#well it's only partly german

[astranauticus]

not to further out myself as a cosplayer but anyway sometimes i do wonder if there's a higher power because i'd been mentally debating buying this absolutely beautiful cosplay for ebenholz' eine variation skin on taobao for WEEKS like it was just in my cart while i waffled about it and yesterday a friend texted me with absolutely no context to ask if i wanted to get anything from taobao because they wanted to get a better deal on shipping so yknow. im just taking that as some kind of Sign

[xo-cod]

Can you imagine that for some reason reason or another, that hyperfeminine! Reader has to be the tech analyst for not only their 141 boys but for KorTac as well? Or maybe something happened and she was temporarily transferred to KorTac?

Either the way, the 141 boys are not happy and KorTac is getting the sunshine treatment from hyperfeminine! Reader.

aww i know 141 and kortac are technically enemies but this was so cute LMAO 🤎 it's v rushed and ooc !!

when kortac goes low, simon goes lower ‼️

"when does she come back?" soap's annoyed voice cut through the air of the barracks as he slumped down on the couch in the living room. this would've been the normal time after a mission he would've headed to your room. partly to annoy you but also to spend time together after a long day. he hadn't noticed just how much he craved your company, just how much he needed it

"she just went, soap. she's gone for the next few weeks" gaz sighed as he leaned back against his seat, the thought of kortac having access to you was grinding on his nerves but this was your job. you were the best at what you did, they had to trust you to do your thing. though it didn't stop the anger from rearing its ugly head at whatever kortac were making you do

"i don't trust 'em, god knows what they're doin. they should hire their own technical analyst" ghost spoke coldly, already pulling out his phone wanting to dial your number. the slightest change in your tone and he was already jumping in his car to drive recklessly to you no matter what. even if he had threatened könig beforehand and had to be physically restrained, he would bury the german 6 feet under if a single strand on your pretty head was damaged

"easy lad. könig gave us his word-" price began but ghost cut him off with a scoff. "and we're supposed to trust him?? the good for nothing faceless bastard?" ghost retorted, making the captain raise his brow at his unusual behaviour

gaz had pulled up pictures of the team, looking at könig with a raised brow which had caught the attention of ghost who immediately stiffened up in anger. he pointed a long finger at the picture, cursing under his breath at könig

"christ i hate him. look at his hood. only wearing it because he's ugly and he knows it"

"lt... you wear a mask"

"yeah and i wear it better. so what's your bloody point johnny??"

meanwhile at kortac

"so what's this?" könig had taken interest in your little figures, in your weird little knick knacks that you carried around as you worked on your laptop to help them solve their issues.

"oh it's just a fidget toy i made of ghost. it's cute, isn't it?"

"it's very ugly. but you should make one of me :D"

[alpaca-clouds]

Public Transport COULD Be Great

Americans visiting Europe, especially those more left-leaning Americans, will always be so impressed when it comes to our public transport. And it does not matter where they visit here. Netherlands? "Amazing Public Transport!" France? "Amazing!" Germany? "Amazing!" Even in the UK they will be impressed.

And I kinda get it. While once upon a time the US made a conserted effort to get people moving via train, that has been almost two centuries ago and by now they just decided that people having cars is making more companies more money, so who needs cheap public transport? And while I personally actually kinda liked the public transport on the east coast while I was visiting the US... Yeah, I am well aware that the east coast (especially the area between New York City and DC) is not quite representative for the US.

However, here is the thing: If you ask most Europeans about their public transport... Well, we'll complain as well.

Because they fucking ruined it!

See, here is the issue, in a lot of parts in Europe, at some point or another the government privatized some or all of the public transport. This hit some countries like the UK especially hard, but Germany was hit also quite a lot.

Because of that a lot of things happened that happened when you try to use capitalist logic onto something that cannot work under capitalism.

For example a lot of rails have been removed in areas where it was not "cost efficient" to run trains. Or if they have not been removed, they are at least no longer used. In Germany you will find that in the area where I am living (North-Rhine-Westfelia) we have somewhat good running public transport. Meanwhile a friend of mine is living in former East Germany. And something you gotta understand about former East Germany: After the reunification a lot of people from East Germany tried to move away from there, thinking they would do better in "West Germany". So you will find a lot of mostly empty villages and towns there. And you know what does not pay under capitalism? Right: Running trains to fairly depopulated villages and towns. So... This friend is forced to use a car all the time. Because the next train station that is actually still in use is 45 minutes by car away.

Sure, technically there is a bus running through her village... It comes 3 times a day mondays to fridays, 2 times a day on Saturday and not at all on Sunday. Also to reach the aforementioned train station, the bus connection would take her almost two hours.

Now mind you: There is a train station about 10 minutes by car from her. But that one has not been in use for almost 20 years. Because, again: It just does not pay. It is not profitable for the company, so it is no longer in use.

And here we get to the issue: Public transport is an amazing thing... But we see again and again, that it really only works in those cases where it is state-run and paid for with taxes. As soon as it is privatized it will just not work. Because, well... In general public transport really is not a thing that will be paying for itself. It is fairly expensive, and to keep it profitable you need to keep raising the prices. (As a German: Believe me, I know!)

Not to mention that company policies will lead to weird stuff happening with the trains. Here in Germany? Well, the biggest train company (that is kinda partly state-owned, but not state-run, so it is run under capitalist ideas) has promised their investors that the trains will not be as delayed as before. But given the piss-poor state in which the rail network is, this is just not feasible. So, what will they do? Simple! If a train gets too delayed they will just cancel it. Will that fuck everyone travelling over way more than letting the train delay for 20 minutes? Yeah. But they do not care. They only care about the investors.

And this is the general issue.

For public transit to work, you need to design the transit network to serve the people - and not to make money. Because it does not matter that there are only some old people left in some depopulated little town in eastern Germany or western England... Those old people deserve to be able to get from their depopulated little town to the next big shopping center and cultural center as well.

As long as you do not design the stuff with those people in mind...

Sure, it is better than no public transport. But it still sucks.

[a-very-tired-jew]

We have to talk about Leftist Antisemitism

One of the things I have been grappling with since Oct 7th is the rise of antisemitism in Leftist spaces. Often we find ourselves falling into the same old position of blaming the Right for these issues. However, over the past few decades minority voices have pointed out that the Left has issues with bigotry in its own way. For myself, and likely many other Jews, growing up in Leftist spaces I heard antisemitic jokes and lines all the time. However, they were never the overt hate fueled rhetoric I would hear from the Right. Conspiracies were relegated to "The Rothschilds control the world" rather than "The Jews control the world." Regardless of how you feel about the rich, the Rothschilds are a dog whistle for Jews. Hell, my own family members would say this same line because the majority of us are on the Left. So obviously we take a position regarding the ultra rich. However, this Rothschilds line isn't the only dog whistle. Often there were jokes at your expense from outside your in-group. Common refrains that *insert Jewish dog whistle* couldn't be trusted due to *insert conspiracy coded in Leftist language*. That's the issue... The antisemitism on the Left is coded in a language that makes it more subtle than overt rightwing antisemitism. But how did we get here? It definitely predates Oct 7th. We can partly lay blame at this at the feet of something that feels like an old and tired trope at this point: Russia. In particular, the good ole USSR. You see, dear reader, regardless of how you describe your sociopolitical and economics leanings, and regardless of whether or not you reject USSR style Communism, their style and impact still influence you and the rest of the world. As Leftists we often stand opposed to many aspects of Western capitalist ideals, which in turn exposes us to many of the anti-Western writings, philosophies, beliefs, etc... The issue is that the USSR has a very sordid history with antisemitism. Some of you may be saying "but wait! There were Jewish Bolsheviks! Stalin even supported Israel!", don't you worry. We'll get there. While there may have been Jewish Bolsheviks and members of the party post revolution, it does not change the policies and actions that preceded and followed. Robert Weinberg, Dara Horn, David Nirenberg, and other historians have all written extensively at some point or another about this very issue. I highly recommend Dara Horn's latest piece for the Atlantic "Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies". She briefly covers this topic. If you can't access it, well here we go. Zionism as a concept had already been around for a few decades by the time the Communist Revolution occurred, having been solidified by the Dreyfuss Affair in the late 1800s. Zionism is/was also considered Jewish nationalism. While a Jew could be a Russian Jew, German Jew, or any other "nation" Jew, they were still considered an other and thus they could never truly be a nationalist for that country. Only for Israel/Zion. As such, Jews in the USSR were not trusted as it was argued they could not be truly devoted to the Party. Jews were then labeled as Zionists. Zionism was considered anti-Communist, and racist due to the Party purposefully putting out that the "chosen people" line meant that Jews were supremacists and believed themselves to be better than others (The chosen people line actually refers to us choosing to adhere to certain laws). As such, Zionist activities were shut down as they were an act of treason and betrayal. This means that synagogues, shuls, business, and more were shut down as a means to disrupt the "Jewish conspirators". It did not matter that Jews were involved in the revolution, if you were Jewish you were an other and could not be trusted. pt 1.

