches, $49 Food Boxes A -> 97 polys, 12 swatches, $49 Food Boxes B -> 109 polys, 12 swatches, $49, repo'd to Food Boxes A Food Boxes C -> 49 polys, 12 swatches, $49, repo'd to Food Boxes A Food Boxes D -> 49 polys, 12 swatches, $49, repo'd to Food Boxes A Food Boxes E -> 25 polys, 12 swatches, $49, repo'd to Food Boxes A Food Boxes F -> 25 polys, 12 swatches, $49, repo'd to Food Boxes A Food Boxes G -> 37 polys, 12 swatches, $49, repo'd to Food Boxes A Food Boxes H -> 25 polys, 12 swatches, $49, repo'd to Food Boxes A Freezer -> 236 polys, 18 swatches, $375 Jar Small -> 205 polys, 14 swatches, $53, repo'd to Jar Small Pack A Jar Small Pack A -> 817 polys, 8 swatches, $53 Jar Small Pack B -> 409 polys, 8 swatches, $53, repo'd to Jar Small Pack A Jar Tall -> 215 polys, 12 swatches, $54, repo'd to Jar Tall Pack A Jar Tall Pack A -> 857 polys, 12 swatches, $54 Jar Tall Pack B -> 429 polys, 12 swatches, $54, repo'd to Jar Tall Pack A Le Parfait Medium Jar -> 261 polys, 14 swatches, $55 Le Parfait Medium Jar Pack A -> 1041 polys, 4 swatches, $55 Le Parfait Medium Jar Pack B -> 1041 polys, 4 swatches, $55 Le Parfait Medium Jar Pack C -> 521 polys, 4 swatches, $55, repo'd to Le Parfait Medium Jar Pack A Le Parfait Tall Jar 1 -> 261 polys, 14 swatches, $56 Le Parfait Tall Jar 1 Pack A -> 521 polys, 4 swatches, $56, repo'd to Le Parfait Medium Jar Pack A Le Parfait Tall Jar 1 Pack B -> 1041 polys, 4 swatches, $56, repo'd to Le Parfait Medium Jar Pack B Le Parfait Tall Jar 1 Pack C -> 1041 polys, 4 swatches, $56, repo'd to Le Parfait Medium Jar Pack A Le Parfait Tall Jar 2 -> 239 polys, 12 swatches, $57 Le Parfait Tall Jar 2 Pack A -> 1429 polys, 4 swatches, $57 Le Parfait Tall Jar 2 Pack B -> 715 polys, 4 swatches, $57, repo'd to Le Parfait Tall Jar 2 Pack A Le Parfait Tall Jar 2 Pack C -> 715 polys, 4 swatches, $57, repo'd to Le Parfait Tall Jar 2 Pack A Onion Basket -> 942 polys, 8 swatches, $75 Potatoes Bag -> 455 polys, 8 swatches, $45 Shelving Angle -> 332 polys, 26 swatches, $155 Shelving Left -> 280 polys, 26 swatches, $155, repo'd to Shelving Middle Shelving Middle -> 332 polys, 26 swatches, $155 Shelving Quarter -> 184 polys, 26 swatches, $155 Shelving Right -> 280 polys, 26 swatches, $155, repo'd to Shelving Middle

UNEDITED PREVIEWS

i would like to have a very special shoutout especially to rixon on the linus tech tips discord server, i've been having crashing issues with the PC my grandpa left me for months under weird circumstances and with their help we were able to narrow it down to a motherboard issue! now i can keep playing ts2 in 4k 😍

if there are any issues that you find with this set, please don't be afraid to let me know! happy simming, and when you download this, do keep in mind,

[torusonicpilled]

can we know more about the future au👀👀❓️

Alright I've been waiting for this, get ready for a really long lore dump... (click on keep reading so I don't clutter up the tags)

