#highest point in germany

[ranjith11]

Exploring 27 Random and Ridiculous Facts About Germany | Interesting facts about germany

Welcome, geography enthusiasts, to GeographyGuru99, your go-to channel for all things geographical! Today, we embark on an exciting journey to the fascinating land of Germany, known for its bratwurst, beer, and iconic Brandenburg Gate. In this captivating video, we've curated a list of 27 truly unique, random, and at times, utterly ridiculous facts about this European powerhouse. Get ready to be intrigued, amused, and perhaps even a little shocked as we uncover the hidden gems of Germany's culture, history, and quirks. Join us on this virtual adventure through Germany's diverse landscapes and vibrant cities, all while learning some mind-boggling facts that you won't find in your average travel guide.

[useless-englandfacts]

of course i don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here but super duper rare british… w?

[marvelnatr]

Lingering love 18+

Warnings: Dom!Nat, Daddy kink, sub!reader, makeup sex, oral Natasha!receiving, strap on use, size kink, praise, a little mocking, breeding strap & kink.

I know I know. I started classes up again. But I’m getting back into the rhythm. Enjoy this smut as an apology. Not proof read!!!

Natasha’s POV:

“Y/N lets fucking go! We gotta get moving!”. I stood by the loading dock of the Quinn jet as Y/N threw her duffle in her seat beside her. She was visibly annoyed and pouting like a petulant child over the fact she had to do a mission with me. Closing the door I looked at her “look at me Y/N”. The girls eyes stayed trained to the pocket knife she was holding, fiddling with the blade and paying me no mind. Leaning over her I whispered “Y/N please, I don’t wanna be doing this anymore then you do”. I rested my hand on my ex-girlfriends arm, trying to gain a little of her attention, simply for her to shrug me off and go to her armory cabinet. Giving her the space she wanted I headed to pilot the plane.

I’m not surprised she needs space. I honestly thought I’d never see her again, she left the agency four years ago after our breakup. It was only recently Fury had the idea to bring her on this next mission. Y/N was smart and I hated to agree that we needed her expertise. We need someone who was going to always be one step in front of our target in the technological way and Y/N was the best we’d seen since Daisy. Not much about her has changed since she left. Her hair is a bit longer and she’s colder then I remember.

We were headed to Germany for the next two weeks to follow our target. He was good at covering his tracks. Phenomenal even. I put in the address to our safe house in Bremen. Of course Fury put us in the heart of one of the highest crime rated cities. Y/N had finished getting settled in and started reading her book. She used to sit up front with me, she was always mesmerized when it was clear enough to see the illuminated cities below us as we traveled. I miss those times.

- Time Skip -

Landing the Quinn jet in our private air field I turned on cloaking. Getting up and stretching after a long flight felt amazing. Glancing over at Y/N she was dead asleep with her book rested on her chest. Y/N always looked so peaceful when she’d sleep and I always hated waking her up. Sitting beside her I whispered gently “Y/N we’re here”. Shuffling away from me I sighed and placed my hand on her shoulder “Y/N wake up”. Jumping a little she woke up and stared at me. Panic flooded over her face for a second before it subsided. I watched her “I’m sorry hon I didn’t mean to scare you”. Huffing she threw the blanket off her lap and got up “you didn’t and don’t call me hon”. Nodding I watched her, rubbing my hands over my thighs before standing “alright then”.

Out of instinct I went for Y/N’s duffle bag to carry in but she stepped in front of me before I could and grabbed it, slinging the bag over her shoulder and glaring at me “I got it Natasha” nodding a bit I grabbed my own bag then headed to our safe house. After clearing the place I put my bags on the bed, the air was thick with dust as it had been a while since the safe house was used. I pointed to the window closest to Y/N “open that will you? I want air circulating through here”. An eyes roll and a huff later the window was opened, nodding I went into the bedroom, starting to place my weapons on the bed. A few seconds later I heard a grumble and a string of curse words flying from Y/N’s mouth down the hall. Leaning in view of the doorway I called out “what’s wrong?”. Looking at me she grumbled “there’s only one bed”. My eyes traveled to the bed then back to her, i didn’t mind sleeping in the same bed as her but Y/N definitely minded sleeping in the bed with me. Nodding I threw my pillows on the floor “I’ll take the floor”.

The next morning Y/N was up early. Earlier than me. Hearing the door open I grabbed my weapon, quickly turning to the door just to see Y/N standing with coffee. Rolling my eyes I put the gun back in the mid of my back while lightly scolding her “announce yourself when you walk into the house and tell me where you’re going”. Scoffing she sat at the table “no, I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not my dom”, placing down the knife on the cutting board I turned to her “stop being such a fucking smart ass. I know I’m not your dom. I’m trying to keep us safe. Do as your told”. Shutting up a bit Y/N put sugar in her coffee, stirring the cup as a silence fell over her. I mixed the peppers with the eggs and poured them into the pan “would you like an omelet Y/N?”. Seems that she had elected to ignore me as she brought her coffee to the room. Shaking my head I continued cooking.

A few minutes later I heard the door open again and rolled my eyes “for fucks sake Y/N what did I just say-“ just as I finished my sentence Y/N was in the hallway shooting at the man in our safe house “come on miss black widow fucking help me out here!” Drawing my gun I shot at the mans hand, taking him down then turning my attention to the man who had Y/N in a head lock. Running over to her I took him down as well, Y/N bent over with her hands rested on her knees to catch her breath, wheezing out “I had him”. Rolling my eyes I looked at her for a second scoffing “clearly”. Standing up she rubbed her neck “that was sarcastic” I laughed while checking my magazine and put it back in “no shit”. Y/N stepped over the body and looked at me, clearly she was annoyed. She had no right to be. I saved her ass. Still she spat “will you knock it off? I can handle myself perfectly fine”. Ignoring her I began to pull the weapons off the body “obviously you can’t” . Y/N glared at me then started to leave with gritted teeth, stomping through the house like a petulant child. I watched her, raising my eyebrows and giving her a glare “get your ass back here and help me with these bodies”

-Time skip-

Your POV:

After moving the bodies with Nat I just wanted to curl up in a ball and hide. I hated the way she still had a hold of me. The way a part of me still loved her after all these years. Getting up off the bed knocked on the door again “Natasha hurry up I really have to fucking pee”. A few seconds later the door swung open. Nat was wrapped in a towel still drying her hair with the towel. I stared at her for a minute. Inhaling the scent. She didn’t change her perfume. It’s still the same. Snapping her fingers she sang a little “earth to Y/N? Hello??”. The snapping broke me from my thoughts as I watched her “hm what?”. Natasha rolled her eyes “don’t you have to pee?”. Nodding I went passed her “right yeah. Thanks!”.

Finishing up I washed my hands and stared at myself in the mirror, unlocking the door and leaving it slightly open. Natasha came up behind me in sweatpants and a t-shirt “excuse me”, Nat reached under my arm and grabbed her tooth brush, dipping it in the water before swiping toothpaste over it and brushing her teeth. I have no fucking clue how she never made a mess of her mouth, it always baffled me. She’s so fucking pretty. She must’ve noticed me staring cause she raised her eyebrows at me “what is it Y/N?”. Clearing my throat a little I grabbed my hand towel, drying the water off my hands “nothing”. Natasha gave off her infamous smirk, folding her arms over her chest and taking the toothbrush out of her mouth. Looking up at her I tilted my head “what?”. Shaking her head she spit into the sink and rinsed her mouth, never breaking the cocky expression. I pushed her a little “why are you looking at me like that?”. Smirking at me she leaned against the counter “you’re blushing”, I felt my body heat up a little “I am not!”. Laughing nat placed her hand on my arm, teasing me and rubbing with a mocked pouted lip “mmm sure baby sure”

I felt my face heat up at the pet name and pushed her a little “oh shut up”. Laughing again she walked out of the bathroom “whatever you say hotshot”. Once I had finished up in the bathroom I headed to the room to see Nat laying in the bed and watching TV. We had watched TV in silence last night and I didn’t mind it. We liked the same shows. Getting comfy I climbed into bed shivering. It was so fucking cold here and I didnt really pack any warm pajamas. Looking over me Nat grabbed her hoodie and held it out for me. Shaking my head I whispered “I’m okay”, shaking her head she held it out more “take it Y/N, I dont want you getting sick”. Nodding a bit a took it and put it on. Staring at the small smile pulling at Nats lips.

The confession fell from my lips quicker then I could think, playing with my hands I mumbled “I miss you Natasha”. Natasha’s eyes left the screen as she watched me, her eyes pausing to examine me, as if she was unsure I was telling the truth or not. I watched as she processed my words. After a few minutes she sat forward “are you sure Y/N?”. Continuing to play with my fingers I nodded “I miss you. I miss your voice and your touch and your love. We let go too early”. She nodded and opened her arms for me, beckoning me to lay on her chest. Happily I rested my head down, my hand draped over her stomach. I continued to watch her lips. The lump in my throat still too afraid to ask for a kiss. But like always Natasha knew me. Knew my mannerisms. Natasha leaned down, pressing her lips to mine. My world felt whole again.

Natasha’s POV:

Y/N became putty in my lap. Her body sunk into mine as I kissed her. Petting her head I pulled away and whispered “would you like to try again love?” She nodded “hating you was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done”. Smiling softly I pet her head and whispered “I’m sorry for how I acted years ago, it wasn’t right”. Y/N nodded and whispered “me too, I don’t know what was wrong with me”. Nodding I pet her head “so…what made you want to come back?”, a red tint fell over her cheeks as she whispered “I-I had a few partners….every time we did stuff all I could think about was you”. Jealousy and pride flooded through my body. Y/N wasn’t just my girlfriend she was my sub. I was proud all she thought about was me but the thought of someone else touching her drove me wild. Grabbing her jaw I looked at her “poor thing, I conditioned you didn’t I? Made you so addicted to daddy’s dick it’s all you could think about. You know you always fit me like a sleeve darling” a small whimper fell from her lips as I rubbed her jaw tutting “oh baby, tell me what you want”. Fiddling with her shirt she whispered “I-I want you to fuck me”

Smirking I nodded and rubbed her hip “how do you want me to do that?”. A whimper fell from her lips, I could tell she was getting frustrated. Tears pricked her eyes as I chuckled “oh baby, those pretty tears won’t get you any sympathy. You know I love seeing you cry”. A red tint fell over her cheeks, her eyes continuing to watch her shit. Watching her I snapped my fingers, the noise gaining her attention while I kept hold of her jaw “speak up baby”, I could feel the heat of her cheeks on my hand as she stuttered out “f-fingers and strap”. Nodding I rubbed her cheek “you’ll have to earn it baby, why don’t you go ahead and show me how sorry you are”. Taking off my pajama shorts I watched Y/N, her eyes lit up at the sight of my cunt and I chuckled “come on baby”.

