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bloodstainedsaint · 11 months

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loose lips sink ships (lewis nixon x medic! reader)

summary: lewis nixon's alcoholism has been getting worse. you, a medic of easy company, are responsible for the well-being of the men, so you're sent to babysit look after an inebriated lew.

word count: 2100+

warnings: pathetic attempts (multiple) at comedy, drinking, alcoholism, drunken love confessions, lil pining, lil angst, nixon being a lil shit and a cheater??? but his wife divorces him so idk

notes: sorry if this is sloppy 😭 writing dialogue is hard

Your first time speaking to Captain (actually, you weren't sure of his rank anymore— you'd heard he'd gotten demoted to Battalion S3 by Colonel Sink recently) Lewis Nixon was after Operation Market Garden, where he got lightly burned by a stray shot to his helmet. You recalled it going something like this:

“You’re lucky to be alive, sir,” you said at the aid station where the then Lieutenant Winters had sent Nixon to get his graze checked, though there was really no use for it.

“I sure feel lucky,” he responded with a weird, almost dazed stare at you, as if you were some kind of angel sent from heaven to save him from his minor injury.

You met his eyes with a slightly raised eyebrow and assumed that he was just coming to terms with his brush with death. “You'll be fine, sir. Just try not to be in the trajectory of any other stray bullets, and you'll stay that way.”

He nodded and procured a flask from his pocket. “You drink?”

You narrowed your eyes at the container. “I try not to on the job.”

“Well, cheers to being alive, then,” he said, taking a swig.

“...Cheers.”

Following that encounter, you found yourself worrying about the officer more than you thought was normal— if a medic being especially troubled over one soldier was normal at all. Your eyes would search for him in a sea of people to see how tired or hungover he appeared. Whenever you got a chance to talk to him, you would brew him coffee or tea to help with his hangovers, seeing as medicine was always scarce and never spare enough to freely hand out.

You weren't sure where your worry for his well-being came from, but whatever it was, it wasn't quelled by the way he would ask you to stay and chat while he finished his cup— if you weren't busy, of course. The wry grin he would occasionally flash at you was burned into your mind, and his sardonic wit along with his competence as an officer, regardless of his love for alcohol, was impressed upon you. In these fleeting moments of peace, you learned of his rather privileged upbringing, his military background, and that he had a family waiting for him back home. Despite not even knowing what your own intentions were getting close to him, when he told you that last fact, your heart sank a little in your chest.

Your concern for him grew with the recent news that his alcoholism had reared its head again while the company was sent to idly occupy Germany. Someone had broken into a drugstore earlier that week; you'd suspected it was Lew scrounging around for booze. Though the war was coming to an end, he’d been looking more exhausted and ill-tempered as of late. You had yet to really talk to him about how he was holding up; in the meantime, you had been eyeing him from afar, trying to gauge where he was physically and mentally, your heart breaking at how you rarely saw him smile or laugh anymore. Everyone in the company had changed after Bastogne, but you suspected it was his disastrous third combat jump that prompted him to hit the bottle this time.

Now in Landsberg, you were in the middle of playing cards with some of the men in your billet’s living room when Major Winters knocked on the doorway.

“(Y/N),” he called. “Could I speak with you?”

You placed your cards on the table face up, presenting your good hand to the men who groaned in unison at the sight. “Coming, sir.”

As Winters brought you down the hall, you pondered what could be so important that the Major would come personally to speak to you, of all people.

He stopped in the middle of the hall and turned to you, seeming to have read your mind. “It's about Nixon.”

Your eyebrows creased slightly in concern. “Oh. Nixon.”

“Yeah, you know him?” Winters offered a dry smile that you returned.

“What happened?”

“I'm worried about him. Ever since his jump with the 17th Airborne, he’s been drinking more than usual.”

You sighed and cast your eyes downward. “I've heard.”

“I’d like you to look after him for a while. For tonight, at least. Make sure he doesn't drink himself into a coma.”

“Me?” You looked back up at him. “Why not Doc Roe?”

“You’ve been taking care of him for a while, (Y/N). I've noticed.” He didn't sound accusing in the slightest, yet you felt your cheeks warm from embarrassment. Winters continued in a slightly more conspiratorial voice, “And Nix asked for you specifically.”

You fought the blush creeping up to your ears. “Is that right…I'll, uh, have to lord that over Eugene.”

