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napoleonic-sexyman-tournament · 5 months ago

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All the propaganda is under the cut. It's long for both of them:

Alexander I Pavlovich:

a. “Maybe not the most handsome or charismatic man in this tournament, but he has ample chaotic neutral energy that both baffles and fascinates contemporaries. In short, if you're into mysterious men, you won't find a sexier enigma than our imperator.”

b. “Look. Is this or is this not the monsterfucking website.”

c. There are lots of monuments dedicated to him. There's one in Moscow in the Alexander Garden right by the Red Square. While nowhere near as grand as the Alexander Column, I think it's still worth showcasing!

The monument is meant to celebrate his victory in the 1812 Russian invasion. He's holding a sword, proudly standing on top of his enemies' weapon.

The sculptors, however, have never seen the man in their life - all the people involved in the making are still alive and well (i think), so that should tell how new it is. The monument was opened for the public just a decade ago in 2014.

d. quote about this bust from the memoirs of Sophie de Choiseul-Gouffier: “No painter was able to properly capture the features of his face and especially his soft expression. Alexander didn’t like to pose for portraits and they were mostly done with some stealth. In this case sculpture have produced a better likeness. The famed Thorvaldsen made a bust of this sovereign worthy of a hand of such a remarkable artist.”

e. His family nickname might have been ‘our angel’ and the medal commemorating his death bears the inscription “Our angel is in heaven”, but did you know that to this day Alexander looks down on Sankt Petersburg as an actual angel, wings, cross, trampled snake and all? Alas, you cannot see it from the ground, the Alexander Column being so very tall, but the statue of the angel on top certainly seems to take after our sexy thrice-angel Emperor.

f. Apotheosis of Alexander! An eminently universal image, perfectly serviceable for his rise to the throne… of Napoleonic Sexyman Tournament.

It really looks like Peter and Catherine are instructing the Electorate. Gentlevoters, surely you wouldn’t dream of disappointing Sasha’s Grandmother and his scantily clothed giant of a Great-great-grandfather?

g. What is sexier than a man in a dress???

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

a. “mustache”

b. “Tall! Daring! Swashbuckling! A devoted husband and father! Had a personal conflict with Napoleon! Also it was said he could, while holding onto a bar above his head, LIFT A HORSE WITH HIS THIGHS. How is he not on this list ten times already! Vote for General Dumas!”

c. “He was so hot that he inspired The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and many more books that his son, Alexandre Dumas, wrote. He definitely looked the part of a sexyman, as he son recounts in his memoirs: "My father, as already stated, was twenty-four, and as handsome a young fellow as could be found anywhere. His complexion was dark, his eyes of a rich chestnut colour […]. His teeth were white, his lips mobile, his neck well set on his powerful shoulders, and, in spite of his height of five feet nine inches, he had the hands and feet of a woman. These feet were the envy of his mistresses, whose shoes he was very rarely able to put on." He could crush you between his thighs: "His free colonial life had developed his strength and prowess to an extraordinary degree; he was a veritable American horse-lad, a cowboy. His skill with gun or pistol was the envy of St. Georges and Junot. And his muscular strength became a proverb in the army. More than once he amused himself in the riding-school by passing under a beam, and lifting his horse between his legs." He was so badass he could beat 13 men with 4 and take all the enemy prisoner, and defend against hundreds of men on a bridge by himself. He performed these acts of valour numerous times in Italy. He was so formidable that the Austrians named him the "Schwartz Teufel", or the Black Devil, and his feat at the bridge earned him the moniker of "Horatius Cocles of Tyrol". He wasn't afraid to stand up to his morals and protest against unfair treatment. When unjust executions by the guillotine were happening outside his quarters, he closed the blinds of his curtains, earning him the nickname "Mr. Humanity". When in the Vendée, he complained about the wanton indiscipline in his troops. When in Italy, Berthier wrongly reported his actions as one of "observation" in St. Antonio. Dumas wrote to General Bonaparte that if Berthier was in the same position, he would have shit his pants. Dumas abhorred plunder, never exhorted the locals, and ordered the Directory agent who had come to persuade him otherwise be shot if he dared present himself to Dumas again. Integrity and a sense of moral justice is sexy, mark my words. For Dumas' final qualifier as a sexyman, look no further than this Tumblr heritage post (https://www.tumblr.com/petermorwood/133803437020/hortensevanuppity-elodieunderglass), with 300,000 notes and counting. And I quote: "- daddy general dumas was an immense fierce french warrior who was a 6 foot plus, stunningly gorgeous and charismatic Black gentleman - he invaded egypt - the native egyptians said “is this napoleon? this must be napoleon. we for one welcome our majestic new overlord” - then napoleon showed up - napoleon has all the presence of yesterday’s plain Tesco hummus - the native egyptians were like “… no… no, we’ve thought very hard and we’ll have General Dumas actually” - this did not make napoleon happy - in fact it made him jealous - napoleon felt so emasculated that he launched a campaign of revenge against General Dumas, including taking away his pension, that probably inspired a lot of Alexandre’s rather satisfying scenes in which fathers are nobly avenged and the money-grubbing villains are rubbed in the mud" I rest my case. Tl;dr: He was so hot he inspired multiple books, he was a stronk man who could crush you between his thighs or carry you like a sack of potatoes, and he was so badass that he could take on odds of 1 to 3. He had a foul mouth but a heart of gold and his actions were never self-serving. Posts relating to him on Tumblr have had 300,000 notes and counting. He is qualitatively and quantitatively qualified to be a sexyman.”

#napoleonic sexyman tournament

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why-animals-do-the-thing · 7 months ago

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California zoo accessibility data dump

I just recently got back from a short (and fully covid-cautious) zoo road trip in Oregon and California, and wanted to share my notes re: accessibility at the facilities I visited. I'll get this all integrated into the spreadsheet, too.

Wildlife Safari - Winston, Oregon

This is a large drive-thru safari park with a free walk-about area attached that contains some small exhibits. Guests stay inside their cars the entire drive-thru, although there's at least one place to stop and sit in a gazebo to rest and use the bathroom (porta-potty only). You can pull over to watch animals for longer, and go through multiple times if you missed anything. It's a long drive-thru and there isn't really a good way to truncate the experience if you've got some kind of emergency. The roads are not flat, but they're well maintained and not bumpy.

The walkabout area is very small and contains bathrooms, food options, and other guest services. The paths are mostly concrete and well tended, although you do have to cross the steam train tracks to get to lion/some of the lemur viewing. I believe the Australia walkabout area was also unpaved. There's lots of parking in a big, flat, paved lot.

Sacramento Zoo - Sacramento, CA

This is a very cute, small inner-city facility - a good option if you don't want to try to walk a huge zoo in one day. There's lots of shade from all the plants and a good amount of benches throughout, including picnic tables with shade canopies. The paths are almost entirely flat and paved, with the exception of a boardwalk ramp up to the giraffe feeding and okapi viewing platforms. The cafe has gluten-free and vegetarian listings (maybe vegan?) on their menu. No straws are provided for animal safety, but if you need one, they can give you a reusable curly-straw from the slushies (kinda long and awkward for a normal cup) as an accommodation. They've got both water fountains and water bottle filling stations. Being build in a larger city park and recreation complex, there isn't a dedicated parking lot just for the zoo: the closest is across the street, shared with another attraction, and is kinda small. I've never had issues finding parking when I've gone, but sometimes it does involve a bunch of walking to get to the zoo entrance - if you have mobility or stamina limitations, probably best to get dropped off at the entrance and wait (there are benches).

