#northwest of Mexico City

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Western history is full of the daring feats of explorers—Lewis and Clark in North America, John Cabot in Canada, Marco Polo along the Silk Road, and the list goes on.

But what about the explorers who set out with the same optimism as these navigational celebrities, only to face mysterious adversity?

Here are five explorers who had all the advantages of their more successful counterparts, only not to reach their goals and leave very little trace of their true fates.

Franklin’s failed Northwest Passage quest

British explorer Sir John Franklin left England in 1845 with 129 crew members and officers in search of the Northwest Passage, a shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through Canada.

They were expertly equipped with iron-sheathed ships, three years of food and drink, even an early daguerreotype camera.

Instead of finding the passage, however, the ships became trapped in the Canadian Arctic’s most treacherous, ice-choked corner, north of King William Island.

Twenty-four men died by April 1848, including the captain.

The new captain, Francis Crozier, apparently abandoned the ships and set out with the remaining crew over the icy terrain in a desperate attempt to reach land.

Inuit hunters reported seeing bedraggled crewmen dragging sleds across the ice.

A few bodies have since been found, along with deserted campsites and bits and pieces, including silver dessert spoons and cotton shirt fragments.

In 2014, the wreck of Erebus was located, followed by the Terror in 2016.

While the wrecks themselves did not solve the mystery of what killed the men, the recovered bones of some men bore knife marks, suggesting the crew was fending off starvation by cannibalism.

Fawcett’s Lost City of Z

British explorer Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett already had undertaken several expeditions into the Amazon early in the 20th century when he came across an irresistible Portuguese document at the National Library of Brazil.

Detailing the discovery of a “large, hidden, and very ancient city, without inhabitants, discovered in the year 1753,” it told of grand ruins hidden in the Mato Grosso jungle.

Fawcett instantly decided to find the ruins, which he named the Lost City of Z.

After one failed attempt to find this awesome site, Fawcett, his son Jack, his son’s friend Raleigh Rimell, and two local laborers departed into the Brazilian wilderness in April 1925.

They wrote their last dispatch home on May 20.

Their Brazilian helpers had left them, Fawcett noted, but “You need have no fear of failure.”

No one ever heard from the party again.

Their disappearance became an obsession, with adventurers over the next decades trying to retrace their steps.

A reporter who went after Fawcett in 1930 also disappeared, as did a Swiss hunter and his search party.

Unconfirmed reports filtered out from the jungle of pale-skinned prisoners and their young children, but Fawcett and his party have never been found.

Mallory’s ill-fated Everest summit

The hopes of the world, or at least of the world’s mountain-climbing community, were pinned on George Leigh Mallory when he began his third attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest in April 1924.

The handsome English climber had reached 27,235 feet, 1,800 feet below Everest’s peak, on a 1922 expedition.

This time, he intended to make it to the top.

On June 8, Mallory and his young companion, Sandy Irvine, set out on what they hoped would be the final sprint.

A fellow climber spotted them, two black spots, about 800 vertical feet below the summit. Then a snow squall closed in, and the climbers disappeared.

Mallory’s body was not recovered for 75 years.

In 1999, climber Conrad Anker discovered Mallory’s frozen corpse at 26,760 feet on the moun­tain’s north face. Irvine’s body has not been found.

Whether Mallory was on his way up to the sum­mit or was coming down from a successful ascent is unknown.

If he did reach the peak, he would have beaten Edmund Hillary, the New Zealand mountaineer who has been lauded for being the first man to reach the summit since his successful ascent in 1953.

But the world may never know.

Amelia Earhart’s strange disappearance

Amelia Earhart was world famous. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first person to fly from Hawaii to California.

Her round-the-world flight in 1937 was her final challenge.

Accompanying her when she took off from Miami on 1 June 1937 was an experienced navigator, Fred­erick Noonan.

The first legs of the 29,000-mile trip were ardu­ous, but the 2,556-mile Pacific leg from New Guinea to tiny Howland Island was the toughest of all.

From the air, Earhart radioed she couldn’t see the island and was running low on fuel. Then silence.

Recent forensic analysis suggest that bones found in 1940 on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro were those of the avia­tor.

Dimensions of Earhart’s body accord­ing to photos and clothing matched measurements recorded of the bones.

Unfortunately, the bones themselves were lost—so DNA testing cannot be done.

Researchers are still following every lead, from a skull fragment found in a museum to underwater fragments possibly from her plane, but so far, her disappearance remains a mystery.

Ambrose Bierce’s baffling Mexican quest

Ambrose Bierce isn’t the typical explorer. A Civil War veteran, he was also a journalist and poet, known for his cynical and misanthropic writings.

One such entry in his Devil’s Dictionary, for example, reads, “Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.”

In 1913, with his family dead and his career waning, the 71-year-old Bierce headed out to visit Civil War battlefields, including Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga, and onward to Mexico.

“I am going to Mexico with a pretty definite purpose, which is not at all presently disclosable,” he wrote to his secretary.

He may have joined up with Pancho Villa’s rebel army and traveled with it to Chihuahua.

Reports from one of Villa’s battles told of an “old gringo” killed in the fighting.

Could that have been Bierce? Or did he live on in Mexico, California, France, or Brazil, where reports have placed him over the years?

[fatehbaz]

Seventy-five years after two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan — killing hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — one small community in the Northwest Territories is still haunted by its connection to the blasts. Across Great Bear Lake from the 533-person hamlet of Délı̨nę sits the historic mining site of Port Radium. [...] [T]he Canadian government quietly called for uranium production as part of the country's involvement in the Manhattan Project. That uranium was sent south to help the United States with the race to build a nuclear bomb. [...] [N]ear Great Bear Lake, workers would eventually wonder about the risks they took delivering sacks of ore on their backs as they sent it south — without being told what they were about to be complicit in. [...] Days after the blasts, the Canadian government announced the country's role in the explosions, citing the Great Bear Lake mine's uranium as a key ingredient for the project, said Geoffrey Bird, a professor at Royal Roads University in Victoria who studies tourism and the history of remembrance. An English-language sign connecting Port Radium to the atomic bomb was photographed in Délı̨nę in December 1945. [...] While the Canadian government hasn't apologized to Délı̨nę, the community has apologized to Japan. [...] Locals in Délı̨nę say many ore workers and their family members developed cancer later in life. [...] In the book If Only We Had Known, which tells the story of Port Radium from the eyes of the Sahtúot'ine, elders remember workers' clothing covered with dust, windy days when ore was caught up in the air and children playing games in mine tailings.

Text by: Katie Toth. “Spectre of atomic bomb still looms over N.W.T. community 75 years after Hiroshima.” CBC News. 5 August 2020.

