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la9unas · 2 months

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is that ODESSA A’ZION ? oh, no, that’s JULIA “JULES” LEVENTHAL, a TWENTY-FOUR year old SCUBA / SNORKEL GUIDE & COMPETITIVE SURFER . . .

* ◟ : 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚃𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙲𝚂 ﹗

FULL NAME: julia simone leventhal rojas NICKNAMES / ALIAS: jules, juli, julita AGE: twenty four GENDER / PRONOUNS: demi woman / she/they SEXUALITY: pansexual ZODIAC: sag sun , libra moon BIRTHDATE & BIRTHPLACE: dec 5th 1999 & kennebunkport, maine, usa CURRENT RESIDENCE: still living with their mom, stepfather, & half-siblings in viña del mar EDUCATION: high school diploma ; divemaster certification SPOKEN LANGUAGES: english, spanish, some french & brazilian portuguese OCCUPATION: scuba / snorkel guide & aspiring competitive surfer

* ◟ : 𝙱𝙰𝙲𝙺𝚂𝚃𝙾𝚁𝚈 ﹗

jules doesn’t have many memories of the beginning of her life in a small coastal town in southern maine. raised by grandparents and a single mother the first nine years of her life, her mother—hannah—yearned to get out of the small town life and explore the world with her child. that’s when she got the opportunity of a lifetime — jules’ godmother, angela, invited hannah and jules on an excursion to the patagonia region of chile. opened a Third Eye for jules tbh for their love of travel and the outdoors. truly jules’ element

hannah not only fell in love with the country, extending her winter (or summer in the southern hemisphere) holiday trip with nine-year-old jules to travel around with her best friend and experience the vibrant culture of chile, but she fell in love !

jules’ mother met alonso in viña del mar. he was her dive guide ( while jules stayed behind at the family owned diving center / restaurant with her future grandmother, cristal, and older step-brother, ignacio ) and the two were inseparable ever since. next thing jules knows, their mother is getting married and they are both getting citizenship to become chileans !

not only did their mother discover that chile was her home, but so did jules. the pacific ocean is just where jules belongs. ignacio and jules were two peas in a pod and alonso became the father - figure that jules was missing out on. the two of them introduced jules to surfing & scuba diving, and she fell in love with it and they were pretty impressed with how quickly she caught onto it.

jules’ family grows bigger as time goes on, growing from a family of four to a family of seven. her dreams in becoming a professional surfer grows as she is entered in junior surfing competitions across the chilean coast and earning several accolades throughout her teenage years.

all on jules’ mind are a few things: surfing, getting some rays, looking after their younger brothers, playing beach volleyball, going out for beers, making jewelry out of shells and handmade beads, eating some of fruit … not much else. they’re pretty content working at the rojas diving center with their step-father and coworkers they’ve known for years.

hannah wanted her child to go to some sort of higher education, and to appease her mother, jules attended a nearby university to get a degree in marine biology only to help educate tourists and volunteer her time to help the actually trained ecologists with their restoration / research work

as of the present day, jules is very well-known in the surfing community of chile for her talent. they've even entered competitions in the neighboring peru and took a sabbatical to surf with friends in brazil. most recently, she competed for chile in the pan american games that was hosted in chile last year and got a silver medal !!! perhaps this is the beginning of jules’ professional career and an in to the world surfing league :eyes:

#valpohqintro

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ultimate-valve-character · 10 months

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Round 1: Match 155

From the Combine Overwiki,

Also named by itself, it is pink-eyed corrupt core who rapidly rattles off multiple erroneous historical and scientific facts, some true, some false, and some just plain illogical. It also boasts about its own intellect and appearance while dismissing the other two cores. It describes itself as "the most intelligent and handsome sphere," while it insults the Space Core, the Adventure Core, and even Chell.

From the Combine Overwiki,

At some point during the organization of the Resistance along the Coast, Odessa Cubbage ended up leader of New Little Odessa. Much about the Colonel is open to question among the Resistance: from his slightly askew mustache, to his supposedly [RP] accent, which many suspect is as false as the military exploits with which he regales his followers. He may not even be a colonel at all, and simply a former member of the University of Rochester Security Services, given his coat. It is also unknown if he gave his name to the Resistance outpost or if he used the existing name for himself.

#valve poll #portal #half life #fact sphere #odessa cubbage #did you know cubbage and myself share an origin?#the facemodel is the same believe it or not #Travis Dunlap's likeness was used for a cut engineer named Odell #Odell later became Odessa but they must have liked his chops so much that they stuck them on my face instead #the more you know!