Future AU takes place 200 years after when-ever the main events of the game are. This would make Shadow 215 years old and Sonic 216 years old. Sonic: Sonic was created by a cult of former ARK scientists who wanted to create a version of Shadow specifically to be a weapon and without the Black Arms DNA. They used the DNA of a god and were successful (obviously.) However, Sonic at one point lost control of his power and destroyed everything, this event made him lose his memory. The first thing he saw when he woke up was the nature around him, creating his free-spirited nature (contrast to how Shadow woke up seeing Maria for the first time.) All this lore is here to explain why Sonic is immortal. However because Sonic is immortal and the public is unaware of this, and basically the gods have their own secret cult that gave Sonic an ultimatum. Basically he could A) Die at around 40 but keep his freedom, however the earth he loves may one day be destroyed due to the lack of him protecting it. B) He lives long enough (around 110) for people to realize he is immortal like Shadow, and not wanting to waste their best protector against the planet, seals him away, freezing him and only take him out when they need him to save them, or C) fake his death and continuing living, but lose his humanity, never being able to be “Sonic the Hedgehog” again. Sonic also never made this choice, as Shadow was the one who decided. Shadow feels guilt over this even if Sonic has gotten over it at this point. 

Sonic goes through a major depression in the years 110-150, as he basically loses his identity and is struggling with that. Sonic eventually finds some old outfit Shadow has in the closet, and uses it to become a masked figure called “S.” He now saves people under S, his speed being from “technology” and a voice modulator hiding his voice. Sonic is insanely powerful in the future, so people start equating him to a “legendary hero” who only appears when a threat too strong shows up. (like how Silver acted when talking about Whisper in IDW #8.) 

Sonic still has a lot of his immature traits personality wise, however he is a lot smarter when it comes to combat, having experience in situations, as well as being extremely overpowered. 

Shadow: Due to Shadow being the ultimate lifeform, he’s allowed to still be in public and shows his face. Shadow leaves G.U.N after Rouge retires, as Team Dark disbands. Once Rouge dies, Shadow spends a lot of time with Sonic, as Sonic is going through it being dead in all but name. 

Around 130-140, Shadow created “Maria’s Solutions,” his own private organization for helping people. Shadow is someone people go to when people can’t go to police or other organizations for help. He accepts help from almost any client, however he is often avoided by the worst as his power is terrifying. Shadow is now a detective, negotiator, and bounty hunter all in one, as he is more knowledgeable and collected now. 

After Eggman's death, Shadow adopted Sage at his request, not having it in him to bring her offline. Sage has a duplicate robot body but she prefers to spend time with him on Shadow's phone. She helps him out in missions, with hacking and tech related problems. 

Shadow has other employees for Maria’s Solutions, however I’m still working on them. Main ideas include an innocent girl similar to Maria he’s taken a soft spot to, a robot like Omega who works as a maid around their house, etc. 

Silver: Silver will occasionally come back to check in on Shadow. Due to the deal they made, Silver can’t know Sonic is alive. However, due to a mishap, Silver finds out and becomes friends with S. Sonic likes spending more time with Silver so he hides this fact from Shadow, sometimes going on missions with Silver. 

Other info

Sonic and Shadow aren’t important to this world. Lots of organizations and people fight in this world, thus leaving Sonic to deal with world ending threats and Shadow his clients. Organizations include

Technology conglomerates

A church that worships Gaia

The restoration

Militaries

Sonic and Shadow are married with rings pierced in their ears, however they do not like to define relationships. 

Anyone who Shadow trusts enough will meet Sonic by accident, but calls him “S” either way. 

Knuckles can be spoken too by connecting with the master emerald, which is underneath Sonic and Shadow’s house in an underground facility. 

Tails reincarnates when he dies with an extra tail, however he gets his memories from his last 100 years only if he meets Sonic. They don’t meet until 130ish, where Sonic agrees to wait until Tails is 20 every time before he hunts for him. (this part I’m still working on.)

Sonic is a jack of all trades who can use any weapon to fight as he likes to switch it up. Shadow uses a gun and sword combo along with his chaos abilities. 

AU is more comedic despite the somber tone, as Sonic and Shadow are still Sonic and Shadow at the end of the day.

