#landmark analysis

[nfllivescores]

England's Record-Breaking Victory Over Pakistan: A Comprehensive Analysis

  Pakistan   In the world of cricket, there are moments that transcend the sport, moments that rewrite history and capture the collective imagination of fans around the globe. England’s recent record-breaking victory over Pakistan falls squarely into this category. This game was not just a triumph; it was a statement, a masterclass in dominance that will be remembered for years to come. A…

[lumalalu]

why on earth do you even want a fe4 remake if you dont want anything to change just go play the original game.

[wilwheaton]

Republicans are not the victors of a tumultuous campaign week that saw President Joe Biden flub his first debate and former President Donald Trump win a landmark Supreme Court ruling — the oligarchy is, a new analysis contends. Slate writers Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern presented an alternative Wednesday to the predominant political narrative that Biden’s campaign is nosediving while a newly disciplined Trump reaps the benefit. Rather than look at the face of the political parties, they raise the specter of Supreme Court rulings they say demonstrate a cataclysmic governmental shift. “Make no mistake about it,” the pair write, “When a court that has been battered by near-weekly reports of undisclosed oligarch-funded vacations (and gifts and super yachts and tricked out RVs and secret conferences with high-paying Koch supporters getting access to justices) decides to make it easier to bribe public officials—as it did in Snyder v. U.S.—that’s a very public signal that the conservative supermajority does not care what you think.”

'Make no mistake about it': Op-ed warns an elite 'supermajority' has already won 2024

The thoroughly corrupt MAGA 6 must be impeached and removed from the court. Democrats must take off the gloves, and fight as dirty as the other side. Literally everything is at stake.

[mesetacadre]

hi, i hope you dont mind me asking this question! i often come across lists of reading recommendations for communists, and they are usually focused entirely on communist theory. which is important and im already on that, but i wonder if you also have recs for learning about history? especially the history of the soviet union, but also other past and present socialist states. i sometimes find myself reading theory and understanding the concepts in a vacuum, but with very little understanding of the historical context they were written in, if that makes any sense. and id like to get a basic grasp of the history of various socialist projects that isnt just the typical western "the ussr was evil!!!!" thing

Hi, historical context is indeed very important for works of theory, especially if it's more than a hundred years old. Lenin's What is to be Done, for example, is very conditioned by its historical context of Russia still being predominantly feudal, with only a timid appearance of the proletariat in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and therefore the very first trade unions, which he talks about. The understanding of these texts is amplified, and quite often enabled by knowing at least the basic historical context. Below I'll list the historical works I've read (and others) with some commentary, but I encourage anyone who has something to add to do so, since I am as of only recently getting more into historiography.

Anything by Anna Louise Strong (I've read The Soviets Expected it (1941) and In North Korea (1941), there's also The New Lithuania (1941), The Stalin Era (1956) and When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet (1959) for example). Her works, which I'd consider primary sources since they are written from her own experience witnessing events and talking to a lot of people, are extremely useful if you wish to form an idea about how some aspects of socialist states worked. The limitation of her works also resides in this specificity and closeness, these are not works that present a broad view of long processes, but a slice of the present with the sufficient historical context. They are still very, very good.

The Open Veins of Latin America (Spanish versrion), by Eduardo Galeno (1971). This one is focused on the history of imperialism in Latin America, how it evolved from the moment the first Spanish foot touched ground to the time it was written in (It talks about Allende before he was assassinated but after achieving power, for example). Perhaps it's not exactly what you're looking for, but it contains very important general context for any social movement that has happened since 1492 to 1971

The Triumph of Evil, by Austin Murphy (2002). I have mixed feelings about this book. While it insists on this weird narrative of absolute evil, which IMO takes away a lot of value from the overall points made, it is an astonishingly in-depth analysis of the economic performance and general merit of socialist systems against their capitalist counterparts. Most of the book is dedicated to comparing the GDR to the FRG, and both the economic and social data it exposes was very eye-opening to me when I read it about 2 years ago. If you can wade through the moralism (especially the beginning of the introduction), it's a gem. I've posted pictures of its very detailed index under the cut :)

Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parenti (1997). Despite the very real criticisms levied against this book, like its mischaracterization of China, it is still a landmark work. Synthetically, it exposes the relationship between fascism, capitalism and communism.

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad (2019); The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World, Walter Rodney (2018). I'm lumping these two together (full disclosure, as of writing I'm about four fifths of the way through RSOtTW) because they deal with the same topic, Prashad being influenced by Rodney as well. Like both titles imply, they deal with the effects the October revolution had on the exploited peoples of the world, which is a perspective that's often lost. Through this, they (at least Prashad) also talk about the early USSR and how it functioned. For example, up until reading Red Star, I hadn't even heard of the 1920 Congress of The Toilers of the East in Baku, or the Congress of the Women of the East.

From here on I'll link works that I haven't (yet) read, but I have seen enough trusted people talk about them to include them

How to Cast a God into Hell: The Khrushchev Report, by Domenico Losurdo (2008). This one talks about how the period of Stalin was twisted and exaggerated through destalinization.

Devils in Amber, by Philips Bonoski (1992). This is about the Baltics and their historical trajectory from before WW1 to the destruction of the USSR (I'm not very sure on those two limits, perhaps they fluctuate a bit, but it definitely covers from WW1 to the 60s)

Socialism Betrayed, by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny (2004). This one deals with the process leading up to and the destruction of the USSR itself.

The Jakarta Method, Vincent Bevins (2020). This is about the methods the US used in the second half of the 20th century to stamp out, prevent, or otherwise sabotage communist movements and other democratic anti-imperialist movements.