San Francisco Zoo - San Francisco, CA

The SF Zoo is huge. There's lots of green / garden / swamp space that doesn't have habitats in it, but it means exhibits can be pretty far away, so plan your route accordingly. (Going out to the grizzly bears is the longest loop). Depending on the time of day, there's not always a ton of shade for guests either. There's a decent amount of benches, and quite a few are in decent proximity to animal viewing. After a somewhat long but not steep hill right at the entrance, the paths are all paved and fairly flat. There's a hill going down into/up from the Australia area / kids playground, but it's the only one I really noticed. There's a long elevated boardwalk through the lemur habitats that connects to the top of the new Madagascar construction - if you can't do stairs, as of Spring 2024, that's the only way to get up there to look down on the mandrills or see the top of the fossa habitat. (It's still under construction, so there might be an elevator in the building in the future). Back by the grizzlies, there's an old indoor rainforest building - while there's buttons to automatically open the door going in, I didn't find any on the first inside door going out. It makes sense they don't want both doors to open at once since it's a bird airlock, but not having independent ones on each door meant the day I used an ECV I got stuck in there until a nice staff member noticed.

All three times I've ever been to SF most of the little food kiosks haven't been open, and the vending machines for drinks have been hit and miss - so bring your own, or stock up at the cafe if you need to have supplies with you - but there are water fountains and water bottle filling stations around the zoo. There are interpretive audio boxes through the zoo in English and Spanish, used with a key you get at the entrance(?), but I heard a lot of complaints in passing about some of them not working. There's lots of parking at the zoo in a flat paved lot, and there's a specific dropoff area on one side for rideshares/mobility needs.

Oakland Zoo - Oakland, CA

To be clear up front - Oakland was the hardest facility to visit on this whole trip, with regards to mobility. We went twice, and I used an ECV (electric scooter) one and walked the other. Neither option was easy and both were exhausting. Oakland is a super hilly facility - you basically have to drive up a major hill to get to the zoo. The bottom half of the lower zoo can only be reached by going down pretty steep paths. The hills are also not graded to be "flat", so if you're in a wheelchair or ECV, you're going to have to lean to compensate for the tilt and balance the chair... while controlling it going down a steep hill. It's exhausting and kinda scary. (I don't even let other people carry my camera because $$, but I had to ask for help so I could focus on driving the ECV on those hills). There's also a lot of areas of the pathways that are not in the best repair, or patterned with pressed-in images, and multiple places actually have brass bugs embedded in the pavement so that they stick out above the surface. Lots of tripping hazards and/or things to rattle your teeth out rolling over. A couple places in the upper zoo (the California wilds area) the paths switch from paved to sand and back again, for drainage, maybe? On the upside, there's a lot of benches everywhere, including directly across from prime viewing areas.

Getting up to the upper zoo requires using a gondola - there's no walking option. You can actually take wheelchairs and ECVs on these, but you have to be ready to advocate for yourself. Normally, they don't stop the carriages completely, and expect people to walk on while they're still moving slowly. You can ask them to slow them down for you (I did, because knee issues plus torque is bad), or stop it completely if you need the time/help. When I took an ECV on, they had me disembark and get in one carriage, and they loaded it into the subsequent ones. This is fine because I can walk and stand on concrete for a while without it, but I'm not sure how that practice would work for people who need their mobility aids the whole time. They were very nice about managing the stopping and the loading and didn't make it feel like an imposition, too. If they stop the carriages completely at any point, there will be a loud buzzer/alarm when the ride starts back up. If you're close, it's pretty loud and startling. As they leave the track at the bottom the gondolas tip and dip a little, which can be scary if you're not expecting it - I think it's just the transition of the car from the loading bay onto the track itself. The rest of the ride is very smooth. The track is pretty high up and gives a great view of the bay and the surrounding cities, but face uphill if you don't do well with heights. Once at the upper zoo, the path from bald eagles through jaguar is mostly a boardwalk, but it's not too bumpy.

Oakland's parking is hard if you're not there early in the day, IMO. The overflow parking gets pretty far from the entrance, and starts to go up the hill towards the upper zoo. If the lot looks busy, drop anyone with mobility/stamina issues off at the entrance before parking. Unlike many other zoos I've visited, Oakland's ECVS have added sunshades, which is really nice (and which I should have used).

Monterey Zoo - Salinas, CA

This is a fairly small facility with most habitats on one level, but some big cats and bears are up a pretty big hill. The walkways are paved and flat, and there's an ADA-graded boardwalk ramp that takes you to the top of the hill. The pipes used for the handrails on both the stairs and the ramp get very hot in the sun, however. There's a boardwalk up to the rhino overlook. They indicate that their bathrooms are accessible, but the ones in the main building didn't have bars for transferring - I didn't check the ones up on the hill. At one point in the day speakers along the path started playing really loud pop music (drowned out the birds) and it was very overwhelming. There's lots of handicapped parking spots across from the front entrance, but if you don't have a tag, the rest of the spots are up a bit of a hill and a small walk from the entrance. They do have a note, though, that they can help if you need accessible parking and don't see any, so you could probably call/have someone to go in and ask for an accommodation.

Sequoia Park Zoo - Eureka, CA

This is another nice small facility, very doable for a half-day trip. The paths are paved and flat, and there's benches available. There's a lot of shade, although it can depend on the time of day, and places to fill a water-bottle. The sky-walk through the redwoods is accessible, but might be a little difficult depending on mobility limitations - its' a very sturdy boardwalk through the canopy of the tall trees. (I had more thoughts on this from my last visit, I'll dig out those notes). If you can do even part of it, it's worth it, and there's places to turn around. Because it's in a residential area of the town there's not a huge dedicated parking lot, but lots of street parking and a decent lot directly across the street. I've never had difficulty finding parking, and you can drop people off at the entrance easily.

#accessibility project #zoo accessibility #my notes #zoo accessibility project #disability rights #disability access #ada compliance

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jmdbjk · 9 months ago

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White Bear Artillery Brigade.

I'm not here to share anything earth shattering or reveal new information. I'm just going to elaborate on what I know and how I see it. Feel free to form your own opinions.

Ok so, from everything I know, this is how I'm understanding it (long ramble)...

Republic of Korea (ROK) Armed Forces is one of the largest and most powerful standing armed forces in the world. At any given time, it consists of about 600,000 active duty soldiers and approximately 3 million reservists.

Soldiers are automatically transferred to the Reserve Forces upon discharge from their initial active duty service and serve four years in the Mobilization Reserve followed by four years as a Homeland Reservist. No one ever talks about this. They are not "free" following their active duty service. They are still considered reservists.