Well that was a lot but if you want more info send me another ask with more questions for me to answer

[fieldghoul]

A round-up of ministry technology:

Chapter Two: The Cardinal

Copia is carrying the Siemens R836 stereo, produced c. 1988

Chapter 5: The Call

The TV in the hospital is the Toshiba T277Z, produced c. 1977

p.s., the first clip playing on the TV is twins running away in Chapter 1 :-)

Chapter Seven: New World Redro

Nihil's typewriter is the Olympia SM9, produced c. 1965-1968

Chapter Ten: Home Coming and Special Guests

The record player in Cardi's room is actually not vintage! It's the Victrola 3-in-1 Bluetooth Record Player, produced c. 2017

To get deep into minutiae, the other thing they pan past on the shelf that looks like an antique cathedral radio is actually a piece of ceramic -- you can see it's holding a book. It's made from a commercially available plaster mold, namely the Duncan DM-355 B, which was manufactured in the late 70s. Here are photos of the same ceramic with a different glaze, and the mold itself :-)

Chapter Twelve: Ghost Goes Hollywood

Cardi's camcorder is part of the Sony CCD-TRVX5 series, produced c. 1998

(My understanding is the CCD-TRV75, 85 and 93 all have the same body -- but it's one of those.)

Chapter 16: Tax Season

Cardi's TV is the Samsung BT-317TR, produced c. 1984

He is, of course, playing the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), produced c. 1986-1990

The radio is the Motorola TT23FS, produced c. 1968

The phone gadget is the Tele-Rest, produced c. 1958

The alarm clock is a Lawson Model 215 Sierra, produced c. 1948-1981 (Lawson clock history seems... complicated)

As for the phone itself... I can tell you it's this exact phone, since this prop house seems to have supplied all the props in this video, but there are too many identical puke-green rotary phones produced between the 1940s and 1970s for me to pretend I can tell which one it is (same goes for the other two rotary phones in Chapter Five).

Rite Here Rite Now

The TV backstage is (probably) a Magnavox 20MT4405/17, produced c. 2006

If you turn the brightness on RHRN way the fuck up, you can see a piece of tape over the brand badge on the TV. (But that can't stop me!!!)

I'm sure most of the tech choices are just for humor and Tobias's personal nostalgia as a child of the 80s, but I do love way all of the old tech characterizes the ministry. It's not clear if they're just luddites, cheapskates, out of money, too bureaucratically inefficient to upgrade (like the government!) or if it's something completely different. But that's why set dressing is fun, it tells stories indirectly :-)

[hometoursandotherstuff]

The last time I posted a cave house blasted thru a mountainside, it was ugly, unfinished, and expensive. This 2004 build in Festus, MO is modern, pretty nice, and only $282,500 for the 3bd, 1.5ba, 8,000 sq ft, (it's big!) single family home. It hasn't sold and has been removed from the market. Apparently, it was re-opened as an Airbnb and a venue called "Caveland" in Feb. 2024 but it failed.

And, this is what it originally looked like when it was a roller skating rink and the current owner bought it.

He put on the new facade and turned it into a home for the Airbnb part. It even has a 2nd fl. terrace.

And, look at how it lights up, too. This is a cool home for the price. Really.

The back chamber of the cave holds a 200-foot-long concrete rink surface. During the rink’s heyday, there were wooden guard rails along the walls and a stage at the far end, against the back wall of the cave. The stage is still there.

So, then they tried to sell it as a home. It's actually not bad for the price.

They decorated it for Xmas b/c they had a Xmas party and a raffle- the winner won a weekend stay in the house.

From the main living area on the first floor you can see the mezzanine.

It looks beautiful like this. They should re-list it with these photos and it might just sell.

I'd buy it.

This is cool- you can see the dynamite lines where they blasted the cave open.

The photographer took terrible photos, though.

I guess this is supposed to be the primary bedroom and ensuite.

One of the other bedrooms. These photos are much better.

Somewhere up on the mezzanine?

Those old listing photos are horrible. They have to go. This is lovely.

This is where the 8,000 sq ft come in. It's the now-defunct Caveland. All the furniture and equipment are piled up and stored here.

How Caveland looked- the food court is still here. And, you can see the unused vending machines and equipment in the above photo.

Look at this, though. They opened it for a Xmas celebration for family and friends.

They decorated it for the party.

There's the stage.

