#and all other people i forgot!! thank you poland!!

[wigilda]

by the way polish people understand ukrainian incredibly well. like we met random guys on the street who got us especially if we talked slowly and judging by what my groupmates said (because i actually know polish, and they do not) they understood most of polish words as well. i didn't expect it at all and that felt fuckin amazing plus i didn't think i'd talk with such an ease (it's been 4 years since i really studied this language)

#special thanks to #the guy who was smoking sitting on stairs in front of dorms' entrance and told us how to get inside at 1 a.m. in the morning #the guy on reception who always smiled at me and held keys to our rooms ready as we came in after figuring out the door #(i think he liked me <3) #the guy in the subway who pretended he didn't see us #us (a company of five ukrainian students giggling loudly and hysterically and talking photos) #and told us at which station we should change the line #the lovely woman with black hair and kind dark eyes and slight wrinkles on reception who was very kind to me #when it was my first attempt to communicate in polish #an elderly woman in subway who again showed us how to get on the station and the guy who she caught to help us since she did not understand #ukrainian perfectly #and all other people i forgot!! thank you poland!! #good days!!

[beauty-and-passion]

Eurovision 2023: the show of unfairness and the triumph of people’s hearts

My god, this year left me exhausted.

It’s 1:30 am, the Eurovision Grand Final just ended and I am starting to write this post now, because I need some time to calm myself before going to bed. And maybe putting down some thoughts about this year will help me find some peace - at least for a couple hours.

This year has not been what was supposed to be, starting from the show and ending with the winner.

But let’s start from the beginning.

______________________________

Ukraine: robbed of their own show

We all know Ukraine couldn’t host Eurovision in their country because of the war, so they asked the UK to do that.

And the UK tried to be a good host. They reminded us of the reason why Ukraine couldn’t do it, they tried to call Ukrainian artists and make the show about them... only to systematically forget it two minutes later and start acting as if they won and this was their show.

I hope now you understand why last year I said to not give them power over anything. The UK has a tiny little problem called “massive ego” and if you give them a little crumb, they will immediately scarf the whole cake down.

This year should’ve been 70% Ukraine themed and 30% UK themed. What we had instead was the other way around: the UK gave us a tiny little interval show in the semifinals about Ukraine, then a massive show all about the UK.

The Gran Final has been the icing on this disgusting cake. It started with a bang, featuring all of our favourite Ukrainian artists in the span of five minutes: Tina Karol (I had no idea she was Ukrainian, what a nice surprise!), goddess Verka, my beloved Go_A with The Only Queen That Matters, aka Kateryna Pavlenko. And, of course, our favourite winners: the Kalush Orchestra. Man Carpet is still an icon and I still wonder what the singer sees behind that pink hat, but I don’t care. It’s perfect, it’s great, I want this but 200x more. I want them to steal the show, I want them in all interval acts. But no worries, I’m sure they will definitely appear more during the final. I mean, there’s no way the UK called them just to appear for 20 seconds, right? Right?

Oh sorry, my bad. I forgot this isn’t Ukraine’s show, this is UK’s show. We should definitely have Sam Ryder in the interval act and we should definitely make it all about English songs. I mean, it’s not like there are four of the most beloved Ukrainian artists in Liverpool. Let’s make it all a huge masturbation session of the UK instead.

I apologize if my metaphor offended someone, but this is what I felt while watching the UK celebrating itself. Like... can’t you do this in a private room? Do I really have to watch it? This is just one step below Portugal’s show, which showed a massive ego as well and tortured me for three nights straight, by repeating how cool they were and how nice they were and how I would’ve done a great choice visiting them.

But even if that was torture, at least Portugal was the winner of the previous year, not a host masturbating over the fact they are allowed to host a show they didn’t win.

The only choice I fully approve of in this show is the postcards idea: that was very elegant and respectful and I want to thank the person who thought about it. The cards show Ukraine’s beautiful places, UK’s beautiful places and every country’s beautiful places. It’s all beautiful and it’s a great way to both honor Ukraine and emphasize UK’s hosting role, since it looks almost like the UK acts as a “connection” between Ukraine and every other country.

Unfortunately for us, this is the last proof of elegance we will see for the rest of the show.

______________________________

Danemark and Poland: robbed even before starting

Do you remember Danemark’s and Poland’s entries? I know, me neither. Bland, forgetful, two huge balls of nothing.

Well, I have a good news and a bad one. The good one is that Danish and Polish people are not insane and their musical tastes are actually way better than this. The bad news is that the two entries we got (Bejba and Tiktokkid) were not supposed to win their country’s competition, because the public’s favourites were different. But, like, VERY different.

Same thing happened last year for Spain, but at least Chanel was able to put on a great show - even if her song was boring. Danemark and Poland didn’t have that either: one gave us a meme, the other gave us nothing. Disappointing.

So let’s clean Danemark’s and Poland’s names, by listening to the artists they were actually supposed to bring. Let’s start with Danemark and please, tell me if the tiktok kid is better than this (if you dare):

And before you think: “oh my gosh, this could’ve been a great entry for Danemark!”, please listen to what Poland was supposed to bring:

I love this song. I love this cute nice boy. I love the classical vibes. And when I played this song for my father, my 70-year-old father told me, with no hesitation: “Oh, this is way better than the other one!”.

So if a 70-year-old can recognize how good this song is, then there’s no generational gap and it’s not true that people are accustomed to the same boring stuff. If a song is good, is good. If a song is bland, is bland.

By now you probably already heard from Polish people about how the voting system of their competition was rigged and how Blanka won thanks to the power of nepotism. So our duty as Europeans (and as people with some fucking taste) is to stream Gladiator, listen to all of his songs and shower this boy with love because he needs to know the world loves him.

And for you all, Polish people: thank you for making us know about your true winner. He really looks like one and we love him too.

______________________________

Germany: robbed while trying

I really cannot understand why people keep hating Germany this much. Is it still because of WW2? What did they do, to deserve the bottom of the chart? I know it’s funny, I know it’s for the memes ah ah ah, but also... come on. Come. On. Are you really telling me that Poland was better than Germany? Are you really telling me that the UK was better than Germany?

I can assure you that if Sweden brought this exact same song, the jury would’ve given this song 300 points. But hey, ThE jUrY iS iMpArTiAl, right?

German people: I don’t know why the world hates you. I think you would’ve gotten more votes, if only the system wasn’t so stupidly rigged and forced everyone to choose one winner only, hoping to defeat the jury’s sheer power. Personally, I enjoyed your song and I enjoyed Lord of the Lost and I will definitely listen to more of their songs to add to my playlist.

However, I also understand your frustration. So you know what? Just go nuts. Choose whoever the fuck you want to represent your country, attend Eurovision whenever you want and do whatever you want, give us insane shit and amazing stuff. You will be treated the same either way, so why give a fuck? Have fun showing your insane side, I will support you 100%.

______________________________

Italy and Israel: what did they ever do to deserve these places?

As an Italian, I am honored people gave so many votes to Italy. Seriously, thank you all, nice to know people appreciate our singers.

But also: why so many votes? Why? I know Mengoni is a good singer, he has a great voice and if this was a real singing competition he would’ve probably deserved to win.

But since Eurovision is not a singing competition, why all these points? Were people really so in love with this ballad? Why? What does he have I cannot understand?

Even more important: why Israel, with their stupid unicorn song, got all these votes? Why? Is it because she’s good-looking? Seriously? Are we still stuck thinking with our genitals, instead of using our brains? I thought Europe moved past the need of thinking with genitals only and started developing some good fucking taste.

Or did her amazing “dance moves” get the public? Ok, she’s very flexible... but do I really really have to remind you of Chanel? A small dance segment is really worth so many points, when last year we had someone who was able to sing AND dance as she did for the entire song? I didn’t even like Chanel, but I am mature enough to recognize that THAT was a show, while the unicorn lady did nothing more than a small dance. Definitely not worth 185 public votes.

At least I know that my country didn’t go insane and the true points (aka the public’s points) didn’t go to the unicorn but to Moldova. Thank god, we are still able to recognize what’s good.

______________________________

Finland: the real winner

When Eurovision started, I was sure Czechia would’ve been the winner. However, their performance wasn’t enough to grant them victory.

Finland, however, had everything a winner needs. And now I will explain to you why, because I love this funky green man and you should love him too.

1) “A little man from Vantaa”

Käärijä is a rare gem, not just for Eurovision, but in general. He’s a simple, genuine, silly guy, who comes from a city few people knew before. He doesn’t speak English too well, but he tries and fails in comically sweet ways. He’s a huge fan of Rammstein, so he’s a man of culture. He became besties with Bojan from the Slovenian band Joker Out and their bromance has been the best part of this Eurovision: these two share one single braincell and I love them for this.

But, most of all, he’s humble. He never considered himself above all others, even after his victory. He knew right from the start that it would’ve been a battle between him and Loreen and yet, he never grew arrogant about it. He always talked about their rivalry in funny ways, through memes and by treating her nicely. But he also never underestimated her: he always put his whole self into every performance, knowing full well he had to give everything, to reach the public’s hearts.

And he did. He reached the public’s hearts and like many others all over the world, I also love this little man. He’s genuine, he’s honest, he’s a fashion icon (Finland changes their flag to green when), his dancers are funky and nice like him. You look at him once and all you can think is: “I want to protect him at all costs”. It’s just impossible to hate this man.

2) His song is a banger

Not only his song is a fusion of three genres (industrial metal, hyperpop and hip-hop/rap), so he’s already serving you three songs in one, but the language he used is Finnish.

I’ve heard Finnish people saying that they never used their language because it’s “too weird”. People, that’s exactly because it’s weird that you should use it! You have this gem and you hide it to us?!

If you don’t know why Finnish is so great, please consider that while all other European languages are part of the Indo-European family, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are not. They are part of a completely different family (the Uralic languages).

That means they have nothing similar to any other European language. They are something completely different and new, a whole new world to explore. And they’re here, in our continent!

In addition to that, Finnish is an agglutinative language, which means words are formed by stringing together morphemes. How fucking cool is that? I love this kind of language!

As someone who studied English, French, German and Russian, Finnish is something that gets my attention. I can recognize similarities between Germanic, Slavic and Italic languages and I love them, but Finnish is an unexplored world. It’s made of sounds that well, sound familiar even if they’re not. It’s a constant surprise, you know?

Also, I love that it’s a language full of vowels because it makes me think of my own mother tongue (Italian). It’s a bit like feeling at home, even if our languages have nothing in common <3

3) The best performance of Eurovision 2023

I love the Croatian daddies like the next person (and I’m glad the public gave them the top 10 because they deserve it), but Käärijä’s performance had everything: it told us a story (i.e. how Käärijä slowly emerges from behind his barriers to join the party), he gave us the best stupid dance moves and there’s even a family-friendly human centipede. What else do you need, to start dancing?

Also, another shoutout to his dancers, because I live for those shocking pink dresses and for their immensely creepy expressions. And I live for the public always welcoming them with screams: they deserve it.

I know you already enjoyed it 200 times, but you know what? Let’s fucking destroy the views of this video and let’s watch it again. And also, let’s notice how much the public enjoys it. How much they screamed, how they sang with him, how they enjoyed this party.

Even without knowing Käärijä, you can feel he put his whole self into this. And the public felt it too.

And the final result was astonishing: he got 376 points from the public. It’s the second-highest public score, after Kalush Orchestra, who got 439 points.

If you notice, Käärijä’s percentage is even higher than Kalush Orchestra’s! And such a high result means one thing and one thing only: the public has chosen its winner. He is the winner. People are sovereign and people’s will has been very clear about it. So when I say he’s the winner, it’s not because I want to indulge him: it’s because it’s the fucking truth.

Also, please notice the kind of songs the public chose as their top 3 favorites: songs with nothing mainstream and native languages. All while the jury thinks what we want is the same boring shit we can hear on the radio 24/7.

______________________________

A painful evening

Let me start by making something clear: I don’t hate Loreen and I don’t hate Sweden. It’s not their fault if they win. They are just exploiting the situation, because they learned what the good formula is and keep using it over and over.

Loreen knows that if she sends another song that is just like all the others she made, she will get a high position. And now, thanks to yesterday’s victory, she knows she doesn’t even have to try. Why should she do something different, when doing the same thing twice made her win twice? Why try something different, why step out of her comfort zone? If she does the same thing, she can win. So she will keep doing the same thing.

Same goes for the entire country of Sweden. They learned that if they bring the most boring, generic pop song you can listen to on every radio on planet Earth, you will win. So, they will keep sending it. After all, a bland pop song is what the world is more accustomed to, so why change? Why do something different, when they can be teacher’s pet and always get a high score? This isn’t being stupid, this is being clever.

But is it elegant and fair too? Oh honey, absolutely not. This is the exact opposite of what elegance and fairness are.

On Saturday evening, when we reached the voting part of the show, the crowd literally CHEERED AND SANG Käärijä’s name or “Cha Cha Cha”. Multiple times.