---

[O]n 6 August 1998, 10 members of the small Sahtugot’ine Dene community of Deline (Fort Franklin) in the ‘Northwest Territories’ apologized in Hiroshima for the atomic destruction of that city – and the death of over 200,000 civilians – exactly 53 years earlier [...]. Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd. [was] placed under state control during World War Two. They [the Dene] were allowed only to help it [uranium] on its long and winding way, 3,000 miles by river, lake, road and air, from Port Radium on Great Bear Lake to Port Hope on Lake Ontario, where, from 1942-45, the suddenly precious ore – the ‘new gold’ of the atomic age – was, together with ‘Belgian’ uranium from the Congo, refined and dispatched to Los Alamos, the desert lab in New Mexico secretly building the new, city-smashing Superweapon. [...] Beginning in the 1970s, and spiking sharply in the 1980s, many of the men who had handled and carried the ore – and the men who had mined it – began to die from cancer [...]. The “Dene,” the CBC ‘revealed,’ “were never told of the health hazards they faced, even though the government knew … as early as 1932 that precautions should be taken in handling radioactive materials”. Instead [...] “workers [were] dressed in casual clothes and uranium dust [...] covered the men like flour.” [...] [A]s detailed in a December 1998 article [...] in First Nations Drum: [...] [T]he mine was kept running at a very high pace [...]. The Dene were employed as ‘coolies’ packing 45-kilogram sacks of radioactive ore for three dollars a day, working 12 hours a day, six days a week. This at a time when the ore was worth over $70,000 a gram. [...] In 1998, the Déline Dene Band Uranium Committee released a 160-page [...] report, “They Never Told Us These Things.” In a 2011 article in Maisonneuve, Salverson recounts a community meeting in Deline to discuss the report, “where [non-Dene] lawyers delivered a year’s worth of uranium-impact research from the archives in Ottawa,” revealing that in “the mountain of papers we dug up … there is not one mention of the Dene, your people.”

Text by: Sean Howard. “Canada’s Uranium Highway: Victims and Perpetrators.” Cape Breton Spectator. 7 August 2019.

[spookyceph]

What is your favorite part of the world you have crafted for our Dysthanasia saga?

Thank you for the ask @wyked-ao3 !

My favorite part, like, geographically? Probably the Broken Coast, which runs from the northwest corner of Mexico and Arizona, up through much of western Nevada, and cuts across northern California.

The shallow-ish sea that now covers those places is full of the ruins of modern civilization. The coastline itself is jagged, hammered by seasonal storms and shaken regularly by minor earthquakes, which are reminders of the Break. Yet people, both mundane and supernatural, still live and work there. Salvagers, smugglers, werecreatures (sharks, cougars, and wolves primarily), archaeologists, homesteaders, farming collectives, religious sects, and many others populate the coastal deserts and territory cities.

And now, possibly, there are merfolk. Which should be totally fine and peaceful. >.>

Dysthanasia Taglist: @sunset-a-story @thatndginger @space-writes @thecyrulik @scoundrelwithboba @extrabitterbrain

[gmggmgracielasblog]

The earthquakes not only affected municipalities in Mexico City on Tuesday, September 3, but a 'seismic swarm' with at least 8 tremors were felt in San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur.

According to the National Seismological Service (SSN), the first earthquake occurred at 4:58 local time with a magnitude of 4.3 and 11 kilometers northwest of San José del Cabo.

From there, aftershocks of lesser intensity occurred in San José del Cabo and the following stand out according to central Mexico time:

Just a few seconds later, another earthquake of magnitude 4.5 occurred.

At 6:05 the earthquake was of magnitude 3 at 7 kilometers southwest of San José del Cabo.

At 6:19 another earthquake of magnitude 3.4 occurred southwest of San José del Cabo.

At 6:40 a.m., a new earthquake of magnitude 3.2 was recorded south of San José del Cabo.

At 7:06 a.m., the earthquake was magnitude 3.2 southeast of San José del Cabo.

At 7:24 a.m., a new earthquake of magnitude 3.3 occurred southwest of San José del Cabo.

At 7:45 a.m., the earthquake was magnitude 3.3 southwest of San José del Baja California sur México

لم تؤثر الزلازل على بلديات مكسيكو سيتي يوم الثلاثاء 3 سبتمبر فحسب، بل تم الشعور بـ "سرب زلزالي" مع ما لا يقل عن 8 هزات في سان خوسيه ديل كابو، باجا كاليفورنيا سور، وفقًا لهيئة رصد الزلازل الوطنية (SSN). وقع الزلزال في الساعة 4:58 بالتوقيت المحلي بقوة 4.3 على بعد 11 كيلومترًا شمال غرب سان خوسيه ديل كابو. ومنذ ذلك الحين، حدثت هزات ارتدادية أقل شدة في سان خوسيه ديل كابو، ويبرز ما يلي وفقًا لتوقيت وسط المكسيك:

بعد ثوانٍ قليلة وقع زلزال آخر بقوة 4.5 درجة في الساعة 6:05 وبلغت قوة الزلزال 3.7 كيلومترًا جنوب غرب سان خوسيه ديل كابو.

في الساعة 6:19 وقع زلزال آخر بقوة 3.4 جنوب غرب سان خوسيه ديل كابو. في الساعة 6:40 تم تسجيل زلزال جديد بقوة 3.2 جنوب سان خوسيه ديل كابو. في الساعة 7:06 كانت قوة الزلزال 3.2 جنوب شرق سان خوسيه ديل كابو. في الساعة 7:24 وقع زلزال جديد بقوة 3.3 درجة جنوب غرب سان خوسيه ديل كابو.

في الساعة 7:45 بلغت قوة الزلزال 3.3 جنوب غرب سان خوسيه ديل كابو.