Tons of space.

2.91 acres.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/215-Cave-Dr-Festus-MO-63028/89064538_zpid/

[ltwilliammowett]

Cooking like a Sailor- Ship's Biscuit

Ship's biscuit was a hard piece of bread that all sailors ate at nearly every meal. The biscuit was baked on land, stored on board the ship, and then sent out to sea with the sailors. Sailors soaked the rock-hard biscuit in their stew to soften it before taking a bite.

Ingredients

1 pound wholemeal flour (if possible, use medium coarse, stone-ground flour for more authenticity)

approx. 7 g salt

water

Preparation

1. preheat your oven to 215 °C (190 °C for fan oven)

2. mix the salt and flour and slowly add water until you have a very firm dough.

3. leave the dough to rest for half an hour (you can use this time profitably to scrub the deck or hoist the mainsail).

4. roll out the dough quite thickly (about half an inch or just over a centimetre thick) and cut out circles with a round cutter.

5 Poke holes in the top of the biscuits with a fork.

6. place them on a greased baking tray and bake for about 30 minutes.

When you eat your biscuits, consider yourself lucky that they're not really authentic - biscuits were sometimes made from bone meal or pea flour, which became incredibly hard and couldn't be bitten through. Therefore the only way to eat a hard biscuit was to leave it or to soak in tea or stew until it became stale and soft. At this point it tasted musty and often contained bugs and maggots.

[kingofwesteros]

how to add gifs to templates.

for this tutorial, we’ll use my template belle as an example. it can be downloaded for free here. don’t forget to leave a like/reblog when downloading!

step 1: check how many frames you need

open the template you want to use in photoshop. in the top bar, click on window > timeline, and scroll to the end of the gif to see how many frames the template has.

in our example, we need 34 frames.

step 2: make/choose your gif with that number in mind

for belle, the gif needs to be at least 143 wide by 215 tall. it’s important to check this for the template you want to use.

for this tutorial, i made this sample gif for us to test together.

save it and open it in photoshop. keep the timeline window open because we’ll need it.

step 3: copy the selected gif

in the timeline, select the number of frames you need. my example has 34 frames, so you can select all of them to test in belle.

with the frames selected and still in the timeline panel, click on this icon here to open the dropdown menu we need. it’s always in the upper right corner, near the last frame.

in the dropdown, choose the option copy frames. now we’ve got the gif ready for ctrl c + ctrl v, but this part works a little differently from what we’re used to.

step 4: paste the selected gif

go back to the template window and select all of its frames in the timeline panel. using the same dropdown from the previous step, now choose the option paste frames.

when you click it, a pop-up will appear asking for the paste method. choose paste over selection and click ok, like this:

done correctly, your result should look like this:

step 5: position the gif

when you paste frames in photoshop, the corresponding gif layers are automatically selected by default.

keep only those layers selected and, with the first frame selected in the timeline, move the layers until they’re centered over the frame.

it’s crucial that the first frame is selected in the timeline to ensure the adjustment applies to all the frames.

if you did everything right, what you have on screen should now look like this:

step 6: place the gif below the frame

with only the gif layers selected, drag them vertically in the layers panel until they’re placed immediately above these two layers:

since my gif is exactly the right size, i don’t even need a clipping mask, but let’s say you want to use a gif with larger dimensions.

step 7: use a clipping mask

with the gif layers still selected, right-click on them in the layers panel. a dropdown will open. the second-to-last option is create clipping mask, and that’s what we’re going to click.

once that’s done, the gif will be neatly cropped to the size and place we need, like this:

if you need to adjust the position, always remember to select all gif layers and only move them while the first frame is selected in the timeline.

you can also resize the gif with the layers selected by going to edit > free transform. note that this adjustment will make the gif lose sharpness, and i don’t recommend it unless you know how to use sharpening actions.

extra: changing the background gif

to change the background, the process is exactly the same, but you’ll need a gif that’s at least 700 wide by 450 tall, and you’ll drag it into the background group in the layers panel. the gif should go below but not inside the background coloring subgroup.

the background group is the first from bottom to top in the layers panel, and you should place the new background gif layers right here:

for the background, you won’t need the clipping mask step.