Once the public clearly states who they want to win, then the competition is over. When the consensus is unanimous, there’s no competition anymore. The winner is already here. Everything else is just white noise and bureaucracy.

That’s what I felt, while I was forced to keep listening to a bunch of people loudly kissing Sweden’s ass. The public had already decided, we already have a winner. Why are we still wasting time?

And if forcing us to keep listening to this pitiful charade was not enough, the hosts decided to lose that shred of elegance that was still left on this joke of a show and not only shushed the public all time but even said “just ignore everyone”, as if their voices didn’t really matter. It’s not like this is a music competition and the public is the final receiver of said music, after all.

I don’t know you, but I don’t like to see the sovereign public being silenced and told they do not matter, all while a bunch of people takes the decisions for them. Maybe the Brits are accustomed to being silenced because an old rich man has to decide for them, but other countries don’t work like that. Like, you know, the one they’re hosting the competition for.

There was nothing democratic about Saturday evening. There was nothing fair in silencing the public and pretending they haven’t chosen their winner one hour ago, because teacher’s pet had to win again.

Do you really think Sweden deserved this victory more than Finland? Do you really think that a country that won six times needed to add this victory to their list, so they can say “ah ah we won as many times as Ireland”? Or just because they can do their stupid ABBA anniversary next year? Is this the reason why we choose our winner, now? The past glories of a country? Well, then in 2048 is the anniversary of Dana International’s winning song, let’s all go to Israel! And in 2056 we’ll go to Finland, because it’s the anniversary of Lordi’s winning. And in 2071 will be 50 years from the Maneskin’s victory, so let’s come back to Italy.

What, does that sound ridiculous? Tell that to the jury, then.

I feel immensely sorry for the Finnish people, because I read online how much this victory could’ve meant for them. This could’ve been so important, such a good chance to shine for a country that considers their language “too weird” and who hasn’t won in 17 years. And since they are stuck between that ticking bomb that is Russia and the always perfect Sweden, they really needed something that gave them more positive attention.

And it broke my heart even more to see Käärijä suffering. He even apologized to his nation. He did something amazing and he still apologized. He literally won and apologized for not winning. That’s unfairness to its finest.

And if all of this is not enough, the results of the public’s vote came out and oh, look, not a single country gave 12 points to Sweden, while almost every country gave 12 points to Finland. Wow, who would’ve fucking guessed that teacher’s pet won because of the teacher.

Again: does that seem fair and democratic to you?

______________________________

Oligarchy masqueraded as democracy

Let’s do a little bit of math, shall we?

Each national jury consists of five people + one backup juror. They supposedly vote for the best singer and performance- AHAHAH great joke, very funny.

But let’s not focus on this, now: let’s focus on numbers.

37 countries participated this year. So 37 x 6 = 222. The jury is made up of 222 people in total.

The entire population of Europe is around 451 million people, but let’s keep it low because Eurovision isn’t watched by all Europeans. Let’s take just the number of views on the Youtube streaming of the Grand Finale: 9.5 million people. Let’s round up to 9 million, okay?

Okay, so now we have 222 people on one side and 9 million people on the other. Let’s pretend that less than half of them voted at least one time.

Okay, now look me straight in the eyes and explain why the votes of 222 people should have the same weight as the votes of 4 million people. Please, explain to me how democratic this decision is, can’t wait to hear it.

But you know what? Even if it was 1 million voters only, that wouldn’t have been fair either. In no universe is fair to put one million voters on the same level as 222 voters.

There’s only one possible scenario in which this is fair: if Eurovision was a talent show specifically centered around performances and voices, with a jury made of vocal teachers and choreographers, and all I have to do is passively watch it on my couch.

But from the moment you gave the public the power to choose who the winner could be, then why do the votes of all the people from Europe (and Australia) have the same weight as what 222 people decided?

This isn’t a democracy. This is an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy: a bunch of people decides what you should like, basing their decision on their own interests. And you have no way to oppose them, unless you focus all your votes on one single artist, hoping it would defeat the one the jury chooses.

But this deprives Eurovision of the competition aspect. It’s not a competition if I have to endure a tug-of-war against the jury. It’s not a competition if I am forced to give all of my votes to one artist only, instead of spreading them out to all my favorites. And even in that case, basically all of Europe should vote for that specific artist to try and overcome the sheer power the jury has. Again: does this sound democratic to you?

Now you may say: but the jury is made of experts. Oh, you mean the same experts that proved multiple times they base their votes on politics, who their neighbor is and who can corrupt them better? Or do you mean the same experts that in the past made their choice even without listening to the songs?

The truth is that we have 222 people who can easily be influenced by anything and their power is as strong as the power of 4 million people at least. Four million people, who got invested and followed the entire show from start to finish, if I may add. Please, tell me about the fairness of this system again.

And before you say “but Eurovision is a music competition and we need experts”... sorry, but no. According to Wikipedia, the jury was present before televoting was born, but once televoting was extended to all competing countries (1997 ca.), the jury was no more. It came back only in 2009, with this unfair compromise of 50/50 between jury ad public votes.

So there was a period of time in which there wasn’t a jury and in that period we had the first win for Estonia, Turkey, Latvia, Greece, Finland, Serbia and Russia. How weird that, once the jury isn’t there, other nations have a chance to win too.

The thing is: Eurovision isn’t a simple music competition. It’s more like a window. A window where anyone can have their chance to shine. No matter if you’re from a well-known country and everyone knows who you are or if you’re from a tiny piece of land in the middle of nowhere and all you can do is speak your native language: if you have the right combination of song+performance+voice, you can win.

And it’s beautiful we have this window, because it allows us to see something we’ve never seen before: rock bands, silly songs, folk songs and straight-up weird songs. In Eurovision, you don’t have to listen to just the same generic bland song, but you are allowed to listen to different artists and different cultures - and if you like them, you are free to choose your winner, no matter how not mainstream it is.

And we Europeans need this. We need to celebrate the diversity of Europe and embrace them. We need to see people from different countries hanging out, having fun and becoming best friends. For a continent that has always had (and still has) a problem with wars, we need something that allows us to look at each other and not see a piece of land to conquer, but a place full of life and culture to learn about.

And since we pride ourselves to be the continent where democracy was born, let’s put this democracy in the show we’re so proud of. Do we really need the jury vote? Do we really need the vote of this bunch of people? Okay, let’s have them. But it’s not acceptable to give them the same weight as the public’s vote. 50/50 isn’t acceptable anymore. 20/80 is fairer. I’m feeling nice, we can even do a 30/70. It’s just not acceptable that 300 people should have power over millions over something those same millions will enjoy. As always, the public is sovereign.

And if the public’s taste is shit, at least we will be free to blame ourselves for something we brought unto ourselves - and not feel sick and angry over something others forced upon us.

Or everything can stay the same and the 50/50 system will keep going. But at least, be honest enough to not waste everyone’s time, by pretending the public can do something more than watch what a bunch of people decide for them. Do not pretend to be righteous and democratic, when you’re not.

______________________________

The triumph of people

This finale drained me. If it were just a little fairer, I would’ve been thrilled to see Luxembourg coming back after years. But right now I don’t feel like watching next year’s show. I know it will probably be amazing, because Sweden is very good at hosting. But I don’t want to see them masturbating over how good they are and how much they deserved to win - even if they didn’t win.

And, honestly, I don’t care about ABBA either. I don’t give a damn about them, nor about their anniversary. I’m definitely not looking forward to that either.

I will listen to the songs as always, then I might give it a try and watch the semifinals. It depends on how bitter my grudge will be, after one full year. If it will still be very bitter, I will probably spend my time better, by listening to the songs more times, watching the performances and making my own personal final chart. I won’t have ABBA or funny interval acts, but I can try my best to make it enjoyable to read. And it won’t be a fucking charade, at least.

Sorry, but I will keep being bitter for some time. And if you feel bitter too, you have every right to be, no matter what people say. Your voice has been silenced and ignored and numbers don’t lie. It’s very understandable you feel bad.

But you know what you can do? Use your anger in a positive way. And no, that doesn’t mean sending death threats to Loreen. You can accuse Sweden of its lack of elegance and decorum if you want, but always be polite. Don’t be like some of them, who are such sore losers they had the guts to be angry at Finland because it didn’t give Sweden any public points. Bo-hoo, may I add.

What you can do instead is make some noise: ask for the jury to be abolished or for this shitty system to change. And, even more important, support your winners. A lot of amazing artists have been wronged this year, so shower them with love.

And send your love especially towards our winner. Stream Cha Cha Cha, check his other songs, shower him with love and support, make a statue for him in Vantaa, pay me a plane ticket because I need to tackle him in a hug and tell him how much the world loves him. Let’s show the world that he slaps, Finnish slaps and we want more of this.

Do you still need more Cha Cha Cha in your life? Good news: Lord of the Lost made a cover for Cha Cha Cha and OH MY GOSH it’s insanely good. It has a lot of Rammstein vibes, it’s cool and it slaps even harder. Check it out because it’s amazing!

Also because the German singer learned some Finnish, just to spell every word correctly and, according to the Finnish people in the comment section, he did a great job. What a wholesome guy, I love and stan him and his band - and you should do the same, because they are amazing and they don’t deserve last place <3

And if you need more Käärijä in your life, there are amazing Youtube channels with great collections of his moments, like Eurovision Is Ambition and Uni Dash Corn. I especially suggest you see his bromance with Bojan - and speaking of him, another shoutout to Bojan! He’s such a nice, wholesome guy with great charisma, you cannot hate him. I am not head over heels for his song, but he’s so fucking wholesome, he deserves good things only.

And I also suggest you see how Käärijä has been welcomed in Helsinki. He has been welcomed like a fucking hero, a national treasure. And of course he was: he is the true winner after all, he deserved the welcome only winners get.

It’s a bit like he said in his apology: the better one won. And so he did.

You know, I think the only good thing that came out from this shitshow that was Eurovision 2023, is the people’s heart. People showed their kindness, their love, the best of humankind. We saw acts of friendship, we saw empathy and appreciation. The hug between Käärijä and Bojan, despite its sad meaning, is also a perfect example of what we all should be: kinder, softer, more empathetic, together, no matter how far and different our countries are.

In a way, I am happy that Ukraine’s message of unity was still carried out, even if indirectly and definitely not the way the UK wanted.

And in the end, the trophy isn’t so important: it’s just a piece of glass after all. And no piece of glass is worth the impact one little man from Vantaa left on so many people all over the world.

I know you will never read this post, but I wish you a lifetime of success, Käärijä. You have everything a winner needs and, in fact, you are one. So don’t be too hard on yourself, because the world still needs to show you how much it loves you. Take your time, relax, have fun and come back when you’re ready - just don’t leave us hanging for too much, ‘kay?

And you, Finnish people: please treat our beloved winner with love for us too. We will do our best from afar, so let’s be together on this as we should <3

#eurovision #eurovision 2023 #esc #esc 2023 #finland #kaarija #ukraine #uk #danemark #poland #jann #germany #lord of the lost #italy #israel #sweden #slovenia #bojan cvjeticanin #fuck the jury #always fuck the jury #this year more than ever #only support to the true winner #thank you finland for this gift to the world #I wish your tourism to skyrocket

[someonewhogotanaccount]

It's intro post time!

Hi! I'm KitCat!

~The end~

Okay okay maybe you need a little bit more.

As I already said, I'm KitCat, master procatsinator and moving catastrophe, nice to meet you. (Though, everybody calls me KitKat, Kit or Chocosy, which is perfectly fine as well as any other name you want to give me ;)

I'm a minor, so all the creeps please leave now. My motto in life is "live and let live", so if you're here to hurt somebody, please leave too. Thank you :).

The typical things (that I actually forgot when I first posted this): I'm a straight white European Christian girl (teenager) and therefore probably the person with the most boring background, according to Tumblr ;).

I have two "adopted daughters": 1. My Killercat and tuna-demanding master Pauline 2. ";)", the bracket face (she can adapt any form of bracket face if she wants to, but the winking one is her favourite)

Some random facts about me: - my favourite colour is something between purple and dark blue - I have no clue how to write the word color/colour - I'm a German and from Germany (obviously) - I have no clue about the 'typical German culture', since my family was in Poland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia for around three hundred years and only came back to Germany 30 years ago or so - I love brackets and bracket faces - I have no clue about aesthetics - I consider myself a writer - I have no clue how to continue my stories - I love cats (who would have guessed that) - I have no clue how to make an intro post - I have a stupid sense humour - I have no clue in general but I'm trying :)

You can consider me as: Your silly Tumblr neighborhood KitCat and founder of the hug-ducks ;).

Do I take Tumblr serious? No. I'm that one friend that will be hyperactive the one day and then just dissappear for the next three weeks without a word. But if you ever need me, my inbox is always open. Vent as much as you want to, I'll try to comfort you.