[princesssarisa]

Opera on Youtube 4

L'Elisir d'Amore (The Elixir of Love)

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, 1967 (Carlo Bergonzi, Renata Scotto; conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni; no subtitles)

Metropolitan Opera, 1981 (Luciano Pavarotti, Judith Blegen; conducted by Nicola Rescigno; Spanish subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Metropolitan Opera, 1991 (Luciano Pavarotti, Kathleen Battle; conducted by James Levine; English subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Vienna State Opera, 2005 (Rolando Villazón, Anna Netrebko; conducted by Alfred Eschwé; English subtitles)

Theatro da Paz, Brazil, 2013 (Atalla Ayan, Carmen Monarcha; conducted by Emiliano Patarra; Brazilian Portuguese subtitles)

Teatro Manoel, Malta, 2015 (Cliff Zammit Stevens, Shoushik Barsoumian; conducted by Philip Walsh; English subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 2017 (Dmitry Korchak, Olga Peretyatko; conducted by Marco Armiliato; no subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Ópera de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 2017 (Ramón Vargas, Olivia Gorra; conducted by Guido Maria Guida; Spanish subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 2018 (Benjamin Bernheim, Andrea Carroll; conducted by Frédéric Chaslin; no subtitles)

San Francisco Opera, 2023 (Pene Pati, Slávka Zámečníková; conducted by Ramón Tebar; English subtitles)

Hänsel & Gretel

Vittorio Cottafavi studio film, 1957 (Fiorenza Cossotto, Jan Poleri; conducted by Nino Sanzogno; sung in Italian with Italian subtitles)

August Everding studio film, 1981 (Brigitte Fassbaender, Edita Gruberova; conducted by Georg Solti; English subtitles)

Leipzig Opera, 1981 (Annelott Damm, Steffi Ullmann; conducted by Horst Gurgel; no subtitles)

Julliard Opera Center, 1997 (Jennifer Marquette, Sari Gruber; conducted by Randall Behr; English subtitles)

Opera Australia, 1992 (Suzanne Johnston, Christine Douglas; conducted by Johannes Fritzsch; sung in English)

Vienna State Opera, 2015 (Daniel Sindram, Ileana Tonca; conducted by Christian Thielmann; English subtitles)

Pacific Northwest Opera, 2015 (Sylvia Szadovszki, Ksenia Popova; conducted by Clinton Smith; sung in English with English subtitles)

Scottish Opera, 2020 (Kitty Whately, Rhian Lois; conducted by David Parry; sung in English with English subtitles)

Eklund Opera Program, 2020 (Christine Lee, Anna Whiteway; conducted by Nicholas Carthy; sung in English with English subtitles)

Amarillo Opera, 2021 (Sarah Beckham-Turner, Patricia Westley; conducted by Carolyn Watson; English subtitles)

Turandot

Mario Lanfranchi studio film, 1958 (Lucilla Udovick, Franco Corelli; conducted by Fernando Previtali; English subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 1983 (Eva Marton, José Carreras; conducted by Lorin Maazel; no subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1986 (Gwyneth Jones, Franco Bonisolli; conducted by Jacques Delacote; English subtitles)

Forbidden City, Beijing, 1998 (Giovanna Casolla, Sergej Larin; conducted by Zubin Mehta; no subtitles)

Teatro alla Scala; 2001 (Alessandra Marc, Nicola Martinucci; conducted by Georges Prêtre; French subtitles)

Gran Teatre del Liceu, 2009 (Anna Shafajinskaia, Fabio Armiliato; conducted by Giuliano Carella; English subtitles)

Chorégies d'Orange 2012 (Lise Lindstrom, Roberto Alagna; conducted by Michel Plasson; French subtitles)

Wichita Grand Opera, 2015 (Zvetelina Vassileva, Ricardo Tamura; conducted by Martin Mazik; no subtitles)

Teatro de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 2017 (Gabriela Georgieva, Carlos Galván; conducted by Enrique Patrón de Rueda; Spanish subtitles)

Opera Hong Kong, 2018 (Oksana Dyka, Alfred Kim; conducted by Paolo Olmi; English subtitles)

Eugene Onegin

Prince Regent Theatre, Munich, 1965 (Hermann Prey, Ingeborg Bremert; conducted by Joseph Keilberth; sung in German; no subtitles)

Paris Opera, 1982 (Benjamin Luxon, Galina Vishnevskaya; conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich; French subtitles)

Kirov Opera, 1984 (Sergei Leiferkus, Tatiana Novikova; conducted by Yuri Temirkanov; English subtitles)

Chicago Lyric Opera, 1985 (Wolfgang Brendel, Mirella Freni; conducted by Bruno Bartoletti; Spanish subtitles)

Petr Weigl film, 1988 (Michal Docolomanský dubbed by Bernd Weikl, Magda Vásáryová dubbed by Teresa Kubiak; conducted by Georg Solti; English subtitles)

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, 1998 (Vladimir Glushchak, Orla Boylan; conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky; English subtitles) – Act I, Act II, Act III

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, 2011 (Artur Rucinski, Kristine Opolais; conducted by Omer Meir Wellber; no subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 2014 (Artur Rucinski, Amanda Echalaz; conducted by Aziz Shokhakimov; English subtitles)

Mariinsky Theatre, 2015 (Andrei Bondarenko, Yekaterina Goncharova; conducted by Valery Gergiev; French subtitles)

Livermore Valley Opera, 2019 (Morgan Smith, Antonina Chehovska; conducted by Alex Katsman; English subtitles)

[apod]

2023 June 17

Planet Earth at Night II Video Credit: NASA, Gateway to Astronaut Photography, ISS Expedition 53; Music: The Low Seas (The 126ers)

Explanation: Recorded during 2017, timelapse sequences from the International Space Station are compiled in this serene video of planet Earth at Night. Fans of low Earth orbit can start by enjoying the view as green and red aurora borealis slather up the sky. The night scene tracks from northwest to southeast across North America, toward the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida coast. A second sequence follows European city lights, crosses the Mediterranean Sea, and passes over a bright Nile river in northern Africa. Seen from the orbital outpost, erratic flashes of lightning appear in thunder storms below and stars rise above the planet's curved horizon through a faint atmospheric airglow. Of course, from home you can always check out the vital signs of Planet Earth Now.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230617.html

[hongduongn120]

The Wanderer

So, after arriving in Boston, Flynn quickly decided that he lacked the motivation and funds to settle down and build a business. And so, in true American fashion, he packed up and spent the next 3 years wandering from city to city, sort of like a grand tour but not. His routes took him from New England down to the Gulf of Mexico, through to the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes before settling down in St. Louis. The major cities he visited during this 3-year journey include:

- Boston, Massachusetts

- Providence, Rhode Island

- New York City, New York

- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

- Baltimore, Maryland

- Washington, D.C.

- Richmond, Virginia

- Atlanta, Georgia

- Savannah, Georgia

- Jacksonville, Florida

- Mobile, Alabama

- New Orleans, Louisiana

- Austin, Texas

- El Paso, Texas

- Tucson, Arizona

- Los Angeles, California

- San Francisco, California

- Eugene, Oregon

- Portland, Oregon

- Seattle, Washington

- Helena, Montana

- Billings, Montana

- Rapid City, South Dakota

- Milwaukee, Wisconsin

- Chicago, Illinois

- Springfield, Illinois

- St. Louis, Missouri

[kuramirocket]

Archeologists have unearthed the lost remains of a Teotihuacan village, including human burials, in the heart of Mexico City.