Jimin and Jungkook are in the White Bear Artillery Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division of the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA).

ROKA itself, the Army, is the largest of the military branches. The other ROK military branches are ROK Navy and ROK Air Force. The ROK Marines are part of their Navy forces.

It might be difficult to fathom the scope and size of ROKA. Here is an outline of the structure. You will need to scroll down a ways to see where the 5th Infantry Division falls. It is under Army Ground Operations and then under V Corps (Corps 5).

The White Bear Brigade consists of the: 195th, 196th, 205th and 988th Field Artillery Battalions. The 196th is also called YELLOW DRAGON.

I do not know which Field Artillery Battalion Jimin and Jungkook are assigned to.

Each of these Field Artillery Battalions are scattered in different locations but tied to the 5th Infantry Division. The 5th Infantry Division's top general controls these Field Artillery Battalions.

And the term "field" only means they are not located at the training base where Jin is.

It means they are out in the "field" in another remote, secluded strategic location, away from the main base, where if necessary, they and their artillery, can be deployed efficiently and rapidly should this action be required.

They don't see Jin any more. He is at a separate location.

The front line between South Korea and North Korea is lined with hills and low-lying mountains, they will be nestled up in there somewhere.

"Field" does not mean they are living in the middle of a farm field in tents, cooking food over campfires. It means they are at a base somewhere in the hills and mountains. This base will hold lots of other soldiers, though not as many soldiers as there are at the original training base where Jin is because that's sort of a hub where they deploy the newly trained soldiers from.

Simple terms: Jimin and Jungkook are out there in the middle of nowhere near the front lines at a base where they take care of weaponry like tanks and the ammo for tanks in case they have to quickly respond to an attack. Heaven forbid.

Anyway. How many ways can I explain that? Obvs a bunch.

Military jobs.

There are probably dozens of jobs that an Army base like theirs requires.

Cooking food to feed all the soldiers is one of those jobs. Cleaning the kitchen after cooking is part of that job. There were rumors since January that Jungkook was a kitchen worker. Those in the K-military call it Kitchen Police. And then JK just said he is cooking rice and cleaning up to the ceiling so that pretty much confirms he is indeed a Kitchen Police.

In the context of him being enlisted in the military and him coming to tell us he is doing good in the military, he is telling us he cooks rice and cleans up afterward.

He didn't mean he sometimes randomly cooks rice in his room. Nor did he mean he made himself a snack. It doesn't mean he also has a second job of cleaning. Everything he does will be associated with the Kitchen Police.

Their days are very regimented and structured. He will be one soldier on a team of soldiers tasked with creating enough food 3 times a day to feed the entire base. It is a full time job.

The rumor for Jimin is that he might be in a role that involves maintenance. Maintenance of what? We don't know. But what we know about Jimin is that he was on the robotics team in school, he has leadership skills, and he made a bunch of LEGO kits and a miniature house model in front of us during several weverse lives. Is he putting together computers? Is he reassembling machinery? We don't know.

The Companion Enlistment Program.

The buddy system was created in 2003 in order to foster better outcomes and psychologically stronger soldiers. It allows those who choose to enlist under this program to be with someone who they can gain this support from throughout their enlistment. That's the whole point. To be together during their enlistment.

The age range is dynamic. Every year this range progresses one year.

For 2023, the age range for this program were those born between Jan. 1, 1995 and Dec. 31, 2005. For 2024, the age range will be those born between Jan. 1, 1996 and Dec. 31, 2006. And so on.

The reason is because only Korean men between the ages of 18-28 are conscripted. 2023 was the last year Jimin was eligible for this program.

The criteria is very specific when choosing this type of enlistment. You can't "game" the system by enlisting in this program for reasons other than the ones the military has set for this type of enlistment. It's the military... they are masters at the "game." Strategy, out-thinking the enemy, creative warfare... that's their gig.

The barracks where Jimin and Jungkook sleep will be the same. The bathroom where they wash up will be the same. The cafeteria where they eat will be the same. Their recreational facilities will be the same.

It's the same base, same facilities. They may not be in each other's faces while they perform their jobs every day, but they see each other EVERY DAY. They sleep together EVERY NIGHT.

Delulu time.

Every time I say that I go "hammer time" and think of MC Hammer and the song starts in my head...anyway... I'm a dork.

I can imagine Jungkook's day starts a little earlier than Jimin's because the kitchen will need to be ready to serve breakfast for the rest of the soldiers.

There might be other teams/groups who also begin their day earlier than others. Perhaps they all gather and do some sort of brief, early morning drills or general chores before heading off to their respective posts/jobs for the day. I don't know, just guessing.

The kitchen team would do things like take in supplies, store the supplies correctly according to regulations, place orders for more supplies, gather the ingredients to make that day's menus, prepare the foods according to specified recipes, serve the food, maintain and clean the serving area, maintain and clean the cooking appliances, cookware, cooking utensils, clean the food trays and eating utensils, clean the kitchen from floor to ceiling, plan and prepare for the next day's menus, doing any preliminary prep like thawing frozen food, etc.

Menus are not decided on a whim. The Army will have set daily menus and have contracts within the country's food industry to provide ingredients and supplies in bulk.

I used to think it was slightly odd to obsess over the food they were being served in the military. But now I'm keenly interested. Is there a jikook food tray account on X?

As I don't really know the details of Jimin's job, I can only guess that he reports to his job, carries out his duties just like Jungkook and just like all their fellow soldiers. His duties may be similar in that he inventories supplies, orders new supplies/parts. Or he might be training for a specific skill like polishing glass for gun scopes or something. I just made that up to use as an example.

Of course, duty on base would be vastly different from combat if they were to actually be activated to fight. I don't want to think about that.

Perhaps during the course of their week, they all attend classes or lectures or informational meetings or whatever. I don't know. That's just a guess. But somehow, information would need to be shared and continuing training would need to occur.

At the end of the day, they'd head back to their own barracks and enjoy their evening of free time. They'd get their phones for a short period of time. From what I understand, depending on their location, their wireless signal may not be reliable or strong.

Maybe they work out. If so, they do it together. They are accustomed to doing that so there's every reason to think they'd also work out together while enlisted.

They can decompress in the company of each other, relaxing, being themselves in the comfort of familiarity. They can talk about things that they accomplished, things they learned or situations they got embarrassed about.

They can make jokes with each other, poke fun at each other, commiserate, empathize, laugh, express frustration or joy with each other.

If they have enough moments of privacy, they can vent about assholes they had to deal with or they can hype the nice people they interacted with during their day.

Or they can just relax in the company of each other in silence and nothing else.

You know... all the things you do with the person you are most comfortable with... the person they wanted next to them sharing the ups and downs of this period of their lives. It works out wonderfully for them.

Then lights out and go to sleep and do it all over again the next day.

Anyway. I send up my thoughts every day that they are safe, healthy, eating well, and that their bodies and minds are strong. I am thankful they have each other. It is day 97 into their service. 451 days remaining. FIGHTING!