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austerulous · 1 year

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◈ @spec08: ❛ There is a scurry before he makes the high hop onto the table, his feet stretching upwards to give him the maximum height that he is allowed. There are a series of squeaks to get her attention before he holds up what appears to be a precious gem. The light catches it in such a way that it sparkles obnoxiously and the creature seems very pleased with himself that he found it for her. After a moment the mechanical voice explains, 'He has found this while digging in your dirt gardens. He wants to know if you have been looking for it?' // For Dez ❜

Garish metal music shrieked into Odessa’s ruined ears as she tinkered, the table before her strewn with mechanical parts, with tools both scavenged and makeshift. It took a moment for Hammond’s triumphant, high-pitched squeaks to bleed past the cushions of her headset, to pierce the whine of her tinnitus and pull her attention. Realising she had company, the Junker Queen freed her ears, just in time to hear the mechanical voice speak. Hammond’s intellect and creativity were unparalleled, his mastery of mechanics and engineering far surpassing her own. He was a formidable force on the battlefield and beyond – and he was her friend, the closest thing she had to family. His company was always welcome.

“Aw, Champ, I’d wondered where that got to!”

Gold always held its value. Her father had told her that, long ago. Currency weathered storms unseen, its worth in a constant state of flux. But gold? It was a finite resource, like the drab people of this ramshackle settlement, like the Omnics that assaulted it. Next to gold, gemstones. Traditional wealth might hold little weight in a post-apocalyptic society built on bartering and trade, yet Odessa still lined the coffers, a shining reservoir that someday might find use.

Proffered in Hammond’s pink grasp was a missing piece, a sapphire that had traded the cloister of the earth’s heart-roots for a royal pocket. Delighted, Odessa took it from him. It was a perfect size for turning over absentmindedly in hand, its smooth surface one of lustrous shine. Like blue fire, like the violent, artificial hue of her hair. There was a coast, far beyond the polluted horizon, where she imagined there were lagoons and deep waters of this same brilliant shade.

“Finder keepers, ain’t that part of my decree?”

As though hoping to add to its already dazzling shine, she rubbed it on her dirty shirt. Given that her clothes were dull with dirt, grease, sweat, the gemstone likely suffered from the polishing. Grinning crookedly, her scars and war paint twisting, she held it back out to Hammond.

“It’s all yours, mate.”

#dez would take a bullet for hammond #sounds like exaggeration but i mean it #she'd take one right to the chest without hesitation #that's her guy! her little dude! he's bestie shaped!#thank you for this ♡#◈ — answered #◈ — ic; odessa #spec08

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accountprofinance · 2 years

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My Instagram,please subscribe: https://instagram.com/accountprofinance?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Мой Instagram: https://instagram.com/accountprofinance?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

#account pro finance #accounting #ukraine #finance #countprof #instagram #odessa coast #odesa #odessa city #Одесса #Украина #Одеса #Україна #QR

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sov4in · 1 year

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full name odessa kinsley zindelli . nicknames odie , des , dessa . age twenty - four ( 24 ) . occupation forward for the u . s . women’s national soccer team . traits driven , dishonest . theme song shapeshifting by taylor acorn . zodiac gemini . gender cis female . pronouns she / her . sexual + romantic orientation bisexual , biromantic . faceclaim olivia scott welch .

𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱.

the saints , andy mineo + kb + trip lee ┈ bones , imagine dragons ┈ run boy run , woodkid ┈ running up that hill , kate bush ┈ river , bishop briggs ┈ new level , king kyle lee ┈ bonkers , armand van helden + dizzee rascal ┈ nate growing up , labrinth ┈ you’re gonna go far kid , the offspring ┈ holding out for a hero , bonnie tyler .

𝔟𝔦𝔬𝔤𝔯𝔞𝔭𝔥𝔶.

odessa zindelli only ever grew up with a father and four brothers. she was the middle child , every sibling almost exactly two years apart. [ trigger warning : death . ] when her youngest brother was born , her mother died in a boating accident on her anniversary with odessa’s father. casper zindelli was left to raise all five children on his own. [ end trigger warning . ] he was a soccer coach at the time and every one of his kids had the desire to play in order to stay close with him. odessa trained with her brothers beginning at a young age , starting out as just a goalie because the boys wanted to go off and be the forwards , but she quickly earned her place in the family as she grew up.

she played all throughout elementary school and middle school , climbing her way to the top each year and earning herself multiple hometown high scores to put under her belt. upon entering high school , she became one of the most recognized soccer players on the east coast due to her dedication to practices and her natural agility when it came to the sport. she grew close with her teammates and coaches , milking the whole teenage athlete dream as much as she could while her brothers also played for their schools. they were nowhere near as good as odessa had become – earning athlete of the month twice a year for four years straight in high school , beating the school’s winning streaks , stepping up as varsity captain when she was just a freshman. she was every high school soccer coach’s wet dream , basically.

not only was she extremely talented when it came to sports , but she was also smart. with an eidetic memory and the ability to fly through her classes , high school became nothing more than a breeze to her. this got the attention of recruiters and she got multiple scholarships offered to her all throughout high school for college. ultimately , she chose to go with the university of california at berkeley , where she would soon begin playing all throughout college. her college years didn’t last long , though , because she graduated a year early and became one of the youngest players to earn a spot on the u.s. olympic women’s soccer team at just twenty-one years old.

the following year , she became a co - captain of the team and has been ever since. she earned her spot as a forward and is responsible for bringing the team to many , many victories alongside her teammates. she takes her career very seriously , utilizing any and every gym she can while also trying to make the most of her youth.