[heavencanbeaprisontoo]

The Sun and The Moon

(Prologue: Meeting By the Sea) Alfie Solomons x Shelby!OC

Summary: In early November of 1917, you are over a year into your service to the Crown as a volunteer nurse. Following a hollow victory, you make your acquaintance with one Alfie Solomons. WC: 3.1K Warnings: Mentions of war, death, g-re, v-mit, foul language, angst, psychological distress, etc.

November. 7, 1917.

You know you need to hurry. It's almost nightfall; you won’t have much light left to write in. Yet you cannot help but linger at the sight of today’s victory. Before you, there is an ocean. It is a vast sea of gray, thick, and cold. Unfeeling and joyless. An ocean of standing water, crumbling buildings, and miles upon miles of mud. The buildings once housed people, but now they resemble the ruins of a bygone era. A necropolis.

Rolling clouds of dirt and gunpowder float just above the ground like phantoms. It’s the only piece of this that reminds you anything of home. Beckoning to the fog and soot that rolled in the early mornings when you would walk with your brothers to Charlie’s yard. Behind you, white tents flap in the wind, and cloth clings to metal rods that hold the structure in place. A field hospital. The only taste of civilization left for miles.

Rings meant to fasten the flaps down rattle like windchimes against the winds. A sudden updraft carries the stench of decay from the trenches up to where you stand. You press a cloth into a small bottle of peppermint oil. Quickly, you put that cloth on your nose. One of the first things you learned after joining the VADs was to keep your feet dry and to have plenty of peppermint oil on hand. It wards off the smell of rot, both in the living and the dead. The first time you smelled it, you vomited. Now, you barely gag. Still holding the cloth to your nose, you turn back to the field hospital.

Your name is Maeve Shelby, and you are twenty-four.

It’s warmer inside the tents. Uncomfortably so. The warmth is from all the bodies; most lay about in cots; the rest are your fellow VADs and doctors. Humidity mixed with stagnant sweat and all the bed pans that ever come clean enough to be rid of acrid remnants. To save yourself from having to sit in the midst of it all, you set aside a chair for yourself at the mouth of the field hospital. It is a plain, simple wooden chair with one leg shorter than the other three. Beside it is a stack of empty ammunition boxes. You have a small lantern weighing down an unfinished letter. With a sigh, you sit down and resume your writing from earlier that day: 

Dearest Aunt Polly, Ada, and Finn ,

I know once my letter finds you that this will be well-known, but the Allies have finally claimed victory here in Ypres. The soldiers say we are nearly finished ousting the Germans from Passchendaele. Only a few remain. Too injured to retreat. It won’t be long before we can claim this as ours. Still, we have yet to celebrate. It’s strange. All these months we spent fighting, and this doesn’t feel like a victory. So many lives were lost. There are too many to even try to count.

My work keeps me busy, but it is at night when my mind is most busy. Even with the fighting stopped, it has been difficult to find the dead and the wounded. I do not know where these men will be put once they’re found. We have hardly any beds left to offer. I have taken to sleeping in a chair by the entry to the main tent. Partly to free a bed for those that need it, partly to keep an eye out for any soldiers still trying to make it back. 

For so long, all I’ve done is race from place to place. Now all I do is change bandages, sooth the restless, and listen for the wounded who remain stuck in the trenches. Those still well enough to fight are sent out to recover their comrades. It’s hard work. Idle bombs and lurking landmines are all still out there. Some men come back worse than they left.

I know that the boys aren’t out there, but still, I strain to listen for them. John, Arthur, and Tommy. In my dreams, I do hear them. Just as I know, you hear them in your dreams too, Polly. It makes me wake with such a fear in me that my feet carry me forward before I’m fully awake. I rush toward that ocean of muck and blood, and I stop only when my fingers pierce the earth; the feel of it under my fingernails brings back my senses for some reason. 

I wonder if all the victories we’ve won felt like this. I wonder if, when all is said and done, any of this will amount to anything at all. Does anyone remember why we’re even here? Who will take our bodies home if none of us survive?

“God,” you say, taking your pen and scratching out the last line. Then, you scratch out the last paragraph. You cross out line after line. They don’t need to read this. This madness. It was good of Ada to back out of volunteering. Not just because of this lonely sea of mud and blood, but for little Finn, too. With you and the three eldest men gone, someone needed to take care of him. Mom has been dead for almost five years now. Father may as well be dead; he felt like a ghost when he was home anyway. Aunt Polly was holding up “the business,” from what you could gleam from Ada’s letters back to you.

In the year you’ve spent out on the fields, you have yet to receive a letter from your brothers. Not that you blame them. All of you are on the move. What you know of their state comes from Ada, or Polly. Arthur and Tommy are together, which somewhat soothes you. You think of John often. He’s in France with Danny and Jeremiah. I think you joined so that you could look after your brothers. It’s been years since you’ve seen them in person. Who knows what state they may be in? There are men behind you who will never be whole. Broken bodies, shattered minds, and more scar tissue than flesh. Are your brothers as you remember them? You hate to linger on the thought.

You fold your ruined letter three times and rip it in half. The give-and-take of it feels good somehow. It reminds you of something you read once about children being destructive to gain some form of control. You can’t control how long this war lasts, when you can come home, what home you return to, or what state you find your brothers in, but you can control this paper. So, you rip it again. And again. Each tear becomes more jagged and childish. You throw up your hands, and the bits of paper fly away in the cold November winds.

‘Snow from Birmingham to Belgium,’ you crack a small smile.

You once dreamed of journeying across Europe. It was a lovely fantasy filled with long train rides and French pastries. Winking at handsome strangers while hiding your smile behind a lacy white glove. Now, you feel like you’ve seen too much of it. When all this fighting is over, maybe you’ll take a holiday to Margate. Clean your memory with a long look at an ocean of water instead of this hellscape.

“Shelby!” Your head turns sharply to see Nurse Burgess charging towards you. Her round face was blotchy as always, her thin lips drawn down in a harsh frown. “Miss Shelby, you are needed in the back.”

Tucking your scented hanky back into your apron, you ask, “Is someone in throes?” Some men, in the throes of despair, couldn’t always tell the difference between a nurse and a German soldier.

Her meaty hand takes you by the upper arm and says, “No, I need you to keep an eye on someone.” Nurse Burgess drags you through the maze of malaise swiftly, despite the growing night. The nurses have navigated this place in near darkness many times now. You could probably make it from one end to the other, blindfolded. Tonight, the field hospital was quiet aside from the moaning. Nurse Burgess guides you deeper inside the field hospital with a hoarse, “It’s Captain Solomons; that bastard won’t lay still, and I haven’t the time to keep on him.”

You try to keep your voice low as soldiers in their cots roll over to follow you and Nurse Burgess’ mad dash. “Captain Solomons? I thought he was sedated, heavily!”

Nurse Burgess, on the other hand, has no such qualms. She hollers, “That man is a bloody bear. We keep trying to give him more, and he shoos us off. Now, he won’t stop trying to get out of his cot... with a blown-out leg!” Two soldiers sat on their cots with a barrel between them. They played cards under the glow of a flickering candle on their shared nightstand. As you passed, they snickered.

“I can’t imagine he would be able to move much; Doctor Gill said he nearly lost that leg,” you noted wearily. Burgess was nearly done with her escorting or you; the back of the tent was not far off. You stepped over a pool of what could have been rainwater, bile, or piss. There is no point in stopping to check.

At the back of the field hospital lay two specific sorts of patients. Those who could not move and those who absolutely should not move. Captain Solomons was in the former category. Days ago, he sustained a bullet to his shin that nearly shattered it. He had been under strict orders, and a heavy dose of sedatives, to stay right where he was. Each cot in this back section has its own privacy curtain. When you first joined, you thought it was for the nurses to sleep and change in. The other nurses had a good laugh about that. When she comes upon Captain Solomons’ curtain, Nurse Burgess lets you go. S yanks back the curtain, shielding the Captain from view, and lets out a deep grunt.

You peer around her shoulder and sigh. The captain sits on the thin cot with a sterile sheet pushed down to his legs. His back is raised from the metal headboard, and he has his body turned with his good foot nearly touching the ground. Still on the bed rests his wounded leg. It lays at a stiff, awkward angle. You know he must at least be aware of its precarious state. In the dark, it’s difficult to make out all of his features.

“Captain!”