The corner of Winters’ lips quirked up knowingly. “Of course.”

He placed a hand on your shoulder. “Good luck, Doc. He's in his room. You know how to get there.”

Winters turned and walked away, leaving you standing in the middle of the hallway. It was true that you knew which house he was quartered in; you made it a point to know ever since you began treating his hangovers. However, the thought of being alone with Lew was always nerve-wracking and had been from the start, for reasons you didn't have the courage to explore.

With a glass of water and a book in hand, anticipating him to be knocked out from all the liquor in his system, you knocked on the door to his room. As you expected, there was no response save for the soft snoring coming from within. You opened the door a sliver and found the floral-wallpapered room lit up with a bedside lamp and the moonlight pouring in from the open window as the day spanned into night. You spotted a messy-haired head poking out from under the strewn blankets and smelled whiskey in the air. Upon fully opening the door and entering the room, the snoring abruptly stopped. He slurred, half-muffled by the pillow his face was buried in, “Who's there?”

“It’s (Y/N),” you replied, turning on some more lamps around the space.

“Oh. Hey, (Y/N).” Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and ran his hands over his face. It wasn’t the first time you'd seen him in just a tanktop and shorts, his dog tags dangling around his neck, but he had always been half-conscious from a hangover when you saw him like this. Not awake and actively drunk like he was now. “How're you?”

“You're on your way to liver failure, Lewis,” you said sternly as you pulled up a chair next to his bed. “As for me, I'm doing better than you right now.”

He pouted petulantly. “You only call me Lewis when you're mad at me.”

You shot him a look. “And why would I be mad at you?”

“I dunno, you tell me.” Nixon gave you a lazy smile.

You sighed, directing your glare to the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand, which you observed was not even his favorite brand of Vat 69. You handed him the glass of water. “Here, drink up.”

Squinting, he sniffed it. “It's not more liquor, is it?”

“No, it's motor fuel, now drink.”

“Oh no, not more ethanol,” he joked, raising the glass in a cheers motion before downing it and clumsily setting the empty glass on the nightstand. He kept his gaze on you as you sat down, opened up your book, and attempted to read, avoiding his stare.

Crossing his arms behind his neck at your efforts to ignore him, he leaned on the headboard. “What is that? Twain? Poe? Ah, Shakespeare? ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’”

You spared a glance at him. “Sometimes I forget you're a scholar, Lew.”

“Ohoho. Try to play some Beethoven and tell me it's Mozart. I’ll figure it out”—he snaps—“like that.”

“Not in this state you will,” you glowered. Nix retained his expectant countenance, so you answered, “It's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Some of the guys got done reading it, so now it's my turn.”

He hummed. “What’s it about then, Miss (Y/N)? Enlighten me.”

“If you’d let me read it, then I could tell you,” you said, continuing in a lower voice, "How are you an intelligence officer if you're this mouthy when drunk...and you're drunk most of the time."

“You say somethin’?”

“Nothing, Lew.” You tried to take in the words on the page, but the way he was looking at you made your skin feel hot. Exhaling and setting down your book, you turned your focus to him.

“You still hiding Vat 69 in Winters’ footlocker?” you asked, silently cursing the satisfied expression that spread over his face at your attention.

“Wha, hey, how'd you know about that?”

“You told me. While half-asleep and hungover.”

His lips stretched into a smile as he seemed to recall. “That I did. See, the real shame is that there’s not a single drop of the thing in the whole damn country. So no, there’s no booze in Dick’s footlocker.”

You glanced again at the unfamiliar bottle of whiskey on the nightstand. “And that’s why you've been drinking alternatives?”

“Beggars can't be choosers.” He shrugged with a sluggish wave of the hand. “I'm half-convinced you and Dick are hiding some from me!”

You chuckled. “That's not a half-bad idea. It wouldn't stop you from getting drunk off other kinds of hooch, though. Speaking of… why'd you start drinking this time?”

“Oh, you know.” He gestured vaguely. “I got divorced. She sent me a letter in the mail. Real sweet of her.”

Your face fell, the mood suddenly not so lighthearted. “...I’m sorry to hear that, Nix.”

“It’s alright. Didn’t like her much anyway. She took the dog.” A beat of silence passed, and he gave you an unreadable look. “Was kinda waitin' for it anyhow.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. Waiting for it? But before you could question it, you noticed his eyelids drooping as he uncrossed his arms from behind his neck to cover a yawn with his hands. You figured it was better to let him rest before pressing him on it.

