#pre-World War 2

[bongosinferno]

A devastating and confusing thing about the Fallout setting, when you explore the pre-war aspects, is what the creators think about pre-war America. In the first games we only get hints of the pre-war world, but they seem to be some sort of wild fascist nation invading Canada. In Fallout 1, the first thing we're introduced to of the pre-war society is seeing a soldier shoot civilians and laughing.

Now, for the first 2 games and New Vegas we don't really know much. What we know is that there's a fascist military group known as the enclave who were a sort of US deep state even before the war, and that the government teamed up with corporate interests to preform vaguely MKULTRA-ish experiments with the Vaults. Basically, the government was an extreme version of the 50s American jingoism and McCarthyism.

This is well and dandy, I guess issues come up more when we get to the later games, especially 4, where it seems like none of this extreme plotting and societal civil unrest which would exist is seen. The society as presented in 4 also seems quite progressive, gay people are featured in the opening, and none of the baggage of say, civil rights not existing are included. Now on a baseline, I don't want settings to be more conservative, homophobic and sexist etc., but it becomes a very confusing setting when it's displayed both as this jingoist extreme thing with fascist tendencies aswell as a progressive place where everyone is seemingly equal. If you're focusing on the 50s as your setting, and American nationalism in the 50s, then you can't have McCarthyism spoofs and anti-communism as a societal paranoia norm while also general equality is the norm without misunderstanding why McCarthyism and nationalist jingoism is bad. A massive harm done in anti-communist paranoia is how it degrades and vilifies any progressive movements (women's rights, civil rights, homosexuality) as being morally un-American and therefore connected to communism. To ignore this just makes any critique of MacCarthyism and jingoism weird!

Basically, pre-war America in Fallout 4 becomes this both sides thing where America is both pure and equal and white fences in every instance that we see as the player (the intro), while also supposedly being this dystopic MacCarthyist hellscape that's broadcasting gladly about their war crimes in Canada, and wants to root out communism. I guess the only fix for this issue without getting into the fine print like they had to do is just not to focus too much on the pre-war world.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

U.S. Navy observation planes fly over the city on June 2, 1941, during ceremonies commissioning Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn as a naval air station. The planes are dropping USO leaflets shaped like aerial bombs, which can be seen flying from the plane at left.

Photo: Associated Press

[moviesiveseenandwanttoremember]

Lewis Milestone’s “All Quiet On The Western Front” April 21, 1930.

[m4a1-shermayne]

F2F-1 biplane fighters of squadron VF-5 aboard USS Yorktown, February 1939.

[arathejedi394]

snippet from re-edit of like rahab

Steve had just finished his shitty and tasteless Nazi tea when the knock came at the door; it was a rhythmic pattern, counting out the first notes of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, that signaled a friend at the door. Steve set the mug on the floor to go to the peephole.

Agent Carter’s head, bowed and hair wrapped in a scarf, filled the glass. Steve undid the locks, all seven of them, and let her in. 

“Howard’s at the fire escape,” she said as soon as the door closed, but Steve already knew that, Howard was always waiting at the fire escape. “Jim will be arriving in half an hour.” 

Steve gave a nod, a jerky and nervous one, as Agent Carter moved to the second bedroom and the fire escape. He knew very little about the sniper he’d be harboring for the Resistance, only his given name and that he was the best sniper in the whole of the Allied Forces. Agent Carter knew little more than that either, she’d once told him the sniper’s rank but he’d forgotten if it was Sergeant or Captain already. It wasn’t like he knew much of a difference; it wasn’t like it would make much of a difference, either. When this whole ordeal was through, Captain or Sergeant or neither, Agent Carter’s sniper would be a hero. 

Howard waved to Steve cheerfully when Agent Carter pulled open the blinds. He’d shaved off his mustache, and he looked about ten years younger without it. Steve helped her yank open the window, then helped Howard hop down and into the room.

“Good to see you, Roger,” Howard said, “you’ll like Jim, by the way, handsome fella, very sarcastic as far as I can tell, just your sort of guy.” 

“I don’t have a sort of guy,” Steve said in answer to that. 

Howard clapped him on the back and laughed. “Exactly!” he said and walked out. Steve met Agent Carter’s eyes and she raised her eyebrows. 

In the living room, Howard had flopped onto the couch. He knew the rule about the chair already, but had he not known, Steve wouldn’t have stopped him from sitting in the chair by the door, not anymore. The chair looked innocent and clean, thanks to Schmidt insisting on always coming down Steve’s throat, but to Steve, it was sinister. Insidious. Ruined. 

“I have tea,” he said, as he always did. 

“You sound like you ought to be drinking it,” Howard answered, as he always did.