Random stuff: I often misunderstand stuff, so if I'm acting weird, there is a 1/3 chance that I misunderstood you, a 1/3 chance I wanted to make a silly joke and you misunderstood me, and a 1/3 chance that I'm just weird ;). I'm a "Very vibey" (@mushroomcarrotstick) person, btw. @hijabi-desi-bookworm told me once I was "literally one of the best and ~vibest~ people" she knows. Do with that whatever you want, but my name is KitCat Chaos Vibey Clueless Badass Silly for a reason. Oh and if ANYBODY tells you that I'm cute, they are liars. All lies. I'm a pure badass and never ever search after the leta vs. kitkat war. It's better to let the past behind us and move on.

Sooooo, what else can I write here? Hmmm.... AH! MY MOOTS! I FORGOT MY MOOTS!!!

How do I do this now... you know what? I'll just make a list of the moots and then put the link here.

What else? Fandoms, maybe? (current obsession right on the top) - Worm (Parahumans) - Renegades - Claim the Stars (still waiting for the second book) - pjo, hoo, toa - The Inheritance Games (currently reading the second book) - tpq - kotlc - Warrior Cats (don't make fun of me. These books are my childhood and I will read them until I die) - Shadow League (never read the fourth book as it wasn't translated)

Also I enjoy listening music by Imagine Dragons :).

Yeah well, that's it, I suppose. I have an ao3 account as well, but that's only Renegades fanfiction so far. If you want the link just ask or smth.

Since everybody does this, I'll drop an "aesthetic picture" that should give the same vibes as my blog:

(source for the chaotic arson cat ;)

#intro post #i'm a chaotic arson cat #moots #badass stuff i've done #;)

[psychologeek]

Bleeding Memories

Today is Yom Ha'Shoah (Holocaust Day).

And I wrote something (tw: holocaust. Mention of dead ppl *including kids* , and their memory.)

You're five years old, and your Ballet-class dance to a voice singing: "wait until you grow up, you were often told/A tall man and a short woman/ If you won't eat, you'll never grow up/Good boy leave an empty dish" (It would take years before you fully understand that). You are seven, and your mom won't let you read That Book. (You take it when she isn't home, read about death and darkness and hope). You read a lot during the next years. (It's written in your DNA). There's a siren and you think about People turn to numbers Numbers turn to bodies Bodies turn to ashes (to ashes). (You never really cry). It doesn't matter that your family already been here when it happened (In the book of people in your family, keeping records of ten generations, there are chapters thin as paper, summarised: "Fruma, 1940-1943, Auschwitz" ; "David, 1915-?, Trablinka" ; "unknown, 3 daughters of-" (Do you know their names? Do you remember?)

My great-grandmother To her dieing day, Never believed her sister is dead "She was an award-winning swimmer!", She claimed. (Or so they said) What difference can that make With two children? It's a familiar story: overcrowded ship meets a direct bomb. Old, laconic papers filled with names, ages, a description, maybe- (Don't forget) "Victiom's first name (also nickname): Adele. ||Approx. age at death: 5|| Relationship to the victim (family/other): Other (you fill the papers for your family and friends. You fill it for the people you know knew. You fill it for the woman who laid next to you in the cold cabin, who cried as she told you about her daughter. You fill one for the daughter, too, even if all you can put is "Girl, daughter of Esther, approx. age at death: 4, Dachao". "I had a cousin, she had 5 children. I can't remember the names" "Name: Her Father's name was David? Or Dov?" "There was a family. I don't remember their names. But they lived in the apartment next to mine when-" (Remember) In 2017 my parents spent a vication in Slovakia. The Airbnb owner was excited to hear they are jews, and had planty of helpful advices: "Oh, you're Jewish? So, you're probably going to visit Auschwitz?" When I was in 11th grade, I didn't go to the Poland Journey. My mother did go. There are prime locations you must see- The children's forest, in Tarnow. (700 Jews returned, after- Or tried. They were harassed away. No one left now. It's 100 less then the amount of kids' skeletons, laying in the woods). 2023, a Tumblr post says "I support Jews, this is a safe place" get the following replies: "Heil Hitler" "Seig Heil" "No thank I no like jews" "The first holocaust happened in Africa. What happened to Jews was just why white on white violence. Who cares" ... They are right. Who cares?

It's about the need to feel safe - but can you? It's about a blood stained history, where we can't even count or name all the times our people were butchered and slaughtered. (And we've just been through Passover) It's about a long list of names and dates and deaths. (Not even mention my personal list of names and faces. Just to name a few: Shalhevet, Hadas, Efrat, Eyal, Gilad, Naftali-) It's about generational trauma, written in our DNA (Hide. Run. Live). It's about 1943 Jewish in (not yet) Israel making plans what to do if (when) Rommel will arrive [where will you run?], It's the 1950-60s and european being called weak, and "why didn't you fight?" ( Why did you go like lamb to the slaughter?). It's the 60-70s, and North-African being told "you're lying" when talking about concentration camps and forced workers in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria ("But my MOTHER was there!") It's about everyone we forgot - because everyone who ever knew them is gone. (It's about the remains: One-from-town, two-from-family, a cinder saved from the fire). It's about remembering, Remember and never forget. Who cares? (I do)

#yom hashoah #holocaust #holocaust mention #holocoust #actually jewish #jewish community #jews #remember #remember and never forget #יום השואה #yizkor #poems and poetry #poem #writing #holocaust memorial Day #my writing

[bonketh]

|Глава 2|

"..so.. what i'm understanding is.. you all came from a whole nother world?"

"yes. exactly."

you sat there, confusion written all over youre face as you took in the information provided to you.

"there was a malfunction in the transports in our world," USSR explained, waving his hand around.

"some dumb fuck left one open.." russia growled, staring at america.

"wh- it wasn't just my fault!" the american hissed, squinting his eyes.

canada stood behind america, his arms crossed as he stared at you.

a disturbing stare.

you shivered, glancing back down at you're hands. "next thing we know, we pop up here!"

poland exclaims, dropping his hands to his sides, his wing fluffing behind him.

"well, uhm- i don't.. know if i'll have enough room for you all.." you say calmly.

"how many free rooms do you currently have available?" Russian Empire asked, his arms behind his back.

you paused for a moment, thinking. "hm.. i have.. 4 small rooms cleaned out, and then 6 larger rooms." you say,

"well, we can all be divided individually between said rooms." Russian Empire says, his eye closing.

you nodded you're head, thinking for a moment once again.

"so, for the larger rooms, they're probably the size of.. my living room." you say.

"so atleast 4 people can fit in there," you finished explaining, counting off all he countries in the room.

for the slavics, you had:

Russian Empire

USSR

Russia

Ukraine

Belarus

Kazakhstan

Latvia and Lithuania

Poland (?)

for the nordics, you had:

Denmark

Sweden

Norway

Finland

Iceland

then some of the other countries,

Germany

America

Canada

Britain

France

New Zealand

Australia

Third Reich

Reichtangle (?)

Mexico

Peru

Spain

and then a few asian countries:

Vietnam

Phillipines(?)

Japan

Nekomi

China

North and South Korea

_____________________________

[if i forgot any, please tell me or point out any mistakes i've made]

you sighed, rubbing you're face. so many countries..

"anywho, let's not worry about that right now! who are you?" Mexico exclaimed, grinning,

"oh, i'm [Y/n]." you say, nervously smiling.

"such a nice name, for a nice person..~" spain purred, gently grabbing you're hand, pressing a soft kiss onto it.

you cringed, yanking you're hand away. "thanks but no thanks." you mumbled, rubbing you're hand on the closest thing next to you.

that happened to be USSR.

the russian swatted you're hand away, glowering down at you.

"oh- sorry-"

the union said nothing, and only stared at you,

awkward start to you're day,

_______________________________

[349 words]

#countryhumans x reader #countryhumans #xreader

[iceeckos12]

Prompt: Jongerrymartin but make it noir.

HI PIT. this was probably not what you were expecting, but hope you enjoy *jazz hands* this is current jongerry, pre-jgm

please let me know if i should tag anything!

Martin stared up at the faded gold lettering painted on the door, wiping a clammy palm against the fabric of his trousers. The other gripped his manila folder tightly, refusing to loosen his grip for even a second, not after all the trouble he’d gone through to get it.

Delano & Sims, the words read. Private Detectives.

He’d talked to one of them over the phone yesterday, a man with an achingly posh accent, who’d said to come at precisely fourteen hundred hours and not a moment later. That clipped, dry tone had almost been enough to scare him off, but...no, he needed this too much to run away.

Martin took a deep breath, and knocked.

“Come in,” a voice called, and he pushed inside.

The first thing he noticed were the swirls of cigarette smoke so thick that the weak light overhead glowed a thin silver. His eyes immediately began to water at the intensity of the smell, and he desperately wanted to bury his nose in his collar.

There was an exasperated sigh from one shrouded corner of the room, and then, “Christ—Jon, open the window, would you?”

“Oh, right, sorry,” There was a clatter as the blinds lifted, and then a solid thunk, and suddenly fresh air and natural light was pouring through the open window, throwing the room in stark relief.

“Sorry about that,” the man next to the window said, leaning heavily on a handsome wooden cane. He was just a wisp of a thing, dressed in a sweater vest like he was some sort of professional academic, with salt and pepper grey hair and dark, keen eyes. “Forgot we had someone coming.”

This must be the person I talked to over the phone, Martin realized. Sims.

“Do me a favor and try not to kill our clients, Jon.” He quickly turned to look at Delano—who else could it be?—who was stepping away from the fan now juddering to life, swirling the quickly dissipating smoke. It was almost startling how different the two partners were; where Sims was thin and short, Delano was tall and wiry, with inky black hair and cool, gunmetal eyes. The weathered leather trench coat and chunky boots had obviously seen some better days.  “We need all the ones we can get.”

Martin’s face flushed as he was struck by how unfairly attractive these two people were.

“Duly noted,” Sims drawled, limping over to the heavy desk stacked high with papers. He set the cane aside and propped himself against it with a quiet sigh, then gestured toward one of the ratty looking chairs. “Take a seat, Mr. Blackwood.”

Martin shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, I don’t…”

“No need to stand on decorum, not around here.” Delano pointedly plopped into the chair behind the desk, grin wide and toothy. “Jon just likes to pretend that we’re more professional than we actually are.”

“We’re professional,” Sims protested, sounding deeply offended. “Just...unorthodox.”

“Well, alright,” Martin said, and lowered into the surprisingly comfortable chair.

Delano cleared his throat. “Right. So what brings you to us, Mr. Blackwood?”

Martin thought for a moment, not wanting to speak rashly, or to give away anything too personal. “Well, I’ve heard rumors that you two are capable of...discretion, so to speak, and I would prefer that this doesn’t get spread around.”

“Ah.” Sims’ eyes quickly flicked up and down his body, one eyebrow raising. “Out of curiosity, can I ask who referred you to us?”

“Tim Stoker?” Martin shuffled. “He said that you helped him out of a similar bind not too long ago.”

Sims and Delano glanced at each other, their eyebrows doing a complicated little dance, though what information could’ve been conveyed through such a medium, Martin had no clue. They turned to look at him again in unison, expressions very serious.

“When you say similar…” Delano trailed off.

Martin immediately shook his head. “Oh, nothing to do with the Circus. I’m not stupid enough to get involved with them after what happened with Tim and his brother.”

They both relaxed immediately.

“That’s good for you,” Delano told him. “We’ve run afoul of Nikola and her merry band far too many times for comfort. If you’d said you’d gotten on her bad side, I’m afraid we would’ve had to ask you to leave.”

Martin glanced at Sims, who was staring very hard at his feet, then Delano, who was observing him calmly, patiently, the way a bird of prey sights down a mouse. “Oh.”

“Quite,” Sims murmured.

“Anyway,” Delano gave a wide, grandiose gesture. “Please. Why have you come to us?”

The manila folder suddenly felt very, very heavy, and he fiddled with one of the corners, rubbing the material between his fingers. “Well...I work for this, um, this shipping company. I mostly do busywork, administrative tasks, that sort of thing. It’s not very glamorous, but it—it pays really well, despite the company being kind of small.” Martin traced the grain of the paper with one finger. “I think it handles a lot of….specialty items.”

“And the name of this company?” Sims asked, pen poised over the little notebook he’d appeared from seemingly nowhere.

Anxiety plummeted his stomach into his toes. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable giving away that information.”

Delano’s eyebrows rose. “Discretion, remember? Besides, we’ll need to know if we’re going to be able to help you.”

“If we decide to help you,” Sims muttered.

Martin took a few fortifying breaths, swallowing the nausea down. “Right,” he murmured. “Right. It’s, um...Tundra shipping company? Run by Mr. Peter Lukas.”

Sims went very, very still, pen poised above his notebook, expression fixed like it’d been molded into his face. Delano loomed forward, the gunmetal of his eyes gleaming like the sun reflecting off of a loaded barrel. “Is that so?”