Finding herself between my legs she looked up at me one last time. Nodding I placed my hand on the back of her head, beginning to guide her as she kitten licked my cunt. Her tongue ran through my folds, the feeling earning a moan from my lips. Pleasure surged through my body as I rutted my hips into Y/N’s face. Her moans causing more pleasure as I praised “good girl, fuck you’re doing such a good job for me baby”, I felt her tongue slope into me, my knuckles gripped the sheets while she began to rub my clit “f-fuck baby you’re gonna make me cum”. Gripping her hair into a makeshift ponytail I pulled at her while I came. A moan and a whimper falling from her lips at the newfound pain.

Releasing her hair I smiled down at her “you did such a good job for me love”. A red tint fell over her cheeks as she squirmed. Laughing I leaned forward “so fucking needy huh?”, catching her lip between her teeth she nodded, her embarrassment flooding her face. Sitting up I brought my thumb to her lip, gently pulling it out while whispering “it’s okay sweet girl, I know it’s been a while since you’ve been fucked properly”. Looking up at me Y/N whispered, the sentence barley audible “I’m gonna be really tight…”, clearing my throat a little I rubbed her chin. Of course I wanted to just fuck her with my strap right then and there. Let her feel the pain of the stretch. It’s what she deserves. Especially with the little attitude she gave me earlier. Kissing her gently I whispered “I’m going to get my strap, whatever time I’m gone is the time you have to stretch yourself out. Once I’m back you’re getting fucked”. Y/N quickly brought her hand down to her cunt, working on slipping two fingers in. I admired her for a moment before going to put on my strap. Luckily for her I grabbed the breeding one. And you bet your ass I was going to fill her up.

Walking back into the room a whimper fell from her lips. Chuckling I made my way to the bed then hovered over her. I watched for a minute. The way her chest was rising and falling, how flushed her face was. Stroking my hand over her cheek I smiled “so pretty, so fuckable for daddy hm?” Nodding she whimpered “y-yes daddy”. I sat up on my kneels and pulled her to me by her neck “come here baby, come get daddy nice and wet for you”. Grabbing the faux cock in her hand she began to suck, the job she was doing was damn near sad. Only taking half the dildo in her mouth. I tapped her cheek with my hand, her eyes quickly met mine as I watched her “you know damn well how I taught you to suck dick. Quit the straight shit and suck my strap properly baby. I don’t want to have to help you”. Y/N quickly fixed her mistake and began sucking me properly. Her pretty little gagging noises as tears began to prick her eyes. I could watch her do this all fucking day. Matter of fact she has before. That was a very fun punishment to conduct.

After a few more minutes I pulled her off “lay on your back detka”. Gently she laid down. The wet spot forming on the sheets from her cunt. Tutting I rubbed her hip “such a messy girl already, my poor bunny. So fucking desperate”. I teased the strap over her entrance, slipping the tip of the dildo in just to take it out. Just as she was about to open her mouth in another whiny protest I slipped into her. Filling her in one swift move. A small choked cry mixed with a moan fell from her lips. Leaning over her I kissed her “shhh baby I know, oh I know love, you’re so fucking tight for me”, whimpering she watched me “i-It’s too big daddy, it wont fit” chuckling I rubbed her hip “it’s all the way in bunny, you’re just tight. Don’t worry, daddy will make sure to stretch you out”. Moaning her head fell back into the pillow. My hands made their way to her hips as I lightly pinned her down, beginning to fuck into her. She looked so fucking pretty like this. More moans fell from her lips as she gripped the sheets. Looking at her I mocked a little “what? You’re gonna cum already baby? But daddy just started”. Y/N cried a little and whined “please, please let me cum please”. Tutting I shook my head “no bunny, you’re gonna have to wait, daddy wants to make sure you’re properly bred”

Y/N’s eyes widened in excitement, her cunt clenching around my strap slightly. Smirking I fucked into her “yeah, you want daddy to breed you? Make you mine again?” Another moan fell from her lips as she breathed out “yes daddy please, please fill me up”. Smirking I wrapped my hand around her throat then began fucking her into the mattress. Her eyes rolled back in pleasure as she began to whimper “p-please, I wanna cum daddy please”, giving in I nodded “cum for me baby, soak the sheets and stop thinking for a while”. Y/N’s back arched as she moaned, her screams ringing throughout the room while I filled her up, degrading her and praising her through it. My cum painting her velvety walls white. “That’s it bunny, my little breeding bitch huh? You’re doing so fucking good for daddy”. Her orgasm was nothing short of beautiful. The way her legs shook. The sounds she made. I stayed inside her while she came down from her high, rubbing her cheek and wiping the tears beginning to stain her face.

After a few minutes I rubbed her cheek “you doing okay love?” A small content hum fell from her lips as she cuddled into me. She’s so floaty and I love it. Gently pulling out I chuckled “alright my floaty girl, let’s get you cleaned up and we can cuddle”. After a nod I picked her up and ran us a bath. Joining her in the tub as he rested on me. After all this time she still fit into me like a puzzle piece. Her body weight was just perfect. I definitely missed my girl.

[grantmentis]

2024 Ice Hockey Women's World Championship: A Primer

When: April 3rd to April 14th. The schedule here will tell you when games are taking place both in your local time and venue time.

Where is it taking place?: Utica, New York

Where to watch:

For the first time, we will have ALL games broadcasted in USA and Canada. I am not sure how many games are going to be broadcasted outside North America, but we can reasonably assume they will at least carry their home country games

TSN will carry all games in canada

NHL Network and ESPN+ will carry a mix of the games together. See The Ice Garden's Michelle Jay's tweet for the schedule of which games are where.

SVT (Sweden)

Discovery (Finland)

Czech TV (Czechia)

Magenta (Germany)

TBS (Japan)

Swiss TV (Switzerland)

If you are not in any of these countries, or you are but are struggling to find a way to watch, please feel free to DM me and I will do my best to find you something

What is the tournament format?:

There are two divisions, Division A with the five ranked teams going into the tournament and Division B with the next five. Each division plays a round robin style ranking round, and at the conclusion the bottom two teams in Division B will be relegated, while the rest automatically make the quarterfinals. Quarterfinals will go A1-B3, A2-B2, A3-B1, A4-A5. In addition to the finals for gold that will take place, there will be a bronze medal game and a fifth place game for ranking. Standings will use a three point systems.

Who is in each division?:

Division A: USA, Canada, Czechia, Switzerland, Finland

Division B: Sweden, Japan, Germany, China, Denmark

Who are each teams?

Here is where it gets long. Below the cut I will tell you each teams roster, how they did last year, their reasonable goals, notable roster changes, and three players to watch. I will do my best to keep this informative, but brief.

USA

Roster:

(Text version available here)

2023 Result: Won Gold

2024 goals: Win gold again

Notable roster changes: This team continues to go very very young. Abby Roque is the most notable roster omission here. Top defender Lee Stecklein is also not on this roster, due to her taking a break from the National Team. Amanda Kessel was also left off, but she has not been active within the last year as a player, so not entirely surprising.

Three players to watch: Grace Zumwinkle has been one of the stars of the PWHL so far, and is likely to get more responsibility on the national team than ever before, so keep an eye on her and how she may translate her successful season to the tournament. Rory Guilday may only be 21, but she is heading to her third senior world championships, a long time favorite of the team USA coaching staff with her shutdown defensive skills who they'll hope can take another step this tournament with Lee Stecklein absent. Joy Dunne is the youngest player on this roster, just 18 years old coming off a 24-18-42 season in Ohio and a national championship. This will be her first senior level tournament, and I'd expect her to get ample offensive opportunities.

Canada

Roster

(text version available here)

2023 result: Silver

2024 goals: Gold

Notable roster changes: Micah Zandee-Hart is the most surprising one after being on the roster for a few years. Claire Thompson is absent as is Rebecca Johnston, but that is more expected while Thompson is finishing medical school and Johnston has not played in the past calendar year. Cousins Nicole and Julia Gosling join the team after strong rivalry series showings.

Three players to watch: Natalie Spooner is the front runner for PWHL MVP, so everyone will be watching to see if she continues to score at the rate she has been. Expected number one overall pick in the upcoming PWHL draft, Sarah Fillier, will be playing in her last showing before the draft happens as she finished out her college season. Nicole Gosling was the highest scoring defender in the NCAA this year at Clarkson, going 14-25-39 in 40 regular season games, so seeing how she impacts this blue line is a must watch.

Czechia

Roster

(Text version available here)

2023 result: Bronze

2024 goal: upset their opponent in the semifinals and make the finals

Roster changes: The bad news is top defender Dominika Lásková is out with injury. The good news is star goaltender Klára Peslarová is healthy unlike last year, as is blueline mainstay Tereza Radová. Alena Mills retired from the national team. Kristýna Pátková did not make the team this year, in her place comes Boston University commit Anežka Čabelová who had a stellar U18 worlds. Karolína Kosinová did not make the team, in her place is HV71 assistant captain Klara Seroiszková.