[ trigger warning : injury . ] in august of 2022 , tragedy struck during an intense semifinal against canada. she got tangled up in a nasty rivalry against the opposite team’s defense and ended up with both a wrist fracture and torn meniscus. the healing process for that wasn’t as quick as she wanted it to be , but she was on bed rest for a while. [ end trigger warning . ]

now that she’s getting back into the groove of things , odessa is focused on work and the upcoming season that starts at the end of january. while difficulties came with the injuries and she’s been in pain every so often without getting a doctor to look at it , odessa’s convinced she won’t have any problems in the upcoming season. her body , however , isn’t so sure. [ trigger warning : drug abuse , addiction . ] maybe that’s why she’s grabbing as much pain medication as she can from whoever she can in hopes it’ll all just go away in time, [ end trigger warning . ]

𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔠𝔞𝔫𝔬𝔫𝔰.

her jersey number is 11 and has been throughout all her life. she guesses she considers it a lucky number of sorts and associates it with only good memories.

currently has 125 goals and 66 assists under her belt going into this year’s season. she’s one of the youngest players to make a name for herself on the team and is a co - captain , as well.

[ trigger warning : drug abuse , addiction . ] if it wasn’t already clear , she’s addicted to painkillers and ( occasionally ) sleeping pills. she thinks it’ll help her enough to get her through the upcoming season after suffering multiple injuries near the end of 2022. [ end of trigger warning . ]

is extremely focused on her career and tries not to let anything really get in the way of it. she’s not huge into parties unless there’s a chance of a blackout because she’s … unwell , let’s be completely real.

she is a whore.

#hillzhqsintro #╰ ❝ 𝒐𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂 𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊 › intro.

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blueiskewl · 2 years

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Ancient Greek Amphoras Discovered in Ukraine as Soldiers Dig Trenches

Ancient Greek amphoras were among artifacts discovered last week in Odessa, Ukraine by soldiers while “digging defenses” to protect the city from Russian attacks.

Soldiers from the Ukrainian 126th Territorial Defense brigade who found the artifacts wrote on Facebook that they were “handed over to the staff of the Odessa Archaeological Museum,” who promised to add them to the museum’s collection.

Archaeologists cannot document the site where the troops are based because of the ongoing Russian invasion.

Amphoras in Ukraine date back to the 4th or 5th century BC

The artifacts date back to the 4th or 5th century BC, according to Yana Suporovska, a creator and journalist, while the Heritage Daily reported that they are associated with the Neolithic period as well as the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Empires.

The Greek presence in today’s Ukraine goes back millennia

The history of the Greeks’ presence on the northern shore of the Black Sea of what are now Ukraine and Russia, goes back millennia, even before the Classical Greek era.

The Myceneans, one of history’s first seafaring cultures, had become quite familiar with the Black Sea littoral through their search for raw materials and, most importantly, for the fish so vital then (and now) to the Greeks’ diet.

In the Classical Greek era, the Ukrainian coast was full of Greek colonies, some of which, such as Olbia, became wealthy centers of culture and trade.

This Hellenic/Hellenistic presence continued through the long Roman era, and as Rome gave way to Christian East Rome (Byzantium), the presence remained and transmitted Greco-Roman culture and Orthodox Christianity into Kievan Rus, the parent culture of both Ukraine and Russia.

The story continues into the modern era. As Byzantium fell to the Turks, so too did Byzantine outposts on the northern Black Sea coast, most notably the Crimean Peninsula, for millennia a center of Greek culture.

Greeks remained in the region even while living amongst a plethora of other nationalities, most notably the Muslim Tatars who ran the place as Turkish vassals.

In the 1700s, Greeks became a major demographic element all along the Black Sea coast with Greeks from the Peloponnese, key islands, and Pontus flocking to cities such as Odessa, Kherson, the Crimea, and key ports in the Sea of Azov, particularly Marioupolis (Mariupol), founded by Crimean Greeks.

In 1814, three Greek clerks in Odessa founded the Filiki Eteria, dedicated to the liberation of Greece. The costly war to free Greece brought more Greeks to the Ukrainian coasts, particularly Pontic Greeks fleeing the Turks’ reprisals for the Greek uprising. Waves of Pontic Greeks would continue to flow across the Black Sea, as immigrants and refugees.

By Tasos Kokkinidis.

(Luckily the Russians didn’t find them or they would have looted the artifacts like the do with everything they come across)

#Ancient Greek Amphoras Discovered in Ukraine as Soldiers Dig Trenches #ukraine #archeology #archeolgst #ancient artifacts #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #greek history #ukrainian history #peace #peace for ukraine

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xnxthinglastsfxrever · 1 year

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@redxinmyledger

It's been a couple of months after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Russian spy past was out in the open, she wasn't afraid of anyone anymore. Its the past for a reason. But one past reminds on the run, Bucky. She wanted to go after him, hoping this time was different then in Odessa, where he shot a soviet slug in her lower abdomen, straight though her engineer. From Washington to the Big Apple, the spy was up along the east coast, looking for him. discreetly of course, with Hydra still going on, she had to be careful. Them and the redroom are notorious of brainwashing and creating killers. Heck, she lives and breaths that persona before.

