#it was a whole scandal in Poland

[tomorrowusa]

Damn, South Korea has all the luck! 🇰🇷

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in December. There was immediate outrage and he was forced to withdraw his declaration. But the South Korean parliament had enough of Yoon and impeached him. Under the South Korean system, the impeachment has to be upheld by the country's Constitutional Court. That approval came Friday.

South Korea's president has been removed from office after the Constitutional Court voted unanimously to uphold his impeachment. Yoon Suk Yeol was suspended from duty in December after being impeached by parliament, following his failed attempt to impose martial law. The ruling on Friday was met with tears of joy and sadness among Yoon's critics and supporters, who had gathered in various parts of Seoul to watch the verdict live. A snap election to vote for Yoon's replacement must be held by 3 June.

So we can add South Korea's June 3rd presidential election to a string of important elections over the next three months: Canada - April 28th (parliamentary); Australia - May 3rd (parliamentary); Portugal - May 18th (parliamentary); and Poland May 18th (presidential, first round).

Anyway, I wish we had a chief justice like Moon Hyung-bae.

The Constitutional Court was damning in its criticism of Yoon's authoritarian power grab, as all eight judges voted to remove him from office. Moon Hyung-bae, acting president of the bench, said Yoon's short-lived military takeover was not justified, and that he had "[gone] against the people he was supposed to protect". He added that the implementation of martial law "damaged people's basic political rights" and "violated the principles of the rule of law and democracy".

Trump with his idiotic tariffs will be an issue in the June 3rd election.

Yet South Korea urgently needs a new leader who can advocate for the country as a whole, having been without one for months. It quickly needs to figure out how to deal with President Trump, having started on the backfoot. His 25% tariffs on cars and steel have dealt Seoul, and its ailing economy, an early a blow, but many believe worse is coming; that it is only time until Mr Trump turns his gaze to the Korean peninsula, and when he does he will try to force South Korea to pay more for its defence and cut a deal with Seoul's arch enemy, Kim Jong Un.

This is the second time in eight years South Korea has ousted a president. ♥️

In 2017, former president Park Geun-hye was forced from office over her role in a corruption scandal involving a close friend.

[bunniisms]

@tex-treasure-chamber I JUST REALIZED I NEVER POSTED A DRABBLE TO YOUR QUESTION. Tex, I'm so sorry, I am the most forgetful person!

But! Amity's ideal dates with Walter!

If I had to measure, Amity's ideal dates are the inside dates they spend together in the bowels of Hellsing when technically they're not supposed to meet.

Those times when he has her help shave his face when his hands are too unsteady to use the razor, or the times they converge and form a cloister over the work matters, or rather, the commonality in them both being left to the side while Alucard and Seras play with their guns and jaunts under the moonlight.

Yes, the outside world, clubs, restaurants and experiences have their draws and excitement. Still, Amity is an old soul: Her hive has buzzed since the Azuchi–Momoyama period, and her mind has counted well over a hundred years across numerous countries. The glitter, glamour, and excitement of new places and experiences hold less to her long-dead heart and her enjoyment than known, yet boring, intimacy.

For Amity, it's the knowledge that he is skirting judgment and potential reprimand for the sake of her? For the sake of her entertaining him for a night? It's girlish, but the feeling it sparks, assuring her that she is worth the trouble, gives her an old giddiness that's been a stranger for the last 50 years, if not more.

So, devising a perfect date for them— my mind goes to the hard spring nights when winter lashes out with its last belts of freezing rain. She and Walter are deep into the dungeon, no longer working; all the papers have been long forgotten, but they are just socializing, chatting and music. He drinks some of her wine reserves, and their tongues are free from the decorum of their usual lives.

Laughter comes freely for her, even in the confines of a dungeon, in a way that is alien but not unwelcome. But the night creeps on. They share some stories Walter wouldn't usually: that time he and the company in Poland caused a bar riot that lasted well over three hours or the time he helped Integra's late mother pin an heirlooms break on Alucard's temper after SHE broke it while trying to be a housewife and prove a point about herself. It's scandalous but intimate, and oddly, Amity feels like she's stepped through a bit more of the mask and the labels he covers himself in.

Amity is just able to convince him to play a round of Konpira with her when the clock chimes 12 am, and begrudgingly, they have to call it a night. While Walter knows Integra has lax rules for him and his allowance in the Estate, even he can't be there throughout the whole night, so he gets up, ready to make the short walk back to his cottage.

But inside Amity growls a creature of doubt: the ice, the dark, it's worrying for her— she urges him to stay; she has a bed she never uses, and he can have it. It would be no bother, and before dawn, she could wake him to exit through the servant's passages and go to his pantry. Walter flip-flops but decides against it, and she accepts that, hiding her worry like a hound behind a stiff lip of trust.

But before Walter can put his foot beyond the threshold, he can't convince himself to embrace the night. He pauses to ask if she is being honest, that he would not be trouble for her to have in her space or to wake, and she scoffs, like even asking is absurd.

Absolutely not! Amity welcomes the company to the dampened silence of the dungeons, even if it's just the sound of him snoring while she works through the night nearby at the reliable desk. And thus, the night ends with a note that's sweeter than any candy: that heavy, blanketed feeling of warmth and love in her heart, knowing he is safe and nearby, in arms reach if need be and able for her to protect!

NOW TEX! My question for you! What is Santana and Anderson's ideal dates? How different are their ideas of an ideal date? When do they meet in the middle? What about their fighting dates?? What about Moriarity and Sonata?

[ballet-symphonie]

what's the deal with joy womack ? I got into ballet after the whole scandal at the bolshoi and i've always heard bad things about her but I don't really know the story. Also she apparently lied about her position at POB?

Ooof I'll try to do the quick version based on what I remember, she is basically one drama after another, she tends to...misrepresent information. She left BT after saying she had to pay or even sleep with someone to get soloist parts. This was disputed by some, and confirmed by others.

After she went to work i the Kremlin Ballet Theatre of Moscow, she became a leading soloist with them, despite often calling herself a principal. There was some tension here as she was making vlogs filming class despite her coworkers asking her not to and occasionally sharing some no-so-nice information about her coworkers, things got messy when she divorced her ex and she left, even after she got promoted to principal.

After Kremlin, she won a prize at Varna in 2017, did some unsuccessful company auditions, and did short stints at Universal Ballet in Korea and guesting around Bulgaria and Poland. At one point she was going back Russian State Theatre Arts Ballet Pedagogy and Choreography (GITIS) for higher education in pedagogy. She has repeatedly expressed disdain for both the American and Russian systems, and there is a lot of speculation that this, along with her desire to be a principal *asap* hindered her career.

She was at Boston Ballet for a short period, but didn't like the setup, said she preferred being in Russian/European companies where they provided more individual coaching and often more benefits (housing) and with low layoffs...yet she has also repeatedly complained about the low pay/exchange rate when she was working in Russia. She left here when COVID happened.

After trying a couple of times, I believe she got a "contractuelle" position at POB, where you're generally hired for specific productions (eg, something with a huge corps, or for a specific choreographic nice that a dancer excels in). POB, with its extremely involved hiring and promotion systems/competitions, takes a while to move dancers into the corps sometimes. I'm not sure if she was offered a corps contract and didn't take it, or didn't get one, but regardless, she's no longer working with POB.

