#National Tradesmen Day

[murderousink23]

09/15/2023 is World Afro Day 🌎, Grenache Day 🌎, Return of Primorska to the Motherland 🇸🇮, Google.com Day 🇺🇲, National Creme de Menthe Day 🇺🇲, National Double Cheeseburger Day 🍔🇺🇲, National Felt Hat Day 🎩🇺🇲, National Linguine Day 🍝🇺🇲, National Online Learning Day 🇺🇲, National POW/MIA Recognition Day 🇺🇲, National Tradesmen Day 🇺🇲, Greenpeace Day 🇺🇲, International Day of Democracy 🇺🇳

#world afro day #grenache day #return of primorska to the motherland #google day #national creme de menthe day #national double cheeseburger day #national felt hat day #national linguine day #national online learning day #national pow/mia recognition day #national tradesmen day #greenpeace day #international day of democracy

[nationaldaycalendar]

September 16, 2022 - NATIONAL WORKING PARENTS DAY – NATIONAL GUACAMOLE DAY – NATIONAL PLAY-DOH DAY – MAYFLOWER DAY – NATIONAL TRADESMEN DAY – NATIONAL STEPFAMILY DAY – NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY – NATIONAL CINNAMON RAISIN BREAD DAY

September 16, 2022 – NATIONAL WORKING PARENTS DAY – NATIONAL GUACAMOLE DAY – NATIONAL PLAY-DOH DAY – MAYFLOWER DAY – NATIONAL TRADESMEN DAY – NATIONAL STEPFAMILY DAY – NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY – NATIONAL CINNAMON RAISIN BREAD DAY

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022 | NATIONAL WORKING PARENTS DAY | NATIONAL GUACAMOLE DAY | NATIONAL PLAY-DOH DAY | MAYFLOWER DAY | NATIONAL TRADESMEN DAY | NATIONAL STEPFAMILY DAY | NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY | NATIONAL CINNAMON RAISIN BREAD DAY NATIONAL WORKING PARENTS DAY | SEPTEMBER 16 On September 16th, National Working Parents Day honors the working parent and day pays tribute to those parents who…

View On WordPress

#aroma #blended #child #Families #flavor #fresh #home #Mayflower Day #National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day #National Guacamole Day #National Play Doh Day #National POW/MIA Recognition Day #NATIONAL STEPFAMILY DAY #National Tradesmen Day #National Working Parents Day #Pilgrims #plymouth #professional #September 16 #skills #Sweet #United States

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[heliads]

Hii Lisa my beloved!💕💕 I'm in my Kaz phase again and some stupid ideas have been running through my head constantly. Hoping you could turn it into a wonderful fic, if you like the idea of course.

Kaz x reader with slight Nikolai x reader😌

So, reader is a Grisha with healing abilities (hidden like Alina). After a tragic event, the loss of their family hit hard and they were taken into care by some people that worked at the palace. That's where reader met Nikolai, they became best friends and later enrolled in Army, became lovers all of that. Reader's healing powers were slightly special in the sense that when they used them there was a golden glow all around, making the wrong people believe reader was a sun summoner. After being madly in love for some time, reader got kidnapped for their powers. Tortured for 2 years, reader was saved by our lovely Crows. Reader believed Nikolai never looked for them (false because he did desperately until he ran away and became Sturmhond after believing that reader died)

Reader becomes a Crow, falls in love with Kaz, they have a relationship for 2 years or so and then, one day they fight about something and right at that time, Nikolai makes his way to their bar. Reader and Nikolai have an emotional meeting that leaves Kaz insecure and jealous.

The ending...well I think reader should stay with Kaz buut I'm not opposed to something else👀

Whatever you want my dear Lisa. I hope this makes sense and it's not too insane. I love you and thank you💕

my beloved!!! this request is literally incredible, why are your ideas always exquisite????

masterlist

You don’t like it when Ketterdam is quiet. This jilted city of yours is always loud, always rowdy, and on the few instances in which it isn’t, the whole place seems to hold its breath, just waiting for something bad to happen. Sometimes you hear things you shouldn’t when there’s no background noise to cover it up. Sometimes, worst of all, you dream. 

This dream is not a good one. You only know this after waking. The dream leaves quickly, as all dreams do, slipping back away under cover of night to haunt some other sleeper. You let it pool in your trembling hands, dripping out through your fingers despite your best attempts to stop it from abandoning you. It must have been a tumultuous dream indeed, because for a moment you thought you were back. Back in Ravka. Back with him. 

Ravka is not yours anymore. It was, once upon a time, or so you let yourself believe. You were born in a small village near Adena, home mostly to craftsmen without merit and tradesmen with a fear of leaving their homes. It was a quiet, get-what-you-will existence for the most part, up until the point when you reattached a woman’s severed leg with a wave of your hand and discovered you were a Grisha.

Healers are valuable commodities in a war-torn nation, and you were shipped off to Os Alta before you knew it. It would have been lonely there in a city fiercely divided between Grisha and non-Grisha, were it not for the one friend you made there. A prince, of all people. A second son who wanted nothing more to run. Nikolai Lantsov.

You and Nikolai were just children when you met. It took years of close friendship for you to trust each other enough to fall in love, and even then, it was your best kept secret. Princes do not fall in love with witches. Grisha do not fall in love with mortal men. You kissed him behind locked doors and swore it would be enough for you, even if it wasn’t.

Perhaps it would have been, if Fate had been content to let you rest in mere complacency. There was one singular trait that separated you from the rest of the Corporalnik Healers at the Little Palace, one minor mark of difference. You can heal a patient just as well as anybody else, but for some reason, you glow when you do it. A warm, golden light emits from your palms whenever you use your gifts. His sunbeam, Nikolai used to call you.

Maybe people listened in too closely when they shouldn’t have. Maybe someone connected dots that didn’t exist. Maybe it’s just that in a country like Ravka, a country split by the Shadow Fold, a country in desperate need of Saints, it would be easy to overlook someone’s mortality in the hopes of discovering their own salvation.

That’s your best guess as to what happened to you. What you remember best is the aftermath, not the reason. You were taken from Os Alta in the dead of night, your hands bound in chains so you couldn’t fight or use your gift. You tried to scream, but they had a Squaller, a damned traitor, who stole the breath from your lungs before any sound could be heard.

They tortured you for two months, hoping you’d break and show that you really were the Sun Summoner they’d get paid to sell. It never happened, so they dug harder, cut you more, cared even less. You waited in dark and squalid rooms for someone to rescue you, someone like Nikolai, but no one came. No one Ravkan, at least.

You always wondered if you could put a time cap on the love of a prince. It turns out you can:  four months and six days is all it took for Nikolai Lantsov to give up on you. You spent four months and six days waiting for him before hearing that he’d officially stopped mourning you in public to go to university, and the remainder of those two years in wondering how little he must have cared for you to give up just like that. 

You have no doubt that your captors would have spent far longer than two pathetic years in trying to extract a Sun Saint from your exhausted spirit were it not for your rescuer. A far different savior than you expected, to be sure, far more bloodthirsty than any guardian angel you’ve ever heard about, but he did the job. He always does.

That’s Dirtyhands for you, you suppose, he gets what he wants. And if what he wants is a Healer at the low cost of having to break into a smuggler’s ship while it paused briefly in the Kerch harbor for supplies, so be it. Kaz Brekker was there for money and he was there for a new soldier to serve in his gang. You happened to fit both bills.

At first, you hadn’t known if you were actually safe or in even more danger than before. At least Kaz wasn’t torturing you outright– that was a start, wasn’t it? You didn’t trust him in the slightest at first, nor him with you. It took months of slow, apprehensive acceptance for that to happen.

It took longer for hesitant acquaintanceship to turn into friendship, and for friendship to turn to something more. Something like happiness. Something like the pure contentment of knowing that there is one person out there who would burn the whole world down if you were ever hurt. Nikolai mourned you for an appropriate time, but if the roles were reversed and you were in Ketterdam when you were kidnapped, Kaz would never accept your loss. 

He’s all but told you this himself. There was one instance in your first six months of being in the Barrel when another Grisha hunter decided you would make decent prey. You were only an hour later than expected, but ten men were killed and a pleasure house burnt to the ground by the time Kaz got you back. You never feared getting taken again. You think he’s quite proud of that, even if he’ll never admit it to a living soul. Only the dead tell no tales. 

So the Barrel is your home, so bloody kruge becomes your daily bread and butter. You wouldn’t want any other life. There is always the fear that you would someday lose that confidence, but you swore that time was over. Apparently not, though. 

All that time spent learning to live again, and you still wake up in cold sweats, half sure that you’re back in your birth country and no better off than when you started. Kaz doesn’t deserve that. Your guilty conscience makes you want to beg his forgiveness, so you slip out of your room and up the stairs to his office without a second thought.

You know better than to think that Kaz Brekker would be asleep a few hours past dawn. You’re not entirely sure that he ever sleeps at all. It wouldn’t surprise you if he found a way to optimize his waking hours such that he never needed to close his eyes. Being able to capitalize on the time everyone else spent sleeping would certainly give him a leg up in the race of the Barrel rats. 

Sometimes, when he’s feeling charitable, Kaz lets you heal him just a little bit, not the sort of injury reduction associated with broken bones but that of eliminating exhaustion. You’ve learned how to use your gifts without touching skin. Maybe that’s why he wanted your skills on his side in the first place, just in case. 

The door creaks slightly when you come in. It is well within Kaz’s powers to oil the dratted thing, but you think he likes the sound. It serves as a warning of an intruder if he needs one, a reminder that he is no longer alone. It tells him that you are here now, and he looks up from his seat at his desk. The only sign that these aren’t normal working hours for anyone else is the slight dishevelment of his appearance, dark hair falling haphazardly over his eyes from being frustratedly pushed out of the way one too many times, his clothes rumpled and jacket removed.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asks.

“Could you?” You return.

Kaz rolls his eyes. “I don’t need sleep.”

“Of course you do,” you say matter-of-factly, “You’re still human, Kaz, despite your best efforts to turn yourself into a machine.”

“I think it would be less productive to be a machine,” Kaz muses as he considers the stacks of ledgers before him, “think of the rust. Also, I don’t trust any gadget not to break down when you need it most.”

You snort, closing the door behind you and walking to the window behind his desk. “Machines aren’t the only ones breaking down all the time. People do that too.”

Your voice trails off on your last sentence, and Kaz cuts off his stare with his ledgers, turning his chair to face you. When he speaks again, his tone is gentle. It would surprise anyone but you.

“You’ve had another nightmare about Ravka again, haven’t you?”

You deliberate over your words, opting instead to perch on Kaz’s window seat and draw your legs up to your chest. He already knows the answer, anyway. “Yes,” you reply at last.

Kaz nods once. “It’s not real. The dream.”

You laugh bitterly. “I know that. I just hate the way I keep thinking about that place. It makes me feel weak.”

Kaz frowns. “You’re not weak. If you were, I never would have hired you.”

You can’t stop a faint grin from flitting across your face. “So romantic, Kaz.”

“Isn’t it?” He asks.

You glance at him over your shoulder and register genuine bewilderment on your face. To Kaz, you suppose, that is the height of romance after all. A true validation of your worth, a promise that you are enough.