Martin glanced toward Sims, wondering at his demeanor, then turned back to Delano and nodded. “Yeah. You two—you know him?”

“Do we.” Delano let out a dry chuckle. “Continue.”

“Right.” Martin shook his head. “Well, one day I was doing some bookkeeping, just...routine stuff, you know? But I noticed something off with the numbers, like...really wrong. And I double checked my math several times just to make sure, but…” he swallowed. “I think that someone may be cooking the books, or...or something. I don’t know.

“Anyway, I went back the next day but the numbers had been changed, and—and Mr. Lukas called me into his office and said some really weird stuff that I think may have been a threat? It was hard to tell.” Martin shook his head, biting his lip. “There’s been other stuff, too. Contracts with companies that I know don’t exist, visitors at odd hours. I think something really rotten is going on, but I don’t think that I can handle it myself.”

Delano and Sims shared an unhappy look. Then Sims pushed away from the desk and began to circle the perimeter of the room, his eyebrows furrowing into a thunderstorm on his brow.

“We’d love to finally be able to pin something substantial on the bastard—on Lukas,” Delano said. “But insinuating those types of claims without a shred of evidence...that’s a nonstarter. We’re going to need a little bit more than that.”

“But I do have evidence?” Martin asked, lifting the manila folder. “I took photocopies of the pages, and notated where the discrepancies were.” He wrinkled his nose. “I wasn’t about to just write on official financial records. There’s also some of the weird contracts I was talking about. I kept copies of everything.”

Sims, who’d walked out of sight while Martin had been talking, suddenly appeared behind him, reaching for the folder. “Can I see?”

“Be careful with it, that’s the only copy,” Martin said nervously, but handed it over.

Sims walked back over to the desk, hopped up on the edge, and eagerly tipped the contents of the folder on the space between him and Delano. They quickly sifted through the papers, wordlessly handing things to each other like a seamless, well-oiled machine.

“This is good.” Delano’s voice was almost hushed, almost awed. “This is...really good, actually.”

“But you see why I can’t go to the police with this, right?” Martin twisted his hands fitfully. “You see why I need your help.”

“Of course not,” Sims said dismissively, though there was an eager gleam in his eyes. “The police are so deep in Lukas’ pocket you might as well have kissed your life goodbye if you’d gone to them.”

“Oh.” Martin swallowed, trying and failing to come up with anything more intelligent than that. “Oh.”

Delano drummed his fingers against the desk pensively. “Speaking of, it wouldn’t be a good idea to pursue this recklessly. We appreciate you bringing this to us, but it does put you in a significant amount of danger. Do you have friends or family outside the country you can stay with, Mr. Blackwood?”

“Um…” He had cousins in Poland, he was pretty sure. Whether or not they would take him in was another question entirely. “Possibly.”

Sims reluctantly gathered the papers up and slid them back into the manila folder, before holding it out. “Come back when you’ve got something lined up.”

Martin lifted a quelling hand as he got to his feet. “I’d...prefer you hold onto it, honestly. It’s probably safer with you.”

Sims blinked, then shrugged and set the folder back down. “I see.”

“We’ll be seeing you later, Mr. Blackwood.” Delano’s grin was a sharp, toothy thing. Despite its grimness, Martin found himself inexplicably comforted by it.

“Please,” he corrected before he could help himself. “Call me Martin.”

-0-

“So,” Gerry said, long after Martin had left and the excitement had faded. He filled a glass with some ice, then tipped a finger of whisky over the top. “What do you think?”

“I don’t trust him,” Jon said almost before Gerry had finished talking, accepting the glass with a quiet murmur of thanks. “It’s a bit too good to be true. After years of searching, someone just...emerges with hard evidence of Peter’s wrongdoings?” An incredulous snort. “I don’t think so.”

Gerry propped himself up against the edge of the desk, staring at the dark bags under his partner’s eyes, the cynical curve of his mouth. He looked exhausted. “You never know,” he said mildly, taking a sip of his whiskey sour before continuing. “I think we’re about due for a lucky break.”

“We don’t get lucky breaks. We get fooled into thinking that we have a lucky break, only to get royally fucked later,” Jon snapped, thumping his cane against the ground for emphasis. “You should know that by now.”

Gerry frowned. “Don’t take this out on me.”

Jon metaphorical hackles went up, and for a moment it looked as though he were about to start shouting—but then he abruptly deflated and looked away. “No, you’re right, it’s just…”

Gerry sighed. It was difficult to stay angry at Jon when he bore such a striking resemblance to a kicked puppy. “I get it.”

They fell silent for a moment, sipping their drinks, lost in their respective thoughts.

“Shall we go?” Gerry asked, setting his glass aside.

Jon paused for a moment longer, before letting out a long, gusty sigh and draining what was left in his drink. “Sure.”

The elevator was still broken, so unfortunately they had to take the stairs. While Gerry knew better than to offer any assistance, his heart still clenched at how tight with pain Jon’s jaw had gone by the time they reached the bottom. They stopped for a few seconds to let Jon get his breath back, before continuing toward home.

About a block away from the office, they froze at the sound of pounding footsteps growing unmistakably closer.

“Hear that?” Jon murmured out of the corner of his mouth, the dying light of the sun glinting off the switchblade in his free hand.

“Mmhm,” Gerry hummed, slipping a hand into his pocket.

Martin was very, very lucky that Gerry recognized him as he rounded the corner; otherwise, it was very likely that Jon would’ve run him through. As it was, Martin crashed into them both, gasping frantically for air, cheeks flushed, eyes wide with abject terror.

“Martin?” Jon demanded, shoving the switchblade away. “What the hell are you—”

“They’re after me,” Martin gasped out, scrabbling at Gerry’s coat. “They—I don’t know how they found out, but they, Peter, he—”

“Shit,” Gerry muttered, suddenly becoming aware of the second set of pounding footsteps growing nearer. He took a moment to assess their surroundings, before grabbing Martin’s shoulders and hauling him into the nearby alley. “Martin, hide behind that dumpster. Jon, distraction time.”

Despite the situation, Jon’s eyes lit up with an exhilarated gleam. Gerry had just enough time to fondly think, adrenaline junkie, before Jon tucked his cane over his wrist, twisted his hands in Gerry’s lapels, and shoved him against the wall for a bruising kiss.

Gerry gasped into Jon’s mouth, his hands instinctively falling to cup Jon’s slim hips. He deepened the kiss, humming encouragingly when Jon shoved his jacket over his shoulders, exposing the thin black t-shirt beneath.

Jon was just beginning to press little kisses down the juncture of his jaw and neck when the harsh beam of a torch fell on them. Jon, who’d been a drama queen long before he’d joined am dram in uni, pulled away with a theatrical gasp, his annoyance almost startlingly genuine. Gerry tucked his face out of the way and adjusted his jacket, affecting embarrassment.

“Do you mind?” Jon asked.

“Oh,” the person on the other end of the torch said, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. Gerry tried to peek a look, but the beam was too strong for him to see into the darkness beyond it. “Sorry to disturb you sirs, um...you wouldn’t happen to have seen a person—?”

“No, we haven’t seen a person.” Keeping one hand curled in Gerry’s jacket, Jon took a step back, lifting his chin defiantly. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we were busy.”

“Right,” the person muttered, and then the torchlight abruptly vanished, dropping them once more into the dying light of the sun.

They stood there for a moment, Jon breathing hard, cheeks flushed. Gerry tipped his head back against the wall, letting his eyes flutter shut as his pumping heart slowed.

Then the grip in his collar loosened, and Jon let out a pained groan and sank against the wall. “Fuck.”

“Alright, take it easy,” Gerry murmured. He pressed a kiss against Jon’s hair and rubbed a soothing hand against his back. “You did beautifully.” Then louder, “Martin, you can come out now.”

There was a brief pause, and then a shadow tentatively emerged from behind the dumpster. Martin looked far less rattled than he had when he’d first run around the corner, though there was still a healthy flush to his cheeks. He peered up the alley, wringing his hands. “Are they…”

“For now,” Jon said, grimacing as he dug his knuckles into the tight muscles. “We should leave before they get back.”

Martin’s eyes honed in on him. “Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Jon snapped, straightening. “You should be more worried about yourself. You can’t go home, right?”

The question seemed to remind Martin of the current situation, because his eyes went a little wild again. “No, they...I left to do a bit of shopping, and then came back and, and there they were.”

They fell silent for a moment, considering that.

“Well, there’s nothing for it,” Jon said brusquely. “You’ll have to come home with us.”

“What?” Martin gaped.

Gerry was already nodding. “We don’t have much room, but we can make up the couch for you.”

That only seemed to make Martin all the more aghast. “Wait! Wait, won’t that put you in danger?”

Gerry looked up and met Jon’s gaze.

“We have...a certain degree of protection,” Gerry hazarded delicately. “It won’t do much against the likes of Peter himself, but lesser threats…”

“You’ll be fine,” Jon completed. “Now unless you want to run into them again, we had better get going.”

Martin glanced mutely between them, looking like he wanted nothing more than to argue. Then his shoulders slumped, probably realizing that he had no other choice considering how dire the situation was.

“Alright,” he murmured, defeated. “Let’s go.”

#tma #ask #pitviperofdoom #iceeckos12 writes #my writing #jongerrymartin #noir au

[joachimnapoleon]

I'm reading a preview of Charles-Eloi Vial's "Histoire des Cent-Jours" on Amazon, in which the author mentions that when Napoleon was on Elba, he reconciled with Murat. Do you know anything about this matter?

The subject of the reconciliation between Napoleon and Murat is one of those things about which I still have as many questions as answers.

Correspondence between the two during Napoleon’s exile on Elba is borderline nonexistent; I haven’t come across any letters from Murat to Napoleon from this time, so unless there’s something locked away in the private Archives Murat in the French National Archives, it probably no longer exists.

But, there was certainly some correspondence between them. There’s really no way to know how much, but Napoleon’s Correspondance Générale contains letters to Murat during the Elban exile and also references to other letters between them made by Napoleon to Bertrand. I was surprised to learn recently--thanks to @josefavomjaaga for sending it to me from her volume of the Correspondance--that Napoleon actually wrote to both Murat and Caroline shortly after his arrival on Elba. Both letters are dated 11 May 1814; Napoleon informs both of them of his having just arrived on Elba. He tells them both of Pauline’s impending arrival and asks for Caroline to send him news through someone she trusts.

Pauline arrives on Elba, and then leaves for Naples almost immediately after; I don’t think she’s on Elba for more than a couple days before she departs for Naples. She remains in Naples for months before her return to Elba, and it’s generally believed that she served as the go-between to effect the “reconciliation” between Murat and Napoleon. It’s assumed she was sending letters back and forth between the two. How many letters? What were the contents? There’s really no way to know. Napoleon references one specific letter from Murat, in September 1814, while writing to Bertrand on 9 September:

I have received a very tender letter from the king of Naples; he claims to have written to me several times but I doubt it, it seems that the affairs of France and Italy set his head straight and make him affectionate.

There’s nothing else until the eve of Napoleon’s departure from Elba. He fires off two letters to Murat on 17 February 1815 to let him know he’s sending him a man by the name of Colonna “in order to communicate to you some important and urgent matters,” no doubt about Napoleon’s upcoming return to France. Colonna, he tells Murat, “is authorized to sign every convention Your Majesty may desire with regards to our affairs…. Your Majesty must in particular trust in everything he tells you about my attachment and the high consideration with which I remain.” The second letter from the same day thanks Murat “for what you have done for the countess Walewska,” reiterates that Colonna is coming and “will tell you some big and important things. I’m counting on you and most importantly on utmost speed. Time is pressing. My love to the queen and to your children.” An undated, ciphered letter from Portoferraio, believed to be written between 22-26 February, tells Murat that he’s just waiting for favorable conditions to make his escape: “The winds have been increasing for the last three days and have forced the English warship to move somewhat away from our shores. But it can return any moment and my brick is not capable of competing with it. If I had one of your vessels, I would leave in broad daylight and I would sink anything that stood in my way.” Murat actually does end up sending a vessel, but by the time it gets to Elba, Napoleon has already left.

So, there probably was more correspondence between them, either written or verbal--but there’s just no record of it.