And now, if you go to her website she's starting a foundation and a school and company....? This is in addition to her freelancing around and the project prima bars that I think no longer exist and some film work. She's just a lotttttt and does not portray herself as the most self-aware or humble person.

As far as my personal interactions with her go, I know she came to audition at my company before I started my professional career and was not accepted. I took a couple classes with her in NYC by chance, the diva attitude was overtly present.

I didn't do much googling here, of course open to corrections of this mass of speculation

[soupedepates]

Back in Warsaw

Haven't been in Poland since my divorce

I am here because my biological father died

(I learnt by his widow on Facebook

Apparently

He asked for me on his deathbed)

My mother tried to convince me not to go

I am here anyway

(they got me at

"if your mother"

- because they can't say the tramp -

"hasn't gone to France

you would've been part of the family"

It angered me enough to book a train ticket to Warsaw)

I take the time to get a coffee and the newspaper

Then I call Ewa to tell her I'm at the train station

She's here fast

"Zuziiii, you look like you went through hell! Gosh! I haven't seen you in like, four years, and divorce sure has messed you up."

"Tactful as always"

"You wouldn't have me any other way."

She laughs as she takes my arm

"So your genitor died and you're here for the funerals."

"Yes"

"Why?"

"It feels like the right thing to do

Besides

His wife has gotten on my nerves

She said "oh so now you're speaking"

She clearly doesn't want me here but I'm guessing the old man has done something to force her to let me know"

"He has confessed your existence at the extreme unction, perhaps."

"I think so

Or in front of the whole family

Last time he's seen me was when I was seven

Just to tell me to go back in my mother's skirts"

"So mess 'em up, Zuzi. Channel your divorced single woman's frustration" she nods

"I am not single anymore"

"Who's the lucky man? Is your ex-husband hoping he hasn't left you?"

Oh

That's true

Abortion is a touchy topic

Catholic Church is extremely influential

The "LGBT free zones" existed not so long ago

and I spent three decades with the same man

I got married and I had children of my own

you can't expect a middle aged woman like me to turn queer

you "don't discover yourself a lesbian at almost fifty" do you Rozalia

"Fryderyk and I remain friends

And if my partner and he aren't in the best of terms they can coexist in good intelligence"

"But tell me mooore!"

Since Bertram is dead Ewa needs someone to humour her

She is lonely and the children are grown

"I am with someone younger

My mother isn't too thrilled about it"

"Whaaaat! You who used to be such a good girl" she chuckles "You're getting scandalous."

"It's worse than you think

I used to be the 'other woman'"

Ewa loudly gasps before giggling like when we were young girls

"Now I get along well with my partner's ex

She is really sweet"

"Aren't you scared of getting cheated on? He doesn't seem like the faithful guy. I don't want you to get hurt, Zuzi."

"Come on

I am not a teenage girl hopelessly in love with a bad seed"

"But you only knew one man and he was a sweetheart! You don't know how cruel those beasts are."

"Look who's talking

You married an angel

And it's not as if you dated around"

"Buuuut we are talking about you! You should've brought your new man along to make everyone extra uncomfortable, you know."

"My partner can't leave work like that"

It isn't a lie

Well

Idalia isn't working during the weekend to look after Dmitry

So it is a lie at the moment

Am I ashamed?

No

I am actually pretty proud to be the mother-aged queer person in the reunion

But why am I not being truthful?

Ewa may seem to be a wild card

She stays a fifty-one-year-old Polish woman

And a Catholic one at that

We lead completely different lives in completely different settings

So I am ashamed

No that's not the truth

"Have you planned on what to say if they ask you to deliver a speech?"

Oh

Right

Focus on the funerals

"I know how comfortable you are speaking in front of people, Zuzi" she mocks "You better prepare something, just in case."

"They won't ask me anything"

"You don't know, you never know!"

[mariacallous]

Former Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek claims he’s not hiding abroad. However, many of his videos on social media were shot in a Budapest penthouse apartment owned by a company close to Viktor Orbán’s government. During the time we were watching the house, a man hiding his face jumped into the same type of car that Obajtek posted about. On another occasion, Orbán’s close aide entered the building.

In the morning  of June 1, a tall woman with colored blonde hair wearing a black hoodie stepped out of a beautifully renovated 19th-century building of Budapest’s elegant Andrássy avenue. A huge advertisement banner above the building’s gate reads in English: “luxury apartments for sale,” and “where values and high quality meet.” The woman crossed Oktogon, the Hungarian capital’s iconic eight-sided square, then disappeared onto a smaller street while talking to someone on the phone.

Twelve minutes later, a metallic gray Lexus ES 300h briefly stopped in front of the same building. At exactly the same time, the ornate brown wooden gate opened, and a man hiding behind a face mask, sunglasses and a cap appeared on the street. The timing was so precise that there was barely enough time for us to start recording what was happening: the man had already jumped into the back seat of the car and disappeared.

Later, when we analyzed the video frame-by-frame, we could identify the driver as a blonde-haired woman — one who looked extremely similar to the one who had just left the building.

Meanwhile, the tinted passenger windows of the Lexus successfully hid the man. The whole process seemed carefully designed and perfectly executed in order to protect his identity. The letters on the license plate of the car, however, signify that it comes from Warsaw’s Mokotów district. 

We had good reason for watching the house on Andrássy, even on a Saturday morning: VSquare and Frontstory.pl’s partner on this investigation, Radio Zet, has learned from its sources that one of the building’s residents is Daniel Obajtek. He is the former CEO of the Polish state-owned oil company Orlen, and his long tenure leading the Polish oil company is embroiled in scandal. 

Was the man who did everything to hide his face while slipping into the car Obajtek? We can’t know for sure. However, a few weeks earlier, on April 10, Obajtek’s official Facebook account posted a photo of him fueling a metallic gray car. Only certain parts of the car are visible in the picture – but from those very distinct parts, the type of car, Lexus ES 300h, is easily recognizable.

This past week, in addition to watching the building at Andrássy in the hope that we could meet Obajtek, we also thoroughly analyzed his social media content. With the help of sources with intimate knowledge of the various relevant locations, we successfully identified the places from which he has been posting his videos — at least since February.

This is how we were able to confirm that many of his Instagram videos are indeed recorded at the same building at Andrássy from a 147 square meter penthouse apartment worth approx. €1.6-2 million. The official owner of the apartment is BBID Ltd, a real estate developer company that turned the previously run-down building into luxury housing. The owners of the company reportedly have close ties to Viktor Orbán’s government and are even business relations with the Hungarian Prime Minister’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz. According to Radio Zet’s sources, the penthouse where Obajtek spends considerable time is rented out, although it’s unclear who is officially renting it.

Obajtek posted his first video from the penthouse apartment on February 19. In April, he even conducted a Youtube interview with a right-wing journalist  in what seems to be his secret Budapest home. Another recurring location in Obajtek’s videos is Budapest’s City Park (Városliget) at the end of Andrássy avenue, from which he appears to have posted multiple videos – including one mocking Polish media by suggesting he is not “on the run” from his scandals but rather getting into shape to face the “media’s attacks.”