I know some of these aren't specifically about socialist states, which is what you asked, but the history of its opposition is just as important to understand because it always exists as a condition to these countries' development and policies chosen.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Advice for any academically trained historians (meaning, MA+) trying to write for the general public/trade audience/civilians

Mentally create two projects, one for a general public, and one is your dissertation. The book I’m writing for general audiences etc is The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising; while the version that is a dissertation is titled Banditen: a Female Military History of the Warsaw Ghetto, its Uprising, and its Aftermath, 1939-1945.

Now that you’ve done that, you have to make sure you grasp the differences in purpose between the two pieces of writing. The book for the trade press/general audience is to bridge the gap between academia and everyone else/those who have no patience for academic prose and constructions; and to help the general public gain a better understanding of an important Thing.

Your dissertation, however, is written to demonstrate to a committee of your tenured peers that you have an outstanding and sophisticated grasp of the field and its historiography, and all tangentially and closely related subfields. Beyond that, it has to be an original work of history which adds new knowledge to the field.

I wrote Girl Bandits in the interest of injecting far more of the female experience(s) of the Holocaust into collective memory, and emphasizing that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, despite its artist depictions, was NOT a men-only event.

But my hypothetical dissertation committee already knows all of that. So Banditen, this imaginary dissertation, would exist to both demonstrate my command of Holocaust history and historiography (etc) to my committee, AND build on the historiography of the kashariyot as founded by Dr. Lenore Weitzman, and on the larger historiography of women and the Holocaust as founded at that landmark 1983 conference [Katz, Esther and Joan Miriam Ringelheim, eds. Proceedings of the Conference on Women Surviving the Holocaust. New York: The Institute for Research in History, 1983.]

In the dissertation, the narrative exists to support the context and analysis and nuance; in the book, context, nuance etc exist to support the narrative.

Should I teach a course on this for historians?

[niteshade925]

April 11-14, Xi'an, China:

Some pictures of the cultural landmarks of Xi'an and some miscellaneous pics to wrap up the posts about my Xi'an trip:

First is the Bell Tower/钟楼 and Drum Tower/鼓楼 of Xi'an. The Bell Tower and the Drum Tower of Xi'an were built in 1384 and 1380 respectively, during the reign of Emperor Taizu of Ming (personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, aka that one emperor who was a beggar). Both towers were rebuilt during Qing dynasty, then repaired extensively in the latter half of 20th century.

This square-ish tower is the Bell Tower:

The hotel we stayed at was fairly close to the Bell Tower so I was able to get a couple more pictures of it, but we didn't go inside either towers though. I kind of regret that, but I regret not being able to go to the Shaanxi History Museum more.

Side note: the Tang-era Jingyun Bell/景云钟 used to be inside this tower (hence the name), where it would sound in the mornings to signal the beginning of the day. However, the Jingyun Bell was moved to Beilin Museum in 1953 for conservation purposes, which was also where I saw the real thing (see my earlier post about Beilin Museum), but a tour guide told me it would be moved again soon to another (indoor) museum, where it would stay for the foreseeable future. The bell that is inside the Bell Tower right now is a modern working replica of the Jingyun Bell.

And now the rectangular Drum Tower. The drums in the tower used to sound in the evenings, signaling the end of the day. This is summed up in the term 晨钟暮鼓, or "morning bell tolls and evening drum beats".

The bian'e/匾额 sign on the south side of the Drum Tower reads 文武盛地 (traditionally Chinese reads from right to left when written horizontally), which translates to "the place where literary and martial arts flourish". The bian'e itself is 8m (~26.2 ft) long and weighs 2-3 metric tons (about as heavy as a SUV). The bian'e on the north side of the Drum Tower reads 声闻于天, which translates to "a sound heard even in the heavens", referring to the sound of the drums. The phrase itself came from the poem "A Crane Cries" (鹤鸣; translation may vary depending on the translator) from the Classic of Poetry/《诗经》.

On to notable souvenirs from random shops:

Tang-era style Thicc Beefcake Horses 👌

Left: figurines of (mostly) Tang-era girls. Right: a type of candy from Sichuan called "dogshit candy"/狗屎糖 (yes that's really the name lol) made from soy beans, peanuts, and barley malt syrup (called maiyatang/麦芽糖). The smaller text on the bottom of the bag reads "eat dogshit candy and you will have dogshit luck", which actually means good luck btw, because the chances of stepping on dog doo-doo is actually kinda low if you think about it

And last but not least, the ancient city walls of Xi'an. The city walls that we see here were built at the beginning of Ming dynasty (latter half of 14th century), but analysis of the cross section revealed that it also contained sections of the Tang-era (618 - 907), Song-era (960 - 1279), and Yuan-era (1206 - 1368) city walls within it in layers. These walls are 12m (39.4ft) tall and the top of the wall is 12-14m (39.4-46ft) wide, enough to pass multiple horse-drawn carts at once, which was important for the defense of the city. Below is the Anyuan Gate/安远门 (the north gate), and this used to be where the Tang-era Taiji Palace/太极宫 (not to be confused with Taiji Hall of the Forbidden City) wall connected with the Eastern Palace/东宫, where the crown prince resided:

Coming around the side gate of Anyuan Gate. There's also a moat (护城河 in Chinese, lit. "protect city river"), but I didn't take pictures of it.

Outside the Shangwu Gate/尚武门. 尚武 roughly translates to "respect of the martial". There used to be draw bridges outside these gates as well, but for ease of modern transportation, most of them have been rebuilt as fixed bridges with roads on top for vehicles and pedestrians. The only draw bridge that has been rebuilt (that I know of) was the one outside the Yongning Gate/永宁门 aka the southern gate.

Leaving Xi'an city. These are the corner towers of the city wall:

Two cute sculptures inside the Xi'an Xianyang International Airport/西安咸阳国际机���, the left one represents Shaanxi's Qinqiang/秦腔 folk opera, and the right one is, of course, the famous terra cotta soldier:

Goodbye Xi'an! Hopefully I can come back in the future and go to Shaanxi History Museum..........

