#and its been hundreds of thousands of years since SS (SS is the first of the timeline and BotW is the most recent)

[nation-of-bros]

Nazi UFOs

The Germans were already working on alternative drive systems in the Third Reich. Viktor Schauberger is said to have succeeded in using the omnipresent energy inherent in nature, expressed through screw-like movements. One of his inventions, which he called Repulsine, was supposed to be able to harness energy and defy gravity according to those principles. In fact, Schauberger was personally invited by Hitler to present his ideas and research to scientists in the Reich.

All in all, one has to admit that German science was much more open to alternative perspectives and research areas at the time. This is exactly why the Germans were technologically many years ahead, whether for example color film or rocket technology. Even the first digitally fully programmable computer was invented by a German during the Second World War. In view of the constant Allied bombing raids, the German military was very interested in having vertical take-off aircraft that did not require a runway. There are reports of prototypes that allowed vertical take off and maneuvers with 90 degree turns.

It's no secret that the Nazis were generally extremely open to things that are today dismissed as esoteric nonsense. Through the Ahnenerbe organization, the SS even sent its researchers to the most remote areas of the world, such as Tibet. However, in the inner circle of power was believed that a technologically superior civilization to ours existed on Earth a very long time ago.

Antarctica as last bastion

Whether the knowledge regained by personalities such as Schauberger or the technology copied from old artefacts was ultimately sufficient for the Germans to build "UFOs" towards the end of the war, also known as Reichsflugscheiben (literal "Reich flight discs"), is still a myth today. In fact, the Americans under Richard Evelyn Byrd carried out a military expedition to explore and map parts of Antarctica shortly after the Second World War with 4,000 men and 13 war and civilian ships, which, however, had to be broken off prematurely due to several losses. It is extremely questionable why the US military would mobilize so many resources to explore deserted Antarctica when military exercises could have been done much more cheaply in Alaska or Canada. Allegedly, Admiral Byrd reported in his diary about strange flying disks that suddenly emerged from the water, flew around wildly and caused severe damage with laser-like weapons within a very short time. Completely horrified, he informed the American government that the USA is facing a possible enemy technologically superior enough to be able to fly from one pole to the other in a very short time.

Triangular Spaceships

If a few thousand Nazis and scientists actually managed to (re)discover these technologies and fled the Reich, the question arises why they have not returned to this day. Of course, this question is easy to answer if you dismiss it as nonsense. However, if one assumes that there is a grain of truth behind this, the issue can be generalized: Why has there not been official contact with extraterrestrials up to now?

The Belgian UFO wave, where thousands of people saw several triangular spacecraft from 1989 to 1992, also confirmed by the Belgian military, is probably the most obvious evidence of a possible extraterrestrial presence on earth. The radar recordings from that time, but also many others around the world, show there are unknow objects in the sky flying at several hundred meters, some even several kilometers per second, which are able to suddenly change direction at acute right angles. It's hard to believe, but there are those recordings and confirmations from various military personnel who regularly observe such objects in Earth orbit.

No technology officially known to us enables those speeds and flight maneuvers, especially since some of these UFOs also emerge from the sea. In any case, our current "modern physics" is absolutely not able to provide an explanation for these floating objects, neither as a natural phenomenon nor as devices working according to the physical laws known to us. They are objects obviously not of natural origin that work according to physics that is still completely unknown, at least officially.

Wrong physics as an intentional distraction

Our physicists prefer to believe in a Big Bang theory invented by a Belgian priest. They also prefer to believe to know the age of the universe without having a clue how big it is. And likewise dogmatically, they prefer to believe that nothing can be faster than light, because otherwise a theory about "space-time curvatures" wouldn't make any sense anymore. But they reject the mere idea that there are still unknown physical forces, interactions in nature. In this way, modern physicists behave just as ignorantly as the scholars centuries ago; and perhaps they should since certain groups of influence who have corrupted the authorities do not want common humanity to develop such technologies, possibly for they believe that we are not yet mature enough.

But given the pervasive politics, I think baser motives are more likely that certain elite circles are purposefully suppressing the knowledge to keep us energetically dependent so they can impose their agenda on us. After all, they don't constantly propagate the fossil fuel CO2-related climatic doomsday just to offer us an even more accessible source that they have absolutely no control over. The elites wouldn't force sun and wind as the only near-future energy sources on us if they were as reliable as fossil fuels or as ubiquitous as "raumenergie", which has long had its own term in German.

At the German Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Claus Wilhelm Turtur are researching on raumenergie. The costs for a real prototype for generating electricity from raumenergie are allegedly too high, which is why Turtur confines himself to mere theoretical treatises. I think he is absolutely on the wrong track, since his work bases solely on the existing theories of physics. And like all physicists of our time, he gets tangled up in them and ultimately hanging himself. The fact that virtually all technological achievements did not come from physicists, but from technicians or even hobbyists, proves my prejudice in a heuristic way. Eventually, if Turtur were on the right track, his professorship would have been axed long ago.

Suppressed Technologies

In the 1960s and 70s, the American engineer John Searl discovered the same technology that Schauberger and other German scientists may have reinvented. He experimented with ring-shaped ferromagnets around which other cylindrical ferromagnets were arranged, and electromagneticized then using different frequencies for alternating voltages. Eventually, with just a first initial push of one cylinder, he was able to set all the other cylinders circularly in motion, ultimately allowing Searl to build a generator that produced electricity continuously. In his further work, he found out that his device lost weight as the speed of rotation increased. In order to study this effect better, he built a second disc-shaped generator and let it rotated at an even higher speed, so that the disc suddenly took off flying several meters into the air accompanied by a reddish glow as well as the formation of ozone, two typical features from UFO observations.

After a while, Searl learned to steer his flying disc. However, funding for his work was discontinued and all documents destroyed. In the following time Searl limited himself to lectures, because he thought he had too many enemies who might kill him or his family if he continued his work and presented it publicly. In any case, this would not be the first time that an inventor died suddenly. Many other smart men invented devices in the last century that would make us energetically independent; as did the Ogle carburetor invented by Tom Ogle in the 70s, which would revolutionize the automotive industry. Representatives of the gas and oil industry regularly offered Ogle large sums of money to stop his work. However, he always rejected their offers until he died suddenly, allegedly from an overdose of drugs and alcohol.

Another and arguably the greatest inventor of the electric modern age was Nikola Tesla. Throughout his life, Tesla was involved with the natural sciences, particularly with wireless energy and information transmission. But he also had a soft spot for aliens, sought contact with them and designed flying machines that appear in their form as typical UFOs, as evidenced by his patent with the number US 1,655,144, which describes roughly a mixture of a contemporary helicopter with an airplane.

Fake Pop Stars

Interestingly, Tesla vehemently disagreed with Einstein, saying that there are particles which can travel faster than light. As a utilitarian, I would rather place more trust in Tesla than in Einstein, who in fact did not contribute anything practical to general progress, but, moreover, must be viewed very critically, starting with stupid mathematical beginner mistakes in his dissertation, which led to repeated rejection. Furthermore, there are reasonable allegations of plagiarism against Einstein, based on his time at the Swiss patent office. Nevertheless, Einstein received far more attention than Tesla, although he gave us only a questionable and relatively useless theory (pun intended). This was not least due to the fact that, after Tesla's death, the US Federal Police FBI confiscated his complete technical heritage.

Progress Killers

Tesla also confirms my impression and closes the circle that modern physics is mere fun therapy to distract from the truth. We could be much further ahead technologically today and possibly move around with flying cars like in science fiction films if certain authorities and corporations were not specifically suppressing knowledge and alternatives. It is always said that capitalism is much more advanced because of the market economy encouraging technological competition. However, this is by no means the case as soon as global corporations and cartel-like structures have formed. For the past 100 hundred years, they have locked everything away in their drawers that could endanger their grazing grounds. Therefore, big corporations only feel compelled to throw new technology onto the market as soon as their existing product range is no longer profitable for whatever reason.

They've been with us for a long time

I am convinced that earth is not unique at all, but there are countless earth-like planets with comparable animal and plant life. I am also convinced that there are not only humans on earth, since it would not surprise me when mankind came from somewhere else. In recent years I have been very much concerned with alternative historiography and pre-astronautics, which leads me to think that there was already a high culture on Earth possibly of extraterrestrial origin technologically surpassing even our today's civilization.

The former Canadian Secretary of Defense Paul Hellyer says extraterrestrials are already living among us, disguised as humans to observe us up close. Some of those are biologically indistinguishable from humans. He also reports that governments have long been in contact with them. Of course you have to be skeptical and ask yourself whether this is true, since he does not provide any evidence. However, he is not the only official calling for the truth to be made public. The Israeli ex-general Haim Eshed reports similar stuff and describes a whole "galactic federation".

I myself find it difficult to imagine that they would work together with our primitive governments, but rather stay out of our affairs as much as possible, as they have always done. Supposedly there should be a Galactic Federation. Possibly it is even like in Star Trek that there is a directive that forbids direct official contact with civilizations that are still too primitive. We must also not forget that we think as human beings. Aliens would act much more intuitively, possibly even in playful ways. For example, US Marines report conspicuous balls that flash numerously for hours in the same place, as if they wanted to be seen and photographed. However, such recordings are strictly prohibited. Some conspiracy theorists also suspect that the intention here is to simulate an alien invasion if the fake pandemic and climate crisis lie are not enough to push through their new agenda.

Nevertheless, I think the whole thing is much more complex and there are several factions with very different and contrary interests. It is possible that the increasingly tolerated UFO reports, which are now even being discussed in the US Congress, herald a turning point and we will soon experience official "first contact" in the next few years.

We don't have to be afraid, most extraterrestrial species are morally ahead of us and rather well-disposed, otherwise they would have violently oppressed and enslaved us long ago, since they technologically exceed us by thousands of years. This is exactly the reason why, should a few thousand Germans have managed to leave the Reich and been accepted into that "galactic federation" because of their acquired skills, they are no longer allowed to interfere in earthly affairs.

Own Experience

I myself have already observed such a UFO from my balcony when I was still living in Ilmenau. From a distance, the object looked like an orange-glowing sphere, flying bolt-straight from south to north. It was exactly on New Year's Eve 2017. I did some research and found that my partner and I were not the only ones observing this object. It might sound ridiculous, but maybe those inmates thought, "Hey, it's New Year's Eve, let's watch their fireworks from above, they won't see us." Normally, these spaceships are usually cloaked and can only be seen from radar images; while in the rarest of cases visible to the naked eye.

Observing this object, one thing became clear to me: Our whole life here is a rather primitive dumb lie. And the vast majority of people are not mentally capable of comprehending what is actually taking place.

#essay #me

[bleachluna]

Letters

Ended up skipping day 2 of @hitsukarinweek as I had no ideas for it but here’s my fic for day 3! Also on AO3

Dear Toshiro,

Can you please explain to me how the hell Soul Society managed to copy mobile phones from humans, and even put hollow tracking technology in them, but didn't make them able to send stuff across realms? I know you explained that SS phones in soul society can only contact those in soul society, and when they're here in the human world they can only contact those here, but I only realised how ridiculously stupid that is until after you left. What if there's an emergency and you need to contact someone across realms for whatever reason? Surely you need to get this fixed, I cannot believe if I want to talk to you I'm stuck writing letters like it's the 1800s. I'm even writing more formally than I expected, apparently letter writing brings it out of me and I absolutely hate it. You've gotta fix it. Not to mention I'm not a fan of leaving letters for Urahara to pass on for me, I'm not totally convinced he won't read them.

Anyway, it's been a couple of months since I saw you last. That's probably a good thing, that a captain hasn't been needed here, but I'll admit I wonder about you sometimes, I hope everything is ok on your end! I don't know what it was about turning sixteen but all of a sudden all of this stuff about trying to figure out careers is on me constantly. Yuzu figured out years ago that she wanted to go into healthcare, she took to it way back when we were kids. She was originally planning to go into nursing but her grades have improved a lot recently, she might be a doctor instead, but she's also thinking about midwifery. So there's stuff she's gotta figure out for sure, but at least she knows what area she wants to go into? I don't even have that. I mean how do you figure out what to do with the rest of your life when you're sixteen? I haven't even figured myself out yet. How did you decide to become a shinigami?

Other than that though things are ok. School is a little stressful because grades suddenly feel so much more important, but the work's manageable at least. Hollow level seems to be stable at the minute too which is great, one less thing to worry about! And Urahara improved his reiatsu blocking bracelet thing, I've had this one for almost four months and it hasn't broken so even less chance of getting eaten! Always a plus. But anyway, I hope things are good on your end as well, and that you aren't buried up to your ears in paperwork. Let me know if you ever have any plans to pop up in the human world!

Best Wishes,

Karin

P.S. - I sent this on the 22nd of June, let me know when this gets to you/when you send yours, I wanna know what sort of delivery time we're looking at here.

- - - - -

Dear Karin,

I don't even remotely have the skills or know-how to fix something like that, that's what the Research & Development Team is for. I agree it's a little daft that our mobile phones can't send things across realms, but I'm sure said team knows this and is likely working on it, as you said, it would be unfortunate in an emergency situation. Plus I know Urahara can be a little eccentric, but do you really think he'd read the letters? I'm sure it's fine.

It is a good thing I've not been needed, the last thing Karakura needs is more trouble and destruction. Have they managed to rebuild that major bridge you were talking about yet? Everything is alright here, or at least in my division anyway. I've been kept busy recently, a set of students graduated from the academy last month so I've had 18 new recruits to introduce to squad 10. As for the careers stuff, I honestly assumed from the work you did here and there for the clinic that you were interested in healthcare as well, I take it that's not actually the case then? Do you at least have rough ideas of the sort of thing you'd want to go into? I'm not sure I'll be much help in that respect, I can't wrap my head around half of the jobs that seem to exist in the human world. In some ways I had it easier, the choice was out of my hands. My reiatsu was getting stronger and Hyorinmaru came to me before I even knew what was happening, I needed to go to the academy to make sure my reiatsu didn't become dangerous, therefore I became a shinigami. I never had to wonder what to do with myself in terms of employment.

I'm glad to hear things are going well with you, I'm certainly glad to hear you don't have to worry as much about the bracelet breaking. Is your reiatsu still increasing? If it's stabilising that might be part of why this new bracelet is managing better. I know you're not particularly interested in getting involved with shinigami stuff, which frankly I agree with, but if your reiatsu is still increasing I do think it's worth training you to hide it properly. I am unfortunately always at least a little buried in paperwork, particularly recently with the new recruits, but it's manageable. I don't think I'll be in the human world soon, but I will let you know if I plan to.

Best Wishes,

Toshiro

P.S. - I got your letter on the 2nd of July, I should be handing this letter over to be sent on the 4th, schedule permitting.

- - - - -

Dear Toshiro,

Well I hope you make sure that the research team are working on it, because this really is ridiculous. And you're kidding right? I trust Urahara about as far as I can throw him, which is probably all of three feet.

The bridge is still being rebuilt, but I think they're in the last stages now thank god. All the diversions needed really messed with the traffic, maybe I can finally stop leaving the house half an hour earlier just to get to my soccer club. It's supposed to be twenty minutes max by bus and it's been taking easily twice that. Let me know if you find out which shinigami it was that released their zanpakuto on that bridge, I have some choice words for them.

An entire class of students graduated and you only got 18 newbies at the tenth? Was it a small class or is that the normal kind of numbers you see? I assumed there's like, thousands and thousands of shinigami, is there less than I thought? Is that why I only ever see you and Rukia besides the dude who's currently stationed here? And I don't know about going into healthcare, that's my whole problem! I don't know what I want. Healthcare is fine but I don't feel like it's my life purpose to go into it either so yeah, I don't know. Healthcare would be alright, sports would be cool maybe? But I don't think there's a whole lot of sports careers outside of professional (which is definitely not happening) or teaching, and I'm not convinced I'm the teacher type. I just don't seem to have this strong urge to go in a particular direction like Yuzu does. But wow, I didn't know that, you basically HAD to train to be a shinigami? I didn't know that was a thing that could happen, that your reiatsu can go that far on its own. That kind of sucks though doesn't it? That you had no choice? I hope you enjoy being a shinigami at least.

To be honest I think my reiatsu probably is still going up. I don't think it's as quick as it was before, it's settled a little bit, probably because there hasn't been much danger around recently, but I do think it's still inching up. Is that a huge issue? Obviously it became a huge issue with you so now I'm kinda nervous. I'm not gonna get kidnapped into the shinigami am I? I can train to hide my reiatsu without actually becoming a shinigami right? Frankly I trust you more on this than Urahara. And you better let me know in advance if you can, Yuzu says she wants to make you those dumplings you liked again.

Best Wishes,

Karin

P.S. - I got excited at first thinking that sending these took less than two weeks, that didn't seem that bad considering we're sending them via Urahara whenever someone comes through realms, but then your letter took almost a month to come, it arrived on the 27th :( I'm handing this letter over on the 28th.

- - - - -

Dear Karin,

The Research & Development Team is not under my command, they belong to the twelfth, I cannot make sure that they're working on it, but I shall ask at the next opportunity I get. I think you're selling yourself short, I'm sure you could get at least five feet, but I do see your point, I can't say I fully trust him either, not on an individual basis anyway. I trust him to want the best for everybody, and to work towards that, but I don't think he pays attention to what that means for the individuals in the situation. More of a 'the end justifies the means' sort of person from what I've heard. And I'm afraid I have no idea who it was who damaged the bridge, but given they were fighting a powerful hollow at the time I imagine it was the correct course of action. Better on the bridge than in the middle of town.

I get the impression there is less shinigami than you think. Most squads have just over two hundred or so members, so 18 new recruits is actually a pretty good year. As for why you only really see me or Vice-Captain Kuchiki, it's a combination of needing a strong enough shinigami to deal with the sort of problems that crop up in Karakura, while also needing said shinigami to have a vague clue on how to navigate the human world. Vice-Captain Kuchiki presumably has rather extensive knowledge having lived in the human world for months, and I've been known to visit for years so they know I'm alright with being there as well. I think it's alright to not have an idea of a 'life's purpose' when you're in your second year of high school. Maybe just pick something for now as a sort of in-between while you continue working out what it is you want? Sometimes a job is just a job after all. You could always try a career in sports and see how it goes if it interests you now, and switch later on? I'm sure you'll figure something out. I'll admit I was definitely reluctant to train as a shinigami at first, it was never something I wanted originally, so it was hard to deal with to begin with I suppose, but I don't mind it these days. It's stressful, but at least I'm doing something where I'm trying to keep people safe, that suits me well enough.

Unfortunately yes, in my case my reiatsu continuously going up was an issue, but I don't think it's as serious with you. Firstly, you've not got a zanpakuto knocking on your subconscious as far as I know (the telltale giveaway is weird dreams where someone/something is trying to talk to you and tell you it's name, in case you were worried about that), and the people around you aren't vulnerable. You're unlikely to cause issues with your reiatsu because everyone around you has some degree of spiritual power already. As for the other questions, I certainly hope you won't be kidnapped into the shinigami, and I don't think your brother or even Urahara would let that happen, but it's possible you'll get Soul Society's attention if it keeps going unchecked. Of course with Urahara keeping on eye on it and keeping the reiatsu blocking bracelet on you, I'd argue that it's largely taken care of and shouldn't get other shinigami on you. There isn't much shinigami training you can do without becoming a shinigami, but you can learn to withdraw and hide your reiatsu even as a human so don't worry about that. I would say to ask your brother but he's never been very good at controlling his, Urahara is your other option, or possibly Vice-Captain Kuchiki if she's around. Or if those don't work out and your reiatsu gets to a point where you're truly worried about it let me know, I'll train you in it myself if it comes to it. Also, I appreciate the thought but your sister doesn't need to go to trouble like that for me.

Best Wishes,

Toshiro

P.S. - I got your letter on the 17th of August. I think it's safe to say they take anywhere from over a week to just under a month to arrive each time.

- - - - -

Dear Toshiro,

Let me know what the research team says! If they say they're not working on it please heavily suggest that they do, and if they say they are working on it, please ask how long they think it'll take them. Just think how much easier communicating would be if we could just call each other. The end justifies the means is EXACTLY Urahara's vibe, which is exactly why I don't really trust him. So yeah, it wouldn't even remotely surprise me if he's been reading these the entire time, better to assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised than the other way around. I suppose you have a point about the bridge being a better location than in the middle of a bunch of people, I'll put up with inconvenient travel times over unnecessary death.

Only a little over two hundred per squad? There is less than I thought! That's way less than your average university over here, that's crazy! 18 newbies is good in that case, your squad must be pretty popular. And no wonder I only really ever see you or Rukia, you guys clearly need to work on getting more people up to the speed with the human world or you're gonna end up over-worked! I guess I could just go for sports now and switch later? I don't know, you kinda get it into your head that you've gotta figure out what you want and stick to it, but I guess there's nothing actually stopping me from changing paths later. Once school goes back in I'm gonna get a meeting and talk to the careers lady, see what she says. I'm glad you're alright with being a shinigami now, hopefully it isn't stressful too much of the time.

Well, I'll take your word for it, you know more than me on this but I'm still kinda wary. You're right that there's no zanpakto trying to get my attention so far at least so that's something. If I do get kidnapped by the shinigami I'm trusting you to break me back out, but yeah that is kind of the whole point of the bracelet, that it blocks off my reiatsu from others so hollows can't find me so easily (and shinigami apparently, yeesh) so hopefully this won't actually be an issue. I don't really want to ask Urahara to train me but I will if I have to I guess. Asking Rukia's a good idea though! I'll ask whenever she next pops up, she seems like she'd be good at that sort of thing, maybe that'll solve this whole situation. Or you know, you, if you happen to come sooner, whoever comes to the human world next I guess! I'd feel better knowing that I myself could do the thing the bracelet's doing. Although I do have a question, how do you do it in your sleep? Or is it not possible and you're just vulnerable a third of the time? That seems unfortunate. Also you're kidding right? Cooking is the primary way my sister shows her care and affection, if she wants to cook for you there's no stopping her so you can at least give us notice so we can get ingredients and stuff.

Best Wishes,

Karin

- - - - -

Dear Karin,

I will let you know what the research team says as soon as it actually comes up. I can see your point, I suppose it is better to plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised otherwise. Good to see you have your priorities in order, is the bridge finally finished though?

I remember being surprised by the size of your high school, I assume universities are even bigger? Must be an administrative nightmare to keep track of all those students, I feel like I can have a hard enough time with the 226 members I have. Squad 10 was surprisingly popular this year, the only other squads who had numbers like that were the sixth and the eleventh, both of which always have high numbers. We did have 'human world' classes at the academy at one point, but they ended up being scrapped a decade or so ago, any information learned was rendered almost completely obsolete within a few years, meaning the stuff the students learned was more or less useless by the time they were actually getting stationed in the human world. These days we just give a brief information pack about the human world before they leave, currently being updated semi-regularly by Vice-Captain Kuchiki. Meeting with a staff member whose job it is to deal with career pathways certainly sounds like a good idea, I hope it goes well if it hasn't already taken place.

Once again, I certainly hope Soul Society would try such a thing, it would be incredibly stupid considering I don't think your brother, who damn near took on the whole of Soul Society and pretty much came out on top, would ever let you get kidnapped in the first place. And I'm fairly sure me, a captain, breaking out someone Soul Society captured is probably considered treason of some kind, but I can promise I'll be in your corner one way or another. Not to mention, I don't think most shinigami would be prepared for you anyway, most are too used to sword combat, I don't think the average shinigami would handle your hand to hand very well. I'm sure you've got nothing to worry about. As for hiding your reiatsu in your sleep, generally speaking you just practice it enough that it becomes second nature, most shinigami do it subconsciously after a while, including in sleep, although nightmares and the like can interfere a little bit. Your sister has met me what, three times? She feels strongly enough to cook for me? It really is unnecessary although I'm sure the thought is kind. I did say I'd give you notice if I came to the human world though, our sensors are showing an increase in hollow activity in Karakura recently. We're currently just monitoring, we're holding off for now as it might be temporary, but if it gets worse I'm coming to monitor the situation properly and to make sure no incidents happen with the hollow increase. Judging from the current rate, if it keeps going as is I'll probably be there in two weeks or so. With any luck this letter will arrive before I do but if not, I'll make sure to meet up with you somewhere.

Best Wishes,

Toshiro

- - - - -

Dear Toshiro,

Your letter got here super quick, less than a week after I sent mine! Looks like there's increased shinigami activity to match the hollow activity, which boy, you're not kidding that its increased. My reiatsu's jumped up again and I couldn't tell you if it was a response to all the hollows around, or that the hollows arrived because of me. I really hope it's the former. Hopefully you'll be here soon! I think I could do with the training sooner rather than later and if I'm being honest I'd feel safer. But anyway, in response to your letter:

The bridge is actually finished! Just in time for the increased hollows to fuck it up again I'm sure! Most universities are like 10,000 to 30,000 easy, and I think some are bigger than that? So yeah, only two hundred or so shinigami per squad is insane to me. I'm pretty sure the universities have whole administrative teams just for the purpose, does your squad have an admin person at all or is it just you? When I first found out about the shinigami I didn't think I'd sit here wondering about the bureaucracy of it all but here I am. Oh wow I would've loved to sit in one of those human world classes, would've been hilarious I bet. At least you give newly stationed people something, I imagine the culture shock must be a bit much, I'm sure Rukia's information is very accurate given how much time she's spent here. And the careers meeting is actually in two days, I kinda nervous about it to be honest, but hopefully it'll be helpful.

Well I suppose when you put it that way Soul Society kidnapping me would very much be poking the bear huh? I'm extremely saddened to hear that you wouldn't commit treason for me though, what kind of friendship is this??? But I suppose I'll take comfort in you being 'in my corner one way or another', whatever that means. Does it mean in the event of soul society kidnapping me and forcing me to be a shinigami you'd immediately put me in your squad? That's the vibe I'm getting. But that's good to know about the hand to hand combat and the reiatsu withdrawing while still asleep, I'll bear those both in mind. As for your potential visit, given hollows seem to be popping up left right and centre I'm assuming you're probably coming in a week or so, I'll look out for your arrival! I get the impression this letter isn't going to get to you before you arrive in the human world but just in case it does I'll let you know, Yuzu added the dumpling ingredients onto her shopping list. That means you've gotta be at our house for at least one dinner! Consider it repayment for the training I'm gonna demand from you.