Three players to watch: 17 year old Adéla Šapovalivová was the highest scoring u18 player in the SDHL (Sweden's highest level league) this year and one of their top scorers in general going 11-18-29 in 32 regular season games. She was also a key part of the U18 team that upset Canada in the semifinals to advance to Czechia's first ever u18 final. With Mills retired, she will get more minutes at her third (!!!!) senior worlds. Next up is Klára Peslarová, and if you're not familiar with her game, she is straight up a top five goaltender in the world. She just came off a stellar season with Brynäs IF in Sweden where she had a .935 save percentage in 20 games, and has been consistently stellar on the international stage as well like when she had 55 saves against the united states at the olympics. Kateřina Mrázová is a fantastic playmaker has been a bright spot on a Ottawa tam that has struggled to find itself, and is also one of the most veteran members of this squad. If they win, she'll have to lead the way.

Finland

Roster

Text version available here

2023 finish: Fifth Place

2024 goals: Bronze

Roster changes: Two of their key offensive pieces Elisa Holopainen and Michelle Karvinen, are back and healthy this year! Susanna Tapani is also back on this team. Those are three absolute big pieces that completely change this roster for the better. A few depth roster forwards were left off in their place, most notably Kiira Yrjänen. Defense has more shakeups. Sini Karjalainen is a notable omission and long time defender Rosa Lindstedt retired. Eve Savander, Oona Koukkula, and Siiri Yrjölä slot in.

Three players to watch: I've consistently been a very big Elisa Holopainen fan and I think she's one of the best players in the world and not talked about nearly enough. Just as she began to really shine in the international stage, she got hit with injury, but as she's come back with year she dominated Finland's league going 32-25-57 in 19 games. I think I've put her as a player to watch like every year I've done a preview and I'm going to keep going it. Finland has faced a lot of questions about their goaltending following Räty and the team going their separate ways, but right now, it is Sanni Ahola's crease to lose. She was stellar in the three games she started last year for Finland in the world championship and was solid for st cloud state with a .935 save percentage in 17 starts this year. With Lindstedt's retirement, Krista Parkkonen will see more minutes, coming off a breakout sophomore year in a university of vermont program that's developed a decent amount of international blueliners.

Switzerland

Roster

(Text version here)

2023 result; 4th place

2024 goals: bronze

Roster changes: quite a lot of shake up. no Caroline spies as their mainstay backup, Alexandra Lehmann takes her place. No Sarah Forster, who wore an A and led their defense last time around. She only played 7 games in SWHL this year, so likely injury is at play.

Players to watch: it is, of course, the Alina Müller and Lara Stalder show until it isn’t. So, besides them, the players to watch are Andrea Brändli is another “top five goaltender in the world” to know, sporting a .937 in her first year playing in Sweden post a stellar college career. 18 year old Ivana Marie Wey just had a great year playing pro as Stalder’s teammate and will be important for the next Swiss wave. With no Forster, Lara Christen will take on a lot of the top defensive minutes most likely.

Sweden

Roster

(Text version available here)

2023 results: sixth

2024 hopes: return to group A

Roster changes: no Sarah Grahn which isn’t entirely expected but still a big change, in response Ida Boman gets the call. No Fanny Rask or Olivia Carlsson, who retired.

Three players to know: Ebba Hedqvist is a 17 year old elite center coming off a great performance at worlds and has an eye for playmaking that will be critical for Sweden. Maja Nylén Persson is the #1 defender of team Sweden that has consistently been the top defender by points in the SDHL and won defender of the year in 2022-2023, and she is only 23 years old. Another part of Sweden’s insane center depth is Lina Ljungblom, who will likely play in Montreal next year and had 46 points in 36 regular season games. In the various tournaments/friendlies that Sweden has played leading up to this (ie five nations cup), she has 10 goals in 15 games. These three players are truly some of my favorite in hockey right now

Japan

Roster

(Text version available here)

2023 result: 7th

2024 hopes: return to group A

Roster changes: honestly we mostly running this back. One or two u18 add ins but overall the same as 2023

Players to watch: stop me if you heard this before but Akane Shiga is very good. The PWHL Ottawa player is the only player from Japan to score against the USA, and will continue to be japans biggest threat. Another big player is Haruka Toko, one of the SDHL’s top scorers this year who had established herself as a top talent in the last two years. This year, the 27 year old had 13 goals and 30 assists in 36 games in Sweden this year. She was one of seven players in Japan to play in Sweden this year, a year that saw a new high in Japanese players going overseas to play. That also includes my last player to watch, Yoshino Enomoto, who played in switzerland and still put up around a point per game on a team that struggled (they folded in the offseason then came back and built their roster late and were ultimately relegated, but she was a bright spot in her first season there)

Fun fact: did you know three pairs of sisters play on this team? Akane and Aoi Shiga, Haruka toko and Ayaka Hitosato, and Rio and Riri Noro

Germany

Roster

(text version available here)

2023 Results: Eighth

2024 Goal: Make quarterfinals and avoid relegation

Roster changes: Both goalies behind Abstreiter last year, Chiara Schultes and Johanna May, did not make this roster with Hemmerle and Loist taking their place. The d core remains the same besides Daria Gleissner taking Heidi Strompf's place. National team vet Marie Delarbre is absent with injury, Sonja Weidenfelder did not play hockey this year and her status is uncertain, and Anne Bartsch did not make the roster. In their place we have Emily Nix, Lilli Welcke, and Lucia Schmitz.

Three players to watch: Luisa Welcke was with Germany last year, but has a second season in the NCAA under her belt and a nice depth player performance at Boston University. She will have more chances to show off her offense this tournament than in the NCAA, and I'm excited to see what she can show. Jule Schiefer had a revelation this year in the German league. From last year where she only scored 4 goals in 20 games, this year she scored 22 in 24. Let's see if she can continue this at worlds. Nina Jobst-Smith will play big defensive minutes for Germany after finishing her fourth season at Minnesota Duluth, this time serving as an assistant captain, and was nominated for 2023-24 All-WCHA Third Team. She's a two way defender who will be taking on big responsibility for Germany as she has in the past.

China

Roster

(Text Version available here)

2023 result: Promotion from Division I

2024 goal: Make quarterfinals and avoid relegation

Roster changes: Oh boy. So, like, a lot of people, and here is why: up until this tournament, China allowed dual citizens not born in China to play for them. This includes some players you may know from PWHL/NCAA like Leah Lum, Hannah Miller, Rachel Llanes, and Tia Chan. Going into this tournament, they changed the rules and those players will not be eligible, so it is a significant roster shakeup.

Three player to watch; This team is very young. Yifan Wang is 16 years old, and in her international debut scored 10 goals in 5 games in the WJC-D2A U18. This is obviously a gigantic step up in competition and very hard for a 16 year old to be playing against adults on the highest level stage of women's hockey, so I don't imagine she'll get a TON of ice time, but she is worth looking out for. Xin Fang is the veteran and star of this roster, who had 2 goal and 2 assists in the teams D1A tournament that earned them their promotion. 17 year old Dartmouth commit Grace Zhan is who I expect to be their starting goaltender. Born in Beijing, she spent the past year playing Minnesota High School Hockey and put up top numbers in a league that sees a lot of NCAA recruits.

Denmark

Roster

(Text version here)

2023 Results: Promotion from Division I

2024 hope: Make Quarterfinals and avoid relegation

Roster changes: Long time national team star and centerpiece of the team Josefine Jakobsen will no longer play for Denmark, though she will continue her club career.) Otherwise, despite some depth changes, it is mostly the same lineup.

Three players to watch: Frederikke Foss had a great year at Shattuck St Mary's u19 program and has committed to UMaine, and may be able to spark some offense Denmark will desperately need without Jakobsen. Silke Lave Glud will also be expected to carry the offense after her stellar year in the Tier 2 league in Sweden, and lead the way for younger players as one of the most experienced members of the team. Goaltender Emma-Sofie Nordström's performance at the D1A worlds was a big reason for their promotion, and she is coming off a great sophmore year at st. lawrence university where she had a .931 save percentage in 36 games and 7 shutouts. If Denmark wants to stay in the top division, she will need to steal a game for them.

[centrally-unplanned]

Atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki: Based or Cringe?

Hiroshima = based, Nagaski = cringe, we having it both ways today baby!

But okay to not meme, this is a very complex question. Fundamentally, the mass-scale strategic bombing of civilian targets in World War Two was a dubiously effective policy that killed millions of innocent people. I judge no one for strategically bombing tank factories with the accuracy you had in 1943, that is just the harsh realities of that war, but that is not a description of what Allied strategy was (or not just, they also bombed tank factories). There were legions of air power proponents executing a strategy of "maximizing civilian casualties to break the back of the enemy", killing babies was the point, and the horrors of things like the firebombing of Tokyo are literally inconceivable to those who have never been in such times. Morality is not divorced from results - if it worked, if it made Germany & Japan surrender after a night of bloodied streets, then I would be hard-pressed to fault them. But that isn't what happened. It probably did something, sure, but the calculus is grim.

From that lens you can see Hiroshima as a culmination of a horrible strategy; but I don't think that is the only lens you have. World War Two was, in my opinion without peer, the highest stakes conflict humanity has ever fought. Nazi Germany's combination of dystopian vision and backed-by-steel ambition makes it the worst government to ever exist; Japan is certainly in the top 10 as far as these things go. And while we with our tables of GDP and steel output can say the Allies had it in the bag, that is never how people fighting a war see things.

Additionally, the methods of World War Two emerged from the almost-as-cataclysmic horrors of World War One; a conflict that utterly destroyed the governments of half the countries that fought it in. And their replacements were...not great! It was not a war that broke imperialism to usher in liberalism, even if steps were made that way. After WW1, people were desperate to find a way to fight the next war in a way that wouldn't condemn themselves to endless trench warfare they had gone through, one that wouldn't bring them to the brink of collapse, even if it fucked over the other guy.

Strategic bombing was born from this impulse - its founders truly hoped it would break the back of opposing nations, that once you "won air superiority" and started smacking Berlin the white flag would be raised. This didn't happen, but you didn't know that in 1941. Or in 1942. Or in 1943. Maybe it's just around the corner in 1944? You really want to stop now? 90% of Strategic Bombing Commands quit just before their enemy's will is finally broken, don't you know? In hindsight it is easy to say, in 1944, that they should have taken to foot off the pedal, that the war was won, and that this strat wasn't the way. And to be clear, they should have, they should have done that. Better men would have done that. But that is the high bar I am holding them too, not the floor. In this time period most people just didn't think civilians got spared in war, it was a different time. Morality's aim is universal, but the steps of the individual towards them can only be contextual. I think they were wrong, and to be clear by 1945 it was becoming quite obvious that the war was over and this was unnecessary. But few of us are so immune to the sins of inertia in a war.