extra: what if my background gif is smaller than 700px wide?

you can resize the whole template by going to image > image size. change the width of the template to match the gif you want to use, and it will fit just right.

when you resize an image in photoshop, sometimes it leaves a weird 1-pixel border around the edges. what i usually do to avoid that is this:

i add 2 pixels to the target width before resizing. for example, if i want the final result to be 600 pixels wide, i resize to 602 pixels first.

after resizing, i go to image > canvas size in the top menu bar and change the canvas from 602 to 600. this will cut off the weird extra pixels and leave you with a clean final result.

always remember that tumblr’s minimum width is 540 pixels. anything smaller will result in bad quality when posting.

extra: good etiquette

if you’re going to use a premade gif made by someone else, it’s important to remember that not every creator allows their content to be edited. choose gifs from creators who allow edits according to their rules, and pay attention to whether they require credit when using their materials.

many content creators ask for credit when their resources are used because that’s how you compensate them by promoting their work.

in my rules, credit is required when using my templates. many gif creators have the same rule when it comes to editing gifs, and most are fine with being credited in the post tags, so it doesn’t clutter the content itself.

support content creators!

[polish-art-tournament]

minigame XXVIII

guess who will be 215 years old in like less than 2 months! thats riiiiight its our boy frycek

i chose eight short pieces that are either my personal faves or The Most Famous ones or both, so that hopefully you already are familiar with at least a few of them. you can listen to them here on spotify or under the cut in the inserted youtube vids

also: i am now taking submissions for minigames concentrated on individual cities and their public space art. please use this form to submit one or more statues, sculptures, fountains, murals etc from polish towns and cities and villages - the requirement is that it has to be situated in a public space where everyone can see it. i am sure there's some things i would have never found just googling the places on my own, but you have seen and fell in love with them :)

[myownprivate]

Ludwig von Hofmann, Nackte Schiffer (Fischer) und Knaben am grünen Gestade (Nude Fishermen and Boys on Green Shore), c. 1900, 142.5 x 204.5 cm / 153 x 215 x 8 cm (framed), Leipzig.

[asklucillemckee]

Dear Mrs. Mckee,

You've been requested to testify against your ex-husband in a court of law. He's recently been arrested on charges of assault.

Fill out the attached form. An officer will speak with you shortly.

- @1922-new-england-law-enforcement

P.O. BOX 215, WASHINGTON HEIGHTS

C/O LUCILLE MCKEE

My ex-husband?

Why, no, officer, you musta had a wrong guy. Chester’s a church mouse. Never done a thing before.

Put me on that stand and I’ll tell you all the truth.

[heartattacker]

Dustin C, Canadian bodybuilder. Died from heart attack 1/1/21 at age 39. Pix are all from two years previous. Red trunks from 2017-weight 215. Underwent cardiac ablation for SVT 2015.

[whencyclopedia]

Inanna's Descent: A Sumerian Tale of Injustice

The Sumerian poem, The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the journey of Inanna, the great goddess and Queen of Heaven, from her realm in the sky, to earth, and down into the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead. The poem begins famously with the lines:

From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below From the Great Above the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below From the Great Above Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 52)

The work then goes on to describe Inanna's descent to the underworld accompanied, part of the way, by her faithful servant and advisor Ninshubur.

Summary

Inanna is dressed in her finest clothes and wears the crown of heaven on her head, beads around her neck, her breastplate, golden ring and carries her scepter, the rod of power. Just before she enters the underworld, she gives Ninsubur instructions on how to come to her aid should she fail to return when expected. Upon her arrival at the gates of the underworld Inanna knocks loudly and demands entrance. Neti, the chief gatekeeper, asks who she is and, when Inanna answers, “I am Inanna, Queen of Heaven”, Neti asks why she would wish entrance to the land “from which no traveler returns.” Inanna answers:

Because of my older sister, Ereshkigal Her husband, Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, has died I have come to witness the funeral rites. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 55)

Neti then tells her to stay where she is while he goes to speak with Ereshkigal.