[ironscorpion]

Pluto's time period analysis

Posting this like a month late but here, spoilers for episode 83 of Nevermore

Disclaimer: this is all speculation, and nothing has been confirmed to be canon yet

I narrowed down the time period Pluto lived in to roughly 1923-1928 based on panels shown in episode 83, panels will be talked about in the order they're shown in the episode. Assuming Pluto's backstory plays out similar to the events in the Black Cat story, it's more than likely this is the year he had died as well.

To start, there's two distinct landmarks seen outside of Pluto's window which are the Blackpool Tower, and presumably the Blackpool Giant Wheel. The Blackpool Giant Wheel is what holds signifance in regards to the time period episode 83 takes place in. The wheel was closed in October of 1928, with demolition had started in November of the same year.

Meaning that this episode would have taken place at the latest, October of 1928.

The train ticket Pluto holds, beside it is a real life train ticket from the same line, the LM&SR. This railway was established in January of 1923, this also includes the specific line connecting between Blackpool and London. This would put the earliest Pluto had been alive in the beginning of 1923.

Even though the real life train ticket is from 1927, it shouldn't be taken as evidence of when the episode took place

The photo of the Eiffel Tower Pluto holds also resembles real life photos of the Eiffel tower from the 1920's.

Lastly Pluto is shown holding a box of Black Cat cigarettes. While this particular brand was around long before the 1920's, they were incredibly popular during this time up to the 1930's. This is also a nod to the story Pluto is based on, The Black Cat.

With that, the time period would be narrowed down to January 1923 at the earliest, and October 1928 at the latest.

[cosmichorrorlesbians]

what's your dissertation about? you mentioned it in the siltcord and i'm really interested

oh my god hey I'm so happy you're interested! broad strokes because I've only been working on it for a few weeks but: the current theme is 'resistant landscapes' (both man-made and natural) in the later writing of Shirley Jackson!

Essentially, my main thread is that Jackson had two parallel strands to her work, which as far as I can tell began kind of interrelated but then diverged quite significantly? She's probably best known now for The Haunting of Hill House and to a lesser extent We Have Always Lived In The Castle, which are these. weird surreal psychological horror novels, engaging explicitly or implicitly with the supernatural, and centred around introspective, strange and sometimes deeply misanthropic female characters from isolated social units with dysfunctional, possessive relationships to each other.

Aaaaand then on the other hand she was known for being a 'happy housewife' who wrote these whimsical, quasi-autobiographical stories about all her children and how hopeless her husband was. These were popular too. Betty Friedan called her out in landmark 1963 feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique for essentially spreading patriarchal propaganda.

The interrelation between the two is really jarring, because in one family is a source of horror and tragedy and in the other it's a source of, like... laundry. And Jackson's home life wasn't everything those stories made it out to be-- her marriage was unfaithful, her mother could probably be fairly called emotionally abusive, and as I talked about on the siltcord, she developed severe agoraphobia which often left her housebound.

So, yeah. My plan is to explore the depiction of families as constructed social units in dialogue with the environments they are constructed in in that work. Obviously a lot of that is relation of house to family, in the context of which Hill House is especially rewarding to consider, but I also want to look at relationships with nature and urban environments (especially in the context of settler colonialism and how that has had an enduring legacy in Jackson's particular part of New England), xenophobia (largely in regard to class, though racism and anti-Semitism are presences in her writing), domesticity and the idea of the housewife, and how horror relates to All Of This. The ideal of making a home within a hostile environment and of that environment turning on you, essentially.

I don't yet have particular areas of focus within that broad umbrella, but I might update with bits and pieces about it as I work? I don't really talk about academic stuff on here but I am very much Critical Literary Analysis Guy and I do also post relentlessly about haunted houses as a concept so if people would be interested in it maybe I will

anyway if you've read this far I recommend Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition (2024) by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing which is a book about how horror movie tropes can be mirrored in built environments! I'm reading it right now and it's conceptually fascinating plus fairlyyy comprehensible by academic standards (if a little dense) if you, like me, are a Fool who knows nothing of architecture. very good also for getting to look at pictures of some of the most Fucked Up Buildings (affectionate) you've ever seen.

[earthtodora]

yuuji's domain represents the nirvana

i made a little analysis about yuuji's domain in 265 and the way i think it represents the state of nirvana

1. the concept of nirvana

in buddhism, nirvana represents the ultimate stat of enlightenment, where one escapes from the cycle of life and death (samsara), and achieves the highest possible level of peace and freedom. in nirvana, one is liberated from suffering and negative emotions such as greed and hatred (take yuuji's hatred towards sukuna).

2. yuuji's domain

yuuji's domain is a non-combat domain. in fact, he mentions that he "doesn't even know what it is", and the mere reason he opened it was because he was desperate to talk to sukuna. the domain itself features various locations from yuuji's childhood - train station, park with a crawfish lake, farm. on one panel, we see horses - in buddhism, horses symbolise the journey towards spiritual liberation.

all of these locations have a sense of innocence and simplicity - a sharp contrast to sukuna's domain which is a hellscape, with a shrine as its only "landmark". there is a sense of tranquility and peace within yuuji's domain, as if a world without suffering exists.

3. yuuji's purpose

yuuji's purpose for opening his domain isn't to fight or kill. he simply wanted to talk to sukuna. his actions in this arc prove that he has no intentions to harm anybody - his first and foremost purpose is to protect people and he does so through any means necessary. his willingness to sacrifice himself for others and his pure heart, despite everything that happened to him, is what gives him his strength.

yuuji sharing his memories and experiences with sukuna is aligned with the buddhist practice of seeking understanding and enlightenment through introspection and dialogue, rather than conflict.