It makes you smile. “You’re right,” you decide, “it is. It’s good to know my position is safe.”

“You’re safe,” Kaz repeats. He stands, walking over to the window. He doesn’t lean against you, but you can feel the exhale of his breath on your shoulder, the ghost of the touch you will never force him to give. “I will make sure of it.”

The two of you stare out the window at the rising sun. A new dawn is coming, bringing with it a new day, new surprises. Some of those surprises, as it turns out, will be far more shocking than you could have ever envisioned.

You’d like to say that you recovered from your nightmare pretty quickly after that, and you did collect your wits, but the jittery feeling stays with you well into the evening. You decide to stop by the Crow Club once dusk sets in, both as a favor to Kaz and for yourself. Once you do your usual perusal of tables, only having to point out one particularly gifted cheater to the guards, you allow yourself to drift over to the bar and order your favorite drink.

You see Jesper briefly in between rounds of Makker’s Wheel and talk idly for a few moments before he drifts off again. The Crow Club, albeit one of the fastest places in Kerch for money to leave your pockets, still feels like home to you. The rowdy hubbub, the dim lights, all of it is yours and has been for some time now. The Barrel is not safe, but this is Kaz’s place, and that means you never feel threatened so long as you’re within its walls.

Maybe that’s why you don’t register the new presence until it’s too late to run. The thought that the young man standing before you could ever be here at all is utterly bewildering. This is the Barrel, this is your mess of dingy canals and hopeless cases. What reason could Nikolai Lantsov possibly have to bring him down these parts?

You blink and he’s standing there staring at you like he’s seen a ghost. All the cockiness drains from his step as his jaw unapologetically drops. It is loud in here, but you swear the volume drops just long enough for you to hear him with perfect accuracy as Nikolai whispers:

“Y/N?”

He says it like a prayer delivered by a dying man, every syllable infused with impossible hope. You don’t respond, but something in your expression must confirm his question anyway. Either that or your face has changed so little in the five years since you saw him last that Nikolai can recognize you anyway, even in the smoke-filled haven of the Crow Club.

He draws forward by impulse, steps quickening the closer he gets to you. In all honesty, you have no idea what he is about to do, nor how you would respond, so you find yourself unquestionably grateful when Kaz emerges out of nowhere to stand in between you and Ravka’s younger prince.

Nikolai pulls up short to avoid running into him. “Who,” Kaz says, voice low but cold as a blade, “are you?”

Nikolai’s gaze darts past Kaz to lock squarely on you. You find yourself answering in his stead. “This is Nikolai.”

You can’t see Kaz’s expression from this angle, but you can imagine the way his eyes must narrow anyway. “Nikolai from Ravka?”

“The very one,” Nikolai replies, a touch of that same bravado in his tone you remembered so well.

Kaz scoffs. “Impossible. How’d you cross the Shadow Fold, then, prince?”

Nikolai gestures to himself, and only now once the initial shock of seeing him is starting to fade away do you realize how absurdly he’s dressed. “I left Ravka when I thought Y/N died. I go by a different name now. Sturmhond.”

You laugh in spite of yourself, a high sound bordering almost on fright. “You became a pirate?”

“Privateer,” he corrects, and judging by the quick answer you’re guessing it’s the same knee-jerk response he gives to everybody.

Kaz shifts slightly, allowing you to see the glare he’s not bothering to hide. “And what are you doing in my city, privateer?”

Nikolai swallows hard. “I heard a rumor about a Healer. A Healer whose hands glowed when she saved someone’s life. I had to know.”

Kaz looks like he wants to physically cut the source of this information out of Nikolai’s throat, but you beat him to it. “Why would you care now? You never tried to find me.”

Nikolai’s eyes flash. “I tried every day until I heard you were dead. I mourned for months.”

“Heard,” Kaz comments, “you never found a body?”

“Obviously not,” Nikolai says, glancing towards you again, “Why didn’t you come back to Ravka, Y/N? Why didn’t you try to find me? I missed you. I loved you. I still do.” He holds out a hand to you. “My ship leaves in one week’s time. Come home with me.”

You find yourself flinching back. Since your first days on the shores of Ketterdam, you’ve long since learned to disguise any sign of weakness, but Kaz knows you well enough to look for signs of trouble in even your slightest of expressions.

The small catch of your breath now tells him all he needs to know regarding Nikolai’s offer. Kaz’s hands curl around his cane, causing the black leather to crease like skin. “Y/N is safe here, Lantosov. She doesn’t need your war-torn country.”

Nikolai’s brow furrows. “Who are you to speak for her?”

“I’m the one who actually saved her instead of giving up,” Kaz says simply, “I’m the one who gave her a home.”

Nikolai’s eyes flit to you again, and you nod. “I loved you, Nikolai, it’s true, but I moved on when you did. Ketterdam is where I belong. My time in Ravka is over.”

You see Kaz straighten up imperceptibly by your side. From the way he’d spoken to Nikolai, you hadn’t thought he harbored a shred of uncertainty regarding where you would want to go, but it appears that his worst fears were assuaged by you asserting that you wanted to stay with him.

Nikolai swallows hard. “I won’t blame you for wanting to come home.” Only myself,  you can sense him mentally adding on. It is a shame that time has not robbed you of the ability to tell what he’s thinking.

“I already am home, Nikolai.” You tell him.

He nods and leaves without another word. You watch him go, and he does not look back. Nikolai has had quite a long time to mourn your absence. Tonight may have set him back a little bit, but you have no doubt that he will recover just as he did before.

“Thank you for staying,” Kaz murmurs when Nikolai disappears from the club.

“Thank you for fighting to keep me here,” you whisper back.

Kaz’s eyes are sharp when they meet yours. “I will always fight for you.”

That, you think, is the difference between him and Nikolai in the end. Nikolai will carry your memory with him wherever he goes, but Kaz would never allow someone to take you from him in the first place. He would go to war to keep you safe. In a way, you think he already has.

You have the perfect view of Fifth Harbor from Kaz’s office window. You wonder if he planned it that way, so he could see both who was entering his life and who was leaving it. The two of you stand and watch Nikolai’s ship leave for Ravka once more. You wondered if it would hurt to see a ticket back to your place of birth evaporate from between your fingers, but it doesn’t. It’s just like you told Nikolai, isn’t it? You are already home. There is no need to leave.

requested by @zaypay, i hope you enjoy!

grishaverse tag list: @rogueanschel, @deadreaderssociety, @cameronsails, @mxltifxnd0m, @retvenkos, @thatfangirl42, @amortensie, @story-scribbler, @gods-fools-heroes, @bl606dy, @auggie2000

#kaz brekker #kaz brekker imagines #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker oneshot #grishaverse #grishaverse imagines #grishaverse x reader #grishaverse oneshot #shadow and bone #shadow and bone imagines #shadow and bone x reader #shadow and bone oneshot #kaz #kaz imagines #kaz x reader #kaz oneshot #grishaverse kaz #grishaverse kaz imagines #grishaverse kaz x reader #grishaverse kaz oneshot

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

February 12th commemorates the founding of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) established in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans. Over the years, the NAACP’s mission has evolved “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination”.  

Milwaukee lawyer, Wisconsin state representative, and civil-rights activist Lloyd A. Barbee (1925-2002) devoted most of his life to the NAACP’s mission. Joining the association at just 12 years old Barbee went on to become the president of the Madison branch from 1955-1960 and the Wisconsin chapter from 1961-1964. He was simultaneously earning a law degree and using his prowess as an activist to draft Madison’s Equal Opportunity Ordinance, demand Milwaukee Public Schools end segregation, and ultimately ran and won a seat on the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1965-1977 where he was the only African American in the state legislature.  

Browsing the Special Collections stacks in search of materials to honor the day, I came across a quirky item belonging to Lloyd A. Barbee. The book in question is actually four titles Barbee had bound into a single item. The titles include An Outline of the Old Testament, A Hymarx Outline of the New Testament, A Hymarx outline of the Plays of Shakespeare, and NAACP Annual Report 1957-58. Why Barbee had the titles bound together is anyone’s guess, but the NAACP report provides insight into his civil rights passions, including an update on the association’s work with the Wisconsin Industrial Commission to secure Black tradesmen membership within local unions, an effort Barbee would have no doubt contributed to and has annotated with his initials.  

This book is part of the Fromkin Memorial Collection developed around the broad theme of social justice in the United States. 

Read other Milestone Monday posts here! 

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

#milestone monday #NAACP #national association of the advancement of colored people #lloyd a. barbee #fromkin memorial collection #Black History Month #African Americans

[vetulicolia]

Long, unedited WIP passage running down the concept behind the worldbuilding in my art under the cut.

In the period of European national revolutions, the movement in modern-day Croatia was encompassed by the "Illyrian national revival" primarily aiming toward literary reform, linguistic modernization and pan-slavic independence from the Austrian and Hungarian dominated Habsburgs. Of course, there's a lot more nuance to get into here, up until Yugoslavism overtook the charge of Illyrism, but here I'm dealing with an alternate and conceptual history of this movement and nation.

One founded in a world of alternate metaphysics where idealism such as the one emergent in the republican revolutions is a material force and the winds of revolution swept across the world, where the "Illyrian provinces" of the French republic had this emerging identity deliberatelly fostered.

To clearly outline the timeline while avoiding a lore-neurotic puzzlebox narrative, our divergence begins with the success of the montagnard reign of terror and failure of the thermidorian reaction, propelling the jacobin club into the domination of French politics and the beginning of the First Revolutionary War. The details are tertiary here, the events are determined by a fractal of idealistic forces spurring on reality-shaping events, an axiomatic wind of history emanating from humanity. We will get to this much later - right here, what matters is that the old order of Europe is annihilated and a French jacobin hegemony is established up to the retracted Ottoman empire and the far east of the Russian Republic. In the late 1810s, or 20s of the republican calendar, the Illyrian provinces under direct French directorate are given increased autonomy to develop as a nation.

The movement of Ljudevit Gaj, the nascent bourgeoisie class of Ljubljana, Gradec and Belgrade is granted license to fashion fate and impose it on millions of peasants, orthodox tradesmen, sufi clerics, mountain pastoralists and danubian smallholders. This bolder iteration of "Illyrian National Revival" is hallmarked by paradoxical elements. Classicist undertones comparable to Hellenism, a secular adoption of names picked from ancient Illyrian tribes. A deliberate distinction from surrounding European empires, supported by the French cores interest in possessing an oriental frontier at its doorstep. Secular and mystical, revolutionary and despotic. It is, in all senses, the embodiment of "Ruritania".

A "Ruritania" is a fictional minor european nation of 19th century fiction, in this case specifically referring to the historical narratives of national development in the balkans. "Ruritania" is the hide of national romanticism draped over a state, tanned in the sun until it appears as an organic emanation of the culture - though in reality, it is a product of megalomaniacal idealism, constructed by the ruling intelligentsia and industrialist class, refracted through western interests, whether it be inventing ancient emnities to entrench division, Habsburg abuse of "exotic" architecture (I heartily recommend reading about the moorish revival in Bosnia!) or victorian fetishism for the "primitive". The discreet national identities existing today are themselves ruritanian, founded on cherrypicked delusions of grandeur from recently shared mythos. Illyria is a concentrated one, built on a different set of foundations.