Hope you get here safe,

Karin

#hitsukarin #hitsukarinweek #hitsukarinweek2021 #toshiro hitsugaya #karin kurosaki #bleach #my writing #once again strongly recommend reading this on the blog itself or ao3 #the dash formatting is not great and this is a little under 4k

[frozenartscapes]

New Dawn - A World Without Gods (SS/Modern!AU)

I discovered this as a draft I had started months ago and realized with fit in nicely with this AU. So, let’s call this the first chapter of A World Without Gods. 

-- -- --

Byleth had encountered many who begged in their final moments of life. The Ashen Demon had heard pleas, bargains, desperate cries for mercy. Sometimes she accepted if the offer was good. Most of the time, she ignored the words spoken to her. Sometimes, her victims had the honour in them to die with dignity, speaking not a word and merely holding her impassive gaze as she struck them down.

She had never heard anyone plead to take their life. Until now.

The Emperor’s breath came in harsh, agonized gasps. Blood oozed from her wounds, spilling on the marble floor around her. Her shoulders sagged, her body buckled, as she struggled to prop herself up with her sword. The immense weight of the world on her shoulders had finally crushed her.

Byleth met those violet eyes that were once so filled with fire and passion, that reflected the strength and courage of the woman she once called her student. But her heart clenched seeing those eyes now. They were dull, and fearful. The fire had gone out, instead just a smouldering pile of ash in the dark. Even the colour seemed weaker.

Seeing Edelgard like this stirred something in her silent chest.

“Claim...your victory,” Edelgard told her through heavy breaths, struggling even to speak. Their battle had been hard on both, but worse on her. “Strike me down. You must.”

Her voice trembled. Weakness. Sadness. Fear. Such things were all present in a voice that once had so much power and authority. Byleth finally could see past the horned crown, the monstrous axe, the royal regalia - Edelgard was so small.

“Even now, people are out there killing each other,” Edelgard continued, a new desperation creeping into her tone, “You must put an end to this.”

A flash of rage surged through Byleth, then. She thought about demanding whose fault that was, pointing out that the war never would have happened had it not been for the Emperor with a power complex. But then the rage subsided, and she was able to see it: guilt.

‘She thought she could win,’ she realized, ‘That it would all be worth it if she just...’

“Please...” Edelgard whispered, “My teacher...” Those violet eyes met hers again, and Byleth could see the tears forming in them. “Your path...lies across my grave.”

‘This must be done,’ a voice in her mind reminded her, ‘She’s not that little student anymore. She’s made peace with it. Do it now, before she changes her mind.’

Byleth tightened her grip on her sword, and took a step forward. Her feet felt heavy, dragging against the ground in protest. But she closed the distance, and lifted the Sword of the Creator high above her head, preparing to bring it down and extinguish the life of the Flame Emperor.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t look, didn’t want to look. Never had she been forced to kill someone she so desperately didn’t want to kill.

But she didn’t have a choice.

“I wanted...” Edelgard’s voice came out so small, so helpless, so mournful. “I wanted to walk with you...”

Byleth’s eyes opened, just a crack, and she dared a glance down.

It wasn’t the Emperor who knelt before her. It was a girl, a mere child, beaten and broken by a life of darkness and war and loneliness. She had her eyes screwed shut, waiting, waiting for her miserable life to end.

Byleth let the Sword of the Creator fall to the floor with an unceremonious clatter. 

Edelgard’s eyes opened at the sound, but before she knew what was happening, someone was down on their knees before her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

Byleth heard her breath hitch. Edelgard had become a statue in her arms, frozen in shock and confusion. Byleth merely held on, and waited. She waited for the protests. She waited to be pushed away. She waited for the struggle against her. She waited for another fight, for that sword to surge toward her.

For a few, agonizing seconds, nothing happened.

“Why?”

If she wasn’t holding the Emperor so close, Byleth wouldn’t have heard that question.

“I’m sorry, Edelgard,” she uttered, feeling tears forming in her eyes for the first time since she had lost her father, “There must be another way...”

“No.” Edelgard’s response came too quickly, too harshly. “There is no other way. I must be destroyed. I...I deserve nothing better.”

“I don’t believe that,” Byleth told her softly.

“But...” Edelgard struggled against Byleth’s hold, and managed to push herself away just enough for Byleth to see her face. Lilac eyes filled with pain and sorrow met cool, ethereal green. “I can’t do this anymore,” Edelgard admitted quietly, breathlessly, “Please. End this. I...I’ve lost...”

Words went unsaid. Byleth didn’t know the whole story but she knew some of it. Edelgard had lost the war, she lost her Empire, she lost her armies and commanders, she lost her people, she lost the few who supported her - some of them to Byleth’s own blade. She grimaced: Hubert had put up an especially fierce fight.

Guilt surged through her. Edelgard was alone. Largely because of her.

“I don’t deserve it. To live. I...” Edelgard’s voice was so small, so helpless. “If you truly wish to grant me mercy, then you will end my suffering now. Please, my teacher. If no one else, let it be you.”

Byleth wished with all her heart that she still could use the Divine Pulse. Because she would have, in that moment, sent herself all the way back to the Holy Tomb, back to her decision that changed everything.

‘I would have chosen to protect you,’ she thought, ‘I should have chosen that.’

But maybe it wasn’t too late.

“Edelgard... I want to help you,” she said, taking the Emperor’s chin in her hand and tilting her head up, “My biggest regret is hesitating when you needed me. I...I didn’t know where my heart lay then, and I’m sorry it took so long for me to realize... But it’s not too late for you.”

A dry, humourless chuckle escaped Edelgard’s lips. “Have you always been so blindly optimistic?” she asked in a low voice, “It’s been far too late for me for some time now.” Their eyes met, and there was no life left in hers. “You and I both know that this isn’t how it really happened.”

Byleth felt her blood run cold as the realization struck her. The delusion began to fade, and the nightmare began to shift into a memory. A memory of what really happened.

A drop of blood slipped out from under her crown, right in the centre of her forehead. Then the crown itself split, as if it had been cleaved in two. More blood began to flow.

Byleth woke up before the grisly truth was revealed in full.

-- -- --

“Morning Professor!”

Byleth smiled as best as she could at the chipper security guard. His name was Alex, and despite the seemingly mundane nature of it, he loved his job working at the Imperial Palace. He was always there at the start of her day, when she would sign in to work. And his big smile and eager energy always helped get her through the day, especially after rough nights.

“You sure you’re sleeping ok?” Alex asked with concern, taking note of the dark bags under the Professor’s eyes, “No offence, but you look like a zombie.”

Byleth couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony. “Just the usual stress keeping me up,” she lied, “There’s that new exhibit about art and the Empire opening soon and we’re not nearly ready, yet.”

“Well, don’t work too hard!” he said teasingly.

She swiped her keycard and gave a confirming nod. “I’ll try,” she said with a wave, “Oh, before I go: any news? I think Frank mentioned something about a new hire...”

Alex thought for a moment. “Nope. Nothing to report,” he stated confidently.

Byleth blinked, and for a brief second, she was back in the past. Eight hundred and fifty-five years. Talking to another cheerful guard with a similar dedication to his job.

“You...ok, Professor?” Alex asked with a tilt of his head, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I... Never mind. Just need some coffee,” Byleth replied, snapping out of her memories with a shake of her head.

She gave Alex a wave in parting, and headed off to her office.

The Imperial Palace was Enbarr’s most valued museums. Each day, thousands of tourists would flock into its elegant halls, taking in magnificent paintings, ancient weapons and tapestries, or wandering the extensive manicured grounds. Not long after the war, it fell to ruin. The Last Emperor was dead and buried, and the opulent grandeur of the marble palace seemed to spit in the face of every peasant in Enbarr. So it was ransacked. Priceless artifacts were stolen, banners and tapestries set ablaze, stone and metal smashed just to let out the anger at those selfish rulers.

Byleth saved what she could at the time. It would be centuries later that she would set foot in the palace again, this time as a generous donor of a large collection of historic artifacts and paintings to the new National Museum. Now the Palace was a gift back to the people of Adrestia, having been restored to its former glory and many of its treasures brought back through gifts and expensive purchases. It would be free to enter, operating by donation and a healthy sum of money granted by the government. And suddenly it was no longer a dark and gloomy ruin sitting on a hill, looming over Enbarr like its shadowy history. It became a point of pride, a place that showed off exactly how powerful Adrestia had once been, and how anyone could see it with ease.

The Old Empire was dead, but this new Palace represented the heart of the New.

The next couple centuries passed for Byleth in a blur. She lived all over Fodlan, each life bringing a new job, a new home, new friends. She had long gotten over the strangeness of immortality. Moving onto a new life was easy for her now, though some things still hurt her un-beating heart. She had friends, but was never truly close to anyone. The odd romance had sprung up from time to time, but they never lasted.

She couldn’t bear to weather another heartbreak like her first.

She would occasionally visit the Imperial Palace sometimes, once or twice in a lifetime. It became easier to do as the world modernized. Travel to such a large and important city like Enbarr had aways been prioritized. But she could never have fathomed to the extent.

The first time she took the train right into the heart of the city was exhilarating.

Enbarr was one of the first cities to install streetcars, making transit much more accessible for everyone.

Then came cars, making travel within the city even easier.

And then there were airplanes. To think, humanity could create something so big and so heavy but able to carry so many people and bags across the whole continent in a mere couple of hours! All without magic, at that.

She never thought she’d find herself living in Enbarr until it just...happened. A couple of years ago, she relocated to start anew once again, and like some kind of twist of fate, ended up as a tour guide for the museum. And she built herself such a stellar reputation as a well-researched academic of the place, she was promoted to curator in no time.

And she was happy, for the most part.

She got to her office and pulled out her laptop from her bag. She sat down at her desk, glancing briefly out at the beautiful view of the fountains sparkling in the sun, before getting to work.

Several hours later, and it was time to go home. But before she did, there was something she had to do, first.

It was the anniversary. A date no one celebrated, but also one only historians knew or cared about. It happened so, so long ago now, and though a pivotal moment in Fodlan’s history, it had so little impact on modern society that no one was ever really aware of it. To everyone else, it was just a date on a calendar.

To Byleth, it was the worst day of her life.

The Throne Room was one of the Palace’s most renowned locations. It had been largely kept preserved as it was, its massive grandeur shown off in its original glory. Obviously some things had been done - the tapestries and banners needed to be replaced, electric lighting had been installed to better illuminate the cavernous space, and the intricate marble floor needed constant restoration work.

But there was one thing that had been added to the space that never was there before. It was a strange thing, something so small and simple, sitting alone in the centre of the floor, before the throne.

A candle, burning with an enchanted flame that would never extinguish.

The museum was closed, so the hall was empty when Byleth arrived. And that solitary candle was alone in the vast, looming space.

Byleth stood before that candle. The floor under it was clean, reflecting the small flame in the multicoloured tiles. Eight hundred and fifty years ago, there was a pool of blood there instead. Eight hundred and fifty years ago, Byleth fell to her knees after pitching her bloody sword as far away from her as possible. Eight hundred and fifty years ago, she held onto the body of a woman she had once loved, still loved, until it had long gone cold and Byleth had cried until she physically couldn’t anymore. Eight hundred and fifty years ago, Byleth realized she had made a terrible mistake there was no going back on.

Eight hundred and fifty years ago, Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg, last of her name and warmongering tyrant, was killed by the saviour of Fodlan, the Enlightened One.

“I’m sorry,” Byleth whispered to the candle, “I wish things had been different. I wish I could have saved you.”

Every year since she started working at the Palace, Byleth would visit the candle on this day and make the same wish. Sothis was long gone, having been merged with Byleth for centuries. And yet even with the divine power of the Goddess mixed with her blood, there was nothing Byleth could do to make that wish come true.

But then the lights flickered. Odd. There must have been a power surge somewhere...

They flickered again, then shut off completely, plunging the Throne Room into darkness. Only the minimal light from its ancient windows and that solitary candle chased away the darkest shadows.

And then all hell broke loose.

There’s a flash and the world seems to spin on its axis. The candle at her feet is blown out by a strong gust of wind. And as Byleth recovers from the initial shock, she practically falls over when something even more insane registers before her.

It’s the Emperor, on her knees, breathing heavy and body battle-worn. Just like she looked when…

Through her heavy breaths, Edelgard pants, “There you go, again…my teacher… Hesitating…”

She looks up, finally, to see a completely different Byleth standing before her. No Sword of the Creator, shorter, styled hair, strange-looking clothes. And completely dumbfounded.

“Professor… What’s going on?”

#fe three houses #fanfic #ss/modern!au #a world without gods

[sweetkale]

all evidence that points towards Magneto being Jewish before it was first explicitly established in 1991

!!None of this is my writing!! It’s a useful but outdated source that I merely revised to replace the G slur. It was written by Rivka Jacobs and the original can be found at http://www.alara.net/opeople/xbooks/magjew.html

The Magneto Is Jewish FAQ (revised 11/9/98)

Rivka Jacobs

(1) In Uncanny #113 (Classic X-Men #19), the added material has Magneto on Asteroid M, talking about the deaths of Magda, Anya, and he mentions Auschwitz for the first time. "I endured one death camp ... in Auschwitz ... I will not see another people fear what they do not understand and destroy what they fear." Uncanny #113 is from 1978. The additional scenes were included in 1988's Classic X-Men #19. So, we know Magnus was at Auschwitz, a death camp, not just a concentration camp. (Many fans [and writers] seem to get the two types of camps confused). There could have been a number of reasons he was at Auschwitz: he was a Polish political prisoner, a Russian prisoner of war, a member of the French underground, a homosexual from Germany, Roma, or, with a high probability, a Jew. (Out of 1.5 million victims of Auschwitz, between 1.1 and 1.2 million were Jews).

(2) In Uncanny #150 (one of my favorites) Magneto mentions, in a fight with Cyclops, "I know something of grief. Search throughout my homeland, you will find NONE who bear my name. Mine was a large family, and it was slaughtered ... without mercy, without remorse." So that eliminates German homosexual and French partisan, because the entire familes of such prisoners were not slaughtered throughout an entire "homeland." After Magneto thinks he has killed Kitty, he says: "I remember my own childhood ... the gas chambers at Auschwitz, the guards joking as they herded my family to their death. As our lives were nothing to them, so human lives became nothing to me." Storm is about to blast him for "killing" Kitty, and she says, "If you have a diety, butcher, pray to it!" Magneto answers, "As a boy, I believed. As a boy, I turned my back on god forever." So now we know that Magnus is not a political prisoner (German political prisoners were sent to camps on German soil, like Dachau, or Bergen-Belsen), he is not Polish, since whole Polish families were not herded to the gas chambers. The Poles were not the target of pre-meditated Nazi genocide. While the Russian people were the target of genocide, only Russian POWs were in Auschwitz, not whole families. So, we are now left with only two groups of people that Magnus could be from, the Roma and the Jews. Uncanny #150 is from Oct. 1981; already Magnus says something very interesting here. He says he "remembers" the gas chambers of Auschwitz, "remembers" his family being herded, he "remembers" the guards joking. Fact: no one remembers the gas chambers of Auschwitz except in two ways (or three if you believe the dead can speak to the living), either you were a Nazi SS guard or doctor or official, or you were a member of the Sonderkommando. The Sonderkommando, Jewish prisoners who were forced by the Nazis -- in all the death camps -- to do the dirty work of killing. It was Nazi official policy. The Jews, the lowest of the low to the Nazis, in Auschwitz hierarchy, followed by the Russians, and then the Roma, the Jews would be the ones to lead the victims to the gas chamber, to haul the bodies from the gas chambers to the ovens, to burn and bury the dead. The Jews would pull the teeth of the corpses, cut the hair, pile the bodies three at a time on the retorts of the ovens in just the right way. The Sonderkommando had a few kapos (overseers) who were German and Polish prisoners, criminals from civil prisons in Germany and Poland. During the summer of 1944, 19 Russian POWs from Mauthausen were sent to augment the Auschwitz Sonderkommando. Totally documented, on paper and by eye witness accounts. All other members of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando were Jews.

(3) In Uncanny #161, Sept. 1982, we have the story of Xavier's trip to Israel. There he meets Magnus for the first time. However, it should be noted that the entire story is a Charlie-dream, while he is with Lilandra. In Uncanny #161 we see for the first and last time Magnus' tattoo from Auschwitz. His number is #214782. Xavier says, "That tattoo, Magnus, were you ...?" Magnus answers, "Auschwitz. I grew up there." So now we know that Magneto was first in Auschwitz as a very young person, but we can't pinpoint the age yet. Also, his number is high for someone who was there from the beginning of the camp. The first Polish prisoners, like author Wieslaw Kielar, had very low numbers, like in the 200s. Sonderkommando survivor Filip Muller's number was in the 20,000s. He arrived in early 1942. Magnus' number is a standard number, however, without the A of the 1944 arrivals, or the Z of the Roma, or the other special classification symbols. Of course the penciller didn't know these details. So a standard Auschwitz number, which is too big, but it doesn't tell us anything.

4) Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Vol. 1, #4. Magneto has just found out Wanda and Pietro are his children. (This is from Feb. 1983). He is on the moon, in the Inhuman city of Attilan, telling VIsion about his youth. "I was born into a time and place ... Android ... where both man and mutant were persecuted for being ... different." Picture of the Auschwitz camp, guards tormenting emaciated prisoners, one of whom displays a very prominent and exaggerated Star of David on his clothing. Remember Jews and Roma were kept apart in the camp. In the next panel, however, Magneto sort-of goes into a fantasy. He says, "But unlike the other victims, I possessed the power to fight back." He imagines he's hurling Nazi tanks away with magnetic energy. What's this? In 1983, the reader doesn't know what to make of this. Keep in mind, he's meeting with Wanda, Pietro, Vision, and Crystal, and has held Luna for the first time. Is he exaggerating? Showing off for them?

(5) Now for the second most important comic proving Magneto is Jewish, Uncanny #199, Nov. 1985. Magneto with Lee Forrester and Kitty Pryde arrive at the National Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC. (It's not really Lee, but Mystique, trying to capture Magneto). Magneto has been having an affair with Lee, he loves her. He brings her to the Holocaust Memorial? Why? Fun date, huh? Why, because he has no other family. These people are his family. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. (The Roma have their own name for the genocide, and their own gatherings, with their own rituals and customs. Magneto has no reason to go to a Jewish gathering if he isn't Jewish). Lee/Mystique says: "Man's inhumanity to man ... how easily the race kills." Magneto answers: "Then, Lee, it was the Jews. My nightmare has ever been that tomorrow it will be Mutants." Why would he say that, why wouldn't he mention another ethnic group, if he weren't Jewish? Next, Magneto tells Kitty EXACTLY how to address the gathering in order to get information about dead or missing family members. How does Magneto know how to do this? Isn't it obvious that he's done this before? Why would he address a Jewish Holocaust gathering looking for information about his family if his family weren't Jewish? (And it is a Jewish gathering, besides the use of the word Holocaust, a speaker says in the background: "... the systematic institutionalized extermination of one people by another."). Kitty asks about her great-aunt Chava, who died at Auschwitz, and Magneto is recognized by two survivors, Ruth and David Shulman, two Jewish survivors. (Shul is another name for synagogue -- Shulman means man of the temple, or man of the synagogue). They remember Magneto as a youth in Auschwitz, and say he helped them survive. And witness him as having been there. (No implanted memories, please). They testify that he " ... Had been at that accursed place from the very start..."

Later, Mystique reveals herself, and arrests Magneto in front of all these people. Magneto says that he recognizes no authority. "My land ...all the countries of the world ... turned their back on me and mine when we were condemned to Hitler's death camps. Therefore, in return, I have sworn to deny them." So let's clear this up ... the Roma were not persecuted in Greece, the Greek Jewish community was decimated. A small number of Roma and Jews in Rumania were exiled to a new border country called "Transnistria" but the remainder of the Roma were left alone. Several hundred thousand of them. 350,000 Rumanian Jews were savagely murdered throughout the country. In Slovakia, the Roma were left alone, the Slovakian Jews were among the first sent to Auschwitz. After the Slovakian uprising was crushed in 1944, several hundred Roma who had courageously helped in the rebellion were murdered, along with the remainder of the Jews of Slovakia. Bulgaria did not persecute its Romani people. Bulgaria, although resisting deportations of its Jews, persecuted them locally. In the Netherlands, only the "wandering" Roma who were captured in camps and wagons were deported, about 500. The remaining who had bought homes or found shelter with neighbors, were left alone. The Netherlands is where Gabrielle Haller comes from -- in under two years 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported, most were killed. I could go on. There is no other people who were hunted everywhere the Nazis went or had influence but the Jews. There is no other people who had the gates of escape cut off after the war started, but the European Jews. Magneto's reasoning is based on this most extreme situation.

(6) Uncanny #211, Nov. 1986. The Mutant Massacre. Page 9 -- Betsy Braddock has just come in from discovering what happened to a wounded Morlock, who has just died. Magneto, Storm, and Wolverine are standing there in Xavier's infirmary. Betsy says, "... I saw a cadre of super-beings ... massacring every living thing in the Morlock tunnels." Magneto reacts immediately, out of pure emotion. "NO! The horrors of my childhood, born again...only this time, Mutants are the victims, instead of Jews." What else does this mean? He's talking about HIS childhood, he's making a parallel. If he weren't Jewish, he wouldn't have said Jews, he would have said Roma. The two groups of people are not interchangeable.

(7) New Mutants #49, March 1987. Magneto is dreaming. It is an entire page representation of the massacre of his family. Here we see for the first time, his family -- father, mother, sister -- as they were gunned down in front of open graves. The family members are dressed in middle class urban clothes. No peasant dress, no Roma clothing. (And it is not a cliche. Roma women always wore, at this time, their flowing skirts and distinctive scarves and clothing, similar to the Bosnian women of today). Being massacred with Magnus' family is a mixed group of people. Men in bowler hats and suits, one old woman in a long skirt. One man in a bowler hat has the side-locks of the devout Jew, but the other people could be anyone. Poles or Jews or Roma. It's Magnus and his family who are out of place. They are well-dressed, Magnus's sister in a proper school uniform with the prim collar. Every picture I've seen of the German Rom show: a people of color, having left India and Armenia five- to six-hundred years ago, the men wearing Fedoras (favorite style of hat) and normal suits and ties, and the women and girls always dressed in the long skirts and distinctive flowered scarves. The boys wear a mixture of urban short pants but scarf belts, some have socks, some don't. New Mutants #49, page 17, could show some Roma in the crowd, but Magnus' family members are definitely not Romani in this picture.

(8) X-Men Classics #12, back-up story, Aug. 1987. The actual scenes of Magneto's escape from Auschwitz. "And with World War II ending... the Third Reich defeated...it's guards wanted no witnesses left...to tell the tale of this horror..." Picture of an SS soldier about to shoot a fallen and stricken Madga. "He had been there from the start ..." Magnus has just slammed a wooden beam into the head of the SS soldier. "Grown to manhood within its electrified barbed wire fence. If he was to die, it would not be in this abattoir ... and not without a fight!" Magnus grabs a terrified Magda by the hand and drags her with him in his escape. (a) The war is almost over, it is winter, it is the winter of 1944-1945. The Roma were gone by 1945. All the Roma women were gone. Only 4 clerks, high-status friends of Nazi officials in Camp I, were left. The Romani camp was murdered in the gas chambers in August 1944. (b) This scene, by Claremont and Bolton, is completely accurate. It takes place on Jan. 20, 1945, two days after thecamp was evacuated and the Death marches began. Some 70 of the Sonderkommando were kept to help destroy the evidence of the death factory, before they were to be killed. Some 200 women from the woman's camp, Jews, were chosen to fill in the huge pits where bodies were burned. They had to haul ashes, break up human bones, all in the coldest part of winter. The SS soldiers sent back on Jan. 20th were sent to kill the women. That is exactly what you see in this comic book, because Claremont and Bolton took the time and cared enough, to do their research. Magneto was saving Magda becasue at that point, he wasn't the target, yet. If they were out by the burial pits to the northwest of the camp, that is a point close to the forest. It just makes sense.

(9) New Mutants #61, March 1988. On page 22, Magneto is alone, kneeling over the dead body of Doug Ramsey, thinking thoughts only the reader can see. This is one moment he would not misrepresent anything, to himself especially. He says, "An ill wind is coming ... they are registering mutants ... like they once registered my people in Poland ...! Who knows what horrors await us." Only the Jews were registered, and forced to wear armbands with the Star of David on them, in Poland (at the end of 1939). Efforts to murder the Polska Roma (the Polish Roma) began in 1942, but they weren't registered first. Young Magnus wouldn't have known about any of that in any case-- he was already at Auschwitz by 1942. He would only have known that "my people" the Jewish people in Poland, including the German Jews who had already been deported there in the first months of the War, were registered.

(10) Classic X-Men #19, March 1988, back-up story. Magneto is apparently working for the CIA hunting Nazis. He is about to be betrayed by them, and his lady love of that time, Isabelle, is about to be murdered. But as he is apprehending a Nazi war criminal he gets one of his massive headaches. "Pain," he thinks, "again indescribable." "Worse than the bite of the kapo's whip. The murder of parents and family, the death of a child ... the loss of a beloved wife!" So here we see that Magneto was the victim of kapos. He could not have been a kapo. He was too young anyway, as we've seen. He grew up in Auschwitz. Here he says the murder of parents, and family. The parents separate, gunned down. The remainder of his family, no doubt sent to the gas chambers later, while he was in the Sonderkommando. Remember what he said in UX #150, his entire family wiped out. So as a Jew in the Sonderkommando he not only watched his family die, he helped kill them. How can any other comic book character ever come close to Magneto for dramatic intensity, but only if he is a Jew.