Ceramics found scattered around the site, which is located 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) northwest of the city's historical center, indicate the village dates from around A.D. 450 to 650 and may have housed a community of artisans and craftspeople.

"The finding was surprising," said an archaeologist at Mexico's National Institute of History and Anthropology (INAH) Directorate of Archeological Salvage, who co-led the dig. "It shows that 1,300 years ago, the islets inside Lake Texcoco, on which Mexico City was founded [after the lake was drained], already supported a permanent population that took advantage of the resources of the lake environment," he told Live Science in an email.

The newly excavated settlement may have formed during the "ruralization" of Teotihuacan, an ancient metropolis that flourished in the highlands of what is now central Mexico between A.D. 100 and 650.The village is located 25 miles (40 km) to the southwest of Teotihuacan and may have been one of several small towns that supported themselves through subsistence farming and fishing as the ancient city reached its zenith. These settlements maintained commercial ties to Teotihuacan, and the new discoveries shed light on the role these settlements played in the city's supply network.

"The discovery is rare because it occurred in a fully urbanized context where the possibility of finding archeological evidence associated with the Teotihuacan culture was very low," he added.

Gifted craftspeople

Archeologist Francisco González Rul discovered the first clues of this village's existence in the 1960s, during construction works in the Mexican capital. Based on ceramics he unearthed, González Rul suggested at the time that the inhabitants were self-reliant fishers and gatherers. The new excavations confirmed this.

Several previously unseen architectural structures — including post holes, flooring, channels and an artesian well — as well as ceramics have come to light. The excavation also unearthed three human burials containing the skeletons of two adults and a child.

Teotihuacan was an ancient metropolis that flourished in the highlands of what is now central Mexico.

Teotihuacan ceramics are categorized into phases, according to a 2016 study in the journal PLOS One. The newfound ceramics displayed features that correspond to the Xolalpan (A.D. 350 to 550) and Metepec (A.D. 550 to 600) phases in the 2016 study, which enabled the researchers to date the remains of the village and its inhabitants. 

The Teotihuacans were gifted artists and craftspeople, said a professor of archeology and director of the Teotihuacan Research Laboratory at Arizona State University. "To decorate the walls of their houses and temples, the Teotihuacanos used the same fresco technique used by Michealangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel," told the professor Live Science in an email. "They also used the fresco technique on ceramic vessels."

The ceramics could reveal important information about trade with Teotihuacan through chemical analysis, said the professor.

Archeologists have concluded the excavations and are now analyzing the discovered materials and bones. Much of Teotihuacan's sprawling architecture remains buried, but the site is largely unaffected by modern construction and will eventually be unearthed in its entirety.

[spann-stann]

Setting Map: Viceroyalty Latinidad (REWORK)

CorpEmp Macrocommunities:

Aridoamerica: Northwest Mexico. Miffed they didn't get the Rio Grande, even in the 2800s.

Central America: Central America plus Panama minus El Salvador.

Chile: Rump Chile run by Tradcath Gremialists. At least they don't have to deal with the Mapuche anymore...

Grand Bajio: North-Central Mexico. Home to massive Neo-Chichimec and Purépecha industrial estates.

Gran Colombia: Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Bolivar was a corporatist all along!

Hispanola: Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The only islands of the Greater Antilles that weren't seized by the U.M. and W.C.O.F..

Indo-Caribbean: Trinidad-Tobago and the Guyanas. The Hindu Heartland outside of VR Jambudvīpa.

Kalingo Archipelago: The Lesser Antilles (sans T-T and Montserrat), home of Carib restorationist movements.

Matto Grosso: Brazil's Center-West. Like to see themselves as the heirs of old Brazil.

Maya: Yucatan, northern Guatemala, and Belize.

Mesoamerica: Central Mexico. Declared the Nahua and Zapotec homelands, dotted with Hispano-Gaelic enclaves.

Nordeste: Brazil's northeast. Finally free from Brazilian internal neocolonialism.

North Rio Grande: Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. Once a Texan satellite state, its relationship with the First Dynasty's home made the N. Rio Grande an influential member of VR Latinidad following its formation.

Paraguay: Slightly larger now that it's acquired the Argentine Chaco. Provinces like styling themselves as the old Jesuit Reductions.

Patagonia: Southern Argentina and Chile, the homeland for the Mapuche people, as well as some Welsh enclaves.

Peru-Bolivia: Peru and Bolivia, back together! Styles itself as Neo-Incan, with a few acquired Japanese stylings.

São Paulo: Formed from the Brazilian state, plus Minas Gerais. One community of note within is the "Confederado Tribal Zone".

(South) Rio Grande: Southernmost Brazil. Lots of German, Italian, Polish, and Ukrainian enclaves.

Tucumán: Northern Argentina. A Neo-Diaguita and Tonocote project.

Non-CorpEmp Territory:

Cordons Sanitaire: The Falklands, Mexico City, Brazil's Federal District, and a large buffer zone between Buenos Aires (U.M. territory) and Uruguay (W.C.O.F.).

Green Consensus: A good chunk of the Amazon, Galapagos, and a restored Montserrat.

United Markets: The militarist Milleist Free State (Buenos Aires), Central America's Crypto Coast, Jamaican FVEM , and the Sandals-Bahamas Free Market Zone.

World Congress of Freedom: The Zapatista Federation (Chiapas), Cuban Republic, the Rio-Santo strip (Brazil), and Peoples Republic of Uruguay.

Reserves: Millenarianist, pacifist, and survivalist enclaves across the Viceroyalty, and several (formerly) uncontacted peoples in the Amazon.

CPC Activity: Organized criminal groups use the Mexico City and Brasilia Cordons Sanitaire as staging grounds for trafficking operations. Massive depots are usually seen built and rebuilt in the Amazon. Several descendants of Guantanamo detainees have formed pirate groups in the Caribbean.