From that lens, Hiroshima is the most justified civilian-targeted strategic bombing conducted in the entire war. Because unlike the inertia-creep of the Dresden firebombing, it had a very clear purpose - compel the Japanese government to surrender by demonstrating a weapon they could not hope to defeat, something that would save tens of thousands of American lives and likely hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. I believe it did do that - not only do I think it was at least as important as the Soviet declaration of war, but the one-two punch of timing them together was a calculated psychological blow that certainly didn't hurt.

But more importantly Truman was not privy to the sessions of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, he could only guess where they stood. Within that context Hiroshima was a calculated gambit that makes sense; because strategically bombing civilian targets was the order of the day at that time, and that all the big solo-military targets were essentially bombed away at that point, the idea of some kind of "display" against a dummy target or something - to a government the US had barely any communication with, wasting a scarce resource - was just not politically in the cards. Hell, neglecting to bomb Kyoto for cultural reasons, and doing things like dropping leaflets warning civilians ahead of the attack to flee, were already tail-end of the humanitarian practices of the time. I cannot armchair judge Truman for making hard calls with the stakes as high as they were.

However, Nagasaki was a classic interia case. It was done because the US had the bomb and we were bombing cities. It made even less sense than campaigns before, because now the US had a "reason" to think surrender might be imminent, so giving it a few days had far more logic. This one I judge much more harshly. It was the decision of a system that just did violence by default. Which of course it was, it was World War Two. But results are morality - Hiroshima probably saved Japanese lives. Nagasaki did not. Them's the breaks.

[katelynnwrites]

Little Liebe's Family II | Sydney Lohmann x Child!Reader

warnings: ~

word count: 1077

summary: you change Tante Syd's name

a/n: part of Sydney's Little Liebe, celebratory two fics in a day cause germany is going to the olympics 🥳

Tante Syd is brushing her teeth when you appear by the door and hover as you wait for her to finish.

‘Little Liebe?’ She questions worriedly as soon as she’s done.

It’s odd for you to be standing in her bedroom, you’re usually tucked into your own bed by now.

‘Can you read me a bedtime story?’ You ask.

Your Tante is confused but slowly says, ‘Okay…’

You haven’t had a bedtime story in a while, deciding it to be only for babies. No matter how much Momma and Tante Syd had tried to convince you otherwise, you were stubborn and adamant about your decision.

But you really really want one today because you think it will make the weird feeling in your tummy go away.

Tante Syd holds out her hand and you grip onto it tightly as she walks you back to your bedroom.

‘Which book would you like?’

You like Tante Syd’s voice. It calms you down and Momma told you that when you were very little, Tante used to sing you a lullaby when she rocked you to sleep.

You don’t need her to sing to you today, especially because Tante Laura from the Country Club says that Tante Syd can’t sing but you do need her to read you your favourite book so you point to it.

It’s not been read for a while so it’s been sitting on your bookshelf instead of your bedside table where it used to sit.

’Do you want me to sit in your bed beside you?’ She prompts gently after picking the book up and you nod.

You squeeze her hand tightly as she does so and Tante kisses the top of your head.

She opens the book and reads, ‘I love our time together as we start each happy day.’

‘I love our bathtime silliness. The way we splash and play.’

‘With my yellow duck!’

Tante Syd chuckles softly, ‘I love to lift you way up high so you feel really tall!’

You giggle, ‘I love it too. I like being taller than Tante Mala.’

Tante Mala is the tallest person you know and you feel like such a big girl when you can see the top of her head.

You have a lot of fun when Tante Syd puts you on her shoulders.

Your Tante turns the page, reading aloud, ‘We’ll climb the highest mountaintops. Hold tight and you won’t fall.’

In your book, it shows a baby bear and a mummy bear. They climb mountains together and you want to do that too.

‘Tante am I big enough to go climb mountains with you and Momma yet?’

She’s been promising that you could since you first started reading this book together and because you haven’t read it for a while, you thought that maybe you’ve grown big enough to go.

Your Tante laughs, ‘Soon Little Liebe. We can go hiking with your Momma real soon okay? You’ve just got to grow a bit bigger so make sure to eat all your veggies.’

‘Okay.’ You nod furiously.

Tante Syd grins. You ask every time the storybook is read to you so she’s not surprised you’ve asked again.

‘You’ll hold my hand tight when we go right?’ You whisper as an afterthought.

When you were littler, you didn’t think about that and now you worry a bit about it. Falling off a mountain sounds like it will give you an ouchie.

Like the one you have on your knee from tripping because you ran too fast on the pitch.

‘Of course Little Liebe. Your Momma will hold one hand and I will hold your other hand so you will be safe.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

Tante gives you a pinky promise so you know she’s being serious.

‘I’ll get bigger soon. Then we can go.’ You decide, making Tante Syd chuckle.

Unbeknown to you, your Momma and her already have a hiking trip planned for you. You’ve been big enough for a while.

Tante’s voice is very soft and very affectionate when she reads, ‘I love to share the magic of the shining skies above and think of all the different ways that we can show our love.’

‘Like when we’re touching noses.’

Your Tante Syd bumps her nose off yours and you dissolve into a fit of giggles, ‘You’re silly Tante.’

‘Playing chase or seeing friends. Our love is always with us and it never, ever ends. So snuggle safely in my arms, our day is nearly done.’

Tante doesn’t even have to ask or hold her arms out because you cuddle right up to her.

She hugs you tightly, murmuring the last line of the book, ‘I love you to the moon and stars, my precious little one.’

‘I love you too. To the moon and stars.’

‘Which is a lot because they are very far away.’ You add insistently.

‘I know Little Liebe. I love you lots too.’

You wiggle under your blanket.

‘Tante?’

‘What is it?’

‘Can I call you Mama?’

Your Tante goes very still and quiet next to you. Her breathing sounds funny for a moment and she hugs you even more tightly.

‘If you want to, Little Liebe.’

You relax as the weird feeling in your tummy disappears.

‘That’s good because I want to. My teacher at school says that I have two mummies because you and Momma are getting married. So you can’t be Tante anymore.’

‘I’d love to be your Mama.’

You grin, kissing her cheek and your Mama’s eyes are very shiny when she kisses your cheek back.

‘Have sweet dreams meine Little Liebe.’

She tucks you into your fluffy blanket properly and checks under your bed to make sure there aren’t any monsters hiding there.

‘No monsters?’

‘No monsters.’ She confirms.

Yawning, you mumble, ‘Goodnight Mama Syd.’

‘Goodnight Little Liebe.’

She’s left your night light on so you aren’t afraid when she leaves your bedroom.

You’re already falling asleep so you don’t know that she bursts into tears as soon as she’s outside.

You don’t know that Momma comes out from finishing up the dishes in the kitchen to find her crying.

You don’t know that she anxiously asks your Mama Syd what is wrong, only for her to shakily say, ‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything is perfect because Little Liebe just called me Mama.’

You don’t know any of that but you do know that you are so very very loved. By both your Momma and Mama.

German Translations:

meine Little Liebe - my little love

tante - aunty

[niuniente]

I don't understand the voting system for eurovision. But how did Sweden win? Did they bribe judges?

That's the theory! ABBA won Eurovision in 1974 and started their career, so 2024 is ABBA's 50th anniversary. There's one Reddit post saying that the person works in Swedish entertainment business and their boss had told them that they've decided to celebrate ABBA-week with Eurovision - before any country even had decided who they are going to send to Eurovision. The Eurovision final had a way too much emphasis on Sweden and ABBA, too.

Sweden's representative singer Loreen herself said in one interview, that Sweden had to win because of ABBA.

Swedish media also knew for certainty that Sweden is going to win through the whole spring before Eurovision artists had been chosen. It wasn't even "what if we win" but "lol of course we will win".

Jury, aka 186 people from different countries, gave so many jury points to Sweden that even if 2nd runner had gotten all 12 points from televoting - meaning that in every single European country the countrymen wanted the 2nd runner to win - the 2nd runner would have still lost. Doesn't matter if and when Eurovision viewers send millions and billions to Eurovision by voting their favorite song - the jury has spoken.

The gigantic amount of jury points for one country also means that all other countries didn't receive jury points or got very little even when there was nothing wrong in their performance - and in any other year than in upcoming ABBAvision 2024 they would have received jury points. The jury points would have divided wider among different countries' artists. Norway is especially pissed off but so is Germany, too.

So, 186 people decided the winner when millions of people wanted someone else to win. In fact, 70% of the Eurovision televoters wanted Finland to win. Rest 30% wanted either Sweden or someone else to win. No country gave maximum points to Sweden. The average point for Sweden from public was 6 and for Finland 10.

Finland got the 2nd highest score in televoting in the whole history of Eurovision, which has been celebrated since WWII, and still didn't win. Because of jury of 186 people.

And then, Swedish media dares to say that televoting and people can't be trusted and they can't be let to decide who they want to win because "the audience doesn't always know right" (a direct quote).

[jamneuromain]

Hello,

Congrates again Sweetie, you really deserves it ❤️

I don't know how many asks we can send and I had so many ideas of combinations

I am sending two of them depending on what's inspiring you. If both of them inspire you, it's even better. 🤭

🥳😶❤️ Steve Rogers

👇🕯😈 Jake Jensen

Good luck 😘

Okay this is definitely a brain teaser

but still, I'm going to go with 🥳😶❤️ Steve Rogers, because this reminded me of an idea I once had...

Disguise

Captain America!Steve Rogers x You

Warning: A little cursing but that's all.

Summary: It's your first mission, and Captain America has told you to disguise yourself. You've followed that order to a "T".

A/N: Hiya! Sorry it took so long to get it out :( I have to say, originally I wanted to write a short drabble where Steve was teaching her a lesson, but then I wondered, why is she on this mission in the first place? and I can't control this drabble which turned into a ~2k one-shot....