(11) X-Factor Annual #4, 1989. Doom challenges Magneto to a duel of wills, with a helmet that pulls out unpleasant memories and torments the wearer. Who will crack first? Magneto takes his turn -- Doom describes what he sees, "...after the ignoble defeat of the Nazis in Germany, you and the woman Magda you rescued, fled the prison camp Auschwitz, in Poland."

"Auschwitz, where your family had perished --living skeletons -- and you had grown to manhood amid horrors most men could not conceive." First, Doom confirms that Magnus and Magda "fled" or escaped Auschwitz before liberation and after the Roma camp was murdered. Then he describes some of Magneto's family perishing, as living skeletons, at Auschwitz. They could either have been kept as prisoners, or brought in, starving, from ghettoes in Poland and gassed. They could have been either Roma or Jews. But then it's Doom's turn to wear the helmet. Doom's Romani heritage is discussed at great length. Doom is proud to be a Rom, he knows he is a Rom. Why would he not acknowledge that Magneto is also a Rom? Why did he say your family, implying your people, to Magneto? Not "our" people?

(12) And now the most important evidence, and just about my favorite X-Men comic, Uncanny #274, from March 1991. In the Savage Land, the entire comic is told from the point of view of Magneto. It is a first person narrative, he is talking directly to us, the readers. He is not exaggerating, he is not showing off. The writing is elegant and wonderful ... "My life's ambition has been to safeguard my fellow mutants," Magneto says. "Zaladane has no such compunction. And I hear the echo of Der Fuhrer's voice in the radio of memory, smell the awful stench of the sick and dying as the cattle cars brought the comdemned to Auschwitz. I wear red, the color of blood, in tribute to their lost lives. And the harder I try to cast it aside, to find a gentler path ... the more irresistibly I'm drawn back. I should have died myself with those I loved. Instead, I carted the bodies by the hundreds, by the thousands ... from the death house to the crematorium ... and the ashes to the burial ground. Asking now what I could not then ... why was I spared?!" So there it is. He describes his job at Auschwitz. That is it. This is no vague job description, this is what the Sonderkommando did. This is fundamental to the history of the Holocaust, to the history of Nazi Germany. Making the Jews the ones who had to do all the dirty work in the death camps.

Marvel cannot say they have their own version of Holocaust history. What kind of reasoning is that? Where do the editors and writers of Marvel get off making up their own history of the Holocaust? Where do they draw the line? Has any reader out there ever seen any major publisher or entertainment outfit, outside Neo-Nazi groups and the Militias or Far Right Splinter groups, who just took it upon themselves to change a Jew into a Romany and change Holocaust and Auschwitz history to make it fit? Magneto says it here, he was a member of the Sonderkommando. He was not a kapo. He was not a Russian POW. He was a Jew! On page 14 of UXM #274, Magneto is dreaming again. He again sees his family being gunned down. He again feels what it was like to be buried alive. Rogue wakes him up.

(13) Uncanny X-Men #275, April 1991, which concludes the Savage Land story from UXM #274, referred to above, also contains confirmation as to what happened to young Magnus. Magneto says, directly to the reader, in diary-like narration, as he uses the last strength of his emaciated body to push away his captors, "They think me beaten, finished. A mistake many have made in the past. As I found the strength, as a boy, to survive being machine-gunned and buried alive, and later the unimaginable horror of Auschwitz ... so do I find it in me, here and now, to break free."

(14) X-Men Vol. 2, No. 2, Nov. 1991. The beginning of the end for Magneto. But on page 24 he says to Moira MacTaggart, who has seemingly betrayed him, and enraged him, "Of course not. You worked for the betterment of the world and the race. I heard those same rationales as a boy, in the Auschwitz Death Camp. From Dr. Joseph Mengele himself!" Mengele's first victims were the Roma, he liked the Roma. He brought the children candy and extra food. And in August of 1944, after trying unsuccessfully to save the Romani Family Camp (also for his own experimental purposes) Mengele obeyed his orders and vigorously hunted down and helped exterminate all remaining Roma. He then dissected those of most interest to him, and sent body parts to Berlin. Then he turned his attention to the Jews of Auschwitz. Only his Jewish victims have survived. His Romani victims, those transfered out of the camp in the spring and summer of 1944, have rarely come forward. If Magneto is alive in Auschwitz after the start of 1945, and he personally heard Dr. Mengele, he is a Jew.

Magneto is a Jew especially since Mengele would have been one of his supervisors in the Sonderkommando.

(15) X-Men, Vol. 2, No. 3, Dec. 1991 -- Magneto to Xavier, "You speak to the best in humanity. I have endured the worst. You imagine the reality of the Holocaust, of the Nazi Death Camps. I grew up in one." Magneto says The Holocaust. This is the translation of SHOAH, and was first used after the war, and popularized by Eli Wiesel. It means the Jewish Holocaust. One can say the Romani genocide, and today sometimes you'll hear the Romani holocaust, or the Russian holocaust, or the holocaust perpetrated against the mentally ill and the handicapped. (Nazi pre-meditated genocide was really only carried to the fullest extreme against three groups, the first were the mentally ill and the handicapped, who were the first victims of genocide. The second and third groups were the Jews and the Roma). But the Holocaust is what Jewish people say when they refer to the calculated campaign of Nazi Germany to kill every Jew in the world. (They actually made lists of every country in the Western world, and all the Jewish populations. They made no such list for any other people). Nazi Germany succeeded in killing almost 6 million of their foremost victims, until the Third Reich was defeated.

(16) X-Factor #92, July, 1993. Havok and X-Factor are battling Cortez and the Acolytes, in this opening chapter of Fatal Attractions. Cortez is ranting about the "flatscans" and how mutants have to subjugate them. Havok says, "Out to destroy the "inferior" race ... in Magneto's name? Don't you know what an insult that is to the memory of the very man you claim to worship? Fifty years ago, Magnus barely survived a Holocaust that destroyed almost all of his people: all because some lunatic took it upon himself to decide who deserved to live ... and who didn't. Where's the sense in resurrecting that kind of evil ... in the name of one of its victims?!" Cortez answers, "You've seen this place Havok! You've seen the sentinels! You tell me ... where's the sense in letting the flatscans do to the mutants what Hitler did to the Jews? ..." Cortez has done research on Magneto, he says the Jews, as a parallel metaphor. Why say that, if Magneto isn't Jewish?

(17) Then comes the infamous Unlimited #2. This is a long and involved FAQ I've got going here, so I won't go into detail at the moment. But the bottom line is, everything that Gabrielle Haller says about Magneto's history is false. I don't want to go line by line over it now. Everything! Danzig was not annexed. It was a Free City, under League of Nations protection, that voted itself a Nazi government and welcomed the Nazi troops in like liberators. Gauleiter Forster, the extremely anti-Semitic Nazi leader of Danzig ordered all 10,000 Jews of Danzig to be kicked out of the city in 1939, not the Roma. The Jews. Auschwitz wasn't opened as a Polish political prisoner camp until the summer of 1940, not 1939. The Roma were sent to German municipal camps, in Germany and the Greater Reich, as early as 1933. But they were not sent to Auschwitz from Germany until 1943. The only people who were in a work camp in Auschwitz before it opened were 300 Jews from the town of Auschwitz who were forced to transform a collection of horse stables and army barracks into the Polish prisoner camp. "Genocide, extermination ..." of Poles? No. The Polish people suffered terribly, and were considered "sub-human" by the Nazis. Millions of Polish citizens were killed throughout the course of the war, as soldiers, as slave laborers, as underground fighters, as members of the intelligentsia. But this was Nazi suppression of a conquered country, not planned genocide. Roma, Yes. The homosexuals, no. Not genocide. Persecution and imprisonment. Treated terribly. But people weren't sent to the gas chambers just because they were homosexuals. And "intellectuals" ? (How could Nicieza have written this?) Intellectuals were targets of genocide? Well, I hardly think so, since Goebbels, and Albert Speer, and even Mengele were considered intellectuals.

No one was sent to the gas chambers, or was shot in an open grave, or was tortured and murdered JUST because they happened to be an intellectual. Thousands of Polish citizens who were members of the intelligentsia (the educated class, the vanguard or elite of the educated class), were murdered in the first months of the war. But there was no planned campaign to hunt down every intellectual in Europe and exterminate them. The mentally ill and handicapped, the Jews, and the Roma were the primary targets of Nazi genocide. The Russians came next. Everything Haller says about Magneto in Unlimited #2 contradicts most of Magneto's history as presented in 15 years worth of comics.

(18) Until recently, when, in Road to Onslaught, Marvel once again published that outrageous Gabrielle Haller speech about Magneto like they were proud of it (??) the next references in the Age of Apocalypse comics portrayed Magneto once again as Jewish. In X-Men Vol. 2, No. 40, where David Haller, Legion, pulls Magneto's memories out, you see young Magnus with the men, standing behind and below a high, barred window. This is an accurate portrayal of the quarters of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz I. At Auschwitz I, only the Sonderkommando (other than prisoners awaiting execution) were kept in isolated basement cells, the windows of which were high, barred, and as seen from the outside, half-below ground level.

And why is Magneto in Israel anyway? How could he have come there? Well, why would a Romany go to Israel when at least 30,000 Roma lived in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s? And many more Rom formed a thriving community in Paris. Why not just go home to his own clan and tribe? Roma have a complex system of extended familes, clans, and tribes. Why go to Israel to "find himself" or find his "soul"? A German Jew had no place to go but somewhere else. A Polish Jew definitely had no place to go back to, since some Polish fanatics continued to murder returning Holocaust survivors well into the late 1940s. Any Jew can emigrate to Israel, under the Law of Return. All Magneto had to do was show them the tattoo on his arm. And he was home. (And in case some of you were wondering, as some of us have discussed, with the exception of the Muslim Bosnians, only the Jews of Europe practiced circumcision. It was a religious rite, not a medical procedure. Only Jewish men and boys were circumcised among the prisoners at Auschwitz. The Nazis already knew what Magneto was. He was chosen for the Sonderkommando, he was Jewish. He was not pretending to be a Jew. He wasn't misidentified as a Jew. He was a circumcised, young Jewish man). Furthermore, Magnus at this time had forged papers, that identified him as "Erik Magnus Lehnsherr." He could have immigrated to any country in the world, including the United States! If he were Roma, and didn't want to self-identify as such, why not go to America? Why go to the one country that represents enormous pain for modern Roma -- i.e., the Rom today deeply resent the focus on Israel, and the support Israel enjoys among nations of the Western world, while the Roma continue to be persecuted and ignored.

(19) In Astonishing X-Men #3, formerly Uncanny, from May 1995, we have the most clear reference to Magneto's being Jewish, written by Scott Lobdell. Magneto has just hit Bishop, and is helping him to his feet. He says, "Long before Xavier died ... before this point of divergence ... I stood by helplessly as millions of my people were led to slaughter in the name of 'genetic purity." Now the AOA is not a what-if story. It is a divergent timeline. Magneto says, before the timeline diverged. What other people were lead by the millions, led to the slaughter, in the name of genetic purity? Many people suffered and died in World War II. 250,000 to 500,000 Roma were murdered. Millions of Russians and Poles during the course of the invasions, and in political violence, and in acts of pure murder, were exterminated. But only the European Jews were "led to the slaughter" in the millions because of one man's racial beliefs. Only the Jews of Europe Persecutionand incarceration are not the same as genocide and extermination.

20) X-Men #72, cover date February 1998, published in mid-December 1997. This comic book makes a significant contribution to Magneto's history. Basically, the book reveals that the name *Erik Lehnsherr* which was revealed by Gabrielle Haller in Unlimited #2 to be Magneto's real name, is fake, and so Haller's assertion that Magneto is a *Sinte* Rom was based on false and forged identity papers.

The scenario begins with Gabrielle Haller, lying on her bed, working on a lap- top computer, writing the American Sen. Kelly, begging him to help find and secure the release of Charles Xavier. Sabra, the Israeli super-hero, a mutant and Mossad agent, suddenly appears floating in the air outside Haller's balcony doors. Haller has just pushed open the doors, saying, "You're too important to lose, Charles. I will see you ... FREE?" And Sabra says, "Sometimes, Ambassador Haller ... freedom, like the truth, is little more than an illusion. Don't you think?"

Sabra has come to Haller with information. She says to Gabrielle Haller: "I"m sure you recall shocking the world when you announced that you had UNDENIABLE proof ofMagneto's identity as Erik Lehnsherr. The undeniable has just been DENIED." Sabra then goes on to show Haller, and the readers, the file on a master forger named George Odekirk. In this file, apparently, is a computer analysis of the identity papers of Erik Lehnsherr, which shows that Odekirk forged those documents. Haller says, "He created Erik Lehnsherr? If this is true ... you must take me to him! He could be our only link to Magneto's true identity ... our last chance to stop him once and for all!"

But just as Sabra is flying Haller to the Transylvanian Alps, to meet with Odekirk, the scene switches to Odekirk, who is working on another forged passport, sitting in bed while his wife sleeps beside him. Suddenly, Odekirk looks up -- he has a visitor. It's Magneto, in full costume.

Magneto is floating in the air. He surrounds Odekirk's bed with his magnetic energy, and uses his power to keep Odekirk's wife unconscious. He says, "You failed me." Odekirk responds, "Please ... please, my wife ..." Magneto answers, "She will sleep the sleep of the innocent. She has done nothing ... but you ... YOU, my friend, have BETRAYED me." Odekirk protests his innocence, and then Magneto makes this remarkable speech: "Do you remember what you promised me the night I came to you, torn and filthy, nearly a quarter century ago? I was searching for my beloved MAGDA, determined not to lose her as I had lost so many others in the fire that engulfed all of Europe during my childhood. The authorities were in pursuit of me for the "crime" of avenging my daughter's murder. I was willing to deny who I was ... everything that my family died for ... so that I could find one woman ... so that I would not be caged AGAIN. The Erik Lehnsherr fabrication was a convenient means of ensuring that. You swore that the forged papers were FLAWLESS, that your skills were unsurpassed... but now, you have proven to be a liability. Your work has been called into queston by my enemies, and they will trace Erik Lehnsherr the Sinte BACK to you." Odekirk protests, "That is impossible! That forgery was impeccable! My work is ... " Magneto answers: "It was not ENOUGH! You gave birth to Erik Lehnsherr, Odekirk. And tonight, you have killed him. My secrets shall die with him. All that remains now ... is MAGNUS."

This scene says, subtly but clearly, that Magnus denied who he was, gave up everything his famly died for, to take the false identity of a Sinte Rom named Erik Lehnsherr. Since this entire FAQ has gone into great detail showing exactly how and why Magnus was born Jewish, it seems there is no doubt now, that Magneto's family and he himself, were Jews. Magnus would not say he denied *everything* his family died for, by taking a Romani identity, if his family were indeed Roma. As I pointed out above, only the Jews and Roms were targeted as entire peoples, and killed for no reason other than they were Jews and Roms. Magnus was either one, or the other. Since in XM #72, it is revealed that he is NOT a Rom, we must conclude he was born a Jew.

There are several continuity problems that arise from the revelations of XM #72. Several unanswered questions:

1) How much of Haller's speech (Unlimited #2) was based information contained in Odekirk's forgery, how much was based on what she personally knew, and how much did she "fabricate" herself? She makes a large number of mistakes, about nearly every aspect of Magneto's history and life. She also gets her Holocaust history and dates wrong. Did she perhaps add her own *facts* to what she found in those old identity papers? Was she perhaps trying to make the story coherent? As in, trying to make what she knew about Magnus and his history fit what she learned about *Erik Lehnsherr*? For example, where she says, on page 19 of Unlimited #2, "...Lehnsherr had taken to calling himself MAGNUS ... as if by choosing his MIDDLE name, he could bring some semblance of BALANCE and SIMPLICITY to his haunted life." This is Haller's supposition -- the reason he was calling himself MAGNUS in Israel. She knew him as Magnus back then, she had just found out, his full name was supposedly *Erik Lehnsherr.* Did she try to splice together the information?

2) While XM #72 makes it clear why Magnus cloaked himself in this false identity and ethnic background initially, what is not so understandable is why he continued to maintain that false identity after his search for Magda was over, and he immigrated to Israel. Did he use the forged *Erik Lehnsherr* passport to enter Israel? Why would he use a false identity and ethnic background to enter Israel, when he was a Jew?

3) Why would Magnus continue to use the Erik Lehnsherr identity during the Age of Apocalypse, especially since he publicly identified with being a Jew? (Astonishing X-Men #3, quoted above.)

4) Magnus worked for at least one intelligence agency, most likely the CIA (Classic X-Men #19). He then hunted dangerous mutants, for his own mysterious purposes, as shown in a brief cameo in Generation X #10 -- which was a memory belonging to Sean Cassidy, telepathically accessed by Emma Frost. During the time he was working for the CIA, his code-name was Magneto. In Classic X-Men #19, he is called only Magneto. In Generaton X #10, Interpol agent Sean Cassidy doesn't know who the man is who is helping him track down Arcady (the future Omega Red). Emma Frost, commenting from the present as a psionic guide to Cassidy's memories, calls the man *Erik Lehnsherr.* But the question is, after he left Israel, did Magnus use the false identity Erik Lehnsherr?

5) During the time that Magneto tried to follow Xavier's path, roughly from UXM #196 through UXM #253, and New Mutants issues #35 through #75, including UXM #188, NM #21, #23, #24, #26, #28, and #29, he referred to himself as Magnus, and others like Storm and Kitty Pryde called him Magnus. Even though he was disguised as Michael Xavier for the outside world, the X-Men and their associates all knew Magneto as Magnus. During this time, Magnus also identified strongly with his Jewish and Jewish Holocaust history. The question now is, what happened to the *Erik Lehnsherr the SInte* identity during this time?

6) Why, now, after so many years, did Magneto find it necessary to kill George Odekirk in order to protect his identity? We know why he took the false name and ethnic background to begin with. But we have no evidence that he continued to use *Erik Lehnhserr*, during each stage of his pre-Magneto career. After he became Magneto, after all the battles with the X-Men, after the events of Fatal Attractions, after the mind-wipe and the appearance of Joseph, after Onslaught, why would Magnus be so concerned with protecting his true identity? Was he trying to protect the memory of his family? Has he maintained contact with pre-Holocaust family grave sites, or places where he once lived? Is he worried that the very bones of his ancestors might be violated by those looking for his genetic material? Then there's Anya, his beloved daughter -- she was never Anya *Lehnsherr*. Her last name is now unknown -- is Magneto trying to protect something concerning her? George Odekirk wouldn't be the only witness to Magneto's true identity, either. What about those Carpathian villagers, who accepted Auschwitz escapees Magnus and Magda in 1945? Did anyone in Vinnitsa who knew Magnus' true last name survive his burst of electromagnetic radiation? What about Ruth and David Shulman, who knew him at Auschwitz, and recognized him, in UXM #199?

These, and other unanswered questions, remain.

By removing the *Erik Lehnsherr the Sinte* identity, fixing that particular retcon from Unlimited #2, and leaving the rest of Magneto's history intact, writer Joe Kelly and editor Bob Harras have not officially stated that Magneto was born Jewish, and was a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz. But, as was the case during the years Chris Claremont wrote the character, the references to Magneto's Jewish identity are there, subtle and at the same time, obvious.

[kronecker-delta]