Waking through the busy street of New York, the now brunette was scrolling through the farmer market booth, picking up some fruits and talking to the local vendors about when the next season of mangoes, and she caught someone in the corner of her eyes, to her right near the fish market, taking off her shades to push it up to her hair as she nodded at the vendor about the information and reach into her purse to pay the groceries before making her way towards the man. Keeping her distance, because that disguise and body built is too uncanny.

#redxinmyledger #for bucky barnes

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ihavepointysticks · 10 months

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Music Shuffle!

i was tagged by @cordellwinchesterwalker to put my library on shuffle and show my top 10 🥰 (These are actually the first 10 that started playing when i did a shuffle)

1) short skirt/long jacket - cake

2) gangsta's paradise - coolio

3) life in the fast lane - the eagles

4) sugar we're going down - fob

5) first - cold war kids

6) no roots - alice merton

7) the coast of marseille - keith sykes

8) seven nights in eire - reckless kelly

9) kashmir - led zeppelin

10) odessa - the stone coyotes

yeah, so my music tastes are pretty much all over the place

tagging (no pressure tag): @supamerchant, @zmediaoutlet, @juststartingtobebrothersagain,

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theculturedmarxist · 11 months

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Posted onJune 8, 2023 by Yves Smith

Russia is living out a risk that’s even made its way into pop culture. In the movie Elizabeth, Cate Blanchette as the queen intones, “I do not like wars. They have uncertain outcomes.”

Despite Western efforts to claim otherwise, Putin is risk averse. He seemed agitated when he announced the launch of the Special Military Operation, an underpowered attack which some non-neocon US military experts argue was meant to show Russia would no longer tolerate attacks on its border and the West continuing to arm Ukraine. The invasion initially did achieve the desired outcome of bringing Ukraine to the negotiating table. But after the initial talks showed progress, Boris Johnson visited Zelensky and scuppered the peace initiative.

European leaders no doubt read Putin’s cautiousness since the start of the conflict in 2014 and may also have seen it as an admission of military weakness. They snookered him into the Minsk Accords, which the Russian side took seriously. Since then, gloating Western leaders have revealed it was a sham to buy time to better arm Ukraine.

The comparatively small group of Westerners who are militarily/intelligence savvy and opposed to US adventurism have generally called the trajectory of this conflict correctly, even if they clearly thought or hoped it would be closer to resolution by now. Russia, after realizing the US and NATO would not stomach Plan A of a negotiated settlement, geared up for a war of attrition along an already extended line of contact. That took some time, but despite the bad optics of Russian pullbacks in Kharkiv and Kherson, Ukraine didn’t profit from Russia having to take time to train newly mobilized men and restructure operations. Russia was aided in this by its overwhelming advantage in artillery, superiority in air defense, and missile and drone capabilities, which have only increased over the course of this still comparatively short conflict. In fact, as many have pointed out, Russia has essentially gone through the original Ukraine armed forces and a second army constituted by the West, and has been grinding through what is effectively a third set of forces.

Conventional wisdom in these circles (and I generally subscribed to it) was Russia would wait for the Great Overlydiscussed Ukraine Counteroffensive, and at most cede some territory for a bit while further chewing up Ukraine men and materiel, and then see what to do next, as in, say, whether to engage in further comparatively localized operations to further bleed Ukraine, like taking some important towns and cities in Donbass (actually not a small task given the natural fortifications of sturdy old Soviet-era buildings) or whether the Ukraine would be so degraded at that point that a big offensive might finally be in order.

But again, consensus views in this cohort have been along the lines of Russia needing to take at least its four annexed oblasts in full and probably now Kharkiv to better protect the Russian border. The next mission objective might be to march up to the west bank of the Dnieper and issue some sort of ultimatum, more for appearances’ sake that out of an expectation than a belief it might be entertained. These experts then posit that Russia’s next objective is Odessa; Colonel Douglas Macgregor pointed out that Russia recently destroyed a bridge near Moldova that would have been essential for any NATO ground defense of Odessa. Macgregor’s conclusion: “Odessa is now on the menu.”

There was an implicit optimists’ case in term of the war ending on an equilibrium where what was left of Ukraine would be so weak that it would not be able to threaten Russia on its own. If Russia controlled the Black Sea coast, the industrial production in the East, and a fair bit of the best agricultural land, what was left of Ukraine would be very poor and dependent. And if Russia could keep up its slow grind, it would drain Western weapons stocks to the degree that rearmament woudld be very costly and take a very long time.

Western rearmament is further complicated by many EU members having their own weapons systems, which makes it hard to work out joint logistics, as Ukraine is showing in real time now. National arms makers will not want to cede power and prestige to Airbus-style joint design and manufacturing initiatives, even before getting to the long time it would take to sort out what to do assuming agreement. And that’s before getting to the fact that Project Ukraine is becoming increasingly unpopular among the European public. It will become more so as structurally higher energy costs mean more de-industrialization, which means higher arms spending would eat even more into social safety nets and other services.