Although the videos are carefully edited so as to not show recognizable landmarks, Hungarian text or anything else that would give away their locations, we could still identify them using open source research. 

Recently, Obajtek has been the subject of much attention from the public — as well as from Polish prosecutors, due to revelations about Orlen’s gigantic financial losses during his tenure as CEO. Polish investigators are currently conducting three main investigations into dealings under Obajtek’s leadership:

on the merger of the state-owned Orlen and Lotos energy companies and the agreement to sell a 30 percent stake in the Gdansk Refinery to Saudi Aramco

on Orlen’s huge financial losses, which were caused by the radical cutting of fuel prices on the wholesale and retail markets in autumn 2023 – and which may have been related to the parliamentary elections (the idea being that lower prices would boost the then-ruling Law and Justice government’s chances)

the unsupervised transfer of more than PLN 1.5 billion to OTS (Orlen Trading Switzerland).

So far Obajtek is expected to testify in the prosecutor’s investigation as a witness – he is not charged. Though according to Gazeta Wyborcza, staying abroad might be a preventive measure for him to avoid any potential charges before the European Parliament elections. Obajtek is running as the Law and Justice’s candidate from Podkarpacie (Southern Poland).

Obajtek is not the first person from outside of Hungary who, when scrutinized by their home countries’ authorities, feels that it is safer under Hungarian jurisdiction. In 2018, after he was convicted and sentenced to jail, former North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski fled to Hungary, where he was granted asylum. In early 2024, facing charges at home, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spent multiple days at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília, as the New York Times has uncovered. Both of them reportedly closely coordinated with Hungarian government officials. 

There is no information on whether Obajtek also enjoys the protection of Hungarian authorities or communicates with them. However, shortly after 6pm on Monday, June 4, we spotted Viktor Orbán’s close personal aide Dávid Héjj entering the Andrássy avenue building. We have no information as to which apartment he went into, but he routinely typed in the gate code without any help, suggesting it is not his first visit there. There was no indication that Obajtek was also in the building at the time.

What is public knowledge, however, is that Obajtek knows Viktor Orbán: back in 2022, when Orlen and Hungary’s MOL oil company entered into a deal over acquiring gas stations in both countries, the deal was “welcomed” by the government and Obajtek was received by Orbán in his office.

We sent requests for comment to BBID Ltd. and the office of Viktor Orbán, none of them reacted before publication. 

Obajtek replied: “I have never made a secret of the fact that I conduct business talks not only in Poland, but also abroad. It is, therefore, natural that I have to stop somewhere during these trips. As a private person, I do not have to explain myself. Please do not look for sensations. I am not asking you where you are staying during your trips.”

[triviareads]

Any good historical romance based in Russia? Or even the hero or heroine being from there?

I haven't read a lot of HR with Russians or set in Russia even though I do have a passion for Russians in romance novels (Harlequin Russians hit different). But here's what I can rec you:

Prince of Dreams by Lisa Kleypas: Look if you know me you know my love for this book; the hero Prince Nikolas Angelovsky was exiled from Russia after killing the tsar's bestie because said bestie killed Nikki's brother. He tried to kidnap the heroine of the previous book (Tasia) because he thought she had actually killed his brother, then when he came over to England, gave his future heroine (the gal he kidnapped's now-step-daughter, who was then fourteen years old) a pet tiger for funsies and to fuck with her dad and basically marked her as his future wife. Fast forward to his own book, he definitely break up the heroine and the guy she likes, gets her drunk, sleeps with her, and then decides a marriage of convenience is the move even though he keeps jumping her after he thinks she's flirting with other men. He also gets knocked out for a solid quarter of the book and dreams he's his ancestor. It's great, would recommend.

Midnight Angel by Lisa Kleypas: The book prior to Prince of Dreams; Tasia is on the run from murder accusations and one crazy Russian prince (see: Nikki), and masquerades as a governess for an English nobleman's daughter, and nobleman immediately has the hots for her. She's also kidnapped and taken back to Russia at one point and the hero comes after her. Lisa also goes hard on the whole *Russian mysticism* thing.

The Perfect Scandal By Delilah Marvelle: So Zosia is a Polish countess BUT she is technically part-Russian (a part of the book's intrigue) also I'm pretty sure Russia keeps trying to invade Poland in this book (which is also a rather ribald joke the one (hot blond) Russian dude in this book makes and QUITE FRANKLY he should have gotten his own book). Zosia falls for the very proper, English Lord Moreland through her window, but then she's kidnapped/coerced into coming back to Russia by the aforementioned Russian dude.

Secret Fire by Johanna Lindsey: Dimitri is a Russian prince who sees English noblewoman Katherine on the streets and decides that he totally wants her. Cue servant confusion and ultimately she's kidnapped, brought to his place, drugged with an aphrodisiac, and obviously Dima has to fuck it out of her, and then OBVIOUSLY once isn't enough so she's thrown into a trunk and taken back to Russia (I'm sensing a Russian kidnap theme here).

[notaaronsroommate]

the problem isn't necessarily choosing to label yourself with an ideology. It's like saying "I'm bisexual" instead of doing the whole gender wiki twenty miles long DNI/ pinned post identities thing when just saying "I'm bisexual" mostly covers it. No, the problem with any political ideology is saying "I'm an anarchist[or what have you]. now let me see what beliefs I should have." Thats the attitude that ends up in 14 year olds having a political ideology represented by a poland-ball from The New Order hoi4. Like, if I were an anarchist and a french pedophile told me Le School is like Le Prisone and some of that guys buds were like "hell yeah and compulsory literacy is like being a cop!" I would just say "well, can't go with you on that one lads" and not make a post about illiteracy being punk as fuck. You can use labels to approximate. There is no meaningful communist political party anymore. Foreigner members of the CCP are trying to get you to buy stocks, the Peoples Republic of Vietnam (the only other significant socialist nation, I love Cuba, I keep my portrait of Castro on me but get real) is just trying to be China but cheaper and with more cost cutting measures regarding labor safety. Ergo, there is no party to join and no meaningfully stringent party program of political positions you must hold. Unless you're joining whatever the newest peoples revolutionary committee for liberation that has like 30 members and a 4 year long sexual abuse scandal they try to cover up. They might have stringent rules on what positions members must hold. But otherwise, you can just use the label of an approximate intellectual tradition and pick and choose which wild hare you are and are not going to go with them on. There's no meaningful way to enforce political conformity among any left wing movement that isn't a political cult anymore.

[yourreddancer]

Edward Lucas

Monday November 04 2024, 12.01am GMT, The Times

Whether tomorrow’s election sends a transactional Donald Trump to the White House in January or the inexperienced Kamala Harris, our security is the loser. Years of dithering and timidity in Washington and of stinginess and complacency elsewhere have eroded, probably fatally, the network of alliances that underpinned global security for the past seven decades.

The decline is clearest here in Europe. In recent weeks I have been in Prague, Riga and Warsaw. The mood in these frontline states is bleak. War is likely, and sooner than we think. Assuming Russia beats Ukraine to a standstill, President Putin’s forces could be ready for more in two years, or less. Everyone still hopes that Nato will work and that the United States will come to help. Few believe it.