4. yuuji's perspective on life

yuuji rejects the notion that humans are mere tools with predetermined roles, explaining that even the simplest acts, like walking a dog or nurturing a family, hold intrinsic value. this perspective challenges sukuna's nihilism, emphasizing that every life, no matter how seemingly insignificant, has worth.

finding the joy in the smallest things - the joy that is often overlooked in the world, is a crucial aspect of nirvana, hence yuuji's focus on his past - the simplest moments of his childhood, which are full of joy and innocence.

5. buddha statue and kshitigarbha

yuuji's hand sign, a mudra symbolizing kshitigarbha, and the presence of the buddha statue we see in this chapter, are both an indicator of his enlightenment, as he is able to use a domain as a result of his awakening. the story of kshitigarbha ties in closely with the fact that yuuji offers sukuna a chance of salvation, if he releases megumi. this is an act of kindness, compassion and benevolence, in spite of sukuna's crimes, just like kshitigarbha offering a chance of enlightenment to all beings who were stuck in the depths of hell, as he saw value and worth in each of them.

6. the role of a person

when yuuji discusses the role of a sorcerer and rejects the notion of people being mere tools, the panels featuring the faces of those he respected and lost—wasuke, nanami, nobara, gojo, choso, and junpei—are a clear indication that yuuji, unlike sukuna, does not consider humans disposable and worthless. yuuji respects them, mourns them, and wants to make sure they are not forgotten.

these values are important in buddhism and are what makes a person worthy of nirvana: the willingness to accept the nature of things, the value of life, the importance of kindness and benevolence, and respect and care for others. basically, yuuji as a person embodies the core concepts of buddhism and its ultimate goal - nirvana.

[majorproblems77]

Alrighty Linked maze fans I hope you're ready, part 1 of 3 for catch-up analysis!

So our good friend Frulleboi has been absolutely cooking with these update's with three in quick succession and I am loving it cause I love it and is great.

This is for the beginning of the Soul Stone chapter. Soul stone part 1.

Now a link to the comic page can be found Here. Please go give it some love :D

For the important stuff!

Linked Maze belongs to @linked-maze and its wonderful creator @frulleboi. (You should follow them, they are wonderful) And as a heads up, Linked maze is for more mature audiences! :)

As usual, you know the drill, Grab some water, Grab some popcorn and prepare for me to ramble at you for however long it is!

Here we go!

Half an hour? So all the areas around with the environment that I spotted before won't help me for the moment?

Ohhhhhh boy

(I've got my eye on this)

Four... Four please.

Like wolfy has a good reason he is preoccupied but like you can just turn around for like 1 moment.

Wolfy really is the real mvp of this little team, he out here doing work! We love him.

Guarantee that the team will fall apart without the wolf who goes 90% of the work and has 90% of the team's brain cells.

"It was at this moment, he discovered..."

This panel made me laugh because of Four's shadow.

The disappointed look on his face, I think the shadow is literally me inside of this universe sometimes. He Craves chaos but also is just like 'Four what are you doing?' at every available opportunity.

Nooooooooo, Whatever do you mean four? God I love him.

And wolfy here is just like, 'My man can't you see I am busy I can't do everything.'

(Me taking notes of this tree on the left here. 3 branches, thin band and a thick area... thinking it's going to be a major landmark)

Then all of a sudden.

Hold up, I recognise this.(I think)

[TANGENT TIME]

I'm probably looking WAY TO far into this as we dont know how this maze works but)

This area here.

A thin band/wall with a larger area and moss on the wall looks KINDA Like the area where Sky meets Wild from back in Waking up PT5.

I know there's some differences between the grass and the tree, but the tree could be off-frame.

I'm not saying that Four (His looks like a newer version of the one we see here) is now in the same area as these guys, but I'm thinking he might be getting close to that region of the world map.

This could also be a clue as to how the maze works. Each region could look near on identical in layout while feeling so much different because of the changes in the environment. (New vs old walls, Tree's VS rock etc)

I feel like I need to get a pen and paper to explain this better, let me know if I do and I will do that.

While it might not be the exact same location, I think there might be more hints as to these guys being the ones we get the group up with next.

Moving on.

Oh man, again with Shadow this man just looks so disappointed with four i love him.

He's like, Are you for real?

There are so many thoughts going through his head. But I think these two do the work for me.

"My friend! Is he okay!" And thennnnn "Oh god im alone with Four"

Wolfy's facial expressions are top-tier in these updates and I love him sm okay.

Short and sweet. But it works either way!

Thanks for hanging out with me on this one, Hope to see you again soon when we hit the next one! :D

Have a great day!

[ichayalovesyou]

The Aesthetic of Vulcan

Home Decor:

Vulcan Architecture

A collection of canonical images depicting various structures and landmarks all across the planet, images provided by @capsfromtrek

Vulcan Home Decor

Analysis of Vulcan decorating habits from an anthropological standpoint in respect to the depicted emptiness of Sarek's home in Michael Burnham's memories of it in Star Trek: Discovery. Analysis provided by @captaincrusher and @unicorn-and-bluebells with a minor anecdote from me, and a even more insightful anecdote from @pepperpup86

Fashion:

Bronze Age Fashion (Masculine, Feminine)

Fashion aesthetics from Pre-Awakening T'Khasi, designs provided by @janey-jane

Vulcan Fashion: Personal Anecdotes

My take on the history of Vulcan fashion requested by @madllys

Vulcan Fashion History Analysis

A more educated fashion history take on the evolution of Vulcan fashion from the Enterprise era to The Original Series provided by @thornfield13713

Unraveling A Vulcan

Anecdote by @luftweht on the potential cultural practice of untying the various complex belts and knots common in Vulcan fashion as a courtship ritual.