Or shorter, there was a conceivable, if narrow path, to Russia being able to conclude the war at least reasonably to its satisfaction without occupying or otherwise neutralizing western Ukraine. One option was the Medvedev map: of Ukraine windup up as Greater Kiev, with the rest of western Ukraine eaten up by Poland, Romania, and Hungary.

The events of this week point in another direction. Even though Ukraine’s first moves towards its counteroffensive are by many accounts going not at all well despite much more use of high end Western armaments (see Alexander Mercouris, Dima, and Simplicius the Thinker, among others, for details), the big infrastructure attacks suggest Ukraine will salt the earth rather than let Russia have it.

While there are many, starting with Ukraine president Zelensky, who blame the catastrophic failure of the Kakhovka dam on Russia, circumstantial evidence and cui bono point strongly the other way.

First, let’s consider another major infrastructure hit, 24 hours before the dam breach, to an ammonia pipeline. The pipeline, the subject of dispute in the grain deal. Despite the popular label. Russia had treated being able to resume fertilizer deliveries as integral to that pact. Some backstory via a John Helmer post yesterday:

The Russian government has repeatedly accused the UN and the Ukrainians of refusing to honour the reciprocal export provisions of the food export initiative, so that Russian grain and fertilizers will not be blocked in the European ports, or at sea where vessels carrying the Russian cargoes have been denied Anglo-American insurance. The UN publications, statements and press releases published by Guterres’s staff have reported the full 26-paragraph text of the grain agreement; they have omitted the text of the fertilizer agreement. The combination of the two makes the difference between the grain deal and the real deal: for the Russians the latter was the precondition for their agreement to the former. [UN Secretary-General] Guterres’s office has acknowledged that the real deal was more than the grain deal, and that compliance also required the US, the UK and the European Union (EU) states to lift the sanctions they have imposed on Russian shipping, port access, vessel insurance, and commodity exports…. Of the 43 releases which have followed from Guterres’s office since last July, not a single statement, press release, report, or update identifies the terms of agreement on Russian grain and fertilizer exports, or acknowledges Russian protests against Ukrainian, UN, EU, and US non-compliance. On March 23, [British lawyer Martin] Griffiths announced he had met Russian officials, and claimed: “The discussions focused on the implementation of the two agreements signed on 22 July 2022: the Black Sea Grain Initiative between the Russian Federation, Türkiye, Ukraine and the United Nations; and the Memorandum of Understanding between the Russian Federation and the UN, to facilitate unimpeded exports of food and fertilizer. The UN Secretary-General expressed today that the UN remains fully committed to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, as well as to efforts to facilitate the export of Russian food and fertilizer.” Griffith’s last sentence was lying. The Russians had told him they would agree to extend the grain deal until July on condition Guterres and Griffiths did what they promised they were doing. They didn’t…. Because Guterres and Griffiths refused, Russian officials have announced that the current 120-day extension of the grain deal to July 17 will be the last. In the meantime, because Russian ammonia exports are still stopped, Ukrainian grain cargoes have been blocked from Odessa and Chernomorsk, and restricted to Yuzhny (aka Pivdennyi). In retaliation, the Ukrainians have attacked the new ammonia and LPG export terminals at Taman with drones.

Now for the update. Be sure to click through to read the full text:

The man recording even says, “I’ve never seen this in my life.”

Meanwhile, at the moment, the locks are still open in DneproGES (Ukrainian controlled), which means that the Ukrainian leadership is not interested in stopping the flood…and the Western media is silent

Vladimir Rogov appears to believe that the lowering of the Kakhovka Basin water levels will actually increase the risk of Ukraine landing to try to seize the ZNPP nuclear plant at Energodar:

The lowering of the water level in the Kakhovka Basin due to the weakening of the dam of the hydroelectric power plant of the same name located downstream of the Dnieper increases the risk of landings by militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to capture the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.

This was stated by Vladimir Rogov, leader of the “We are together with Russia” movement.

And on the note of the Dnipropetrovsk hydro-electric plant being opened up by Kiev prior to the Kakhovka event to raise water levels, we have the first truly high level Russian confirmation of this. Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stated the following:

Patrushev: Kyiv released water to Dnipropetrovsk HPP a day before the attack on Kakhovka Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolay Patrushev said today that, on the order of Kiev, water was released in the Dnipropetrovsk hydroelectric power plant, a day before the attack on the Kahovka HPP. “On the orders of Kyiv, 24 hours earlier there was a massive water release at the Dnipropetrovsk HPP, and then there was an attack on the Kahovka HPP, which led to terrible consequences,” said Patrushev, TASS reports.

Another recent event, which didn’t get the attention it warranted, perhaps because it was so cringe-makingly detached from reality, was a speech by Anthony Blinken in Helsinki on June 2. Blinken among other things argued Russia has failed comprehensively in the war, was becoming more isolated, and the US had been willing to negotiate but Putin kicked the table over. The last claim is probably the worst of the many howlers in the talk.