We are scandalously ill-prepared for this. Our armed forces lack the muscle, supplies or logistics to fight a real war. As a scathing report this year by Sweden’s FOI defence think tank pointed out, Britain could at best provide a “limited expeditionary force” that would have “serious issues with sustainability”.

Putin knows that. So do our friends, exasperated with our habit of over-promising and under-delivering. The Nordic and Baltic members in the ten-country Joint Expeditionary Force, supposedly UK-led, will give Keir Starmer an earful over this at a summit in Tallinn in December. These vital allies may start looking elsewhere for leadership.

Starmer should be even more worried that we cannot defend ourselves. This country largely lacks air defences to protect us against the missiles that rain down daily on Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure. On a good day, assuming (fingers crossed) one of our Type 45 destroyers is seaworthy and moored in the Thames estuary, it could protect London. But only for a few hours. Once that warship has fired its 48 Aster air-defence missiles it must reload from our skimpy stockpile. That would take most of a day, assuming (also) that we still have a functioning naval base.

We assume (again) that allies will protect us. But in the event of war, other European countries’ air defences will also be fully stretched. A minimum protective shield for southeastern England alone would cost £16 billion. What chance of that? The politics of taxing the rest of the country to defend one bit of it are tricky. But a shield for the whole of the UK will be prohibitively costly.

Self-deceit is our biggest weakness. We hollowed out our armed forces, disguising the damage with secrecy and boosterism. We fired Russia-watchers who told inconvenient truths to those in power. They include Keir Giles, whose defence analysis outfit was abolished in 2010. His new book Who Will Defend Europe? is a blistering account of our defence shortcomings. He tells me that he sees “no sign” the new government has recognised the urgency of the challenge.

Russia is attacking us right now, with sabotage and other mischief. A man from Leicestershire last month pleaded guilty to aggravated arson, carried out on behalf of the Russian mercenary Wagner group. Counterterrorism police are investigating a parcel bomb in Birmingham; similar incidents in Poland and Germany could have brought down planes carrying air freight. Mysterious blazes abound: at a Monmouthshire ammunition plant in April and this week at our nuclear submarine shipyard in Barrow.

“There have been other unexplained fires and incidents at other UK defence companies,” says Francis Tusa, the editor of Defence Analysis and one of this country’s leading military pundits. Officials and the companies concerned “clam up” on these topics, he says. But hushing up Russia’s mischief invites yet more mayhem.

Our clapped-out nuclear submarines, and eventually their delayed, wildly over-budget replacements, offer tenuous reassurance against the doomsday scenario of a full-blown nuclear attack. But they evidently do not stop the aggression we face now. We urgently need to boost our resilience to these “sub-threshold” attacks with better defences of our infrastructure, industry and institutions, public and private. We need a new arsenal of crafty, painful countermeasures too.

Some countries are prepared: Finland has six-month stockpiles of food, fuel and medicine, and spaces in bomb shelters for every resident. It responds with firmness to Russian mischief. A Finnish court is the first to enforce an international judgment on confiscating Russian property to compensate Ukraine. Estonia is spending a quarter of its defence budget on ammunition alone. Poland has the biggest and most effective conventional forces in Europe. These countries see an existential threat from Russia and will fight alone if necessary. They may have to.

Ukrainians are paying for our failures. They cannot defend their crumbling front line and battered cities against Russia’s onslaught because American aid comes too little, too late, and festooned with restrictions, preventing them striking at the invaders’ airbases and troop concentrations. But we will pay later.

We had the chance to counter Kremlin imperialism alongside a big, strong, united country. Scared of the risks and costs of providing real military support, we did not take it. Ukraine bought us time to build up our own defences. We wasted that too. Disappointment there is turning to despair — and fury. A defeated, hopeless, traumatised Ukraine will be a gigantic problem for all of Europe. Meanwhile, our safety and freedom rest on a fragile assumption: that the next US administration will care more about our security than we do.

[lemonen]

Additional notes: the line they used on the sign was taken from football hooligans protests from about a decade ago, just switched 'farmbooys' for 'hoolingans'. They were strongly right wing, often participating in fascists movements. When Tusk's previous goverment anounced measures to control rioting on stadions and organised crime connected to football fans, they did mobilise and protest, and later took efforts to help choose a more conservative goverment later. This, and some other rhetoric used in the current farmers protests makes me think that there is a bigger unseen contribiution of right wing movements in these protests.

Farmers' protests and grain spilling has a long history in Poland and was first started about twenty years ago by a small movement which later created a party and became a part of the goverment. The face of desperate farmers, spilling their own grain on train tracks and roads became Lepper, the new head of the party and vice-prime minister. They utilised strong, graphic symbolism, mixed with older traditional motifs of polish culture. After a chain of scandals, their coalition goverment fell prematurly and their main partners tried to save their own position with conservative voters by putting Lepper as responsible for a lot of stuff, some would later turn out to be fabricated. He later killed himself, though many groups believe he was secretly killed by his previous political partners who managed to remain in the goverment.

However horrible it sounds, this may be less about ukrainian grain, and more about internal powerplays. The first voices started about 1,5 year ago, when people noticed that a lot of mysterious, new companies, usually tied to the then-goverment, would buy the grain (which officially was only getting transited) and maggically turn it into eu-law-compliant, locally-produced grain. The goverment spent months trying to keep it quiet, and ignoring farmers voices, which at that point still had no xenophobic rhetoric.

Then, we had ellections, and the spread of power in the country changed. The previous right-wing goverment became opposition and did not accept that result. They had (as always) a high percentage of votes from farming regions, and immedietly started a 'stolen vote'rhetoric there. On another hand, a small, but even more conservative and unhinged party (Confederacy) managed to get some seats, though underperforming in their previously prefered demographics. Their whole schtick for years has now has been anti-ukrainian propaganda and pro-russian sentiments, even after the start of the war. Suddenly, the last couple months, they got interested in supporting farmers' movements, announcing that all their problems are the fould of EU & Ukraine, as well as suddenly gloryfying Lepper and his legacy, the assasination-conspiracies, promoting idea of strikes on the border. The guy who had the now-famous pro-putin sign on his tractor had ties to their party and after getting arrested for this sign, he contacted their offices seeking help.

I believe that this whole situation is a disgracefull mess, that the economic situation of the farming sector is a part of what moved these people to go out and protest, but also that a lot of it is orchestrated by the conservatives trying to mobilise the countryside before the local elections this year.

Wersja pierwotna i poprawiona.

[derichelieu]

Oho, I can feel the spirit of Eurovision entering my body

[the-platonic-charms]

[Crawls out of the sewer hole... ]

This is my first time requesting..