“You settling down now?” you asked, getting up to brush his unkempt hair from his face and check his temperature with the back of your hand.

“Yeah,” he murmured. He settled into his bed before tiredly swatting your hand away, complaining, “I’m not hungover yet!”

A slight smile graced your face. “Not gonna piss into a cup this time, are you?”

“Maybe next time,” he said with a smirk before blearily staring at you for a while, like the same way he did all those months ago in Holland. Your heart felt strangled in your chest.

Clearing your throat, you turned and grabbed your book and the glass. “Goodnight, Lew.”

He blinked up at you. “You’re leaving?”

“I’ve got people who need me,” you said, a small laugh bubbling up from your throat.

“What if I need you?”

“Beside a hangover, you'll be fine,” you smiled, believing he was joking until you looked at him and found his face dead serious, almost pleading. Your eyes had to be deceiving you, right? Or maybe your mind was spinning things the wrong way.

He propped himself up on his elbows. “Before you leave," he started, breaking his gaze for a second before meeting yours. "You're really beautiful, you know that?”

You were stunned into silence with widened eyes, floundering for words. “Lew, I…”

“And don't say, ‘You’re drunk, Lewis, you don't know what you're talking about.’ I’ve liked you for months now, (Y/N). Sometimes it feels like I'm fighting this war for you, so we could be together after.” Somehow his voice was the steadiest it’s been the entire night, and that scared you.

You suddenly felt bashful, afraid he could hear your heart pounding loud in your chest. “I…like you, too, Lew.”

A soft beam adorned his flushed face. “And if I forget in the morning, I’ll just tell you again. I’ll tell you over and over until it's the only thing I can remember piss-drunk.”

“I’ll be making sure you're never piss-drunk again, but… I’ll remind you. Keep your word.” You leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“That you will,” he said impishly, grabbing you from around the waist and pulling you next to him in the sheets, his arms encircling your body.

“Hey!” you giggled, struggling against his bear-like grasp. “Can I at least get my boots off?”

He snickered into your hair and held you close.

“Nope.”

Bonus:

A couple of hours had passed, and there was no sign of Doc (Y/N). Figuring she was still with Nix, Dick decided to check in on them.

Knocking on the door and receiving no response, he let himself in, saying while surveying the room, “Doc, you still there— Oh.”

taglist: @mads-weasley

#band of brothers #band of brothers x reader #lewis nixon x reader #lewis nixon #hbo war #easy company #101st airborne #ron livingston #band of brothers imagines #band of brothers fanfic #hbo war fanfic #dick winters #richard winters #band of brothers imagine

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fatehbaz · 8 months

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There is a direct connection between the expansion of [...] new [coffee] consumer culture in Europe [...] and the expansion of plantation slavery in the Caribbean. [...] [S]lave-based coffee was more important to the Dutch [Netherlands] economy than previously [acknowledged] [...]. [T]he phenomenal growth of [plantation slavery in] Saint Domingue [the French colony of Haiti] was partly made possible by the export market along the Rhine that was opened up by the Dutch Republic. [...] [E]arly in the eighteenth century, the Dutch and French began production in their respective West Indian colonies [...]. [C]offee was still a very exclusive product in Europe. [...] From the late 1720s, [...] in the Netherlands [...] coffee was especially widespread [...]. From the late 1750s the volume of Atlantic coffee production [...] increased significantly. It was at that time that the habit of drinking coffee spread further inland [...] [especially] in Rhineland Germany [...] [and] inland Germany [due to Dutch shipments via the river].

Although its consumption may not have been as widespread as the tea-sugar complex in Britain, there certainly was a similar ‘coffee-sugar complex’ in continental Europe [...] spread during the eighteenth century [...]. The total amount of coffee imported to Europe (excluding the Italian [...] trade) was less than 4 million pounds per year during 1723–7 and rose to almost 100 million pounds per year around 1788 [...]. In 1790 [...] almost half of the value of [Dutch] exports over the Rhine [to Germany] was coffee. [...]

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The rising prices in the 1760s encouraged more investment in coffee in Dutch Guiana and the start of new plantations in Saint Domingue [Haiti]. Production in Saint Domingue skyrocketed and surpassed all the others, so that this colony provided 60% of all the coffee in the world by 1789. [Necessitating more slave labor. The Haitian revolution would manifest about a decade later.] [...]