He’s a big man, with broad shoulders and heavy muscle on his back and arms. You can see it pushing against his long-sleeved undershirt. What strikes you most about him is not his mass or his leg, but his grin. His cheeky, cheeky grin.

Captain Solomons keeps on that grin as he says, “Hm, it appears I have been caught, right?” His accent is thick. You know very little about Captain Solomons aside from the most basic of details. You know he’s from London, you know that he’s Jewish, and you know that he can be difficult. The Captain’s tone remains glib as he remarks, “And you brought a friend, ‘ello there.”

“You are to be resting, Captain Solomons!” Based on her tone, you can imagine Nurse Burgess is turning purple about now. Captain Solomons gives her a boyish shrug and stays upright in his cot. That alone makes Nurse Burgess turn to you and hiss and say, “Keep him here so he doesn’t rip his bloody stitches, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” you hum. She leaves you there in the parted curtains with Captain Solomons. He regards you for a moment, then restarts his attempt at standing. You let out a sigh and hurry to him before he gains enough traction to hurt himself. Placing your hands on his shoulders, you try to ease him back into his crib. “Captain, you really must follow the doctor’s instructions.” You feel him push against your palms.

“Fuck the doctors; pardon my verbiage, but I’m about to go mad lying about this miserable lump you call a bed,” he says, putting his hands around your wrists. You are taken aback by how easily his hand wraps around your wrist. If he wanted to, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to just shove you aside. “I need to take a walk.”

Politeness doesn’t seem to work on him, nor does roughness. While you weren’t tough like John or ruthless like Arthur, you were clever with people. You could get a sense of how someone’s mind ticked quickly. You hoped you could catch on about Captain Solomons too. “And when your stitches rip and you’ve lost your leg, what cot would you like me to move you to?”

He stops pushing against you. His chest is still heaving, and his hot breath fans your cheeks. You swallowed thickly; you really underestimated how close you were to him. This is a is a big, big man. One who had rumors of a violent temper that took very little to agitate.

“You have been injured and are lucky to be alive. And you still have all your parts, Captain. Why are you risking that just to go on a fucking walk?” He stares you down with a furrowed brow. For a moment, you worry you’ve poked the bear a bit too hard. “If you refuse to take the doctors seriously, what do you think the men who answer to you will do? They’ll all be trying to walk about despite their pain and end up injuring themselves for pride.”

Solomons puts you at ease when he sits back on the cot, releasing your wrists. “I can’t just lay about like this. I’ll lose the rest of my marbles waiting around for those doctors to get these stitches out. There’s not a single thing a man can do to occupy his mind in this place. It smells of piss, rot, and pus. If they would give me back my knife, right? I could cut out a little window in this tarp behind me and get a whiff of fresh air. But they won’t. Where’s the respect, hm?”

You cross your arms and ask, “So, you’re bored?”

He stiffens. Oh, you hit the nail right on the head with that one. You can’t exactly blame him. The longer you stand still, the faster all your fears catch up with you. All those ugly things you’ve seen and heard find you. That’s why the soldiers play cards and the nurses trade that single copy of ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘A Room with a View’ back and forth. Distraction. “If you can stay still where you are, I can try to get a book or a deck of cards. Would you like that?”

With a sweeping gesture to the darkness, he says, “Can’t exactly read a page or play a hand in the dark, now can we love?”

Shaking your head at his childish attempts at derailing your little plan, you take out a matchbox from your apron. With your last matchstick, you bring life to a lantern by his bed. You turn to face him, a warm orange light reflecting on your face. In the dim lighting offered by the lantern, you can see the Captain’s face. He’s young for a man of his rank. And handsome, you can admit as much in your own mind. His eyes are bright, and his features are deeply masculine. A hard jawline with a prominent brow and pouty lips. Most soldiers, regardless of rank, are required to be clean-shaven. This is not true for Captain Solomons. He has a well-maintained moustache and beard, cut close to his jawline. You heard from somewhere that Solomons was an exception due to his faith or his demeanor. Captain Solomons is looking up at you, too. His expression was all aglow. Bright gray eyes stare at your face. Confused almost as they regard you.

“Do we have a deal, Captain?”

He’s still staring at you, his brow furrowed as he studies your face. Finally, he says, “If you can get ‘Frankenstein,’ I’ll stay put. That’s a piece of fiction I can sit with for a good bit of time.”

You beam at him and take the chance to push his healthy leg under his blanket. Solomons grumbles, “Easy now, easy. I’m injured, remember?” He allows you to gently move him safely into his cot.

Finding the nurse who had taken possession of the book was no easy task, but she was quick to give it to you when you informed her a captain had asked for it. When you came back with the book, Solomons was still in bed. You thanked a God you no longer believed in and handed him the book. Just as you attempted to leave, Captain Solomons made an admission: “My eyes, yeah, they don’t pinch up the written word so easy these days. If there’s not a grisly scene out there for you to attend to, might you do me the service of reading this aloud for me?”

For a moment, you think about refusing. You never know when you’ll be called away. But then again, you’re the one who came up with the idea to get him a distraction anyway. Settling down at the edge of his bed, you take the book from his hand and begin to read. Captain Solomons leans back against the metal headboard, listening to you begin reading the preface. What you didn’t know was that this was the start of a near-nightly ritual. Captain Solomons would attempt to slink out of bed to go'stretch his leg(s)’ until you would rush over to distract him with another book or game of cards. He became a welcome distraction for you as well. A friend, almost. Perhaps more than that, if the way he kissed you one cold night in late November told you anything.

His lips were as soft as they looked. 

Whether it was friendship or not, it lasted for about a month. Captain Solomons and his men were removed from the area for transport to the west. You and your fellow VADs would go north. He didn’t stop to say goodbye to you, which bothered you. The morning after he kissed you was the day you found out about the move. And he was already gone.

In one year and three days, the war would be over. You would return home to find that all your brothers had survived. But they weren’t quite themselves anymore, and neither were you.

[fungusgnat444]

“König being desperate for escort reader :(“ It might be the hottest thing I've ever read

well shit girlie here’s a part two… ily x hope you enjoy (sorry this took me so long)NSFW, angst kinda?, desperate touch starved König, he’s kinda subby hehe, afab fem reader, sugar daddy/pay pig shit if you squint, mentions of anxiety and poor self worth, implied size difference, oral f receiving, piv sex (no mentions of protection but always wrap it up y’all), begging, no german apart from schatz, big pp, decryphilia kinda? (He cries because you taste good lol), i think thats it. Let me know if i missed anything

this man is so stupid and obsessed with you it would honestly be annoying if he didn’t spoil you. You’d be lying if you said he wasn’t your favourite client but there’s only so many times he can burst into tears at the sight of a hickey another client left on you before it gets annoying. As soon as his dumb cock is buried in between your plush tits he forgets all about it immediately. Now he’s crying for a different reason. Speaking of which once he’s comfortable with you this poor boy cries a lot. Weather it’s because he’s over stimulated himself from desperately fucking you like he’ll die if he doesn’t fill you little cunt immediately or he’s feeling sorry for himself, you could probably fill a bathtub with his tears at this point :(

although he feels extremely guilty about it he has started stalking you. It started out innocently (not really he’s just delusional), just checking that you’re safe of course. Spying on you with his binoculars on the rooftop across the street. Only to make sure the client you’re with isn’t hurting you (he’s so stupid). You almost wanted to kill that bastard when he started leaving you gifts on your doorstep, but something about his antics was strangely endearing. You knew at least partly why he was like this. Picking up on little clues each time he vented to you with his head on your chest while you play with his hair. He’d joined the military so young doesn’t exactly give you much opportunity to meet women, the few woman he did work with wouldn’t look twice at him because of his reputation and even if they did he wouldn’t be interested. Unlike most of the men he worked with he had enough professional respect for these women to ever let anything happen. No matter how lonely he got :(. That’s not the only reason he doesn’t know how to interact with women. The glass case filled with war hammer figurines and frankly absurd looking gaming pc setup in his living room told you that he wasn’t exactly popular with the girls when he was younger either. The moment he first got his hands on your body you knew he had barely any experience. Not that you minded, if anything it made it feel more real. Not like most of your clients who just wanted to blow off some steam; he needed this. The desperation in his eyes, his frantic, shaky hands running all over your body like he thinks you’ll leave at any moment and of course he’s just so desperate to hear you say you want it. To know you like him this way, needy. You like it when he begs, when he thanks you, when he’s so lost he can barely speak, he knows you do. He’ll beg for anything, even if he just gets to watch you play with yourself, he just wants to see you cross eyed and breathless, clinging to him for support. Getting so desperate you start begging. Turning into him; pathetic and whiny.