But what is signifies is dangerous: the hawks are absolutely not backing down and despite evidence, are convinced they will prevail. Blinken gave the usual bromides about US controlled freedom-loving Ukrainians and the US being committed to Ukraine for as long as it takes.

These new infrastructure strikes, which harm civilians and may do lasting environmental damage, seem likely to force Russia to pursue the war to the destruction of the Ukraine government, as opposed say to a mere dictating of terms of surrender. As Lambert put it, “Russia can’t permit a fascist state on its borders.”

The ever-careful Putin has even changed how he speaks about Ukraine. The Washington Post on May 31 quote Putin as referring to it as “hat territory known as Ukraine,” suggesting it has no standing as a government. That framing, particularly in connection with the two blasts, may lead Russia to cross the Rubicon and designate Ukraine as a terrorist state. That means among other things no negotiations. Simplicius set forth evidence of more hardening of attitudes among top officials, beyond the usual Medvedev bad-coppery. For instance, he hoisted this section from a post-Kakhovka disaster RIA Novosti interview with Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev:

The new goal of the SMO is the demolition of the Nazi regime in Kiev. It seems that new specifics have been added to the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine as the goals of the SMO. “Washington and London created the Kiev Nazi regime, which must be replaced, giving Ukraine the status of a neutral state in practice,” said Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev (pictured) in an interview with Belarusian Security Council Secretary Alexander Volfovich.

Now many have assumed that capturing and subjugating such a larger territory as Western Ukraine would be an incredibly costly and corrosive task. But yours truly has pointed out there are ways, albeit not at all nice, to square this circle, and if yours truly can come up with one, there are surely much better ideas being considered in Moscow.

As we pointed out, if Russia takes Ukraine west of the Dnieper and the Black Sea coast, what is left of Ukraine is not all that valuable, save perhaps some farming areas.

Russia gained a huge amount of knowledge about how the Ukraine grid works and repeatedly disabled it severely enough to force Ukraine to commit meaningful amounts of its dwindling air defenses to protect big cities, and also forced Ukraine to deplete its equipment reserves. Remember the West does not make any of this gear; it can only look to its spares and perhaps those of former Warsaw Pact states. If Russia were to fully de-electrify Western Ukraine, only Russia could restore it. And it could decide what to restore.

So one option for Russia would be to destroy the grid in areas of Ukraine it did not want to attempt to subdue. The result would be something like the unorganized territories of Maine, a land of prepper beardos. Remember that no electricity means no heated pipes and water pumping in the winter, so many would burst in the winter, further reducing the number of habitable structures.

Russia could even conceivably take out power in a way intended to herd the population into Europe. In Japan, the media carefully follows the so-called sakura line, where cherry blossoms are going into full bloom. Russia could march a de-electrification campaign across Ukraine, starting closest to the areas Russia wants to keep and rebuild, then moving gradually west and north, to give Poland and NATO time to get the message if they had not worked out what was in store,

Now making a huge part of a country largely uninhabitable is a very ugly end game. Aside from recognizing that punishing citizens, as opposed to decision makers, is to be avoided if at all possible, Russia also cares about its image around the world. So the idea of de-electrifying huge sections of western Ukraine would be a not-so-hot fallback to a costly and difficult occupation. But the fact that any such fallback exists suggests there might be less terrible ones. So the highest levels in Russia may be thinking hard about such possibilities.

Yours truly said from the very outset of the SMO that Russia could win the war but lose the peace. Even though it has repeatedly exercised restraint in the face of Ukraine provocations like the Kerch Bridge bombing and the strikes on Belgorod, which endanger civilians, the escalations, which also look intended to draw NATO in, are also forcing Russia to consider more comprehensive solutions.

#ukraine conflict #kakhovka dam #russia #ukraine #naked capitalism

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ourladytamara · 1 year

Text

Last, Best Hope

(2.2k)

@_proletkvlt 12/28/2022

Cws: snuff, CNC, murder, gross dicks, Demon violence, all the classic Millennium Penance goodness

20:17

San Diego, California, West Coast Military District

When Hell came for the East coast, the Marine Corps were moved from Quantico to San Diego, riding the wave of America’s single-largest recruitment drive in history; indeed, many Americans were so eager to bring the fight back to Hell that the armed forces found it somewhat difficult to sift through the sheer number of applicants for suitable candidates.

That changed with you and your comrades, however. You’d been somewhat famous, indeed – the world was watching when Squad 118 successfully held off a Demonic incursion into Boulder, Colorado – yet the height of your popularity was yet to come.

President Harris herself signed off on Operation Yellow Rose, your assignment, and it’s been sealed, top-secret, until today. Sure, you were already some of the best of the best, the dozen or so of you sitting in the stuffy room, but this was a mission unlike any other – and as such, more than three months of specialized training and drilling were needed before such a delicate task could be even considered.

Sitting beside you, in one of the little plasticky desks, was Amy Calhoun – the prettiest Marine you’d ever seen. Sure, the two of you weren’t exactly dating yet; you’d fooled around, enjoyed each other’s company plenty, certainly, but you were reluctant to make it official. You just weren’t sure if she felt the same way towards you – hard to tell, these days.