It’s important to point out that Murat’s “allies” (particularly the British) were looking for any excuse they could find during this period to justify turning on and dethroning him. Proof of a correspondence with Napoleon would’ve given them all the ammunition they needed. This is where it gets interesting. Napoleon will claim later on Saint Helena that the allies “doctored” Murat’s papers (to prove there was a correspondence between the two during the Elban exile). And there is an interesting excerpt from the memoirs of Dedem, who claims that the Congress of Vienna received, via the French Bourbons, copies of letters between Murat and Napoleon, left by a careless person close to Murat. I’m assuming that this individual (whom Dedem leaves unnamed save his first initial) is M. de Baudus, former tutor of the Murat children, sent by Napoleon to Toulon as an intermediary after Murat’s defeat at Tolentino; Baudus was to inform Murat that Napoleon would not receive him in Paris, that he was to stay put for the time being under a sort of house arrest while events played themselves out (Napoleon was on the way to Waterloo), and that Napoleon blamed Murat for having “ruined” France in 1814 and having “compromised her and ruined himself” in 1815. Anyway, here is the excerpt from Dedem:

The Tuileries cabinet had sent copies of his correspondence with Napoleon, and it was on these certified copies that Joachim was tried and condemned. Well, thanks to the thoughtlessness of the Count de B… who forgot (in following the King to Ghent) all his correspondence in an armoire at the chateau, we now know that all these letters had been truncated. Napoleon found the originals with the minutes of the copies drawn up in a way which served to lose Joachim; all the copies were in the hand of M. de B… attached by pins to the letters of the King of Naples.

Dedem includes the following footnote at the end of this paragraph:

It is from a man very worthy of trust, whom Napoleon had recalled to him in his cabinet during the Hundred Days and who neither loved nor complained of Joachim, that I have these details. He assured me that he had seen and re-read the letters several times.

So the Bourbons either found enough damning correspondence between Murat and Napoleon--or altered it enough to make it look damning--and sent it on to the Congress of Vienna so they could justify removing Murat from his throne once and for all.

Now, as to the matter of how sincere the “reconciliation” between Murat and Napoleon was… that’s another story. Louise Murat’s take is that the reconciliation was more sincere on her father’s part than on Napoleon’s:

So it was not long before the reconciliation took place and, if we can affirm that, for his part, it was as complete as possible, I do not know if… we will be able to affirm likewise that all traces of the past were also erased from the Emperor’s mind.

This subject bears some remarking on the relationship between the two men in general. There was a lot of bad blood between them by the time of Napoleon’s first exile, going back years before Murat’s treaty with Austria in 1814. Murat had felt ill-used and mistreated by Napoleon since at least 1809, things had gotten downright ugly between them in 1811, and in the aftermath of the 1812 campaign Murat was increasingly resentful of Napoleon’s treatment of him. Napoleon, for his part, had been incapable of trusting Murat since being informed, in 1809, of a scheme between Fouché and Talleyrand to have Murat succeed him in the event that Napoleon died without a legitimate male heir; much of his conduct towards Murat from that time forward comes across as deliberately spiteful and intentionally humiliating. Murat was vain and proud and it took him a long time to get over these kinds of slights and embarrassments. But, he was also capable of forgiving people he believed had wronged him--for example, Murat had restored Lavauguyon to his service years later after having suspected him of having an affair with Caroline in 1811. And I personally believe he retained a certain amount of affection for Napoleon even in spite of their nearly constant quarrels, and kept hoping to find some way to regain Napoleon’s affections, which he felt he had lost without ever quite understanding why; he concludes a letter to Napoleon in 1810 with “Love me as in Poland, as in Prussia, and I will love life again.” He didn’t enter into his decision to leave Napoleon in 1814 easily, and from everything I’ve seen it seems to have been extremely agonizing for him, and the news that the Allies had driven Napoleon from his throne and into exile in 1814 devastated both Murat and Caroline.

All of that being said, there was still some amount of self-interest in Murat’s attempting to aid Napoleon in 1815, and also in his striking out against the Austrians shortly after Napoleon reached France. Caroline believed that Napoleon would eventually drive them from the throne of Naples if he managed to keep his own, and Murat himself very likely saw the reason in this, and hoped he might safeguard himself by claiming all of Italy.

For Napoleon’s part, I tend to think Louise Murat was probably right; I think he saw Murat, being the only member of his family still on a throne, as a useful tool for his own eventual restoration. There’s a footnote in Bertrand’s Saint Helena cahiers basically saying that Napoleon never gave any indication of having genuinely forgiven Murat for 1814, and I personally think that’s probably the case. In mid-April of 1815--not even a week after sending Murat a letter from Paris, assuring Murat “You can count on my attachment,” Napoleon sends a note to his Minister of Foreign Affairs ordering a report on Murat’s conduct in 1814. My guess is, if Napoleon had triumphed at Waterloo and secured his throne, Murat still would’ve found himself in a world of hurt eventually. Murat seems to have anticipated this himself; in June 1815--actually the day after Waterloo, about which he was still oblivious--he is writing once more to Napoleon--the last letter he will ever write him--basically offering himself up on a silver platter:

I have nothing more to ask of Your Majesty, he can pronounce my fate unsparingly; your wishes, whatever they may be, will be carried out. Glad to be lost for you, no complaints will be heard from my mouth, but you can dispense with sending me in the future what they want to call consolations by people named as my friends; may your ministers make positively known to me the place of my exile; I will go there without a murmur.

#Joachim Murat #Napoleon #Napoleon Bonaparte #Caroline Murat #Caroline Bonaparte #Pauline Bonaparte #Louise Murat #1814 #1815 #asks

[lewis-faith]

Trip 2, day 1. Before I get into describing today, the most difficult day of travelling in my life (which is still not over). I want to go over my experience of returning to the UK last week.

Although I was expecting to be drained and tired I was not expecting to feel like a stranger in my own part of the world. Not because of people treating me a certain way but because I had been focussed so hard on my work in Poland my mind was still there. Even driving home and seeing the Pennines caused disturbance, the hill I often walk 2-3 times a week looked so much larger than I remembered it, I looked at it and couldn't believe I was able to walk up it at all. Maybe Poland is so flat any hill now would look oversized, I don't know. Sat in the kitchen having a cup of tea I realised I had a kind of tunnel vision, my surroundings didn't feel like home. My mind was going over things in Poland so much that it felt like home was now a place I did know properly. With not enough to keep my racing mind occupied I thought it wise to go to the pub and catch up with friends, maybe this would reorientation me. It actually worked wonders and I felt like I was rebuilding my internal map again.

Unfortunately the next day the pub effect had worn off. I was so tired and drained I was just staring into space without thinking of anything, very unlike me and pretty disconcerting. I spoke with other volunteers and they were have similar issues readjusting. My body also seemed to feel a bit poisoned, from what I have read online this was probably cortisol, a hormone released after stressful events. Although I've had bouts of extreme tiredness after various festivals it is was never coupled with being so emotionally drained, definitely the closest to be cataonic I'd ever been.

As weather in Cumbria was sunny I spent a good amount of time preparing the vegetable garden for summer, and with a few more visits to the pub I got back to near normal a week later. I have to thank all my friends in Alston for their moral support, it would have been pretty much impossible to return so quickly without being able to relax and enjoy myself.

With Easter weekend out of the way it was clear Russia was pressing on with phase two of their botched military operation. I contacted Love Bristol to check when I might be needed and they let me know help was needed in Warsaw. The vast majority of refugees don't stay around Przemysl very long and most head towards Warsaw where there are a number of very large humanitarian centres. Love Bristol have this week been creating a duplicate operation in and around Warsaw to compliment what has already been setup in Przemysl. So it will be a new area of Poland for me and there will be plenty of challenges involved in getting the Warsaw service running like clockwork. Which I suppose neatly segways into my current situation...

It's 7.05pm, I am waiting in Luton for my flight to depart. I was supposed to fly at 8.35am this morning from Edinburgh. You are probably thinking I flew to Luton and had a connection here. If only.

I wouldn't say I've done a lot of travelling by air but over the past ten years I've been abroad at least once a year sometimes twice. Being a freelancer without children I tend to pick dates that avoid congestion. A good move and one I will endeavour to uphold wherever possible in the future.

I honestly have never had bad flight delays to contend with before, flying back to the UK late in the day and being delayed 2 hours was an experience from the last trip I wanted to avoid. So I cunningly booked an early Sunday morning flight from a small airport. Ah yes but this is the last day of the Easter holidays, so obviously I forgot that when everyone is filling public transport trying to get home from their holidays, someone (presumably located in an ivory tower) decides this is the perfect weekend to shutdown lots of critical rail lines and double people's journeys by putting them on coaches.

To be honest a 4 hour journey through the hills of Scotland seemed palatable, the coach wasn't that busy and the sun still shon (until Edinburgh) so it was all very relaxing. Lots of new born lambs were playing around making it look all very idyllic.

The second part of my cunning plan was to stay only 15 minutes from the airport. A smooth and hassle free journey almost guaranteed. Nope.

When I was waking up and checking the time (it was 5.30am), I noticed an SMS from Wizz Air, your flight IS delayed it said. Oh well maybe a bit longer to rise, all good, an hour and a half late it indicated. Due to my previous travelling outside of peak times I have never had to deal with any delays announced before arriving at the airport. So being as close as I am I decide to get to the airport for 8am, just over 2 hours before departure. No problem there right?

On arrival the departure boards flash between two pages of information that are themselves animating on each row. This information maelstrom would easily be fixed by adding two more screens, that would be too sensible though of course, let's make do with two flashing ones. Anyhow it's says check-in for my flight was closed. Maybe it was the early start, but with now over 2 hours until departure I thought they were yet to open.

A coffee and a muffin later and 10 minutes of getting gradually more concerned it dawned on me something was not right. The delay wasn't getting worse and check-in wasn't opening. With no Wizz Air employees to talk to I collared a security officer who had a word with someone from Swissport. I had apparently arrived 7 minutes after they closed check-in. Faithfully they had observed the original departure time then disappeared without a trace. Disaster.

I'm advised to call Wizz Air, no problem, ahh it's a extortionally expensive premium rate number, I don't care. EE won't allow calls to this number - brilliant. I am now completely stranded with no help on offer.

The Swissport employee informs me there is not a single employee of Wizz Air in the airport. What about the ones with the plane? Oh they are busy with passengers. OK then, that is my cue to leave.

So taking a look at Skyscanner my options are to pay four times the price of my return ticket just for a single journey and to change flights in London. The small print helpfully warning it is your problem if delays make you miss your connecting flight. Truly stuffed from every angle.

Now I am understandably frantic and considering the options; stay in Edinburgh for days, travel back to England and fly in a few days, confusion is setting in. None of these options works and will seriously mess up my plan for Poland. I just can't delay another day let alone two. I look up the flights again, I see one leaves Luton in the evening and is normal price. If I can get the train there I would avoid more long delays at the airport and the possibility of missing two flights that day, which by the timetable on offer looked about possible.

So after some more searches it looked possible to get the train to London then to Luton but the timing was very fine. I took the gamble and booked the train and the plane on my phone whilst tramming back into Edinburgh. By the way the UK's most popular train booking service Trainline does not accept either of my two cards, its being doing this for months, more layers to this cake.

About 3 hours into my journey to London and no delays on the horizon I thought it would be sensible to make sure the London to Luton part was all tickety boo, paranoia maybe? London to Luton should be easy, err not this weekend. Yes I was expected to be travelling by bus, but the newest catch being the buses were sold out until 5.30pm which was 1 hour too late for me. Aaarrrrggh!

Cue many Google searches and map studies. At this point there was only Peterborough before arriving at London. Peterborough is about 1.5 hours from London and about the same from Luton albeit in a much more convoluted way. It seemed I could get off at Peterborough, get a train to Stevenage, wait an hour the get a bus to Luton, again making for razor thin timing. This seemed like the only viable option so off I got in Peterborough! This turned out to be the winning move of the day. I had enough time to get lunch there and make it to Steveange with lots of time. It turned out to be only 20mins to the airport from Stevenage so I threw in the towel and took an Uber car. This ironically made me ten minutes early for check-in, which was again faithfully observed by Wizz Air.

The flight was fine save for being made to wait for half an hour in the stairwell between the departure gate and the plane, everyone looked miserable, I was by this point beyond caring and happily listened to Mazzy Starr for total contrast and much needed therapy.

There endeth the hitches, I write this final part waiting for my suitcase 11 hours after I was supposed to be here in Poland!

[armenelols]

Hey, sis, the country ask: 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 22, 27 and 30. Thank you, if you do them! 😊❤️

*it got pretty long so the answers are under the cut*

1. favourite place in your country?

As a lover of history and mountains, in a country full of both, it’s a bit difficult to choose :D I am going to limit it to places I’ve been to to make it easier for myself. Of those, my favorite would be probably Orava Castle. It lies in the northern part of my country and is one of our largest castles. I’ve been there when I was perhaps ten years old or so, so my memory of the place is a bit blurry, but I remember parts of it and I loved it. Nosferatu was actually shot there. I’ve never seen the movie (I am not one for horror), but I heard it’s pretty popular? :D Anyway Also, we have some caves that are worth visiting - of those I’ve been to, my favorite was Belianska cave. Open-air museums (skanzen in my language) are worth visiting as well.

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad?