Farscape Nier crossover and ideas

Snippet (from 2017) Farscape/Nier: Automata --- Her room was a mess. Scattered parts of her uniform and other clothes piled along along the sides, kicked there when she came and went. Her personal books disarrayed, off the shelf and toppled over by her bed. She'd been putting off cleaning again and with the recent arrivals none of the operators could be spared to make up for her bad habits. None of that mattered at the moment. White sat in her chair, staring out into the void. A souvenir of her old days in the ground based resistance held in her hands. The framed picture of pair of androids seated on the still smoldering bulk of the ruined machine behemoth a memory of a simpler, happier time. A knock on her door brought her attention away from melancholy remembrance. Before she could compose herself and more sternly tell whoever had interrupted her what she had meant by 'Only bother me if there's an emergency' another knock issued forth. Followed by a voice. "Hey White? You in there?" She froze. She had so desperately hoped that it wouldn't be him. *** "I've never been here before," White said apologetically as their transport ship came down beside the small lunar outpost. A tiny thing, compared to the bunker. Even given the greater volume underground for secured data storage and backup generators. "No problem. First time I've been on the moon," he said, giving her a reassuring smile that didn't quite manage to look entirely honest. His frown returning as they stepped out of the transport, the boots of his pressured suit crunching into the light dusting of lunar sand that had covered part of the landing pad. "Feels like I should say something... 'Great leap for mankind and all that' you know. Hey, is the Apollo site still around?" "It is. If you want we could visit there Commander Crichton." "Just John... or Crichton. Being called Commander all the time feels weird," John Crichton said. "I know I'm the last human but..." "I-I understand," White answered. Keeping her own emotions deeply locked down as they passed into the fortified complex of the moon server. Past the scant few technicians and guards and into a dark room, nearly empty save for a single console located in the center. A black void engulfed the walls, impenetrable shadows, as the terminals and screens had long laid dormant. "So now what?" His voice echoed in the room, which must have been far larger than they had at first thought. Low clicks and whirs came from the bulk of the machine, the long slumbering physical access port awakening. Lights flashed along the walls and beyond them, racks upon racks of computer systems networked together awakening. A great screen before them coming on and displaying a stylized picture of a tree, long dark roots stretching out from its base. OVERSIGHT AND RECORDING SYSTEM VER. 2.01 SLEEPING BEAUTY ONLINE. CONFIRM USER PERMISSIONS NOW. "Commander White, YoRHa access S-Class security," White said. Looking to her side and adding, "As well as a guest." CONFIRM GUEST'S IDENTITY. "John Crichton, Commander in the IASA," John said. "Born... 1969. June 6th. If that helps any." The computer sat in silence for a long moment, not responding, the screen frozen as the loading bar seemed stuck in time. They shared a look of confusion, both android and human wondering if the ancient archive might have crashed and who was going to have to go out and ask the few technicians to help reboot it. Then the room came alight, a dozen more monitors online, the totality of it awake for the first time in forever. HUMAN IDENTITY CONFIRMED BASED ON HISTORICAL RECORDS. YoRHA S-CLASS SECURITY CLEARANCE SUBSTITUTED FOR UNRESTRICTED SYSTEM ACCESS. S-CLASS, SS-CLASS, AND HAMELIN ORGANIZATION FILES NOW UNLOCKED. GREETINGS COMMANDER JOHN CRICHTON. HOW MAY THIS SYSTEM AID YOU TODAY? "What... what's 'SS-Class?' There shouldn't be a level of security above mine." NEGATIVE. THERE ARE TWO. SS-CLASS, CONTAINING SENSITIVE FILES DEEMED TOO DANGEROUS TO BE KNOWN OUTSIDE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL. AS WELL AS FILES REGARDING THE HAMELIN ORGANIZATION, WHICH WERE TO BE SEALED UNTIL SUCH A TIME AS A HUMAN USER ACCESSED THIS SYSTEM. "We do this so that the future generations will have the opportunity to judge us for our sins." "Who the hell was that?" John asked, shocked by the computer suddenly vocalizing. Producing the sound of some long dead man. Old and ill, his voice straining to make the words clear into the recording. DR. EUGENE ADLER, HAMELIN RESEARCHER IN DEMONIC ELEMENT MANIPULATION EXPERIMENTS. BY HIS RECOMMENDATION AND THE UN SPECIAL SECURITY COUNCIL'S AUTHORITY IT WAS FELT THAT KNOWLEDGE OF THE HAMELIN ORGANIZATION'S INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE DEMONIC ELEMENT AND THE 6-12 INCIDENT COULD NOT BE PUBLICLY REVEALED UNTIL THE CRISIS HAD PASSED. John looked to White, hoping she might be able to explain something, anything of what the computer had just told them. But she looked just as confused as he did. "Ah... Computer?" YES JOHN CRICHTON? "Define 'demonic element' please." DEMONIC ELEMENT: QUANTUM OBSERVATION REACTING PARTICLES BROUGHT OVER BY THE ENTITIES INVOLVED IN THE 6-12 INCIDENT. TWO VARIETIES WERE DETERMINED UPON FURTHER RESEARCH. TYPE I, WHICH CAME FROM THE ENTITY CLASSIFIED 'QUEEN OF THE GROTESQUE' AMONG NUMEROUS OTHER NAMES ACQUIRED FROM OBSERVATION DATA OF LEGION FORCES AND PRE-SUBLIMATION MEMETIC CORRUPTION OF WHITE CHLORINATION SYNDROME PATIENTS. TYPE I MATERIAL HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THIS UNIVERSE FOR THE LAST EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS FOLLOWING THE COMPLETE PURGING OF IT FROM THE EARTH'S ENVIRONMENT. TYPE II CAME FROM THE OTHER ENTITY, CLASSIFIED AS 'A DRAGON' NO OTHER NAME OR IDENTITY DETERMINED. WHILE HIGHLY REACTIVE AND DANGEROUS IN LARGE DOSES IT WAS FOUND TO BE STABLE IN SMALL AMOUNTS AND TO LACK THE MALEVOLENT EFFECT ON INTELLIGENT LIFE THAT TYPE I MATERIAL EXHIBITED. EVENTUAL CONTROLLED EXPOSURE AND SYNTHESIS EXPERIMENTS LED TO THE CREATION OF FOCUSED MAGIC ENERGY EFFECTS AND SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS IN FIELDS OF NEUROLOGY AND META-COGNITION AS WELL AS NUMEROUS OTHERS. PROJECT GESTALT AND ANDROID CONSCIOUSNESS ARE BOTH LONG TERM SUCCESSES OF THIS RESEARCH. HIGH ENERGY MAGIC WEAPONS WERE ALSO ATTEMPTED BUT LATER SHELVED FOR BEING UNRELIABLE. AS OF THIS DATE THE AMOUNT OF TYPE II MATERIAL PRESENT IN THIS UNIVERSE IS ESTIMATED TO BE 63 METRIC TONS, OVER A HUNDRED FOLD INCREASE IN MASS FROM THAT OF THE ORIGINAL ENTITY BROUGHT ABOUT BY CONTINUAL SYNTHESIS AND ITS NECESSITY IN THE CREATION OF NEW ANDROIDS AND ALL CURRENT GENERATION MAGICAL DEVICES. THE ANDROID WHITE HAS 6 GRAMS OF IT AS PART OF THEIR INTERNAL SYSTEMS, MOSTLY RELEGATED TO META-COGNITIVE PROCESSES. "Wait... wait!" John yelled out, grabbing onto the unused console as he stared at the enormous amount of text that had just been displayed. More and more appearing on other monitors, going into greater detail about all sorts of absurd things. "What do you mean by magic? And dragons? What the hell happened to Earth?" THE 6-12 INCIDENT. PLAYING ARCHIVED DATA NOW... *** Crichton sat on the edge of her bed. Looking down at his hands, fingers intertwined. He hadn't spoken since White had stepped aside and ushered him in. Neither had she. She had wanted to be alone, and had hoped that Crichton would choose to spend some time with his alien friends. Or his semi-human lover... "You know, it's kind of funny," he said at last, a low chuckle that surprised White. He truly did sound amused by the dark comedy of his situation. "What?" "Well, when I first realized you were lying about something... after I got over the whole 'android' deal anyway," Crichton said, looking up from his hands to look into White's eyes. "I was so certain that the deep dark secret you were keeping from me was that you all went Terminator on the humans and than got ashamed about it." White found herself smiling despite it all. "I guess I can imagine why you would think that. Even if we don't all look like Central European bodybuilders from the Old World." His expression collapsed, going from amusement to a shock so profound it looked like a stiff breeze would have knocked him over. White found herself confused and then very worried. Had she said something wrong? Then he started to laugh, slow at first, but building into something that bordered on mania. Rolling onto his back and shaking in the hysterics. "Haha... oh god... you have no idea, no goddamn idea how long I've wanted someone to get one of my dumb references," Crichton sat up looking far happier than he had a moment ago, the levity of their absurd connection dispelling the melancholy cloud that had hung over them since their return from the lunar server. "Like I love those idiots on Moya, but being around aliens on the other side of the galaxy for a few years really makes you long for some normal human conversation." "I... I think I can understand. Somewhat. It must have been very lonely out there." "Lonely, terrifying, insane... beautiful too. Space is crazy like that. Full of contrasts so sharp it's stunning. I-I wanted to bring that back you know? Not just to get home, but to show what I had found out there," he said, pointing to the stars outside White's window. "I guess it's too late for that now." "I'm sorry," White said. Noting the strange look that Crichton was giving her now she hesitated before continuing. "I'm sorry we failed." "Failed? Failed at what? Stopping a magic apocalypse that had already started before the first androids came online? Which reminds me, we're going to need to do something about them later. Those twin models that someone had the bright idea to shoulder with some fucked up version of android collective punishment." Crichton leaned forward, massaging his forehead as he did so. "That's probably only the tip of the bullshit you're dealing with and here I come with a whole new mess of problems. Maybe it would have been better if I had never found Earth." "No! Crichton you-we can fix things. I know we can. Not just your presence here or for getting access to sealed archives in the server. The technology you brought with you. It very well might represent a turning point in the war with the machines." "And what about the Sebaceans... the Peacekeepers? The Scarren Empire? Or hell, even the Nebari Establishment? Better gravity control systems and two hundred year old ship scale energy shields won't stop a fleet if it comes knocking at our door." "We'll do what we always have. Try and protect Earth and mankind's legacy from any aggressor. Whether distant cousins that no longer remember their home-world like the Sebaceans... or these Scarrens you've mentioned so much. We won't- we cannot retreat from this fight. Not now." White clenched her fist tightly, the glove creaking as she set a firm expression on her face. "I promise you Crichton, even if the past is lost, we will make a future worth fighting for." Ideas: I've been thinking over the ideas of a Farscape/Nier crossover some more, coming up with elements, themes, and specific scenes that would be fun to explore and write. These are some of the ideas I've had in no particular order. 1. Androids in relation to the Last Human (Crichton). Crichton is a self-admitted sci-fi geek, not surprising for a second generation astronaut that grew up wanting to explore the stars. He straight up makes comparisons to how he attempts to handle alien encounters to be inspired from watching Star Trek. Given that I think his relation to the androids would develop in a certain direction. Once the initial shock of a) the amount of time passed and b) that these people he thought were human aren't passes, he wouldn't feel comfortable having an intelligent race acting subordinate to him. I can see multiple incidents where some variety of complex philosophical quandary or just plain relationship question from 6O results in him telling them that humans really didn't have a better answer. Long term this would likely take the form of a very serious conversation where he points out that Earth, and what of its culture and history still lives, isn't in just human, whether the dead ones or genetically altered human descended Sebaceans. Or even in any hypothetical offspring that he might have. Basically, 'Mankind' includes them, as they're what's keeping the memory of it all alive. Aside from some bonding scenes between various androids and Crichton as they go over bits of alien tech, one idea I have in particular is that he takes a tour of moon landing sites, including the one his father visited. Effectively the only place he will ever see any lasting evidence of that man in particular. And the reaction of his android guide (White perhaps?) as well as the Apollo 11 plaque cements his decision to change the way the androids view their relation with humans, at least in so much as he can. 2. 2B and 9S (and others perhaps). I think there's a lot of fun to be had in placing the androids into weird situations with the aliens, and even more so if for some reason they have to head off away from Earth for a period of time. Since I can easily see the plan being for them to lie constantly. Lie about being human, lie about the 'Glorious Terran Federation' which is totally a military power that we didn't just make up, lie about what they're capable of, lies upon lies as they try and deceive the Scarrens and the Peacekeepers and keep Earth safe from either side those aggressive powers. In general I think 'Androids pretend to be human to deceive aliens' is a good plot for lots of stories, and could easily be turned into a rather long plot. Since the androids wouldn't want to let Crichton head off to parley with these alien aggressors on his own. And he could really use all the help he can get for whatever crazy ass plot he comes up with next. 3. Aliens would want Android tech. Probably just Scorpius, but others too if they find out more about Earth. I hadn't realized it at the time, but there was a period of the show where the hybrid Scarren-Sebacean was working with Crichton, and that would be the perfect opportunity for him to learn something about the androids and Earth history. And being him, he would look at all this extra-dimensional BS and android super soldiers and see potential weapons. He'd probably be disappointed that the Queen's Maso wasn't around anymore and that Hamelin Organization stopped human testing after Emil, since it would mean he'd be working from scratch if he could just get back into the good graces of the Peacekeepers and do so with enough of the demonic element to set up another research base. Hell, he'd probably try to directly convince Crichton get the androids to agree to serve the Peacekeepers, since that would technically put them back into contact with 'humans' if genetically engineered ones. Arguing that he could get the entire remaining population of Earth a ticket off world (to a nice Peacekeeper controlled colony where the can serve their new military overlords) if destroying the machine lifefroms proved to difficult even with a few starships to blast them from orbit. 4. The Terminals. The central intelligence of the machine lifeforms would likely reconsider its direction of evolution far earlier with a living human to observe, especially one that tries so hard to avoid aggressive resolutions. Even if that doesn't work, Crichton's crew and allies proves that he has managed to connect and form lasting bonds with entirely alien beings over and over. A direct repudiation of what the machine network had thus far found to be the fastest way to accelerate its own growth. Whether this would lead to a quicker conclusion that it needs to escape Earth and find its own destiny, likely expedited by FTL tech it took from the androids once Crichton revealed it to them, or an attempt at some kind of allegiance against the various hostile powers of the greater galaxy is unknown. While I can easily see Pascal and various pacifistic or non-hostile machine lifeforms being taken into account as potential allies the actions of the terminals past and potentially present would form a barrier to attempted cooperation. 5. Allying with the Worm Hole Ancients. The aliens that gave John Crichton knowledge about worm holes in the first place did so because they were running from an unstated catastrophe that had destroyed their home world. They originally decided against direct contact with Earth because it was likely to be divided and hostile. 21st century Earth that doesn't exist outside of Crichton's memories. It would be very interesting to see how they might react to finding out the new status quo. I've got a couple ideas that might be fun with them. One being that their dimension/time traveling tech lead to them accidentally creating their own personal Watcher related incident and the subsequent self-inflicted annihilation of their home world to stop it from spreading to the greater portion of the galaxy. Creating a situation where despite their far greater technological adeptness they find a reason to deeply respect humans/androids for facing down and defeating what they truthfully could not, reclaiming their world instead of burning it and running. (Though I'm iffy on that alteration/crossover expansion as it sort of makes them more like the Stargate's Asgard.)

#farscape #nier automata #fanfic idea

[myhauntedsalem]

The Titanic and the Paranormal

There are many supposedly haunted places in this world, and most of us may think that these spectral forces gravitate towards dilapidated old houses or scary forests in the middle of nowhere. We have this image of what haunted should be, and most often it all comes down to a place or thing with a tragic history and death orbiting it, through whatever means producing these alleged haunted phenomena. The seas also have plenty of this, and there is perhaps no greater tragedy on the ocean than the deadly sinking of the now infamous Titanic. Here thousands of people died a horrible death, and it should go without saying that this doomed vessel has generated its fair share of strange phenomena over the decades.

When the RMS Titanic set out on its maiden voyage it was considered to be a grand wonder of engineering and the pinnacle of passenger liners, unparalleled in opulent luxury and comfort for its time. A British ship operated by White Star Lines and designed by the architect Thomas Andrews, the RMS Titanic was the largest ship on the seas at the time, just about the largest ship ever, and had the most cutting edge technology and facilities ever seen on a passenger liner. The colossal ship was fitted with all manner of bells and whistles, including fancy radio transmitter equipment, and it was actually one of the fist ships ever to start using the new SOS distress signal, which would replace the signal CQD (come quick, danger). The imposing ship featured revolutionary safety features for its time, including an ingenious system of interlocking compartments and remotely operated watertight doors, among others, and when it inexorably set out from Southampton to New York City on its very first voyage the Titanic was widely touted as being wholly unstoppable and “unsinkable.”

When this behemoth of a ship departed on April 10, 1912, under the command of a Captain Edward Smith, it was to much joyous fanfare and publicity. The Titanic departed with over 2,200 passengers, many of them some of the wealthiest people in the world, and others were emigrants from all over Europe eager to go off to start a new life in the faraway, promised land of the United States. It was a truly historic event, demanding attention, and at the time no one would have thought anything of the fact that despite its advanced safety features it was woefully short of lifeboats, with only enough to carry around 1,178 people under ideal conditions. After all, the lifeboats were just a formality, right? Surely nothing could ever sink the mighty Titanic. Or so they thought, and the rest is history.

On April 14, 1912, the Titanic was making its way through the Atlantic at high speed around 375 miles from the coast of Newfoundland in the early hours of morning when it struck an iceberg that promptly robbed the ship of its popular title of “unsinkable.” Many of the watertight compartments that had been hailed as groundbreaking technology immediately were smashed wide open, and the crippled giant began to sink at a steady rate. In the ensuing panic and chaos, the problem of the lifeboat shortage became painfully apparent, and many of these had the added problem that they were difficult and time consuming to launch. Indeed, many of the scant lifeboats went out into the frigid seas only partially loaded, leaving others to their impending doom. Eventually the gargantuan ship broke apart and plunged down below the waves with an estimated approximately 1,500 people still aboard.

When the another ship called the RMS Carpathia came to the ship’s aid, it was able to rescue around 700 of the survivors, with the rest disappearing down into a watery grave to rest at the bottom down in nearly 13,000 feet of water, where the ship remains to this day. Indeed, for decades the exact location of the wreck remained a mystery in and of itself, with it not being discovered until 1985. The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the worst, most tragic maritime disasters in history, and at the time it shocked the world. Since that fateful morning, the Titanic has gone on to become one of the most famous ships to ever ride the seas, and has been the subject of countless films, books, and documentaries. It is by far one of the most well-known wrecks in the world, and it is perhaps no surprise that it has drawn its fair share of tales of the paranormal as well.

Weirdness seems to have hovered around the vessel even before it was even launched. According to an April 12, 2012 Associated Press article, in 1898 the American author Morgan Robertson wrote a novella called Futility, which features in its first half a ship called the Titan, and which besides the similarity of the names of the vessels displays a wide variety of spooky, seemingly prophetic details and uncanny parallels between the fictional Titan and the real Titanic. For instance, both were nearly the same size and could go the same maximum speed of over 20 knots, and both of the ships were deemed unsinkable and were subsequently sunk by hitting icebergs, in mid-April no less. In addition, both lacked enough lifeboats to save all of the passengers, and even the novella’s opening sounds as if it could easily be talking about the Titanic, saying:

She was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men. In her construction and maintenance were involved every science, profession, and trade known to civilization.

When Futility was first released, it was met with a resounding lack of interest, due to the fact that it is actually not seen as being very good, and Robertson was mostly considered a bit of a hack. The book itself mostly devolved into an improbable tale of survival for the alcoholic protagonist, with Titanic historian Paul Heyer saying of Robertson and his work, “He’s not exactly a great literary stylist. Moralistic tone, implausible situations, poor character development. The only saving grace of the novella is intriguing information about the ship and her fate.” Indeed, it was not until after the historic disaster that the book got any sort of fame or recognition at all. Considering all of these eerie details in a book written years before the real Titanic set sail, in the wake of the disaster it did not go unnoticed, and Robertson was widely hailed as having prophesied the sinking of the ship with some sort of precognitive abilities. This has been explained away by skeptics as being pure coincidence, as Robertson was an avid writer on ships and the sea and Heyer has said of this:

He was someone who wrote about maritime affairs. He was an experienced seaman, and he saw ships as getting very large and the possible danger that one of these behemoths would hit an iceberg.

Whether Robertson was really psychic or not is unknown, but what is known is that this is just the beginning of the weirdness surrounding the Titanic. Considering the sheer loss of life and the traumatic circumstances of the disaster, along with the fact that hundreds of these bodies were never recovered and remained lost at sea, it is perhaps no surprise at all that the very wreck of the Titanic is said to be haunted. There have been numerous reports of ships passing the area of the Titanic’s resting place off Newfoundland seeing glowing or flickering orbs of light both above the water and darting about beneath the waves. This phenomenon is reportedly often accompanied by inexplicable radio interference, and even submarines passing the area of the wreck have apparently had such interference, as well as phantom SOS signals that seem to come from nowhere.

One ship that was passing the site of the wreck even had a sighting of a ghostly apparition said to be a victim of the RMS Titanic. In 1977, the liner SS Winterhaven was passing through and on this evening Second Office Leonard Bishop was showing a passenger around the ship who seemed to be absolutely obsessed with every detail of the vessel. As the tour went on, Bishop noticed that besides this intense interest in his ship there was something off about the quiet, soft-spoken man he was guiding around, but he wasn’t sure what at the time. After the tour, he did not remember seeing the man again, but the strange aura of something not quite right made him memorable, and Bishop would not forget the mysterious stranger’s face. It would not be until years later when Bishop by chance saw a picture and claimed to know the man in it, much to the shock of the person who had showed it to him. It turned out that unbeknownst to Bishop the picture was of Captain Edward John Smith, the captain of the Titanic, who would have been long dead during their tour.

The ghost of Titanic captain Edward Smith actually seems to get around, as he has been reportedly seen from time to time on other vessels passing the area of wreck as well, and he is even said to haunt his childhood home in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire, England. The previous house owners, Neil and Louise Bonner, rented the house out for over a decade, and they say that there had been numerous reports from tenants over the years of paranormal activity at the house. Banging, whispers, and other anomalous noises were common, as well as roving colds spots, inexplicable floods in the kitchen, and most shocking of all a full-bodied spectral apparition of Smith himself seen in the bedroom.

In addition to the hauntings of the wreck site and the home of the Titanic’s captain are the numerous hauntings that seem to revolve around artifacts and relics from the wreck, and museum collections with such items tend to be magnets for inexplicable ghostly activity. One of the more active of these is the “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition,” at The Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, which houses a large array of over 300 items from the sunken ship and is ground zero for a whole plethora of unexplained phenomena. Visitors and staff alike supposedly frequently report strong feelings of being watched or followed, as well as disembodied voices or footsteps, or being poked, prodded, or pushed by unseen hands, in addition to sightings of shadowy apparitions lurking in the halls and corridors. The attraction’s artifact expert Joe Zimmer seems to be particularly tormented by these wayward spirits, claiming that he constantly experiences having his hair or clothes yanked on or his name whispered when no one is there, and he says he has even heard phantom music playing.

One of the more well-known of the apparitions of the Luxor exhibit is apparently the ghost of Frederick Fleet, who was the lookout on the RMS Titanic who had spotted the iceberg that sank the ship and had warned the crew. Although Fleet was one of the survivors of the tragedy, he would forever have feelings of guilt afterwards, and this plus the death of his wife in 1964 drove him to commit suicide by hanging himself at his home in England. Fleet’s spirit has been reported as haunting the Promenade Deck of the exhibition, although why this ghost should appear all the way over in Las Vegas remains unclear. There is also the apparition of a young woman in a black old-fashioned dress and with her hair in a bun who is regularly seen on the premises.

A strange incident with a ghost allegedly happened on the very opening day of the exhibition, when a photographer was getting ready for the event. He claims that as he was setting up he was surprised to see a woman in period clothes come walking down the grand staircase, which was odd because as far as he knew, no one else was supposed to be there and he had not seen anyone else arrive. Thinking that perhaps it was an extra dressed up in period clothing for the purpose of the grand opening he asked her if he could take her photo on the staircase, but she did not say a word, merely standing there in an apparent trance before vanishing into thin air.

Some of the strange incidents at the Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition have apparently been caught on film and audio as well. One example is a strange sequence of events concerning a photo of Bruce Ismay, who was the chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. One morning the staff opened the exhibition to find the photo inexplicably lying on the floor of the entryway and carefully propped against the wall, reportedly still pristine and undamaged. Baffled by how the photo could have possible gotten there during the night, surveillance footage was reviewed, which showed the photo appearing to shake on its own before being taken down and put against the wall as if by unseen hands. Paranormal investigators to the exhibit have captured orbs of light and shadowy images as well, and there have been several EVP recordings made of what appear to be the voices of Titanic victims.

Another collection of Titanic pieces that seems to be haunted is the Titanic Aquatic exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium, in the United States, which also has intense paranormal activity similar to what has been experienced at the Luxor exhibit, including ghost sightings, strange noises, period music from nowhere, and phantom hands grabbing, nudging, or pulling clothes or hair. Spookiest of all is a creepy ghostly old lady who is said to dwell within a replica of one of the Titanic’s cabins in the exhibit, and is not shy about suddenly appearing to startle visitors before blinking away again. Paranormal investigator’s and the Syfy Channel’s Ghost Hunters have examined the exhibit and found definite signs of paranormal activity, as well as made recordings of EVP phenomena at the site. As to why these ghosts should latch onto these relics from the Titanic, Dianna Avena, founder of Georgia Paranormal, has said:

It just makes sense that, especially with the Titanic exhibit, there would be residual paranormal energy. When you have a strong emotional imprint, there could be some energy attached.

Perhaps the strangest tale of a haunting related to the Titanic has to do not with any artifact from the doomed ship, but rather a replica of it. Retired architectural draftsman Wyatt Jason Moore, from Portsmouth, Virginia, managed to painstakingly build a 200 lb. model of the RMS Titanic over the course of 9 years and an estimated 17,368 hours of work, which was an ambitious project he became obsessed with after watching the 1958 film A Night to Remember. He began studying numerous old photographs of the Titanic, incorporating every detail he could into his grand vision, and he found himself spending hours and hours a day toiling away on his creation.

The end result was a lifelike replica of the famous ship, accurate right down to each individual stairway and hall. When his masterpiece was finished he decided to take some photos of it and that was when strange things began to happen. As he took his photos, he could hear anomalous noises coming from the massive model sitting in his home, and later mysterious entities began to appear in his shots. He would say of one of the startling images he took:

I couldn’t make it out until I looked at it very carefully and I found it was a bald headed man with a handle bar mustache, and I said to myself, what’s he doing there?

In addition to this creepy ghostly man were a spectral man and woman looking out of another porthole just above the lifeboats. At around the same time as these events, Moore says that doors around the house began to mysteriously slam shut or open even when no one else was there, but he says he is not scared of the entities, he just thinks they are lost souls, saying “Maybe it was someone that was aboard the Titanic that found a new home for himself.” Skeptics have been quick to point out that the photos are nothing more than a reflection and trick of light, but Moore insists that the portholes on his model don’t feature glass. Moore has tried to sell the haunted Titanic model on Craigslist, but found no takers, perhaps because of the exorbitant $263,000 asking price, but he hopes that a museum will take it at some point. They might as well, because it seems any museum with genuine paraphernalia from the actual Titanic is haunted anyway.

The fate of the RMS Titanic is one of the worst seagoing tragedies of all time, and it seems somewhat fitting that it too should have its own odd tales of ghosts and hauntings. It is an aspect of the tragedy that does not get much coverage but is nevertheless still out there, lurking in the shadows. Does the fateful sinking of this once glorious vessel and its rusted, decomposed remains infused with the paranormal just as any old haunted house would be? What is going on with these rumors and scary stories? These are perhaps mysteries that we will never really understand, confined to the dark just as the hulk of the Titanic lies sitting down in the murk beyond the light of day.

#The Titanic and the Paranormal #titanic #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

[alexsmitposts]

As you know, in 1929, the USSR refused to sign the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war. At the Nuremberg trials (document D-225), the German side justified its ill-treatment of Soviet prisoners by this very circumstance. Although the refusal of the USSR has nothing to do with it-Germany just signed the Convention, which means that it was obliged to comply with its provisions. Today, information about the brutality of the Soviet side, which massively tortured and destroyed German prisoners of war — and all again because of an unsigned Convention, is increasingly common. And the Wehrmacht and the SS were just taking revenge. But even here the Convention has nothing to do with it.

Regulations on prisoners of war The refusal of the Soviet side to sign the Geneva Convention of 1929 had ideological reasons. The document provided for the division of prisoners by nationality, as well as" benefits " for officers. This went against the class equality and internationalism promoted in the USSR.

In contrast to the Convention, on March 19, 1931, the government of the USSR adopted a similar document, the "Regulations on prisoners of war". It almost completely repeated the contents of the Geneva document, but without the national division and the privileged position of officers. Its main goal was "to create a regime for prisoners of war in our country that would not be worse than the regime of the Geneva Convention" (a quote from the collection of Alexey Borisov "the Nuremberg process, a collection of documents").

Martial law Perhaps something has changed since the beginning of the war? After all, on July 1, 1941, Resolution No. 1798-800C was approved-again on the subject of prisoners of war. This document was somewhat different from the pre-war Situation, but only in terms of the attitude towards officers. Now they, as well as prisoners of war equated to them, could only be employed by consent. For the rank and file, unlike the previous document, such consent was not required. A list of prohibitions was also approved — actions that were not allowed in relation to prisoners of war:

any insults on national, class, or other grounds; abuse, bullying, and even threats; torture during interrogations in order to obtain important military information; seizure of personal belongings, clothing, documents and insignia. Money, jewelry, and other valuable items could only be taken from prisoners temporarily and on receipt.

As we can see, even with the beginning of the war, the Soviet Government did not abandon its humanistic ideals. And the treatment of prisoners of war, at least on paper, was quite in the spirit of the Geneva Convention.

Not just on paper But, maybe everything was limited only to beautiful words? Again, no, although individual cases of kinks, of course, were not avoided. In the first years of the war, when the red army was in a difficult situation and suffered losses, there were almost no German prisoners of war. The first" large batch " — almost one hundred thousand — fell into the hands of the Soviet military in the late winter of 1943 after the battle of Stalingrad. But a month and a half before that, an Order was signed to streamline the evacuation of prisoners of war from the front.

General Andrey Khrulev, who personally signed the document, said in an interview that the Order preserved all the norms of the previous Regulations of 1931 and the 1941 Decree, noted shortcomings in the organization of life and supply of prisoners of war, work with them, gave recommendations for correction, and approved punishments and awards. And the latter really found their heroes. A striking example is the GB major Nikolai Mochalov, who was awarded the order of the Patriotic war II degree for energetic actions for the reception, maintenance and evacuation of prisoners of war" (information from the website "Memory of the people").

...And at the front It is worth debunking another myth — that prisoners may have been treated in accordance with official documents, but most preferred not to take prisoners, shooting those who surrendered on the spot. Here, of course, there were excesses, but these are again, rather, exceptions. So, Vladimir Vsevolodov in the book "Go in peace: to the history of the repatriation of German prisoners of war from the USSR (1945-1958)" leads a lot of memories of war participants.

And those, without rejecting isolated cases of lynching, say that the vast majority of those who want to surrender still fell into captivity. By the end of the war, there were 2.5 million of them from Germany alone, and about a million more from satellite countries. Here, for example, says Joseph Barenberg: "no One even thought that the prisoner can be easy to hit or shoot. They were treated like people, even though they had already heard what the fascists were doing on Soviet soil." This is just one of many examples…

[scriptaed]

Ink Nemesis | 02

Genre: Angst/Fluff || paparazzi!au; fake dating!au;

Pairing: Reader x Yoongi

Length: 6.9k

Synopsis: As an aspiring writer drowning under the public’s radar, a click of the pen is all you need to accept your supervisor’s offer to co-write an article for the SS - Secrets Spilled, a regular section of your company’s weekly tabloid; but fabricated stories and invasive details aren’t all that you write when you discover Min Yoongi’s dirty little secret.

“You want me, a temporary paparazzi, to pretend I’m dating him, the sensational pop star?”

The blinding flash of the cameras and hands and shrills transcend time and place all in a persistence to invade privacy; because here you are, somehow standing in front of BigHit Entertainment’s CEO, with lights hitting you at every angle as if still running on that fifteen minutes of fame you have only dreamed of receiving for your penmanship—not your facade of a relationship with the heart of all screaming teen’s, Min Yoongi.