Hairstyles:

Intricacies of Feminine Vulcan Hairstyles

Images and and an anecdote on the elaborate hairstyles of feminine Vulcans provided by @protectspock

Geometric Hairstyles of Black Vulcans

A collection of curated images depicting elegant and simple geometric and aesthetically mathematical black human hairstyles befitting of their Vulcan equivalents, provided by @wongbal, expanded upon by @parad0xysms

Click Here to Return to the Vulcantology Masterpost (Coming Soon)

[reachartwork]

Weekend Vacation

Charlie's lungs burned as she sprinted down the endless concrete corridor, her breath coming in ragged gasps as her heavy combat boots pounded against the hard, unforgiving surface with each desperate stride. The dull gunmetal gray walls stretched out before her, featureless and unbroken save for the occasional heavy security door set at seemingly random intervals. Each looked identical to the one before it, stamped with an inscrutable string of letters and numbers, the only landmarks in this monotonous stretch of hallway.

An occasional perfectly square window - a gap, really, not filled in with glass or anything translucent besides atmosphere - showed the beautiful surroundings to this vein in the Chicago Tower. Hundreds and hundreds of vertical meters of nothing, the omnipresent black fog-of-war in these higher levels preventing sight of even the nearest walls. They were hanging in a catwalk.

Behind her, the staccato rapport of assault rifle fire echoed off the close confines, punctuated by panicked shouts and the occasional pained scream as her pursuers drew ever closer. Charlie risked a glance over her shoulder, catching a fleeting glimpse of dark figures clad in matte black tactical armor as they rounded the corner behind her, their movements preternaturally fluid and precise. Not human - or at least not baseline. Corporate security, maybe, or some new breed of DARPA nightmare. It didn't matter. All that mattered was putting as much distance between herself and them as possible.

Her hand drifted to the polymer grip of the strange, asymmetrical pistol holstered at her hip - a "Needler", Jay had called it when he'd first shown it to her. Looted from some hidden cache deep in the bowels of the Miami Tower a few months back, when they'd been hired on for a deep delve by some corp looking to snatch up artifacts ahead of the feds. It fired razor-sharp ceramic flechettes, propelled by linear induction to hypersonic velocities. Designed to punch through body armor and shred soft tissue. Only a few mags left though - and as much as it pained her to admit it, even mag-dumping the sleek little monster likely wouldn't do more than slow these bastards down.

No, what she needed was to find a way off this level. Get to a place she could hunker down, catch her breath, and wait for her team to circle back around. Speaking of which… Her free hand fumbled at the side of her matte black ballistic helmet, fingers finding the chunky rubber PTT button. "Jay, Mouse - sitrep. Got heavies on my six, could use a hand here."

A burst of gunfire sounded from somewhere behind her - and entirely too close for comfort - the rounds pinging off the concrete far too near her head for her liking. She ducked instinctively, shoulders hunching as she put on an extra burst of speed. "Like real fuckin' soon, guys."

Mouse's nasally tenor crackled over the comm channel, nearly drowned out by a wash of static. "Workin' on it, fearless leader. Had to double back to the checkpoint to snag the long guns. But I think we can cut 'em off if we-" His voice dissolved into a garbled electronic screech, the signal breaking up into indecipherable fragments.

"Mouse? Mouse!" Charlie shouted into her mic, panic rising in her throat. No response. Goddamnit. The levels this high up played merry hell with comm signals on the best of days. Something to do with the artifact radiation, or so the nerd brigade claimed. All Charlie knew is that it meant her team was out there in the Wind somewhere, coming for her. She just had to stay alive long enough for them to reach her.

POST TO r/TowerRunners241391 SubLink: ANALYSIS OF NEW TOWER THREATS StrikeVector42 1.4k points 2 days ago So it seems the Tower Authority has stepped up their game again. I had a run-in with these new security drones (at least I think they're drones) on my last deep delve and let me tell you, they are NO joke. Fast, heavily armored, and equipped with what looked like high-end mil-spec hardware. Managed to drop one with a few mags from my M56A1 and got a closer look before I had to bail. Def not human - no blood, and I could see servos and hydraulics through some of the holes I punched in its armor. Almost like someone kitbashed a Northrup dog-brain into an Ares HOPLITE chassis. Bad news for solos and underequipped teams. Might be time to start packing some heavier ordnance for Tower runs. Thoughts? >ArrowheadActual 671 points 1 day ago Damn, that's some high-end shit. You'd think they'd have better things to spend the budget on than harassing underpaid runners. Although I guess artifact retrieval is big biz for the feds, especially after that Miami fiasco. As for heavier ordnance, I'd say yeah, probably a good call. I've been telling my crew we need to invest in some anti-material rifles or maybe one of those Militech plasma lances. Expensive as hell, but you can't really put a price on not getting vented by some roided-out murder bot. >>TacoTaster 287 points 22 hours ago Oh sure, because a buncha small-time runners can def afford bleeding-edge Militech hardware. Why don't you throw in one of those Mitsubishi drop pods while you're at it, really round out the kit. Nah, the smart play here is avoidance. Stick to the edges, don't get greedy, and be ready to bail at the first sign of trouble. I've been soloing the Austin and Philly Towers for years now and never had a problem I couldn't sprint away from. Although I will say the new sensor suite I picked up last month has been a game-changer for detecting patrols. Maybe see if you can scrounge up one of those before dropping rent money on a plasma lance.

The chatter of automatic weapons fire was growing louder now, echoing through the labyrinthine corridors in a dizzying cacophony that made it impossible to pinpoint its source. They were getting closer. Sweat beaded on Charlie's brow, running into her eyes and blurring her vision as she blinked it away. She could feel her legs starting to tremble with exhaustion, her lungs searing with each ragged breath. She couldn't keep this pace up much longer.

There! Up ahead, set into the endless expanse of cold gray concrete - a door, its matte black surface adorned with the same inscrutable alphanumeric markings as all the others. But unlike the sealed and reinforced security checkpoints she'd been sprinting past, this one looked… different. Older, maybe. And slightly ajar, a slim wedge of impenetrable darkness visible in the gap. Charlie didn't hesitate, throwing herself forward with a final burst of desperate speed and shouldering her way through into the unknown.