Depends on what place in my country and which country abroad. Going abroad is always an amazing experience, seeing all the different cultures and places. I long to visit some of the countries in Northern Europe, as well the Mediterranean area for its history. Switzerland is one of my favorite places to visit, I’ve been there twice. But my country can be certainly fun as well - we have beautiful mountains in most of Slovakia, and we are the country with most castles per capital (alongside Wales, each site claims something different :D). I probably prefer going abroad for holiday, but for a simple trip, Slovakia is the best.

5. favourite song in your native language?

I tend to listen to English music more, and most of the new songs in my country are pop (which I don’t listen to), so it would probably be something older from my childhood. So the bands my dad would play in the car - Elán, Lojzo, IMT Smile, Horkýže Slíže, Tublatanka and so on :D No specific song, really.

6. most hated song in your native language?

I have no idea what it’s called, but my classmates listen to it all the time and it always gets me into a murderous mood.

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

11. favourite native writer/poet?

Well, I’ve been only in two of them - the Czech Republic and Poland, tho I did pass through Hungary a few times. I don’t have any real preference. We have much of common history with Czechs and it's been the country I’ve been the most times to, but really, as a lover of travel and learning about new places, I don’t have a preference.

Edit: oh god I forgot Austria :D been there several times, loved it

From most of our writers/poets, I’ve read only some of their shorter works. But my favorite was Bloody Sonnets, written by Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav in the early 20th century, so I am gonna say him.

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?

I’ve never read any, but I’ve just searched above mentioned Bloody Sonnets (it’s an anti-war poem) and found parts of it in English, so for comparison:

ENGLISH:

What caused this wreck, this brutal and ignoble

collapse of morals? What provoked the breach?

What led mankind, in spirit grand and noble,

to plunge in the mud? What vampire? Oh, what leech,

sucking the sap of life out of the breast,

constantly thirsting bloody parasite?

Ah, selfishness! — and to destroy this pest

today we have no troops, no heroes to fight.

Yes, it will twist and tear and rend, and fall,

a tyrant, on the weak and innocent;

although the world is wide enough for all,

it would have sole control of earth’s extent

and even possess the universe, no less,

pitching the other into emptiness —

SLOVAK (same paragraphs):

Kto zapríčinil tento úpadok,

zosurovenie, zdivočenie mravov?

Čo ľudstvo zviedlo s ducha veličavou

vbŕsť do bahna? Ký upír to a mlok,

z pŕs sajúci mu i dnes žitia mok,

krvožíznivec s večnou záhou žhavou?

Ech, sebectvo! to! — a niet nad ohavou

tou zvíťaziť, vojsk, rekov po dnešok.

Hej, ono krivdí, hnetie, zdiera, týra

svevoľne, kde len stihne, slabšieho;

hoc zem je pre všetkých dosť šírošíra,

chce, aby strela sa len pre neho;

ba končiny si svojí všehomíra,

kams’ v prázdeň vytískajúc iného —

Personally, I prefer the original, tho the translation isn’t bad - it’s just that Slovak and English are different in every possible way, so the translation is difficult and the words sounds more poetic in the original :D

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

I don’t watch TV at all and rarely go to the cinema so can’t say. I am more for literature.

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with?

My country isn’t very well-known so I didn’t encounter that many stereotypes - thus I am not passionate about them, so I will be speaking in general, rather than hate or agreeing. The only occasion when a foreigner said something about our country was in Switzerland, when a random guy immediately went ‘Peter Sagan!’ (our cyclist), and once in Italy a guy went ‘Hamšík!’ (our football player) and said to us three words in Czech. So I had to google a bit what people think of us, and what I got was ‘drinking too much, problems with internet, constantly grouping as with Czechs and Russians and eastern Europe in general, us having beautiful women, us not having a sense of humor, thinking Czechoslovakia is still a thing'.

So.

About alcohol - I don’t drink, but many Slovaks do. However, not to the extent that they would be constantly drunk - usually only in restaurants, on visits, celebrations, holidays, and when they aren’t driving. At home, it’s not that often. It doesn’t seem too much to me, but I don’t know how much people from other countries drink so can’t judge. By the way, this extends to the part of the country where I live so can’t say about other parts of Slovakia (goes for all stereotypes).

Problems with internet - false. The only places where I have problems are public spaces and my dorm.

With Czechs, we have much of common history, and to this day, we consider ourselves brothers and sisters and easily understand each other’s languages. But in the end, we are separate people, so Czech and Slovak aren’t the same. Czechoslovakia hasn’t been a thing since 1993.

Older people here speak Russian since it was mandatory for them in school (for us, it’s English). I was never taught the language - in school, we got to choose between German and Russian and I chose German since it would be more useful for me. I don’t understand the Russian alphabet (don’t not how it’s called in English, for us it’s azbuka), and I understand very little of the language itself since I’ve never really encountered it. However, after a little exposure, it probably would be more understandable to me. In Croatia, we didn’t have much trouble communicating while speaking, despite us talking in different languages. But really, it depends on the person and the language. I’ve heard that Slovak is the language easiest for all Slavs to understand, but if it’s true, I don’t know.

We aren’t in Eastern Europe. We are in Central, and we are more of a mix between West and East, so grouping as with one or the other is incorrect.

Can’t judge on beautiful women and I have no idea how did this become a stereotype - one of the rare ones I’ve actually heard about :D

About the sense of humor, once again depends on the person. Period. But we are private people, so that may be where the stereotype is coming from.

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

Not really, the only difference between my way of speaking and the ‘correct’ one is that I pronounce words with ľ harsher. For example, ľudia is pronounced with ľ (basically soft l, closest to pronunciation would be ‘li’ but it’s still very different), but here we pronounce it ludia.

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

Proud? Our nature, culture, historical monuments. Ashamed? Politicians.

27. favourite national celebrity?

No one, I am not very interested in celebrities in general.

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family?

My dad has a few distant cousins in the Czech Republic, but other than that, I am not aware of anyone.

#thanks for the ask sis! ❤️ #had to edit it like billion times because the poems kept making a mess :D #and oh god they are wrong again #screw it :D #slovakia

[bigbeautifulmothwoman]

Family Values Ch. One

Martin Mathias x (S/I) Lena Wilusz

Braddock nightlife is almost non-existent, and that was how most of its residents liked it. A collection of old and new, families and singles. Braddock was religious, intended to be pristine under the light of the sun and quiet in the dark of night.

Braddock was not the best place for Martin to be. Martin Mathias, young and inquistive. Preferred his hair longer but dressed simply. He always felt as though he stuck out like a sore thumb by his mere existence, and as such worked tirelessly to make himself as unassuming as possible. Dressed plain, acted plain; he kept to himself in town, never wanting to make a fuss…

...So he took the night train to the next town over. By train or bus, it was about thirty to fourty-five minutes to Pittsburgh, close enough to be back home in time but far enough that his name wouldn't reach back to his family's ears. The day was for showing Tata Cuda that he was in fact not a monster; the night was to be one.

Stepping off the train in the Pittsburgh station, he found his way into directions towards the bustling center of town. If Martin was any one thing, it was careful. He always got what he needed, safely and how he wanted it. His first nightly adventure in Pittsburgh, he had decided, would be reconnaissance. Just thinking the word made him feel like a man out of the movies- he was already armed with the tools of his trade, packed away neatly inside the small leather case he carried them in. Just in case, he thought.

Just in case.

This night he wandered around town looking aimless, taking note of what kinds of things the place offered. It was already more diverse than Braddock was: a few larger grocery stores, a candy store, a small theater, and a multitude of restaurants lined the streets along with a number of other things to enjoy. Unlike Braddock, there were still a number of people roaming around at this hour; couples and singles alike. Martin finds it strange to see so many people out on an average night, the clock just barely hitting nine p.m. But this was only natural, he was only used to small towns after all.

The man comes to a stop rounding out his investigation back onto the strip of restaurants he'd passed before; his stomach growled. Dinner at his home wasn't always substantial, especially when he had no say in the menu. It was another night with a half full plate of something he could barely stomach. A decent amount of cash tucked in his pocket leads him into the first establishment that catches his eye.

The place was called The King's Tavern. His first thought was that his feet were leading him to some kind of bar, but stepping inside gave him an entirely different sensation. He couldn't understand how a place could look so much like his black white thoughts and yet still make him feel so...safe and comfortable. The entire inside was lit by false lamplight, with wooden tables and chairs. Some corners had booth seating with velveteen lined seats. His first instinct was somewhat correct, there was a small bar space with a woman standing behind it mixing drinks and pouring ales into steins. In this place, everyone else was out of place. For him, it was like stepping back into his own eastern Europe.

Confidence beside him, Martin slides into one of the available booths, still not looking for extra attention. He sat, waited, observed, and he saw her. A woman approached another table just before his. Somewhat petite, a corset keeping her linen blouse tucked against her skin and resting just over the waist of her skirts. An apron was tied around her waist, adorned with colorful floral embroidery in contrast to much of the dimmer atmosphere. Her face is soft but her eyes exhausted, a notepad and pen readied in her hands.

"All I'm saying is, the point is moot if you aren't going to keep everything to fact. No one in the 15th century would be wearing sneakers or have synthetic fabrics."

"Sir please, this is just a restaurant-" The woman tries to keep her cheerful work façade up despite her frustrations.

"It's just a little bit of extra effort, for the true authentic experience." The customer insists. By the look on the woman's face, Martin can tell a nerve has been hit.

"Well sir, the cobblers been ill and price of linen is up. We can make you a meal, but you'll get no women here. Now, can I get you something?" A thick European accent coats over her words, sounding impeccably natural. Martin can see that finally the man in front of him is appeased enough to let her slip from his attention and finally move onto his table. She sighs one more time before him.

"Good evening sir and welcome. Have you been with us before?"

“Ah, no, this is my first time. A-and uh. I’m sorry about...that-“ He says.

"O-oh...Thank you. It's kind of stupid, people seem to get really...annoyed? Irritated? Something like that. They don't even know what it's like there...only ever seen it in books. I'm sorry, you came to eat not to listen to me talk, please, what can I do for you?"

"I only have so much cash...do you have something easy? As, as long as it isn't stuffed cabbage?" He must have said something funny, because the woman chuckles happily at his remark.

"I'll surprise you then. And no cabbage, I promise." She departs as quickly as she comes, leaving Martin to sit in his own quiet. Shifting his fingers, eyes darting between spaces of decoration. His hands itch to dig into his bag and reset the organization of his tools another time, just to ensure they're in their proper places.

He keeps his hands planted on the table. You don't know who's watching, Martin.

He breathes a sigh of relief when the woman returns with a plate of food in her hands and a glass of water.

"I hope water's fine, I forgot to ask what you wanted… I can get you something else too."

"This is fine, thank you."

"Swell! I uh. I hope this isn't too forward but...do you mind if I ate with you? My shift is ending soon and my boss is letting me grab some dinner because of the time...and really I just don't want to sit alone. I-if it's not okay that's fine! I just thought I'd...give it a shot." Martin bites his tongue. Instead of speaking, he gestures towards the seat opposite him in invitation.

"Oh thank you! Let me go get my plate!" She scurries off again.

This was a surprise. Never in all his years, or at least the recent ones, had a woman throw herself so willingly towards him. Perhaps there was something new to him? No, he was sure everything was quite the same when he got up that morning, and no sickness magically changed anything about him. Not that there was any magic at all. Once again, she's back in his sight, another plate and glass in hand.

"I just got us both the same thing. Leftovers of today's rouladen special, leniwe pierogi, and some vegetables. No cabbage, I made sure!" She laughs again.

"I hope you enjoy it." She says.

"Thank you." They both dig in, enjoying their meals in relative silence as life continues around them. Martin is reminded of a past time, sitting at a table in quiet comfort, candles burning and exchanging longing glances sat on either side of the wood between them…

"Uhm...may I ask your name?" Martin wakes from his daydream once again, eyes now fixated on her, blinking slowly.

"Ah. It's...Martin."

"Pleasure to meet you Martin. My name is Lena. Lena Williams."

"...Lena?"

"Yeah...it's Americanized. Magdalena Wilusz, my family is from Poland."

Something somewhere in him felt like a dream came true.

A stout older man approached their table, two glasses in hand. He assumed, and assumed correctly, that this man must of been her boss, and the owner.

"Mr. Kaufmann, what's this for?"

"On the house, dear. You've worked hard this week, just enjoy your weekend off."

"...Thank you sir."

"My boss," she says, "he's a good man, really looks after us. He really is too kind…" She takes hold of one drink, glass frosting with cool condensation from the liquid inside. She takes a drink with eyes closed, sighing.

"It's really good, sweet like apples. Try some!" Martin is unsure what’s been brought to the table, but he trusts her. And she’s right, the flavor is light, crisp, and refreshing. The thought crosses his mind that this is alcohol, and alcohol can make him clumsy and clumsy is not what he needs if he is intending to feed, which wasn’t his intention in the first place with this trip… But the bite of it is only as harsh as cold lemonade in

summer and encourages him to continue swallowing the drink down as he enjoys his meal. The two continue talking, drinking as the evening winds down in the dining room and their food dwindles.