(I know this is pretty different to the first part. Brain rot took over. Hope you still like it. Kinda enjoyed writing könig this way and fleshing out the character a bit so I might turn it into a lil series if anyone shows interest xoxo)

[minetteskvareninova]

As someone who had to study Czechoslovak relations before World War I in excrutiating detail (elective course, for the sweet, sweet credits), you can't even imagine my endless frustration with foreign history enthusiasts and their wonder at the whole idea of czechoslovakism.

Like. In the 19th century the idea that Czechs and Slovaks are one nation was THE NORM in Czech circles. Even within Slovak national movement, there were plenty of proponents of this idea - Kollár and Šafárik, for one. Slovak nation had no prior history of independence, zero nobility and very little in terms of elites (mostly minor clergy and urban intelligentsia, classes which prior to 18th century had almost no political power). Add to this the fact that since the Reformation, Slovak protestants (who were a minority, but still had a respectable literary culture post-emancipation by Joseph II.) used Biblical Czech, which was closer to Slovak than modern Czech, for religious purposes, and that at first there actually wasn't any commonly-accepted literary Slovak, only a cluster of dialects... And you can see that the idea that Slovaks are a distinct nations from Czechs was hardly obvious to a 19th century observer.

This is not to diminish the hard work of Slovak catholics and later Štúr's group (which included both catholics and younger protestants) at establishing a unified Slovak language and culture - especially since the victory of Štúr's Slovak was very much a result of organic growth untethered to any government mandate. The belief in an independent Slovak nation was very much just that popular within Slovak intelligentsia and was spread among the lower classes trough hard work; many modern leftists could marvel at the wide scope of activism that these 19th century nationalists engaged in. The idea of Slovak nation persisted despite extreme pressure from the Hungarian government to hungarize, which in and of itself is truly admirable. And yes it was incredibly ignorant of the Czech elites to dismiss Štúr's reform as "separatism". But. That doesn't change the fact that among Czechs, the idea of Slovaks as separate from them was only adopted very slowly. Heck, you had Czech people in the late 19th century being like "uhm, that's a nice language you have over there, very useful for common speech and literature and stuff, but can you please use Czech in your scientific works at least, because this new tongue honestly isn't well-developed enough for that..."

And yes czechoslovakism was very useful politically, which Masaryk, ahead of his time as he was, realized, and yes Masaryk's roots among Moravian Slovaks probably gave him a good view of the grey area between the two nations. But like. Can we just stop pretending it was some kind of novel idea, when a united Czechoslovak nation was in parts of both national movements the default from which the autonomous existence of Slovaks had to be established?!

Especially the whole "it was just a cynical ploy to outnumber Germans" thing. Yes, that's what partly motivated Czech politicians at that specific moment, but it's kinda unreal to reduce the idea of czechoslovak unity to that, when in the 1880's you literally had some Czech writers wax poetically how Slovaks are their brothers, how beautiful Slovakia is and how unfairly they are treated by Hungarians in the least cynical way possible.

[mrporg]

Signalis is a truly weird and scary game. It is however beautiful and it has wonderful lore.

Imagine a world where humanity has conquered the solar system and is divided into 2 opposing factions at war with one another. One is mostly unknown, the other is what would happen if the DDR (East Germany) had become a full communist dictatorship powerhouse on steroids. Sprinkle on top of that a caste of biomechanical individuals who are tasked with both keeping order and doing menial work in a very codified society.

A nightmare to be sure, but a beautiful one.

The story itself starts with you playing as Elster, who is one of those biomechanical persons called replikas. You are looking for your human partner, in a mining facility where things seemingly went very very wrong after they dug too greedily and too deep. After a while it takes a really weird turn and I'm not too sure what to make of it.

Spoiler alert, it's a tragic love story with no happy ending, sorry to disappoint.

However, I don't want to talk about the story for once, but about the replikas, who are nothing short of fascinating. Each model line is derived from an original human and has inherited some of their traits and personality. Within a line, they are usually assigned to the same kind of tasks. Because of personality disorders issues which seem to partly come from imperfect duplication technology, a very big part of managing replikas consists in placing them in known safe (for their issues) situations and "anchoring" them through various means (music, caring for plants, alone time, …) to stabilize their emotions.

For instance, Kolibri units work best as a group when they can feel part of a whole. They talk about "singing in unison". On the other hand, Adler units are loners who only need to have a strong emotional attachment to the Falke unit in charge of the place.

Conversely, replikas also inherit trauma from their initial source. For instance, Elster units are described as stoic and reserved, best left alone. But it is also noted that talking to them about the war will destabilize them as their neural patterns originate from a late soldier.

Earlier I said that something went very wrong in this facility, and indeed, most replikas have "degraded". As a result, they have become very violent and will usually attack you on sight.

Credit: /u/Likopinina

Elster units have a height of 1.78m (5'10"), so you are not small. However, when you are facing Mynah (2.6m / 8'6"), Falke (2.5m / 8'2") or Storch (2.4m / 7'10") units, who all are very intent on terminating you with extreme prejudice…

Well, like I said, it's a scary game. But one I will be thinking about for a long time I'm sure.

Oh by the way, all the replika models are named after birds in German, how cool is that? :D

One last note: for some reason the fandom for this game is super horny, so remember that if you want to dig in. You've been warned ;)

[vetteldixon]

with the dc inside joke thing, do you think there was an element of bullying (as such) going on with dc/mark maybe other drivers towards seb? not just on a commentating level but just in general. i’ve always wondered since obviously after 2010 there seemed to be a lot of snide and unkind remarks about seb and things like that

i'll start out right by saying that i take seb at face value when he said that kimi was the only one who would really talk to him when he first joined f1, which was a big deal! which i mention because i sort of think that precludes a lot of, idk, classic bullying behavior, except ofc the silent treatment, which even if that's 'normal' in f1 i can easily believe that seb felt it was rather pointed and internalized it.

i think the red bull drivers is another can of worms because they would've been observing seb get the golden child treatment for years. so i kind of have to imagine that the 'inside jokes' and snide comments and everything are partly venting frustration and/or jealousy. something else about it that puts a terrible taste in my mouth is that dc and mark etc have the luxury of crafting their comments in their first language, and delivering them to the british media who they already knew was firmly on their side from the schumi years. maybe they felt like their comments were tit for tat, especially if they were kept aware of helmut marko's comments to german-language media and counted them, or that they felt like they were doing something important by making sure seb's ego was cut down to size, but. well. i guess i'll sum up by saying that it's classic bully thinking to excuse poor behavior by acting like it's a level playing field and the key power imbalances, eh?

oh yeah and again i'll reiterate that we only know the public-facing side of it and maybe seb laughed at more of it than we know but idk. my mama taught me that kindness is free 🤷‍♀️

[hinkepink]

Since a lot of us seemed to be quite curious about Falk's costume and the funky bib thingy in Sinners of the Seven Seas, I went down a rabbit hole to find out what it actually is! Come with me on this journey!

(Disclaimer: I will reference my learnings quite generalized, so I would urge you to do more research if you want to get into the nitty gritty! You could also shoot me a message if you want some more specific info or pointers or want to do a learn with me! Also feel free to correct me please!) I don't know a lot about vestments (ger.: liturgische Gewänder) yet, so it's time to find out the names first so I can do research more easily! His long, black dress is called a cassock or soutane (ger.: Soutane) and is mainly worn by catholic clergy, though some orthodox and some protestant churches wear this vestment too. His sash that he wears around his waist is called a cincture (ger.: Zingulum) and it's mainly worn by catholic clergy. It's also not the same thing as his funky shawl he wears in stage costume, that is called a stole (ger.: Stola). And now finally his bib! I'm frantically searching through the references of different Wikipedia pages by now until I find a PDF about costume research by Martha Bringemeier, 1974 and...

...it's called bands (ger.: Beffchen) and it's mainly worn by protestants today, but until somewhere in the 19th century it was also worn by catholics. Depending on the denomination of the protestants, the bands are sewn together (german reformists), split open and angled by 30° (lutherans and swiss reformists) or partly split (united churches). Since the information I found on bands was mainly focused on protestant ways to wear them (all white as opposed to black and white), the pictures I found of catholic black-and-white bands were all split in the middle, Falk's bands had weirdly angled edges and rounded corners AND since I had a bad fever, I asked my friends dad for help. He is a pastor and very interested in christian history, but he too was quite confused, so here came the last resort: Find out who made this costume!

Aha!! Now that was easy. Kostüm Keiser? Time to google! Huh, well, seems they made a typo, I can only find Kostüm Kaiser from Switzerland - but their video production partner "VDPICTURES" is from Switzerland too, so that must be it! I sent them a mail with pictures attached, asked if it was their costume, if they had infos on the bands and since they have their own research library I also asked them if they can recommend a good book on vestments! And right the next day I was blessed with information by the very kind people behind Kostüm Kaiser: It's a pastor/priest vestment from their fund and the cassock as well as the cincture are catholic and are still worn like this today! The bands are catholic as well and (to their knowledge) were mainly worn like this in france in the 18th and 19th century. In french it's called "rabat".