"... and the last item on our agenda," Maria took a brief stop from her briefing and looked around the room like a hawk, scanning everyone with her sharp eyes until they landed on the selected few, "congratulations on our fellow analysts who have applied for the field agent assistant position and passed the final test."

With a few claps from the fellow analysts, she paused again, waiting until the claps died down before quickly gathering her thoughts and assigned a few missions to three other analyst/field agent assistant, "And Y/N, I will brief you for your next mission, please stay for a few more minutes after this meeting. The rest of you, keep up the good work. You are dismissed."

It had been an eventful six months with all of your trainings - basically starting up from the ground up, no previous experience being an agent whatsoever - but you made it till the end, even though barely passing all the bars that are required for a field agent assistant. You felt very lucky as field agent assistant only requires 60% of what full-time agents can achieve, and watching your once muscle-lacking arms and legs, now turned out to be somewhat of an amateur wrestler, half of a professional boxer, and a sprinkle of assassin (thanks to Clint for his dart training).

You felt good about yourself. Truly, good.

Maria handed you a slim brown folder with a few pages in it. Opening it with sheer curiosity, you hear Maria picking out a few important points to brief: "There is rumored to be a highly dangerous neurotoxin in the black-market with more than a dozen buyers interested. This mission would be an undercover job in Venice, where the said toxin would be sold to the highest bidder."

The first page had a few sentences of what the said toxin could do. It evaporates soon but kills just as quickly. Victim's skin turned purple in contact with this chemical, looking as if they had suffocated to death. Word on the street? It was responsible for the terrorist attack in Paris last month.

"You would be posing as Mrs. Anna Dashevsky, wife of Mr. Vlad Dashevsky, the notorious couple of wreaking havoc: the train accident in Germany, the bombing in L.A., and a few other dozen of suspected murders and attacks. We have apprehended them both from their Belarus safe house twenty-four hours ago, safe to say that your cover would not be blown since the auction is fully anonymous." Maria had her skeptical look on you, her cold voice brought chills to your spine, "Unless of course, you got made."

"No, I won't, Ma'am." You replied on instinct, knowing fully well that the danger of arms dealers and terrorists gathering in such an auction could possibly be the end of your career - and your life as well, which was why you took a glance at the page of Mr. and Mrs. Dashevsky, making a mental note of the couple's information.

"Good. I shall hope not." Maria gestured you to turn the file to the next page, "You would be working with an Avenger for this mission. Your task is to provide tactical analytic support on the ground. Locate the position of the toxin, get it out, our team would be picking you up two miles south of the venue -" She pointed to a red cross marked on the map, "which is this bridge. If you missed the rendezvous, retreat to the safehouse." Her fingers tapped the red circle on the corner of the map, "Proceed as Protocol 4-12 Agent in Distress."

You scanned over the map to remember the extraction routes, noticing that these are the only pages in the thin folder, "There's no teammate information - am I going in there as Anna alone, or ...?"

Maria shook her head lightly, "You would be greeted by your teammate once you land in Venice, and your teammate would be posing as Vlad, your husband - I noticed you've got a B+ in Russian?" Seeing that you've nodded in confidence, Maria continued, "Good. Practice your Russian, might be handy. Your flight takes off at Runway Charlie in thirty minutes, I'd suggest you head off to the equipment room right now for the gadgets."

"Yes, Ma'am." You dared not linger a second more and headed straight to the equipment room.

First mission on the ground. You could not be more excited.

Turned out, you could. When the famous Captain America greeted you once your plane had landed on a small airstrip in the outskirt of Padova. Where he was leaning by a smooth silver sedan with a fake nose and a fake moustache.

You almost did not recognise him until he spoke.

"Steve." He introduced himself briefly, extending his hand for you to shake. Didn't take much to know the only one named "Steve" existing in the Avengers team was Steve Frigging Rogers, Captain America himself, the golden boy of the States, and the man with the plan.

"Hi! I'm Anna." You put down your briefcase of trinkery, took his hand and shook with a firmer grip than you had imagined. "Well, my name isn't Anna," You smiled apologetically, "It's ..."

"I know, Y/N." He chuckled, opening the car door for you, gesturing for you to sit, "I've got the files Maria sent. We'll talk on the way."

Yeesh, such gentleman. You bit back the grin and sat in the passenger's seat, while he put the case into the backseat.

The drive from Padova to Venice took about forty minutes, during which he briefed you the latter half of the information required. You switched to one of those little boats - which Italian name you still couldn't pronounce - on entering Venice, by that time you were picking up something casual to talk about, just in case the toxin seller had eyes and ears around the potential buyers.

"First time leaving the office, huh?" He teased you lightly, rubbing small circles around your shoulder blade, pretending to be intimate as he spoke softly.

"Yeah." You murmured, clasping and un-clasping your hand due to obvious nervousness, "It's the first time, well ... ever."

"It's okay." Steve smiled warming, practically glowing kindness when he offered to soothe your nerves, "I'd say you would forget about it ..." He shrugged, "But then I would be lying. Truth is, it's always frightening for the first time, but you will be fine." Steve beamed at you, scratching his fake nose, which you thought must be some kind of silicone that created authentic skin-like appearance, "Just give it time."

Your destination was the safehouse marked on the map. After Steve tipped the boat guy generously, he made sure no one was lurking before tugging a key out of his pocket and opened the door.

Maybe it was your expression that betrayed you, because Steve read something from your looks and grinned, "You want to ask me something? Go ahead."

You're that obvious? But you decided it was best to follow orders.

"This safe house doesn't look so ... safe." You commented, "How are we supposed to defend ourselves, if it comes to ... you know," you chuckled drily, "shooting and stuff?"

Steve seemed stunned for a moment, before really taking a good look at the plain wooden floor and the almost ancient decor in the kitchen, the rusty oven, the missing cabinet door, the whole lot suggesting this place hadn't been set foot in years.

"What, this?" His brows furrowed into a knot, as if seeing completely different things.

You nervously waited for his reply.

"Oh..." Realization hit him as he slapped himself on the forehead, pressing a button below the kitchen table, "You mean ... this."

The noise of machine operating out of nowhere startled you, almost immediately sent you into a defensive position. But as the old crappy oven flipped to the other side and showed an array of guns, bullets, knives, and tasers, the dusty kitchen table pulled the planks to its side and revealed a huge tactical screen, and the fireplace tugged a secret passageway open for an escape route, your jaw fell on the floor.

"I might have told Tony about the whole disguise idea for the safe houses and uh," Steve chuckled, "He and Bruce took it way too seriously. Probably got a bit carried away too."

"One little problem, though," You raised your index finger and swiped a line along the greasy stove, making a face, "I don't think there's anything we can find here to eat ...?"

"Don't worry about that." Steve waved his hand dismissively, "We won't be here more than an hour before heading to the auction place. There's a full wardrobe and weaponry upstairs, first door on the right - but I'm sure you have already got plenty in your case - But by all means, take half an hour to adjust, rest, grab what you need, and I want us out of here by an hour. That sounds good?"

"Good. Okay. Thumbs up." You confirmed and headed upstairs with your suitcase, only to close the bedroom door and squeal into your palms.

O.M.FUCKING.GEE!

Captain America. In the living flesh!

On your first-ever mission!

Three soft knocks came through the thin wooden door.

"You alright in there?"

"I'm okay Cap - I mean, Vlad!" You called out, realizing as soon as you spoke that your voice was hoarse than usual.

"Careful there. The wardrobe door is on the left-hand side. Give me a shout if you need anything."

After that, small trotting noises, probably from the footsteps of Steve Rogers going downstairs.

Left-hand side? You eyed the dusty place curiously, poking and prodding the moldy wallpaper. You didn't see any wardrobe, other than -

Your nail bore contact with a piece of metal, from which a grey-ish camera leapt out of the wall, and nearly hit your hand.

It scanned your face, before emitting that rumbling Transformer noise again, revealing a wall full of weapons, money, and of course, clothes and wigs for disguises.

You gasped at the brand-new Magnums on the wall. You took your word back. This was the safest house in the fucking galaxy.

"Ta-da-" You walked down the stairs, "What do you think, Ca - Vlad?"

Steve had his gaze pinned on you for a moment. His expression was close to blank, which was giving you a hard time figuring out what he was thinking.

"Am I overdoing it?" You clenched the collar of your coat nervously, "Anna - I mean, I came from a Slavic root, so this is ... alright? No?"

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting the corner of his lips from the uncontrollable grin. "I would say, that this outfit is ... " He tried hard not to laugh, "It's good, great. Could use a few ... improvements, though."

You were wearing a thick fur coat and a fur hat, sunglasses too, dressing up like a polar bear rolled over in red and brown paint.

"Just because the Dashevsky's are from Slavic roots doesn't mean we have to dress up as good-ole fashioned Russian villains." Steve helped you take off the thick fur coat, smiling to himself, "We still have some time. Care to go through Disguise 101 with me?"

Find Jammy's 500 Follower's Celebration here 👈

Questions? Comments? Requests? 👉Send them to my inbox 👂

[nanthegirl]

⭐︎Hi Hello⭐︎

I love reading everyone’s intro posts because they’re so cute and I’m nosy. So here’s mine🧍🏾‍♀️. Although I’m a bit concerned about redundancy because of my bio, but whatever.

• Nanu

• Medical Technology Student

• Germany

• Languages- English, mother tongue and German, B2 C1, who knows?

• Interests & Hobbies- Beginner violinist, trying to get into art, The Sims, crochet, reading, writing only for my Sims though and Disco Elysium.

I was so stressed about writing one of these and it ended up being very anticlimactic. Which is good.

More Semester specific info under the cut🧍🏾‍♀️. (03/04/2024)

I’m in my 6th Semester which, all things being equal, should’ve been my last. But I haven’t particularly been the best student due to a…. bunch of stuff. So I may end up taking an extra semester or two. I’m done most of my classes though so I just have exams to write. A lot. Im also doing the Lab for Physics 2 now cause I wasn’t able to do it in my 2nd Semester because my apartment didn’t have electricity or WiFi lmao.