((SYNAPNET VC-CHANNEL TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT, SOUTH-CENTRAL GRID 1707-A)) 27634: -that's why I'm telling you there's something seriously wrong here! 09611: All I'm hearing are baseless allegations from someone who doesn't understand the tech. Do you even know how the artifacts work? How CARPA interfaces on a synaptic level with human neural architecture? The risks are minimal and the benefits far outweigh- 27634: The risks? People are DYING, you idiot! Keeling over with seizures or breaking through their regocycles speaking nonsense about the new gods. I saw it myself on my last core delve of the New York Tower. Something's in there… something that reacts to the artifacts. And the feds know it. [USER #09611 - AUTH ACCEPTED - KEYS UPDATED. PERMISSIONS NOMINAL.] 00244: >KEY ACCEPTED. UPLINK SUCCESSFUL.< 09611: What the- How did you get on this frequ- [SIGNAL LOST. CHANNEL REVOKED. HAVE A NICE DAY.]

The room beyond was dark, lit only by the pulsing crimson glow of emergency lighting strips set into the junctures of walls and floor. It was big, far larger than any of the storage rooms or armories Charlie and her crew had raided in the past. More of a cavern, really, its distant walls lost in shadow. The air hung thick and heavy, the cloying stench of ozone and scorched metal assaulting her nostrils.

Towering banks of computer equipment dominated the room's center - server stacks, their matte black chassis roughly the size and shape of refrigerators, all interconnected by dense nests of bundled fiber-optic cabling that pulsed and flickered with streams of data. A command console of some kind was set before them, a horseshoe arc of display screens and input devices that looked like something straight out of a big-budget sci-fi sim.

Charlie approached it warily, senses straining for any hint of movement in the shadows. Nothing. Just the hum of fans and the muted clicking of environmental systems cycling on standby mode. She slid into the console's wraparound crash couch, fingers playing across the nearest display. It blinked to life at her touch, pale green text crawling across the screen. Some kind of debug interface, dense with jargon she couldn't even begin to parse.

"C'mon you bucket of bolts, give me something I can use here…" A few swipes and taps brought up what looked like a master systems display, a wireframe representation of the Chicago Tower with their current position blinking at its summit. And off to one side, tucked away behind layers of sub-menus and flickering holo-glyphs - a communications suite. Her heart leapt. If she could just patch a signal through, boost it enough to punch past the interference-

POST TO r/TowerRunners420692 SubLink: I THINK I FOUND SOMETHING HUGE IceBreakYoself 2.9k points 12 hours ago Guys, this is big. Like, really fucking big. You know that covert data center everyone's been whispering about? The black box site squirreled away somewhere in the upper levels of the Chicago Tower, where all the REALLY juicy experimental tech is supposed to be locked down? I think I just stumbled across it. I'm not gonna say too much (opsec and all that) but it looks like some kind of quantum computing rig hooked into a TITAN-class simulspace, all off-the-books DoE hardware that probably doesn't officially exist. And I found references in the system logs to something called JANUS - no idea what it is but it seems to be the core around which this whole setup is built. I managed to pull a partial schematic before I had to bail (sec was def onto me) but I'll see if I can piece together any more details from my download. TripleTeaTime 1.2k points 5 hours ago Holy shit, for real? I've heard rumors about some hush hush fed project in the upper levels but always assumed it was just undie banter. If you actually found evidence of it… Dude, you'd better be careful. That's the kind of thing certain three letter agencies wouldn't think twice about disappearing you over.

Charlie cursed under her breath as her fingers danced across the terminal's input keys, each command met with a mocking buzz of denial from the system. Unauthorized access, insufficient privileges, blah blah fucking blah. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Nothing ever was, in this business.

Her musing was interrupted by a sudden flurry of movement in her peripheral vision, a dark figure detaching itself from the shadows with liquid grace. No, two- no, three of them, their forms shimmering and indistinct even to her goggles. The sound of their footfalls was swallowed by the room's oppressive hush, muted to a whisper despite the hard composite of the floor plates. Definitely not human. Humanoid, but too many elbows. Guns made for hands with different amounts of joints.

Charlie was moving before the conscious thought had even fully formed, her rifle snapping up to her shoulder as she rolled out of her chair and behind the meager cover of the server stacks. The muzzle flash of her own weapon was blinding in the near-dark as she opened up on full auto, a shredding fusia cyclic rate of fire that chewed divots and craters into the far wall.

She caught a glimpse of dark, lithe forms scattering at her fusillade, splitting up to flank her with impossible speed and agility. Their return fire was immediate and precise, superheated slivers of razored tungsten slicing through the the air around her head like invisible guillotine blades. Charlie ducked back behind the dubious shelter of the servers, breath coming in sharp huffs as she fumbled to slap a fresh mag into her rifle's receiver.

Her hands were shaking, adrenaline turning her movements clumsy and uncoordinated. She could hear the soft, padding footfalls of the cybernetic monstrosities closing in on either side, the muted whine of servos and hydraulics underlying each step. Sweat ran into her goggles. This was bad. This was really goddamn bad.

Pain exploded along her ribs as a burst tore through the server chassis to her left, shredding kevlar and skin alike. Charlie bit back a scream, clutching at her side as warm wetness spilled through her fingers. It wasn't that bad. She'd had worse, right? Except she could already feel the numbness spreading out from the wound, a cold heaviness seeping through her torso. Fuck. Poison? Neurotoxin?

Her vision swam as she struggled to bring her weapon to bear on the flash of movement to her right, finger tightening on the trigger on pure instinct. Her burst went wide, sparks showering down from the ceiling as the rounds tore into cables and conduits. Not enough. Not nearly enough. As the adrenaline began to fade, the pain of her wound reasserted itself with a vengeance, a sickening throb that made her head spin.