The two pairs of eyes follow your every movement throughout the deafening silence, for the spotlight is still on you; but with each tick of their watch comes with a hasty pump of your heart and the fracture of your usual sense of rationality under said pressure.

“Well, I didn’t know you were a tabloid writer until now—and that indeed is a problem—but what’s been said has already been reported more than a hundred times by now, I'm sure,” the man seated before you explains in his rather mundane clothing resembling commoners like you; yet other than his structured wide nose, circular and silver glasses, and imperfect spots of his red, tan complexion, the ease of his shoulders as he reclines into his black leather chair and the confidence that exudes as he conveys his every thought to you, a stranger, tells you his mind is bustling with all sorts of creativity embodying anything but ordinary. “I understand this is a rash decision on my part, but I’m more than willing to pay to accommodate for any repercussions.”

In contradiction to his wise mien worthy of his middle age, the assumptions he creates of you and your supposed indecency renders you offended.

“Are you kidding me?” you gawk, appalled by his lack of judgement. “Do you know how much money you would have to pay me? I’m probably going to be fired or forced to quit the second I step foot into that damn building—” you inhale a sharp breath “—and even if it’s a living hell-hole for me, at least it kept me just barely alive!”

“Again, I’m really sorry,” the man calmly apologizes, the drop of an octave supposedly conveying claimed sympathy. “It was irresponsible of me to drag you into this, but all I can do now is retribute to the best of my abilities. I’m willing to pay 20,000 dollars flat for defamation alone.”

Twenty thousands of dollars? For something that most wouldn't even consider defamation? Suddenly, living without that treached work of yours doesn’t sound too bad at all; plus, that mass of money is enough for you to live the next decade on cup noodles and doing what you really love most: writing.

Maybe you can finally become a serious writer.

Nonetheless, accepting such money without merit strikes against your morals, both as a writer and a human, so further inquiry comes hesitantly, “...alone? Does that mean there’s more—”

“—wait, hold on for just a minute,” the remaining bystander breaks his silence, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to the opposing leg. “Do I, the main victim of this absurd plan, not get a say in this?”

“Alright, fair enough,” the elder sighs and removes his glasses to the table crowded with all sorts of sounding equipment. “Do you have anything more to add, Yoongi?”

“Do I get paid, too?” he deadpans; a moving huff leaves your lips and the both of them turn to glare in the slightest at your direction.

“I’m your boss, Bang Si-hyuk,” the man, identifying as what you recall Solji to commonly refer to as Bang PD, establishes full authority as Yoongi reclines into defense. He further crosses his arms, “I’m only doing this because it’ll help your career.”

“But how is this going to help me?” Yoongi asks.

You’re surprised to see the usual hushed, tranquil presentation of Yoongi’s cutting straight to the chase; and as much as you hate to admit, everything about him is a divergence from you as a person and worker. On what seems to be one pole of the world, Yoongi remains at the top of his industry, powerful, influential, and inspiring, while you remain on the other side, residing in the pithole of your own world as a writer.

No one looks up to you because you have nothing to admire in the first place. As Solji has once proclaimed in her weekly articles, Yoongi is the figure, the epitome of the 21st century’s very dreams. It’s no wonder that naive albeit ambitious children look up to him. Five years have passed since you could legally label yourself as a child, but even you have at some point fallen for the blinding, inevitable pull of his only to gaze longingly—as if someday, when the sun sets east and the moon sets ablaze, a failure like you could stand a minute in his shoes; because while he actively protests against the man controlling his very dreams, you can’t even imagine interacting with your own.

And that’s just one of the million reasons why boys like him would never work out with girls like you.

“Your cold, silent, ‘bad boy’ image used to attract the public’s favor in the past, Yoongi, but consistency is the key to demise in this type of industry.” Bang PD picks up a blue pen and begins tapping on his all knowing temple. “Plus, you’re a bit too alluring to the teens these days. The security downstairs have already caught at least seven fans trying to sneak into your studio just this past week.”

Your ears perk at the intriguing new information, trying to figure in your head whether you agree with said bad boy’s reputation; maybe it’s just that night or your immunity from detached men, but Yoongi doesn’t quite fulfill the rave of the public nor does he fit the bill of a bad boy. Eyes trailing to peak at Yoongi from the corner of your eyes, the boy begins to shift uncomfortably in place with his hands still buried in the pockets of his gray slacks.

“I don’t see how it’s a big enough deal to drag someone completely innocent into this,” he mutters, words slurred and shrouded from under his breath.

So he hasn’t completely forgotten you nor the concept of courtesy.

His boss frowns, furrowing his brows and glancing at you only to avert his eyes back onto Yoongi. Leaning in, his hand raises halfway to its target beside his lips before ultimately collapsing back into the cushions of his seat.

“Don’t you want to get rid of that?” he emphasizes but keeps it vague, because after all, you are a tabloid writer; but despite your lack of an intent to do such immoral things as extracting details from a private conversation, you can’t deny the pique of your curiosity following his ambiguous words.

Yoongi persists to keep his eyes glued to the ground, shifting his weight from one leg to another, as his hands fiddle with the insides of his pocket and his mind struggles to accept the advice of his boss. It’s sweet that he’s looking out for a stranger like you, but the reluctance of furthering his own career and obliging to his boss’s request rubs you the wrong way. Just how much privilege does he have against a person just barely getting by like you?

“I won’t be accepting your money.”

The statement captures the attention of the room as the two men gradually turn their eyes to the woman finally affirming her own authority.

“I apologize, Ms. Y/L/N, but I really would like to repay you—

“—then maybe you shouldn’t have dragged me into this in the first place,” you refute, crossing your arms and huffing. “I want to make a life of myself as a writer; and not just one that goes around stalking celebrities. I want to be a real one, and even if I’m sure thousands of girls would love to be in my position right now, it would be shameful of me to accept such luck, good or bad, and disrespect my dreams like that.”

“Yes, and I respect your wishes,” Bang PD firmly interjects, “but as you’ve stated, you’ll most likely be forced to take a momentary leave from work. How are you going to get by? Because this ‘project’ won’t be ending for another six months or so.”

Six months?

The man is really going out on a limb right now; and is Yoongi really fine with this? With dating someone as ordinary and low-life like you? Especially when he already has a girlfriend?

“I have money saved up. It’ll be enough to last me for six months,” you say after a few seconds of pondering. “And plus, I can still make some money by finally publishing a few more works here and there; I am a writer after all—”

“—but how?” you turn to raise a brow at Yoongi’s knitted ones. “Won’t you receive backlash or irrelevant feedback if you publish under your name?”  

The assertiveness in his voice makes you wonder whether his question is one elicited by genuine concern for your well being or for his own career, despite how many times he has proven himself to be a man of silent heed to you in the past; maybe the industry has finally broken your ability to trust.  

“I can write under a pseudonym,” you give him an assured smile and he only frowns, staring at you in concern amidst the deafening silence.

Two pseudonyms, actually, if you're being truthful to yourself and him.

“Well, I beg of you to take your time to rethink this and perhaps reconsider in a week or so,” the boss clears his throat, finally sitting up in his seat and swirling around to grab a simple key chain which dangles of a mini plastic quill and a silver key both before tossing it to Yoongi. “In the meantime, Yoongi, go show this miss your studio.”

“My studio?” Yoongi repeats almost indignantly. His boss only nods, but the boy persists to defend his sanctuary. “How does this have anything to do with my studio?”

“If you're going to fake a relationship to the rest of the world, you're going to have to get to know each other,” Bang PD strains.

After watching Yoongi bite his bottom lip with his eyes glued to the floor in stubborn defeat, you're not sure if you find his reluctance endearing or not. For one, your acceptance of carrying out this ridiculous plan is already of utmost generosity, so is showing something is trivial as his workplace that bad of a retribution?

The ungrateful attitude of the room and the uncomfortable tense silence pushes you to your breaking point, when finally, you swing your camera’s strap over your shoulders and breathe out, “it's fine. He doesn't have to show me anything private or anything he's uncomfortable with.”

Your reassurance captures Yoongi’s attention, for he glances up from the hardwood floor to gaze at you with this dark, indecipherable eyes of his.

The following silence tells you that's exactly what he wanted to hear.

“It's not that I'm uncomfortable…” he begins to mutter before trailing off into silence.

“Yoongi…” Bang PD grumbles, rubbing the spot between his creased brows as he sighs laboriously. “Ah, whatever, you guys can decide for yourselves what you want to do. Please just make it believable.”

“Don't worry. Kissing up to my boss’s ass has given me plenty of experience in acting,” you say in spite, giving them one last smile before turning towards the door and gripping the cold silver handle. “Alright, well, I have matters to attend to now.”

More like you have a job to lose now; but a part of you begrudgingly knows that a part of this is your fault for denying their method of compensation.

Before you can turn the handle and remove yourself from the tension, a warm hand rests on your cold ones to prevent you from doing so. Slowly, your eyes trail along his gray sleeves and up until you finally meet his firm gaze—too confident, too comfortable, and oddly too mesmerizing for a locked moment in time between two strangers of two drifting universes.

The steady waves of his eyes beholding the darkest shade of chocolate knock the air out of your lungs. Wicked magic and trifling enticement are the essence of this pivotal moment. Your eyes are begging for you to evade his impending attack, but desire for authority compels you to challenge him head on. Your lips, on the other hand, fail to formulate coherent words as it freezes in a half gaping phase.

“Your number,” he utters.

“What?”

“Your number,” he repeats in the same hushed tone. “So I can keep in contact with you.”

Embarrassment. Vulnerability. Defeat.

Cheeks burning red, you clear your throat and dig into the pockets of your jacket in search for your phone. Yoongi follows suit as he retracts his phone from the pockets of his lavish silver slacks. Quickly, you grasp for his phone—slipping it swiftly away from his unsuspecting grip—and dial in your number.

“There,” you snap, holding his phone up in the air before grabbing his hand and planting it firmly into his pale palms. “Just call when you need me.”

Without another second to waste in the unfamiliar world, you march your way out of the door to return to your own, all amidst the mysterious silence of the divine-like man.

-

Morning arrives dreadfully late after the entire ordeal last night, for you headed him earlier than most just an hour into their documentary. Once you had left the room and proceeded your way to the main venue, the boys carried on the concert as if nothing had just happened behind the scenes; fortunately for them, the company was able to get ahold of several reporters and temporarily halt them from releasing the astounding news of your relationship with Yoongi, preventing fans from causing distraught throughout the entirety of the premiere. 

This morning, however, proves to be a complete opposite, as you toss and turn throughout midnight, just wondering if you had awoken from a dream, a nightmare, or a slap of reality; because for some reason, you can’t help rid yourself of the condescending image of your own figure standing and peering above at Yoongi’s silhouette which can barely be seen high up on a pedestal.  

Only a series of violent vibrations of texts are enough to startle you out of your daze.

Xiao Lin [1:35 A.M.] Girl! I didn't know you were dating Min Yoongi of all people! I mean, no one did, who am I kidding? Why didn't you tell me?

Who is Xiao Lin again?

Xiao Lin [1:35 A.M] I thought we were friends ;_;

Oh right, the other “reporter” you had met last night.

Xiao Lin [1:36 A.M.] But then again, I guess you wouldn't tell a reporter like me. Haha!

It’s as if she can read your mind.

Xiao Lin [1:38 A.M.] Want to meet up for some coffee tomorrow morning and chat? I promise I won't exploit any of our conversations. I'll pay for your coffee too!

Revealing yourself out in bright sunlight isn’t exactly the wisest decision considering the frenzy you’re causing throughout all headlines of the internet—and maybe that’s exactly what Xiao Lin wants, because cunning schemes are all you can read despite her facade of a friendly vibe, but you figure there’s still one question you need to have answered before you can finally have a good night’s rest.

Who exactly is that girl you had spotted Yoongi with? And why would Yoongi be fine with conducting such an experiment? Especially with an unqualified girl like you?

The couch bounces you up and onto your two feet as your fingers occupy themselves with a quick text to Xiao Lin; grabbing a coat, some black shades, scarf, and beanie, you’re beginning to feel a lot like celebrity, and you can’t help but wonder if this dress up is something of the regular to someone as popular as Yoongi.

Finally, as you’re pacing to the cafe below your apartment where you had agreed to meet the awaiting reporter, you’re also simultaneously taking a step into the shoes of Yoongi’s influence, fame, and wealth—and the power of it all sends thrill surging through your veins.

“Over here!” you spot a girl familiar to the one you recall from the haze of your memories waving her arms at you as she whispers. “Xiao Lin, remember?”

In an attempt to avoid as much attention as possible, you quickly and silently shuffle your way to the corner table before settling into the cold metal chair across from her. Yet again, today she sports a clean cut fringe and a simple albeit bright red sweater and lipstick.

“Yeah, of course I remember,” you try to grin, “I don’t have a memory of a goldfish.”

The girl laughs louder than you expected—and you can’t decide for yourself whether it’s one of genuity or one of flattery. Hastily, she brings her voice down to a hush, nervously glancing around at the cafe which had taken no notice of you nor her. “Sorry,” she lets out a soft giggle, “I was just trying to call you over without using your name. I didn’t want people bombarding you with questions, cameras, and mics again.”

Again? Oh, is she referring to last night when the paparazzi had spotted you with Yoongi?

Her unexpected consideration catches you off guard, and as much as you hate to admit, it warms your heart that finally someone sympathizes with you; sure, you can’t let your guard down when you consider the field of work she’s from, but it’s ironically nice to have her by your side—even if you’re just a temporary colleague until Solji returns.

And yet, truly, you realize only those crafted from similar statuses can relate to one another.

“Thanks,” is all you can say before breaking out into a sheepish grin, and Lin smiles even wider at the sight of your growing comfort around her.

“Of course,” she coos before sliding a cup of coffee across the table towards you. “Here, as promised, one cup of warm coffee.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to,” you instinctively say, but the nagging feeling of nonexistent glaring eyes from every angle pushes you out of your usual business-like formality. “But then, again, considering the risk I’m taking to meet you, someone I barely know, I guess you do owe me one.”

Lin snorts, nearly cascading into a fit of cackles before she holds herself back and takes a sip of her coffee. “I like you… and your way with words, especially since you’re just a rookie journalist,” she laughs when a scoff leaves your lips for reasons she might never know.

“So why are you so eager to spend time with a low-life rookie like me?”

“Oh, you know I don’t mean it like that,” she grins, turning her cup in circles on the table her eyes are glued to. “I’m just so happy to finally have someone my age to talk and relate to. Let’s stop being strangers and try to be friends. What do you say?”

The giddy non-stop grin of hers is nearly impossible to deny, and considering all the inside scoops and tips you might be benefiting from such friendship, there really is no reason to stop yourself; so as a sign of a concurrence, you nod your head and reciprocate a smile.

Throughout the morning, you and Lin chat about all sorts of things,and to your surprise, none of them consists of work-related topics. It’s hard for you to admit, but a real friendship could possibly spark from this symbiotic one. From her cunning, flattering ways of conversing to your snarky sense of humor to sync with your recent mood, you begin to wonder how closed off from the world you had become.

What if this is the exact type of friendship Lin was striving for and you're the only one being overly wary of her true intentions?

The guilt gnaws at you from inside out until the topic takes a drastic turn for the worse.

“Speaking of clothes,” Lin can barely manage to say after a fit of laughs, “I see you have a really… conservative style.”

“Me? Conservative?” you repeat, brows raising as your eyes behind a pair of dark shades follow her line of sight to stare at the scarf hovering over half of your face. “Oh… this…”

Did she purposely allude to this in an attempt to gather writing material? But considering the odd getup of yours, it's only natural for a friend to ask something as simple as that. Odd. 

Since when did you get so self-absorbed?

“Oh, I'm sorry… I'm sure you don't want to talk about that—”

“—no, it's fine. I figure I should get it off my chest anyways,” you sigh and Lin quirks a brow before scooting closer.

“Are you sure?”

“Might as well; and plus, if I ever see an article about our conversation, I'll know exactly who to blame,” you quip and she snorts.

“Deal,” she grins before hastily lowering her voice into an eager whisper. “So you’re dating him?”

Here you go; it’s now or never.

Pausing for a few seconds to register the question she had just asked, you hesitantly nod in choppy motions.  

“Oh my god. For how long now?”

“Um…” you mumble. Neither Yoongi nor his boss had prepared you for this, but an odd part of you tells you to keep your word and loyalty; you have to make this believable. “Several months now…”

“Wow, that’s pretty long for a relationship between a celebrity and a non-celebrity,” she gasps. “Because I would’ve never guessed who you were in relations to the boys when I first met you—not that you’re not pretty, because you are, but it’s just that you seemed so out of place—”

“—oh, it was my first time attending my… boyfriend’s event,” you give her a pressed smile.

“So were you working as a reporter prior to dating him?” she furrows her brows in wonder, tilting her head to the side. “Or is this all just an act to keep people from suspecting the truth?”

“The latter,” you simply answer, because the more she asks, the more you grow to suspect her of her own intentions. “Well, not exactly. It’s complicated.”

“Ah, well something doesn’t totally line up to me, but I won’t press my new friend any further. Don’t want to scare her away just yet,” she winks and the tension in your shoulders and legs release in relief. Your heart has finally been granted mercy when, suddenly, she jumps in her seat and chimes, “and if you’re already scared by me, I’ll trade you some information in return, so if the day ever comes, we can always blackmail each other!”

You scoff, “the sign of a true friendship, indeed.”

“Of course. You can tell I have experience with friends, right?” she jokes, grabbing her phone and swiping a few pictures through what you suppose to be her album. Turning the phone, she holds the screen just a foot from your eyes which widen at the familiar looking figure of the girl displayed. “Remember that girl on your camera who I said looks awfully like my boss’s daughter? Well, I figured out that it’s because she is my boss’s daughter.”

Really?

The thought of Yoongi actually dating someone of immense power and influence infuriates you for some reason—probably because you’re admittedly jealous of her position and income—but all you can do is grit your teeth and feign a smile to conceal the authenticity of your relationship with Yoongi; you had promised him, after all, and it’s not like it would benefit you at this point to spill his love life.

“And what’s so blackmail material about that?” you purse your lips.

“No wonder you’re a rookie,” she sighs and you can’t help but take her words to offense. “Sure, it may seem completely normal for someone like her to attend potential business partner’s grand events. It’s all a part of business. But, you see, our company has been asking to partner with BigHit Entertainment for months now, and we’ve only been denied countless times.”

“What if this is their last resort? To use their daughter, a beautiful one at that, and entice one of the boys into agreement?” you theorize, genuinely curious.

“Hm, that sounds awfully dark to use her like that,” Xiao Lin frowns before nodding, “maybe; I see your point, but I’m not sure about that. I checked her working schedule that’s been leaked online and BigHit’s premiere wasn’t anywhere on that list.”

“So…”

“I’m thinking she’s a superfan of BTS,” Lin confidently states, nodding her head as if to confirm her own theory.

“Well, whatever it is, I don’t care,” you refute a bit more harshly than you intend; the fury in your stomach grows by the second. Should you show the remaining photo you had captured that night to Lin? Should you ask her for advice? Or insight? Doing so would be leaking crucial information to your enemy, both as Yoongi’s supposed partner and as the temporary writer of Secrets Spilled. Luckily, your usual sense of rationality makes a timely return as you spout, “as long as she’s not a delusion fan of Yoongi’s.”

“Ooh,” Lin sing-songs with a cheeky grin, “sassy, and rightfully so; I like it.”

A scoff escapes your lips as you shrug, but the casual facade front of yours is broken when a series of vibrations sends you jumping in your seat.

Him [1:41 P.M.] Y/N, this is Yoongi. Where are you right now? I thought it over last night, and I wanted to apologize for my behavior. I’ll be waiting for you in my studio.

Him [1:42 P.M.] I’ll be there for the rest of the evening.

Him [1:42 P.M.] You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.

Him [1:42 P.M.] It’s just an award for getting through this all.

Him [1:42 P.M.] Here’s the address. Again, you don’t have to come if you’re busy or upset.

An award? What exactly does he really think of this whole ordeal? Do you seem like an obedient puppy that needs to be rewarded by his owner? And why does he keep insisting that you don’t have to come? It’s as if in reality he actually doesn’t want you to come in the first place and is only asking out of common courtesy… or maybe his boss forced him to after a night of persistent arguments behind your back.

Whatever the reason is, your anger and confusion urge you towards vengeance as you slip your phone into your pockets and scoot your chair back loudly without a care.

“What is it? Do you have to go now?” Lin looks up at you in dejection.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Lin,” you apologize, but the guilt vanishes the second a smile replaces the frown on her face at the call of her nickname. “I’ll meet with you again someday.”

“Soon?”

“Sure,” you laugh, gathering your purse and preparing yourself for a long day ahead of you. “See you later.”

“Mhm,” your friend nods eagerly before calling out, “have fun, you love birds!”

As you storm off with your resolve for answers set, love is the last thing you want to hear in relations to Yoongi.

-

The drive to Yoongi’s studio situated in BigHit’s headquarters doesn’t take you more than a couple of minutes, but the time to prepare yourself and your planned dialogue delays you into the last minutes of sunset.

“Oh? Is that you, Y/N?” a man with tan skin and warm blond locks greets you right as you pull out your phone to notify Yoongi of your arrival. The quizzical look on your scarf-covered face elicits a chuckle from said man. “I’m Namjoon. I’ve heard the entire story from our boss… not so much from Yoongi, haha.”

“I’m not surprised,” you retort. “Who would be proud of dating someone like me? And don’t worry, I don’t go around boasting of my ‘relationship’ with him either.”

“Oof, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Namjoon laughs, taken aback by your aggressive demeanor. “I can see the support behind your claim though! I’m liking the scarf.”

What are you doing? You should be blowing off steam at Yoongi, not Namjoon, an innocent bystander.

“...sorry,” you mumble, eyes shifting to the dim shadows casted upon the concrete sidewalk. “I’m a bit tired, not really in a good mood.”

“I understand,” he assures, shaking his head along with his hands before burying them back into his pockets. “It’s our fault for dragging you into this mess anyway.”

“It’s fine…”

“What’re you here for?”

“Um…” you mutter, pulling out your phone in an urge to prove yourself. “Yoongi invited me to his studio.”

“I trust you. You don’t have to pull out your phone,” Namjoon chortles, eyes widening shortly after. “But really? Yoongi? His studio?”

“Yeah…?”

“You’re either incredibly lucky or incredibly charming,” he muses and continues when he notices the quirk in your brow. “Barely anyone gets to step foot into Yoongi’s studio, especially by his invitation.”

You’re neither lucky nor charming. You’re just so terribly unlucky to be caught up in a situation like this that anyone, including Yoongi, would begin to empathize for you. By rebelling against Yoongi’s will and entering his studio, you’ll be getting back at him for dragging you into this in the first place.

“And why’s that? Have you ever entered before?”

“Well, of course. I’m his band mate. But he seldom asks me for advice,” he laughs, patting a hand behind your shoulder and pushing you forward to his side. “Come on, I’ll show you the way.”

The lavish, skyscraper of a building fares far superior to the company you expect to be fired from very soon, but the friendly mien and intriguing conversations of Namjoon’s keeps you from being overwhelmed… but that only adds to your intimidation the second he leaves your side and you find yourself standing right before the door to Yoongi’s studio.

Black paint and handles locked, everything is practically screaming at you to leave.

This is a bad idea.

There’s really no going back the second you enter.

Turning on the balls of your heels, you make a last minute decision to bolt when the door behind you creaks open.

“Y/N?”

Speak of the devil.

“Yeah, that’s me,” you sigh, whirling back around with a pressed smile.

Yoongi stands there in what surprises you to be the most casual clothing you’ve ever seen. A black beanie, gray sweater, and black basketball shorts are a drastic change from the full on tuxedo he had been sporting last night.

If you’re being honest with yourself, the cost of his outfit probably sums up to be half of the price of what you’re wearing right now.

This can’t be Yoongi. No, not the one you so despise. Not the one that has you fuming under your breath throughout the night, right?

“I didn’t know you were coming,” he simply states, gazing at you without a hint of expression to give him away.

“Oh, sorry,” you fold your hands behind your back. “I thought you were going to be here either way.”

“Yeah. Fair enough,” he agrees and holds the door open. Glancing up from the hardwood floor leading to the dark grey carpeting of his studio, you stare at him with wide eyes. Yoongi’s eyes shift from you, the side, and back to you as he shifts his weight and quirks a brow, “didn’t you come here to see my studio?”

“Oh, right,” you quickly blurt, shuffling your way into the room, “well, don’t mind if I do, then.”

The hefty door slams closed behind him, and if it weren’t for your eyes, you wouldn’t have noticed Yoongi standing there before you. Other than the humming buzz of his three wide monitors and computer, paired with black headphones and all sorts of unfamiliar devices, the sound proof walls along with Yoongi’s silence send chills down your back. Suddenly, you feel the need to fill the space with what you came here to do.

With his hands in his pockets and his front turned towards you, you figure he’s keeping a watch on you in case you touch any of his elaborate equipment. Turning around and away from his wooden desk, you’re just about to speak when he begins first.

“I saw the news this morning,” he utters. “Are you alright?”

So he has? No, of course he has; he’s the main subject of the rumors after all.

“Yeah,” you gulp. “I haven’t read the comments yet.”

“Oh, well, you shouldn’t,” he pauses, “I don’t usually read the news.”

“That’s because they aren’t news.”

Yoongi glances at you in surprise at your quick remark before nodding with pressed lips, “agreed.” At least there’s one thing you two can agree on. “But I had to read them this morning to make sure they weren’t slandering you.”

“Oh…” you mumble, dejected by guilt. “Thanks.”

“No need,” he shakes his head, “it’s our fault you’re in this mess, anyways.”

“...yeah,” a deep breath in and out helps calm your racing pulse. “So are you sure you’re fine with all of this? What if someone misunderstands?”

“What do you mean?” he quirks a brow. “My whole life is a misunderstanding anyways, so this isn’t new.”

“No, but, for example,” you pause before blurting, “what if your girlfriend sees the news?”