[stetson-sarsaparilla]

>Hijacks Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305

>Demands $200,000 and parachutes

>Releases passengers and demands they immediately depart for Mexico City

>Opens aft door of Boeing 727

>Jumps out and uses parachute

>Never seen again

>FBI still looking for him 45 years later

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 8.23

Holidays

Asian Corpsetwt Day [Every 23rd]

Battle of Kursk Day (Russia)

Black Ribbon Day (Baltic states)

The Blitz Begins (WW2; 1940; UK)

Daffodil Day [also 4th Friday]

European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism (EU)

Find Your Inner Nerd Day

Flag Day (Ukraine)

Goldfinch Day

Grand Mahal de Touba (Senegal)

Hashtag Day

Health Unit Coordinator Day

Hebron Massacre Anniversary (Israel)

Hug Your Sweetheart Day

International Blind Dog Day

International Day For the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (UN)

International Redhead Day

Internaut Day

Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day (Romania)

National Cheap Flight Day

National Doctors’ Day (Iran)

National Holiday (Socialist Republic of Romania)

National Levi Day

National Physicians Day (Iran)

National Plumber's Day

National Poetry Day (New Zealand)

National Sneak Off to the Beach Day

One-Way Street Day

Permanent Press Day

Pilot 823 Day

Purple Poppy Day (UK)

Ride the Wind Day

Sacco-Vanzetti Memorial Day

Schueberfouer Shepherd’s Fair begins (Luxembourg)

Singin’ in the Rain Day

Slavery Remembrance Day

Tansy Day

Tuberose Day (French Republic)

Umhlanga Day (Eswatini, f.k.a. Swaziland)

Valentino Day

Victory Over Germany in the Battle of Kursk Day (Russia)

William Wallace Day (Scotland)

Food & Drink Celebrations

Buttered Corn Day

Cuban Sandwich Day

National Spongecake Day

Peruvian Coffee Day (Peru)

Swedish Meatball Day

World Vada Pad Day (Maharashtra, India)

Independence & Related Days

Aerlig (Declared, 2001) [unrecognized]

Hong Kong (UK Takes from China; 1839-Non-Aggression Pact; 1939)

Kharkiv City Day (Ukraine)

Mexico (Treaty of Aquala Signed; 1821)

Open Rebellion Day (UK declared US Colonies; 1775)

4th Friday in August

Brother’s Day [1st Friday after Full Moon]

Comfort Food Friday [Every Friday]

Daffodil Day (Australia, Southern Hemisphere) [4th Friday]

Five For Friday [Every Friday]

Flashback Friday [Every Friday]

Forgive Your Foe Friday [Friday of Be Kind to Humankind Week]

Friday Finds [Every Friday]

Fry Day (Pastafarian; Fritism) [Every Friday]

International Pozole Day [4th Friday]

TGIF (Thank God It's Friday) [Every Friday]

Weekly Holidays beginning August 23 (3rd Full Week of August)

Health Unit Coordinators Week (thru 8.29)

Festivals Beginning August 23, 2024

Askov Rutabaga Festival and Fair (Askov, Minnesota) [thru 8.25]

Big Feastival (Kingham, United Kingdom) [thru 8.25]

Bosque Chile & Music Fest (Albuquerque, New Mexico) [thru 8.24]

Butler Italian Festival (Butler, Pennsylvania) [thru 8.25]

Chorus Inside International (Rovinj, Croatia) [thru 8.28]

Colorado State Fair (Pueblo, Colorado) [thru 9.2]

DeKalb Corn Fest (DeKalb, Illinois) [thru 8.25]

Espoo Ciné International Film Festival (Espoo, Finland) [thru 9.1]

Fallon Cantaloupe Festival & Country Fair (Fallon, Nevada) [8.25]

Fête Rouge Food & Wine Fête (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

German-American Festival (Oregon, Ohio) [thru 8.25]

Hill City Wine, Brew and BBQ(Hill City, South Dakota) [thru 8.24]

Humungous Fungus Fest (Crystal Falls, Michigan) [thru 8.24]

Indianapolis GreekFest - Indianapolis, Indiana

Mammoth Rocks & Music & Food Festival (Mammoth Lakes, California) [thru 8.24]

Northwest Art and Air Festival (Albany, Oregon) [thru 8.25]

Nebraska State Fair (Grand Island, Nebraska) [thru 9.2]

Old Fashioned Corn Roast Festival (Loveland, Colorado) 9thru 8.24]

Oregon State Fair (Salem, Oregon) [thru 9.2]

Potato Days Festival (Barnesville, Minnesota) [thru 8.24]

Roots Festival (Paola, Kansas) [thru 8.24]

Shrewsbury Folk Festival (Shrewsbury, United Kingdom.) [thru 8.26]

Soybean Festival (Mexico, Missouri) [thru 8.24]

Sylvester Swine Festival (Sylvester, Georgia) [thru 8.24]

Washington State Garlic Fest (Chehalis, Washington) (thru 8.25]

Whiskies of the World (Boston, Massachusetts)

World Food & Music Festival (Des Moines, Iowa) [thru 8.25]

Feast Days

Allan Kaprow (Artology)

Appollinaris Sidnonius, Bishop of Clermont (Christian; Saint)

Appreciate What You’ve Got Day (Pastafarian)

Ascelina (Christian; Saint)

Asterius, Claudius, Domnina, Neon, and Theonilla (Christian; Martyrs)

Chǔshǔ begins (China) [Thru 9.7]

Claudius, Asterius and Others (Christian; Martyrs)

Day of Hephaestos (Pagan)

Day of Nemesea (Old Roman Goddess Nemesis, defender of the relics & memory of the dead from insults)

Dick Bruna (Artology)

Dollond (Positivist; Saint)

Dunadd in Argyll (Celtic Book of Days)

Éogan of Ardstraw (Christian; Saint)

Ernie Bushmiller (Artology)

Eugene Lanceray (Artology)

Eugenius of Ireland (Christian; Saint)

Feast of Nemesis (Goddess of Fate; Ancient Greece)

Gaura Parba (Women’s Festival to Goddess Gauri; Nepal)

Great Feast of the Netjeru (All Gods/Goddesses; Ancient Egypt)

Hammer Fraggle (Muppetism)

Hannah Frank (Artology)

Janmashtami (Lord Krishna Nativity; Hindu)

Justinian the Hermit (Christian; Saint)

Keith Tyson (Artology)

Kirvis (Harvest Festival; Lithuania)

Lupus (a.k.a. Luppus) of Novae (Christian; Saint)

Nemeseia (Ancient Greece)

Nuclear Accident Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Philip Benitius (Christian; Saint)

Quiriacus and companions, of Ostia (Christian; Saint)

Rose of Lima (Christian; Saint)

Second Festival of Vertumnalia (Ripening Fruit; Ancient Rome; Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Theonas, Archbishop of Alexandria (Christian; Saint)

Tydfil (Christian; Saint)

Vertumnalia (Old Roman God of the Change of Seasons)

Vulcanalia (Ancient Roman festival to Vulcan)

William Ernest Henley (Writerism)

Willy Russell (Writerism)

Zacchaeus of Jerusalem (Christian; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Premieres

A-Hunting We Won’t Go (Color Rhapsody Cartoon; 1943)

Alice Adams (Film; 1935)

Angel Has Fallen (Film; 2019)

Animal Crackers (Film; 1930)

Barton Fink (Film; 1991)

Better Off Dead (Film; 1985)

The Big Sleep (Film; 1946)

Birdland (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1935)

Canadian Capers, featuring Farmer Al Falfa (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1931)

Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, recorded Perez Prado (Song; 1954)

Club Life in the Stone Age (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1940)

DC Super Hero Girls: Hero of the Year (WB Animated Film; 2016)

The Death of Superman (WB Animated Film; 2018)

Drinking Buddies (Film; 2013)

Freeway (Film; 1996)

The Girl at the Ironing Board (WB MM Cartoon; 1934)

Going! Going! Gosh! (WB MM Cartoon; 1952)

Grace, by Jeff Buckley (Album; 1994)

Henry IV, Part 2, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1600)

Knighty Knight Bugs (WB LT Cartoon; 1958)

Lover, by Taylor Swift (Album; 2019)

Pass the Biscuits Mirandy! (Swing Symphony Cartoon; 1943)

Scotty Finds a Home (Rainbow Parade Cartoon; 1935)

She Loves You, by The Beatles (UK Song; 1963)

She’s the One (Film; 1996)

Sir Army Suit, by Klaatu (Album; 1978)

The Sun Also Rises (Film; 1957)

Superior Duck (WB Cartoon; 1996)

Superman: Man of Tomorrow (WB Animated Film; 2020)

Teen Wolf (Film; 1985)

That ’70s Show (TV Series; 1998)

Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz (WB Animated Film; 2011)

Woody’s Magic Touch (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1971)

The World’s End (Film; 2013)

Today’s Name Days

Isolde, Philipp, Rosa, Zachäus (Austria)

Rozalija, Ruža, Ružica (Croatia)

Sandra (Czech Republic)

Zakæus (Denmark)

Signe, Singe (Estonia)

Signe, Varma (Finland)

Rose (France)

Isolde, Rosa, Zachäus (Germany)

Bence (Hungary)

Fabrizio, Maria, Regina (Italy)

Benjamins, Ralfs, Spriditis, Vitālijs (Latvia)

Girmantas, Pilypas, Tautgailė (Lithuania)

Signe, Signy (Norway)

Apolinary, Benicjusz, Filip, Laurenty, Sulirad, Walerian, Waleriana, Zacheusz (Poland)

Filip (Slovakia)

Rosa (Spain)

Signe, Signhild (Sweden)

Eugene, Eugenia, Geena, Gena, Gene, Genie, Gina, Jina, River, Zacchaeus, Zaccheus (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 236 of 2024; 130 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of Week 34 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Coll (Hazel) [Day 21 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Ren-Shen), Day 20 (Ji-Wei)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 19 Av 5784

Islamic: 17 Safar 1446

J Cal: 26 Purple; Fryday [26 of 30]

Julian: 10 August 2024

Moon: 80%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 11 Gutenberg (9th Month) [Dollond]

Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 1 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 65 of 94)

Week: 3rd Full Week of August

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 2 of 32)

Calendar Changes

Rad (Motion) [Half-Month 17 of 24; Runic Half-Months] (thru 9.6)

[3rdeyeblaque]

On June 7th, we venerate Elevated Ancestor Mother Julia Greeley on the 105th anniversary of her passing 🕊

Affectionately known as Denver’s Angel of Charity, Mother Julia is a Servant of God & is the Patron of Black Catholics, Firefighters, Children, & the Poor/Homeless.

Mother Julia was born enslaved in Hannibal, Missouri sometime between 1833 -1848. She endured hellish treatment, even as a young child beneath her mother's skirts. During one fateful event, in particular, she was stricken by the whip that the slave master used while beating her mother; permanently damaging her right eye. Decades passed before she became among the first "freeman" in the state following the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. A young woman now, Mother Julia subsequently earned her living by serving White families throughout Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico —though primarily in the Denver area. It was her work with the family of Colorado’s first territorial governor that brought her to Denver in 1878.

Two years later, she worked odd jobs around the city until she came upon the steps of the Sacred Heart Parish of Denver, where she was conditionally baptized into the Catholic Church - since she hadn't known if she'd ever been baptized before. She became an enthusiastic parishioner, a daily communicant, & became an active member of the Secular Franciscan Order in 1901. The Jesuit priests at her parish recognized her as the most fervent promoter of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that they'd ever witnessed.

She was often seen wearing a floppy hat, oversized shoes, & dabbing her injured right eye with a handkerchief while pulling her red wagon of goods to deliver to the poor & homeless of the city. She'd often do this at night, knowing that some of the poor White families would be embarrassed to be seen receiving charity from her, a Black woman. Whatever she did not need for herself, she gave to the poor. When she had nothing more to give, she begged for food, supplies, & clothing for the needy.

She had a particular devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and would deliver pictures & pamphlets depicting it each month to firefighters throughout the city of Denver. As a daily communicant, Mother Julia also had a rich devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin. She'd recite prayers even while working outside of the parish. She did so until the day of her death. Mother Julia died on June 7, 1918 — ironically on the day of the Feast of the Sacred Heart, around 80 years old.

After which, her body lay in state for 5hrs in a funeral that drew hundreds throughout the city to pay their respects to the woman who fed, clothed, & suported them in the dark for years on end.

Mother Julia was buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. The Catholic Church finally granted the request from many for her to be considered for canonizatio in 2016.

As part of the Cause for Canonization, her body was transferred to Denver’s Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in 2017. Her remains were placed in a funerary box made of exotic red heart wood near the altar of the Sacred Heart in the northwest corner of the sanctuary, which will later be encapsulated in a sarcophagus made of Caralla marble (the same stone used by Michaelangelo in his statues). She is one of 6 Afrikan descendants in the U.S. to have open canonization causes with the Catholic Church. Currently, she remains a Servant of God.

In 2012, Catholic Priest, Father Blain Burkey authored a book entitled, “In Secret Service of the Sacred Heart: The Life and Virtues of Julia Greeley,” which later was adapted as a documentary film.

" My communion is my breakfast " - Mother Julia to the priests of her parish.

We pour libations & give her 💐 today as we celebrate her for her service to the city of Denver & for her patronage of all Black Catholics, firefighters, children & the homeless communities whom she served.

Offering suggestions: red wine, bread, catholic Bible, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, parish of denver badge, & little red wagons.

[fuckyeahfightlock]

I have spent the vast bulk of this three-day weekend re-doing my daughter's bedroom; today was the final build-the-new-bed and reset everything--and she has A LOT of stuff--that had been moved to another room in order to lay down a new rug and move furniture and etc. I'm exhausted beyond exhausted! And unfortunately I had no time to sit and watch a scary movie today.