“In all my years, I’ve never been more proud of a room full of Marines.”

Staff Sergeant Mayweather stands at the front of his class, decked out in his dress uniform and innumerable service medals which jangled loudly whenever he took a step on his prosthetic leg. He was a hulk of a man, the chiseled ideal of a United States Marine; his short hair effortlessly complemented the scar running up his forehead, catching the dancing light of the overhead projector that hummed quietly in the dimly-lit room.

He gives his characteristically-sharp salute, taking in a deep, satisfied breath.

“You’ll be moving out from Barstow tomorrow at oh-three-hundred. It’s a two-hour flight in the Chinook and you’ll be hoofing it from there – not that you boys and girls need the recap.” He smiles warmly, and you smile back as your compatriots rise from their desks and salute.

Indeed, those were the simplest parts of your instructions. The full details were a good bit more difficult; you were tasked with securing the town of Odessa as a forward operating base for the eventual recapture of the Texas oil fields, a critical lifeline to the American effort’s dwindling fuel reserves. From your (admittedly, spotty) intel, the border with New Mexico was the least-defended of all; it’d be an uphill fight, but if you struck surgically you’d have a great chance to put your name down in the history books as one of the chosen few who gave everything to America – to humanity, even – to repel the onslaught of Hell.

“Semper Fi,” Mayweather says, “and give ‘em the Texas-style asskicking they’ve got coming.”

“HOO-RAH!”

When you return to your barracks for a much-needed rest before your departure to Barstow and beyond, the mood is so jovial you could cut it. Hope was a precious resource, it felt, especially lately; ‘27 was an awful year, and so far, ‘28 hasn’t been any better – but for the first time since the war with Hell began, you and your fellow Marines felt optimistic. It was the big payoff to years of grief and torment, to uncountable nights spent wallowing in despair like so many others did.

Amy – well, Corporal Calhoun, you should call her – sleeps in the cot just above yours. She climbs up to her bunk with a smile across those dimpled cheeks you loved so much, so beautiful beneath her short, reddish hair. For a moment, she looks as if she motions to say something, but catches her tongue in her mouth, a big blush spreading across her face.

“…what’s that about, eh?” you ask, teasing her a bit with your tone. She blushes harder, sighing, before slumping down into her pillow overdramatically.

“It’s – ah, why don’t I tell you when we get back, huh? I don’t wanna raise the stakes any higher than they are!”

She giggles, and wishes you goodnight. You do the same, settling in beneath your blanket with a long, deep breath, an inkling of her intentions teasing the hidden part of you that so eagerly wanted to kiss her.

05:41

Somewhere above the deserts near Carlsbad, New Mexico

Every plan, to some degree, relies on assumptions. Ideally, assumptions are minimized through study, experience, and research, and in many fields, this is a trivial process – less so in the art of war, and when war with the supernatural forces of Hell was concerned, there were some things that were truly unknowable.

The Corps thought it would be safe to assume, after eight years of almost strictly ground-based warfare, that the Demons possessed no capacity for powered flight – and for more or less the entirety of the defense and reclamation campaign, their assumption was shown to be sound.

All twelve of you are sitting side-by-side in the back of the Chinook, holding your rifles close as you chit-chatting about various, meaningless tidbits. Amy and you are recapping the last season of a Netflix show you were both watching before the Internet broke a few years back, shit-talking the misremembered plot points.

A loud bang rips through the Chinook. Before any of you have the chance to so much as scream, another slams into the side – and the entire back half of the helicopter is torn away in a violent explosion. In an instant, four of your twelve squadmates were dead, reduced to little more than pinkish mist in a burst of flame and smoke. The fifth, your machinegunner Kevin, is sucked away by the pressure, his parachute ripped off his back.

“They’re coming back around! Mayday! Mayday! HQ, they – t-they’ve got planes!”

You can barely even hear the pilot over the whoosh of air, but another, far louder sound rips through the heavens and rattles your headphones. No more time to panic; Amy looks at you in terror, and speaking silently through your motions, you grab her by the hand and rip away your seatbelts. In a few seconds, you’re whisked from the Chinook and into the howling air.

Something screams as it flies past the two of you, barely missing Amy as she tumbles down the near 17,000-foot drop. The moonless night was meant to be the perfect cover for your transport, but it also conceals your attacker; whatever it was, only the exhaust, bright-red and angry, is visible against the dark sky. When it swoops back around for another pass, you realize with horror what it is – a jet fighter, unlike any design you’d seen, yet unmistakably a jet fighter.

Its unseen rotary cannon obliterates the front half of the Chinook’s slowly-falling carcass, catching one of the three remaining Marines in the ensuing blast as they attempt to bail out. Burning wreckage cascades to Earth like shooting stars; you and Amy are forced to dart around and through it, falling some ten thousand feet before you made it far enough away to deploy your chutes without fear of them being torn to scraps.

She floats alongside you in the dark, dangling from her cables like a marionette. Neither of you had a light, your equipment destroyed with the rest of the chopper, relying on the stars themselves to give you enough to see – to say nothing of the fact that your radio communications were lost,

Neither of you say anything. The words desperately fight to escape, but a grim weight, far heavier, keeps your lips firmly sealed. In the whooshing of air, there is silence.