“My girlfriend?” he wrinkles his nose. “No, don’t worry, that won’t happen.”

Lies. You saw him with his girlfriend just last night.

“Are you sure?”

His lips turn upside down and he frowns at you as if something had gone haywire in your head. Reclining from your persistence, your eyes avert to the side as Yoongi remains in silence.

“I’m sorry, by the way.”

His words catch you by surprise.

Peering up from the ground, you find Yoongi’s eyes settled on yours; he isn’t laughing, he isn’t smiling, he isn’t even frowning that judgemental frown he had on before, he’s being sincere about his apology.

“I wanted to apologize to you in person and not on text for upsetting you last night,” he continues, voice low and unwavering. “I was already dragging you through so much trouble, but I acted as if you were a hindrance. So while this isn’t the best offer to make it up to you, I hope my studio is cool enough to keep you from hating me.”

Either his years of acting under the power of his authorities helped him or his sense of morality isn’t too far from yours,

“I mean, it’s alright,” you muse, “the studio, that is.”

“And it’s also alright if you keep hating me,” he shrugs and you gape at his remark.

“Touche,” you scoff. “But more importantly, there’s something that’s been on my mind for a while now.”

Yoongi nods, silently conveying for you to proceed.

“I’m just… I’m confused as to why you guys picked me. You could’ve picked anyone else—” you could’ve picked the girl you were making out with “—I mean, anyone has more influence and relevance than me.”

Yoongi blinks blankly at you before answering, “my boss saw us talking after I brought you backstage. He never really sees me interacting with people, not to mention a girl, outside of work, so he thought that our chemistry would make for a more believable story.”

“Ah... you don’t talk with people other than your band mates?”

He shrugs as if to answer yes.

“Then will I also be the first to hear a snippet of your works in progress?”

“I don’t know about that…” he mumbles, scratching the back of his head.”

“But don’t you post previews for your fans, anyways?”

“Are you my fan?”

“Well,” you scoff, “I have to pretend to be.”

“Well, you’re doing a good job considering how needy you’re being,” he remarks; you’re finally getting a hang of his type of humor. “First, you intrude into my studio, and now you’re asking me about previews.”

“Okay, fine. How do I get into the all-knowing Min Yoongi fanclub, then?”

“You can’t. It’s overfilled,” Yoongi shrugs with a smirk. “But you said you’re a writer, correct? I’ll trade you a ten second snippet of my tracks for a page of your works.”

“No!” you immediately answer.

“See?”

“But you’re an immensely popular artist. Everyone recognizes your works. You should have confidence in yourself,” you spew. “I, on the other hand, only get—what—a few hundred views? Maybe two or so comments?”

“I don’t get your point. Creators are all the same regardless of how big or small we are,” he equivocates. “The quality of your works are independent of numbers.”

Of course. His ignorance is starting to show through again.

You scoff, “easy for you to say.”

“Look, I didn’t make it big right off the bat, either, Y/N,” he shuffles in place as you begin pacing around the room.

“Yeah, but all I’m saying is you should have more confidence in yourself since you’ve already been recognized!”

“Alright, then according to you, how are you going to be recognized if you aren’t even willing to share your own pieces?” he quips and you’re stumped on how to answer.

“...I am sharing them—online,” you stammer. “Just not with you.”

“Oh?” he raises a brow. “And what do you post about?”

Why is he asking you so many questions? Rather than genuine curiosity, all you’re receiving are harsh judgements being made on you.

Clearing your throat, you gulp. “...romance. Young adult novels.”

Your answer renders him even more baffled than before; his brows raise and his eyes narrow, “forgive me, I actually meant to ask what do you write about. It’s not bad that you write those, but… you don’t strike me as a teen romantic?”

“I do,” you affirm. “Sometimes I write personal anecdotes. I just don’t post them. Those don’t appeal to the general public.”

“And why does that matter?”

His constant stream of questions are beginning to irritate you.

Why is he trying to test you?

Who is he to judge you?

“First, Mr. Know It All, I’ll appeal to the public, make it big, then and only then will I truly be able to write what I want,” you spit.

“Those are some big dreams,” he only states. “Familiar ones, too.”

“Familiar ones?” you repeat, scoffing. “Sorry, but in my kind of world, dreaming is all you can do.”

“Do you have a backup plan?”

“A what?”

“A backup plan; in case it doesn’t work out, you have something to fall back on.”

“Are you serious right now?” you gape. “I don’t have time to do anything but chase my dreams right now! I know it’s hard for someone like you to believe, but it’s true.”

“I’m just trying to help you,” he argues, brows furrowing as he takes a defensive stance. “Because you know what happens to all dreams? They end.”

“Well, I’m a dreamer. Dreamers are reckless and courageous; we do all sorts of things without realizing nor caring for repercussions.”

Yoongi takes a deep breath and loudly sighs, groaning and ruffling his hair underneath his beanie. “I don’t think you’re getting what I’m trying to say here. I want you to succeed, Y/N, but what are you going to do when it doesn’t work out?”

Laughing in disbelief at his ego, you shake your head and sigh, “I can live as your housewife since I am your girlfriend after all.”

Your joke only incites silence from Yoongi; that damn, stupid and judgemental silence of his. He stares at you, frowning and wrinkling his nose at your remark. You haven’t felt more vulnerable than you do now in years.

“It was just a joke, okay,” making your way past him and to the door, you sigh. “You know what? I’m tired. I’m leaving. Text me whenever you need me to kiss up to the public. I might need some of the fame myself.”

With that, you make your departure.

And Yoongi doesn’t even care enough to hold you back.

-

Solji [11:11 P.M.] Y/N! I’m busy with my honeymoon and all, but I wanted to check in on you! You’re still going to write the article for SS, right?

At first you were hesitant, confused, and even guilty of going behind Yoongi’s back—even if he’s just your pretend boyfriend—and writing articles on him just to make money; but after seeing how stuck up he must be tonight, you figure this is your only way to get back at him and show him your way of life is more practical, more realistic than his life of a celebrity.

Because even a low-life like you can rise to power.

As promised, here’s a behind the scenes picture of the boys at the grand premiere, making their way to the top of the stage where the rest of the world awaits them.

[Picture uploading: 10%]

I’ll be a temporary replacement for the SS in the next few weeks.

Hope I’ll get to know you all!

- xoxo Ink Nemesis.

#yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #min yoongi #kkreationsnet #kreativewritersnet #bangtan bookclub #yoongi scenarios #bts x reader #bts x you #bts imagines #bts fanfic #bts fluff #yoongi fluff #suga fluff #suga x reader #suga x you #bts angst #yoongi angst #suga angst #taechubs

[mybestluxe]

Top 7 Best Red Gemstones| Jewelry Guide

When it comes to coloured gemstones, colour is king. Today, many customers prioritise colour and are less concerned with the actual gemstone variety as long as the stone is durable enough for their purpose

However, it is also very difficult to locate gems by colour, since gemstone dealers prefer to list their accessibility by gem form or gem range instead of gems by colour. Although ruby is normally the first red gemstone to come in mind when most people think that a red gemstones is available, there are many other red gemstones today.

Several red gemstones have not made this list, mostly because of rareness, or may otherwise be ‘red.’ Strawberry quartz, for example, is colourless quartz with red lepidocrocite, hematitis or goethite inclusions, but, since it is not actually a red gemstones, we have not mentioned this. In our opinion, this guide should list only that type of gem.

Table of Contents

List of Top 7 Red Gemstones

1. Red Almandine Garnet Gemstones

2. Red Apatite Gemstones

3. Red Bixbite Gemstones

4. Red Coral Gemstones

5. Red Cinnabar Gemstones

6. Red Jasper Gemstones

7. Red Spessartite Garnet Gemstones

Is Red apatite rare?

Is apatite a gemstone?

List of Top 7 Red Gemstones

1. Red Almandine Garnet Gemstones

Almandine Granate is part of the red gemstones grenade family. The grenade group comprises a broad range of red gemstones; a family of complex, chemically variable silicates, with similar crystal structures. Almandine, or almandite, is the most popular of all grenades, and is also known as the “classic red grenade.” While almandine grenades are very red, they are often dark brownish-red to orange-red and pure rot, since they are seldom found in pure form, norms of other granny forms like spessartine or grossularite.. Alamandine Grenets are not often found with pure red colour. Almandine is known for its excellent like other grenets

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2. Red Apatite Gemstones

Apatite is an unusual and iconic gem, highly sought after for its many vibrant colours, including dynamic red, blue and green. Red apatite is one of the rarer or lesser recognised shades, but it will show a bright red similar to that of the fine ruby if you are fortunate enough to find one. Apatite is surprisingly made of the same substance as our teeth and bones; the phosphate of calcium. While somewhat soft in comparison to many others, its hardness resembles turquoise lapois lazuli and opal which are all most frequently used in jewellery designs, including rings, 5 on a Mohs scale of mineral hardiness.

Apatite is usually untreated and uncommon, apatite gems can also show chatoyancy of cat’s eyes. While apatite prices remain relativ affordable, large clean this red gemstones can demand hundreds of dollars a carat, particularly specimens with an outstanding saturation weighing 5 to 10 carats.

Also Read:- Top 15 Pink Gemstones for Jewelry | Jewelry Guide

3. Red Bixbite Gemstones

Though green emeralds have always been the most common in the Beryl family, red beryl is the rare. In the trade, red beryl is known as bix-bite and is somewhat unheard of by the public because of its rareness. Though emerald is part of the ‘precious 4 gemstones’ elite, red beryl is regarded as one of the world’s most rare red gemstones and is one of the most expensive. Many bixbite specimens have sold ten thousand dollars per carat, but weighing more than 1 carat is uncommon. A bixbite of 2 to 3 carats would be treated as enormous and clean; good cuts would easily warrant high costs.

Bixbite is mainly mined in south-western Utah by the United States Gemstone Mining Company. It produces between 5,000 to 7,000 carats a year, and is known to market the rare red beryl as a red springboard. Some gems sold as red beryls are pezzottaites, a rare red gemstones, however, pezzottaites are not so valuable as red bixbite beryls. They are very valuable.

4. Red Coral Gemstones

Red coral, due to its intense colouration and lustre, is a particularly common and sought after gemstone. It is a member of the community of organic gemstones, including pearl, amber and ammolite, and is grown since time immemorial for decorative use. The majority of red coral gemstones are coral rubrum types, very unique rose to rooted coral varieties. Often called “noble coral,” Corallium rubrum is considered the most desirable coral in jewellery. Also included in this noble coral is the famous ‘angel coral,’ a precious coral pink to salmon.

Often called “noble coral,” Corallium rubrum is considered the most desirable coral in jewellery. Also included in this noble coral is the famous ‘angel coral,’ a precious coral pink to salmon. Coral gemstones are particularly rare and valuable because coral takes millions of years to form. Today, the majority of red corals are dyed or pictorial stones. A traditional term, used as a red granat cabochon, which were symbols of friendship, may also be traded as “carbunctures.” Red coral is also an essential gem of jyotish; referred to in astrology in the Vedic language. Jyotish is an ancient discipline combining mineralogy, planetary scientists from Hindu and Asian.

5. Red Cinnabar Gemstones

Not only is Red Cinnabar a vivid mineral, there are certain peculiar gemological characteristics. Since time immemorial, Cinnabar has been identified and used as both a pigment and a source of mercury by ancient Romans. It has also been used for decorative purposes in South America and China. Generally, it can be found and faced as a vein-filling mineral on rare occasions.

However, it is not always used for gems but is used as a collector’s pier because it is particularly soft (2 to 2.5 in the Mohs scale). Indeed, it normally appears on the bucket list of each gemstone and mineral collector because of its rare and very uncommon properties. Cinnabar has a high and exceptionally dense refractive index. Its particular gravity rate is 8.1; very few minerals are denser than cinnabar.

6. Red Jasper Gemstones

Jasper, which takes its name from the Greek “spotted stone,” is another well-known gemstone member of the vast and diverse quartz family. Jasper gemstones, including red, brown, orange, yellow and green, can be found in a wide range of patterns and colours. In fact, unicolored jasper is unusual because it often consists of up to 20% foreign content. As a result, almost all jasper gemstones are multicoloured and feature streaks, spots or flamelike patterns.

Jasper generally is a variety of chalcedony, but it is graded and divided in its own distinct quartz category thanks to its special grain structure. Jasper stones have many trade names that are similar to those of the agates in many places, but that have distinctive patterns or colours. But none of the trade names are formally recognised, so only the most avid gem collectors use them mostly.

7. Red Spessartite Garnet Gemstones

The big, different groups of grenade gemstones belong to Spessartite garnet. While a number of different grenades, including color-changing grenades and malaya grenates (or malayas), belong to the spessartin species, the actual gemston known as ‘spartite’ usually refers to the fiery orange grenade. A bright red orange, also referenced in the trade as ‘mandarin orange,’ is the most common colour in the spessartite grid. Bright orange-red spessartite is one of the most common garnets thanks to its extremely good hardness and brilliance (7.5 on Mohs scale); the product of the high refractive index.

Spessartite grenets are also used but the samples are eye-clean. It is the inclusions that always make the design of colourful jewellery more interesting. Since spessartite granny was very unusual and almost unexpectedly for use in commercial gems before the recent discovery in Namibia. Its meaning, ‘spessartite,’ comes from former events in the “Spessartine” forest in Germany. In the past, garnets were used as amicable gems and were often exchanged as a sign of love for mates.

Is Red apatite rare?

Although Apatite is an abundant mineral found in many countries, gem-quality crystals are very rare and plagued by erratic production. … Red Apatite was discovered approximately three years ago from a hidden Brazilian site, yet to be revealed.

Is apatite a gemstone?

As a gemstone, apatite is seldom used. Clean coloured transparent stones and cabochon-cut specimens were covered. Cat’s-eye apatite is a known name for chatoyant stones; asparagus stone is a clear, green stone, white stone was called moroxite.

About Us – Living a fulfilled life does not cost you a fortune. Elegance is a choice of lifestyle, it’s not luxury. You need not be making millions to live your life fully. My Best Luxe is an online one-stop platform where we bring you all the information related to specific luxury lifestyle items. It’s a curated list of everything to do with living a fulfilled life. Want to understand whats the latest trends in fashion, jewelry, accessories, or lifestyle in general? Stay tuned to our blog for all the updates. We are a community of market experts who regularly research for trending updates of the market and bring it to our enthusiastic readers.

[seedfinance]

Wolfsburg, we have a problem: How Volkswagen stalled in China

BEIJING, August 9 (Reuters) – At the end of December 2019, managers at Volkswagen headquarters (VOWG_p.DE) in Wolfsburg realized that they might have a serious problem in China, the company’s largest market and the ticket to its electric future.

His flagship Passat sedan had performed poorly in an unofficial insurance company safety test simulating a frontal impact on the driver’s side, a test that has been widely used in the United States for about a decade.

The car was in tatters. The crash test video went viral, drew millions of views and caused a sensation on social media across China, where the German car king’s success is based on its reputation for superior quality and engineering.

Volkswagen was under no obligation – the Passat had passed the Chinese regulatory agency’s head-on collision test, the same test used across much of Europe that automakers and many industry experts believe will better reflect driving conditions in China.

Nevertheless, Wolfsburg acted quickly, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Days after the test results were announced, the company assembled a team of dozens of engineers and managers to work with SAIC-Volkswagen, the 50/50 joint venture that makes Passats in China.

In early 2020, the team decided that the front of all new Passats and a host of other models from the Shanghai-based company should be strengthened at a cost of around 400 yuan ($ 62) per vehicle, according to sources.

This structural change, as of now no details were known, would amount to tens of millions of dollars for the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that would be affected annually by the company, the sources said. This was a significant cost for a company that claimed to be reducing manufacturing costs in China and around the world.

Intervening in the face of online consumer activism underscores the importance of China, the world’s largest auto market that Volkswagen is relying on to fund its € 35 billion ($ 42 billion) transition to electric vehicles and deliver on its promise to Tesla Inc (TSLA. O) to become a global leader in electric vehicles by 2025.

The global automakers’ expensive oil forbearance comes at a time when they can no longer count on the dominance they have enjoyed in China over the past few decades, where they are feeling the heat of local gasoline and electrical companies making them over technology and challenge design.

A Volkswagen spokesman said products were developed specifically for the Chinese market and the Passat’s failed test simulated a head-on collision between two cars, a scenario that is less likely in China than in the United States.

“In China there are central barriers on the highways,” added Volkswagen. “There aren’t usually as many trucks or pickup trucks in China as there are in US traffic scenarios.”

When asked about the 400 yuan modification, the spokesman said Volkswagen is constantly improving its products and making them safer based on customer feedback.

“GREATEST IMPORTANCE FOR THE HEALTH OF VW”

It is difficult to compare the designs of Passats in Volkswagen’s markets as they are often radically different vehicles built on different production platforms.

According to the sources, the new Passat in China was the first model to have such a structural change when it was launched in mid-2020. It passed the test of the insurance industry that its predecessor failed.

But the reputational and financial damage has proven to be more stubborn for Volkswagen, which was the top-selling overseas automaker in China and has made largely healthy profits there for over three decades, the longest of any overseas player.

According to Bernstein analysts, Volkswagen’s profit per vehicle in the country has fallen from 1,400-1,500 euros in 2015 to around 1,000 euros and in the last few quarters even to 800 euros, which China described as “of the utmost importance for the financial health of VW” . .

Sales of the Passat and, in a broader sense, of the company with SAIC engine (600104.SS) have collapsed – which Volkswagen mainly attributed to the backlash in the failed crash test as well as to problems with the product range and a global shortage of chips.

As a sign of the financial pressures the industry is facing, an internal memo Reuters viewed showed that the SAIC-Volkswagen finance team ordered managers to cut workshop costs by 30% in 2019 for the first time since 1990.

Volkswagen did not want to comment on Bernstein’s profitability figures or the internal memo.

SAIC-Volkswagen’s revenue last year declined 26% from 2019 to 174.5 billion yuan, while profits declined 23% to 31 billion yuan. Sales of the Passat, once one of the bestsellers in its sedan class before the insurance was tested, fell by 32% to 145,805 vehicles, according to consulting firm LMC Automotive.

While the COVID-19 pandemic was clearly a huge factor, the company’s decline was far larger than its overall 6.8% decline in Chinese car sales over the same period, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.

In addition, Volkswagen’s other major company in the country with local automaker FAW – whose products were not involved in the crash test controversy – saw sales grow 1.5%, despite VW officials say it was due to the introduction of SUVs and Premium -Audi models on the market has gained momentum.

The two joint ventures make up the majority of Volkswagen’s business in China, which includes all local production. They have been close to each other in the number of vehicles sold in the past, although FAW has taken the lead in recent years.

There was no breathing space for SAIC-Volkswagen in 2021, with sales dropping 7.8% in the first six months from the previous year when the pandemic raged. FAW-Volkswagen posted sales growth of 23%, while total sales of Chinese passenger cars increased by approximately 29%.

Crash test broken ‘A-pillar’

The C-IASI test, which the Passat 2019 initially failed to pass, was developed by a Chinese insurance company, the CIRI Auto Technology Institute, who failed to use the standard C-NCAP test from CATARC, a government-backed vehicle inspection agency was satisfied.

Many insurers felt that C-NCAP could not sufficiently differentiate between vehicles in terms of collision safety and began publishing test results in 2018.

Most overseas car brands got positive results on the C-IASI test, but even those that did poorly didn’t get the online response that was against the Passat.

In the C-IASI test, 25% of the front of the vehicle is exposed to a frontal impact. It broke the Passat’s front roof support on the driver’s side, known as the A-pillar.

The standard C-NCAP test hits 40% of the front of the vehicle, which means that the impact is better absorbed.

CIRI and CATARC did not respond to requests for comment.

In the United States, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a nonprofit group funded by auto insurers, is running a 25 percent frontal impact test. IIHS tests are widely used and automakers design vehicles to pass them as well as federal crash tests.

Volkswagen’s China boss Stephan Wollenstein admitted in January that the failed crash test and the subsequent online backlash had triggered the decline in sales of Passat and SAIC Ventures.

However, last month he said Volkswagen had fixed the issues uncovered by the test, the episode’s glitches had subsided, and the automaker’s Chinese business was recovering.

“In this segment we have once again clearly one of the safest cars on the market,” Wollenstein told journalists in July. “We will resume the old management of the Passat.”

But there is still some catching up to do in the large family car segment.

A total of 47,480 Passats were sold in China in the first six months of this year, slightly behind the 91,110 Toyota Camrys (7203.T) and 89,157 Honda Accords (7267.T), according to LMC.

How much the Volkswagen model has recently fallen is shown by the figures from the same period in 2019, before the pandemic: 91,400 Passats were sold compared to 111,968 Accords and 85,396 Camrys.

($ 1 = 6.4610 Chinese yuan renminbi; $ 1 = EUR 0.8423)

Reporting by Yilei Sun and Tony Munroe; Additional reporting by Jan Schwartz and Christoph Steitz; Editing by Joe White and Pravin Char

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

source https://seedfinance.net/2021/08/08/wolfsburg-we-have-a-problem-how-volkswagen-stalled-in-china/

[scarlettrhettelizabethrichard]

Chapter 8. New Encounters, my GWTW fanfiction

Read all the chapters edited of The Robillard Boutique, my fanfiction of Gone With the Wind, what happened next ? , on my blog : https://alarecherchedutempsperdu.over-blog.com/tag/the%20robillard%20boutique/

********************** New York, March 21, 1875

The three French girls were enjoying the crisp ocean air on the promenade deck. In a few minutes, they would set foot on the New World. And that would be the beginning of the adventure. The trip had lasted eight days. It was Roger Dax who, at the request of his partner, had gone to the offices of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, the French Line, at 6 rue Auber in Paris, to reserve tickets for Blanche Augustine Bonsart Ratier and her daughters Marguerite and Georgette Ratier. The transatlantic crossing was made on the ship SS Amérique*, which had left the port of Le Havre on March 13, 1875. During the journey, the young woman had met an American passenger, a shipowner by profession, who explained the history of this ship, the first French transatlantic. When it was built in 1864, it was named "Impératrice Eugénie", after the wife of Emperor Napoleon III. At that time, it served Central America, from Saint-Nazaire to Vera Cruz. "Do you realize, my young lady? On this bridge traveled, before you, the Empress of Mexico, Charlotte of Belgium. » "In 1870, after the fall of the Empire, the ship was renamed "Atlantique". For the past thirty years, the number of emigrants like you has been increasing. And the shipping companies have "sniffed" the good business. So, all the ships were progressively transformed to increase their capacity in passengers and in speed. Our boat here was completely remodeled in 1873 to be lengthened to 396 feet. The paddle wheel was removed and replaced by a propeller, and a mast was added. It's true that it looks good! The name was changed again to "America". Even if I am a regular on transatlantic journeyses, I am still amazed by the speed records, eight days instead of three weeks twenty years ago! ». Flattered by the interest that the pretty young lady seemed to have in his story, Mr. Watts continued to tell the story of their ship. "She returned to service in January 1874, heading from Le Havre to New York. But it was a close call, because three months later, on the return trip to Le Havre, the ship had to face a great storm. Imagine the fear of the 83 passengers and 152 crew members*! Fortunately, everyone was transferred to small ships that came to help. But the "America" was abandoned. An English ship came to tow it from Plymouth and then it had to return, as best it could, to the port of Le Havre to be repaired. » Blanche breathed a great sigh of relief at the retrospective apprehension of having been confronted with such a catastrophe. The American gentleman added, very happy with this conclusion: "And we have the pleasure to be part of this first Le Havre - New York* crossing since its modernization! This christening deserves to be celebrated. What do you think? "Smiling, he got up to get hot drinks for the young mother and her two little girls. Blanche Augustine Bonsart was once again delighted that the owner of "La Mode Duncan" had bought them a first class ticket in "cabin passage" instead of "steerage class". What a luxury to have a personal cabin! Her mother Augustine had replied that it was quite normal. The rich American was going to deprive her of her only daughter, not to mention little Germain, who would remain under her grandmother's protection. So, at least she was reassured that the trip would go well. The cabins were located in the middle of the boat so that one was not disturbed by the vibrations of the engines. The small room was luxurious, equipped with sheets, water basin, storage space, etc... Blanche was aware that she was one of the privileged few. Everything had been thought of so that the rich passengers would be comfortable. Even the door, with its slatted shutters, allowed for ventilation. The first class had one main living room where one could eat and chat with the other passengers. The room where these wealthy people gathered had two bays separated by a balustrade, furnished with long tables, chairs and upholstered armchairs. There were even bells to call the steward*. "When I think that I ate last night with the captain of the ship! How I wish Germain had been there too. My little boy would have been wide-eyed at the Captain's presence. And Papa would have been proud as a peacock to receive such a character in our estaminet in Lille!" The pretty girl Blanche attracted the eyes of the gentlemen gathered there. But she did not belong to their world. She was in solidarity with the emigrants of the steerage. These were middle-class or working-class people who had to make do with a place in the steerage. The common dormitories were overcrowded, with bunk beds. There was often a struggle to cook in the small stove the food that had been distributed by the shipping company in small portions before departure: oatmeal, cookies, flour, rice, sugar, molasses and a little tea. The single women with children could not defend themselves sufficiently and could only manage to prepare a hot meal from time to time. Everyone ate, slept and talked in the same room. Blanche was pleased that the weather had not been too bad during the crossing, allowing the occupants of the steerage (or "tween deck"), installed above the hold, to get some fresh air on the deck. Continuing his conversation with the Frenchwoman, the friendly shipowner recalled his experience as a passenger on the British ship "Oceanic" leaving from Liverpool. In 1870, this ship had at least 143 crew members, 166 privileged passengers in first class and, above all, a thousand people crammed into the "steerage". Fortunately, the legislation concerning the transatlantic crossing of emigrants had improved since the laws of 1840 and 1850. Before these more protective rules, the consequences of the crossing for the poor migrants could be dramatic, as the hygiene conditions were deplorable and epidemics were frequent. But they all left the Old Continent with hope in their hearts. They had fled famine, misery, religious discrimination and revolutions. So what did this painful journey matter? At the arrival, the hope of a new life in this mythical America was waiting for them. A small, frail hand tugged at the sleeve of her cape. "Maman, when are we arriving?" Blanche looked lovingly at Marguerite, "Soon, my dear. "Reassured, the child hugged her, and her twin sister followed suit. They were dressed warmly: their grandmother Augustine had knitted them large vests and bonnets of the same color. With the money from Roger Dax, her boss, Blanche had bought warm, durable coats for herself and her two daughters from the tailor on Boulevard de la Liberté in Lille. Since the day she received Duncan Vayton's telegram, the young woman had felt as if she were being swept away in a whirlwind. The faces of those she was leaving behind in France appeared to her as a regret: her parents, her brother Georges and especially her eldest child, Germain. Victor Ratier, her husband, had been dead for nearly five years. As for her own heart, it had been buried for a long time in a small village in the North of France, in Erny Saint-Julien. Like hundreds of passengers on deck, Blanche could see the American coastline getting closer and closer. In a few minutes, she would disembark, like all emigrants, at the Emigration Center in Castle Garden**, Manhattan. Her suitcase was ready. Mr. Vayton had insisted that she only pack a few clothes. It was complicated enough to travel with two little girls as young as five. When they arrived in Charleston, she could buy what she and her twins needed, at her boss's expense. Finally, it was time to disembark! With Marguerite and Georgette pressed up against her, Blanche followed the crowd of emigrants, sharing the feeling of being thrown into the unknown. "Maman! Is this America? " Georgette pouted in disappointment as she looked at the austere-looking, circular-shaped fort, which looked menacing. "Don't worry, my little ones. Soon we'll arrive at a nice house. But we have to be good in the meantime. » First, it was necessary to pass the customs formalities. The Captain of the "America" had previously established the list of passengers destined for American customs**. Here again, Blanche Bonsart had an exceptional privilege: in order to prevent her employee from being drowned among the hundreds of asylum seekers gathered in the large amphitheater, the powerful Charleston industrialist had asked his agent to come and greet her upon arrival, carrying a sign so that she would recognize him. As expected, he was there! Blanche breathed a sigh of relief. Duncan Vayton's man of trust guided her into a private office of U.S. Customs. All the documents were ready, including the employment contract with Vayton & Son Limited, her place of residence and, of course, the name of her contact in Charleston. Soon, the little Bonsart Ratier family was officially declared an emigrant of the United States of America. Duncan's employee made sure they had something to eat. He was now in charge of accompanying them to Charleston by train. A little more patience and Blanche Augustine Bonsart would arrive in Charleston! *****************