BUT! I did see a headline this morning that a horror movie I'd like to recommend to you has recently arrived on Hulu (it was and may still be on Tubi, too). Lovely, Dark, and Deep is an extra-dimensional horror about a rookie park ranger on her first assignment at an isolated ranger station in a vast national park. Lennon, whose sister Jenny disappeared in the park when the two were children, discovers a rash of missing-persons cases. Further investigation leads her to uncover secrets, and to a fuller understanding of her true purpose as a guardian of the park and its visitors.

This movie is wonderfully twisty, creepy, sad, and scary. It stars Georgina Campbell, who is intensely compelling and easily carries the film. Written and directed by Teresa Sutherland. Run, don't walk, to watch this unique, eerie, and smart film.

Also written by Teresa Sutherland, coincidentally, was my scary movie yesterday. Directed by Emma Tammi and starring Caitlin Gerard, The Wind is an historic horror set during the Westward Expansion of America.

Lizzie and Isaac have lived on their homestead in New Mexico for several years, alone, until a young couple, Emma and Gideon, move into an abandoned cabin a mile away, becoming their first and only neighbors.

The opening shot of this movie, of Lizzie standing in an open doorway, drenched in blood from her chin to her knees, holding a swaddled infant, sets the tone for the film beautifully. Shortly Lizzie is left alone for a few days, and begins to have eerie, threatening experiences with wolves, the goat, a wandering preacher, Emma's left-behind diary, and the ceaseless, howling wind. Through a series of flashbacks, the story of Lizzie and Isaac's own loss of an infant, as well as the brief history of their relationship with their mile-distant young neighbors (Emma, an unhappy city girl and Gideon, an ill-equipped homesteader are nearly exact opposites of tough and hardworking Lizzie and Isaac), unfold to reveal the existence of a pamphlet called The Demons of the Plains. Is Lizzie haunted by one of those demons? Driven mad by the demands of a lonely life in the empty west? Or is it something much simpler--jealousy of her pretty young neighbor?

I am a fan of horror in any historic setting that ISN'T the damp gaslit streets of Victorian England. Coincidentally just a few weeks ago I finished reading a book about the Donner Party survivors, with absolutely hellacious descriptions of what it took to make the westward trek from St Louis or Chicago toward the Pacific Northwest or California. I had an idea of families happily bouncing along in wagons with their kitchen pots and bedrolls, like Little House on the Prairie, but the reality was often positively harrowing. For instance, walking beside the wagon (and frequently leaving possessions along the side of the trail) to save the oxen from having to carry the weight. Walking. From St. Louis to Sacramento. Those who made it were the toughest of the tough, and not a single day of their lives was easy.

Caitlin Gerard's performance is fantastic and understated--even her "mad scenes" are free of histrionics. While the final act throws a lot at the walls in hopes every viewer will find something that sticks regardless of their idea of what's going on here, overall the movie is intriguing and well worth the watch.

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Hi!!! First of all I wanna thank you for your writing❤️

I love Heat (already reading it for a second time from the beggining while i wait patiently for the new chapter!!☺️) and because i’m not a lot on tumblr and i didn’t know how it really works, i think I missed some of your explanation about the name Celina (?). It’s something random that you’ve decided to determine at this point of the story? Or it has a story behind?

Feel free to answer or not this question, i’m just curious!!! Thank you very much, again, and don’t worry if you think you make us wait for “too long”… it's worth the wait, always!!!

Have a happy new year!!😊⭐️

This makes me so happy ☺️ it's the biggest honor that you've read the story not once, but twice so far! If you haven't already, there are a few drabbles on here and my Ao3 of Javi x Querida that could hold you over too, and while not part of the main story they do tie to it.

As for Querida's true name? It's a long story.

Soooo for a long time I had planned to not reveal her name until closer to the end of the story. Heat is my first story written in "Reader/You" narrative style, but my intention wasn't for it to be a reader insert. Querida has a specific background and storyline, and while I do want people to envision what they want for her, she is still a character with a name, to me. The chapter her name is revealed to be Celina was the chapter where Heat officially moved from the canon story of Narcos (all the events from the series, and the plot points were completed in the 2 previous chapters before Chapter 40) to my continuation of Javi Peña and Querida's story beyond the ending of the series. It's a world inspired by true events, people, and places - but of my own vision. Having Javier call her by her name was my nod to Heat shifting into being officially a continuance of the story into a new series, so to speak. Some readers have affectionately called it "Narcos: Puerto Rico" 😄 and I love it.

As for the name itself: Celina Reinosa Restrepo is distinctive and uncommon in combination both in Colombia and Puerto Rico, so it stands out. Celina derives from Greek names like Selene or Selena, which meant "moon", but it's also inspired by the French name Celine, which means "heavenly". There's definitely some poetic references that can be made regarding her name and the melodramatic dynamics between Javi and Querida in the story 😁 And Reinosa is a very old, Medieval surname from northern Spain. Many are familiar with "Reynosa", which is the more common spelling in Central America (there is a city in Mexico named Reynosa), so while familiar, it still feels unique to most. It's derived from the Latin word for "royal" and sounds very regal; filled with distinction, which ties into the weighty expectations and legacy of her father. Restrepo is her mother's surname, and in Latin America, it's common that people use their full name on IDs and legal documents. Restrepo is a very common surname in Colombia (the equivalent of like, Brown, or Smith in the states), derived from a village of the same name in northwest Spain. Here's a very interesting background for why it became such a prominent surname in Colombia.

Since she's worked at the U.S. Embassy, it became common for her to go by just Celina Reinosa with her work colleagues and superiors, since it's not customary to use your mother's maiden name stateside.

Sorry for the super looooong background explanation and answer 😅

[wrightfamilyagency]

I got asked about my old Pokemon AU I briefly posted about a long time ago, and I've been going back to that on and off over the years, so why not post a little more about what it looks like now, ha. And, of course, once I started writing it down I couldn't stop and now there's way too much for one post sooooo Part 1 I guess???

I think I'll start on the world-building stuff, since that got completely overhauled after the last posts, especially as Sword and Shield came out and gave us a canonical UK region so I had to throw out what little I'd already done and start over with the Layton side of things anyway, lol. I'll get back to how Galar works down-page a bit, though.