Main Goals for The Semester

Get 1’s on every exam. Ridiculously ambitious considering the highest grade I’ve ever gotten is a 1,3 and that was just once but if I don’t see the point in not aiming for a perfect grade. Like, I might as well.

Up my gpa as much as I can, hence the 1’s. I want to make sure I get into a good masters program and I’m sort of glad I delayed a bunch of my exams cause I would’ve probably gotten shit grades if I wrote them then so. Silver lining.

Study consistently and try to be more interested in the material. I always feel like a fraud when I pass any exam cause I feel like I didn’t really learn anything and I won’t be able to get a job. My degree has some interesting parts and I want to learn to enjoy the entirety of it. Basically up my curiosity for knowledge.

Work on my German. I’ve not set down a solid plan for this yet but I definitely need improvement. I avoided all the electives that required presentations last semester and I heavily regret it now. The only way to dissolve the anxiety over speaking German is to give myself nothing to worry about in the first place. I’m also looking forward to being more comfortable with it so I can focus on learning my native language and many others.

Practice the violin consistently. I’m super shy about practicing in my apartment cause I assume everybody thinks it sounds terrible and it’s too loud but my goal is overcome that fear and make significant progress.

Practice drawing consistently. I really do want to improve my art and I’m like a beginner beginner beginner. It can feel super discouraging sometimes but also fun and I really hope I can stick with it.

Clean my room every Saturday.

I pqlanned to write a whole lot more here but I’m not in the mood anymore so the whole cut thing feels like a waste. But it’s been done. So. Thank you for bothering to read this and I hope you get to achieve all your goals🤍.

[slavghoul]

Hello, I prepared some statistics to give you a short overview of Ghost's amazingly successful 2022. It is based on data I collected between 22/12/2021 and 22/12/2022.

-

The big Ghost event of 2022 was of course the release of the band's fifth album, IMPERA.

Since March 11, it has sold nearly 500,000 copies, won the American Music Award for Favorite Rock Album and received a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance ('Call Me Little Sunshine').

Within the first week of its release, the album reached #2 on the Billboard 200 (ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States) and ranked in the top 20 best-selling albums in 19 countries across the world:

#1 in Sweden, Austria, Germany, Finland, Spain

#2 in US, UK, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands

#3 in Australia, Canada

#5 in Switzerland, Ireland, France

#7 in Poland

#8 in Hungary

#12 in Denmark, Portugal

#20 in Italy

IMPERA is Ghost’s best charting album to date.

-

On YouTube, the band amassed a staggering 260 million views. 840,000 people subscribed to the channel this year, which makes up 42% of all current subscribers.

5 most watched videos on YouTube in 2022:

Mary On A Cross (Official Audio) – 32 million views

Call Me Little Sunshine (Official Music Video) – 15 million views

Square Hammer (Official Music Video) – 11 million views

Mary On A Cross (Live in Tampa 2022) – 8.2 million views

Spillways (Official Music Video) – 6.8 million views

-

On Spotify, the band amassed 1,285,625 new followers. That’s around 61% of all followers since the band appeared on the platform.

5 most streamed songs on Spotify in 2022:

Mary On A Cross -  193,709,473 streams

Call Me Little Sunshine – 41,108,589 streams

Square Hammer – 29,720,042 streams

Dance Macabre – 26,494,053 streams

Spillways – 24,910,870 streams

-

It goes without saying that the viral success of Mary On A Cross on TikTok brought in a lot of new fans this year, but the magnitude of it becomes even more astonishing if you look at numbers.

On this graph, I marked a few events that resulted in a noticeable spike in the number of monthly listeners on Spotify, including the approximate time when MOAC began to gain traction on TikTok. As you can see, nothing, not even the release of a new album, gave the band as much attention as the 3-year old song suddenly raising in popularity on one single platform.

Between end of July and beginning of October, the number of monthly listeners on Spotify skyrocketed from 2.5 million to 12 million. This is a 380% increase.

Although the numbers have been in decline since then, it appears that for the past month they have stayed at a steady 9 million. As of today (Dec 22, 2022) the exact number is 9,110,996. Exactly a year ago (Dec 22, 2021) the number was 1,999,951. A hefty 355% increase in only a year.

-

Some other milestones and fun facts:

On June 7, Cirice, Dance Macabre, and Square Hammer were all certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of 500,000 units in the USA. Following the viral success, Mary On A Cross was also certified Gold on November 20.

The band's most liked post on Instagram this year was a video of Papa throwing the first pitch at the White Sox game (273,241 likes).

The episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live where Ghost performed Call Me Little Sunshine was watched by around 1.3 million people.

In September, Ghost reached over 12 million monthly listeners on Spotify and was the 450th most streamed artist globally - that's 450 out of over 11 million!

As of today with over 1.6 billion accumulated streams Ghost is one of the 1,000 most successful artists on the platform of all time (currently #808).

On September 11, Mary On A Cross peaked at #1 in the Viral Hits chart on Spotify in 54 countries across the world.

It was also the highest charting Swedish song on the platform in 2022, peaking globally at #31.

-

At this point I think it’s safe to declare that Ghost’s global success reached unprecedent heights this year and even allowed them to officially join the ranks of mainstream artists. With all of the above, 70 completed shows this year and many more to come in 2023, and with media of the likes of The Wall Street Journal proclaiming Ghost “the next generation of arena stars,” it looks like that the band is well on the way to become one of the biggest rock acts of this century. Not bad for a side project started by one Swede in his bedroom somewhere in Linköping. 

Let us hope 2023 will be as devilishly good!

[ranjith11]

Exploring 27 Random and Ridiculous Facts About Germany | Interesting facts about germany

Welcome, geography enthusiasts, to GeographyGuru99, your go-to channel for all things geographical! Today, we embark on an exciting journey to the fascinating land of Germany, known for its bratwurst, beer, and iconic Brandenburg Gate. In this captivating video, we've curated a list of 27 truly unique, random, and at times, utterly ridiculous facts about this European powerhouse. Get ready to be intrigued, amused, and perhaps even a little shocked as we uncover the hidden gems of Germany's culture, history, and quirks. Join us on this virtual adventure through Germany's diverse landscapes and vibrant cities, all while learning some mind-boggling facts that you won't find in your average travel guide. 🌍 Whether you're a seasoned traveler or simply curious about the world, this video is your passport to discovering the unexpected. So, sit back, relax, and let's dive into the wonderful world of Germany together!

[andresylupin]

I had fun making a playlist last year, so I'm doing it again!

(songs info here:)

鳩間節 (Hatoma Bushi) is a japanese folk song from the Hatoma island. It's a very small island, culturally part of the Okinawa region, and this famous song describes how beautiful the Hatoma landscape is from the Nakamui forest, one of the highest points of the island where you can admire the comings and goings of the boats.

"Chant et Likembé" comes from the album "Chants de l'orée de la forêt", a 90s folk recording by Didier Demolin, which features music and chants from the Efe people. They are one of the pygmy groups living in the Ituri forest of Congo.

The Halluci Nation is a canadian band, who blends First Nations music with electro, dubstep, etc. They are very vocal politically, with songs actively speaking out about First Nations' plights. "Mother Mother" features other First Nations artists, and calls back to the relationship between land and people.

ዋሽንት (washint) is the amharic word for a traditional ethiopian flute. It is a very important instrument in ethiopian music, and shepherds and cattlemen use it daily to communicate with each other and call/direct their flock. The player here is Tasew Wendim, who founded the Moseb Cultural Music Band, which mixes ethiopian traditional music with ethiopian jazz and other music styles.

"Fulenn" was France's entry for Eurovision 2022, by britton artists Alvan and Ahez. The lyrics are entirely in britton, telling the story of a woman dancing with the devil in the forest without a care. Big pagan-electro vibes, and I genuinely it could have performed well, but Go_A had a similar number the year prior (also better imo, even if I think Fulenn is still a bop), and so we ended up on the bottom, saved only from last place by Germany.

Kulning is a type of herding call from Scandinavia, used mainly by women. While these voice techniques had originally a very mundane use, they seem to have acquired nowadays a very mystic aura, similarly to other kinds of nordic folk chants. This particular recording is from the album Lockrop & Vallatar, entirely composed of Swedish pastoral music.

Otyken is a Siberian indigenous group who, much like the others on this playlist, incorporates folk music and traditional instruments with modern styles. They apparently blew up on TikTok, but I'm not on there, so I feel lucky that I stumbled upon them, they're very cool! The song is named after a siberian forest spirit and mentions how sacred the forest can be.

手向 (Tamuke) is an old traditional japanese melody, that is played on a shakuhachi (traditional chinese/japanese flute), during funerals or commemorations. "Tamuke" means spiritual offering to the gods or the Buddha, and this piece represents a time of prayer, contemplation with the deceased.

So I'm aware this is not the most seamless playlist ever with these very different styles back to back, we are kinda playing whiplash haha!

But I actually really like how they all respond to each other in a way: flute pieces (washint and Tamuke), modern takes on folk music (Mother Mother, Kykakacha and Fulenn, although Fulenn feels a bit out of place politically lol), herding traditions (kulning and the washint again), deep bond with the land (Hatoma Bushi, Efe people, Kykakacha)... In the end all of them speak of one thing: in the forest we are not alone 🌲🌌

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tim Ganser at The UnPopulist:

Since the end of World War II, Germans had by and large steadfastly resisted voting for far-right populists. That norm was shattered in the last decade by the success of the political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which seemed to gain more traction as it radicalized into a full-blown, hard right populist party. A year into its existence, spurred by widespread discontent with German fiscal policy, the AfD won seven seats in European Parliament. In 2017, after undergoing a hard-right turn, it won 94 seats in the German federal elections, good for third place overall. For the past year, the AfD has consistently ranked second in Politico’s poll aggregator tracking the public’s voting intentions.