To return to our timeline, Illyrian national identity, the empire of megalomania, is easily entrenched. Rural areas remain particularist and "regional identities" such as Dalmatian, Moravian or Bosnian persist without shaping into national identity. The core of the Illyrian state lay in the urbanized northern belt, the Kranj, Red (derived from Red Croatia) and Dunav provinces. The industrialization of the state is inequal, almost entirely concentrated in the three provinces, in part exported to the urban cores of the Bosnian province, Dalmatia and Istria. An endless stream of emigrants from the hinterlands changes the face of the nation, industrialized agriculture in the north overshadows the old pastoral ways, and then the process is abruptly halted again.

Toward the end of the first century of the republican calendar, the Second Revolutionary War begins with the toppling of the British Republic by national revanchists, the ensuing crisis dissolving the Jacobin hegemony in France and ushering in a series of intracontinental wars between fractions loyal to jacobinism, those disappointed with the state it brought about and the liberal and national revolutionaries of Europe. Illyria is spared of the carnage - for now - due to its politically unmotivated population and entrenched ruling intelligentsia.

The Second Revolutionary War culminates in the formation of an unified front of reformist and new jacobin forces to halt the encroachment of social-revolutionaries in France, Germany and a number of other European nations. This unified front is the foundation of the reformed pan-european defense pact, the ARC - Axe Republicain Continental. The last bastion of the defeated social-revolutionaries (In Illyria, Eseri, or pejoratively Termitnik movement) is the Hungarian Workers and Soldiers State, encompassing most of the Pannnonian basin and the Carpathians. With a dash of historic paranoia over Hungarian rule and the pragmatic need to safeguard the balance of power from the Eser state, Illyria enters ARC as a core member.

#writing #ilinaka #blythe

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Fox cloth cuts like rich butter with tailors' shears and the dense, rich finish makes a superlative flannel suit.

- Simon Cundey, Henry Poole & Co

Legend has it, that when Sir Winston Churchill made his most memorable speeches in Parliament or on the BBC Radio he was clad in a suit cut from the finest West of England flannel, woven by his woollen mill of choice, the iconic Fox Brothers & Co.

Much like Churchill, Fox Brothers is a British institution of near national significance; at one time one of the largest and most prestigious woollen mills in the country, an employer to five thousand tradesmen, occupying a monumental site of several square miles, filled with the imposing red-brick towers and belching chimneys synonymous with good old Victorian industrialism in Wellington, Somerset.

Fox Brothers have been producing woollen and worsted fabric in Somerset since 1772, ie for the past two hundred and fifty years. Officially credited as the original creators of flannel, to this day we combine traditional manufacturing processes with state of the art design technology, to create the finest wool and cashmere cloth available in the world.

The mill's scale of production at its peak was quite frankly biblical; in 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, the mill received the single largest textile order of the conflict, for 825 miles worth of khaki - a fabric which Fox Brothers can lay claim to having invented in 1901.

Sadly, such days are long behind many British manufacturers but fortunately today, Fox Brothers is experiencing a heart-warming renaissance and has returned to form as one of the finest producers of worsteds and woollen flannels in the United Kingdom.

In 2009, upon hearing that Fox was in dire straits, Douglas Cordeaux and his business partner Deborah Meaden, didn't think twice about running to the rescue and taking over Fox Brothers. Cordeaux was a menswear designer with a long history in luxury menswear and a passion for British heritage brands. 

Thirteen years later, their brave decision and extraordinary vision has revitalised the mill and business now growing at a rate of knots - supplying cut lengths to the finest bespoke tailors and clothiers far and wide, and also weaving commercial orders for a huge number of international luxury brands; from Hackett to Aquascutum, Louis Vuitton and just about every single house on Savile Row.

Generations of men - and increasingly women - are grateful that Fox Bros have been the mainstay of their bespoke Savile Row suit or jacket. One of my woollen jackets from Huntsman carried the Fox Bros unshowy and understated label inside.

#simon cundey #henry poole & co #quote #fox bros #fox brothers #bespoke tailor #mill #cloth #woollen mill #savile row #history #british #english #icon #style #suit #elegance #heritage

[mareislandfoundation]

Life and Death at the Gate

At dawn on Sunday, 25 June 1950, the North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel supported by massed artillery fire. With the support of the Soviet Union the invasion was based on a false claim by North Korea that South Korean troops had attacked first. The real aim of the invasion was to take by force and subjugate South Korea under rule of the current North Korean leader's grandfather and his sham democracy. Condemned by the Free World, the invasion drew the first ever response by the United Nations, primarily supported by U.S. troops and aid. The war has technically never ended, and it resulted in millions killed and over 100,000 U.S. servicemen wounded or killed in action. In recognition of the coming carnage, a short time after the invasion, the World War II era hospital ship USS Benevolence (AH-13) was towed from a mothball fleet to Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINS) in the San Francisco Bay Area to be taken out of mothballs and recommissioned. The US Navy Hospital Ship Benevolence would never make it to Korea. She tragically sank just minutes outside the Golden Gate while returning from sea trials.

Benevolence departed Mare Island at 0800 on 25 August 1950 for limited sea trials following recommissioning. Eight and a half hours later the fully loaded freighter SS Mary Luckenbac passed under the Golden Gate Bridge in thick fog bound for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Visibility was reported to vary from 300 to 400 yards. Radar had become common place by the 1950’s, but the Mary Luckenbac‘s radar had malfunctioned and was turned off. As the Mary Luckenbac passed under the bridge, she was on a collision course with the Benevolence returning from her sea trials. Aboard the Benevolence the radar was on and operating, but for some reason the crew was unaware of the approaching freighter. Both ships had bow lookouts posted and were operating their fog horns, but their combined closing speeds of 27 knots would doom the Benevolence. At an estimated 1,000 yards bow lookouts on the Benevolence sighted the bow wave of the approaching freighter. Benevolence began blasting the emergency signal on the ship’s horn as both ships attempted evasive action. It was too late, within three minutes the freighter slammed into the hospital ship raking her compartments open along the port side.

Following the collision both ships vanished into the fog. Unaware of the extent of the damage to his ship, Captain Barton E· Bacon on board the Benevolence gave no orders to prepare to abandon ship. However, within 5 minutes his ship’s main deck had sunk to sea level at the bow and she was listing 45 degrees, too far over to launch the lifeboats. The Benevolence had managed to transmit a message requesting emergency assistance just after the collision and then radio contact was lost. Twenty minutes later the Benevolence rolled over and sank in the shipping channel between Pt. Bonita and Seal Rocks. Five Hundred and twenty-five men and women went into the frigid water as the outgoing tide scattered them further out to sea. As word of the disaster spread a small armada of fishing boats, yachts, coast guard and naval vessels began scouring the seas in the thick fog looking for survivors. Survivors would continue to be found and pulled from the sea for nearly two days and as they were landed by rescue ships the Red Cross handed them a carton of cigarettes and the Service’s gave them booze. In the end eleven Navy, ten Military Sea Transportation Service and two MINS tradesmen were lost.

The Benevolence laid just beneath the waves in the south shipping channel as a hazard to navigation for sixteen months as separate courts of inquiry were held by the Navy and Coast Guard on Treasure Island and in San Francisco respectively. While the inquiries were underway MINS was directed to study the possibility of salvage. A no cure no pay request for proposals was sent to Bay Area salvage firms to evaluate the feasibility of salvage. A tanker suffered a minor collision with the Benevolence hulk, before MINS officials determined that salvage was not feasible, and the decision was made to remove the hazard with explosives. When you visit the USS San Francisco memorial near Lands’ End on the 49 Mile Scenic Drive and look out to sea you are overlooking the site of the Benevolence sinking.

#mare island #naval history #san francisco bay #us navy #vallejo #Korean War #Mary Luckenbac #Benevolence #Hospital Ship #Golden Gate #sink #collision #fog #survivor #drown

[werewolfetone]

Mentioned this but not explained it, so--differences between different groups of Catholic activists in late 18th century Ireland:

Catholic Committee:

Established in 1757, by Charles O'Conor and several other people, including the future Archbishop of Dublin

In about the mid 1770s, the Viscount Kenmare, one of the last wealthy Catholic aristocrats, took it over

Under Kenmare it took a very pro-government stance and worked against the Whiteboys and American rebels

It also worked in tandem with the 1782 Catholic Relief Act, again as part of its pro-government schtick, and was content to ask for small concessions from the Protestant-only Irish parliament rather than forcibly taking them

In 1790, John Keogh became the chairman

Also in 1790, there was an election for members, which led to a shift in demographics on the committee--for the first time, middle class tradesmen outnumbered the aristocrats, but the ideas of the committee were still heavily dictated by those of the aristocrats

At the end of 1790, a debate took place where several people including Theobald Wolfe Tone, Richard McCormick, and Dr. Theobald Mckenna declared that they were going to move away from the pro-government stance and demand instead a total repeal of the Penal Laws

Despite their more anti-government stance, the Catholic Committee under Keogh was still not a revolutionary group, they were just less willing to just go along with whatever parliament did rather than making their own demands

Kenmarites:

Lord Kenmare did not like the above declaration, so in December of 1790 he took 69 other members and seceded

Kenmare's group was essentially just... the Catholic Committee as it had been under Kenmare originally. They kept the same pro-government stance and were even less revolutionary than Keogh's Catholic Committee

They were the boogymen to the Catholic Committee proper throughout the 1790s. Every time something bad would happen, the Catholic Committee would expel a bunch of people as "Kenmareites"

Catholic Society:

In 1791, Anglican Theobald Wolfe Tone published An Argument of Behalf of the Catholics in Ireland, which was a pamphlet stressing solidarity between Catholics and Protestants. Though the main target audience was wealthy Protestants, the show that Protestant reformers cared about Catholic issues also convinced a number of Catholics to come to the side of reform

Due to this, and frustrated by Keogh's less than revolutionary stance, another group of Catholic Committee men (around 45 in all) also seceded to form a more revolutionary group called the Catholic Society

This group was much more anti-government and most members were explicitly pro French Revolution

Working with them, Dr. Theobald Mckenna issued a paper calling for solidarity between all religious groups against England, which terrified the British government

Defenders:

Made up mostly of working class Catholics, this group started in Co. Armagh in the mid 1780s and spread throughout Ulster and eventually to adjacent counties

It had no real leaders or manifesto, as it was specifically backlash to Protestant groups such as the Peep of Day Boys and Orange Boys who were going around burning down houses and torturing random Catholics to death. In return for this, Catholics formed the Defenders and started doing... basically the same thing but to Protestants

Their tactics consisted of guerilla warfare, and they were incredibly illegal, so it was a very secret, shadowy, oath-bound society. Apart from the fact that they would get into public fights with their counterpart organisations, nothing about them was allowed to be out in the open

Their ideology can be best summed up by one instance of a Defender oath-- "to be against all kings, against all nations, and to plant to true religion [Catholicism] throughout the world."