“‘M drinking it,” Steve grumbled to himself, swiping his mug off the floor by Howard’s feet and heading for the kitchen. 

“We’ll do a quick debrief while we wait for Jim,” Agent Carter told him, the kitchen separated from the living room only by a change in the flooring, while he made more tea. “And I might need to show you how to redress wounds when he gets here.” 

“Why?” he asked, rasping. Fuck, his voice was raw. 

“He was shot this morning,” Agent Carter said casually, “while I was freeing him from a Nazi prison.” 

Steve’s fingers slipped on the mug and he fumbled to catch it, barely succeeding. “He was in prison?” he asked, looking up. “Why?” 

“Because he was an Allied soldier, that’s all,” Agent Carter told him calmly, raising her eyebrows as if she really knew why he was asking. “He was being experimented on by Schmidt’s replacement as head of Hydra.” 

“Oh,” Steve said. He set the mug on the counter. “Oh.”

Agent Carter said nothing further, and Steve made himself his tea. When he pulled one of the kitchen chairs into the living room, Agent Carter took a seat on the sofa next to Howard, and they waited. 

“Hitler’s boat leaves tonight,” he said without ceremony. “It will take a month, at least. Maybe a week or two more. When he gets here, he’s taking the train, like we thought, out to the front.” 

“Do you know what time the train leaves?” Agent Carter asked. 

“The second he steps off the boat,” he said and took a sip of his shitty and tasteless tea. “And the train’s going to be made bulletproof. The only chance you’ll have is between him getting off the boat and him getting on the train.” 

“Fortunately, Jim’s the best shot we’ve got,” Howard mused. 

“He’s taking a car from the harbor to the train station. I don’t know if it’ll be bulletproofed, too.”

“Do you know which harbor? Which station?” 

Steve nodded. “Grand Central Station, what used to be the C-line to Indianapolis, Navy Yard, main docks. He’s coming on a ship disguised as a cargo hauler, it’s called Constance.” 

“Good,” Agent Carter sighed. “And the Resistance?” 

“They think that base they bombed last week was the real thing,” he said. “Schmidt was real pleased.” 

He couldn’t repress the shiver at remembering Schmidt’s good mood. He got more violent in his good moods, somehow. 

“That’s excellent,” Howard said, while Agent Carter fixed him with a look. “You’re a godsend, Roger.” 

Steve worried his lower lip between his teeth, looking into his tea. “Was there something else?” Agent Carter prompted.

“Not from Schmidt,” he said quickly. 

“From you?” Agent Carter asked him carefully. 

“Well,” he started, then shifted in his chair. “I trust you guys.” 

If all went well, if Agent Carter’s sniper was as good as she said he was and Schmidt’s stupid rambling mouth was telling the truth, in a month’s time, he would leave Roger Smith behind in this Nazi-funded brothel. He didn’t want to live as Roger Smith so close to escaping. 

“That’s good to know,” Howard said dryly. 

“No, really,” he insisted. “So, you should know, my name isn’t actually Roger Smith.” 

Agent Carter raised an eyebrow. Howard raised both.

“We figured it was a false name,” he said. 

“My surname is Rogers,” Steve went on. “Smith is just a common name I picked ‘cause I thought it wouldn’t get noticed.” 

“It’s a good fake name,” Howard assured him. 

“Steve. Steven Rogers,” he said before he could change his mind. “That’s my real name.” 

Howard only nodded. Agent Carter gave him a very careful smile. “Thank you for telling us,” she said. 

He nodded as well. 

“Well, you already call me by my given name,” Howard said. “But her name’s Margaret.”

Steve opened his mouth at the same time as Agent Carter laughed. “You can call me Peggy,” she said before he could speak. “Steven,” she added, still smiling lightly at him. 

He nodded again and clammed up. He took a long gulp of his shitty, tasteless tea, and stared at the contrast of his wooly socks on the scratched hardwood.

They sat in silence until there was another knock at the door. A sharp pounding, really. Steve gave a short jump in his seat before remembering that that was the cover, that the sniper was an angry husband and Agent Carter – Peggy – was a client. He set his tea on the floor, managing to fight back the flinch when the pounding sounded at the door again, while Peggy checked the peephole. She gave a nod, and Steve started undoing the locks. The fist banged against his door again, and Steve jumped again. 

“Hang on!” he snapped through the door, fingers shaking somewhat while he undid the bolts and chains. He yanked open the door and a tall man forced his way in. 