When Neti delivers the news to Ereshkigal that Inanna is at the gates, the Queen of the Dead responds in a way which seems strange: “She slapped her thigh and bit her lip. She took the matter into her heart and dwelt on it” (Wolkstein and Kramer, 56). She does not seem pleased to hear the news that her sister is at the gate and her displeasure is further evidenced when she tells Neti to bolt the seven gates of the underworld against Inanna and then let her in, one gate at a time, requiring her to remove one of her royal garments at each gate. Neti does as he is commanded and, gate by gate, Inanna is stripped of her crown, beads, ring, sceptre, even her clothing and, when she asks the meaning of this indignity, is told by Neti:

Quiet, Inanna, the ways of the underworld are perfect They may not be questioned. (Wolkstein and Kramer 58-60)

Inanna enters the throne room of Ereshkigal “naked and bowed low” and begins walking toward the throne when:

The annuna, the judges of the underworld, surrounded her They passed judgment against her. Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death She spoke against her the word of wrath She uttered against her the cry of guilt She struck her. Inanna was turned into a corpse A piece of rotting meat And was hung from a hook on the wall. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 60)

After three days and three nights waiting for her mistress, Ninshubur follows the commands Inanna gave her, goes to Inanna's father-god Enki for help, and receives two `galla', two transgender beings created "neither male nor female", to aid her in returning Inanna to the earth. The galla enter the underworld “like flies” and, following Enki's specific instructions, attach themselves closely to Ereshkigal. The Queen of the Dead is seen in distress:

No linen was spread over her body Her breasts were uncovered Her hair swirled around her head like leeks. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 63-66)

The poem continues to describe the queen experiencing the pains of labor. The galla sympathize with the queen's pains and she, in gratitude, offers them whatever gift they ask for. As ordered by Enki, the galla respond, “We wish only the corpse that hangs from the hook on the wall” (Wolkstein and Kramer, 67) and Ereshkigal gives it to them. The galla revive Inanna with the food and water of life and she rises from the dead.

As in the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, however, one who has sojourned in the underworld cannot just leave it so easily. Someone must be found to take Inanna's place and so the galla demons of the underworld accompany her up to the earth's surface to claim her substitute. The demons try to take Ninshubur first, then Inanna's sons Shara and Lulal and even Inanna's beautician Cara but, in all these instances, Inanna prevents them because Ninshubur, Shara, Lulal and Cara are all dressed in sackcloth and are in mourning for her apparent death.

When Inanna comes upon her lover Dumuzi, however, and finds him “dressed in his shining…garments…on his magnificent throne” she becomes enraged that he, unlike the others, is not mourning her and orders the demons to seize him. Dumuzi appeals to the sun god Utu for help and is transformed into a snake in order to escape but, eventually, is caught and carried away to the underworld. Dumuzi's sister, Geshtinanna, volunteers herself to go in his place and so it is decreed that Dumuzi will spend half the year in the underworld and Geshtinanna the other half. In this way, as, again with the myth of Demeter and Persephone, the seasons were explained. Yet why so elaborate a myth simply to explain the seasons? The Greek tale of Persephone (though, also, about much more than seasonal change) accomplishes the same end more succinctly.

Continue reading...

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Bramhall

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 3, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 04, 2025

Today a new Congress, the 119th, came into session. As Annie Karni of the New York Times noted, Americans had a rare view into the floor action of the House because the party in control sets the rules for what parts of the House floor viewers can see. Without a speaker, there is no party in charge to set the rules, so the C-SPAN cameras recording the day could move as their operators wished.

Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. All eyes were on the House, where Republicans will hold 219 seats. Initially, though, that number will be 218: The seat to which Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was elected will be empty since he resigned from the previous Congress and, after the House Ethics Committee released a report saying there was “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had broken state and federal laws, apparently decided to focus on his new media show rather than return to the House. When the clerk announced that Gaetz would not take a seat in the 119th Congress, applause broke out.

The Democrats hold 215 seats, and everyone showed up to opening day, including Dwight Evans (D-PA), who has been absent since suffering a stroke last May, and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who fell and broke her hip on a congressional trip to Luxembourg in mid-December. Scott MacFarlane reported that Pelosi, who received a hip replacement at the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, entered the chamber smiling. C-SPAN reported that she had replaced her trademark high heels with flats.