Eventually they would merge with the United Irishmen after the Armagh Outrages

#tw sectarianism #tw torture #irish history #18th century #wolfe tone #john keogh #richard mccormick #theobald mckenna #lord kenmare #jory.txt

[the-era-of-shadow]

Trial of Twilight Trespassers

Written by Ash Rose

Cover by Ash Rose

TW/CW: Swearing, Mild Violence, General Horror

Summary:

It was just another quiet day in the lands of the Twilight Cage, that is, until trespassers started to appear across the lands, all seemingly in cahoots with one another. Despite how divided the nations of Twilight are, they decide to each send out a representative to the Twilight Theater in the Cage's center land, where the trespassers are to be put on trial to decide their fate.

The Twilight Theater appeared like it was brand new, with its spotless marble walls and pristine stained glass windows. But such an appearance was only a facade, for it was certainly older than any of the twelve individuals that stood in it now.

The theater was to be a place of unification, which was terribly uncommon in the lands of the Twilight Cage, for the three nations that were established within its mystic walls have always been at war with one another.

At first it was just the Zoah and the N'rrgal, two nations who never seemed to like each other very much, despite living on the same planet together. The two squabbled and fought just as any other dysfunctional pair would, until a group of Zoah soldiers went haywire and destroyed several N'rrgal towns completely unprompted, causing thousands of deaths.

This event is what many believe to be the first case of the destructive chaos energy that would eventually take hold of the entire planet that came before what is now known as the Twilight Cage, but this rancid energy didn't truly become a pandemic until the Kron arrived in the area.

The Kron were once a race of traveling tradesmen, making deals with all that they passed by on the orbit of the meteorite they lived on. But this life was taken from them when they entered the Twilight Cage, for when they tried to set up trade with the Zoah, they took the Kron as prisoners and made them live in servitude to them.

This was not taken well by the Kron, and some of them began to plan a revolt against the Zoah. These plans were quickly tainted by the chaos energy in the air, and what had started as a simple protest soon broke out into a full on war between the Kron and the Zoah. Soon enough, the N'rrgal entered the war as well, taken over by the urge for destruction and disorder that the chaos energy gave them.

With all three nations at war with one another, the entire planet became a battlefield, nowhere being truly safe from the devastation. This all culminated in an especially volatile battle that occurred one day between the three, and the Zoah, being the most technically advanced nation out of the three, brought a marvelous bomb, said to have the power to wipe out every one of their enemies right then and there.

But rather than just wiping out the Kron and N'rrgal entirely, the bomb ended up shattering the planet into five different pieces of floating land. This brought the attention of the gods themselves to the conflict, and they were not pleased by the mess the chaos energy had made of the three nations. By some miracle, there were quite a few survivors within both the Kron and N'rrgal armies, but those that were left alive were made to face the fate of being eternally trapped with the ones that had tried to kill them, as the gods sealed off the area from the rest of the universe as to prevent the spread of the chaos energy.

Yet, despite this history of egregious conflict, there the representatives of each nation stood, nearly a thousand years later, in unity. For the three of them, together, would decide the fate of the eight trespassers that stood before them.The trespassers, too, seemed to be unified, standing as one against the representatives. The sight sent shivers down the representatives' backs.

Between the two parties, perched above them by his podium, was The Judge. He was not affiliated with any of the three nations, despite living in the Twilight Cage alongside them, his existence was a mystery to the three representatives.

"At least we can be sure he'll judge without bias." The Zoah representative said.

"Hmmph. Well aren't yooouu quiite calmmm forr a Zoahhh..." The N'rrgal representative sneered, causing the Zoah representative to roll his eyes in annoyance.

"You two! Let Judge speak!" The Kron representative demanded of the other two.

"Thank you, Ko." The Judge said, as he prepared to begin the trial, "Now, would one of the eight of you like to select someone to represent the rest?" He then asked, turning to the trespassers.

"Eight?? What kinda fuckin' nerve do you have, trialing a mere infant in the same likes as the rest of us??" One of the trespassers questioned, holding the baby she held in her four arms close.

"Yes, we very much would." Another one of them, a maiden with a masked face, answered, attempting to calm the first one down as she did, "My darling, if you will." She added, turning to the one of them wearing an excessive amount of jewelry.

"Thank you... But I must decline the offer." Such a response caused an uproar all throughout both parties, and even made The Judge glare in confusion, "Having only one of us go up for defense would be going against all that we've worked up to thus far." 

"Ah, I see... My apologies." The masked maiden softly professed.

"No need, dear." 

"Okay, sure, but could ya at least keep my literal BABY out of this?" The four-armed one spoke up again.

"Says the one who was roaming these very halls with only that baby as company a few short hours ago..." The Judge remarked, "But regardless, I'll humor your request. N'irrah, bring this child a nanny."

N'irrah, the N'rrgal representative, did as she was told, summoning one of her own to take the infant.

"And what of the elementary schooler over there?" The Zoah representative pointed out.

"I'm fighting alongside my friends and family as I always have!! Yayaya!!" The child responded. The representatives noticed that this one, too, was wearing a mask.

"That one has a body count, she's all good to stay here." A rather snarky sounding hooded one explained.

"Oh really? Usually one would wait til someone is eighteen before letting them take part in bloodshed, no?" The Zoah representative inquired sarcastically.

"Eighteen? Seems like not even you or I are qualified for what we do in this one's eyes..." Another hooded one remarked, this one being much more soft-spoken.

"Cease your useless bickering immediately!" The Judge demanded, angrily slamming down his gavel to break up the talking, "Now... Representatives of the Twilight Cage, care to introduce yourselves?" He then requested after a few moments of silence went by.

"N'irrahhh, currrrrent motherrrr offff thhhe N'rrgallll." 

"Zen, one of the best Zoah officers around." 

"Ko, Kron Shop Boy!" 

"Thank you, dear representatives. Now, would the trespassers care to introduce themselves as well?" The Judge added.

"And why should we do that, exactly?" The elderly one finally spoke, being the last of the group to speak in the theater for the first time.

"She's got a point! You're gonna just kick us out anyway! What's the point of introducing ourselves if you'll only know us for tonight??" The four-armed one agreed.

"You have yet to earn the honor of knowing each of us by name, so instead, you shall know us collectively by our people's name, whom we all proudly represent here on this night." The one in jewelry said with absolute command, "You may refer to us as The Black Arms."

"Hmph, what a bunch of egotistical-" Zen started to scoff, but was interrupted by The Judge.

"If that's the way you wish to play your hand, then there is nothing I can do about it. Now..." The Judge authoritatively slammed down his gavel, "LET THE TRIAL-"

"Hooollld on nowww..." N'irrah protested.

"What is it now?" The Judge asked, becoming annoyed by all the delays.

"Therrre muuust beee sooommethiiing wee caaan calll youu alll indiviiiduallly..." N'irrah continued, directing her comment towards the Black Arms.

"Ooh! Nicknames! You use nicknames!!" Ko suggested cheerfully.

"Oh alright, I do not see why not..." The one in jewelry conceded, "Give us a moment to discuss." 

"Fine. But after that, no more delays! Some of us need enough time out of the night to sleep!" The Judge ordered, to which everyone agreed.

The seven representatives of the Black Arms huddled together to seemingly talk to one another, but the Twilight Cage representatives did not hear a single word from them. Regardless, after a few minutes passed, the Black Arms turned back to face the others in the theater, having decided on titles for each of them that the Twilight Cage natives would call them, at the very least until the end of this trial, depending on how it plays out.

The one in jewelry and the masked maiden were to be referred to as "King" and "Queen"

The two in the hoods were to be "The Bishops", the loud-mouthed one being Right Bishop, and the soft-spoken one being Left Bishop.

The four-armed one and the masked child were to be "The Knights", the child being Right Knight, and the four-armed one being Left Knight.

Lastly, the elderly one was the Rook.

"Are we all settled now?" Zen asked.

"Yes. Shall we begin?" King responded.

"Finally!!" The Judge cheered, slamming down his gavel once again, "LET THE TRIAL BEGIN!!"

To start off the trial, The Judge ordered that the participants be all on the same page with one another, so that there is no confusion when it comes time to make a decision. In order to reach this goal, it was agreed upon that each of the Twilight Cage representatives would give a speech, a testimonial to their experiences that day, including and especially those experiences which involved any interaction with the trespassers.

Zen volunteered to go first, finding himself unable to keep quiet about the annoyance he felt from the continued presence of the two trespassers who entered the domain of the Zoah. Right Bishop and Right Knight were the two that he had encountered, he said, two obnoxious siblings who immediately demanded fealty to them!

"Hmph. In your attempts to be brief and blunt, you've seemed to miss a few details there." Right Bishop scoffed.

"I was trying to not waste any more of The Judge's time here, but if the full story is what you want, the full story is what you're gonna get!" Zen responded fiercely, quite ironically so considering his name.

A few moments of silence passed by as Zen stared off, noticing Right Bishop's smirk, and felt a flare of rage surge in him. He managed to take control of his own anger, however, and after giving a hefty sigh, he cleared his throat and began the extended form of his testimony.

It was certainly on the calmer end of days for the Zoah before the trespassers arrived, with there being no sign of either N'rrgal nor Kron planning to attack them. There was only their bright central star lighting up the sky, and the well polished gates that surrounded their land. On days like these, it was Zen's duty, as well as the duty of a dozen more Zoah officers, to keep watch at the front of these gates, just in case there was some sort of unpleasant surprise, and an unpleasant surprise is exactly what Zen was fated to be met with on this calm day.

Two figures showed up at the gates of the Zoah's territory some time in the afternoon, immediately causing an uproar as they picked fights with the other, less well-tempered, guards. Overhearing the commotion, Zen came down from his post and approached his peers.

"Men! What's all this ruckus for??" He questioned.

"Zen, sir! These two minors have trespassed onto the premises and are trying to threaten us!" One of the other guards answered as the rest managed a hold on the two strangers.

"They seem to be combative, but we can't understand them!" Another added.

Zen took a good, long look at the two. The older one of the two wore a hood over his head, and the younger one wore a mask, covering most of her face save for her eyes and mouth. Despite this, Zen could very much tell that the two appeared to be Bloomians, from the jagged horns on their heads, down to the illusion of a complete lack of limbs below the hips, due to their long, dress-like garments and the way they floated just a few inches off of the ground. But even if every bit of them was covered, there was one thing that they couldn't hide.

"Well isn't this an odd sight? You two seem to be from PetalBloom, no? And here I had thought that planet was the most peaceful in the entire galaxy!" Zen asked the two, speaking in PetalBloom's global language, Bloosiæne. He could tell that his co-workers were taken aback by his knowledge, which made Zen quite prideful.

"Was the most peaceful, "friend"," The older one of the two corrected, giving Zen a malicious smirk.

"Until we happened, that is!" The younger one added, mischievously chuckling as she did.

Zen stood there for a moment, seemingly in shock, but then he quite suddenly burst out into laughter, which confused his peers, and angered the two trespassers.

"Do you believe this to be some sort of joke??" The older one growled.

"Well, you are telling me that you two little brats singlehandedly warped the status and standing of an entire planet, so yes. I do believe this to be a joke," Zen responded, it being his turn now to give his opponent in this battle of words a smirk.