Charleston, March 21, 1875

The clock was ticking now. Duncan had set his priorities for the day: select the building that would be the headquarters and workshop for "La Mode Duncan," arrange for accommodations for his French employee and her children who would be arriving, and then entertain himself with Rebecca. In reviewing the Vayton & Son Ltd. property list, Duncan noted that there were three buildings in Charleston that had been renovated by his company that would fit his needs. The first house was quickly eliminated. It was a classic Charlestonian single house, but the showrooms would have been too small. The second visit was also disappointing: the colonial-style house was suited to the prestige of "La Mode Duncan" with its high ceilings and large windows. On the other hand, the state rooms would be too close to the sewing room, so the noise of the sewing machines would be disturbing. Tomorrow, his notary will put these buildings up for sale. His last possibility was on the south side of the Battery, near the Magniolas' Mansion! "What a beauty! "Duncan exclaimed as he admired the white building. This venerable antebellum palace was Italianate. It was primarily its asymmetrical "L" shape that set it apart from the others, with its front gable and a two-story, molded-vaulted loggia occupying three-quarters of the facade at the broken-angle end. Instantly, the designer of "La Mode Duncan" had the vision of his models walking around the piazza that encircled three quarters of the building, under the gaze of the invited clients admiring the show from both sides through the French doors in the impressive showroom. What a great show this will be! Because Duncan had already made up his mind, even before he entered the house: Duncan's Fashion USA had its permanent home at 26 South Battery. He passed through the door with sanded windows. An impressive spiral staircase faced him. The vast showrooms, with arches around the windows and room entrances, the waxed parquet floor bringing an authentic warmth to the place, the ceiling moldings reminiscent of Italian architectural motifs, all this ensemble would perfectly embody the luxury and elegance of the "La Mode Duncan" label. An octagonal skylight decorated with stained glass overhung the top of the stairs. Upstairs, smaller, well-lit rooms would be perfect for use as fitting rooms. Other narrower rooms would be used to store accessories and the most beautiful models visible to the privileged clients. His office was already chosen next door. The key architectural element in Duncan's choice of building was the famous "L" shape, which had a building alongside it that would allow the sewing room to operate in large spaces without the noise of the machines interfering with visitors to the showroom. An outbuilding had been added as a continuation. Duncan was pleased to see that these rooms had clearly been converted into separate living quarters. A kitchen, a bathroom, a dining room, and three bedrooms upstairs were perfect. Duncan would ask one of his Magniolas' Mansion housekeepers to freshen up the place. The butler would go in today to stock the little house with food, cleaning supplies and linens. When Blanche and the twins arrive, their beds will be ready!

Satisfied, Duncan headed back to the Magniolas' Mansion. He still had to select from a catalog the latest model of Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine Company, which would be shipped from Bridgeport, Connecticut. As for raw materials, and before the Duncan & Harvey mill was operational, the best fabrics from a northern mill would do. He would make the trip this week. He had already placed an order with his partner in France to send him the finest lace, embroidery, silk and organdy. ******************

The young man sighed with satisfaction. Everything was going as he had imagined. Tonight he could finally relax. He walked to a residential street near the Battery. The Widow Mansfield's house was well kept. No sooner had he signaled his presence with the door knocker than a smiling young woman greeted him. Rebecca, her brother John and Duncan had been childhood friends. They spent all their free time at each other's family homes. They were from the same social background, and the plantations of both families were close. As they grew up, the clan was still very close. It was a race to see who could do the most mischief between the two boys of the same age. Rebecca, two years younger than they were, followed them faithfully and shared their games. Later, John and Duncan went to school together. Then time separated them. A fortnight ago, Duncan stumbled across John Paxton on the street. The two old friends hugged loudly, happy to be reunited after all this time. Over a drink, sitting in a tavern, the two men recalled the years they had spent without seeing each other. John had become a shipowner, owning cargo vessels docked at the Battery's port. "Always wanting to be on the high seas! "Duncan commented, tapping his friend on the back of his shoulder. "I could say the same about you, the Parisian! ». John laughed. He was always cheerful. That was one of the qualities Duncan loved about him, a great optimist. Naturally, Duncan asked about his former childhood friend, Rebecca. "My dear sister is well. Should I even confess? She's fine! She is a widow, mind you! » Duncan looked surprised and was about to offer his condolences. But John Paxton stopped him with a wave of his hand. "Frankly, there's nothing to be sorry about. I'm not sad that he died of a heart attack. It was probably a fit of nastiness that took him! "John added wryly. Noting Duncan's raised eyebrows, the young man said, "He put my sister through hell. Jealousy, greed, and violence. In short, he had all the faults. It made my heart ache to see how unhappy Rebecca was under him. When he died four years ago, no one mourned him. Especially not his wife! » So Rebecca was free now... Duncan stared at his friend, smiling. They knew each other so well. I'd love to see her again. Did she go back to live with your parents? » "No, she kept her late husband's house. Let it at least serve her for something. » Duncan laughed under his breath. Good John, generous to everyone, had made an exception for his brother-in-law. "I was just about to go see her. Do you want to go with me? » And that's how he had found Rebecca. With the same pleasure as when they were teenagers. In fact, more pleasure because Rebecca was even more attractive than he remembered. The clan of the three had reformed. Then Duncan twice invited Rebecca to the restaurant and the theater. Their exchanges were full of gaiety and connivance. On the evening of March 21, 1875, his childhood friend invited him home for dinner. The young woman jumped on Duncan's neck in a natural way, recapturing the closeness of their teenage years. After a light meal, they enjoyed coffee in the living room. Duncan simply poured himself a glass of whiskey. "How good we are together! Don't you think so? " Rebecca relaxed in a shepherdess, and looked at her childhood friend with laughing eyes. "Sure, you know you're even prettier than you were at fifteen? "Duncan's blue eyes played with his young friend's gray ones. She made a small modest moue. The widow knew she was pretty and had never lacked for admirers. She had only made one mistake in her life, marrying Henry Mansfield. He was rich, of course, and she had inherited a substantial sum from him. Since his death, she felt like she could breathe again. She was enjoying life. And the admiring glances of the men in her world. After having been so constrained by a tyrannical husband, and recluse without being able to visit her friends, Rebecca had decided to enjoy her widow status as a free woman. Oh, very elegantly and discreetly, of course! Her birth and education as a lady of Charleston's good society did not allow her to display too much misbehavior. But one also knew how to be discreet in her world. She had had two affairs in the last four years. "In fact, nothing very captivating! " thought internally the young woman. "A stunt to pass the time. » But it would be different with Duncan Vayton if.... "Duncan, you know, I've never forgotten the afternoons we spent by the lake. How carefree the three of us were. Do you remember that? "She looked wistfully at her guest. Duncan felt like he was floating. The whiskey, of course, was working. But not only that. With Rebecca, golden years flashed before his eyes. And early teenage emotions... "Becca, I haven't forgotten anything. "He used the nickname from their childhood. "Especially not a certain stormy day when you and I had to take shelter in the lean-to by the riverbank. "Duncan's voice became more and more caressing. The blond curls of Rebecca had released from its bun. One of her had rested on her breast. With amusement, he compared it with the small breasts which he had caressed that day, under the rain. They had exchanged a real kiss for the first time. There had been many others before, behind a bush, in a corridor, but all that remained quite childish, like a slightly more demonstrative embrace. But, the fury of the storm had brutally stimulated their nascent envy. The caresses had become lascivious. Who knows what would have happened if John had not come to join them at that moment? Rebecca's cheeks reddened at this mention. Not because of embarrassment, but because she remembered her emotion, as if it was yesterday. An emotion which has just reappeared, even more violent. "How handsome he is! " thought she. Even as a child, she admired him. She adored him. Duncan, with his blonde hair, was her sunshine. As she grew up, she didn't even mind the other male friends who wanted to play with her. There was only Duncan. Then there was that first unsettling kiss in the lean-to. And then there were many more which followed. John was not fooled and had well understood the maneuver of his two companions. My goodness! He could see himself becoming Duncan Vayton's brother-in-law. And then the visits between the two teenagers became more and more frequent, as they were received by one family or another. So much so that the Vaytons and Paxtons began to dream.... It would be a beautiful alliance, that was certain. When Duncan and John went off to boarding school to study, it was a heartbreaker for Rebecca. As soon as the vacations rolled around, the sun came back out with Duncan's blond hair. The caresses between the two youngs became more precise and insistent. With a glass in his hand, sitting in the widow Mansfield's living room, Duncan mused as he moistened his lips, "I'd like to compare your little breasts from before with those of today..." It was at that precise moment that their eyes met. Duncan stood up, and without a word, walked up to his hostess, brushing against her. Rebecca shivered. "How is it possible to feel the same attraction as sixteen years ago? As if we had left each other yesterday? "She hadn't realized she'd spoken aloud. Duncan's azure eyes grew deeper. "Becca, you're more gorgeousl as ever. When I thought of Charleston, back in Paris, I saw your beautiful gray eyes again. "With one hand, he wrapped his arms around her shoulder. With the other, he lifted her chin and kissed her gently. With ardor, Rebecca answered his kiss. She had the impression to live a dream. After some languid embracing, Duncan stopped and bowed his head. "What is it? "the young woman asked. Her lifelong friend looked her squarely in the eye: "I have never lied to you, you know that. When we were young, I felt an immense tenderness for you. But I left because I didn't want to get married. I was too young. I even confessed to you that I didn't imagine one day committing myself. » "I know, I remember," Rebecca had lowered her head before Duncan caught her expression of sadness. "Unfortunately, I haven't changed my mind on that. I can even tell you that I will never marry. I am too used to my independence. And yet, you know that, as before, I am attracted to you. But you deserve the truth. I care about you too much. » Then, Rebecca looked him in the eyes. She clasped her hands around his neck and kissed him fiercely. When they caught their breath, she confidently stated: "My darling, I too love my freedom. I have been deprived of it too much. No more marital constraints, that's fine with me. We get along so well, Duncan. And... I betrayed myself earlier by speaking out loud. So you know how I feel. Why don't we both take advantage of our physical attraction and our immense closeness to enjoy life? No one would need to know. What do you think? "Her voice had softened a bit, for fear that Duncan wouldn't believe her detachment. In response, Duncan lifted her in his arms and laid her back on the couch. The friend-lovers had just rekindled the flame of adolescence. ****************

In the morning, after a cheerful breakfast, Duncan Vayton kissed Rebecca tenderly and left the Mansfield’s house. He had many things to do, including contacting his business agent in Charleston to let him know that Vayton's fashion house was hiring, and that they were looking for serious, experienced, motivated workers. It was only in the evening that James drove Duncan to the train station to greet the French woman and her two children. When he appeared on the platform, two little girls rushed towards him. "Tonton Duncan, Tonton Duncan! "(uncle), and they took turns kissing him. Blanche looked at them with a tender look. A great breath of happiness came over her. Then Duncan stood up and kissed the young woman on both cheeks. "At last, Blanche, you're here! I've been waiting for you because we have work to do! And I need my best seamstress to take over the sewing room. Welcome to America, Miss Blanche! » Duncan gave her his best smile. He was sure now that "La Mode Duncan" was well on its way, with the help of his loyal assistant.

***************** Notes on chapter 8 :

The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique was created in 1855 by the brothers Emile and Isaac Péreire. Transatlantic ship: first called Empress Eugenie PSS (1865~1871) America SS (until 1895) Built by the Chantier de l'Atlantique de Penhoët in Saint Nazaire. Inaugurated on April 23, 1864. Originally, she was 105.63 meters long, 13.41 meters wide, with a tonnage of 3,200 tons. Iron hull, two masts, with a speed of 12 knots. On February 16, 1865, it made its first crossing from Saint-Nazaire to Vera Cruz. In 1873, it was extended to 121.91 meters, with a tonnage of 4,585 tons. The first voyage from Le Havre to New York was resumed on 13 March 1875. No luck! In December 1875, she broke her propeller shaft while leaving, and had to be towed again to Ireland. In 1876, it was equipped with a lighthouse and electric light on the outside. She ran aground again on January 7, 1877 at Seabright, New Jersey, and was refloated on April 10. She resumed her transatlantic crossing on August 11, 1877. On May 1, 1886, she made her last trip from Le Havre to New York, and then moved on to the Le Havre - Panama route. In 1888, electric light was installed inside the ship. Finally, on January 28, 1895, it ran aground in Savanilla to be transformed into a wreck. Sources: Noel Reginald Pixell, wrecksite. Castle Garden, New York: the first emigration center, originally a military fort. This reception center was created in 1855 in order to prevent unscrupulous employees or swindlers from accosting emigrants upon their arrival in this unknown country in order to offer them lodging, shelter, and, ultimately, to swindle them. Custom passenger list.

Author : Arlette Dambron

**********

Disclaimers : I do not own the story and characters of Gone with the Wind, which belong to Margaret Mitchell. I have created the "world" of Duncan Vayton and Blanche Bonsart.

#fanfiction, #GWTW fanfiction, #GWTW fantic, #Gone with the Wind fanfiction, #end of Gone with the Wind, #migrants, #migration USA, #migration from Europe, #French roots, #french ancestors, #transatlantic trips, #transatlantic boats, #Castle Garden, #Charleston, #Battery house, #steerage class, #french boats

[wineanddinosaur]

We Asked 12 Wine Pros: What’s the Best Wine Key?

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a sommelier’s wine service, you’ve witnessed the choreographed dance of opening a bottle under pressure — potentially in more ways than one. While the choice of wine key might seem like an inconsequential detail, the tool itself can make the difference between elegant dining experience or disaster.

To help those of us at home streamline our drinking accessories, VinePair reached out to wine industry pros across the country — who have, collectively, opened thousands of bottles — to recommend the best gadget for the job. Below, sommeliers from Santa Monica to Indianapolis share their tried-and-true wine key picks.

The Best Wine Openers Recommended by Wine Pros:

Pocket by Coutale Sommelier

Wood-Handled, Double-Hinged Le Creuset

The Durand

Pulltap’s Double-Hinged Corkscrew

CB2 Brushed Gold Bottle Opener

Sommelier by Coutale

Winebow Imports Double-Hinged

Vintage Image SS Waiter’s Friend

Keep reading for details about all the recommended openers!

“My go-to wine opener is always the Pocket by Coutale Sommelier. It’s an extension of my hand at this point! The knife stays sharp the longest, the screw is the perfect width and goes into cork smoothly, and the double-hinge is sturdy but flexible at the same time. It’s perfectly compact to fit in any pocket of my work wardrobe.” —Chloe Miranda, Sommelier, Birdie G’s, Santa Monica, Calif. (Donate: Independent Restaurant Coalition)

“My favorite wine key is a wood-handled, double-hinged Le Creuset. It was a wedding gift, and after five years and more cork pulls that I would care to count, it still works like the day it came out of the box.” —Carlos Baz, General Manager and Beverage Director, Goosefeather, Tarrytown, N.Y.

“Everyone knows the somm’s standard is the ‘double-hinged’ corkscrew for its simplicity and durability, but for collectors with older bottles (or just home enthusiasts who have left a Cab in the bottom rack in the basement for several years), the Durand screw is worth its weight in brass. It contains the two-pronged cork extractor commonly used for older corks, but together with a traditional corkscrew in one elegant, simple piece, so you can use both at once for maximum confidence in extraction with no cork crumble.” —Adam Berlin, Owner, Buena Vida Tapas & Sol, Atlanta

“Through the years of working as a bartender and trying many brands, I tend to opt for Pulltap’s double-hinged corkscrew. There are certainly fancier wood-handled, shinier options available, but for me, Pulltap’s has always been reliable, sturdy, and affordable. I usually need to replace my wine key twice per year.” —Arielle Natale, Bar Manager, Elaia Estiatorio, Bridgehampton, N.Y.

“After 30 years in the business, my go-to wine tool is the Coutale Sommelier Pocket series. I’ve owned tools approaching $200, and this one (which only costs about $25) works just as well. It features a double clutch that doesn’t dig into the cork too deeply, a svelte worm, and, most importantly, a blade with micro serrations that cut evenly — even through those dreaded German foils. It’s very stylish, and comes in nice brown or black wood or stainless. I open hundreds of bottles a year, and the one I currently have has been a trusty companion for about three years now.” —Gary Mullis, Assistant General Manager, Foxcroft Wine Co. Waverly, Charlotte, N.C.

“My favorite wine opener is The Durand, available through the Rare Wine Co. It’s designed with older bottles in mind, gently removing the cork from its sides and center at the same time. For old corks that are disintegrating, it’s pretty foolproof. I use it anytime I have a cork that is fragile or suspect — usually bottles 10 years or older. The last thing I opened with it was a 1994 Cornas from Auguste Clappe. I started buying wine when I was 25, when access to wine was very different, and now find myself drinking a lot of older bottles. I think it’s important to taste wines that have aged — you get insight into what might happen with the wines that you’re producing right now.” —Jay Boberg, Co-founder, Nicolas-Jay, Willamette Valley, Ore.

“At Infinite Monkey, we operate with no vineyard and no pretense, making this no-fuss solution from CB2 [brushed gold bottle opener] our go-to behind the bar and at home. It’s ideal for our taproom since it opens cans as well as bottles. I always have one stashed in my pocket for easy access.” —Quinn Woodhouse, Lead Bartender, The Infinite Monkey Theorem Urban Winery, Denver  (Donate: Women’s Wine Guild of Colorado)

“My absolute favorite is the Coutale ‘Sommelier’ Wine Key because it has a double-hinge and the all-important flat knife. It cuts foils really cleanly and gets the cork out in one easy gesture.” —Marianna Caldwell, Assistant General Manager and Sommelier, Cassia, Santa Monica, Calif. (Donate: The United Sommeliers Foundation)

“I gravitate towards any wine opener that has a double-hinge and a decent blade. The double-hinged wine opener helps prevent the cork from breaking or tearing by providing better leverage at two points rather than one. Having a decent blade on your wine key ensures that you can cut the foil off of the bottle in two quick cuts. A functional tool overall is all that is needed for efficient and proper wine service. The one we use in the restaurant is from Winebow Imports. The knife is wonderful with the foil, and it’s an easy cork grabber. The only other tool that can be potentially helpful for me when opening older bottles is an Ah-So cork puller, which is essentially a tong for the cork. This tool can be useful when a cork is particularly crumbly or old.” —Julie Masciangelo, Sommelier and General Manager, Il Posto, Denver (Donate: Il Posto Emergency Relief Fund)

“The Durand: It’s indispensable for old bottles. If you enjoy wines with age on them, you know the unique pain of old corks. It’s a particular kind of fear that only increases as a table of guests or friends watch as you struggle to save an old wine from itself. Regardless of provenance, old corks can be difficult (sometimes impossible) to pull out cleanly, often crumbling and leaving residue in the wine. As someone who opens a great many bottles each year, I rely heavily on the Durand and wouldn’t dream of attending dinners without it.” —Walker Strangis, Founder, Walker Wine Co., Los Angeles

“The best wine opener is NOT a monogramed, matte-finished, bubinga-handled, powder-rose, pearl-inlaid masterwork that sleeps in a whale bone and velvet case! It’s a black and stainless Pulltap’s double-hinged waiter’s corkscrew — because people always steal fancy looking ones, and the ugly functional ones never walk off! I trick mine out and grind off the serrated teeth of the foil blade. I hate the tiny particles of foil dust that those make.” —Josh Ratliff, Sommelier and Director of Culinary Arts, Newfields, Indianapolis

“Working wine pros need a tool that is efficient, sharp, and durable. No serious professional would ever be seen with a winged, electric, or air-pressure corkscrew, among others. A good corkscrew should be easily pocketable, particularly when working table-side in a restaurant. I’ve seen numerous expensive tools like Laguiole, the Durand, and others. But my favorites over the years have been the sleek stainless steel models officially known as ‘Vintage Image SS Waiter’s Friend’ from the Wine Appreciation Guild based in San Francisco. They are French-made, have a sharp micro-serrated blade for clean capsule cutting, and, most critically, do not wear out too quickly at the two most important lever points… It’s fast, it’s safe, and it lasts.” —Joseph Spellman, Master Sommelier, JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery, Landmark Vineyards, JNSQ Wines, Paso Robles, Calif.

The article We Asked 12 Wine Pros: What’s the Best Wine Key? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/we-asked-best-wine-opener/

[johnboothus]

We Asked 12 Wine Pros: Whats the Best Wine Key?

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a sommelier’s wine service, you’ve witnessed the choreographed dance of opening a bottle under pressure — potentially in more ways than one. While the choice of wine key might seem like an inconsequential detail, the tool itself can make the difference between elegant dining experience or disaster.

To help those of us at home streamline our drinking accessories, VinePair reached out to wine industry pros across the country — who have, collectively, opened thousands of bottles — to recommend the best gadget for the job. Below, sommeliers from Santa Monica to Indianapolis share their tried-and-true wine key picks.

The Best Wine Openers Recommended by Wine Pros:

Pocket by Coutale Sommelier

Wood-Handled, Double-Hinged Le Creuset

The Durand

Pulltap’s Double-Hinged Corkscrew

CB2 Brushed Gold Bottle Opener

Sommelier by Coutale

Winebow Imports Double-Hinged

Vintage Image SS Waiter’s Friend

Keep reading for details about all the recommended openers!

“My go-to wine opener is always the Pocket by Coutale Sommelier. It’s an extension of my hand at this point! The knife stays sharp the longest, the screw is the perfect width and goes into cork smoothly, and the double-hinge is sturdy but flexible at the same time. It’s perfectly compact to fit in any pocket of my work wardrobe.” —Chloe Miranda, Sommelier, Birdie G’s, Santa Monica, Calif. (Donate: Independent Restaurant Coalition)

“My favorite wine key is a wood-handled, double-hinged Le Creuset. It was a wedding gift, and after five years and more cork pulls that I would care to count, it still works like the day it came out of the box.” —Carlos Baz, General Manager and Beverage Director, Goosefeather, Tarrytown, N.Y.

“Everyone knows the somm’s standard is the ‘double-hinged’ corkscrew for its simplicity and durability, but for collectors with older bottles (or just home enthusiasts who have left a Cab in the bottom rack in the basement for several years), the Durand screw is worth its weight in brass. It contains the two-pronged cork extractor commonly used for older corks, but together with a traditional corkscrew in one elegant, simple piece, so you can use both at once for maximum confidence in extraction with no cork crumble.” —Adam Berlin, Owner, Buena Vida Tapas & Sol, Atlanta

“Through the years of working as a bartender and trying many brands, I tend to opt for Pulltap’s double-hinged corkscrew. There are certainly fancier wood-handled, shinier options available, but for me, Pulltap’s has always been reliable, sturdy, and affordable. I usually need to replace my wine key twice per year.” —Arielle Natale, Bar Manager, Elaia Estiatorio, Bridgehampton, N.Y.

“After 30 years in the business, my go-to wine tool is the Coutale Sommelier Pocket series. I’ve owned tools approaching $200, and this one (which only costs about $25) works just as well. It features a double clutch that doesn’t dig into the cork too deeply, a svelte worm, and, most importantly, a blade with micro serrations that cut evenly — even through those dreaded German foils. It’s very stylish, and comes in nice brown or black wood or stainless. I open hundreds of bottles a year, and the one I currently have has been a trusty companion for about three years now.” —Gary Mullis, Assistant General Manager, Foxcroft Wine Co. Waverly, Charlotte, N.C.