Notably, there are fewer women in the 119th Congress than in the previous one, and there will be no women chairing committees in the Republican-dominated House.

The first problem for the Republicans to solve was the election of a House speaker. It took 15 ballots to elect Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) when the Republicans took control of the House in 2023, and McCarthy had made so many concessions to the far right that they were able to remove him from office just ten months later, the first time in history that a party removed its own speaker in the middle of a session. Then they cycled through four candidates and four votes before settling on backbencher Mike Johnson (R-LA) for speaker. But while Johnson’s evangelical Christianity and support for Trump’s Big Lie about having won the 2020 presidential election indicated he was an extremist, Johnson immediately infuriated the far-right wing of the Republican Party by agreeing to fund the government without incorporating their extreme demands.

Far-right members want to use the need to fund government operations as leverage to get what they want. In a memo before today’s vote, they claimed that Trump and the Republicans hold a “historic mandate,” although in fact Trump won less than 50% of the vote in one of the smallest margins in U.S. history. They have said publicly they would not vote for Johnson as speaker again, likely to extract concessions that give them more power, but Johnson vowed not to make any concessions to them.

Trump was mad at Johnson for backing the passage just before Christmas of a continuing resolution to fund the government without getting rid of the debt ceiling as Trump demanded. But, likely recognizing that the House needs to be organized before it can count the electoral votes that will make him president, Trump endorsed Johnson on social media and worked the phones to support him before today’s vote.

In the first ballot today, all 215 Democrats voted for Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), with him and former House speaker Pelosi sharing a hug when she voted for him. A number of Republicans declined to vote initially, then 216 voted for Johnson while three others voted for someone else, leaving Johnson two votes short of the 218 he needed to be elected.

It was a dramatic rejection not only of Johnson, but also of Trump, who had posted that “[a] win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party, and yet another acknowledgment of our 129 year most consequential Presidential Election!!—A BIG AFFIRMATION, INDEED. MAGA!” But his candidate still could not get the votes he needed from within his own party to run the House.

Scenes like this explain why I remain astonished by the persistence of the narrative that the Democrats are divided while the Republicans are in lockstep.

After the initial vote but before it was gaveled to a close, Johnson went into his office with eight members of the far-right Freedom Caucus, while Trump and incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles called the holdouts. When they emerged, two of the members who had voted for people other than Johnson switched their vote to him, giving him the votes he needed to become the speaker of the 119th Congress. One of the holdouts, Ralph Norman (R-SC) was the man who urged Trump to declare “Marshall Law” on January 17, 2021, to keep President-elect Joe Biden from taking over the presidency.

As soon as they had voted for Johnson, eleven far-right representatives sent a letter to their colleagues saying they had voted for Johnson because they wanted to make sure they didn’t mess up the January 6 counting of Trump’s electoral votes. But they warned that if Johnson didn’t reduce the deficit by enacting “real” spending cuts, stop working with Democrats, and only entertain measures supported by a majority of Republicans, they would challenge his speakership.

For his part, Democratic leader Jeffries said to the House: “Our position is that it is not acceptable to cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut veterans' benefits, or cut nutritional assistance from children and families in order to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations.”

So Johnson is speaker again, but he’s already caught between the MAGAs demanding significant budget cuts and the Democrats’ promise to call attention to every one of those cuts. And popular anger at billionaires seems to be increasing daily: today Pulitzer-Prize-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes left the Washington Post after her editor killed a cartoon criticizing the tech and media leaders who have been currying favor with Trump. “[E]ditorial cartoonists are vital for civic debate,” she wrote, and after watching colleagues overseas “risk their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives to…hold their countries’ leaders accountable,” she chose to leave so she could continue to speak truth to power.

This afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump to report in person or virtually for sentencing in the election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies related to payments he made to film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public with the story of their sexual encounter before the 2016 election. Trump had tried to get the case dismissed because he had been elected president. His spokesperson called the sentencing order a “witch hunt.”

Merchan indicated he would not sentence Trump to serve time in jail.