So to any mod available there.

if you dont minndddd... Can i request for a Rantaro Amami, Kokichi and Lastly Shuichi whos s/o is the Ultimate Phantom Thief..? I hope thats okay! ^_^

𝐒𝐇𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀, 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐎 𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐌𝐈 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐊����𝐊𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈 𝐎𝐔𝐌𝐀 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀𝐍 𝐒/𝐎 𝐖𝐇𝐎'𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐅

Hi sweet anon! I hope you enjoyed these headcanons and that this won't be your last time requesting here :>

I wasn't sure what a phantom thief was at first, but after research, all I can say is: I love the idea of it. Anyway-- phantom always makes me think of the phantom of the opera,,

𔘓 ? You're a Phantom Thief?? The ULTIMATE Phantom Thief?! I'm not really sure how this works, but wouldn't it be a bit... Scandalous for the ultimate detective to be dating the ultimate Phantom Thief?

𔘓 Then again, that would be a very interesting dynamic. Enemies to lovers, 200k words, slowburn with a happy ending

𔘓 Whenever there's a case about you, he tries not to interfere with it much. He instead talks with you about it. Oooor, he is able to figure it out himself and then asks if you did it.

𔘓 You unintentionally help expand his detective skills. And your phantom thief skills evolve as well. You're going toe to toe, playing some kind of cat and mouse type game.

𔘓 I take it back, this doesn't even have to be an enemies to lovers, it's just a very interesting dynamic ~

⬥ Wow, impressive

⬥ That is... Quite the talent to have.

⬥ He is impressed, don't get me wrong, but Amami ponders on the morality of it.

⬥ You explain to him your rules and boundaries, he understands it more now. But he's still worried. For your safety, that is.

⬥ Being the ultimate phantom thief can be dangerous. So, when you come back home, very late at night, you're met with Rantaro crossing his arms. He knows it a part of being a phantom thief, but that doesn't mean he can't worry.

⬥ See, the cool thing about Rantaro being an adventurer, is that you often go on trips to various places all over the world. Which makes it easier to keep your identity a secret. Once the ultimate phantom thief is in Japan, next thing you know, they're already far away in Poland. You see what I mean? Inconsistency in their 'last spotted' location makes it impossible to figure out where they're from.

⬥ Which means you and Rantaro can live a kinda-peaceful life, only kinda.

♛ Oh. Oh?

♛ This is giving Ouma so many ideas. You're joining D.I.C.E, right?... You're joining D.I.C.E

♛ You're so cool- he means uh, you're, cool, I guess

♛ Ouma invites you to various adventures with D.I.C.E and outings. You're an important part of their group now.

♛ He just really digs the whole phantom thief aesthetic and the general idea of it.

♛ You're partners in crime ~ but this time, like, actually in crime

/ don't actually commit crime, don't be like Ouma, kids /

♛ No, but like, if this were a bad cop good cop type situation, people would assume you're the bad one while Ouma's the good one. Oh are they in for a surprise. /though, neither of you are really bad

♛ After some time and consideration, he decides to join you on your missions. It starts off simple enough with being some part of your escape plan but develops into becoming your accomplice.

[kapacze]

I've missed the whole Poland Eurovision scandal this year. I've just heard the song that should have won inner contest and damn... we were robbed!

[ashintheairlikesnow]

idk if that has been asked before but what do different parts of the world think of the wru and the whole pet business in your story? (i believe you mentioned canada?) is the majority for or against the concept of pets? and are there (specific) programs etc. for pets / liberation / rescue in countries that are against the whole pet thing ?

Yeah! We've talked about it here and there since the whole thing kind of started unraveling into an entire universe of stories. So in MY BBU (and this doesn't hold true for anyone else's necessarily, every story is its own BBU with its own rules), Canada is a lowkey refuge country for runaways, but its dependence on American imports means that it tends to pretend it DOESN'T provide sanctuary, with occasional crackdowns and with no real path to a better life for those who make it.

They end up clustering in border-adjacent towns and cities like Vancouver, living in a kind of seedy underbelly seething with resentment and fear.

One thing that I have been VERY VERY lowkey about is that my version of the United States in the BBU is slowly falling apart at the seams, and the whole pet industry is part of the "the rich content themselves while the poor starve". It's a kind of control mechanism, offering a "way out" for those who are desperate - but also a reward to the very wealthy for their achievement of being fucking parasites. However, WRU pretty carefully sells itself as equally serving the middle class, so some of the worst aspects of the system are hidden from the vast majority of people, who go on about their lives because this is normal for them. It's always been this way. And even if they wanted to change it, they feel it's too dangerous to do so.

But not everyone feels that way.

Countries that make it either outright illegal or really difficult to participate in pet ownership include:

The UK (illegal, but known to happen under the table - except for Scotland and Ireland who are in the midst of semi-violent fights for independence and who have been known to forcibly free people and some of the wealthiest citizens have, um, vanished).

Germany - illegal but, again, known to occasionally happen.

Legal in Russia but so expensive only oligarchs can afford the system, and Russia has its own version of WRU and does not allow American-trained pets within its borders except in diplomatic circumstances.

Much of eastern europe - illegal, and they WILL forcibly free any Russian pet who makes it across their borders and then send Russia a bill for the hospital care.

Sweden - Legal but heavily policed and regulated

Finland - Legal, claims to heavily police, doesn't always live up to it

Poland and Switzerland - Legal. Switzerland doesn't allow citizens to purchase but doesn't care if you bring them with you.

Japan - Legal and has their own system with its own rules and its own companies, with three main companies competing heavily

South Korea - Legal, two family-led corporations operate the entirety of the pet system and are in a ferocious rivalry. One of their 'heirs' went missing a decade ago and the company has always held the other company responsible.

China - China so heavily taxes any attempt to import that its own companies do very well within its borders.

(the USA, Japan, and SK have all had scandals where top pop groups were revealed to be pets. It became normalized in the USA.)

My BBU has African nations essentially banding together to give a giant middle finger to the rest of the world when it comes to such a system touching any of their borders. I have had individuals attempt to start arguments with me about this and that I was essentially 'not allowed' to not have it be legal somewhere in Africa. Don't be that guy. This is a story I made up in my head. I get to decide what I am comfortable going into detail about.

Technically illegal in Brazil, but there are a lot of accusations of a thriving underground industry. Same in Mexico.

Strictly illegal in Iran, but it's known that some individuals have been abducted and forced into WRU, even flown to America to be wiped and trained.

Basically, I think it's a hodgepodge. WRU is known to utilize shell corporations and fake names - the Russian company, for example, ultimately leads back to WRU and makes it money. It has agreements with South Korea and Japan to provide them with training and equipment, so it makes money there, too. Trades and exchanges between the companies are common to keep people moving and sometimes to get them away from nosy families trying to discover what happened to their lost loved ones.

WRU, for the record, also operates a pharmaceutical arm. And a mercenary arm. And has a subsidiary that makes cars.

Attempts to bring them down or undermine them often fail - because WRU has made itself an enormous sort of Lovecraftian capitalist monster, with its tentacles reaching to every corner of the world and into every possible part of the economy.

[mariacallous]

Polish filmmaker Konrad Szolajski’s new documentary looks at nearly a decade of Russian sabotage, espionage and disinformation across Central and Eastern Europe, with an eery actuality.

“Putting the whole project together took a lot of time – it was very difficult,” Konrad Szolajski explains as we meet a few hours before the international premiere of his new documentary, Putin’s Playground, in Prague on June 10.