“...I thought it would’ve been nice to go on a date when we got back. Y-You know, to celebrate.”

You don’t respond to Amy save beginning to sob.

The Sun comes up at some point, somewhere in the corpse and metal-strewn desert.

A boot presses against the side of your head and your eyes shoot open.

“Khav.”

They’re easy to identify; Demons, at their best, sounded like they smoked a pack a day their entire lives. It clears its throat.

“Up,” it says, in a clumsy mockery of English pronunciation, “wretched animal.”

Your head is throbbing violently. Every single limb hurts as if it’d been ripped off and used to bludgeon you before being reattached. The parachute is tangled around you in multiple shredded pieces, colorful strands stuck to a nearby saguaro. You clutch your head as you sit upwards – coming face-first into a rigid, dripping Demonic cock, staring out at you from between a black trenchcoat that sways in the warm desert breeze. It’s wearing a hood of some kind, head hidden beneath a black shawl, gripping the long handle of one of their customary gun-pikes. Behind it, a motorcycle, of their unsettling, pseudo-biological make.

Your breath skips, which the Demon notices – and grins, mouth filled with pearly razor-blades.

“Oooh,” it coos, whistling a bit as it enunciates through dry lips, “thought you… ngh, not-alive, this jhaw-akh animal-tongue of yours…”

It firmly plants one of its clawed hands against the back of your head, which you realize is caked with dried blood. Stars seep out of your vision as the pressure is applied; you didn’t have enough time to open the drogue, and as such, you were almost definitely concussed – something told you you had bigger concerns, though.

The twitching appendage pointing at you leaks a disgusting pearl of yellowish seed, dripping like wet rubber from the flared, glistening tip and landing on your injured legs. It seeps in, the saltiness burning in seconds, the overactive sperm within the fluid writhing forcefully against your tender flesh like fizzing pop-rocks.

“Animal,” the Demon says, “you see, I am… collector of valuables. Yyvakh, we call you – treasure-beast.”

You aren’t listening. Your head rolls to the side, away from the hulking reddish figure before you, only to see another parachute crumpled against the ground. No. No, please no. Almost instinctively, you reach a hand towards it. Amy. Amy, please, wake up. Amy -

The Demon tugs on your head again.

“Listen my words – not many left for you.”

You don’t budge, staring blankly towards the pile of plastic sheets. Amy. Amy, wake up, please – there’s only one of them, and if the two of you could just…

The hand on your skull grips you by the nape of your neck like a kitten and lifts you off the floor, an agonizing, bloodcurdling pain as your injured spine is forced out of position. You can’t feel your legs, your feet dangling limp above the sand and dirt and sun-dried blood – yet even the pain pales in comparison to the Demon itself, the rippling alien flesh beneath the black robe rippling and pulsating like the twitching cock between its legs.

It pulls you in, about a breast’s width away from its torso, and stares at you with its myriad, glowing eyes. You’d never seen one so close, so detailed; its breath reeked of meat, ketones filling every exhaled lungful.

“You – you would fetch good price, little yyvakh,” the Demon continues, now pulling you even closer, so close you’re nearly kissing it. “But Legion Primarch not pay enough to bring you alive.”

It holds up a finger – bearing the same black nail polish Amy loved to wear. Amy. A-

“Still need proof of un-aliving, though.”

Your lip is trembling, tears absently pouring down your dirtied face. The Demon doesn’t even react, yet something seems to cross its mind just before it motions for the large blade at the end of its weapon.

“N’hur… Need relief before drive back – and you much more… assembled… than other human.”

It drops you to your knees with a meaty crack and forces the shaft of its turgid, equine penis into your face, rubbing your cheeks against the greasy length. The stench is something utterly indescribable, but it makes you want to kill yourself – and thankfully, the Demon seemed ready to oblige you.

The tip is forced in and it starts to fill you like a condom; if it weren’t for the nauseating thickness and viscosity of the stuff, the sheer flow would’ve made you think the Demon was pissing in you. Every batter-thick rope of its cum slams into the back of your throat like a solid metal rod before slackening and sucking itself down your esophagus through surface tension. You can barely breathe, as every inhalation through your nose just sucks more of the stuff up and into your nostrils, and soon, they’re completely caked shut – if nothing else, it spares you from the unholy stink of the dick currently fucking you, even though Demon cum wasn’t much of an improvement.

With a sudden, forceful movement, the Demon manages to force a solid few inches of the organ into your mouth, threatening to nearly split your jaw open with how wide you’re being stretched. The sun beats down on you, the heat of the morning adding to the deep humiliation reddening your overfilled cheeks. Minutes are spent like this, every second filling and stuffing your stomach with seed until you felt ready to pop.

The Demon pulls its slicked cock out of your throat, slapping it across your face repeatedly as it adjusts its grip on its weapon – bringing it up towards your face.

“Your best was not enough.”

If nothing else, it ends painlessly.

#subscriber stories #millennium penance

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