“H-huh, oh dear, its getting late isn’t it...this is about the time the bars start letting out...s-shit- oh! Sorry, I usually d-don’t curse…” Lenas face is molded with concern as the minutes continue to tick down. He thinks she must be worried about the influx of men flooding into the streets…

“I...i could walk you home…?”

“Martin, I couldn’t burden you like that-“

“You’re worried, a-about the people? You drank some and just want to get home safe, right?”

“...Yes. Even when I eat I leave fast...you’re really a gentleman aren’t you, Martin? I’m sure...I can find something to repay you.”

“I-I’m sure you can, if that’s what you...need to do.”

Martin was ecstatic. It still raised a conflict in his somewhat addled mind, but the ease of solving his sickness for one night also held high. As minutes passed on, the facts and choices began to swirl into a haze. Dinner was finished and the plates left to the closing staff. Coats were donned, Martin's bag of tools secured, and on they went with Lena leading the way. She kept herself steady by clinging onto his jacket sleeve, pointing out vague instructions to her home. It wasn't very far at all, if not a roundabout from her place of work. Just under thirty minutes from the restaurant, only taking so long due to their somewhat inebriated states.

"S-see? Not too bad...thank you Martin. You're such a sweet guy…" Lena says, finally arriving at her front door. She's still unsteady on her feet, wobbling just a bit as she stares down at her hands and the concrete steps.

"S-so, Martin...do you… mind if I do something stupid?" The man in question remains silent, merely nodding a positive response. Sure of herself, she plants her lips to his, fisting her shaking hands into his coat.

"U-uh, if that was b-bad of me, I'm s-sorry, uhm...but. Y-you're welcome to come in, j-join me-"

“Join me, Martin."

Echoes of her flitting about dim halls in a white gown guided his hand over hers, turning the handle and letting them both inside. He was going to do this. He was going to do...something. Combined, they bypass the dark living room and go straight through to her own space. Her room is messy, as that of any busy employee's, and gently illuminated by the one wide window with the drapes drawn open. A socket mounted night light assisted the moon in keeping the floor lit. Returning from a quick trip to the bathroom, she stands anxiously by the bed.

"I-i uhm...i-i don't know what to do, I-ive never...brought someone b-back like this…"

"I-its okay. I know what I'm doing. I-i'm careful." He tells her. It's a truth and a lie mixed together, not fully aware of what outcome will occur. Both of them have toed off their shoes, and again Martin guides Lena to her back, on her bed. She's softly cradled by her sheets, and when he rests his forehead to hers, she kisses him.

In the time that Lena was gone, Martin was quick. In moments, he prepared an appropriate dose of his sleep agent, and carefully stowed the exposed syringe inside his jacket sleeve. Knelt over her, he runs his hands up and down her legs, both removing her skirt and seeking out the best spot for injection in her thighs. He finds his chosen location, squeezing gently as she sighs. Again, he kisses her as he maneuvers the needle carefully and pushes down on the plunger. Breathless, her eyelids already begin to flutter.

"W-wha...M-martin, what was that…?" She questions, her voice high and airy.

"Don't worry, i-it'll...it'll make you feel better." Lena, now on her path to sedation, he begins removing his own clothes. First shirking his coat, he gets back up to carefully place the now empty syringe on the beside table, and follows up by then ridding himself of his pants. Next he goes towards her top, fiddling with the ties to loosen and remove the corset over her linen shirt, her own fingers lacing into his to pull the strings apart. He continues to run his hands over her exposed skin as the sedative runs its course through her veins. She sighs softly, the gentle treatment combined with the power of the sedative and alcohol has her eyes barely fighting to keep open. She finally succumbs to sleep as Martin cradles her face and kisses her nose.

“It's all going to be okay…” He promises to her sleeping body. Finally, he’s safe enough to do away with both of their shirts and her bra.

Her skin was perfect, soft. It was of course marred by a cocktail of imperfections: stretch marks, discoloration, one generous scar on her belly. But it was warm and comforting to the touch. He no longer needs to kneel over her, the next step…Without gathering his materials, he lays beside her, pulling her close in imitation of a loving couple.

He is so tired… He keeps admiring her skin. The minutes pass as he tucks her limbs into his own body. In her sleep she takes advantage, wrapping herself tighter around him, fingers coming to rest delicately on his cheek.

Martin was there to be a monster. He was supposed to take and leave as easily as he came, then to never see her again.

Instead, Martin falls asleep.

#martin 1977 #martin mathias #fanfic #Lola writes things

[zoanzon]

is there a story behind your tagging system? they make sense in an intrinsic sort of way and I always love reading them!

God, sorry I didn’t get to this sooner. It’s definitely been longer than a week, but I don’t think it’s been longer than a month...?

So, thank you and love you for asking about the tags. I’ve been hoping people would like them. I’ve got a shorter answer and longer answer for you, so I’ll lead with the shorter and then drop the longer one.

Shorter Answer: They’re a combination of original ‘poetry’ - if a single line counts - and lines related to whatever material they’re covering, with somewhat-spontaneous decisions on what I go with for each tag. By that, I mean my space tag is to boldly go (that final frontier) which is inspired by two different (rather iconic) lines from Star Trek, while my ‘post-April 2020 current events’ tag is all who live to see such times, taken directly from one of Gandalf’s statements to Frodo. Meanwhile, my ‘life/plants growing from death’ tag is blood and bonemeal roses, which is an original line of my own, and the same for my WWII tag from poland to paris.

And honestly yeah, I’m glad they come off as making sense intrinsically because that’s part of how I actually manage having as many tags as I do lol.

Sure there’s cases where tags might be too similar such as to consume and enjoy - my to read/watch/listen to tag - and the drive to devour - poetblr and academia-adjacent stuff relating to consumption as part of human nature - because I made them at different periods and forgot the similarity, but other than some edge cases/similarity between more- and less-often used tags they tend to be (if poetically) related to whatever they’re representing both so people visiting my blog have an idea of what they might relate to but also so I remember what tags to use lol

Now, the slightly-longer happy rant about my system under the cutoff lol

Longer Answer: I’d been growing slightly agitated about not being able to find posts when I wanted to - partially for the good posts in general, partially for stuff I’d want to use as reference for any of my writing projects - and ended up finding both @fromthewildwood and @wizzard890. In addition to have amazing content on both their blogs, they both have amazing tag systems with poetic tags, and it gave me the inspiration - and motivation - to do something similar. I started with tags like bite the apple; steal the fire and a leaf on the wind; watch them soar - both aesthetic-tags for different projects; can rant about them if asked but won’t digress right now - and, as I realized I had enough posts for them to have their own category I gave them their own tag.

If it was something that had a somewhat-easy thing to draw from for naming the tag - such as my space and April 2020+ tags - then I went with that, and if I didn’t have anything in mind I could rework I just came up with something slightly-poetic and went with that. Only thing that stands out from those are my ‘discourse and discussion’ tags, since part of the nature of them was me trying to go “I reblogged this because the discussion was interesting, not because I necessarily agreed” so I didn’t get attacked for reblogging stuff or seemingly being blithe about it. From there, I just kept it as the template when adding tags for stuff like religion/Tumblr-addressing/social media-addressing posts.

I will admit, I’m both a) dealing with enough tags I sometimes forget some when tagging posts and b) inevitably going to add more tags for more unique cases, because ~I have a need to categorize things~ and that’s not gonna stop. However, despite some of the annoying parts about it I am happy I put this system together.

(Tho, god what I’d give if Tumblr ever got something in place for a ‘find/replace all’ function for editing tags instead of needing to manually select posts. Definitely some older tags I wanna fold into newer ones but don’t have the motivation to do it tag by tag...)

Feel free to ask more if wanting to hear more/want info on something specifically, such as specific tags! (And I’ll try to be more prompt on answering next time)

#the monkey speaks #talking about tags

[warninggraphiccontent]

29 January 2021

Tragedy and statistics

The UK marked a grim milestone this week, recording more than 100,000 Covid deaths by every measure.

Various versions of the famous quote have it that one death is a tragedy, many merely a statistic. Newspapers tried to avoid that and humanise the sombre statistic in different ways. The front pages of The Times and the i focused on the individual tragedies, photographs highlighting the human beings behind the numbers.

Beyond their front pages, both tried to visualise the impact. The i used its paper form to give a double page spread to 100,000 dots, each representing a death. Online, The Times combined the human stories with a different use of dots and a 'narrative scroll', the act of having to move down the page helping illustrate the extent of the tragedy. It put me in mind of Ampp3d's story from 2014 (no longer online, analysis here and here) visualising migrant worker deaths in Qatar. The New York Times took a different approach to scrolling , using the density of dots to show how the pandemic unfolded in the US.

The FT, meanwhile, kept things simple, using a line chart to show the different measures of deaths all exceeding 100,000, and a simple bar chart to compare the UK's mortality rate to others.

Different approaches, but all important attempts to communicate the human cost of Covid and examples of how data visualisation can help make sense of tragedy on such a large scale, when words might fail us.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In other news:

It's Data Bites this Wednesday at 6pm. Come!

Congratulations to my erstwhile IfG colleagues on the latest (terrific) edition of Whitehall Monitor. Read it here (some more links below), sign up for next week's launch event here.

I had a great time at this year's (virtual) UKGovCamp last week - thanks to the campmakers for making it work so well online. I made it to sessions on public trust; the state of (open) data; every move you make, every word you type...; data in regulation; silos beyond government; data service design; and digital exclusion. I ran a session on whether some sort of annual report on the state of government data could work and if so, what it should include - the notes are here, Jamboard here, and rest assured it's a subject I'll be returning to... Full grid of events and notes here.

The Atlantic had a rather good piece on narratives about the pandemic this week, and how a successful vaccination programme could dispel memories of 'a catastrophic failure of governance': 'The pandemic disaster that might not happen'. I wonder if focusing on how politicians can drive their own narrative overshadows the role of society's storytellers - the media - in shaping and questioning narratives, and absolves them of agency to hold the government to account. Not dissimilar to some narratives around data and technology that seem to forget the decisions around them are made by humans.  

Have views on vaccine passports? Tony does. A reminder that the project I'm working with the Ada Lovelace Institute on is taking evidence until 19 February.

And I forgot to post this last week... President Biden's inaugural address grappled with some of the same tensions between unity and dissent in a democracy that some of the founding fathers did in The Federalist. I'm a particular fan of Alexander Hamilton's fourth and fifth paragraphs here, the fourth eloquent on the need to respect our opponents, and the fifth eloquent on the exact opposite ('no, not these opponents').

Have a good weekend

Gavin

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Today's links:

Graphic content

Macabre milestones

Boris Johnson ‘deeply sorry’ as UK’s Covid death toll passes 100,000* (FT)

How the UK reached 100,000 Covid deaths* (The Times)

100,162 lives (The i, via Matt Butler)

UK official Covid death toll has always undercounted fatalities, analysis shows (The Guardian)

How the world reached 100 million coronavirus cases* (New Statesman)

Covid-19 cases pass 100m* (The Economist)

How 425,000 Coronavirus Deaths Added Up* (New York Times)

Vax populi

Covid-19 vaccine tracker: the global race to vaccinate* (FT)

Vaccine nationalism means that poor countries will be left behind* (The Economist)

Vaccination rates in England are lower for older non-white people, study shows* (FT)

Viral content

UK Covid lockdown starting to work, say scientists* (FT)

Home page for an experimental website displaying COVID-19 statistics

New UK and South Africa Covid variants may spread more easily, so what does this mean for the fight against coronavirus? (The Guardian)

The Amazonian city that hatched the Brazil variant has been crushed by it* (Washington Post)

The march of the coronavirus across America* (The Economist)

See Covid-19 Risk in Your County and a Guide for Daily Life Near You* (New York Times)

We are now sharing previously hidden weekly COVID-19 state profile reports with the public (Cyrus Shahpar, White House COVID-19 Data Director)

Covid-19 Pandemic Could Be Source of Global Crises for Years: WEF* (Bloomberg)

US

Putting Kamala Harris as VP into perspective (Melissa Shusterman)

How popular is Joe Biden? (FiveThirtyEight)

Joe Biden is taking executive action at a record pace* (The Economist)

Full List: Where Every Senator Stands on Convicting Trump* (New York Times)

How The Frost Belt And Sun Belt Illustrate The Complexity Of America’s Urban-Rural Divide (FiveThirtyEight)

Our Radicalized Republic (FiveThirtyEight)

This is one of the most harrowing pictures I have seen about how we lost an entire generation (@marcusjdl)

UK

Whitehall Monitor 2021 (IfG)

Launch event next week (IfG)

Three ways that the coronavirus crisis has changed government (Alice for IfG)

Ministers overrode official advice more than ever in last year’s crisis* (Tim for Times Red Box)

We’ve calculated ward level EU Referendum estimates in England/Wales (James Kanagasooriam)