"It wasn't just us two, mister, nonono!" The younger one retorted, shaking her head vigorously, "It was our other friends, too! They're on the other bits of land in this place at the moment! Not to mention all the people we got to rally behind us! Because of all of us, PetalBloom is a complete wasteland now!! Yayaya!" 

"And since our homeland is in ruins, we're looking for a place to stay, you see," The older one interjected.

"There's some free land to the north, but you will not be settling here. Beyond these gates is the nation of the Zoah, a land of warlords. One unauthorized step beyond here, and you two will be very brutally killed," Zen dictated to them.

"Warlords, eh?" The older one inquired, giving a chuckle.

"I'm sure the others will love to hear that!! We really need people like you around, you know!!" The young one speculated.

"What if I don't want to join you, whatever it is that's seemingly become of the people of PetalBloom? What if none of us do?" Zen questioned, still not taking the two seriously.

"Then perish." The older one answered simply, his eyes seeming to glow in contrast to the dark shadow made over his face by his hood.

"I'd like to see you try, kid." Zen scoffed, doing his best impersonation of his opponent's expression. It looked as if the older trespasser was about to strike, but at the last second he closed his eyes, and turned his back from Zen. "Backing out of a deal, are you?" 

"We never had a "deal" of any sort. Be assured, I would have loved to kill you here and now, "friend", but I'm afraid I must wait until we're certain you have chosen to resist us until I can cut that smug grin from your mouth and wear it as a necklace, while feasting on the rest of your remains, of course." The older one replied, finally managing to get through Zen's enormous ego, "But for now, my dear sister and I shall enjoy seeing that grin be erased by not a blade, but by sheer, unadulterated fear...." He added, cupping his three-fingered hand to the side of Zen's face, which had now contorted into an expression of disgust and uncertainty. Deep in his mind, Zen scoffed at himself. Him? Scared of some fucking teenager?? What the hell for??? He's a Zoah, for fuck's sake! And yet, someway, somehow, Zen could swear that this teenager had something terrifying behind him. In his eyes, in contrast with his sharp golden sclera, the irises within were dark, not even just dark, his irises were pitch black, like an abyss, and as Zen starred into that abyss, the abyss starred back with force of thousands, perhaps even millions. It also stared back in a singularity, the gaze of some sort of higher power looking down upon him, deciding whether or not this teen, who it's in complete control of, shall be permitted to end his life or not. Not just that, but as he looked in the abyss, Zen could swear he could hear the echoing of voices, voices that were not his own, nor did they belong to either of the trespassers. They beckoned him closer, they beckoned him to keep staring, to keep looking in this teen boy's eyes, to relinquish everything he once knew, and to join them in complete chaos. It was a power that was unknown to Zen, and yet, it was an enchantment that felt irresistible, making him feel like he wanted to crawl inside the boy's iris to become absorbed by that beautiful pitch black abyss...

"Zen?" The Judge called out, "You were... saying?" 

"... Huh?" Zen absent-mindedly muttered, his eyes looking glassy.

"Zen, your testimony." The Judge commanded, "What happened next?" 

"... Oh. After that... Uh... Right Bishop let go of me... and he and Right Knight took off..." Zen answered bluntly. Just as he finished talking, a trail of blood started to drip from his nose.

"Mister Zen! You okay?!" Ko asked, worried.

Zen failed to reply, seeming to be stuck in a trance, staring off towards the group of trespassers.

"Zen, you are dismissed from the court," The Judge demanded. Just then, two of Zen's co-workers walked into the theater halls and carried their top officer away, all while not a single sound was made.

"M...Mister Zen be okay?" Ko asked again.

"Oh I'm sure he'll feel swell in just a short while...!" Left Bishop answered cheerfully.

"Yooouuu... Yoou knoow what iss haaaaaappennning, straange hooded chiild..?" N'irrah questioned cautiously.

"Sure do, ma'am. It's quite a fascinating process, really," They responded calmly. 

"N'irrah, would you like to give your testimony now, since Zen could not... complete... his?" The Judge offered.

"IIIIIIIIII wooould be hoooonered tooo.." She responded.

It was a quiet nothing of a day in the N'rrgal land, the only sounds to be heard being the slithering of the slug-like beings that lived within, and the slow bubbling of the viscous slime lakes. But amongst the silence, there was the form of a child, who couldn't be any older than fifteen years of age. The form floated inches above the slimey grounds as they traversed the area, seeming fascinated by every little detail. Eventually, the mother of the N'rrgal, Miss N'irrah herself, caught sight of the child, and in being both rather curious and quite suspicious, she made the decision to approach the child.

"Aaare yoou loossssst, yoooouunng onnne?" She questioned, as she was originally rather concerned about the lone child, who seemed to be without an adult by their side.

"I don't believe I am, no." The child replied calmly.

"Isss that soooo? Dooo yooou have sooome sooort of puuuurpossse beeeeing heeeereee?" N'irrah questioned further, the seeds of doubt beginning to be sewn into her mind.

"I do, actually! Are you a figurehead of this area?" The child beamed in excitement. In that instant, something vital finally occurred to N'irrah.

"I aaam... Buut... Yooouuu... Yooouu're froom thaaat Whiiittee Moooon abooove, aaaren't yooouu...?" She guessed. At first the child seemed dumbfounded, confused as to what N'irrah meant, but then they looked up to the skies above and had a revelation.

"You mean PetalBloom, correct?" They asked, to which N'irrah nodded, "What an odd way of referring to our homeland... "White Moon"... I must say, I don't think I'm a fan of that name, to be honest, even if we have abandoned it." 

"Cooould yooou slooow doown yoooour woooordsss...? IIII fiiind myyyseeelf beeecommming leeft beeehiiind..." N'irrah requested.

"Oh of course! My apologies for confusing you, miss!" The child responded politely... almost too politely.

From there, the child, that being Left Bishop, told N'irrah a very similar story as to the one that Right Bishop and Right Knight told Zen, though, telling it much more kindly than those two seemed to. They too spoke of the abandonment and apparent destruction of PetalBloom, though a detail they seemed to add on that Right Bishop and Right Knight did not is the supposed fate of the goddess Moonshine. To put it bluntly, and put it bluntly, Left Bishop sure did, Moonshine was dead.

"Dead? In what sense?" The Judge questioned, seeming to have a small shiver go through him as he did.

"In the dead sense, your honor." Left Bishop answered, just as calm as they always had been. It was unnerving at this point. Not exactly in the way that their calmness seemed uncanny, though uncanny it certainly did feel, but the words themselves were unnerving.

It wasn't at all uncommon for a Bloomian's behavior to come off as uncanny or unnatural, that's just how they are. Seemingly unable to fully grasp the norms of most societies, and thus going in too hard with the advice that their beloved matron Moonshine gives them. But that's just the thing, the Bloomians love Moonshine, don't they? They're unending in their loyalty to her, so why is this Bloomian so calm about the thought of her apparent demise?

Maybe they aren't a Bloomian, at least, not anymore. Just before this trial had began, Left Bishop and the others had introduced themselves as The Black Arms. That was a name that none of the other four, now three, in the Twilight Theater had ever heard before. Where did it come from? Some sudden uprising within PetalBloom, like they said? Or some other race of aliens entirely that are just masquerading around as Bloomians? If it was the latter, why act so much like real Bloomians? Why lie in the first place? It was no secret that the people of the Twilight Cage weren't on the best terms with the pantheon above, why would they fold to the will of the people of Madam Moonshine's beloved PetalBloom, of all people?

"Why you all so quiet?" Ko suddenly asked, breaking the stretch of silence that had prolonged throughout the past few minutes.

"IIII aaam jussst waiiitiiing ooon aaa reeesssssponsssse frooom Thhhhhe Juuuuudge..." N'irrah bellowed, looking over to The Judge with impatience in her eyes.

"R-Right, my apologies," The Judge replied, clearing his throat, "Did I interrupt you, N'irrah?" He then asked.

"Nooope... III've saaaid aaaallll theeeree iiiisss tooo beee saaaaid..." N'irrah answered.

"I see then. I suppose it would be Ko's turn... but-" The Judge said hesitantly, being cut off by Ko himself.

"You say Ko's name, Judge?" 

"Ko doesn't know Bloosiæne." The Judge revealed.

"It's true... It seemed that he didn't understand a word I said to him when we had met earlier today..." Rook testified, sounding concerned.

"The Kron barely even know Lunarian, the language of the Cage. They're very stubborn in preserving the culture of their homeland." The Judge added.

"Rook, you should be the one to testify then, I believe." Left Bishop proposed, but The Judge shot the idea down.

"Ko surely has enough info of the Twilight Cage tongue that he can speak for himself, thank you very much!" He protested, seeming offended on Ko's behalf.

"Myyy... how defffffenssssive~..." N'irrah teased, "It'ssss assss iffff yooooouuu're oonee oooooffff theeeeiir owwwwnnn..." She continued, bringing back the mystery of The Judge's origins into play.

"Pardon me?! You act as if such things as empathy and sympathy need not apply!" The Judge argued vigilantly.

"In a place like this? My, they might as well not, huh?"

Everyone else in the Twilight Theater turned their heads at the sound of the familiar voice, looking upon the body of the currently heavily bloodied Zen. Those of the Twilight Cage looked very concerned and even horrified by the sight, but those of the Black Arms simply looked on in amusement.

"Welcome back, Zen. Are you feeling well?" Left Bishop asked kindly.

"Well? I'm feeling far better than just well, my friend! I feel like I've been reborn!" Zen replied in utter ecstasy as he flailed about a dagger soaked in bright cyan fluids.

"Oh, how excellent!! And it would seem that you've had some fun while you were away from the trial, huh?" Left Bishop inquired further, as if they and Zen were close friends.

"Precisely! I've taken lives in combat before, but I've never had an up close and personal experience like this before~!" Zen answered, finishing off with an unhinged cackle.

"Oh my! Though, you did ask if they wished to join in on your fun first before you discarded them, right?" Rook asked, inserting herself into the discussion, which immediately snapped Zen out of his trance of excitement.

"I hadn't thought of that! They just said they weren't fond of my behavior and the next thing I knew my dagger was in their chest! Should I have said something to them first?" He replied apologetically.

"It's alright! You are new at this, after all-" Left Bishop began to say in consolation, before being interrupted by The Judge.

"Enough of this degeneracy!! These actions of yours will not go without judgment!!" He suddenly bellowed in disgust.

"Is that so? Say, why is it that you judge us so? What truly makes you "The Judge"?" Zen questioned, smirking menacingly as he slowly approached closer towards The Judge. Within Zen's eyes, one could see the very horror that he spoke of in his last moments of sanity. The sight sent a shiver down The Judge's spine, but despite that, he stayed vigilant, a reaction he'd surely pay dearly for having, "Is it that you're a runaway from one of the three nations of Twilight, and you are using that title to hide your identity...? No... that can't be it..." Zen began to speculate as he came ever closer towards The Judge, tossing about his blood soaked blade without a care as he did, "Oh! Is it simply that you worked for that title of yours, and that there are others like you that you're hiding from us...? Hmm... no, that wouldn't add up now, would it?" As those words left Zen's mouth, The Judge realized that he had gotten so close to him that Zen's dagger was caressing the edge of The Judge's neck. The Judge tried his best to avoid looking at the deranged former Zoah officer in his eyes, but with his free hand Zen took hold of The Judge's face and forced their eyes to meet, "Or is it simply that the gods are terrible at naming their little pawns..?"