“At the time, back in 2019, many people saw the topic of Russian espionage and sabotage activities as something of a conspiracy theory,” the Warsaw-based filmmaker tells BIRN. “They weren’t saying they didn’t believe in it, but simply questioned whether there was enough proof and whether it was a good idea to touch the issue at all.”

Yet over the next several years, Szolajski and long-term collaborator and producer Malgorzata Prociak pursued different avenues of funding and partnerships, which soon saw the project – originally intended to focus solely on Poland’s “Waitergate” wiretapping scandal of 2014 – snowball and gain a regional dimension.

Gathering more evidence and backers, Szolajski was soon put on the path of Czechia, where an arms depot with ammunition intended for Ukraine was blown up in the small town of Vrbetice, with Moscow’s figure looming tall behind the blast in 2014, the same year as the eavesdropping scandal had shaken Poland’s political landscape and facilitated the downfall of the Civic Platform government and the rise to power in 2015 of the Eurosceptic Law and Justice (PiS) party.

After receiving support from producers and film funds from several countries – Norway, Czechia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Germany and Poland – “we finally knew we could make the film in February 2022”, Szolajski says, with shooting taking place over the next several months as war raged in next-door Ukraine.

Hybrid warfare

Originally released at the Krakow Film Festival at the end of May 2024, Putin’s Playground provides an overview of Russia’s eclectic “hybrid war” activities across the Central and Eastern European region.

In Poland, Szolajski and his team focus on the “Waitergate” scandal, in which recordings were made by a group of waiters at Sowa i Przyjaciele, an upmarket eatery popular with the Warsaw elite, and the Polish Anti-War Movement, while in Czechia they examine the Vrbetice ammunition depot explosion and the PRO party of far-right agitator Jindrich Rajchl.

The journey – where both Szolajski and Prociak appear in front of the camera for the first time – also includes a look at repeated sabotage operations in Bulgaria, the separatist yearnings of Moldova’s Gagauzia region, or Latvia’s linguistic dilemmas with its large Russian-speaking minority.

Asked during the post-screening Q&A why Hungary was conspicuously absent from the film, Szolajski responded that “they’ve crossed to the other side already” and would therefore not provide a relevant sample of a country still fighting back against Russia’s hybrid influence tactics.

The 91-minute documentary is now being rolled out in Czech cinemas, with more distribution plans in the works, and will also be screened at the Odessa International Film Festival to be held in Kyiv next month.

An updated version is also being prepared to include more recent events, Szolajski tells BIRN, including the dismantling of the Prague-based Voice of Europe disinformation and corruption network.

‘Useful idiots’

When it comes to the disinformation and influence strategy, “Russian tactics are both very complex and quite simple”, Szolajski muses, explaining that they largely look to capitalise on existing frustrations in any society to bring dissatisfied citizens out onto the streets.

“They take advantage of points of conflict and divisions in our societies – whether it be poverty, vaccination, war or gender – strengthen and exploit it, pass it on to their agents of influence in respective countries, and fund all kinds of propaganda material, both online and offline,” he explains.

According to the filmmaker, the scheme is fundamentally the same everywhere, simply adapted to different local and national contexts to target issues that are the most sensitive at a given time.

Supporters of Rajchl’s PRO party in Czechia or activists for the Polish Anti-War Movement “may speak in different languages, may come from the right or the left of the political spectrum, [but] the script is pretty much the same,” Szolajski notes, “and was written in the Kremlin.”

Russian influence and propaganda tactics also tend to avoid a key pitfall, according to the Polish director. “They don’t go out saying that Russia and Putin are great,” which wouldn’t resonate too well in countries with strong anti-Russian sentiments like Poland or even the Czech Republic.

“Instead, they say things like ‘Biden is old’, ‘NATO is aggressive’, ‘the EU is bureaucratic’ and so on”, a plethora of arguments often based on half-truths that make ordinary citizens “feel like they’re in trouble” and that coming to terms with Russia, even if there is little love lost for Putin or the Russian people, is part of the solution, he says.

As the scandal surrounding the Voice of Europe media recently showed, there is a thin line between ordinary citizens, social media users or people in a position of power parroting the Kremlin’s line out of political opportunism or personal belief, and actual agents of influence bankrolled by the Russian state through obscure and possibly illegal schemes.

Taking the example of the former national-conservative PiS government in Poland, Szolajski argues that “Russia especially uses those who are ostensibly anti-Russian”, describing PiS’s hawkish tone against Moscow as “lip-service” as opposed to many of their policies, including their Eurosceptic stance, and weakening of Poland’s counterintelligence network as playing into Putin’s hands.

For Szolajski, PiS’s guilt is clear, but the level and nature of the Kremlin’s infiltration is not. “It’s not clear whether this was done under the influence of actual Russian or pro-Russian agents, or merely because they were stupid enough” to play into the hands of their ostensible rival, he says.

In other countries explored in the documentary, including Bulgaria, Moldova or Latvia, the channels of Russian influence may be more clear-cut than in Poland or Czechia.

As a result of “complete” Russian infiltration, Bulgaria refused to gather evidence on Moscow’s involvement in the repeated sabotage operations, according to Szolajski. While in Czechia, former premier Andrej Babis “simply could not not reveal” the conclusions of the BIS counterintelligence agency which, in 2021, clearly pointed the finger at Russia’s GRU in the deadly Vrbetice depot explosions.

Outsourcing

Although not included in Putin’s Playground, recent events give the documentary’s focus an eerie sense of actuality.

Poland has in recent months experienced a series of suspicious explosions and fires, many of which have been linked to Russia. And although hard-based evidence still appears to be lacking in several cases, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has spearheaded calls to crack down on Russia’s increasingly aggressive actions on the territories of EU and NATO states.

Moscow’s increasing reliance on what analysts have described as “low-cost” spying and sabotage activities has also found an echo across the border in Czechia, where a foreigner was arrested last week for attempting to set fire to a depot of Prague municipal buses. Prime Minister Petr Fiala claimed it was “highly probable” Moscow was behind the attack.

Talking to the local investigative HlidaciPes media on Monday, BIS head Michal Koudelka said the attack showed Russia’s use of foreigners, “often people with some criminal background… who may not even know they were recruited by Russia”, was part of a new tactic.

The impact of such attacks should not be underestimated, according to the head of Czech counterintelligence. “They have a psychological impact on society, they’re a part of propaganda, based on the idea that the Czech Republic is making itself a target,” he said. “It has the potential to create tensions in society”, and undermine trust in the country’s security and intelligence services.

Crucially, the way governments communicate, the media cover or citizens react to these probable and very physical attacks on sovereign territory are key to whether the Kremlin will achieve its intended goal with these actions.

“The reason I made this documentary is because today war is not so much about tanks and airplanes,” Konrad Szolajski tells BIRN, at least not yet when it comes to EU countries. “It’s about influencing and subduing countries in other ways – ways that are very dangerous because people don’t realise that they are working for Russia” or pushing the Kremlin’s agenda.

Quoting a US Strategic Command officer interviewed for the documentary, Szolajski notes that “in military terms, NATO is strong enough, we are prepared today” to face Russia, including its hybrid military tactics used in the invasion and occupation of Crimea back in 2014.