They couldn't tell me why Falk's bands were so non-rectangular, they said it could be an older production from their costume rental, but that there are engravings of french priests that show different shapes. (They didn't provide pictures, but the bands of french roman-catholics seem to vary a lot in general in these times) On a side note, they recommended me a really old book from their library, «Abbildungen aller geistlichen und weltlichen Orden» by Christian Friedrich Schwan from the late 18th century and I actually found it completely digitized! Click for old book It's in german, but feel free to shoot me a message/ an ask if you want some parts translated to learn more! (I can't translate the whole book, but if a costume is interesting to you, I can try to summarize the information on it for you!) Alright, thank you for coming on this little journey with me and big thanks to Kostüm Kaiser for the help!

[whencyclopedia]

Frodi

Frodi (Old Icelandic: Fróði) is the name of legendary Danish kings in Norse mythology. There is a whole range of kings bearing the same name, pointing to fascinating traditions in both Old Icelandic and continental Germanic storytelling. Frodi features in Snorri Sturluson's Skáldskaparmál, the Ynglinga saga, and Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, among other sources.

The Golden Age of Frodi in the Skáldskaparmál

In his Skáldskaparmál, part of the Prose Edda, the 13th-century Icelandic chieftain and author Snorri Sturluson explains the origins of many complex metaphors or kenningar. He mentions that one of the terms for gold is the flour of Frodi (Old Icelandic: Fróði), elsewhere the meal of Frodi, and goes on to explain the origin of this metaphor, where he fancifully links Odin to the history of Denmark and partly Sweden. Thus, in Snorri's story, a son of Odin, Skjöld, the founder of the dynasty, had a son, Fridleif, who in turn has a son Frodi. Chronologically, this would have been during the reign of Roman emperor Augustus (r. 27 BCE to 14 CE) and his pax romana. There are some historical elements to this, such as trade between Romans and proto-Danish speakers, with members of the aristocracy forging their prestige through contact with the Roman Empire, but a great unified land certainly did not exist.

Snorri tries to draw a parallel to Jesus Christ in what he tells next, and he also tries to prove how naive pre-Christians were in that they attributed the peace reigning in all northern territories at the time to Frodi. We have a bit from the myth of a golden era, with no murders or thefts. Frodi meets King Fjölnir from Sweden, and he purchases two slave women at the same time two gigantic millstones are discovered, which have the ability to grind anything. So Frodi tells the slaves to grind gold and prosperity and gives them very short breaks, only as long as a song, which is why they name the poem they are chanting Grottasöngr, after the name of the magic mill. The maidens deplore the inability of the king to foresee the consequences of his deeds, because what they in fact ground is an army against Frodi. A sea king called Mysing comes, plunders, and kills Frodi. Mysing orders them to grind salt, which they do until the ships sink, the seas flow into the mill hole, and they become salt.

Snorri probably got these very precise details from the Grottasöngr of the Poetic Edda, which he cites after retelling this story. In the poem, it is revealed that the girls are descendants of mountain giants, and they are the ones who had shaped the grindstone, but Frodi remains ignorant of their lineage, thus losing his seat at Hleidra (Lejre). So, historically, there might have been a reference to the first leaders here; Lejre (also bearing the name Fredshøj or Peace Barrow) had settlements dating back to 500. Dated to c. 650, the remains of a princely burial were excavated down by the river in a barrow called Grydehøj. The man and his grave goods had been cremated, but a profusion of melted bronze and gold, as well as sacrificed animals testify to his wealth. Snorri, however, interprets it from a Christian temporal and mythical perspective. Most probably, it was a saga of the Skjöldungs from which Snorri adopted this notion, as suggested by a 17th-century paraphrase.

Continue reading...

[xjulixred45x]

Hi!

How would Lucifer, Mephisto, Satan, and Shiro react to a half demon who's considerably younger than them crushing on them? Maybe their relationship too? 👉🏻👈🏻

(age difference like if Rin and Yukio were adults, reader is the same age as them)

First of all, i don't like that kind of age differences, but i can do the crushing Headcanons(this would be kind of short for the amount of characters). Thanks for the Request

Half demon Reader x Lucifer/Mephisto Pheles/Satan/ Shiro Fujimoto: Crush and relationship

Genre: Headcanons

Reader: neutral

Warnings: BIG BIG SPOILERS FOR THE MANGA!!!!!(the only one who dosen't have it is Mephisto 😅), Illuminati, Satan is honestly a LOT of warnings himself, some posessive/overprotective behavior, lots of fluff, Reader is corresponded:)

Mephisto Pheles

**sigh** THIS MENACE--

We all know that Mephisto is someone arrogant and pompous, that doesn't change even if he is interested in someone aka reader.

The fact that the reader is half-demon only helps to increase his curiosity towards them and definitely broadens his interest further.

Don't worry, I've dealt with other hybrids before, and reader is definitely the friendliest and prettiest of all ;)

Definitely when that happens he becomes quite clingy and does not hide it in the slightest, either with displays of physical affection such as hugs to say hello, following them in his dog form, saying things that KNOW they are interested in, etc.

In general he is playing to WIN so to speak.

so when he finds out that it is reciprocated, he is quite arrogant about it (he doesn't want to admit that he is partly relieved).

In general a relationship with Mephisto is quite extravagant.

Mephisto IS already flamboyant, but he's surprisingly good at listening to what his partner has to say.

ESPECIALLY if it has to do with humans, and he honestly doesn't understand some of the social norms that cause problems for the reader. But he is willing to listen.

after all you can 1- spend time with your partner and 2- know more about humans, Two for One!

HE GAVE READER GERMAN NICKNAMES, CAN YOU TAKE THIS HEADCANON OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS.

I think the fact that Reader is half-demon would help him see them as an equal more easily, but he is definitely still VERY protective of them, since at the end of the day they are much weaker than him.

MANY GIFTS, seriously, and sometimes they are strange gifts or that look like GENUINE antiques that reminded the reader and no, he is not saying where he got them from.

He enjoys making his partner angry in a harmless way, even with the demonic part, for him he is like an angry kitten, is adorable for him.

They would probably watch the students' torture training together:) I hope you have a strong stomach.

Mephisto can and DOES demand to be held and pampered in his dog form, I don't make the rules.

He is still as clingy as the first day, but amplified, of all of them, he is the least afraid of PDA, hugs, kisses, holding hands/arms, he doesn't care, he just wants to have his hands on your partner in some way.

this man would randomly bite his partner like a cat CHANGE MY MIND.

All in all, not a bad match if you think about it.

Lucifer

He's not surprised, like, at ALL.

Let's say that for this reader is part of the Illuminati or the hybrids that work with Lucifer, because I don't think another type of case would work very well.

Probably this + the reader's attitude was what caught Lucifer's attention in the first place (how someone can support the Illuminati but have a certain... innocence as far as possible)

At first Lucifer justifies his sudden interest by saying he has to make sure Reader isn't a spy, but he quickly realizes that, well, he really cares about Reader in other ways.

Maybe because they see him as a living being and not just the idealized (cult) leader of the Illuminati, or because they genuinely care about him without reaching fanaticism, let's say that Lucifer has good reasons. so he gives in quite easily to falling in love.

especially because the reader is half-demon, which makes him not a hypocrite and he likes them even more (even if they had been a normal human, he would continue with his particular interest).

Let's say that Lucifer is quite...direct, but at the same time quite clumsy because he doesn't understand social rules(like me)

For example, he will constantly demand the reader's presence with him, regardless of whether they are good or the worst cadet ever seen, he wants them close.

When the reader confesses (because Lucifer lets it happen, out of satisfaction) Lucifer is already prepared for that.

He's a control freak, what did you expect? Hell, he probably even already knew when reader was already in love by their body language or sudden changes in behavior. It's predictable but enjoyable for him.

A relationship with Lucifer is structured and somewhat rigid, but at the same time do not doubt that he takes advantage of every occasion to keep his partner close.

He likes physical contact, especially on days when he can't move or is particularly sore. It's like a psychological painkiller for him.

Being Lucifer's partner also implies a lot of security, the reader will not set foot outside without at least Homare and three cadets.

Surprisingly good at words of affirmation, although hey, what do you expect from a cult leader? The difference is that no matter how much he says everything in a monotone, he really means everything he says.

very "shows don't tell" style

I think his partner would be the ONLY PERSON he vents to about everything that happens in the story, the incompetence of certain doctors, Shima's attitude, ranting about humans, etc.

one of the few moments where he leaves his mask (lol) and says what he REALLY thinks.