The Judge was speechless, Zen was completely and totally correct in his statement, and that was what scared him. How did he get such information? Perhaps Zen was right, that there was something unknown to mortals within the eyes of those who call themselves "The Black Arms"... The Judge knew he was. He saw it, heard it too, in Zen's voice as he spoke that final sentence which cut so deep. Though it may be from his mouth which the words exit, their origin is not from Zen's mind, or more, what's left of Zen's mind. Where those words, and the knowledge they carried, came from, truly, was none other than....

As the shadowy form that made up The Judge's body came into contact with Zen's dagger, it became undone bit by bit, until all that was left was the clothes he once adorned and a puff of quickly dissipating black smoke. Watching from afar, the King's eyes glowed with fury, and yet, there was a glimmer of pleasure as The Judge was defeated. But just as Zen looked behind him, the King's eyes quickly became dim, and they slumped into the side of Left Knight, who was beside him.

"Uhm?? H-Hey, ya good man??!" Left Knight asked, quickly becoming nervous. Before the King even had a chance to answer, the sound of a baby's wails echoed throughout the Twilight Theater. Left Knight immediately shot up in concern, and saw that N'irrah was attempting to take the baby from the hands of the assistant N'rrgal she had handed the child over to. The Queen quickly grabbed onto the King as Left Knight rushed to the situation, enraged, "What the hell do ya think you're doin' with my kid, lady??" She scowled, scooping the infant up in her four arms.

"Yooouuu arrree NOT aaa fiiit moooothhherrr!" N'irrah argued, attempting to grab the baby, but Left Knight pulled away and did not allow her to do so.

"Bullshit! I'm as fit as a mother as I believe myself to be, dammit!! This kid's not gonna get abandoned again as long as I'm the one caring for him, and that's final!" She insisted, escaping from N'irrah's reach before the conflict could go any further.

The Queen, Rook and Zen were all attending to the King when Left Knight returned to their area of the Theater.

"Is he okay??" She asked, trying to reach them as quickly as she could, keeping the child in her arms in mind. 

"I... I'm..." The King attempted to respond for themself, but quickly lost the energy to do so.

"He's over exerted themself to a quite harmful extent..." Rook explained, "We should return to the Black River and rest..." 

"E-excuse me...!" Ko suddenly yelled out, trying to get the attention of the Black Arms.

"Oh, hello there, Ko!" Rook responded with a smile as soft as the one she had when she first met him, "Don't you think even for a moment that we forgot about you!" She said, gesturing with her hands to help explain what she was saying.

"Is... Is Mister Zen okay?" Ko asked, sounding genuinely worried.

"...I'm fine. Are you okay?" Zen responded, gently grasping Ko's large, angular hands.

"Zen no hurt Ko... right?" 

"Nope."

"Then... Then Ko is okay." Zen was at first confused as to why he suddenly felt inclined to be loving towards Ko, considering he is a Zoah, and Ko is a Kron, but it then occurred to him that he wasn't quite right. Zen didn't feel quite like a Zoah anymore, and perhaps, depending on how things play out, Ko could possibly one day not exactly be a Kron anymore. The destructive chaos of the Twilight Cage that the two were raised with had begun to dissipate, and the hole it created in them was quickly filled with a new kind of chaos... one that is... unifying.

"Zen, we're gonna start heading to the river." Left Bishop said.

"Of course." Zen responded with glee, but as he began to follow behind the Black Arms leaders, he felt a tug on his suit.

"Ko come too?" Ko asked, looking up at Zen with pleading eyes.

"Why not? Just follow me, little buddy." Zen replied, giving the young Kron a friendly pat on the head.

After the gods created the barrier around what was left of the planet that came before the Twilight Cage, which they used to call Luna Labyrinth, chaos energy was spread from beyond the barrier's walls, reverberating from the explosion the Zoah of old had made. That chaos energy took hold of the nearby PetalBloom without hesitation, but rather than pitting the Bloomians against one another, the chaos energy ate at their minds like a degenerative disease. This was quickly noticed by Madam Moonshine, who quickly swept in and took in the Bloomians as her loyal followers, hoping to repair the damage done by the chaos energy. She was rather successful over the thousand years that had gone by since then, but her attempts to conceal chaos energy as a whole had backfired on her, and thus the creation she made took her throne, and lead the Bloomians down a path of pure entropy. This was a story that Zen and Ko were told by the King, who had now decided to reintroduce himself to the two as Black Doom, as they and the other Black Arms leaders traveled to the Black River - a scrap of the now abandoned PetalBloom that the Black Arms had taken with them on their journey for a new home.

On their journey, the ten of them passed through the part of Twilight Cage the Black Arms leaders had thought of calling their new home. There was no civilization occupying it, but that's not to say that it was empty, for in these lands lived the non-sentient Voxai, a species of bird-like creatures that preferred to congregate together within their own bit of land, rather than venturing out to the already occupied lands beyond.

"They remind me of the Petal-scale Dragons back on PetalBloom..." The Queen, Black Widow, spoke in observation.

"I still can't believe we managed to round up as many as we did during the revolution! Not to mention gettin' them set up in the whole mind link thing of ours...!" Left Knight, otherwise known as Sendrir Rojo, added.

"And I'm surprised that you've turned out to be such a good mother! Especially since you're an only child..." Widow remarked.

"What? Ya saying you didn't believe in me??" Sendrir blurted out, pretending to be offended, "But ya know, I probably wouldn't be as good as I am at it if it weren't for you, Death and Ms Lillian, if I'm honest." She then continued, speaking more sincerely this time.

"Me? I mean, sure, I have experience being a sibling I guess, but I'm the younger sibling! Besides, I haven't seen my brother since I was barely a preteen..." Widow responded, causing Doom's attention to be peaked.

"You... You have a brother, and I'm... just finding out about it..?" He questioned, confused.

"... Had, I guess." Widow admitted, "It's funny... he was always the nicest out of my family... he always loved my crafts, and he listened to me when I needed a shoulder to cry on and Vladdie or Sen weren't around... he even insisted on calling me his sister even after our parents thoroughly convinced me I couldn't be a girl..." 

"What happened to him?" Doom asked. 

"Didn't he go off on some crazy passion project that was funded by his workplace or whatever?" Sendrir inquired.

"Technically... He told me before he left though that he was going to find Moonshine himself and ask her stuff... he said he'd be sure to ask her why I was created the way I was while he was gone... And yet, he never came back..." Widow explained, sounding sullen. 

"Yeah... Totally sucks that he went out like that, I for one would've loved to have ol' Kimera in the Black Arms..." Sendrir pouted, also seeming down. 

"Perhaps... he is still out there, somewhere?" Doom suddenly suggested, causing the two ladies to look to him, "I never saw someone who would fit that sort of description when I still lived in the Pantheon's Plane... Maybe he is still searching..." 

"But wouldn't we have run into him by now?" Sendrir questioned, challenging such an idea.

"Maybe... maybe not..." Doom replied, "Perhaps one day we will search the entire universe, spreading chaos as we go, and then, only then, will we reunite with this "Kimera" you speak of..." As Doom continued to speak, he noticed that he could not move any further. Simply put, they were stuck. 

Widow began to reach down, seemingly to grab something, but before she could, Doom pulled away from where he was stuck with great force, leaving behind a torn piece of fabric from his robe. Widow sighed and continued to reach for it, but then was intercepted once more as a particularly opportunistic little voxai swept under the bit of fabric and proceeded to fly away into the skies beyond with it on it's back.

"Hmph. What a warm welcome..." Doom remarked jokingly, which did at least illicit a chuckle from Widow.

As the Black Arms leaders and their two new companions arrived to the land of the Black River, they were almost immediately approached by a young lady who seemed to be in some sort of distress.

"Black Doom, sir, our lands can't seem to get through the barrier!" She said, to which Doom scoffed and offered a hand at the land's helm. But try as he might, they quickly realized that the young lady was correct, and that despite Doom's more than mortal abilities, he could not change that fact.

It came to a point in which he decided to regroup the other leaders and the new recruits back together to hold a counsel.

"It would seem that this place is, unfortunately, not suitable for becoming our permanent residence... This means that we must travel further, possibly much further, in search for a place that is truly worthy... With this in mind, what is your approach?" Doom explained to them, leaving it up to them to plan further.

"Do you think we need any more food?" Widow asked.

"I mean, I think we have enough as is... but hey! I'm willing to go out and get more!" Sendrir responded to Widow's question, proudly raising up a cleaver grasped one of her hands, "As long as one of you watch the baby, okay?" 

"I am willing to do such for you, Sendrir...!" Ms Lillian, the one once known as Rook, offered, to which Sendrir accepted.

"I believe Tsunami and I have done all that we can on that broken planet. If we are not to stay there then there is no use lingering within for longer than that is needed." Black Death, who was once the Right Bishop, spoke on behalf of himself and his sister, formerly known as the Right Knight.

"In that case, will you two help me with getting our new friends adjusted to their new environment?" Vladmira, once the Left Bishop, responded with acute sass in their voice, "That is, if they're even willing to stick with us still..."

"I absolutely will, for all intents and purposes, my life as a Zoah officer is over... I am a Black Arms now, truly and fully, that is what I believe to be the truth. As for Ko..." Zen said, pausing to turn to Ko, switching from speaking in Bloosiæne to Lunarian, "Ko, the Black Arms cannot stay here, they're going to leave here and explore space beyond the little bit that we know. I am going with them, but what do you wish to do?" 

"Ko... Ko want to go home," Ko answered after a few moments of consideration. Zen frowned as he registered the response, but before he could say anything, Ko spoke again, "Ko want to go to Kron home. To Kron's original home, where Kron come from," He clarified, "Ko want to go to Kron original home and make it home for Ko, and home for Ko's friends!" 

Zen smiled, no longer afflicted with his misunderstanding of Ko's words. "I'm sure they can do that for ya, buddy," Zen turned back towards Vladmira, "Right?"

"We'll do our best to make it happen!" 

Epilouge:

Up above the action, the gods watched it all from their plane, the "Pantheon's Plane", they called it, and today the sights that are seen bring distress to the Pantheon's Plane.

For just as the silence of waiting was beginning to overstay it's welcome, the small and anxious Light Gaia dashed through the halls of clouds that lead into the office of the sun god, Solaris.

"S-sir! I have bad news!! Like, really REALLY bad-!!" Light Gaia announced nervously.

"What now...?" Solaris groaned, still reeling from the recent passing of his wife Moonshine.

"Th-the Lord of Chaos and his army of Bloomians have escaped from the Twilight Cage!" 

"WHAT?!" Solaris shouted in disbelief, shooting up from his chair, which was one part throne, and one part office chair, "Is the uncorrupted Bloomian still here?!" 

"K-Kimera Chanté? Yes sir h-he is!" 

"He's a scientist, right?!" Solaris asked further, to which Light Gaia confirmed that that was indeed the case, "Give him this!" He commanded as he grabbed a small booklet from his desk.