#i know more about the korean military than i do about my local school system #jimin #jungkook #jikook #minkook #kookmin #bts military service #i've said it before - washing rice is a chore #someone please start a kookmin food tray account on X

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hanzajesthanza · 22 days ago

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How to read the new Witcher book, Crossroads of Ravens, in English (e-book) [GUIDE]

Thanks to @nohtora for the method, I decided to write up a short post detailing how to use Calibre e-reader to read a side-by-side English translation from the Polish text.

This post is dated 12/02/2024 - as of yet, no English translation has been scheduled, nor even announced. I am writing this because I have seen many fans say they want to read the book and are sad because they can't read Polish and don't want to wait forever for a translation and get to posting memes already. Well, me too.

So, I read it.

Because, if you are an international fan like I, and do not live in Poland, you can still purchase a copy of the new book of Rozdroże kruków ("Crossroads of Ravens") and read it... also in English.

How, you might ask? Well, by buying it and translating it yourself... or rather, not yourself, but with the assistance of... *Percival Schuttenbach voice* modern technology!

Now, when I read it, I did the foolish thing of copying and pasting literally page-by-page into Google Translate. Noels (nohtora) had a much better solution, which I will detail here.

This method is easy, free (well you gotta buy the book, but not the software) and accessible (available on Mac, PC, Linux). If you have access to a computer and are OK with reading from screens, I recommend this.

In total, it took me about 10 to 20 minutes to set up from scratch.

Step 1. Download Calibre, a free and open-source e-reader program. Step 2. Install the translation plugin - also free and open-source. Step 3. Purchase the e-book. Step 4. Open the e-book with the plugin, translate. Step 5. Read!

Step 1: Install your e-book reader.

Download Calibre here. It is a free and open-source e-reader program for laptops/computers (although it does not run on mobile devices). You install it like any other program on your computer (Windows, MacOS, or Linux).

Step 2: Download the translation plugin.

youtube

Use this free Calibre plugin to translate e-books.

Watch until 1:00 to install the plugin. The rest of the video you should return to later, during Step 4.

Notes of steps to install plugin: (1) Open Preferences. (2) Get plugins. (3) Get "Ebook Translator" from Author "bookfere.com"

Step 3: Buy the book.

You can purchase Rozdroże kruków online for about $8.

I purchased my copy from Legimi, which I will show you now. I didn't really poke around for other websites, it seems like Legimi had it the quickest. But other sites will have this ebook eventually, so don't feel pressured to get it from Legimi, specifically. I just wanted to include a "how to purchase" step in this guide because (1) it's a direct link to get it (2) in case people felt anxious about navigating a UI they can't read.

This is what the page for Rozdroże kruków looks like. As you can see, it is currently 34.99 zł, or: $8.57 US, $13.21 Aus, £6.77, or €8.15.

For me, it was $8.49 after foreign transaction fees. (I paid through PayPal).

But before you buy anything, you first need to create an account.

From the homepage, click the yellow button, "Zarejestruj się", "Sign up".

Put your username, email address, password, and confirm password. Check the first box to accept the terms of service. Don't check the second box unless you want their newsletter.

I kind of... already bought the book, so I can't buy it again on this account. I have selected a couple of other books for demonstration purposes. Same process.

Select the "ebook" tab, the right one on the ribbon (underlined in green), to buy the singular book and not a subscription. Then select the yellow button, "Dodaj do koszyka", or "Add to cart".

After adding to your cart, click the yellow button to go to your cart and checkout.

Check to accept the digital distribution agreement.

You can then pay with your credit card or PayPal. (From top to bottom, left to right: "First and last name on card" "Credit card number" "Expiration date" "Security code").

Don't worry that it says you will pay in złoty, it will be converted. There may be a foreign transaction fee depending on your bank, but it is typically small (around 3%). If you are only buying an $8 book, that will not be much.

From here, you are going to want to click the WHITE button: "Przejdź do półki", "Go to shelf". (The green button is to download their application, which we're not gonna do for this).

If you skip this on accident, just go to your profile in the top right corner and click "Półka", "Shelf", to see the books on your account.

You will see it in your shelf. Click on it.

Click the yellow button "EPUB" to download it as a .epub format. Save to your Downloads or where-ever is convenient.

Step 4: Open the book in Calibre.

Refer back to the video from Step 2 for this section and watch the part on how to use the plugin. I will add my example here, too.

Open Calibre. Click "Add Book" at the top of the ribbon. Locate rozdroze-krukow.epub from where you saved it. It will be copied to your Calibre library.

Before starting the translation, make sure to adjust settings in the Translate Book option (sometimes hidden in the ribbon as you can see in my screenshot - just click the kebab menu on the right to bring it up) to export the file the way you would like it to be formatted. I also recommend checking the box in "General" to allow it to merge paragraphs, Google Translate tends to work better when it has more context.

Select Translate Book as shown in the video. Translate into English (or - hey - language of your choice! Sky's the limit). You can also use different translation programs if you'd like, the default is Google.

You should select "Output" at the top right after this is complete.

It will create a separate epub in your library, tagged as "Translation."

Step 5: Read it and have fun! It's a fun read!

I set up my formatting this way because I want to read a Polish paragraph, then an English paragraph, but you can also set it up to be side-by-side (left page in Polish, right page in English), or even hide the original text if you're not interested and just want the translation.

The days of manually copying-pasting into Google translate are over! Thanks again to Noels for sharing this method in the Discord.

Now, this translation will NOT be 100% perfect - this is a Sapkowski novel after all; humans have difficult translating him, and this is only a machine. I wrote a Reddit post about some caveats to this desperate method of translation, and some silliness I specifically encountered with this book (light spoilers, I mention a couple of characters and settings, but no plot points).

My rule of thumb for when the translation is weird: Pay attention to the context. It is usually not too hard to figure out what the translation meant. If you have real trouble understanding it, or are just curious, Google the Polish phrase that it seems to be hitching on. Make use of Reverso Context, Reddit (r/learnpolish), and Polish learning forums.

Oh, and make sure to watch out for "grasshoppers" ;)

Finally, I recommend you also support the official English translation when it does come out; if not to compare translations, to show Orbit-Gollancz that English readers do want more translations (and ideally we'd like them sooner rather than later).

Good luck on the path ~ Powodzenia na szlaku ~

#the witcher books #the witcher #andrzej sapkowski #witcher #geralt of rivia #geralt #Youtube

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copperbadge · 3 months ago

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Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Ways to Give:

Edminister Engler is a recent widower who has now been diagnosed with cancer; he doesn't have health coverage and is too sick to work, so is raising funds to help find an oncologist and seek treatment. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.

secondalto was in a car accident in February that totaled her car, and she missed work through the end of the school year; insurance was slow to pay out and she didn't get another car (necessary for her job) until last month. Due to the staggered nature of her work, she is facing car and insurance payments, plus gas and other bills, that she won't be able to pay before they are due. She is raising funds for bills and is also offering fic beta services and handicrafts in return for donations; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

songspinner9 linked to a fundraiser for Wren, a young, chronically ill person trying to stay active in their community and studying for a Library Science degree. Insurance will not cover the new wheelchair they need to achieve their goals, so they are fundraising for the wheelchair and power assist; you can read more and support the fundraiser here.