It took Steve a second to shut the door. He was staring at it, frozen in shock. The man smelled like soap and blood and gun powder, but also like woodsmoke. Not just any smoke, but cedar and applewood, like the slow-smoked briskets Bobby Green made on Independence Day. Under the smoke, he imagined he could smell the herbs Mrs. Barnes used to grow in her kitchen windowsill, the mix of Rromani on her husband’s side and Hebrew on her own picking an eclectic bunch that somehow still smelled pleasing together, like lemongrass and basil and rosemary. He’d know that scent anywhere. He’d know it half-dead, he’d know it with one foot in the grave and the other hovering over it, he’d know it unconscious or drunk or choking. It once, long ago, soothed him to sleep while it faded just as quickly from the very jacket he was wearing. It now rocked him with horror. 

Steve turned, slowly, thinking that, no, it couldn’t be possible, he’d grown out of that old panic that Bucky was behind every client’s shadow long ago. His thoughts insisted this couldn’t be him, no, this would be too much of a coincidence for the universe to pull on him, God wasn’t that cruel. 

(God isn’t that cruel. This is mercy.)

The man was standing with his back to him, hat in hand and looking at the chair. Howard was talking, and Peggy was watching Steve watch the man. 

The hair was just the right color, the right faint wave from damp and sweat. It was a little longer than Steve had ever seen Bucky wear his hair, curling past his ears almost to his jaw, but he had just escaped from a Nazi holding facility. But the man would turn around and he’d have green eyes or brown. He’d have the wrong tint of brown or olive to his skin, too much or too little of one or both. The nose would be broad or crooked or the mouth would be too thin or the ears stick out too much. It couldn't be him. 

“Steven?” Peggy said to him. “Are you alright?” 

And the man stiffened, fist curled on the back of the armchair. Steve realized his hands were pressed to his mouth and lowered them slowly. The man turned, but slowly, too slowly; Steve caught the edge of his jawline and the curve of his ear and sucked in a breath. 

“You said his name was Jim,” he croaked. 

Bucky turned around. His eyes, the correct shade, were wide. His mouth, the right shape, was open. His skin, just the right blend of coffee with cream and caramel, was bloodless. 

Steve bolted. Like a coward, he ran from the front door to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. He sank down to the floor in front of it, his hands pressed to his mouth to keep the ragged breaths tumbling from his lips from turning into sobs or screams, until he could right himself, and go back out to scream properly at Bucky himself. The first time he’d seen him in nearly thirteen years since Bucky had rejected him, had turned his back on him, and it was under the façade of Roger Smith, blatantly outlining every way he had betrayed Bucky since they’d parted as children.

How was God really this cruel? 

Well. The truth hurts, but first it’ll set you free.

[dirjoh-blog]

The 25 points of hate-The party program of the NSDAP

The Warning Signs of the Nazi Regime Many people believe that the warning signs of the Nazi regime only became apparent in 1933, while others trace them back to Adolf Hitler’s publication of Mein Kampf. However, evidence shows that Hitler had been formulating his plans long before these milestones—years before the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) was formed, and even before he…

[comicgoblinwrites]

Hans Vogel is Dead by Sierra Barnes

Hi folks! If you like fantasy, folklore, and historical fiction, check out and support Hans Vogel is Dead (@hansvogelisdead) ! It's an excellent and timely comic written and illustrated by @sierrabravoart and published by Dark Horse Comics.

And it has a little girl who is a fox and is an absolute delight!

You can pre-order it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or at your local comic shop and bookstore.

"Hans Vogel is Dead features some extremely spooky art, drawing inspiration from fairy tales and history and then cranking the horror elements all the way up to the max." —Comics Beat

It's been a joy to work on this comic with Sierra to bring this edition of Hans Vogel, and I'm excited to see where it goes next! So go and get your copy—Pre-Order or talk to your local comic shop! Support your local and/or indie comic creators!

[irrepressible-miracle]

I keep thinking about the similarities and differences Miquella and PCR have with Allmind and G5 iguazu respectively and how one works within the game and was better recieved while the other, not so much.

[lifewithaview]

Romola Garai and Charlie Cox in Glorious 39 (2009)

Dir.Stephen Poliakoff

Glorious 1939 is set between present-day London and the idyllic British countryside in the time before the beginning of the Second World War. At a time of uncertainty and high tension, the story revolves around the formidable Keyes family, who are keen to uphold and preserve their very traditional way of life. The eldest sibling Anne is a budding young actress who is in love with Foreign Office official Lawrence, but her seemingly perfect life begins to dramatically unravel when she stumbles across secret recordings of the pro-appeasement movement. While trying to discover the origin of these recordings, dark secrets are revealed which lead to the death of a great friend. As war breaks out Anne discovers the truth and flees to London to try to confirm her suspicions, but she is caught and imprisoned and only then does she finally begin to discover how badly she has been betrayed.