"B-But sir... Aren't you worried he'll object to this? I imagine he'd not want to cause harm to his kin, even if they are corrupted by chaos energy..." Light Gaia questioned.

"Lie to him if you must! Don't you understand that the universe as a whole is at stake?! Who knows how powerful they are!" Solaris yelled, making his point clear to Light Gaia, who reluctantly agreed to the plan.

"A-And what will y-y-you be doing, sir??" 

"I am going to send out a warning to Babylon." Solaris answered quickly as he prepared to take off.

Light Gaia looked down at the booklet Solaris gave him, it appeared to be a collection of roughly made instructions. Clearly a Plan B created when the Lord of Chaos had just broken out from the plane. What caught his eye was the name. He understood what it most likely meant, he knew that it's target was the Black Arms, but the name seemed so... definite. So clear cut in its vagueness.

"Project: THE END"

#the era of shadow #the era of shadow: origins #teos #sonic au #sonic fanfiction #black arms #sonic chronicles #< yeah that works ig #sonic oc #twilight cage tag #undescribed #mod ash

[argyrocratie]

The Parties in the Chinese Revolution

12

The Kuo Min Tang (the National Party of China) is the oldest party to have played a role in the Chinese revolution. It was the heir of the Tung Min Wuo ('United Front of Revolutionaries') which itself continued the traditions of the 'China Awakes' secret society. This was formed outside China by Sun Yat Sen in 1894 with the support of émigré petty traders. The petty bourgeois base of this group remained tradesmen and intellectuals but it also comprised many soldiers and officials with careerist notions. It also gained support from the ranks of the Chinese bourgeoisie, still in its infancy.

13

The outlook of the KMT was as vague as its heterogeneous composition might lead one to expect. It failed to realise that, as in all bourgeois revolutions, the development of China's economy depended on an agrarian reform and on the freeing of the peasantry from feudal forms of ownership. The confusion was inevitable for this freeing of the peasantry was inseparably connected with the breakdown of traditional Chinese family relationships. These relationships were an integral part of the future China envisaged by Sun Yat Sen and the KMT.

The KMT were republican nationalists and the logical consequence of nationalism was a struggle against imperialism. But this was impossible for a party whose bourgeois supporters were so strongly linked to that very imperialism. So confused were Sun Yat Sen's ideas that he seriously believed that China could be unified and strong under a central power supported by foreign capital. He failed to realise that such foreign capital benefited most from China's weakness. The main feature of the ideas of Sun Yat Sen and the KMT was, however, their notion of a general reconciliation between classes. This unrealistic ideal incontestably corresponded to the fact that the KMT was the political expression of basically antagonistic interests.

14

It was only in the early twenties, when the Chinese people took action to defend themselves against an oppressive imperialism, that the KMT moved to the left. The party was reorganised and Sun Yat Sen drew up a programme for it which for the first time recognised the agrarian problem as basic to the development of Chinese society. The programme was however so obscured by Confucian terms that hampered its revolutionary interpretation that the left and right wings of the party could interpret it as they chose.

Despite this, the KMT was driven by events for a while to fight imperialism and the forces of reaction which had remained as strong as they had been in 1911. For a time it seemed as if a form of 'Jacobin democracy' would appear within the nationalist party. The revolution gained momentum but this only exacerbated the contradictions between the various social groups which composed the KMT. As the revolution moved forward, all that was reactionary within China arose against it.

15

Kung Tsiang Tang (the Chinese Bolshevik party) emerged in the years 1920-21 for much the same reasons as the Russian Bolshevik Party had been formed twenty years before. As the Chinese bourgeoisie was failing in its own mission, the workers and the peasants became the fighting force of the revolution. Because it was a bourgeois revolution and not a proletarian revolution that was the order of the day, the organisation formed in the struggle - in the wake of the shortcomings of the KMT - proved to be of bourgeois type: a party. The party was created on Leninist lines because conditions were similar to those which had given rise to the Bolshevik Party in Russia. Its internal structure and its social and political ideas corresponded to these material circumstances.

16

The Chinese scholar Chen Tu Hsiu who founded the KTT made of it a faithful copy of the Russian Bolshevik Party. This was confirmed by Mao Tse Tung himself when, in a speech on the occasion of the 28th anniversary of the KTT in June 1949, he said: 'It was through the practices of the Russians that the Chinese discovered Marxism. Before the October Revolution the Chinese were not only ignorant of Lenin but also of Marx and Engels. The salvoes of the guns of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism.' The Chinese concluded from this that 'it was necessary for us to follow the way of the Russians.'

This conclusion was correct, but only because 'Marxism-Leninism' has nothing in common with Marxism other than terminology. Marxism was the theoretical expression of class relationships within capitalism. Leninism is a transformation of social-democratic ideas to fit particular Russian conditions. And these conditions were to shape Bolshevism more than did the social-democratic ideas. If Leninism had been Marxism, the Chinese would have had nothing to do with it, and what Mao said of other western theories could have been applied to Leninism itself, namely: 'the Chinese have learned much from the West but nothing of any practical use.'

17

Although the KTT could borrow its structure from the Russian Bolshevik Party as a result of the similarity between conditions in the two countries, these conditions were not identical. It was therefore necessary to modify Leninism to fit Chinese conditions just as Lenin had previously changed western ideas to fit the Russian situation. As the situation in China resembled that in Russia more closely than Russian conditions resembled those of western Europe, the alterations made were less drastic.

Undoubted changes were made, however, and Chinese Bolshevism while remaining Bolshevism was to reflect a much stronger peasant influence than did the Russian variety. This adaption to more primitive conditions was not consciously undertaken but occurred under the pressure of reality. The visible influence of this pressure was the total renewal of the party around 1927. As long as it had remained a faithful copy of the Russian model, the KTT had been completely impotent in the maelstrom of the Chinese revolution, but once it identified more closely with the peasant masses, it became an important factor. This explains why Chen Tu Hsiu was expelled in 1927 at the time of the 'renewal of the cadres'. The 'rebels in the countryside' were joining in large numbers. Chen Tu Hsiu, the Marxist scholar, was replaced by Mao Tse Tung, the peasant's son from Honan.

...

- Cajo Brendel, “Theses On The Chinese Revolution” (1969)

#cajo brendel #chinese revolution #china

[brentwoodsask]

In 1668, the famed company Hudson's Bay Company began operations thanks to the efforts of two French explorers with backing of English merchants from Boston. While the Governor of New France didn't want to shift focus of the fur trade away from the St. Lawrence River, fur traders Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers learned from the Cree that the best fur trapping could be found north and west of Lake Superior on the shores of a great frozen sea.

With the help of English financiers, these early expeditions would eventually lead to one of two major companies competing for the fur trade in North America; the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company. But the Hudson's Bay Company had major backing from the government and controlled nearly all of Rupert's Land. By the 1780s, the Northwest Company, based out of Montreal, would seriously cut into the Hudson's Bay Company's profits.

130 years later, an area of British North America called Rupert's Land (present day western Quebec, Northern Ontario, Manitoba and most of Saskatchewan) was fought over by these two companies, no different than the British and French, and later the British and Americans. It was common for a fort to be raised in one location not far from the competing companies fort. This was the situation in 1794, as Reginald Brentwood, a wealthy merchant from England with a dream of exploration, set out from Cumberland House and into the north west.

With a small team of men under his command, they reached the northern shores of Pinehouse Lake, several miles north of an already existing fur trading post named Pinehouse, that was run by the Hudson's Bay Company, but had a competing Northwest Company post not far away. Brentwood didn't want a new location to be a target, and had heard of a local Cree tribe that lived near Sandy Bay Lake.

After constructing the fort, Reginald along with a few of his men set out to speak with the local indigenous peoples. He would eventually reach the Cree settlement of what would become known as the Starchild Cree Nation. Chief Starchild had known that either British or French explorers would eventually reach this far north and had prepared a welcome party.

Brentwood and Starchild got along right away, as Reginald explained his intentions to merely be an outpost for fur traders to buy supplies and sell furs. Starchild was impressed with this man of wealth who seemed to have a very straightforward vision. Reginald revealed he wished to greet his new indigenous neighbours as he would any of his neighbours in England.

A fast friendship was formed, as the two men supported each other, with Starchild's people even teaching the men that had built up Fort Brentwood how best to survive the winter, grow food in the rugged terrain and even hunt the wild game that seemed to outnumber the men of the region.

As with anything, however, not every good thing lasts.

The new settlers brought with them new diseases that the indigenous people never had to deal with. Through a shared knowledge of medicines from two continents, both those of Frot Brentwood and the local Cree managed to stave off the disease, but it took it's toll. Reginald knew that they needed medical assistance at the fort, as well as men and women to help expand this new settlement. He quickly wrote a communique to people he knew back east.

"My dear friends,

It is with a matter of urgency that I write to you. We have found heaven on Earth with this stretch of rugged terrain. The Cree people, especially Chief Starchild, have been more than helpful. It is time that we return the good fortune blessed upon us and give that back to our new found friends.

And so, I beseech you to gather men and women to come out west and join us. Professionals, tradesmen, doctors, educators. We have created a settlement unlike any other in this new land.

I await your reply.

Yours always, Reginald Brentwood"

His inquiry and request for settlers with professional skills fell on deaf ears for the most part. After all, who on God's Earth would want to live in such a barren wasteland. But saviours of a sort would arrive one short year before the Americans declared war on British North America.

In 1811, over one hundred new settlers arrived from Quebec. Men, women and children. Professionals and tradesmen. Somehow, word had circulated about Brentwood. A rugged slice of heaven in the Great White North.

Reginald welcomed them with open arms, but knew right away there might tensions. It had not been that long since the end of the Seven Years War. But these people seemed willing to stay in this English fort with no complaint. Even Brentwood himself decided that French should be encouraged among the people, going so far to brush up on his own.

Thus, these events would be the beginnings of what would become the city of Brentwood, Saskatchewan.

#Brentwood #world building

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Daily Devotionals for October 8, 2023 Proverbs: God's Wisdom for Daily Living Devotional Scripture:

Proverbs 25:27-28 (KJV): 27 It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their glory is not glory. 28 He that hath no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. Proverbs 25:27-28 (AMP): 27 It is not good to eat much honey; so for men to seek glory, their glory causes suffering and is not glory. 28 He who has no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.

Thought for the Day

Verse 27 - Honor and glory are sweet to the soul like honey is to the tongue, but eating too much honey is unhealthy. It is good to receive honor and glory from others when one is deserving of it, but we should not do something simply to enjoy men's praises. Seeking one's glory can range from boasting or "showing off" to seeking admiration for deeds or possessions. It is motivated by pride, which precedes a fall (Proverbs 16:18). The desire for glory is part of the pride of life. "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever" (1 John 2:16-17).

At times it is fitting to honor people for their accomplishments. However, if we are the recipients of those honors, they should be received with a humble heart. We should also remember to give praise to the others who helped us in our accomplishments. We need to acknowledge that if we can accomplish anything, it is because God has gifted us with the ability, strength, and desire to achieve those things. The best and brightest of us are prone to weakness and error. Confidence in one's abilities is a poor foundation upon which to build one's life. It is like the sand upon which the foolish man built his house (Matthew 7:24-27). If we rely on ourselves instead of building upon a foundation of faith in God, we will at some point in life face a situation we cannot handle by ourselves. If our confidence does not crumble under the attack of the devil in this life, it will crumble in the day of judgment. Only God can defeat the devil's attacks.