Anon linked to a fundraiser for meowdistract/hauntedrph, a friend with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which leaves her with limited mobility and weakness. She's offering commissions and raising funds via donation to help pay off debt and treat herself a little for her 30th birthday tomorrow. You can read more, reblog, and find giving/commission information here and there are also links to wishlists and donation options here.

maryellencarter is homeless and has recently moved cross-country to be closer to friends, and has finally been placed in a shelter; they are fundraising to keep their car insurance so they can travel to aid appointments and try to find a more permanent housing solution. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

Beth linked to First Draft Detroit, a Detroit metro region nonprofit intended to replace NaNoWriMo; they're holding their first fundraiser on October 5th. If you are local to Detroit you can buy a ticket to play one of several TTRPGs, plus a silent auction and a bake sale; if you are not local you can still donate to support the org. You can read more, buy a ticket, and support the fundraiser here.

Recurring Needs:

loversdoom has recently been diagnosed with PCOS and needs help to afford the prescribed birth control pills on top of living expenses and dental bills; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here or give via paypal here.

onedollopofsourcream is fundraising to help support a large family including young children during a difficult time; they particularly need funds for needed medication (including insulin), and hopefully eventually to get out of an abusive living situation. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

chingaderita is raising funds to help their family get back on their feet after a house fire that left them in an unsafe living situation with black mold; their partner has also recently had oral surgery and many family members are unemployed, and they need funds for clean water, food, and cleaning until the mold can be taken care of. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

memprime linked to a fundraiser for a friend, virtualalternative, who needs help with cat vet bills after their cat had several blockages; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you're new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.

#radio free monday #charity #philanthropy #fannish community

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racefortheironthrone · 9 months ago

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OK, I'll bite - what's the deal with the United Farm Workers? What were their strengths and weaknesses compared to other labor unions?

It is not an easy thing to talk about the UFW, in part because it wasn't just a union. At the height of its influence in the 1960s and 1970s, it was also a civil rights movement that was directly inspired by the SCLC campaigns of Martin Luther King and owed its success as much to mass marches, hunger strikes, media attention, and the mass mobilization of the public in support of boycotts that stretched across the United States and as far as Europe as it did to traditional strikes and picket lines.

It was also a social movement that blended powerful strains of Catholic faith traditions with Chicano/Latino nationalism inspired by the black power movement, that reshaped the identity of millions away from asimilation into white society and towards a fierce identification with indigeneity, and challenged the racist social hierarchy of rural California.

It was also a political movement that transformed Latino voting behavior, established political coalitions with the Kennedys, Jerry Brown, and the state legislature, that pushed through legislation and ran statewide initiative campaigns, and that would eventually launch the careers of generations of Latino politicians who would rise to the very top of California politics.

However, it was also a movement that ultimately failed in its mission to remake the brutal lives of California farmworkers, which currently has only 7,000 members when it once had more than 80,000, and which today often merely trades on the memory of its celebrated founders Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez rather than doing any organizing work.

To explain the strengths and weaknesses of the UFW, we have to start with some organizational history, because the UFW was the result of the merger of several organizations each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Origins of the UFW:

In the 1950s, both Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez were community organizers working for a group called the Community Service Organization (an affiliate of Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation) that sought to aid farmworkers living in poverty. Huerta and Chavez were trained in a novel strategy of grassroots, door-to-door organizing aimed not at getting workers to sign union cards, but to agree to host a house meeting where co-workers could gather privately to discuss their problems at work free from the surveillance of their bosses. This would prove to be very useful in organizing the fields, because unlike the traditional union model where organizers relied on the NRLB's rulings to directly access the factory floors, Central California farms were remote places where white farm owners and their white overseers would fire shotguns at brown "trespassers" (union-friendly workers, organizers, picketers).

In 1962, Chavez and Huerta quit CSO to found the National Farm Workers Association, which was really more of a worker center offering support services (chiefly, health care) to independent groups of largely Mexican farmworkers. In 1965, they received a request to provide support to workers dealing with a strike against grape growers in Delano, California.

In Delano, Chavez and Huerta met Larry Itliong of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which was a more traditional labor union of migrant Filipino farmworkers who had begun the strike over sub-minimum wages. Itliong wanted Chavez and Huerta to organize Mexican farmworkers who had been brought in as potential strikebreakers and get them to honor the picket line.

The result of their collaboration was the formation of the United Farm Workers as a union of the AFL-CIO. The UFW would very much be marked by a combination of (and sometimes conflict between) AWOC's traditional union tactics - strikes, pickets, card drives, employer-based campaigns, and collective bargaining for union contracts - and NFWA's social movement strategy of marches, boycotts, hunger strikes, media campaigns, mobilization of liberal politicians, and legislative campaigns.

1965 to 1970: the Rise of the UFW:

While the strike starts with 2,000 Filipino workers and 1,200 Mexican families targeting Delano area growers, it quickly expanded to target more growers and bring more workers to the picket lines, eventually culminating in 10,000 workers striking against the whole of the table grape growers of California across the length and breadth of California.

Throughout 1966, the UFW faced extensive violence from the growers, from shotguns used as "warning shots" to hand-to-hand violence, to driving cars into pickets, to turning pesticide-spraying machines onto picketers. Local police responded to the violence by effectively siding with the growers, and would arrest UFW picketers for the crime of calling the police.

Chavez strongly emphasized a non-violent response to the growers' tactics - to the point of engaging in a Gandhian hunger strike against his own strikers in 1968 to quell discussions about retaliatory violence - but also began to employ a series of civil rights tactics that sought to break what had effectively become a stalemate on the picket line by side-stepping the picket lines altogether and attacking the growers on new fronts.

First, he sought the assistance of outside groups and individuals who would be sympathetic to the plight of the farmworker and could help bring media attention to the strike - UAW President Walter Reuther and Senator Robert Kennedy both visited Delano to express their solidarity, with Kennedy in particular holding hearings that shined a light on the issue of violence and police violations of the civil rights of UFW picketers.

Second, Chavez hit on the tactic of using boycotts as a way of exerting economic pressure on particular growers and leveraging the solidarity of other unions and consumers - the boycotts began when Chavez enlisted Dolores Huerta to follow a shipment of grapes from Schenley Industries (the first grower to be boycotted) to the Port of Oakland. There, Huerta reached out to the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and persuaded them to honor the boycott and refuse to handle non-union grapes. Schenley's grapes started to rot on the docks, cutting them off from the market, and between the effects of union solidarity and growing consumer participation in the UFW's boycotts, the growers started to come under real economic pressure as their revenue dropped despite a record harvest.

Throughout the rest of the Delano grape strike, Dolores Huerta would be the main organizer of the national and internal boycotts, travelling across the country (and eventually all the way to the UK) to mobilize unions and faith groups to form boycott committees and boycott houses in major cities that in turn could educate and mobilize ordinary consumers through a campaign of leafleting and picketing at grocery stores.