In French historiography, the ‘Dutch problems’ are considered to be the slave revolts (the Boni-maroon wars) [at Dutch plantations]. [...] France made use of the Dutch ‘troubles’ to expand its market share and coffee production in Saint Domingue [Haiti], which accelerated at an exponential rate. [...]

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[T]he Dutch Guianas [were] producing over a third of the coffee consumed in Europe [...] [by] 1767. [...] The Dutch flooded the Rhine region with coffee and sugar, creating a lasting demand for both commodities, as the two are typically consumed together. [...] [T]he history of the slave-based coffee production in Surinam and Saint Domingue [Haiti] was pivotal in starting the mass consumption of coffee in Europe. [...] Slave-based coffee production was also crucial [...] in Brazil during the 'second slavery', where slavery existed on an enormous scale and was reshaped in the world's biggest coffee producing country [later] during the nineteenth century. [...] The Dutch merchant-bankers organised coffee investment, enslavement, and planting and selling; [all] while not leaving the town of Amsterdam [...].

[This market] expansion ends in crisis [...] - a crisis caused by uprisings and revolutions, most notably, the Haitian one. Yet Germans still liked coffee. And the Dutch colonial merchant-banker[s] [...] learned something about [...] production, and perhaps also something about the role of the state in labour control: as soon as they could, they sent Johannes van der Bosch [Dutch governor-general of the East Indies] to Surinam and Java in order to solve the labour issues and expand the colonial production of coffee [by imposing in Java the notoriously brutal cultuurstelsel "enforced planting" regime, followed later by the "Coolie Ordinance" laws allowing plantation owners to discipline "disobedient" workers, with millions of workers on Java plantations, lasting into the twentieth century].

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Text above by: Tamira Combrink. "Slave-based coffee in the eighteenth-century and the role of the Dutch in global commodity chains". Slavery & Abolition Volume 42, Issue 1, pages 15-42. Published online 28 February 2021. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. All of that italicized text within brackets was added by me for clarity and context; apologies to Combrink. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

#abolition #ecology #caribbean #tidalectics #intimacies of four continents #ecologies #archipelagic thinking #indigenous #multispecies #european coffee #slavery hinterlands

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let-me-luve-you · 2 years

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Unqualified

Part 1 of the Road to the World Cup Series

Christian Pulisic x Reader (female)

Summary: As Christian's high school sweetheart, the reader watches on as the US tries to qualify for the World Cup. After the game, the reader tells Christian some surprising news.

Warnings: Flangst, mentions of sex, pregnancy

Word Count: 1836

A/N: I've had this idea for a while. I finally got in the mood to write again. Currently writing part 2. I've got 4 parts planned for this series. Hope you all enjoy!

MASTERLIST

CHRISTIAN MASTERLIST

BUY ME A COFFEE

It was simple. A win and you’re in. A tie and you put your fate into the other countries hands. Lose and you're out. Dressed proudly in her #10 US kit, Y/N sat in between her boyfriend’s (of 4 years) parents. The last four days had been a whirlwind. She was sick before traveling to Orlando for the Panama match. So sick she missed her first flight and caught one that allowed her to get to the game just in time for kickoff. Even though she still wasn’t 100%, she wouldn’t miss these games for anything.

She loved watching Christian play. She’s either been at or watched every match since they met when they were 14. They started dating when they were 15. When Christian moved to Germany at 16, they considered breaking up to not hold each other back, but that idea was quickly turned down. Figured they would try. Succeeding for two years at distance, she moved to Dortmund to be with him. Her parents weren’t happy with the decision because of college, but she is taking online classes to get a degree in marketing. Online gave her the freedom of travel when she wanted to go with Christian.

Now at 19, she watched as the second half began for the final game of World Cup qualifying. The US was down 0 to 2 but she saw the way Christian looked when he walked back onto the pitch. His determination and focus was the only thing you could read on his face.