In data: the benefits squeeze* (Prospect)

Who's furloughed? (Resolution Foundation)

Cities Outlook 2021 (Centre for Cities)

Global

The uncounted: How many women die at the hands of their partners? We simply don’t know – and that needs to change* (Tortoise)

La Niña Roars, Unleashing Fire, Drought and Floods Worldwide* (Bloomberg)

How the Arab spring engulfed the Middle East – and changed the world (The Guardian)

Pessimism and Distrust Could Sway Elections Around the World* (Bloomberg)

Poland’s coal-fired home heating creates widespread pollution* (The Economist)

#dataviz

How to work with Facebook population density data (Alasdair Rae)

Check out this interesting cartography decision! (Gretchen Peterson)

Sport

How green are Premier League clubs? Tottenham top sustainability table (not entirely convinced by this graphic, BBC Sport - and not just because Spurs are top)

When GOATs meet: Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, by the numbers* (Washington Post)

Everything else

The frenzied rise of GameStop* (The Economist)

Data Archeogram: mapping the datafication of work (Autonomy)

VIEW THE ARMADA MAPS (National Museum of the Royal Navy)

Spanish Armada maps 'saved for the nation' (BBC News)

Meta data

ICO baby

Our session with Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham (Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee)

Tory party illegally collected data on ethnicity of 10m voters, MPs told (The Guardian)

Covid contracts: Extend FoI act to cover private companies making millions says Information Commissioner (Evening Standard)

Adtech investigation resumes (ICO)

Information commissioner’s term extended to allow successor recruitment (Public Technology)

Shaking that pass

Exclusive: Tony Blair calls on Boris Johnson to lead drive for global vaccine passport* (Telegraph)

Vaccine passports and ID Cards (Phil Booth)

Tech companies are racing to build smart vaccine passports. But technology isn't the only problem (ZDNet)

Viral content

What Covid revealed about government’s legacy IT, and what to do next (Civil Service World)

What can wastewater tell us about COVID-19? (COG-UK)

Digital government

Our Syllabus: Here to help you teach Digital Era Government (Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age)

Respecting users’ privacy on GOV.UK accounts (Inside GOV.UK)

Two GDS projects to watch : GOV.UK Accounts and “Forms discovery” (David Durant)

Government Gateway at 20 – looking back at the UK’s most successful digital identity system (Computer Weekly)

No digital postal vote application service before May elections (Public Technology)

"Find your NHS number" (Tom Read and others)

Open government

The Path to the Future (Audrey Tang for CommonWealth)

We are thrilled to announce that #OpenGovWeek will take place May 17-21, 2021! (Open Government Partnership)

RECOMMENDATIONS TO STRENGTHEN CANADA’S RESPONSE TO NEW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND REDUCE THE HARM CAUSED BY THEIR MISUSE (Public Policy Forum)

FOI* (Peter Geoghegan for the LRB)

AI got 'rithm

Government by Algorithm: The Myths, Challenges and Opportunities (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)

What's your go-to document or paper that defines different types of algorithmic bias? (Rumman Chowdhury)

AI review: Transforming our world with AI (UKRI)

New – Amazon SageMaker Clarify Detects Bias and Increases the Transparency of Machine Learning Models (AWS)

Who Is Winning the AI Race: China, the EU, or the United States? — 2021 Update (Center for Data Innovation)

The City of New York has released an inventory of algorithms in use (Rumman Chowdhury)

A New AI Lexicon: Responses and Challenges to the Critical AI discourse- Call for Contributors (AI Now Institute)

Independent auditors are struggling to hold AI companies accountable (Fast Company)

Media

Fix information failures or risk lives: the Full Fact Report 2021 (Full Fact)

Facebook News feature launches in UK (BBC News)

How Participatory Media Promote Coverage of Social Movements (Nieman Reports)

‘It’s a reality’: Google threatens to stop search in Australia due to media code (Sydney Morning Herald)

Privacy

Exploring Design and Governance Challenges in the Development of Privacy-Preserving Computation (Nitin Agrawal, Reuben Binns, Max Van Kleek, Kim Laine, Nigel Shadbolt)

How Europe’s privacy laws are failing victims of sexual abuse (Politico)

Inside India’s booming dark data economy (Rest of World)

We're exploring the role of privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) in enabling secure and trustworthy use of data (CDEI)

#DataProtectionDay

#DataPrivacyDay

Everything else

Microsoft is one of the largest contributors to the members of Congress who tried to subvert the Democratic process (Judd Legum)

Why does Big Tech want us to feel nostalgic?* (New Statesman)

Census 2021 will be taking place March 21 (ONS)

Opportunities

EVENT: Data Bites #16 (IfG)

JOB: Chair of Geospatial Commission (Cabinet Office)

JOB: Head of Open and Innovative Government Division (OECD)

JOB: Head of the Evaluation Task Force (Cabinet Office)

JOB: Product Manager (360Giving)

And finally...

Lady Gaga as diagrams about AI systems (thread). (Miles Brundage)

Infosec sea shanties (Rachel Tobac)

[ask-aph-baltics]

OOC: Busy Months for Mun

For the next 2 and a half months, I will be on an actual semi-hiatus. Expect a lot more writing and whatnot for sure, but I’m not able to work on any of my long fics right now... I am returning to the USA on April 15th and will need time to recover. There is some Hetalia Event Theme Weeks I want to do (Lietpol, Lithuania, Estonia) but I may not be able to participate in all of these days. :(

My schedule is getting busier, I want to travel, and I need to focus on moving.

So - Firstly! Cosplaying Events!! (There will be more, I’m sure)

2/9: I will cosplay Finland at Ikebukuro ACOSTA. 2/11: I will cosplay Hungary in a private event in Nagoya Prefecture! 2/16: I will be a guest to Russia at a private event in Ikebukuro! 2/29: I will cosplay [to be decided] at Ikebukuro ACOSTA 3/1: Possibly Cosplaying Lithuania x Poland (Military) or something. 4/12: Cosplaying Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus but Hetalia Gakuen!

I’ll be trying to work on decent content for the theme days but I may make nicer pieces or fanfictions, or do nothing. It’s all too much going on this next few months!

This paired with Pokemon GO which I do a lot and socialize a lot with, I will be focussing on that as well as trying to go to school as much as I can.

All of these paired with being physically ill (I also experienced at very bad/weird memory loss today where I forgot my address :| something I write every day) and maintaining a social life... I really, really will not be working on this blog as much as I have been until I return to Florida. I’m going to try to update daily but if I do not, well, that is how it is. XD I might do lots of sketches.

Again, to everyone who supported me this far and has been good fans/friends, thank you. Remember, you can always send in random sentence starters for drabbles or other requests of this sort and I will do my best to do those. Writing is much easier for me than art, usually. Like I mentioned in previous posts, I was met with very cold feelings from people and not ‘welcomed’. Due to misunderstandings and everything too, I have been fighting to be an active blogger. Some people ask me how I actually could handle staying in the fandom after I shared stories (and screenshots) of some of the horrible things people have said about me before knowing me.

#ooc

[surveysonfleek]

1552.

What is a smell that you absolutely cannot stand? fart. anyone’s fart. it’s just gross lol.

When is the last time you felt adrenaline moving through your veins? ummm. tbh idk if i’ve ever physically felt that before?

When is the last time you bought new shoes? What kind of shoes are they? maybe a month ago. they’re white reeboks.

Do you know anybody who snorts when they laugh? Who? no but there was a random chick at trivia who did really horrible loud snorts when she laughed. every time she laughed the whole room would go silent. i felt so bad for her.

Have you ever been hit on by a stranger? Flattering or creepy? yes, creepy.

Do you remember the first Rated R movie you ever saw? What was it? no idea.

What is something good that happened to you last week? Something bad? something good - my ear infection is now gone and both ears have unblocked! something bad - my shifts at work have been cut because of corona so that means less money.

Are you afraid of any animals? not irrationally. 

Do you put your elbows on the table when you eat? Do you think it’s rude? i haven’t noticed. but i was taught that it was rude while growing up.

Have you ever gotten into a fight with somebody over the internet? haha no.

Do you think that you listen to your head or your heart more? hmm head.

If your mom told you she was pregnant today would you freak out? definitely.

You trust all of your friends completely, true or false? i’d like to think so.

How many buttons are on the clothes you’re wearing right now? none.

If you could re-paint your bedroom, what color would you choose? i’d mute the turquoise a little more.

What has been the best night of your life so far? Why? honestly i don’t know!

Did you learn to read before, during, or after kindergarten? during.

Has anybody ever thrown you a surprise party? haha no :(

Would you ever even think about taking part in a wet t-shirt contest? no thanks.

What is the last thing you lost? i forgot.

Have you ever pretended to be sick to get out of something? yes.

Who is somebody you know who is spoiled rotten? yes.

Would you rather visit Poland or Portugal? hmm. not sure. i’d have to do a quick research on both.

Have you ever seen somebody give birth? no.

You have 10 minutes to make dinner for two people, what do you make? spam and rice. hahaha.

Have you ever borrowed something and never gave it back? What was it? no. i hate asking to borrow things from others.

What is one thing you wish you understood about the opposite sex? why they talk different when they’re with their ‘boys’.

Is you hair color the same as it was when you were a baby? yes.

Have you ever been in trouble for being too loud? yes.

Honestly, have you ever given somebody a sucky gift? haha most likely.

#survey #surveys #quiz #bored #questions

[misonjun-comic]

June 2014: Magda's friend manages to miss the end of school year.

Episode twenty-five fully reveals Werka's extremal absendmindedness.

Read more for trivia and translation notes!

I believe this episode is when I started the running gag of those three girls randomly making barbecue in the background. You can also see one of the photographer girls with them.

Using cleaning supplies as some kind of battle equipment was a common joke among the students and on those occasions where we were allowed to wear silly costumes there were always a few people wearing toilet paper or carrying mops with them.

T/N: The “assembly” refers to the meeting of all the students and teachers which is the main thing that happens on the last day of school, complete with a stage play by one of the classes and/or the drama club, there is also some gifts for the most gifted students, long speeches by the principals and other important people associated with Radosna, and probably other things which I already forgot. (Oh, I'm almost sure the iconic red armchair that was possessed by one humanity class for all their three years at Radosna was officially passed down onto another humanity class during this assembly, which means all the teachers have witnessed this silly act, but I might be wrong). The only thing left to do at the final day of school was meeting in class groups with the class teacher, receiving the report cards and thanking the teacher with a whole lot of flowers and chocolates (which were later eaten by the teacher's kids, as I found out). I write all of this because I couldn't find the English word for apel and I'm wondering if the English-speaking world even has this kind of galas that end the school years - in American cartoons the kids are just running out of the school, throwing backpacks away (why they even had those?), dressed in everyday attire, as if it was just another day of school. Meanwhile here in Poland the last day of school is always a Big Deal.

#misonjun #webcomic #art by op #high school #skipping school #that's it the finale of the four parter

[frogcoded]

Thank you so much @rododaktvlos for tagging me and sorry for doing this ages late I’ve been super busy these days

Nickname: mmmm I don’t have many nicknames because my name is super short already, a friend of mine calls me Caci (for non-italians: Kah-chee) and some others sometimes call me some variation of Saretta/Sarotti

Zodiac: I’m a Taurus and I don’t know more than that sorry lol

Height: 162/163 I think, I used to know this in feet and inches but I forgot it because they’re not real people measures

Languages: Italian, English, I can mostly understand Spanish and speak for very basic stuff, Gio made Latin and Ancient Greek count so I am too, I can usually translate Latin / Ancient Greek from medieval frescoes

Nationality: Italian

Favorite season: spring because I like flowers and warm weather

Favorite colours: I generally like bright colours, I love purple way too much and also warm colours

Coffe, tea or hot chocolate: I hate coffee, I drink ungodly amounts of tea and infusions (especially now that I’m mostly following from home) and I like hot chocolate but I never make it for some reason

Average amount of sleep: I usually sleep quite early so I’d say at least 6 hours? Depends because on days I don’t have to wake up early because of university I can go up to 10 lol

Cats or dogs: CATSCATSCATSCATS

Number of blankets you sleep with: depends on the season? Atm the weather got very cold all of a sudden so I got out a blanket. I’m usually super sensitive to cold and I like to feel warm when I sleep so I get out the blanket as soon as I can lol

Dream trip: aaaa this is too difficult I love travelling. Though I gotta say I’m a slut for a beautiful city and I’m not a beach person. I think I’d like to visit Spain/Portugal because I’ve never been there and also Eastern Europe (especially like Poland and Ungary if the political situation wasn’t what it is lol)

Oh god now I should tag someone but way too much time passed and I have no idea who did this and who didn’t so yeah if anybody wants to do this you can say I tagged you 💖💖

#yeah I’m SUPER LATE to the party lol #but I have fun with this stuff so really thanks for tagging me ahaha