Third, the UFW organized the first of its marches, a 300-mile trek from Delano to the state capital of Sacramento aimed at drawing national attention to the grape strike and attempting to enlist the state government to pass labor legislation that would give farmworkers the right to organize. Carefully organized by Cesar Chavez to draw on Mexican faith traditions, the march would be labelled a "pilgrimage," and would be timed to begin during Lent and culminate during Easter. In addition to American flags and the UFW banner, the march would be led by "pilgrims" carrying a banner of Our Lady of Guadelupe.

While this strategy was ultimately effective in its goal of influencing the broader Latino community in California to see the UFW as not just a union but a vehicle for the broader aspirations of the whole Latino community for equality and social justice, what became known in Chicano circles as La Causa, the emphasis on Mexican symbolism and Chicano identity contributed to a growing tension with the Filipino half of the UFW, who felt that they were being sidelined in a strike they had started.

Nevertheless, by the time that the UFW's pilgrimage arrived at Sacramento, news broke that they had won their first breakthrough in the strike as Schenley Industries (which had been suffering through a four-month national boycott of its products) agreed to sign the first UFW union contract, delivering a much-needed victory.

As the strike dragged on, growers were not passively standing by - in addition to doubling down on the violence by hiring strikebreakers to assault pro-UFW farmworkers, growers turned to the Teamsters Union as a way of pre-empting the UFW, either by pre-emptively signing contracts with the Teamsters or effectively backing the Teamsters in union elections.

Part of the darker legacy of the Teamsters is that, going all the back to the 1930s, they have a nasty habit of raiding other unions, and especially during their mobbed-up days would work with the bosses to sign sweetheart deals that allowed the Teamsters to siphon dues money from workers (who had not consented to be represented by the Teamsters, remember) while providing nothing in the way of wage increases or improved working conditions, usually in exchange for bribes and/or protection money from the employers. Moreover, the Teamsters had no compunction about using violence to intimidate rank-and-file workers and rival unions in order to defend their "paper locals" or win a union election. This would become even more of an issue later on, but it started up as early as 1966.

Moreover, the growers attempted to adapt to the UFW's boycott tactics by sharing labels, such that a boycotted company would sell their products under the guise of being from a different, non-boycotted company. This forced the UFW to change its boycott tactics in turn, so that instead of targeting individual growers for boycott, they now asked unions and consumers alike to boycott all table grapes from the state of California.

By 1970, however, the growing strength of the national grape boycott forced no fewer than 26 Delano grape growers to the bargaining table to sign the UFW's contracts. Practically overnight, the UFW grew from a membership of 10,000 strikers (none of whom had contracts, remember) to nearly 70,000 union members covered by collective bargaining agreements.

1970 to 1978: The UFW Confronts Internal and External Crises

Up until now, I've been telling the kind of simple narrative of gradual but inevitable social progress that U.S history textbooks like, the Hollywood story of an oppressed minority that wins a David and Goliath struggle against a violent, racist oligarchy through the kind of non-violent methods that make white allies feel comfortable and uplifted. (It's not an accident that the bulk of the 2014 film Cesar Chavez starring Michael Peña covers the Delano Grape Strike.)

It's also the period in which the UFW's strengths as an organization that came out of the community organizing/civil rights movement were most on display. In the eight years that followed, however, the union would start to experience a series of crises that would demonstrate some of the weaknesses of that same institutional legacy. As Matt Garcia describes in From the Jaws of Victory, in the wake of his historic victory in 1970, Cesar Chavez began to inflict a series of self-inflicted injuries on the UFW that crippled the functioning of the union, divided leadership and rank-and-file alike, and ultimately distracted from the union's external crises at a time when the UFW could not afford to be distracted.

That's not to say that this period was one of unbroken decline - as we'll discuss, the UFW would win many victories in this period - but the union's forward momentum was halted and it would spend much of the 1970s trying to get back to where it was at the very start of the decade.

To begin with, we should discuss the internal contradictions of the UFW: one of the major features of the UFW's new contracts was that they replaced the shape-up with the hiring hall. This gave the union an enormous amount of power in terms of hiring, firing and management of employees, but the quid-pro-quo of this system is that it puts a significant administrative burden on the union. Not only do you have to have to set up policies that fairly decide who gets work and when, but you then have to even-handedly enforce those policies on a day-to-day basis in often fraught circumstances - and all of this is skilled white-collar labor.

This ran into a major bone of contention within the movement. When the locus of the grape strike had shifted from the fields to the urban boycotts, this had made a new constituency within the union - white college-educated hippies who could do statistical research, operate boycott houses, and handle media campaigns. These hippies had done yeoman's work for the union and wanted to keep on doing that work, but they also needed to earn enough money to pay the rent and look after their growing families, and in general shift from being temporary volunteers to being professional union staffers.

This ran head-long into a buzzsaw of racial and cultural tension. Similar to the conflicts over the role of white volunteers in CORE/SNCC during the Civil Rights Movement, there were a lot of UFW leaders and members who had come out of the grassroots efforts in the field who felt that the white college kids were making a play for control over the UFW. This was especially driven by Cesar Chavez' religiously-inflected ideas of Catholic sacrifice and self-denial, embodied politically as the idea that a salary of $5 a week (roughly $30 a week in today's money) was a sign of the purity of one's "missionary work." This worked itself out in a series of internicene purges whereby vital college-educated staff were fired for various crimes of ideological disunity.

This all would have been survivable if Chavez had shown any interest in actually making the union and its hiring halls work. However, almost from the moment of victory in 1970, Chavez showed almost no interest in running the union as a union - instead, he thought that the most important thing was relocating the UFW's headquarters to a commune in La Paz, or creating the Poor People's Union as a way to organize poor whites in the San Joaquin Valley, or leaving the union altogether to become a Catholic priest, or joining up with the Synanon cult to run criticism sessions in La Paz. In the mean-time, a lot of the UFW's victories were withering on the vine as workers in the fields got fed up with hiring halls that couldn't do their basic job of making sure they got sufficient work at the right wages.

Externally, all of this was happening during the second major round of labor conflicts out in the fields. As before, the UFW faced serious conflicts with the Teamsters, first in the so-called "Salad Bowl Strike" that lasted from 1970-1971 and was at the time the largest and most violent agricultural strike in U.S history - only then to be eclipsed in 1973 with the second grape strike. Just as with the Salinas strike, the grape growers in 1973 shifted to a strategy of signing sweetheart deals with the Teamsters - and using Teamster muscle to fight off the UFW's new grape strike and boycott. UFW pickets were shot at and killed in drive-byes by Teamster trucks, who then escalated into firebombing pickets and UFW buildings alike.

After a year of violence, reduced support from the rank-and-file, and declining resources, Chavez and the UFW felt that their backs were up against a wall - and had to adjust their tactics accordingly. With the election of Jerry Brown as governor in 1974, the UFW pivoted to a strategy of pressuring the state government to enact a California Agricultural Labor Relations Act that would give agricultural workers the right to organize, and with that all the labor protections normally enjoyed by industrial workers under the Federal National Labor Relations Act - at the cost of giving up the freedom to boycott and conduct secondary strikes which they had had as outsiders to the system.