Meanwhile, at the White House today, President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to five Korean War veterans who may have been denied the nation’s highest award for military valor because of their race or ethnicity, and upgraded awards of the Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor for two veterans of the Vietnam War. Specialist Fourth Class Kenneth J. David was the only one of the men who could receive the honor personally. Biden also awarded fourteen individuals with the National Medal of Science and nine people and two organizations with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He also awarded the Medal of Valor to eight public safety officers for acting above and beyond the call of duty. The awards went to officers who ran toward gunfire to save children during the Nashville Covenant School shooting, swam through freezing water to save a drowning woman, and rushed into burning buildings to rescue women and children.

Biden honored the military personnel for their bravery, and the scientists for their “discoveries that are helping us meet the climate crisis, treat crippling disease, create lifesaving vaccines, pioneer the way we communicate, and significantly improve our understanding of the universe and our place within it.” But it was his remarks about the eight public safety officers awarded the Medal of Valor for acting above and beyond the call of duty that stood out.

He called in the press and said: “Folks, I wanted you to come in because…I think it’s very important that the public see them and know who they are…. There’s a lot fewer empty chairs around the kitchen table and dining room table because of what these guys did.” Biden thanked their families, “because if you’re the spouse of a firefighter or a police officer, you always worry about that phone call,” and told the award recipients: “You’re the best America has to offer.”

Yesterday, Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, given to those “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” to twenty Americans including former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who served on the January 6 committee. Today, Trump attacked Cheney and others who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, as “dishonest Thugs.”

Cheney responded: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[shmolish]

THE BOOK OF BILL DECODED (Spoilers) (P2)

MAD THAT YOU MISSED PART ONE? I WOULD BE TOO, BUD. BUT DON'T WORRY. I'M GENEROUS. Here it is! In a cute little sentence!

WELL NOW THAT YOU'VE READ PART ONE, HERE IS THE REST OF PART TWO.

Look! I reversed it for you! Are you happy? TELL ME YOU ARE HAPPY.

Code(s) used: AXOLOTL

My optometrist never saw it coming

(THANK YOU TO THE HUMAN @retropineapple FOR THIS KNOWLEDGE)

Code(s) used: Ceasar (3 back)

Hbh grfwru ri d gliihuhqw nlqg/ zkr zdqwv wr pdnh klv sdwlhqw eolqg

TRANSLATES TO:

Eye doctor of a different kind/ who wants to make his patient blind

Code(s): It's complicated- here's an explanation:

This is the full list of numbers:

215 858 117 450 110 628 19 21 1 120 2256 216 951 25 256 27 532 212 506 18 1137 221. 658 23 1330 210 231 118 929 112 2043

Each numbers comes in groups of 2. For example, 215-858 or 117-450.

The first number group represents the season and episode. So 215 means season 2, episode 15. The second group represents the time. So 858 means 8:58.

When doing this for each group, we get the sentence:

"Twisted out of shape after the kill. The ghosts of his family are haunting him still."

Code(s) used: Ceasar (3 back)

Ixvvb hdwhu/ edeb erb/ zrxogq'w gulqn/ xqohvv lwv vloob

TRANSLATES TO

Fussy eater/ baby boy/ wouldn't drink/ unless its silly

Code(s) used: Ceasar (3 forward)

Qeb alzqlo pxvp/ qeobb pfmp x axv/ tfii jxhb qeb sfpflkp/ dl xtxv

TRANSLATES TO

The doctor says/ three sips a day/ will make the visions/ go away

Code(s) used: There MIGHT be a code here, but I haven't looked into it just yet! Anyway, here are your numbers from left to right. Go wild!

4 9 5 2 3 1 8 3 3 0 9 8 6 7 3 7 1 2 4

Or (A J F C D B I D D A J I G H D H B C E) If we use the Vigenere alphabet (A=0, B=1, C=2, ect)

X=A

THIS MARKS THE END OF PART 2.

RABBIT HOLE TOO DEEP FOR YOU? WELL LUCKILY I SPAWNED A MAGICAL DOOR TO PART 3 RIGHT HERE

Good luck!

Chapter summary: Silly straws.