“My favorite wine opener is The Durand, available through the Rare Wine Co. It’s designed with older bottles in mind, gently removing the cork from its sides and center at the same time. For old corks that are disintegrating, it’s pretty foolproof. I use it anytime I have a cork that is fragile or suspect — usually bottles 10 years or older. The last thing I opened with it was a 1994 Cornas from Auguste Clappe. I started buying wine when I was 25, when access to wine was very different, and now find myself drinking a lot of older bottles. I think it’s important to taste wines that have aged — you get insight into what might happen with the wines that you’re producing right now.” —Jay Boberg, Co-founder, Nicolas-Jay, Willamette Valley, Ore.

“At Infinite Monkey, we operate with no vineyard and no pretense, making this no-fuss solution from CB2 [brushed gold bottle opener] our go-to behind the bar and at home. It’s ideal for our taproom since it opens cans as well as bottles. I always have one stashed in my pocket for easy access.” —Quinn Woodhouse, Lead Bartender, The Infinite Monkey Theorem Urban Winery, Denver  (Donate: Women’s Wine Guild of Colorado)

“My absolute favorite is the Coutale ‘Sommelier’ Wine Key because it has a double-hinge and the all-important flat knife. It cuts foils really cleanly and gets the cork out in one easy gesture.” —Marianna Caldwell, Assistant General Manager and Sommelier, Cassia, Santa Monica, Calif. (Donate: The United Sommeliers Foundation)

“I gravitate towards any wine opener that has a double-hinge and a decent blade. The double-hinged wine opener helps prevent the cork from breaking or tearing by providing better leverage at two points rather than one. Having a decent blade on your wine key ensures that you can cut the foil off of the bottle in two quick cuts. A functional tool overall is all that is needed for efficient and proper wine service. The one we use in the restaurant is from Winebow Imports. The knife is wonderful with the foil, and it’s an easy cork grabber. The only other tool that can be potentially helpful for me when opening older bottles is an Ah-So cork puller, which is essentially a tong for the cork. This tool can be useful when a cork is particularly crumbly or old.” —Julie Masciangelo, Sommelier and General Manager, Il Posto, Denver (Donate: Il Posto Emergency Relief Fund)

“The Durand: It’s indispensable for old bottles. If you enjoy wines with age on them, you know the unique pain of old corks. It’s a particular kind of fear that only increases as a table of guests or friends watch as you struggle to save an old wine from itself. Regardless of provenance, old corks can be difficult (sometimes impossible) to pull out cleanly, often crumbling and leaving residue in the wine. As someone who opens a great many bottles each year, I rely heavily on the Durand and wouldn’t dream of attending dinners without it.” —Walker Strangis, Founder, Walker Wine Co., Los Angeles

“The best wine opener is NOT a monogramed, matte-finished, bubinga-handled, powder-rose, pearl-inlaid masterwork that sleeps in a whale bone and velvet case! It’s a black and stainless Pulltap’s double-hinged waiter’s corkscrew — because people always steal fancy looking ones, and the ugly functional ones never walk off! I trick mine out and grind off the serrated teeth of the foil blade. I hate the tiny particles of foil dust that those make.” —Josh Ratliff, Sommelier and Director of Culinary Arts, Newfields, Indianapolis

“Working wine pros need a tool that is efficient, sharp, and durable. No serious professional would ever be seen with a winged, electric, or air-pressure corkscrew, among others. A good corkscrew should be easily pocketable, particularly when working table-side in a restaurant. I’ve seen numerous expensive tools like Laguiole, the Durand, and others. But my favorites over the years have been the sleek stainless steel models officially known as ‘Vintage Image SS Waiter’s Friend’ from the Wine Appreciation Guild based in San Francisco. They are French-made, have a sharp micro-serrated blade for clean capsule cutting, and, most critically, do not wear out too quickly at the two most important lever points… It’s fast, it’s safe, and it lasts.” —Joseph Spellman, Master Sommelier, JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery, Landmark Vineyards, JNSQ Wines, Paso Robles, Calif.

The article We Asked 12 Wine Pros: What’s the Best Wine Key? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/we-asked-best-wine-opener/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/we-asked-12-wine-pros-whats-the-best-wine-key

[myhauntedsalem]

The Titanic and the Paranormal

There are many supposedly haunted places in this world, and most of us may think that these spectral forces gravitate towards dilapidated old houses or scary forests in the middle of nowhere. We have this image of what haunted should be, and most often it all comes down to a place or thing with a tragic history and death orbiting it, through whatever means producing these alleged haunted phenomena. The seas also have plenty of this, and there is perhaps no greater tragedy on the ocean than the deadly sinking of the now infamous Titanic. Here thousands of people died a horrible death, and it should go without saying that this doomed vessel has generated its fair share of strange phenomena over the decades.

When the RMS Titanic set out on its maiden voyage it was considered to be a grand wonder of engineering and the pinnacle of passenger liners, unparalleled in opulent luxury and comfort for its time. A British ship operated by White Star Lines and designed by the architect Thomas Andrews, the RMS Titanic was the largest ship on the seas at the time, just about the largest ship ever, and had the most cutting edge technology and facilities ever seen on a passenger liner. The colossal ship was fitted with all manner of bells and whistles, including fancy radio transmitter equipment, and it was actually one of the fist ships ever to start using the new SOS distress signal, which would replace the signal CQD (come quick, danger). The imposing ship featured revolutionary safety features for its time, including an ingenious system of interlocking compartments and remotely operated watertight doors, among others, and when it inexorably set out from Southampton to New York City on its very first voyage the Titanic was widely touted as being wholly unstoppable and “unsinkable.”

When this behemoth of a ship departed on April 10, 1912, under the command of a Captain Edward Smith, it was to much joyous fanfare and publicity. The Titanic departed with over 2,200 passengers, many of them some of the wealthiest people in the world, and others were emigrants from all over Europe eager to go off to start a new life in the faraway, promised land of the United States. It was a truly historic event, demanding attention, and at the time no one would have thought anything of the fact that despite its advanced safety features it was woefully short of lifeboats, with only enough to carry around 1,178 people under ideal conditions. After all, the lifeboats were just a formality, right? Surely nothing could ever sink the mighty Titanic. Or so they thought, and the rest is history.

On April 14, 1912, the Titanic was making its way through the Atlantic at high speed around 375 miles from the coast of Newfoundland in the early hours of morning when it struck an iceberg that promptly robbed the ship of its popular title of “unsinkable.” Many of the watertight compartments that had been hailed as groundbreaking technology immediately were smashed wide open, and the crippled giant began to sink at a steady rate. In the ensuing panic and chaos, the problem of the lifeboat shortage became painfully apparent, and many of these had the added problem that they were difficult and time consuming to launch. Indeed, many of the scant lifeboats went out into the frigid seas only partially loaded, leaving others to their impending doom. Eventually the gargantuan ship broke apart and plunged down below the waves with an estimated approximately 1,500 people still aboard.

When the another ship called the RMS Carpathia came to the ship’s aid, it was able to rescue around 700 of the survivors, with the rest disappearing down into a watery grave to rest at the bottom down in nearly 13,000 feet of water, where the ship remains to this day. Indeed, for decades the exact location of the wreck remained a mystery in and of itself, with it not being discovered until 1985. The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the worst, most tragic maritime disasters in history, and at the time it shocked the world. Since that fateful morning, the Titanic has gone on to become one of the most famous ships to ever ride the seas, and has been the subject of countless films, books, and documentaries. It is by far one of the most well-known wrecks in the world, and it is perhaps no surprise that it has drawn its fair share of tales of the paranormal as well.

Weirdness seems to have hovered around the vessel even before it was even launched. According to an April 12, 2012 Associated Press article, in 1898 the American author Morgan Robertson wrote a novella called Futility, which features in its first half a ship called the Titan, and which besides the similarity of the names of the vessels displays a wide variety of spooky, seemingly prophetic details and uncanny parallels between the fictional Titan and the real Titanic. For instance, both were nearly the same size and could go the same maximum speed of over 20 knots, and both of the ships were deemed unsinkable and were subsequently sunk by hitting icebergs, in mid-April no less. In addition, both lacked enough lifeboats to save all of the passengers, and even the novella’s opening sounds as if it could easily be talking about the Titanic, saying:

She was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men. In her construction and maintenance were involved every science, profession, and trade known to civilization.

When Futility was first released, it was met with a resounding lack of interest, due to the fact that it is actually not seen as being very good, and Robertson was mostly considered a bit of a hack. The book itself mostly devolved into an improbable tale of survival for the alcoholic protagonist, with Titanic historian Paul Heyer saying of Robertson and his work, “He’s not exactly a great literary stylist. Moralistic tone, implausible situations, poor character development. The only saving grace of the novella is intriguing information about the ship and her fate.” Indeed, it was not until after the historic disaster that the book got any sort of fame or recognition at all. Considering all of these eerie details in a book written years before the real Titanic set sail, in the wake of the disaster it did not go unnoticed, and Robertson was widely hailed as having prophesied the sinking of the ship with some sort of precognitive abilities. This has been explained away by skeptics as being pure coincidence, as Robertson was an avid writer on ships and the sea and Heyer has said of this:

He was someone who wrote about maritime affairs. He was an experienced seaman, and he saw ships as getting very large and the possible danger that one of these behemoths would hit an iceberg.

Whether Robertson was really psychic or not is unknown, but what is known is that this is just the beginning of the weirdness surrounding the Titanic. Considering the sheer loss of life and the traumatic circumstances of the disaster, along with the fact that hundreds of these bodies were never recovered and remained lost at sea, it is perhaps no surprise at all that the very wreck of the Titanic is said to be haunted. There have been numerous reports of ships passing the area of the Titanic’s resting place off Newfoundland seeing glowing or flickering orbs of light both above the water and darting about beneath the waves. This phenomenon is reportedly often accompanied by inexplicable radio interference, and even submarines passing the area of the wreck have apparently had such interference, as well as phantom SOS signals that seem to come from nowhere.

One ship that was passing the site of the wreck even had a sighting of a ghostly apparition said to be a victim of the RMS Titanic. In 1977, the liner SS Winterhaven was passing through and on this evening Second Office Leonard Bishop was showing a passenger around the ship who seemed to be absolutely obsessed with every detail of the vessel. As the tour went on, Bishop noticed that besides this intense interest in his ship there was something off about the quiet, soft-spoken man he was guiding around, but he wasn’t sure what at the time. After the tour, he did not remember seeing the man again, but the strange aura of something not quite right made him memorable, and Bishop would not forget the mysterious stranger’s face. It would not be until years later when Bishop by chance saw a picture and claimed to know the man in it, much to the shock of the person who had showed it to him. It turned out that unbeknownst to Bishop the picture was of Captain Edward John Smith, the captain of the Titanic, who would have been long dead during their tour.

The ghost of Titanic captain Edward Smith actually seems to get around, as he has been reportedly seen from time to time on other vessels passing the area of wreck as well, and he is even said to haunt his childhood home in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire, England. The previous house owners, Neil and Louise Bonner, rented the house out for over a decade, and they say that there had been numerous reports from tenants over the years of paranormal activity at the house. Banging, whispers, and other anomalous noises were common, as well as roving colds spots, inexplicable floods in the kitchen, and most shocking of all a full-bodied spectral apparition of Smith himself seen in the bedroom.

In addition to the hauntings of the wreck site and the home of the Titanic’s captain are the numerous hauntings that seem to revolve around artifacts and relics from the wreck, and museum collections with such items tend to be magnets for inexplicable ghostly activity. One of the more active of these is the “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition,” at The Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, which houses a large array of over 300 items from the sunken ship and is ground zero for a whole plethora of unexplained phenomena. Visitors and staff alike supposedly frequently report strong feelings of being watched or followed, as well as disembodied voices or footsteps, or being poked, prodded, or pushed by unseen hands, in addition to sightings of shadowy apparitions lurking in the halls and corridors. The attraction’s artifact expert Joe Zimmer seems to be particularly tormented by these wayward spirits, claiming that he constantly experiences having his hair or clothes yanked on or his name whispered when no one is there, and he says he has even heard phantom music playing.

One of the more well-known of the apparitions of the Luxor exhibit is apparently the ghost of Frederick Fleet, who was the lookout on the RMS Titanic who had spotted the iceberg that sank the ship and had warned the crew. Although Fleet was one of the survivors of the tragedy, he would forever have feelings of guilt afterwards, and this plus the death of his wife in 1964 drove him to commit suicide by hanging himself at his home in England. Fleet’s spirit has been reported as haunting the Promenade Deck of the exhibition, although why this ghost should appear all the way over in Las Vegas remains unclear. There is also the apparition of a young woman in a black old-fashioned dress and with her hair in a bun who is regularly seen on the premises.

e strange incident with a ghost allegedly happened on the very opening day of the exhibition, when a photographer was getting ready for the event. He claims that as he was setting up he was surprised to see a woman in period clothes come walking down the grand staircase, which was odd because as far as he knew, no one else was supposed to be there and he had not seen anyone else arrive. Thinking that perhaps it was an extra dressed up in period clothing for the purpose of the grand opening he asked her if he could take her photo on the staircase, but she did not say a word, merely standing there in an apparent trance before vanishing into thin air.

Some of the strange incidents at the Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition have apparently been caught on film and audio as well. One example is a strange sequence of events concerning a photo of Bruce Ismay, who was the chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. One morning the staff opened the exhibition to find the photo inexplicably lying on the floor of the entryway and carefully propped against the wall, reportedly still pristine and undamaged. Baffled by how the photo could have possible gotten there during the night, surveillance footage was reviewed, which showed the photo appearing to shake on its own before being taken down and put against the wall as if by unseen hands. Paranormal investigators to the exhibit have captured orbs of light and shadowy images as well, and there have been several EVP recordings made of what appear to be the voices of Titanic victims.

Another collection of Titanic pieces that seems to be haunted is the Titanic Aquatic exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium, in the United States, which also has intense paranormal activity similar to what has been experienced at the Luxor exhibit, including ghost sightings, strange noises, period music from nowhere, and phantom hands grabbing, nudging, or pulling clothes or hair. Spookiest of all is a creepy ghostly old lady who is said to dwell within a replica of one of the Titanic’s cabins in the exhibit, and is not shy about suddenly appearing to startle visitors before blinking away again. Paranormal investigator’s and the Syfy Channel’s Ghost Hunters have examined the exhibit and found definite signs of paranormal activity, as well as made recordings of EVP phenomena at the site. As to why these ghosts should latch onto these relics from the Titanic, Dianna Avena, founder of Georgia Paranormal, has said:

It just makes sense that, especially with the Titanic exhibit, there would be residual paranormal energy. When you have a strong emotional imprint, there could be some energy attached.

Perhaps the strangest tale of a haunting related to the Titanic has to do not with any artifact from the doomed ship, but rather a replica of it. Retired architectural draftsman Wyatt Jason Moore, from Portsmouth, Virginia, managed to painstakingly build a 200 lb. model of the RMS Titanic over the course of 9 years and an estimated 17,368 hours of work, which was an ambitious project he became obsessed with after watching the 1958 film A Night to Remember. He began studying numerous old photographs of the Titanic, incorporating every detail he could into his grand vision, and he found himself spending hours and hours a day toiling away on his creation.

The end result was a lifelike replica of the famous ship, accurate right down to each individual stairway and hall. When his masterpiece was finished he decided to take some photos of it and that was when strange things began to happen. As he took his photos, he could hear anomalous noises coming from the massive model sitting in his home, and later mysterious entities began to appear in his shots. He would say of one of the startling images he took:

I couldn’t make it out until I looked at it very carefully and I found it was a bald headed man with a handle bar mustache, and I said to myself, what’s he doing there?

In addition to this creepy ghostly man were a spectral man and woman looking out of another porthole just above the lifeboats. At around the same time as these events, Moore says that doors around the house began to mysteriously slam shut or open even when no one else was there, but he says he is not scared of the entities, he just thinks they are lost souls, saying “Maybe it was someone that was aboard the Titanic that found a new home for himself.” Skeptics have been quick to point out that the photos are nothing more than a reflection and trick of light, but Moore insists that the portholes on his model don’t feature glass. Moore has tried to sell the haunted Titanic model on Craigslist, but found no takers, perhaps because of the exorbitant $263,000 asking price, but he hopes that a museum will take it at some point. They might as well, because it seems any museum with genuine paraphernalia from the actual Titanic is haunted anyway.

The fate of the RMS Titanic is one of the worst seagoing tragedies of all time, and it seems somewhat fitting that it too should have its own odd tales of ghosts and hauntings. It is an aspect of the tragedy that does not get much coverage but is nevertheless still out there, lurking in the shadows. Does the fateful sinking of this once glorious vessel and its rusted, decomposed remains infused with the paranormal just as any old haunted house would be? What is going on with these rumors and scary stories? These are perhaps mysteries that we will never really understand, confined to the dark just as the hulk of the Titanic lies sitting down in the murk beyond the light of day.

#The Titanic and the Paranormal #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

[dailynewswebsite]

Archaeologists determined the step-by-step path taken by the first people to settle the Caribbean islands

What route did the primary settlers to colonize the islands of the Caribbean take? M.M. Swee/Second by way of Getty Pictures

For the hundreds of thousands of individuals world wide who dwell on islands at this time, a aircraft or boat can simply sufficient carry them to the mainland or different islands.

However how did individuals within the historic previous first make it to distant islands they couldn’t even see from dwelling? Many islands world wide will be reached solely by touring a whole bunch and even hundreds of miles throughout open water, but practically all islands that folks dwell on had been settled by between 800 to 1,000 years in the past.

Archaeologists like us wish to perceive why individuals would danger their lives to succeed in these far-off locations, what sorts of boat and navigational strategies they used, and what different applied sciences they invented to make it. Islands are necessary locations to check as a result of they maintain clues about human endurance and survival in numerous sorts of environments.

One of the crucial attention-grabbing locations to check these processes is the Caribbean, the one area of the Americas the place individuals settled an archipelago with some islands not seen from surrounding areas. Regardless of greater than a century of analysis, there are nonetheless many questions on the origins of the primary Caribbean individuals, after they migrated and what routes they took. My colleagues and I not too long ago reanalyzed archaeological information collected over 60 years to reply these elementary questions.

Settling the islands one after the other

Based mostly on the invention of distinctive stone instruments and meals stays equivalent to shells and bones, archaeologists have a basic understanding that folks first unfold all through the Caribbean in a collection of migrations that in all probability started at the very least 7,000 years in the past and certain originated from northern South America.

Amerindians paddled between islands in dugout canoes and had been remarkably adept at open-water journey. Archaeologists don’t know what impressed individuals to first colonize the Caribbean islands, however we do know they introduced vegetation and animals from the mainland, like manioc and oppossum, to assist guarantee their survival.

There are two principal concepts about what occurred. For many years, the prevailing notion was that folks migrated from South America into the Antilles in a south-to-north “stepping-stone” sample. As a result of the islands stretch in a mild arc from Grenada all the best way as much as Cuba within the northwest – with many largely seen from one to the subsequent – this would appear to supply a handy path for early settlers.

This speculation, nevertheless, has been challenged by proof that a few of the earliest websites are within the northern islands. Analyses of wind and ocean currents recommend that it was really simpler to journey instantly between South America and the northern Caribbean earlier than shifting in a southerly course. Researchers name this proposal of a north-to-south migration the “southward route” speculation.

For many years, archaeologists have been excavating artifacts on these islands. Scott Fitzpatrick, CC BY-ND

Revisiting earlier scientists’ date information

Determining which mannequin for settling the Caribbean most closely fits the proof is determined by having the ability to assign correct dates to human exercise preserved within the archaeological report. To do that, researchers want loads of dependable dates from many alternative websites all through the islands to ascertain how, when and from the place individuals landed.

Archaeologists sometimes use a way referred to as radiocarbon relationship to determine how previous an artifact is. When an organism dies, it stops producing carbon and its remaining carbon decays at a hard and fast price of time – archaeologists say “dying begins the clock.” By measuring the quantity of carbon left within the organism after which performing a couple of further calculations, scientists are left with a possible age vary for when that organism died.

Archaeologists typically date issues like meals stays, charcoal from cooking hearths or wooden within the constructing the place they’re discovered. If archaeologists date shells present in a trash heap, they’ll inform, normally inside a variety of 25 to 50 years or so, when that shellfish was harvested for a meal.

We not too long ago reevaluated about 2,500 radiocarbon dates from a whole bunch of archaeological websites on greater than 50 Caribbean islands.

Archaeologists have been radiocarbon relationship findings within the Caribbean for the reason that 1950s – when the radiocarbon approach was first found. However relationship strategies and the requirements scientists observe have improved dramatically since then. A part of our job was to see if every of the two,500 radiocarbon dates out there would meet at this time’s requirements. Dates that didn’t meet these requirements had been thrown out, leaving us with a smaller database of solely essentially the most dependable occasions for human exercise.

Figuring out the place individuals lived first

By statistically analyzing these remaining dates, we confirmed that Trinidad was the primary Caribbean island settled by people, at the very least 7,000 years in the past. Nonetheless, Trinidad is so near South America that solely easy – and even no – boats had been wanted to get there.

After Trinidad, the oldest settlements occurred between 6,000 and 5,000 years in the past within the northern Caribbean on the massive islands of the Better Antilles: Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Reaching them would have required crossing passages of water the place no islands had been seen to the bare eye, though navigators depend on different wayfinding strategies – like present, cloud patterns, seeing birds fly in a sure course – to know if land is on the market. By round 2,500 years in the past, individuals had unfold out to settle different islands within the northern Lesser Antilles, together with Antigua and Barbuda.

1000’s of years after Trinidad, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola had been settled, colonists reached islands within the northern Antilles, bypassing islands within the southern Lesser Antilles, depicted with inexperienced SRH arrows for ‘southern route speculation.’ The stepping-stone mannequin, depicted with SS arrow, is refuted by the brand new evaluation. ‘Reevaluating human colonization of the Caribbean utilizing chronometric hygiene and Bayesian modeling,’ M. F. Napolitano et al, Science Advances, Dec. 18, 2019, CC BY-NC

Based mostly on these information, the patterns of preliminary settlement of the Caribbean are most in keeping with the southward route speculation.

Round 1,800 years in the past, a brand new wave of individuals additionally moved from South America into the Lesser Antilles, colonizing most of the remaining uninhabited islands. About 1,000 years later, their descendants moved into the smaller islands of the Better Antilles and Bahamian archipelago. That is when Jamaica and the Bahamas had been settled for the primary time.

Our analysis findings additionally assist the broadly held view that atmosphere performed a big function in how and when islands had been settled.

Archaeologists know that when individuals settled islands, they regularly moved between them. Not all islands are the identical, and a few supplied extra or higher sources than others. For instance, within the Bahamas and the Grenadines, the first solution to entry freshwater is by digging wells; there aren’t any streams or springs. Some islands lacked clay for making pottery, which was necessary for cooking and storing meals. Folks might have additionally traveled to completely different islands to entry most well-liked fishing or looking spots or search out marriage companions.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Sturdy seasonal winds and currents facilitated journey between islands. That’s additionally in all probability one of many the explanation why Caribbean individuals by no means developed the sail or different seafaring applied sciences that had been used within the Pacific, Mediterranean and North Atlantic across the identical time. Dugout canoes crossed between South America and the islands simply advantageous.

Interpretations of previous human conduct at archaeological websites are anchored by radiocarbon dates to check change over time. For archaeologists, it’s necessary to periodically take one other have a look at the information to guarantee that the narratives constructed on these information are dependable. Our evaluation of the radiocarbon report for the Caribbean allowed us to indicate – with elevated accuracy – the methods during which the area was first colonized by individuals, how they interacted and moved between islands, and the way their societies developed following preliminary colonization.

Matthew F Napolitano is a PhD Candidate on the College of Oregon.

Jessica Stone is an affiliated researcher with the Division of Anthropology on the College of Oregon.

Robert DiNapoli is a Postdoctoral Analysis Affiliate in Harpur Faculty at Binghamton College and an affiliated researcher with the Division of Anthropology on the College of Oregon.

Scott Fitzpatrick is a Professor of Archaeology and Affiliate Director of the Museum of Pure and Cultural Historical past on the College of Oregon.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/archaeologists-determined-the-step-by-step-path-taken-by-the-first-people-to-settle-the-caribbean-islands/ via https://growthnews.in

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Jobless claims fall but spike in energy sector claims signals problems

Contents

Claims signal tight labour market

National.servicers embrace digital

Mac chief economist sam khater

Signal higher production

Liquidation rates shrink

Prime jumbo residential

Jobless claims fall but spike in energy sector claims signals problems Trey Garrison was a Senior Financial Reporter for HousingWire.com. His body of works are his views and his views alone. Jobless Claims Spike As Government Shutdown Cripples Thousands Of Contractor Jobs.. about 15,000 jobless claims came from government contractors who were.

Initial Jobless Claims Jump Most In 8 Months As Energy Sector Layoffs Spike Back To 6-Month Highs.. (for the 10th time this year) that the worst was over in the US energy space, Challenger Grey reports a massive spike in Energy sector layoffs – to six-month highs.

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The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.15%, or 4.12 points, as of market close, with the energy. claims to come in at 225,000. Continuing jobless claims, however, were lighter-than-expected at 1.631 million.

NEW YORK(CNNMoney. bad news from the weekly jobless claims data, but now we’re starting to see a broad-based economic slump." Late in the trading session, the slide in stocks got steeper as.

Despite the big drop, the four-week average of jobless claims rose slightly to 368,000. Jobless claims figures have been especially volatile over the past month, with last week’s revised figure of.

The Labor Department said jobless claims fell 1,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 222,000 for the week ending June 2, beating the median forecast. The 4-week moving average gained to 225,500, an.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits has been less than estimated and near a four-decade low, indicating the job market remains tight. Below-forecast US jobless claims signal tight labour market | Fin24

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The raw claims data – the actual number of people who applied for benefits – appears to tell the story in New York state. Claims soared 79% to 33,159. By contrast, new claims rose by only.

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Initial jobless claims fell last week to a 48-year low. First-time filings for unemployment benefits totaled 210,000, the lowest level since December 1969, data from the Department of Labor showed.

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