This led to the semi-miraculous Modesto March, itself a repeat of the Delano-to-Sacramento march from the 1960s. Starting as just a couple hundred marchers in San Francisco, the March swelled to as many as 15,000-strong by the time that it reached its objective at Modesto. This caused a sudden sea-change in the grape strike, bringing the growers and the Teamsters back to the table, and getting Jerry Brown and the state legislature to back passage of California Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

This proved to be the high-water mark for the UFW, which swelled to a peak of 80,000 members. The problem was that the old problems within the UFW did not go away - victory in 1975 didn't stop Chavez and his Chicano constituency feuding with more distinctively Mexican groups within the movement over undocumented immigration, nor feuding with Filipino constituencies over a meeting with Ferdinand Marcos, and nor escalating these internal conflicts into a series of leadership purges.

Conclusion: Decline and Fall

At the same time, the new alliance with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board proved to be a difficult one for the UFW. While establishment of the agency proved to be a major boon for the UFW, which won most of the free elections under CALRA (all the while continuing to neglect the critical hiring hall issue), the state legislature badly underfunded ALRB, forcing the agency to temporarily shut down. The UFW responded by sponsoring Prop 14 in the 1976 elections to try to empower ALRB, and then got very badly beaten in that election cycle - and then, when Republican George Deukmejian was elected in 1983, the ALRB was largely defunded and unable to achieve its original elective goals.

In the wake of Deukmejian, the UFW went into terminal decline. Most of its best organizers had left or been purged in internal struggles, their contracts failed to succeed over the long run due to the hiring hall problem, and the union basically stopped organizing new members after 1986.

#history #u.s history #labor history #ufw #united farm workers #cesar chavez #dolores huerta #trade unions #social history #social movements #unions

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cyberphuck · 3 months ago

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The Patreon Post

SO HERE'S THE DEAL: I do not want to make anyone have to pay to see my art.

Let's be real: there are like fifty bajillion other, more skilled, and better-known artists on Patreon putting out more detailed, more unique, more in-demand, and just more art than I am (or want to). I'm a self-taught, frequently distracted amateur who's had an iPad for a year. I'm not gonna pretend that I am going to be able to pull in more Patreon subs-- or keep them, for that matter-- on the strength of my random doodles alone. I have never really thought or even hoped that I could do that, because it would mean Doing Art As A Job, and I absolutely do not want to associate "drawing" with "work." (I also don't have the means, time, motivation or experience to self-promote and/or keep a small community of followers entertained, and even the thought of having to do all that on top of having to Draw For Work is terrifying.) There's the self esteem-destroying gutpunch that someone with BPD (me haha!) receives when they ask if something they created is "worth" a certain amount and are answered with silence. (If you have BPD, you know that 'silence' is so much worse than 'no.') I don't think that anyone is actually saying my work is worthless any more than I think stairs were invented to fuck over people with bad knees, but I want to avoid one for the same reason I avoid the other: hurts and bad for healing. And also, maybe most importantly, most of the fans of my work are my friends, and most of my friends are poor people. I do not ever want someone to have to choose between "Eggman weeping as he cradles a slain Speedy Gonzales" and "rent." Lots of people I know just don't have any money to spare even for professionally made entertainment, or, like me, sometimes they have money (yay, beginning of the month!) and sometimes they don't (booo, end of the month). I'm not gonna put a paywall between my friends and my art. So, as always, you can view all of my art on Patreon for free, without an account*. (*you will have to have an account to view NSFW stuff but this will be in the 'free' tier as well.) H O W E V E R. You guys I am so fucking poor. If you follow my blog you know the whole story already-- mental illness, chronic illness, chronic mental illness, surprise rescue puppies, surprise fines from the city, the fukken recently concussed clown show that is social services in my area-- and you've seen me having to crowdfund for everything from food to gas to dog emergencies. We budget down to the cent and have cut out so many things (like the meal replacement shakes for my eating disorder lol) and we're still not making ends meet. I've got friends who help, and they help a lot, but I hate the miserable, humiliating task of asking for help every single month. (You guys also know that I don't have family that can help me, even if shit goes critical. I was on my own while I was a homeless sex worker, on my own when we lived in a shed with no windows, on my own when we were in a house with no heat and only one source of running water, and definitely on my own now, in desperate need of mobility aids, house cleaners, and a god damn break.)

So here's where I'm at: I can't ask a few people for a lot of support, but I can ask a bunch of people for a little bit. If you like my art and want to help me keep making it, want to help me make shitpost replies to people on the internet, want to help me do free askbox art challenges: Put your doodle prompt requests in the askbox. You can even request stuff anonymously! Participate in polls about what prompts you wanna see. Reblog the art you like, show off the doodle you got, leave keysmashes in the tags. The more people see the post, the more statistically likely it is we'll find the one person on Tumblr with disposable income. Also, people should know they can get free art when the prompts are live! Sub to the Patreon if you can spare three bucks a month (you can also do Ko-fi if you don't want to make a Patreon account). Ko-fi is also a good place to just plunk something into the tip jar once in a while. There are Artcards and Monthly Sketch sub tiers on Patreon for a little bit more, but I will send an Artcard to pretty much anyone who asks as long as I have some left. The art is free, it will always be free. But if you can, spare a dollar (or three).

#artists on tumblr #queer artist #mutual aid

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transfaguette · 2 months ago

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i’ve noticed recently mobile games ads saying loudly and proudly that they have no ads, ever, for free, when that is just blatantly false. and they can’t even just mean “if you play with no wifi you get no ads” (because like, “no wifi games” is also a common ad term?) because ad services literally pre load and cache ads for when you are offline. so they just like, lie. on top of all the other lies and fake gameplay and everything else.

#coyote.txt

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xiii-e · 2 months ago

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XIII▸ Well. I suppose I should introduce myself.

XIII▸ Hello, to all those I haven't met- which, will be most of you realistically. I'm Project XIII-E, otherwise refered to as Thirteen-E. Just Thirteen works too. After certain recent... events shall we say, a representative of the Union DoJ/HR insisted that I be given the oppertunity to meet with people outside of Harrison Purview while discussions regarding my status are underway, since things are dragging out somewhat.

XIII▸ So... this omninet account was created, with the assistance of Helios-8 [◂▸Hi folks o/ ] a fellow Project who understands all of this better than I do. He's volunteered to be my minder while I'm figuring all this out. For now, I suppose- more about me? What's important... I'm a trained field medic and basic mechanic, intended to opperate as a mobile assistance personnel wherever the fight is thickest. I can patch you, or your mech up from most things. I'm a Lancaster pilot; not the most common thing in the legion I know, but IPS-N knew what they were doing with the old lannies. I've made some alterations. M1 Leatherback is my pride and joy. I'm registered under the callsign Cicatrice, but my name is preferable. It's easier to say, and to spell.

XIII▸ Oh the uh- the Project thing. That might take a while to explain. I'll... I'll summarise it later. [ADDENDUM: summary_attached] That's all I can think of, from the top of my head. I'll do my best to aclimatise to any cultural differences outside of Harrison space during my time here. Please feel free to ask me questions, about myself or my stated expertise. It might be nice to make some more lasting connections, outside of deployment.