One of them was on her then, close enough that she could feel the heat of its mechanisms as it loomed out of the darkness. A vise-like hand clamped down on her wrist, crushing armor and bone with equal ease. Her rifle fell from suddenly limp fingers, clattering to the deck. This was it, then. This was how she died - alone and forgotten, just one more runner who'd pushed her luck too far, four kilometers too high. She should've stayed on the lower floors, where it was safe. The kiddie pool.

She waited for the killing blow, senses hyperattuned to each agonizing instant as if by stretching it out she could postpone the inevitable. But it never came. Instead, there was a shuddering impact, a warbling shriek of tortured metal, and the iron grip on her arm fell away. She collapsed, toppling bonelessly to the hard metal decking.

Somewhere above her, the chatter of automatic fire filled the air, punctuated by warbling shrieks and the crunch of rending metal. Familiar voices shouted in staccato urgency, barking terse commands that her pain-addled mind struggled to parse into words. A bellow of triumph was cut short by the wet thud of tearing flesh, followed by a scream of anguish.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The room fell crushingly silent but for the low groans of the wounded and the occasional sputter of a dying servo. Ungentle hands seized Charlie by the shoulders, rolling her over onto her back. The lancing agony of the movement brought tears to her eyes, her vision clearing enough to resolve the soot-streaked faces of her team hovering over her.

Jay's broad, battered features split into a fierce grin as he saw her eyes focus on him, teeth startlingly white against his dark skin. He'd lost his helmet somewhere in the chaos, and an ugly gash over his left eyebrow wept crimson down his cheek. "Shit, boss," he rumbled. "We leave you alone for five minutes and look what happens."

Mouse offered a strained chuckle at that, though the ashen set of his features belied his humor. His left arm hung limp and bloodied at his side, the polymer of his armor sleeve split open from wrist to elbow. His other hand clutched a bulky plastek case to his chest, the seams of its lid pulsing with the telltale argent glow. "Yeah, well, I think Charlie's little solo operation paid off." He offered a pained grimace, hefting his burden. "Snagged more than just this while I was poking around. Got some data drives that should fetch a fine price with the right buyer."

A wet, wracking cough burst from Charlie's lips as she tried to sit up, each spasm setting her chest aflame with agony. She gritted her teeth, forcing out words between panting breaths. "Great. Happy for you. Dunno if you noticed, but I'm kinda bleeding out here."

"Shit, yeah, hang on." Jay produced a palm-sized black disc from a pouch at his belt, snapping it open to reveal the coiled tubing and gleaming needle of an autosuture. He pressed it against the ruin of her side and depressed the trigger stud, a sharp coldness spreading out from the impact as the device hissed and spat. Charlie stifled a yelp, jaw clenching against the urge to scream as it knitted up her perforated flesh in fast-forward.

"There we go, good as new. Sorta." Jay tossed the expended device aside, surveying his handiwork. "Need a top up?" He tilted his head toward the bulky shape of the drug injector riding his other hip, while his free hand wrapped around a purifier, slamming it into the exposed skin on Charlie's side.

Charlie made a face, shaking her head, nostrils twitching at the sharp but otherwise pleasant pinprick of the purifier's needle. "Nah, I'm good for now." She'd seen what that stuff did to people firsthand - made them feel invincible, sure, but also made them sloppy. Stupid. She needed her wits about her if they were going to get out of this. She couldn't afford the luxury of chemical courage.

She forced herself to her feet with Jay's help, muscles protesting every inch of the way. Mouse shot her a worried look, which she waved off with as much nonchalance as she could muster. "I'll be fine," she said, biting off each word. "Sitrep. How many of those things did you scrap?"

"Three, as far as I could tell," Mouse piped up. "But I think there were more. Looked like they were coming out of some kind of… I dunno, maintenance alcove? Over on the far wall." He jerked his chin in the direction of the back of the room, now lost in shadow.

Charlie blew out a breath, nodding. "Okay. Okay, we can't stay here then. Sooner or later more are gonna come to investigate, and I don't fancy our chances in a stand up fight." A glance up at the silent banks of servers surrounding them. "Did you pull a backup of the files?"

"Sure did." Mouse tapped a gloved finger against the plastek of the case still clutched tight to his chest. "Everything I could grab before they spiked the connection. Dunno if it'll be enough to reconstruct the whole dataset, but it's a damn sight more than we had when we walked in."

Charlie set her jaw. "It'll have to be enough. C'mon, we're burning moonlight." She cast about for her discarded weapon, stooping to retrieve it with a grimace of pain. The barrel was warped and pitted from the heat of her wild full-auto burst, but the action seemed to still cycle smoothly enough. It'd do, for now. She thumbed the release for the side panel, a final once-over by touch assuring her that nothing vital had been damaged. Good enough for government work.

They moved out at a cautious pace, Charlie on point with Mouse and Jay watching the flanks. The room's layout seemed to shift and distort as they picked their way through the carnage of shattered machinery and twisted cybernetic limbs, shadows bleeding together into a disorienting haze. Or maybe that was just the blood loss talking.

They reached the far wall without incident, the hulking forms of the alcoves looming out of the murk. As Mouse has said, they looked like they'd been designed to house the security machines - heavily reinforced, with thick power and data conduits snaking into each. A quick peek inside revealed them to be empty, the soft amber stand-by lights winking at them mockingly.

"They must've been activated remotely when the system detected an intrusion," Mouse mused, half to himself. "Some kind of rapid-response unit. Probably high-value priority targets for the Towers."

"Yeah? Well they can fuck right off," Charlie spat. "I've got high-value priorities of my own, and none of them involve getting diced by the Tower's pet murder-bots." She shouldered past him, stepping over the tangled ruin of what had probably been an access panel once upon a time. The corridor beyond was as featureless as the one that had led them here - just more matte gray bulkheads and sullen crimson emergency lighting.

Time to get moving. They only had another 20 minutes before the Tower reset, and Charlie wasn't looking forward to becoming a red stain pressed between two concrete blocks.