In this Sunday’s European Parliament elections, roughly 1 in 6 German voters is expected to cast a ballot for the AfD, whose members have trivialized the Holocaust,��encouraged their followers to chant Nazi slogans, and participated in a secret conference where they fantasized about forced deportations of naturalized citizens they derisively call “Passport Germans.” Worse still, the AfD is predicted to be the strongest party, with up to a third of the vote share, in the three elections for state parliament in Saxony and Thuringia on Sept. 1 and in Brandenburg on Sept. 22. And in generic polls for a hypothetical federal election, the AfD fares even better than it did in any previous election. How did Germany get to this point?

The AfD’s Origin Story

The AfD was founded in early 2013 by a group of conservatives, led by the economics professor, Bernd Lucke, greatly disillusioned with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fiscal policy. In their view, the European debt crisis had revealed deep instability within the eurozone project as smaller nations found themselves unable to cope with the economic demands of membership, and they believed Merkel’s focus on saving the euro was coming at the expense of German economic interests. This was, however, the opposite of a populist complaint—in fact, the AfD was initially referred to as a “Professorenpartei” (a professor’s party) because of the party’s early support from various economics professors who were more interested in fiscal policy than catering to popular will. In its earliest days, the AfD could best be characterized as a cranky but respectable party of fiscal hardliners. Its anti-establishment posture stemmed entirely from its belief in the necessity of austerity. Even its name could be construed less as nationalistic and more an answer to the dictum coined by Merkel—“alternativlose Politik” (policy for which there is no alternative)—to defend her bailouts during the eurozone crisis.

Although the AfD had launched an abstract economic critique of Merkel’s policies that could be hard to parse for non-experts, its contrarian stance resonated with a significant portion of Germans. Right out of the gate, the AfD obtained the highest vote share of any new party since 1953, nearly clearing the 5% threshold for inclusion in the Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament, in its first electoral go round. Its success was also measurable in terms of membership, passing the 10,000 mark almost immediately after its formation. The rapid increase in membership, however, helped lay the groundwork for its turn toward right-wing populism. Perhaps due to pure negligence—or a combination of calculation and ambition—the party’s founders did little to stop right-wing populists from swelling its rolls. And as the German economy emerged through the European debt crisis in good financial shape, fiscal conservatism naturally faded from the public’s consciousness. However, a new European crisis having to do with migrants came to dominate the popular imagination. The AfD hardliners seized on the growing anti-migrant opinion, positioning the AfD as its champion, thereby cementing the party’s turn towards culture war issues like immigration and national identity.

Starting in late 2014, organized right-wing protesters took to the streets to loudly rail against Germany’s decision to admit Muslim migrants, many fleeing the Syrian civil war. The AfD right wing’s desire to become the political home of nativism led to a rift within the party that culminated in founder Bernd Lucke’s being ousted as leader in 2015, and his replacement with hardliner Frauke Petry. Lucke left the party entirely, citing its right-wing shift, following in the footsteps of what other party leaders had already done and more would do in the coming year. Up until this point, the AfD unwittingly helped the cause of right-wing populism. If the reactionary far-right had tried to start a party from scratch, it would have likely failed. The AfD, after all, was created within a respectable mold, trading on the credentials of its earliest founders and leaders. But with saner voices now pushed out, right-wing populists had the party with public respectability and an established name all to themselves. And they deliberately turned it into a Trojan horse for reactionary leaders who wanted to “fight the system from within.

[...]

A New Normal in Germany

As right-wing populist positions have become part of the political discourse, Germany is now in the exact same position as some of its European neighbors with established hardline populist parties. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni ascended to the premiership in October 2022 as the head of her neo-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party, which is poised to perform well in the upcoming European Parliament elections. In France, the Marine Le Pen-led far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is set to bag a third of votes in those elections, roughly double what President Macron’s governing coalition is expected to obtain.

What makes the situation in Germany especially worrisome is that, unlike in France and Italy, far-right parties had failed to garner any meaningful vote share in nationwide elections until just seven years ago; indeed, until the 2017 federal election, there had never been a right-wing populist party that had received more than six percent of the national vote in Germany. The nation’s special vigilance toward far right ethnonationalism in light of its history of Nazi atrocities was expected to spare Germany the resurgence of far-right populism. But it actually led to complacency among mainstream parties. By 2017, the AfD—already in its right-wing populist phase—received nearly 13% of the vote in the federal election to become the third-strongest parliamentary entity. And by then it had also made inroads in all state parliaments as well as the European Parliament. The norm against it was officially gone.

To be sure, the AfD is not on track to take over German politics. It currently has the fifth most seats among all German parties in the Bundestag, fourth most seats among German parties in the European Parliament, and is a distant eighth in party membership. Nor is it currently a threat to dominate European politics—late last month, the AfD was ousted from the Marine Le Pen-led Identity and Democracy (ID) party coalition, the most right-wing group in the European Parliament. Le Pen, herself a far-right radical, explained the AfD’s expulsion by describing the party as “clearly controlled by radical groups.” But none of the above offer good grounds for thinking the AfD will be relegated to the fringes of German or European politics.

After the election, the AfD could rejoin ID, or it could form a new, even more radical right-wing presence within the European Parliament. Some fear that the AfD could potentially join forces with Bulgaria’s ultranationalist Vazrazhdane. Its leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, said that AfD’s expulsion from ID could create an opening to form “a real conservative and sovereigntist group in the European Parliament.” Also, ID’s removal of the AfD wasn’t due to its stated policy platform being out of step with Europe’s right-wing populist project. Rather, it was because the AfD’s leading candidate, Maximillian Krah, was implicated in a corruption and spying scandal involving China and Russia, and because he said he would not automatically construe a member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) to be a criminal. Absent these entirely preventable missteps, the AfD would be in good standing with right-wing populist partners in Europe.

Seeing far-right Nazi-esque Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) rise in prominence in Germany is a sad sight.

[hayleysayshay]

I think what I’m mad about the jury vote for Sweden is that the jury is meant to make it fairer. It is clear when looking at votes that some countries get an overseas demographic vote. With the televote it’s often front loaded to the most popular countries— you can see how many countries got low double digit televote scores and a few favourites scoop up the big points.

But the juries are meant to ensure more countries get varied points, but five jury members who are from composing, producing and pop star backgrounds are going to rank Sweden over Germany despite Chris’s very technical singing. They’re not big or diverse enough. So we have this situation where one country scoops up all the big points just like the televote, by a huge margin, so then what’s the point? How does this make it fairer?

Honestly if the jury scores for the top five countries were closer and the televote was different and Sweden still won I don’t think I’d be as mad or disappointed. It is how it be with the jury. But the fact that one country got so many jury 12s made it basically impossible for the public’s favourite to win, and it feels predetermined which is why people are looking to the ABBA 50th anniversary as an explanation. It probably wasn’t rigged but it feels like it was. The second highest televote score ever should be enough for a country to win but it wasn’t.

I think if they only want a small jury, then it has to be weighted down. If they want a 50/50 point split the jury has to be diversified to be more inclusive of non pop genres.

[fanficfish]

explaining Hetalia character badly: highschool edition

Honestly this is prob just gonna be "if Hetlaia was MHA" but bigger and mixed with some American archtypes lol....just imagine they're in some weird highschool anime!

this is the same format as my Family Reunion explaining post. i'm just make this a tag.

again- ALL HEADCANON CRACK! FOR FUN! :D

also not affiliated with W Academy!

Germany: Class Prez. Who you watched struggle with the milk carton from the cafeteria. And the vending machine dispenser.

N. Italy: The class idiot. Every good class has one, you don't know how they're here but OH GOSH WHEN DID HE LEARN TO USE A SCYTHE LIKE THAT-

S. Italy: The one in the back of the class that gets surprisingly decent grades but also has a potty mouth. You know who I'm talking about.

America: Thinks he's the main character.

Canada: Knows he's not the main character.

Estonia: Is the main character and doesn't realize it until he realizes he's in a love triangle, keeps adopting random animals off the street, has an archnemesis that actively tries to murder him, and somehow survives things he definitely shouldn't have survived.

Lithuania: The one with the highest GPA but everyone thought he was a delinquent.

Latvia: The one with the second-highest GPA that everyone knows is a delinquent. Mostly because he was selling test answers out of the janitor's closet.

Russia: The school bully every good school has.

Belarus: The popular girl every school has that can't decide if she likes the "main character" or not.

China: The guy that acts like he's actually 70 and not 17.

Japan: The quiet kid that knows everyone's dark secrets.

France: Of course he's the obligatory French dude in the Japanese anime. Actually what's up with that? Seriously, all the big amines have either a French guy or a super short person (the best ones have both)....

Lichenstein: She's the short one.

Switzerland: Aaaaaand there's the one in the corrner of the cafeteria scheming how to make the most out of the Job Fair.

Austria: That one weird kid that's got a full ride to Juliard and is the reason why your underfunded school has a MUSIC ROOM, HUH-

England: The guy that somehow got himself class monitor, and does a mostly decent job. Unless you ask him about That Clique.

The Clique: aka, the jocks who miiiight also bully the class monitor by flaunting popularity points a little. Just a little. -Denmark: Clique ringleader, acts friendly with everyone so he's popular but you KNOW you're not getting in on the real action unless he invites you to one of his legendary house parties.

-Norway: Clique leader's second in command who's some introvert the clique leader got attached to. Y'know, as extroverts are required to do. Usually has his face in his phone.

-Finland: Popular on his own, the one person in the clique who doesn't understand that in a clique you generally don't socialize outside the clique. Is the reason the main character gets character development through a house party halfway through the series.

-Sweden: That one jock in the group who looks like a jock, talks like a jock, sometimes acts like a jock, but has the highest GPA out of all of the jocks. He's the one that knows Genovia's official fruit but not the name of the fictional kingdom, if you've seen the meme.

-Iceland: Someone's brother who got absorbed into the clique.

Hungary: The girl campaigning that everyone should do the same kind of pushups, that girls can compete with guys and making presentations on the gender gaps in atheltics. Ofc she's the jock that falls in love with the nerd (Austria).

Ukraine: Bakes everyone treats

Netherlands: Bakes everyone treats but makes everyone pay for them

Luxenberg: Your obligatory rich kid., riding to school in Gucci glasses, a Mercedez-Benz, and a jacket with a high-end brand splashed across the pocket. Also has the latest iPhone.