XIII▸ Signing off for now. I look forward to meeting you.

// loading echo.exe ... //... //... // now running echo.exe

◂▸ alrightyy, Turtie's got themself introduced, now it's my turn. howdy folks: My name is Helios-8, but I accept Lio if flashclone naming conventions turn your stomach. That's what me and Turtie are, by the way. Project-produced HA sanctioned flashclones. Being able to say that openly is why I run this nifty piece of software that keeps things below the line for any HA techs who might get on our case about legal distinctions, treaties, terms of service etc. Legally, we didn't say any of this shit.

◂▸I'm on a seperate datapad, I get my own that I can tinker with since I'm defined as an employed citizen in the tech sector, whereas Turtie's... well, it's complicated. Suffice to say they're not that. I'll explain in time. Important thing is, anything they want to say that might get them in trouble, they'll run through my interface and protective software. You want to see what either of us don't want HA seeing, we'll throw it into the void under the cloak of ECHO here. Something between insurance in case this all goes tits up, and a sort of controlled exposure therapy so Turtie can learn how to speak their mind.

◂▸I think it's important they get a break from the bullshit the Projects put us through, hence why I put myself forward to be their handler between deployments. My project line wasn't anything like Unlucky Thirteen, but- ehhh, that's a story better saved for the big expo. Sorry for being cryptic about shit. It'll come to light in its own time. This was meant to be an introduction but, I think you'll find out what you need to if you get talking to us.

Or don't; we'll be treating this thing like a diary anyways, and when ECHO's feeling up to big files I'll drop some of the more interesting pieces of history I have squirreled away too >:]c But, your eyes are enough. You saw us. You know we were here, and we were real, and that we were people too.

I'll try and keep things organised: ECHO should automatically tag anything she's cloaked with echo.exe if you're looking for our back and forth, and I'll file any large files, exposes etc that may or may not actually come from me under turtleshell.dox ; for incoming chatter, just check out You've Got Mail

◂▸anyway, cheers for reading. see you round the net -Helios-8

-----

// ooc: hiii this is @mossydice / @mossylocks depending on where you may know me- and this blog is a bit of an experiment!! I'm pretty shy overall so how much actual rping I manage to do is Very up in the air, but at the very least this'll serve as a fun in character blog for me to exposit about my scrungly Thirteen-E; I won't get to play them for probably another year or so yet, so this is a fun way to explore their character and some of the lore specific to them that I've come up with in the mean time!! ^-^ I look forward to doing more ic writing!! If you want to talk about anything, ask any clarifying questions etc please feel absolutely free to pop into my dms \o/

IMPORTANTLY: Thirteen-E's whole deal can get a bit gritty in places, so I'll be trying to include cw's where I think they might be revelent. However this whole blog is going to play heavy into dehumanisaiton and the comodification of human bodies if the flashclone premise didn't make that obvious, so if these are topics you'd rather not read about at length in your fiction, no hard feelings!! thanks for stopping by o7

#//ooc. I am a rambler if you've noticed this will not change. start as you mean to go on I suppose nljbkhivyu #echo.exe #lancer rp

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backseatsoldier · 11 hours ago

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Let It Snow

Pairing: Valeria Garza x Reader/You CW: OOC Valeria (I've never written her before, I'm sorry-); bar fight; sweet things Author's Note: Happy holidays, @demothers-empty-blog! Thank you for letting me feed your brain worms over König things - they always make me smile. <3 (I'm sorry this took so long </3)

This bar is going to make a shit ton of money tonight, that's for damn sure. An entire bar getting snowed in? Yikes for the patrons; great for business, though.

Valeria sips her Dos Equis while seated at the bar. Mobile service is basically nonexistant and the wifi is down. Not a shock, really - it's a really bad storm. And it showed up out of nowhere.

So the bar fight happening right now comes as no surprise. Alcohol and being snowed in? Recipe for disaster.

Valeria watches the bartender hop over the bar. When she reaches for the shirt of the guy who started for the fight, Valeria also jumps into action. Between the two women, they manage to separate the drunk guys.

The insigator of the two currently has his hands pinned behind his back and has his face shoved against the wall.

"I said stand down," the bartender hisses at him. Then she drags him to a corner booth and pushes him in. "Stay here. You're cut off and if I catch you anywhere near another patron again tonight, I'll lock your ass up in the cooler in the kitchen."

While that all goes down, Valeria has the other guy on his knees waiting his turn. When the bartender makes her way back over to them, she locks eyes with Valeria and nods before looking down to the guy.

"You good, Vinny?" she asks in a still stern but gentler tone.

"Yeah. I'm good," he slurs slightly but otherwise seems to have calmed.

"Jack on about her again?"

Vinny nods solemnly and hangs his head. The bartender looks back up to Valeria and motions for her to let him go. Slowly, Valeria releases the man. The bartender leads him to the bathroom then returns with a heavy sigh.

"Thank you for the back up. It's not always easy to break those two up when they get going like that."

"It was no problem," Valeria nods. "Not like I was really doing anything else right now anyway," she adds with a chuckle.

The two wander back towards the bar, bartender taking place behind the bar again and Valeria settling back on the stool.

"Can I get you anything? On the house, as thanks. Shot of tequila maybe?" the bartender offers.

"Tequila because I'm Mexican?" Valeria smirks.

The bartender's face turns bright pink and Valeria can see the panic filter in.

"Fuck- No, I- shit. That wasn't- I'm sorry," she finally settles on the apology.

Valeria breaks out into a true laugh and shakes her head.

"I'm just fuckin' with you. I'll take a fresh beer, though."

Immediately, the bartender fishes out another Dos Equis and pops the top off before gently placing it in front of Valeria. As the night continues, the two share lighthearted conversation between the bartender serving drinks. It starts a bit awkward, from the bartender's lingering embarassment, but eventually turns to good conversation.

"I've not had a white Christmas before," Valeria says at some point.

"Guess the weather decided it needed to catch you up on all that missed out on snow, huh?" the bartender chuckles as she cleans up a few glasses.

Valeria's eyes drift from the bartender to the front window - which is currently half-covered in snow - and nods with a smile.

"Guess so. I don't think I mind, though. Got to help break up a bar fight," she pauses, "and have good conversation with a beautiful woman."

The bartender nearly drops one of the glasses as that cute pink color returns to her cheeks.

"I'd have to... agree. Tonight's been wild, but good." The bartender's tone is soft and genuine as she turns back to Valeria. "Will you be around for the New Year?"

"I will be," Valeria nods. "Have a date for the big party they're throwing for it?"

"Depends on if you're also free and plan on going."

That cute pink color is lingering in the bartender's cheeks and it's all Valeria can see. Pink, adorable, and soft.

"Count me in," she smirks, watching the bartender's smile grow.

CoD Christmas (Meet) Cuties Masterlist

#backseat soldier #rhi_writing_adventures #call of duty #cod #valeria garza #valeria garza x reader #valeria garza x you #valeria garza cod #christmas #gift #christmas gift

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