[germanpostwarmodern]

The Kornhaus restaurant is a main attraction of every Bauhaus tour in Dessau yet its architect remains in the shadows of this landmark: his name is Carl Fieger (1893-1960) and he was involved in all of the Bauhaus’s major architectural projects. Although he realized only one more building in Dessau independently, Fieger as employee in Walter Gropius’ office contributed to the Bauhaus building, the Törten estate as well as the Masters’ Houses. Before joining the Groupius office in 1921 he had already worked in Peter Behrens’s for a decade at a time when e.g. Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe passed through the office. Both Behrens and Gropius quickly recognized Fieger’s drawing talent and it therefore doesn’t take wonder that Gropius in particular gladly relied upon it.

In 2018 the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau organized the exhibition „Carl Fieger. Vom Bauhaus zur Bauakademie“ and revealed numerous unknown drawings, documents and papers from the Bauhaus archives. They are comprehensively reproduced in the accompanying catalogue published by Kerber Verlag and supplemented with an analysis of his life and career by Uta Karin Schmidt who has written her PhD thesis about Fieger. Inspired by Le Corbusier and the contemporary discourse surrounding affordable prefab housing, Fieger in 1924 presented his Round House to be industrially produced. With his own house in Dessau, inspired by Le Corbusier’s „Maison ouvrière en série“, Fieger in 1927 followed in the same vein, although it was considerably more elaborate and also included self-designed furniture, a garden designed by the architect and an elaborate color scheme.

In parallel to his work in the Gropius office and his solo works Fieger between 1927 and 1930 also taught technical drawing at the Bauhaus. In 1930 he followed Gropius to Berlin but unlike him stayed in Germany during the Nazi dictatorship. After first being banned from practicing due to his Bauhaus past, Fieger from 1936 onwards again worked as architect, e.g. for Werner March.

After WWII Fieger remained in East Germany and became research associate at the GDR’s Bauakademie. In this capacity he also was responsible for the very first Plattenbau in the GDR in 1953.

In view of Fieger’s involvement in key projects of German modern architecture, his significant own designs and his later career in the GDR, the present volume is a very insightful and comprehensively illustrated read. Highly recommended!

[haveyoureadthispoll]

A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanon's masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said's Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other. Fanon's analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.

[steampunkforever]

One of the notable triumphs of Soviet Cinema was Sergei Esienstein's development of the Montage. In the interest of time I'll simplify years of film history and analysis to a much shorter explanation: showing two or more images in series gives new meaning to them by forming a relationship through context. A man with a neutral expression is just a man, but by cutting to a slice of cheese we register his expression as hungry, or loving if we cut to a child, or scared if we cut to a snake. There, now you can skip film class and show this post to your professor as proof of attendance.

Cut together more abstract visuals and run them in series and you develop themes and narratives. Set them to a landmark musical score and you have Koyaanisqatsi.

Koyaanisqatsi is a movie about the imminent destruction of the planet. It's a movie celebrating the human race. It's a documentation of the anthroposcene. It's a condemnation of modernity in its very title, translated from Hopi to mean "life out of balance." It's a movie about how cool highways and nuclear reactors and military jets and brutalist architecture are. It's a great film to put on at parties.

Going through a particularly stressful point of my life right now, and at the peak of my distress I decided to spend the night in, turning out the lights and sitting on the floor, letting Philip Glass' enchanting score wash over me as I sat mesmerized by the film's celebration and condemnation of life out of balance.

This is cocomelon for film majors. I mean it, Koyaanisqatsi is the perfect film to put on in the background of a houseparty. It's like an Apple TV screensaver for the sophisticated. With Philip Glass to provide the atmosphere and rich visuals of 16mm timelapses, this is the perfect non-narrative for setting the artistic mood of a space. This is the most pretentious thing I've ever said and I wholly stand by it.

Go watch Koyaanisqatsi. It's an unmatched experience.

[whatudowhennooneseesyou]

Hi! Do you mind if I request a as your late bloomer boyfriend for ATEEZ Jongho? Thanks! :)

Jongho As Your Late Bloomer Boyfriend: An Analysis

Content Includes: This is an 18+ essay with suggestive themes.

Word Count: Circa 300

Disclaimer: This is entirely unconfirmed and theoretical, just read this for delusional purposes only.

On an astrological level I cannot confirm if Jongho is ace but I am inclined to believe (and support) that he could be which is favourable because Jongho will offer you PATIENCE as a late bloomer boyfriend.

Choi Jongho is not a highly sexual man which is great because those needs aren't a priority of him.

His Scorpio Venus and Virgo Mars means emotional intimacy is a requirement for him to be physically intimate and so he probably chooses to abstain from casual hook-ups because it doesn't satisfy him.

Hongjoong is similar in that I think he chooses to be emotionally celibate rather than participate in casual sex.

So the relationship might feel very platonic at first, even a little formal because Jongho likes a courting process.

The relationship would begin with casual dates at the coffee shop, he would open the door for you and remember your coffee order for the next time.

There might be a slight tension in the beginning because Jongho's Aries Moon means he's prone to over-thinking, he wants you to know that he's taking the time to make you feel safe and comfortable around him.

It wouldn't matter to him whether you're a late bloomer because he doesn't prioritises your experiences, he prioritises how authentic you are in the moment.

HONESTY is so important for Jongho in a relationship, he has a built-in lie detector and he can detect the smallest of lies.

'We'll take it slow okay honey? Whatever you're comfortable with, we just need to trust and be honest with each other'.

He would be a tentative lover, he would treat you with fragility (at first) and focus on the sentimentality of the moment.

'Does this feel nice?...and how about this? Good, keep talking to me, I like knowing how you feel'.

Jongho would be an attentive late bloomer boyfriend because the connection wouldn't feel rushed, it wouldn't feel like a 'landmark' moment, it would be natural and slow-burning.

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