She watched on as the US headed toward goal. Y/N quickly grabbed onto Kelley’s arm as Jorge Villafana attempted a shot but was immediately blocked by Alvin Jones. Villafana was able to get the ball back and pass it to an open Christian at the top of the box. Christian takes a touch that pushes him a few feet closer to the goal before just striking it into the back of the net. Y/N stood up fast and yelled. She started feeling lightheaded so she turned and hugged Kelley and then Mark to not let them catch on to how she was feeling. They continued to celebrate as the US boys grabbed the ball to try and get another goal and keep the play moving.

As the second half continued, Y/N watched on as the boys tried everything in their power to score a second goal, but ultimately, when the final whistle rang, it wasn’t the US on top of the scoreboard. Y/N stayed sitting as Mark stood up. Kelley wrapped her arm around the young girl that stole her son’s heart. She watched as Y/N fought tears. Kelley could tell she was trying to keep it together, for when she saw Christian.

Y/N was doing a somewhat decent job at keeping her tears at bay until she watched Christian drop into a squat with his head in his jersey. Kelley squeezed her closer to her as she tried to comfort her. She too had tears in her eyes. She was sad for her son. She knew how hard he was working to achieve his dreams and goals. She was also sad for the young girl in her arms because she knew how much she supported her son and was there for him when she or Mark couldn’t. She knew Y/N wanted it for Christian just as much as he wanted it.

Watching the team make their way into the locker room, the Pulisic’s and Y/N thought it would be a good time to make their way down into the family area. Once they made it to the hallway outside the locker room, Y/N sat down on a chair that was near. Mark put his hand on her shoulder and sadly smiled at her. She gave him one back before staring at the door. One by one, players started making their way out. They stopped at their family or made their way to the team bus.

Christian was the last one to come out. Y/N quickly stood up as she saw him look opposite of his family before turning and looking right at her. He quickly walked over and wrapped her in a tight hug. He dug his face into her neck. She felt a few tears leave his eyes and wet her skin.

“I know it sucks right now, but I am so proud of you.” She whispered into his ear.

“It’s my fault. I could’ve done more.” Christian said so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

“You did your job. You stepped up when needed. This was not your fault.” She ran her hand over his short hair as she squeezed him tighter. Kelley and Mark watched on at their son and they hoped, their future daughter in law.

“I love you Christian Mate.” She said as she kissed his neck. “I will always love you and be proud of you. Now go hug your parents and I will give you all the cuddles tonight.” She whispered the last part for only him to hear. Christian pulled back and leaned his forehead on hers.

“I don’t deserve you.” He whispered before giving her a small kiss and pulling away. He quickly turned to his mom for comfort. Y/N watched on as she watched her boyfriend get the same words from his parents that she just spoke to him.

“Yo Christian! Time to go.” She heard one of his teammates yell.

“I’m coming!” Christian yelled back. He came back to Y/N and gave you another slow, soft kiss. “I’ll see you here in a little bit.”

After getting into the rental the Pulisics rented, they quickly drove her to the team hotel to meet back up with Christian.

“Y/N, you okay dear?” Kelley asked.

“I’m good. Just bummed for Chris.” Y/N sighed.

“Oh sweetie. He’ll be okay.” She turned and smiled at her.

“You are doing everything right Y/N. You are there for him. We couldn’t ask for anyone better for our son to date.” Mark said. She smiled at him with a blush. As they pulled up to the hotel, Y/N smiled at both parents and thanked them for the ride.

“We are going to come visit you both in a few weeks for Thanksgiving.” Kelley said.

“I can’t wait. Have fun on your trip to the Bahamas.” She smiled as they thanked her and drove off.

Y/N walked into the lobby and sat on the couch as she waited for the team bus to arrive. What Y/N didn’t know was that Christian and her were going to quickly grab their stuff and get on a private plane back to Germany. Normally, Christian wouldn’t pay for that, but after that loss, he wanted to get away from people as fast as possible.

“Hi Y/N.” She looked up and saw Paul Arriola and Clint Dempsey walking in. She smiled and waved at them before they kept walking to the elevator. When Christian walked in, she quickly stood up and met him with an open hand. He was quick to intertwine his fingers with hers. He dragged her to the elevators.

“Bags are packed right?” He asked her once alone in the moving object.

“Yes. Why?” She asked, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Gerald got us a private plane. We fly to Portugal tonight. We will fill up with gas and then make the rest of the flight to Dortmund.” He said. She nodded at him. Christian quickly packed the rest of his stuff before grabbing most of the bags and heading out of the room with Y/N hot on his trail.