But, according to the filmmaker, Russia uses European democracies’ greatest strength, “freedom of expression and information”, against themselves to shape public opinion, progressively change policies and, eventually, sap the strength and will of a society to defend itself against aggression. And here too, whether the main culprits are “agents of influence or ‘useful idiots’ is not always clear”.

“It’s an absolute nightmare. We cannot kill our freedom of speech for the sake of safety, but we need to find tools to defend ourselves without introducing censorship,” he says.

Circling back to Poland’s recent series of suspicious arson attacks, commentators noted that pointing the finger at Russia at every incident even despite little evidence could paradoxically play into Moscow’s hands, by creating a climate of panic among the public or giving birth to galloping and self-sustaining speculative bubbles.

A combination of fear, uncertainty, and perceived helplessness that Russia – regardless of its goals or strategy – would always be able to use to its advantage.

[noreligionisgood]

BYDGOSZCZ, Poland — A committed Catholic who served from childhood as an altar boy, Karol dreamed as a teenager of entering the seminary in his hometown in northern Poland and becoming a priest.

“I had a deep faith and wanted to serve the church,” said Karol, now 26, recalling how he had discussed his hopes of one day becoming a bishop with his spiritual mentor, a priest at the Church of Divine Providence in the city of Bydgoszcz.

But that was before the priest raped him.

“The whole church has been poisoned,” Karol said in an interview, asking that his full name not be used by The New York Times.

His story, one of many that has stirred outrage over the years in the Polish news media, is part of a cascade of sexual abuse scandals that has plunged the Roman Catholic church in Poland into a deep crisis and eroded trust among young people. Polish youth are also wary of what many of them see as the church’s symbiotic relationship with the country’s deeply conservative governing party, Law and Justice.

[mask131]

Deadly fall: The “other” Halloweens

THE “OTHER” HALLOWEENS

Category: Anglo-Saxon and American cultures (plus Christianity)

I talked about Halloween. I talked about its ancestor, Samhain. I talked about All Hallows Day and its “cousin” El Dia de los Muertos.

But there are much more other variations of Halloween and All Saints Day that I haven’t talked about, and that yet are needed to understand the evolution and existence of those holiday: a whole constellation of “other Halloweens” and even “other Samhains”. I’ll try to briefly list them all through this post.

1) All Saints Eve

Everybody knows that “Halloween” stands for “All Hallows’ Eve”. But originally this title went to the Christian celebration of the Eve of All Saints Day. And Halloween, despite its name, has barely anything Christian in it, mostly being a survival of Samhain. So, what is the “actual” All Saints Eve, from a Christian point of view?

All Hallows Eve, or All Saints Eve, is mostly a preparation for the upcoming All Saints Day (All Hallows Day), and thus doesn’t have many “traditions” in itself. The church service is called the Vigil of All Hallows, and is usually coupled with visits to the graveyard (to place candles and flowers, in preparation for All Saints Day). It is a time of praying for the dead, and also a time of fasting to prepare yourself for All Hallows: All Saints Eve is a non-meat day. This custom actually influenced a lot modern Halloween – it was because of the ban on meat imposed by All Hallows Eve that people consumed mostly fruits and vegetables, which led to the prominence of these same fruits and vegetables in Halloween. Most All Saints Eve traditions tend to be local. In Spain, priests have to toll the bell of their churches to remind people of thinking and praying for the dead. In Finland, people speak of the “valomeri” or the “sea of light” because everybody goes lighting up candles in cemeteries. And in Poland the tradition had the living Christians walk through the forest while loudly praying, in order to comfort the unrested or tormented dead.

If we leave Europe and go to America, the land of Halloween, All Saints Eve is… a bit different. Mostly because Christianity in America is mostly Protestant – and for Protestants, All Saints Eve is before all “Reformation Day”, the celebration of the start of the Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther – for a long time it was the habit for Protestant families to dress their kids as biblical characters or important figures of the Reform. Now, Christianity does not often meddle well with Halloween celebrations – especially in America where people are prone to be a more… “extremism” (plus there’s the fact Halloween became such a part of American culture). Some defend the idea that Halloween is just harmless fun for children and that it does not hurt in any way Christian belief ; while others are much more disdainful of this “occultism” and “mysticism” and are usually prone to handing out tracts on Halloween night about the wonders of Christianity. But a VERY American creation born of an attempt at uniting Christianity and Halloween – a “tradition” created by none other than the fundamentalist and evangelical churches (because who else would do such a thing?), is the “Hell Houses”. Imagine a “haunted house attraction”, but done by religious people using, instead of ghosts and monsters, the “horrors” of sin and vice, with the ultimate goal of “scaring into redemption”… It is a really weird and bizarre and VERY American thing, and while some of those houses can be quite ridiculous, others are known to be VERY disturbing, leading to yet again another Halloween scandal (they all come from America) about those Hell Houses that go “too far”. But I’ll let you search these lovely things by yourself.

2) Calan Gaeaf

I talked about Samhain in a previous post, and I tried to insist that while it was a Celtic holiday, indeed, it was mostly focused, localized and practiced by Scotsmen and Irishmen (plus the Isle of Man), not all of the British Isles. And yet there is this idea today that Samhain was practiced in the entirety of the Isles… This is because there is a slight confusion between Samhain and its “siblings”, the “other Samhains”. If Samhain proper was only for the Scots and the Irish, the other part of the Isles had their own festivals equivalent to Samhain. And Calan Gaeaf was “Samhain” for Wales.

Calan Gaeaf was the celebration of the first day of winter, on the 1st of November (in the bi-seasonal system of the Celtic year, autumn was just the first part of winter). It was a harvest festival, that allowed for grand feasts (as both the harvest was gathered, and the livestock was slaughtered for the winter) cooked by the women of the village, and for all sorts of games – usually also tied to the harvest. For example there was the “harvest mare” game: some of the last stalks of corn reaped would be twisted together in the shape of a mare, and the “player” would hide the mare under his clothes, before trying to sneak it back to his home in the village. If he could get the harvest mare to his home without being noticed by any of the women (preparing the feast in the village), he would be rewarded with beer and a place of honor at the feast’s table, while the mare was hung other the hearth. If he failed, he would become the laughingstock of the community.

And just like with “Hallowe’en”, the eve of Calan Gaeaf was known as “Nos Galan Gaeaf” – and was considered a “spirit night” (a Ysbrydnos in Welsh), one of the times of the year when spirits roam the country (and given the Welsh shared the Celtic concept of the Otherworld, we are talking about both the spirits of the dead and supernatural inhuman spirits). On this night, people avoided the places where spirits liked to hang out: crossroads, churchyards, stiles… A bonfire was lit around which children and women danced, and when the flames started to die out they all ran home: for it was said that when the bonfire of Nos Galan Gaeaf was extinguished, a supernatural creature would appear – sometimes simply a bad omen announcing disaster and death, other times an actual threat seeking the devour the souls of the wanderers, or the flesh of the last child to go home. For some this creature was “Hwch Ddu Gwta”, a black sow without tail but with the head of a woman, while for others it was “Y Ladi Wen”, “the white lady”, a female headless ghost. Before leaving, children and women had to place a ring of stones around the fire, with their names written on each stone: in the morning, the stones were checked. If a name-stone was burned by the fire, it meant good luck for the person “owning” the stone, but if a stone was missing it meant the person associated would die within the year.