*In the party scene, the children sing 'The Whistling Gypsy', a song written by Irish songwriter Leo Maguire and first recorded in 1952.

...Not so glorious!

[busylazy]

I can't imagine Japan being a poor and backwards country to the point that they once look up to Germany for engineering.

The Wind Rises (2013) | dir. Hayao Miyazaki

[backtotheplaylist]

Hey all cats, dames, and alligators. You’re gonna blow your wig for this aces mix of all the best songs from the pre-war periods. So calling all khaki-whackers and jive bombers, come cut a rug Class of 1945!

APPLE MUSIC:

SPOTIFY:

[bongosinferno]

Interesting thing with the Bethesda fallouts (I've been playing a bit of Fallout 4 recently) is that they, at least in my opinion, misunderstand the fun parts of the first 2 games. I don't think think the setting is a very important part in those games, it's a part of it but it's just set-dressing for the gameplay and fun quest stories and how the players interact with them. I think there's some potential in say Fallout 4 for interesting quests or stories (I've done a couple of quests but a lot of my knowledge is from the Joseph Andersson video), but the solutions to any story just leads back into the shooting gameplay loop. This is, I think, antithetical to the format of the originals, which were based a lot more in having the format of a TTRPG. If your TTRPG sessions all boiled down to shooting people with basically no alternative solutions to quests I think your players would get bored. Since it's got shooter mechanics this kind of salvages it, it becomes it's very different own thing. But the wonderful gameplay loop of those first two games is lost, and I kind of miss it. Man, I need to replay Fallout 2.

[analyticallyminded]

tag drop 3/?

verses (part 1).

[analyticallymindedaa]

tag dump bc tumblr ate all my tags part 4

[fatliberation]

I saw a comment on your blog that says 'the way you eat does not cause diabetes'...are you able to expand on that or provide a source I could read? I've been told by doctors that my pre-diabetes was due to weight gain because I get more hungry on my anti psychotics and I'd like to fact check what they've told me! Thank you so much!

Pre-diabetes was rejected as a diagnosis by the World Health Organization (although it is used by the US and UK) - the correct term for the condition is impaired glucose tolerance. Approximately 2% of people with "pre-diabetes" go on to develop diabetes per year. You heard that right - TWO PERCENT. Most diabetics actually skip the pre-diabetic phase.

There are currently no treatments for pre-diabetes besides intentional weight loss. (Hmm, that's convenient, right?) There has yet to be evidence that losing weight prevents progression from pre-diabetes to T2DM beyond a year. Interestingly, drug companies are trying to persuade the medical world to start treating patients earlier and earlier. They are using the term “pre-diabetes” to sell their drugs (including Wegovy, a weight-loss drug). Surgeons are using it to sell weight loss surgery. Everyone’s a winner, right? Not patients. Especially fat patients.

Check out these articles:

Prediabetes: The epidemic that never was, and shouldn’t be

The war on ‘prediabetes' could be a boon for pharma—but is it good medicine?

Also - I love what Dr. Asher Larmie @fatdoctorUK has to say about T2DM and insulin resistance, so here's one of their threads I pulled from Twitter:

1️⃣ You can't prevent insulin resistance. It's coded in your DNA. It may be impacted by your environment. Studies have shown it has nothing to do with your BMI.

2️⃣ The term "pre-diabetes" is a PR stunt. The correct term is impaired glucose tolerance (or impaired fasting glucose) which is sometimes referred to as intermittent hyperglycemia. It does not predict T2DM. It is best ignored and tested for every 3-5yrs.

3️⃣ there is no evidence that losing weight prevents diabetes. That's because you can't reverse insulin resistance. You can possibly postpone it by 2yrs? Furthermore there is evidence that those who are fat at the time of diagnosis fair much better than those who are thin.

4️⃣ Weight loss does not reverse diabetes in the VAST majority of people. Those that do reverse it are usually thinner with recent onset T2DM and a low A1c. Only a tiny minority can sustain that over 2yrs. Weight loss does not improve A1c levels beyond 2 yrs either.

5️⃣ Weight loss in T2DM does not improve macrovascular or microvascular health outcomes beyond 2 years. In fact, weight loss in diabetics is associated with increased mortality and morbidity (although it is not clear why). Weight cycling is known to impacts A1c levels.

6️⃣ Weight GAIN does NOT increase the risk of cardiovascular OR all causes mortality in diabetics. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that it's better to be fat and diabetic than to be thin and diabetic.

Dr. Larmie cites 18 peer reviewed journal articles (most from the last decade) that are included in their webinar on the subject, linked below.

[aercnaut]

tag dump; verses