In general it's cute, but definitely a little more isolated than Mephisto (although ideal if you're antisocial like him xd)

Shiro Fujimoto

Smug motherfucker--

Well, not really, I think at first he would have difficulty accepting 1- that he is interested in a hybrid and 2- that they like that hybrid too. especially the last.

We already know how stubborn he is (especially when he's young), and with his oath to exorcise as many demons as possible, I can't help but think that at first that included the reader too😅

However, when he started interacting with them, when they gave him attention without having to be an idiot, when they said nice things to him that they really meant it...

He is in denial at first, STRONG.

But rather than treating them badly, he simply lets things be, friendly, he thinks it is better not to hang out with them beyond that.

He doesn't think he's in the place to be with someone that nice.

so when they tell him that the reader likes it, he doesn't believe it at all. He sees it as a joke.

but...if READER were the one to tell him...

The man dies there and here.

You just can't believe it! but it's true! wow!

Speaking of young Shiro, he's definitely arrogant and moody, but he's in a considerably better mood if he goes on a mission/is with his partner.

Shiro without a partner nearby: >:(

Shiro with partner nearby: :^

He definitely doesn't hesitate to defend his partner's honor if necessary, and look, he makes jokes from time to time about being half-demon, but 1- he doesn't mean it and 2- only HE can do it >: (get ready to take a beating

Once he gets used to it, he's pretty good with PDA, not a lot, but he likes it to some extent, especially on outings.

I would say that one of Shiro's greatest displays of affection would be to make his partner laugh (especially once he grows up), either with the aforementioned jokes, or by exaggerating his expressions to get a laugh from them. likes.

He definitely likes to annoy a LOT, it's his other main love language (along with quality time and MAYBE coocking once he learns, maybe even coocking togheter and trow heach others the breakfast? Who knows), if he spends time with Reader, half of that time they're annoying each other and enjoying EVERY MOMENT.

After Yuri, he is a bit paranoid, but he tries VERY HARD to not let it affect the relationship, after all, the reader is not Yuri.

He will have his own demons to deal with, but his partner encourages him A LOT to improve. It's better than it seems for sure.

That's it, it's a PACKAGE once he has the twins, but honestly? I think we all would be even more into with it ;)

Satan

This depends if we talk when he was just "born" or in the pseudo actual time.

Okay, this depends a little on whether we're talking about when he was just "born" or if we're talking about pseudo-current times.

Young Satan is definitely more innocent in his interest but is still somewhat brutal and very direct (after all, he acts like a VERY big and VERY lethal 5 year old).

The best way to realize if a human likes you is the same as what happened with Yuri, that is, he is much more docile in the presence of the reader, he throws tantrums so that they are with him, etc.

He doesn't even consider the possibility that they don't want him, whether out of early arrogance or a genuine innocence of not thinking ahead.

Current pseudo Satan, on the other hand, is a little more aggressive with his advances.

Like, as soon as he realizes that he is attracted to an inferior hybrid (although he passes that stage very quickly) he is basically DELCARING that he belongs to the other demons (although not to the reader, because for him, that is already a fact).

by far the most jealous of all, although at least after, um, some experience (ahemYURIejmejm) he knows how to better hide his most unpleasant facets.

That doesn't mean they aren't there, but I guess if the reader had a crush on Satan of all beings in the first place it's because they can handle that shit/they like it.

Being reciprocated is definitely a bust to his already monstrous HUGE ego, because it only confirms that he was right in what he did, possessive behaviors and all.

Although he definitely has a soft spot for his partner, after all they are the only being of value of all humans and hybrids (even demons).

Satan is quite angry and proud, so he expects the reader to receive the same kind of reverence and fear as him (okay, not as much, but close to that).

Needless to say, he's quite paranoid and overprotective :), let alone why.

I think he's one of those demons who is fine with doing absolutely nothing with his partner and considers it quality time, whether it's being silent, reader playing with his hair, etc. knowing that they don't abandon him is enough.

Honestly, he's like a yandere in many ways, only at least now he's more aware of the limits of humans/demons and he's DEFINITELY not willing to lose another partner or have this partner leave him, ever. no again.

Did I mention that he has abandonment issues?

This demon NEEDS words of affirmation, I just know it.

In general, even with all the redflags (there are not a few), he loves as much as he can love.

Shares, reblogs and comments are very welcome!

Another done? Baby i'm ON FIRE(literally, collage is killing me:,D but i'll try to do all the Requests i can before My exams and My driving tests, wish me luck!)

[mariacallous]

The Sept. 1 elections in the two eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia have hit Germany like a cyclone, delivering the strongest-ever turnout for an extreme right-wing party in the postwar era. In Saxony, the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) captured 31 percent, landing it narrowly behind the Christian Democrats (CDU), and in Thuringia, where the AfD is led by a twice-court-fined ideologue and outspoken neo-fascist named Björn Höcke, the party took 33 percent of the vote, the highest of any party, and thus also the mandate to form a government. The new populist party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW)—a rightist offshoot of the Left Party that boasts anti-immigration planks and pro-Russian sympathies—landed in third place in both states.

Although it is unlikely that another party will partner up with the AfD in governance—they all say they refuse to do so—the results raise resounding questions for modern Germany. How can such an extreme hard-right party perform so well in postwar Germany, a country that, in both its eastern and western postwar incarnations, made preventing the return of a racist, authoritarian leadership its very raison d’être? Why is this phenomenon so pronounced and radical in the country’s east, the territory of former communist East Germany, almost 35 years after the Berlin Wall fell?

Germans are now asking: How could everything go so wrong? Several recently published books by German authors offer a reckoning—and some answers.

Proponents of eastern Germany, including literature scholar Dirk Oschmann and historian Katja Hoyer, authors of recent bestsellers blasting the overbearing West and those taking the West’s side—most of the mainstream media, including the leading weekly news magazine Der Spiegel—are practiced at lobbing rhetorical grenades at one another. On their own, these one-sided arguments miss the mark. But taken together, and combined with new material, they explain how the Germanies’ journey wound up such a wreck.

The cleft between eastern and western Germany—defined by the East’s extreme-right vote and preponderance of street violence, as well as the inability of the republic’s mainstream parties (with the exception of the CDU) to attract eastern members and votes—can be traced to the events following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today’s hard-right sympathies in the East are largely, though not exclusively, spiteful backlash against the one-sided terms of West Germany’s annexation of the East, the West’s demeaning treatment of the easterners, the indignity that the economic transition inflicted on many eastern Germans, and the legacy of a suffocating, repressive dictatorship on its former subjects and their successor generations.

Detlev Claussen, an emeritus sociologist from Frankfurt, hit the nail on the head: “The AfD is the East’s revenge on the West, which is blamed for all the upheavals after 1990,” he wrote in an email to Foreign Policy. “The party’s personnel are right-wing extremists, the electorate only partly so, although it too appears indifferent to the accusation of Nazism.” Claussen pointed out that populists’ top issues were migration and the Ukraine war, two topics that are not relevant to regional governance. Rather, another topic is almost always predominant behind them, one regularly laced into the rhetoric of both the AfD and BSW: the unfair, demeaning terms of unification and the terms of the transformation since then. “The essence of the far-right vote is resentment against the West,” Claussen wrote.

The AfD vote in the East is complex: The five eastern states aren’t a seething bastion of foaming-at-the-mouth neo-Nazis—although neo-Nazis are among them. German studies show that about 8 percent of Germans—on both sides of the country—firmly subscribe to hard-right, racist ideological worldviews with a large additional segment in a gray zone that might well sometimes—but not always—support the likes of a right-wing dictatorship, street violence against politicos, racist laws, and antisemitism, too.

The numbers aren’t that much different than in other European countries, though they are in Germany currently higher than at any time since the Nazi era, particularly among young people, and also higher in eastern Germany than western Germany. About half of AfD supporters in the East—roughly 15 percent of the voting population—are rightists hardcore enough to actually lionize—rather than just accept—Höcke, who employs thinly veiled neo-Nazi language, soft-pedals Germany’s World War II crimes, and wants to “remigrate” non-native Germans living in Germany to their origin countries.

This radical segment is extremely alarming and constitutes a menace for people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, Muslims, and leftist groupings, among others. They are the types who either perpetrate or condone far-right hate crimes, which have been on the rise for several years. Germany’s security services counted 25,660 such incidents in 2023. That’s an average of 70 a day Germany-wide and 22 percent more than in 2022. In May, a candidate for the Social Democrats was attacked and badly injured in Dresden, capital of Saxony, when pasting up EU election campaign posters. Experts say that this kind of violence hasn’t been so vicious since the 1990s, tagged today as “the baseball-bat years,” when pogrom-like attacks were carried out in the eastern states against migrants and others.