Verse 28 - In Biblical times, cities were protected by thick walls. Huge gates were open in the day, allowing for tradesmen to come and go, and shut at night against intruders. Spiritually, each Christian is like a city, and our faith in Christ is like a strong wall. Our faith will protect us if we practice God's Word. Scripture instructs us to "rule our spirits;" to exercise self-control. Being undisciplined makes us as vulnerable to temptation as a broken city wall is to an army. We need to strengthen our walls so that our "cities" (our inner beings) can grow in Christ. Self-control includes guarding our gates and not permitting ungodliness to enter. If we allow sin to enter, the enemy can torment us.

Jesus Christ is an impenetrable fortress and high tower of safety to which we can run (2 Samuel 22:1-4). He is the one who keeps our hearts sound and steady so that we can resist the enemies' attacks. "In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the LORD forever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength" (Isaiah 26:1-4).

Prayer Devotional for the Day

Dear Heavenly Father, I am glad that You are that High Tower that we can run into when we need defense from the enemy of our souls. Lord, keep me from pride and deliver me from all that would offend You. I do appreciate being able to read the Bible and find strength and comfort within its pages. Lord, I acknowledge You as my God and my King. I rely on You, and You alone, and do not put my confidence in myself, nor any other man. Thank You for protecting me from all of the attacks of the devil. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. From: Steven P. Miller @ParkermillerQ,  GatekeeperWatchman.Org Founder of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups Sunday, October 8, 2023, Jacksonville, Florida., Duval County, USA. Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gatekeeperwatchman, https://www.tumblr.com/gatekeeper-watchman, GatekeeperWatchman.Org Twitter: @GatekeeperWatchman1, @ParkermillerQ, https://twitter.com/ParkerMillerQ, https://twitter.com/StevenPMiller6

[nationaldaycalendar]

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023 | NATIONAL DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER DAY | NATIONAL ONLINE LEARNING DAY | NATIONAL TACKLE KIDS CANCER DAY | NATIONAL NEONATAL NURSES DAY | NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY | NATIONAL CHEESE TOAST DAY | NATIONAL LINGUINE DAY | NATIONAL TRADESMEN DAY | NATIONAL CREME DE MENTHE DAY | GREENPEACE DAY | NATIONAL FELT HAT DAY

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023 | NATIONAL DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER DAY | NATIONAL ONLINE LEARNING DAY | NATIONAL TACKLE KIDS CANCER DAY | NATIONAL NEONATAL NURSES DAY | NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY | NATIONAL CHEESE TOAST DAY | NATIONAL LINGUINE DAY | NATIONAL TRADESMEN DAY | NATIONAL CREME DE MENTHE DAY | GREENPEACE DAY | NATIONAL FELT HAT DAY NATIONAL DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER DAY – September 15 NATIONAL ONLINE…

View On WordPress

[electrooze]

Electrician: An Essential Role for Installing Security and Comfort in Residential and Commercial Properties

At the beginning of the industrial age when electricity was first becoming a staple in homes and businesses, it was considered to be a dangerous force and was difficult to manage. With the development of electricity and the construction of advanced electrical systems, electricians were introduced to fully manage the power grid and to install, repair, and maintain the networks. Even with the advancements in technology, electricians remain a necessary trade in the modern day to install and maintain security and comfort in residential and commercial properties.

Electricians work alongside architects, engineers, and other tradesmen to orchestrate the design and development of residential or commercial spaces. With extensive education in electrical work, from basic wiring to specialized tasks such as installing state-of-the-art video surveillance systems, electricians are hired for various purposes. Electricians need to be mindful of National Electrical Codes (NEC) to ensure that the electrical components in any setting are up to standards of code and safety. Therefore, Electricians are responsible for operating a variety of high-tech tools to work with varying kinds of wiring, circuit boards, and other components in order to install and upgrade.

Electricians must have the capability to work independently and troubleshoot problems quickly and efficiently. With the dangerous nature of their jobs, electricians take additional safety measures to ensure that no harm comes to them while they are on the job. They must use insulated-tools, wear protective clothing and gloves, and use special care during installation of high-voltage wiring.

Electricians may specialize in either residential or commercial projects and their jobs may involve anything from hanging fixtures and wiring outlets, to managing hundreds of miles of underground cables. If an electrician is looking for more control and ownership of their projects, they may focus solely on residential installations. Working with a single residential home, they may have a chance to take full control of the design, installation, and maintenance of the wiring electrician.

On the other hand, electricians that work in the commercial industry may manage much more complex projects with larger budgets and a much wider scope of what needs to be built or maintained. In either case, a good electrician has an eye for detail, takes pride in their work, and will do whatever it takes to make sure that every project is completed with as much care and precision as possible.

In conclusion, electricians are a necessity for any residential and commercial property. With their knowledge, expertise, and commitment to safety, they are essential in maintaining the comfort, convenience, and safety of homes and businesses alike. From wiring to video surveillance, electricians ensure that nothing less than the best is installed.

[eyecatchersadagency]

ADVERTISING IN 16TH TO 19TH CENTURY

Modern advertising began to require a form with the arrival of newspapers and magazines within the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The initial weekly gazettes appeared in metropolis within the early 16th-century. From there, the construct of a weekly publication unfolds to the Italian Republic, Deutschland and Netherlands. In Britain, the primary weeklies appeared within the 1620s, and its initial daily newspaper was The Daily Courant revealed from 1702 to 1735. Nearly from the commencement, newspapers carried advertising to pay the price of printing and distribution. The earliest business advertisements were for books and quack medicines, however by the 1650s, the variability of the product being publicized had accumulated markedly.

Advances in printing allowed retailers and makers to print handbills and trade cards. for instance, Jonathon Holder, a London merchandiser within the 1670s, gave each client a written list of his stock with the costs basifixed. At the time, Holder’s innovation was seen as a “dangerous practise” associated with the supererogatory expense for retailers. The earliest trade cards weren’t cards in the slightest degree, instead, they were written on paper and didn’t embrace illustrations. By the eighteenth century, however, they were written on a lot of cards and stands usually bore the tradesmen’s name and address, and before the street list was in common use, usually enclosed a verbose set of directions on a way to find the shop or premises. With the arrival of economic engraving and lithography, illustrations became a regular feature of even the foremost humble trade card. Eventually, trade cards evolved into business cards, that are still in use these days. In Gregorian calendar month, 1836, fictitious character DEGirardin editor of the Paris newspaper La Presse was the primary to admit paid advertising to lower its value, extend its audience and increase its gain. His formula was before long derived by all titles.

Early print advertisements were used primarily to push books and newspapers, which became more and more reasonable with advances within the printing press; and medicines, that were more and more wanted as fashionable individuals rejected ancient cures. However, false advertising and “Quackery” became common. British newspapers within the decennium and decade appealed to the more and more affluent bourgeois that sought-after out a range of latest product. The advertisements declared new health remedies furthermore as recent foods and beverages. the newest London fashions were featured within the regional press. the supply of recurrent advertising allowable makers to develop across the nation famed complete names that had a far stronger charm than generic product.

A leadership position in British advertising was command by Cope Bros & Co tobacco company, supported in the metropolis in 1848 by Thomas and St. George Cope. Smoking, of course, had been common for hundreds of years, however, the innovations consisted of incomplete names, serious advertising, and market segmentation per category. associate degree innovative charm was to health consciousness; the ads directed at the bourgeois men secure that “smoke not solely checks illness however preserves the lungs.” A rugged serious style was pitched to operating men, troopers and sailors, whereas”delicately fragrant” was a part of the charm to the propertied. The packaging was engaging, posters were ubiquitous to indicate that smoking was a standard a part of English life; lobbying was accustomed to undercut the anti-tobacco lobby. Fortunately, we’re not in the 16th century anymore, and have professional advertising agencies now, like Eyecatchers! It’s a one-stop-shop for every clients’ branding, promotional and communications needs. Call us on 9136024246 / 7 or mail us at [email protected] and we will prepare a tailor-made digital marketing solution for you that will be effective, efficient and ‘value-for-money!

[amosotta]

Enhance Your Life - Use a Housekeeper!

For the majority of people, the word "maid" contacts images of a matronly older woman presiding over a nation estate, succeeding the parlour house cleanings with a dust towel in hand. Absolutely nothing might be further from the truth of a modern-day caretaker. Many "routine" family members employ these handy individuals these days to do everything from cleaning up to shopping to cooking, and also appreciate a much less complex and freer way of life therefore.

A caretaker primarily does what the name implies, maintains your residence in the problem you would certainly like. A caretaker can carry out a selection of solutions for employers, yet almost anything that makes living less complicated comes under this individual's control.

Undoubtedly, cleaning is at the top of a maid's listing of obligations. While some individuals locate that once or twice a week maintains their residence spic and span, several find that a "daily" worker really gets even more done as well as can rotate a collection of jobs that alleviate functioning house owners of numerous undesirable tasks. A good daily will enable you to forget dustbin routines, maintenance and repair employees, and other routinely set up jobs. Even more, by constantly cleansing and maintaining your house, you are really saving time in the long term that would certainly be invested endlessly cleaning junked-up closets or scrubbing built up gunk from surfaces. Having a weekly cleansing routine keeps your residence in its ideal problem.

Besides cleansing, house cleaners can perform a range of tasks related to running the home that help an active property owner fit every little thing right into a limited timetable. Tasks like weekly purchasing, errand operating, as well as cooking can be worked out with a residential agent, alleviating the property owner of undesirable or taxing chores. A great house cleaner can be worked with to pay tradesmen, screen workmen, and any kind of various other tasks you can not be present to do on your own.

Even if you just utilize part-time home assistance, anything that is carried out in your absence is saving you time. By setting up a great house cleaning timetable, you not only save yourself the moment of the real tasks executed, but you additionally conserve on your own future fear with work accumulating unfinished, leading to much more time spent attempting to untangle your "to-do" list.

Envision the satisfaction of going back to your clean house each night with a freshly-cooked meal awaiting you, the racks equipped, the night paper to hand, щракнете върху следния уебсайт and also your mail took care of … and also the only point left for you to do is unwind and unwind! This can be a reality with a great housemaid.

Brazilian immigrants have been coming into the USA for a long time now. In many cases, the very first job that they managed to get for themselves was a house cleaning task. It supplied these individuals versatility in functioning hours as well as the ability to overcome the language barrier. For many years, this particular trade grew as a line of work for the people of the community. The number of people employing these solutions as well was on the boost.

The housecleaning line of work has become arranged trade for the Brazilians and there are even companies that intend to promote eco-friendliness with their work as well as the products they make use of. The major factor there is an uniformity in this neighborhood and their home cleansing career is because it has been passed down from generations. Every city has a lots of such services readily available and also in spite of today's economic situation it is no more thought about a high-end. People throughout the range for single working folk, to couples with a few children, to single moms and dads and also the rich as well as renowned hire such services.