On the Ace Attorney side of things, I ended up completely revamping the 'region' of California in the end. I'd actually started out really flailing on what to do with it - the nearest regions were Alola/Hawai'i and Unova/New York, both of which are quite a distance away - but after last posting about it, I suddenly realised I had an excellent starting point right there: Orre! I played both Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness back in the day and they remain my favourite Pokemon spin-offs, to the point I fully believe they deserve to be counted as mainline, made by Game Freak or not. The point here is, Orre was based on Arizona and parts of northwest Mexico, so it's right next door to California and it would totally make sense if Pkmn-California worked a lot like Orre does. So, there aren't any gyms here, just a handful of colosseums - one of them being Sunshine Coliseum, that tied in really well - where there are regular tournaments held, though I did keep the idea of an Elite 4 who were the highest ranked battlers of the region, but they only battle in 'invitational' tournaments of the next so-many highest ranks. I also put a new coliseum (both spellings are technically correct, so I stuck to the one used in AA for Sunshine Coliseum) in the Nine Tails Vale/Tenma Town area, called the MissingNo Coliseum. The two towns either side are Ninetales Vale and Tauros Town, by the way; Though the monster is only known as MissingNo, it is pictured much like a Paldean Tauros (Blaze breed) as that pokemon shares the parallels of multiple tails and fire-type with Kantonian Ninetales and both the black colour and the name 'Tauros' are close to the original 'Tenma Taro' too.

The second interesting thing about Orre I decided to bring over is the idea of wild pokemon being almost non-existent, and only just starting to reappear when the story starts (2002-ish, about the time I headcanon XD:GoD as being set), which ties in to the story of how Phoenix gets his Magikarp: That determination despite "everyone knowing" there are no wild pokemon in the region is such a Phoenix thing to do, especially when he succeeds regardless! Before the wild population builds up, all the pokemon in this region are imported, either individually with their trainer or by a bulk-importer to be sold on.

Oh, and the final Orre trait I brought over? Double battles are the norm here. Most people buy have at least two pokemon specifically because that's just how its done in Orre and Pkmn-California.

On the Layton/Galar side of things, well, obviously anything located or happening in London is instead in Wyndon here. Sword/Shield says something about Chairman Rose designing and building "this booming metropolis", but I'm going to pretend they don't mean the city literally didn't exist until recently and that they actually mean Rose just made an existing ancient town really fancy and a prime destination for tourists by putting up a lot of big buildings, towers, and a stadium... especially since we have no indication as to when Sword/Shield takes place, so all this might be before Rose's company starts building stadiums and stuff. I also ended up merging Monte D'or with Stow-on-Side, as they are both in a desert/desert-like setting, surrounded by cliffs, and known for ancient architecture nearby. The main difference is that, instead of the 'round' area being a lake with a stadium in the middle and the actual town being down the cliffside a little, the lake is a massive hole in the ground in which the town is located, possibly containing a stadium. The mural is still way above them on the cliffside, being unrelated to the Azran stuff beneath the new settlement.

As for the rest of them...

[Image description: The official artwork of the Galar region from Pokemon Sword and Shield. A compass rose indicates North is downward. From north to south, the towns of Wedgehurst, Motostoke, Turffield, Stow-on-Side, Hammerlocke, and Wyndon have been labelled, as has Route 10 north of Wyndon. Various areas, detailed below, have been circled in red and labelled "St Mystere?", "Misthallery?", "Stansbury?", "Labyrinthia?", and "Folsense & Dropstone?"]

Stansbury is somewhere green and open, not too far from Monte D'or, close to an ancient wall, so I placed it somewhere between Stow-on-Side and Turffield. Labyrinthia is an island, so I placed that one at random off the coast, somewhere to the south as I figure it can't be that far from London/Wyndon (not that we get a very good view of the southern coastline in this image, but still). Folsense is hidden in mountains, only accessible by train from London, and Dropstone isn't far away, so those two I ended up placing semi-randomly in the mountains off Route 10, as that's the southern extent of the trainline in Galar. Misthallery's major feature is the big dam/lake and the multiple rivers, so I kinda threw it in around the lake-filled section of the Wild Area, between Motostoke and Wedgehurst. St Mystere I really just picked a location for at random, in the mountains near Wedgehurst, off the Wild Area... but on second thought it might actually fit better as being hidden in the Glimwood Tangle (the thick forest that surrounds Ballonlea), south of Stow-on-Side.

Obviously, unlike the California region, people in Galar will generally catch a pokemon from the wild when they want one, and most people have at least one. Double battles are actually pretty rare in Galar, though it is known to be used occasionally in the professional circuits. The first thing I did after retooling this AU for Sword/Shield was to make sure certain characters' teams were made up of pokemon actually available in those games... or, I did my best to ensure that. There's one major exception I will go into later. xD

At some point I'll do a part 2, and talk about the plot or about pokemon teams for various characters or something. Send me an ask if you have a preference, I guess?

[districtunrest]

"He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America."

(THG chapter 1)

"In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called the Rockies. District 12 was in a region known as Appalachia."

(THG chapter 3)

Where do you think location of Capitol and Panem's districts exactly?

The Appalachian’s span multiple states. Where do you picture District 12?

How long between this time and Panem rise? 200 hundred years? More?

Thank you so much

@curiousnonny

Panem is comprised of the remains of North America, not the United States specifically. so I do imagine it including southern Canada and northern Mexico.

we know the Capitol is in the Rockies (Denver? Salt Lake City? somewhere entirely new? 🤔 Idk!).

D1 is out west, maybe past the Rockies. wherever there's gemstone deposits - Arizona? or maybe it’s the resurrected ruins of Las Vegas, lol

D2 is also canonically in the Rockies, maybe encircling the Capitol or at least buffering it from the eastern districts.

D3 is in Silicon Valley, lol (I have no idea)

D4 should have access to both the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico so I imagine it as a long strip of land that spans SoCal, northern Mexico, to like southeastern Texas. this would also include the Rio Grande, for freshwater fish.

D5 utilizes Niagara Falls, placing it in western New York/southern Ontario.

D6 is in Michigan. why? because cars. 🤷🏻‍♀️

D7 is in the Pacific Northwest.

D8 is somewhere Midwest, maybe Illinois. however way that Bonnie and Twill would have to pass D12 to get to 13.

D9 is within the 'breadbasket' of the US, basically the Midwest. it should span the wheat and corn belt - so, Kansas.

D10 is the southern part of the Great Plains, basically Texas/Oklahoma.

D11 is at least in mainland Georgia. I think that's per Collins? even though the southeast coast would most likely be underwater if sea levels rose enough to flood parts of the country, as Katniss describes. but whatever.

D12, I picture tucked in a valley, somewhere between Kentucky and West Virginia.

D13, I wish could be the former Washington DC, as that could explain all the underground bunkers, but I am sure at this point DC has been wiped off the map, underground bunker or not. nuclear reactors + known graphite deposits would place it in New York/Ontario/Quebec region, but far enough away from D5.

and I'd say there should be at least 200 years between now (well, 2010s) and Panem. there’s so much to precede Panem, what with environmental disasters, nuclear war, and government collapse/upheaval. one day I'll find a good enough reason for someone in a fic to make the passing joke, "you just avoided world war seven," because that’s the general vibe I have of Panem’s presumed point in history.