The 1990s is a good place to start to understand right-wing extremism in the East. The easterners had emerged from beneath the heavy hand of Soviet communism and were pleased to be rid of it, as well as welcoming to political and economic systems—liberal democracy and market capitalism—that they knew very little about. They were also unaware of how thoroughly the decades of authoritarian, militaristic education and indoctrination had penetrated their psyches and habits. East German communism was ethnically homogeneous and nothing if not narrow-minded; the very few non-Germans living in East Germany, such as African or Asian guest workers, reported regular abuse. When the wall fell, West German rightists—a generation before Höcke, who himself was born and raised in northwestern Germany—poured into the East to tap this raw energy and organize. When the easterners were confronted with refugee hostels in their communities in the 1990s, they often reacted with anger—and baseball bats.

One explanation of the racist violence and voting patterns today in the East lies in the 1949 to 1990 German Democratic Republic, and the values passed on from generation to generation. The young people today voting AfD and belonging to neo-Nazi street gangs are the children and grandchildren—or come from the same communities—of the bat swingers of the 1990s.

Today’s AfD hotspots are much the same as the sites of the 1990s’ violence. Over the years, one study after another has shown higher levels of racism and intolerance in the East, which the years of transformation have not diluted as the West’s implanted democracy teachers—university deans, politicos, foundation heads, CEOs, school principals, police chiefs—had intended and expected.

But the AfD phenomenon is more layered, since this explanation alone, broadly speaking, pertains to only about half of the constituency and very little of the BSW. It doesn’t explain how over three decades this ugly radicalism could fester and then suddenly explode again into the open. The East’s takeover by the West may have been sanctioned by the easterners in the democratic elections held in 1990—they voted for the CDU and Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who turbocharged the unification process, completing it in just 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall—but the pain and sacrifice of the economic transition ran deep and left scars that still smart today, even though eastern per-capita GDP has climbed over the years, today being about 80 percent of its western counterpart, with unemployment at just under 7 percent.

The disappointment and hurt of the easterners should not be underestimated. Kohl had promised them “flourishing landscapes,” but what they received was rampant unemployment: Three million people who had jobs lost them—and were thrown onto welfare rolls, which into the early 2000s equaled half of the East’s GDP. In the low-income labor market, the news was worse: Over 50 percent found themselves jobless. Those who could, including many young people, fled to the West, like the engineer who held the lease on my apartment in Berlin on Friedrichstrasse: He landed a job with BASF in Ludwigshafen in western Germany and never returned. The easterners were incensed at the deals that the Treuhandanstalt—the government agency that sold off East Germany’s enterprises—made for a song. The overnight introduction of the Deutsche mark in 1990 and the Treuhand’s fire sale ensured that western German firms and western German owners would sop up all of the eastern German business—and use the region for a supply of cheap, dispensable labor (which explains the lower per-capita GDP today).

The ostensibly burning topics of migration and the Ukraine war are largely red herrings, concluded sociologist Steffen Mau, author of a widely read new book on the East-West divide, entitled Ungleich Vereint: Warum der Osten Anders Bleibt (Unequally United: Why the East Remains Different). The eastern states have by far the smallest fraction of foreign nationals among the federal states, and those communities with the lowest numbers in the East tended to vote disproportionately higher for the AfD (which also scored well in depopulated rural areas, places with fewer women, fewer medical services, and higher unemployment). They are not threatened by the Ukraine war and have nothing to gain from admiring Russian President Vladimir Putin. The EU, which the AfD lambasts for milking Germany dry, has contributed immensely to the eastern states’ development since unification, to the tune of $53 billion (€48 billion). The German state shelled out nearly $2 trillion (€1.75 trillion).

Mau, in his nicely balanced study, concluded: “The economic transformation of the 1990s, which was associated with major restructurings and brought with it not only freedom but also economic declassification and insecurity, has made people [in the East] less willing to undergo further changes. Having already had to fundamentally change their lives and abandon biographical fixtures, larger sections of the population now strongly resist further impositions, be it growing diversity or socio-ecological transformation.”

None of this, of course, explains why such broad swaths of the population cast their ballot either for a party that tracks closely with neo-Nazis or another that looks to Russia for inspiration and not Brussels. This, though, is the hardest, most in-your-face way to strike back at the system that delivered them such disrespect and injury—and then blamed their backwardness for the mess.

“German democracy possesses its legitimation through its radical break with National Socialism,” Claussen wrote. “The election results in Saxony and Thuringia throw this foundation into question.” It’s a swipe that Germany’s mainstream elites aren’t going to shake off quickly.

[justforbooks]

Nicholas Shakespeare’s elegant biography of the James Bond author Ian Fleming takes its subtitle from a journalist’s observation, quoted halfway through, that its subject was “for a moment of time, a complete man” while working for British naval intelligence in the second world war. Yet you can’t help read it as a promise to give the reader what was left out of previous biographies such as John Pearson’s crisp, more portable authorised life from 1966. And is there a claim, too, for the alpha male credentials of the man called “Flemingway” by his friend Noël Coward? Journalist, stockbroker, thriller writer and – like his famous creation – a playboy and 70-a-day smoker, who died of a heart attack in 1964 at the age of 56 after a plagiarism row over the origins of Thunderball, the ninth Bond novel.

After a dutiful account of how Fleming’s Scottish financier grandfather became a millionaire – later cutting Fleming and his brothers out of his will – Shakespeare gets going with his subject’s troubled boyhood in the shadow of his father’s death in the first world war. Family friends in Switzerland take his education in hand after hasty exits from Eton (hanky-panky with a woman) and Sandhurst (gonorrhoea). His exams aren’t good enough for the Foreign Office; an engagement to a Swiss lover ends amid maternal threats to cut off his allowance. He falls on his feet at Reuters – it was that kind of life – further honing his knack for a scoop at the Sunday Times, a handy source of contacts for his war work.

Testimony woven from diaries, papers and interviews gives the book a flavour of oral history. Shakespeare goes to great lengths – not least tracking down a 94-year-old veteran, the last surviving member of a covert commando unit that Fleming organised – to dispel the idea that Fleming’s service, occluded by state-sanctioned secrecy, was just “in-trays, out-trays and ashtrays”. The book’s first half puts the future author at the heart of military and journalistic history – a search for German weapons of mass destruction; the race to get an inside scoop on the Cambridge spies – as well as the bedroom shenanigans of the English well-to-do. (Shakespeare, who encourages us at one point to smile at the mention of a “germanely” named Nazi admiral, Assmann, shows his assumptions of his audience when he writes confidently of “that small, turn-of-the-century intellectual clique, the Souls”.)

Fleming may be “the man behind James Bond”, in the subtitle of Andrew Lycett’s 1995 biography, but Shakespeare’s project, you sense, is partly to say there’s more to him. Eager to prove Fleming’s interest beyond the reasons that will draw most of his readers to the book, he is almost comically insistent on the degree to which his subject was ahead of the curve. Not only might he have sparked the idea of creating the CIA – in a memo written when the US-UK special relationship was being forged – but he also came up with the idea of putting a Christmas tree from Oslo in Trafalgar Square.

As for the dozen Bond novels that poured out of Fleming after 1953’s Casino Royale – written in a month in his winter bolthole in Jamaica a year earlier – they were, in Shakespeare’s telling, essentially the literary expression of a midlife crisis accelerated by the encroachments of fatherhood and a faithless union as the third husband of Ann Charteris. They had got together with an affair that caused a high-society scandal during her previous marriage to the Daily Mail heir Esmond Harmsworth; she later cheated on Fleming with the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, who told him that the “sex, violence, alcohol” formula of the Bond novels was “to one who leads such a circumscribed life as I do, irresistible”.

Fleming, injecting the American dirt of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels into the English thriller, launched 007 on what Shakespeare calls the “spam-munching gloom of Attlee’s Britain”, writing (Fleming told his publisher) in order to make “as much money... as possible” and to have “as much fun as I personally can”. Respectable sales rocketed when JFK took a shine to From Russia, with Love – and the movies were yet to come. While Fleming was self-deprecating – telling Raymond Chandler the Bond novels were “straight pillow fantasies of the bang-bang, kiss-kiss variety” – he was proud enough to greet the director of the first Bond movie, Dr No, by telling him: “So they’ve decided on you to fuck up my work.”

“Luck had to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage of up to the hilt,” Bond thinks in Casino Royale; he sees luck “as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued”. Squint enough and Fleming took some care to cast his main character in ironic light. Early in that novel, the reader gets a fly-on-the-wall thrill of watching fieldwork in action, with the scene of theatrical care Bond takes to ensure his hotel room isn’t being searched; but soon enough his French sidekick turns up to let Bond know his upstairs neighbours have been listening in to his every move.