Similarly to Samhain and Halloween, all sorts of divination games were practiced on Nos Galan Gaeaf. The apple-peel game I described previously was a common practice of the holiday, and so was the “mirror-gazing”: unmarried women had to look into a mirror in a darkened room to see the face of their future husband ; but if a skull appeared, it meant the woman would die within the year. A more traditional Welsh “divination game” was gender-divided: girls had to grow throughout the year a rose in the shape of a hoop, and go through the circle three times before cutting the rose – on Galan Gaeaf’s Eve, they had to place the rose under their pillow to dream of the future. Boys, meanwhile, had to cut ten leaves of ivy during the night, before leaving one behind them and placing the nine remaining under their pillow: not only would they dream of the future, if they touched the ivy they could also have visions of the witches living in the area.

3) Allantide

The “other Samhain” of Cornwall was known as “Kalan Gwav”, which literally meant “the first day of winter”, coupled with “Nos Kalan Gwav”, the Eve of the First Day of Winter, the 31st of October. It later evolved, under Christian influence, into “Allantide”, more well-known as Saint Allan’s Day. Due to overlapping with Allhallowtide, Saint Allan’s Day was also a day of remembering and praying for the dead, with churches of Cornwall ringing their bells to comfort Christian souls that had not yet entered Heaven (purgatory, hauntings, and other “intermediary states”). And just like with the other “Samhains”, divination games were common on this night: throwing walnuts in the fire to predict the fidelity of your partner (see the hazelnut roasting of Samhain), or pouring molten lead into cold water, to see form a shape that would indicate you the profession of your future husband.

Unique to Allantide however, is the tradition of the “Allan apples”. Allan apples are very large and glossy red apples, specially polished for the occasion. Before the day of the saint’s feast, entire markets selling only Allan apples were organized, because the tradition was to offer them to your friends and family, as they were symbols of good luck. Young girls would place these apples under their pillows to dream of their future husbands, while the children who went to bed without obtaining even one Allan apple would only know misfortune. There was even a local game of “catch-the-apple” that went as such: two pieces of wood are nailed together in a cross, the cross is suspended to the ceiling and candles placed at its four ends, and an Allan apple is tied up under the cross. The goal of the game was to catch the apple with your bare teeth – and if you were too slow or not agile enough, the hot wax of the candles would be poured on you.

4) Punkie Night

A last “British” variation of the Samhain/Halloween tradition – this time coming from the “West Country” (a name for a region of South-West England). Punkie Night was held on the last Thursday of October, and during this night children marched around the region with jack-o-lanterns in their hands (Punkie was an Old English word for “lantern”), while singing a song that went! “It’s Punkie Night tonight (X2) / Adam and Eve would not believe / It’s Punkie Night tonight!”. Other times, the children would rather go door to door asking and begging for candles, threatening those who did not gave them anything (a variation of the trick-or-treating). This begging had its own rhymes: “Give me a candle, give me a light / If you don’t, you’ll get a fright!” ; or “Give me a candle, give me a light / If you haven’t a candle, a penny’s all right!”. We also know that people usually placed “punkies” (jack-o-lanterns) in front of their farms, to ward off evil spirits, and that the processions of children would be led by two characters known as the “Punkie King” and “Punkie Queen”.

5) Mischief Night

Originally, Halloween was just the eve of All Hallows Day. But as Halloween became a proper holiday, not just the eve of a feast, it got its own eve. And Halloween Eve is known by different names across America: one of which is Mischief Night. It was called as such because on the 30th of October, people took the habit of doing all sorts of jokes and pranks, even going up to vandalism – not just children, but adults too! It is quite interesting to see that the tradition actually started in old England, but was not immediately associated with Halloween: originally “Mischief Night” was linked to the May Day and to the Green Man. However, as the celebration left the rural areas and reached the cities, Mischief Night was moved to the opposite end of the year: 4th of November, the eve of the Gunpowder Plot celebrations (5th of November). It then slightly shifted to the night before Halloween – and it is at this last date that it reached the USA and Canada.

In England, Mischief Night went by many different names: Micky Night, Trick Night, Corn Night, Tick-Tack Night, Chievous Night, Mischievous Night, Miggy Night, Mizzy Night… And in some areas of Yorkshire, it was even seen as a coming-of-age ceremony for thirteen years old boys. In Northern America, the celebration got several other names, such as “Goosey Night” or “Mat Night”. In Maryland, it became known as “Moving Night” due to the common prank being to steal or switch various furniture and items found on house porches ; it was tied to another common name of the Night in rural areas, “Door Night”, due to rural pranksters often stealing the “doors” of the fences surrounding fields, or the small wooden doors of courtyards. In Northern and Western states of the USA, as well as in Ontario (Canada), the name “Cabbage Night” (or in French “Nuit de Chou”) is also common, due to the vandals usually raiding gardens and farms for cabbages (preferably leftover cabbages or rotting ones), before using them for all sort of mischiefs.

Today, the pranks of Mischief Night mostly include “toilet pappering” yards and buildings (wrapping them in toilet papers), throwing powders or eggs at cars and houses, writing on windows with soap, smashing pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, spray-painting buildings, or setting up small fireworks – even though the tradition of throwing rotting cabbages or rotting fruits at people still survives in some area. Mischief Night also has a nasty history of arsons, that started in the 80s when people started setting garbage ablaze or creating big fires in cemeteries ; while in the 2010 New-Orleans saw a new form of Mischief Night appear as carnival/Mardi-Gras like parades ending up in vandalism-filled riots.

6) Devil’s Night

Devil’s Night is another American name for “Mischief Night” – one coming originally from Detroit, in Michigan. Mischief Night arrived to Detroit between the 1930s and the 1940s, and began with simple pranks and “mild vandalism”. Egging and soaping, waxing windows and doors, toilet-papering trees and shrubs, throwing rotten vegetables at people, leaving flaming bags of dog poop on doorsteps)… “Mischievous crimes” and “petty crimes”, so to speak. But throughout the 60s and up to the 70s, the violence and danger of these pranks escalated. We were talking about serious vandalism and arsons. And as the decades went by, the destruction and frenzy of the night worsened: 800 fires in the city in 1984, and just as much if not more in the following years. “Mischief Night” became “Devil Night”. By the 1990s, it got so big that the authority and people of the city decided it had to be put to a stop: this was the creation of “Angel Night” in 1995. Angel Night was the gathering of several thousands of volunteers (up to 50 000 in the first Angel Nights) to patrol the neighborhoods at night to keep order, communicating with the authorities via radios or cellular phones, and attaching amber beacons to their vehicles to make the vandals known what their purpose was. Angel Night was such a big mobilization that by the 2000s a significant drop was noticed in arsons and vandalisms. At the beginning of the 2010s, there were 169 fires (which already was a drop compared to previous years). By the mid-2010s, only fifty or so fires were counted. By the end of the 2010s, only four or five fires. It is widely believed that soon, “Devil’s Night” will be truly dead, and just a cultural memory.