Belgium: Student council rep, joined fifty clubs.

Greece: He shows up, but usually late, with Starbucks, and sleeps through class.

Romania: He shows up every other day, and bribes the class monitor to mark him present. Does show up for Halloween though.

Bulgaria: You show up?

Spain: Complains about the cafeteria food to anyone who will listen.

Australia: Resident jock #1

Cameron: Resident jock #2

Cuba: Resident jock #3

Portugal: Don't mind him he's in a goth phase. The skulls lining his locker will pass. Probably.

Seychelles: The one that secretly brought all the girls flowers from the fundraiser during Valentine's Week despite not knowing what the fundraiser was for.

Poland: The one on the student council who is the reason everyone is wearing couple outfits for School Spirit Week and the theatre club is doing Legally Blonde.

India: The guy who everyone asks to copy his homework because he sure isn't the most popular but damn does he actually know what's going on.

Turkey: The guy that tried to punch a guy, got punched, then turned around and punched the other guy's bullies. Basically he's That Kid That Got Detention For Trying To Be Helpful, though he did start the fight sooooooo

Egypt: Recorded the fight. For historic purposes of course.

idk i ran out of ideas i'm gonna sleep and fix this if i remember who i was gonna put where lol

[mariacallous]

The Sept. 1 elections in the two eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia have hit Germany like a cyclone, delivering the strongest-ever turnout for an extreme right-wing party in the postwar era. In Saxony, the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) captured 31 percent, landing it narrowly behind the Christian Democrats (CDU), and in Thuringia, where the AfD is led by a twice-court-fined ideologue and outspoken neo-fascist named Björn Höcke, the party took 33 percent of the vote, the highest of any party, and thus also the mandate to form a government. The new populist party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW)—a rightist offshoot of the Left Party that boasts anti-immigration planks and pro-Russian sympathies—landed in third place in both states.

Although it is unlikely that another party will partner up with the AfD in governance—they all say they refuse to do so—the results raise resounding questions for modern Germany. How can such an extreme hard-right party perform so well in postwar Germany, a country that, in both its eastern and western postwar incarnations, made preventing the return of a racist, authoritarian leadership its very raison d’être? Why is this phenomenon so pronounced and radical in the country’s east, the territory of former communist East Germany, almost 35 years after the Berlin Wall fell?

Germans are now asking: How could everything go so wrong? Several recently published books by German authors offer a reckoning—and some answers.

Proponents of eastern Germany, including literature scholar Dirk Oschmann and historian Katja Hoyer, authors of recent bestsellers blasting the overbearing West and those taking the West’s side—most of the mainstream media, including the leading weekly news magazine Der Spiegel—are practiced at lobbing rhetorical grenades at one another. On their own, these one-sided arguments miss the mark. But taken together, and combined with new material, they explain how the Germanies’ journey wound up such a wreck.

The cleft between eastern and western Germany—defined by the East’s extreme-right vote and preponderance of street violence, as well as the inability of the republic’s mainstream parties (with the exception of the CDU) to attract eastern members and votes—can be traced to the events following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today’s hard-right sympathies in the East are largely, though not exclusively, spiteful backlash against the one-sided terms of West Germany’s annexation of the East, the West’s demeaning treatment of the easterners, the indignity that the economic transition inflicted on many eastern Germans, and the legacy of a suffocating, repressive dictatorship on its former subjects and their successor generations.

Detlev Claussen, an emeritus sociologist from Frankfurt, hit the nail on the head: “The AfD is the East’s revenge on the West, which is blamed for all the upheavals after 1990,” he wrote in an email to Foreign Policy. “The party’s personnel are right-wing extremists, the electorate only partly so, although it too appears indifferent to the accusation of Nazism.” Claussen pointed out that populists’ top issues were migration and the Ukraine war, two topics that are not relevant to regional governance. Rather, another topic is almost always predominant behind them, one regularly laced into the rhetoric of both the AfD and BSW: the unfair, demeaning terms of unification and the terms of the transformation since then. “The essence of the far-right vote is resentment against the West,” Claussen wrote.

The AfD vote in the East is complex: The five eastern states aren’t a seething bastion of foaming-at-the-mouth neo-Nazis—although neo-Nazis are among them. German studies show that about 8 percent of Germans—on both sides of the country—firmly subscribe to hard-right, racist ideological worldviews with a large additional segment in a gray zone that might well sometimes—but not always—support the likes of a right-wing dictatorship, street violence against politicos, racist laws, and antisemitism, too.

The numbers aren’t that much different than in other European countries, though they are in Germany currently higher than at any time since the Nazi era, particularly among young people, and also higher in eastern Germany than western Germany. About half of AfD supporters in the East—roughly 15 percent of the voting population—are rightists hardcore enough to actually lionize—rather than just accept—Höcke, who employs thinly veiled neo-Nazi language, soft-pedals Germany’s World War II crimes, and wants to “remigrate” non-native Germans living in Germany to their origin countries.

This radical segment is extremely alarming and constitutes a menace for people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, Muslims, and leftist groupings, among others. They are the types who either perpetrate or condone far-right hate crimes, which have been on the rise for several years. Germany’s security services counted 25,660 such incidents in 2023. That’s an average of 70 a day Germany-wide and 22 percent more than in 2022. In May, a candidate for the Social Democrats was attacked and badly injured in Dresden, capital of Saxony, when pasting up EU election campaign posters. Experts say that this kind of violence hasn’t been so vicious since the 1990s, tagged today as “the baseball-bat years,” when pogrom-like attacks were carried out in the eastern states against migrants and others.

The 1990s is a good place to start to understand right-wing extremism in the East. The easterners had emerged from beneath the heavy hand of Soviet communism and were pleased to be rid of it, as well as welcoming to political and economic systems—liberal democracy and market capitalism—that they knew very little about. They were also unaware of how thoroughly the decades of authoritarian, militaristic education and indoctrination had penetrated their psyches and habits. East German communism was ethnically homogeneous and nothing if not narrow-minded; the very few non-Germans living in East Germany, such as African or Asian guest workers, reported regular abuse. When the wall fell, West German rightists—a generation before Höcke, who himself was born and raised in northwestern Germany—poured into the East to tap this raw energy and organize. When the easterners were confronted with refugee hostels in their communities in the 1990s, they often reacted with anger—and baseball bats.

One explanation of the racist violence and voting patterns today in the East lies in the 1949 to 1990 German Democratic Republic, and the values passed on from generation to generation. The young people today voting AfD and belonging to neo-Nazi street gangs are the children and grandchildren—or come from the same communities—of the bat swingers of the 1990s.

Today’s AfD hotspots are much the same as the sites of the 1990s’ violence. Over the years, one study after another has shown higher levels of racism and intolerance in the East, which the years of transformation have not diluted as the West’s implanted democracy teachers—university deans, politicos, foundation heads, CEOs, school principals, police chiefs—had intended and expected.

But the AfD phenomenon is more layered, since this explanation alone, broadly speaking, pertains to only about half of the constituency and very little of the BSW. It doesn’t explain how over three decades this ugly radicalism could fester and then suddenly explode again into the open. The East’s takeover by the West may have been sanctioned by the easterners in the democratic elections held in 1990—they voted for the CDU and Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who turbocharged the unification process, completing it in just 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall—but the pain and sacrifice of the economic transition ran deep and left scars that still smart today, even though eastern per-capita GDP has climbed over the years, today being about 80 percent of its western counterpart, with unemployment at just under 7 percent.

The disappointment and hurt of the easterners should not be underestimated. Kohl had promised them “flourishing landscapes,” but what they received was rampant unemployment: Three million people who had jobs lost them—and were thrown onto welfare rolls, which into the early 2000s equaled half of the East’s GDP. In the low-income labor market, the news was worse: Over 50 percent found themselves jobless. Those who could, including many young people, fled to the West, like the engineer who held the lease on my apartment in Berlin on Friedrichstrasse: He landed a job with BASF in Ludwigshafen in western Germany and never returned. The easterners were incensed at the deals that the Treuhandanstalt—the government agency that sold off East Germany’s enterprises—made for a song. The overnight introduction of the Deutsche mark in 1990 and the Treuhand’s fire sale ensured that western German firms and western German owners would sop up all of the eastern German business—and use the region for a supply of cheap, dispensable labor (which explains the lower per-capita GDP today).

The ostensibly burning topics of migration and the Ukraine war are largely red herrings, concluded sociologist Steffen Mau, author of a widely read new book on the East-West divide, entitled Ungleich Vereint: Warum der Osten Anders Bleibt (Unequally United: Why the East Remains Different). The eastern states have by far the smallest fraction of foreign nationals among the federal states, and those communities with the lowest numbers in the East tended to vote disproportionately higher for the AfD (which also scored well in depopulated rural areas, places with fewer women, fewer medical services, and higher unemployment). They are not threatened by the Ukraine war and have nothing to gain from admiring Russian President Vladimir Putin. The EU, which the AfD lambasts for milking Germany dry, has contributed immensely to the eastern states’ development since unification, to the tune of $53 billion (€48 billion). The German state shelled out nearly $2 trillion (€1.75 trillion).

Mau, in his nicely balanced study, concluded: “The economic transformation of the 1990s, which was associated with major restructurings and brought with it not only freedom but also economic declassification and insecurity, has made people [in the East] less willing to undergo further changes. Having already had to fundamentally change their lives and abandon biographical fixtures, larger sections of the population now strongly resist further impositions, be it growing diversity or socio-ecological transformation.”

None of this, of course, explains why such broad swaths of the population cast their ballot either for a party that tracks closely with neo-Nazis or another that looks to Russia for inspiration and not Brussels. This, though, is the hardest, most in-your-face way to strike back at the system that delivered them such disrespect and injury—and then blamed their backwardness for the mess.

“German democracy possesses its legitimation through its radical break with National Socialism,” Claussen wrote. “The election results in Saxony and Thuringia throw this foundation into question.” It’s a swipe that Germany’s mainstream elites aren’t going to shake off quickly.