In Shakespeare’s biography, the novels are mostly a source of supporting quotation – he doesn’t get bogged down in questions of what it means to read Bond now, confining himself to a remark on how his “cavalier treatment of women... carried the sexual climate of the Blitz into the austerity of the cold war, and was less modern perhaps than it was later cracked up to be”. And perhaps there’s no need for his defenders to overstate the case for Fleming’s novelistic subtlety. Bond has always been shaped by a collective amnesia that allows us to make him what we wish him to be at any given moment; when he parachuted into the Olympic opening ceremony with the queen, it was as the best of British, not as a connoisseur of (Fleming’s words) “the sweet tang of rape”.

The novels, in a way, are irrelevant to 007, but the course of history would surely have run otherwise had Fleming not had the foresight to change his protagonist’s name from the original “James Secretan” – Fleming’s typescript revision perhaps his most significant literary act.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[verflcht]

[ open starter */ mutuals only ! ] ⸻ you find zeev in the woods after he experienced a blackout, i'm fine with whatever reason!, can be answered in german as well.

When thinking of witchcraft, some see candles, fire pits and women dancing in the pale moonlight. In some cases there are brooms and wands, fancy hats and a black cat. They are believed to move in the shadows, hide in the woods and curse whoever they please. Honestly? That's partly right. At least that’s what Zeev would say. He never owned a cat and he hates hats with a passion — but he indeed has an entire storage room full of candles and sorts, and once or twice he had danced under the moonlight. Never naked though is what he’d always claim. 

However, in his particular case, he prefers the sunlight. The broad and warm daylight of summer hours, the golden rays reflecting on smooth surfaces like natural lakes and polished furniture, breaking into colourful rainbows whenever it hits crystals and rain. Sunlight was magic itself, turning his surroundings into glistening gold — the most valuable of all hues. Priceless in every sense imaginable. Worship is too active of a word and the sun isn’t able to react in any way, most likely she doesn’t care either. She’s a star, the most important for his life on earth. Essentially for all beings. Yet, worshipping is the closest noun one could use to describe his relationship with her. She’s the warmth and the protection, offers the light to see, the aspiration to be and the strength to create. She’s everything.

But as he moved in pain, the sun was nowhere to be seen. The sky grey and unruly, shielding her from a sight he himself would like not to witness. He choked out a breath, fighting for air burning his throat. After regaining his sight, he noticed immediately that he wasn’t at his home anymore. A part of the woods he couldn’t remember or was too dizzy to recognize. As the exhaustion and adrenaline dropped, the pain became easier to localise. Excruciating headache and cuts burning like purgatory on the inside of his palms. Sitting back on his heels, he stared at the blood sticking to his fingers and the dirt dangerously close to the wound. The bloodied tear wasn’t what unsettled him, but his forgetfulness.

Had he experienced another blackout?

His head snapped to the side when he heard the rustling of leaves, a frame unsheathed from the shadows. With narrowed golden eyes and dishevelled hair he tried to make out the figure. Was it a witness, a client or a victim even? Had he offered his services and it backfired? Zeev hated his lack of memory severely.

Still, he loathed his bedraggled appearance more. 

“Show yourself”, he demanded breathlessly, his strength insignificantly returning.

[dear-ao3]

A different anon but as someone deeply fascinated by Esteban Ocon and the redbull musical chairs here are some extra notes:

Estie bestie is currently at Alpine formerly Renault since 2020. And back in 2018 (ie when he was in Racing Point) there were rumors linking him to the Renault seat Daniel would take in 2019 so that’s possibly why his and Lances friendship survived

Unrelated but Alpine/Renault is currently the Frenchest team to ever French. It is (or at least was) partly owned by the French government through their stake in Renault (Alpine got renamed cause Alpine is the sports car brand of Renault. Not that they make any sports cars I believe they made maybe one in 2017). The current two Alpine drivers are the aforementioned Estie bestie and Pierre Gasly (both French. Also childhood friends to enemies to they have to tolerate each other now) and while their current reserve driver is an Australian, he will hopefully for his own good take a page out of his countryman’s Oscar Piastris book and hightail it out of there for his own good. The most likely replacement for him would be Victor Martins. Also French. The Alpine factories are in Enstone (UK) and Viry (France) so that’s the least French part of that team

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming of rbr 2nd seat:

So rbr started by buying the Jaguar team in mid 2000s after afaik getting fed up by Sauber who they used to sponsor. Also at that time Sauber was sponsored by Petronas, Mercedes’ current title sponsor. Fun fact

The two drivers that they started with was David Coulthard who no one cares about in this story and Mark Webber, Australian, first victim of rbr 2nd seat shenanigans

At some point (for the 2009 season I think?) Seb Vettel, German, certifiable little shit at that time, replaces Coulthard

Insert a highlight reel of Seb Vettels warcrimes between ~2010 - 2013, which culminate in Multi-21 Mark Webber retiring after the 2013 season. He gets replaced by Toro Rosso driver/Red Bull junior Daniel Ricciardo, Australian, happy go lucky guy and our next victim in a couple of years

2014 brings new regs for the cars and Red Bull struggles to adapt. For context Seb went from a 9 win streak at the end of 2013 to no podiums in 2014. Yeah. So he runs away to Ferrari for 2015 to become a victim of Italian incompetence instead

He gets replaced by Daniil Kvyat, Russian, the most forgettable man in this story. Also he is pretty new into F1, it’s his second or third year there

2015 is sorta meh for rbr but the two Daniels are sorta even. And then 2016 happens

Here’s the thing; Daniil decides to play bumper cars in Russia and China right off the bat at the beginning of the season, one of the victims being former rbr golden child Seb. Now there’s more lore that I don’t remember but it culminates in him being replaced for Spain 2016 by Max Verstappen, Dutch, aged like 18 at that time

Max goes on to win his first race with Red Bull because Mercedes (the best team on the grid) is in the throes of a civil war and their drivers take each other out. There could be novels written about those two drivers btw

The next two and half years are a slow process of the garage slowly going from preferring Danny Ric to preferring Max. Highlights include Baku 2018 and then Dans redemption win in Monaco the same year. There could be novels about this as well but we culminate in Dan leaving for Renault

And then we get to the real musical chairs. He gets replaced by Pierre Gasly, French, third victim of rbr 2nd seat

He has a shite start to the season and ends up getting replaced by Alex Albon, Thai, a rookie that year, midway through the season after Christian Horner, Mr Ginger spice, swore up and down he won’t

Intermission: Toro Rosso liked playing musical chairs as well and Pierre Gasly only got an F1 seat at the last few races for 2017, Alex got told he’s racing in 2019 (his first season) days before preseason testing. With no experience in an F1 car. And there’s a world of difference between a shit car (Toro Rosso) and a good car (Red Bull). Yeah they were ultimately victims of rbrs shitty management, especially Alex since he does wonders in a Williams now

Rbr decides to drop Alex after 2020. Except they usually promote Toro Rosso drivers and the two Toro Rosso drivers right now? Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat. Yeah

So they end up hiring Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez, Mexican, who knows if he will be racing next year. Idk if he got an extension or if they hired him for four years, either way his contract is supposed to last until end of 2024 season but right now how Mr Ginger spice is acting… yeah

Also, Daniel just came back to rbr as a driver for Alpha Tauri (former Toro Rosso) after a mid season swap that was widely regarded as shittily done so there are very little contract issues that would stop Red Bull from hiring him, a marketing departments golden boy, a good friend of Max, as the second driver to maybe finally have a good team

(Red Bull has never ended 1-2 in drivers standings. Checo is currently second but Sir Lewis Hamilton can do wonders sometimes)

So to reiterate the seat movements:

It’s Webber -> Ricciardo -> Gasly -> Albon -> Perez in that metaphorical seat which when rb had a clear first and second drivers it was usually second drivers seat

And (Coulthard ->) Vettel -> Kvyat -> Verstappen for that other seat. The one that if rb had a clear first and second drivers was usually first (Vettel, Verstappen after ~2018)

Bonus fun fact about Liam Lawson, one of the threats for Checos seat:

He is born in 2002. He’s younger than Fernando Alonso’s career by several months, upwards to a year

He is the guy that knocked Verstappen out of quali in Q2 in Singapore and consequently broke the several year long streak of at least one car always in Q3 that Red Bull has been holding

There is always a debate if he has a guaranteed seat from rbr or not at some point. There were rumors of a guaranteed for 2025 a while ago but who knows…

Sorry for rambling so much I have thoughts haha

forgot i’ve been sitting on this ask for a month lol but yes. red bull second seat drama is indeed fascinating. and now there is aparently another rumor that arthur leclerc might come up to f1 through racing bulls (alpha tauri) which would disrupt the process again.