Part way through the flight, Y/N was cuddled up to Christian on the pullout couch. Neither speaking and neither sleeping. Christian squeezed her closer to him and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

“How you feeling? I forgot to ask earlier.” He said softly.

“I’m better. I still have my moments.” She said before sitting up. “Actually, I have something to tell you.” Christian sat up as well. “I don’t know how to say this.”

“You can tell me. It’s okay.” He said, grabbing her hand for support.

“I’m pregnant.” Y/N said. She looked down but then quickly looked up to see a shocked Christian.

“What?” He asked in disbelief.

“I’m pregnant. I’m 13 weeks as of Saturday.” She said. “I did the math, we brought home a souvenir from vacation.”

“Wow. Okay.” Christian rubbed his hand down his face. Still in shock at the news. “When did you find out?”

“The day before I flew into Orlando. I went to the doctor to get some medicine to help settle my stomach. They ran some tests and asked if there was a chance of me being pregnant. I mean, I couldn’t say no. It’s like we’ve been in the honeymoon stage lately.” She giggled as Christian gave a small laugh and a nod of his head.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I didn’t want to distract you from these games. I just wanted you to focus on soccer, not how we are going to be parents at 19.” She said sincerely. “Are you okay with this? I know it’s a lot to take in and I’ve had time to let it sink in, but how are you with this?”

“I uh… I don’t know.” He said honestly. “I’m not going to leave you. You are right about the thoughts of ‘how are we going to be parents at 19?’ have gone through my head.”

“We can do this.” She smiled.

“We can.” Christian smiled before leaning forward and capturing her lips, deepening it as they went along. “I’m terrified, but I’m glad it’s with you. I love you so much Y/N/N. You are going to be a fantastic mother.”

“And you will be an amazing father.” She kissed him slower this time before pulling away. “Can we wait a bit before we tell our families? I want to tell them, but I want this to stay between us for as long as possible, because the world will find out when I show up looking like a whale in black and yellow stripes.”

“But you’ll be my beautiful whale in black and yellow stripes.” He laughed as she slapped him on the chest. Christian pulled her closer and laid down with her on top of him. “We can wait as long as you want before we tell people.”

“Thank you. I know this is scary, but I’m glad I’m on this journey with you.” Y/N pushed his hair back as she ran her hand through it. As she straddled his lap, she leaned down and kissed him. Christian pulled back.

“Here’s to our next journey in our relationship.” He smiled before kissing her. Quickly deepening the kiss and rolling her over onto her back. “Now let’s join the mile high club to celebrate.”

#christian pulisic #christian pulisic x reader #christian pulisic imagine #christian pulisic one shot #christian pulisic fanfic #christian pulisic rpf #dad!christian pulisic #dad!christian pulisic x reader #soccer imagines #soccer fic

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rain-lavender-rain · 11 months

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Stay

Warnings: None. Use of Y/N, described as female character. No proofed/beta-read.

Word Count: 740

For background: As far as what was in my brain with the timeline of all this, the story happens after Civil War, but after Bucky comes out of cryo, but its before Infinity War... in my brain, there's a period where he is hiding outside of Wakanda for a bit.

She sat, drinking a warm cup of coffee while waiting for Bucky to return from the market. Y/N offered to go this morning, but the man insisted she stay in the comfort of the bed. This living space was one of the nicer ones, equipped with a sizable bed that was warm, and a blanket that wasn't thin. The two had stayed in it since the being on the run from the government, after she helped Steve get Bucky to Wakanda.

After hiding for a while, Bucky and Y/N had decided to split with Steve and Natasha for a more quiet, lowkey, (but still in hiding) lifestyle for a time. The two had enjoyed every moment of peace. Their hearts inevitably, became closer too; pulled together like a boat on the waves, washed upon the shore.

Looking out the window at the quiet street, Y/N reminisced on a conversation had a few months ago.

"We could go anywhere. Maybe a small village, but close enough to a station where we could go if needed," he suggested.

"Yeah, but it has to be large enough where people won't question why we are there, or get overly suspicious ..." she schemed.

"And it needs to have a market, but I'd rather not go back to Romania. Europe is fine though, preferable actually." He replied.

She smiled at that one, looking at a map displayed splayed out on the wooden table as her eyes studied the landscape.

"How about Germany? Staufen, Germany?" Y/N said, with an excited grin. Bucky matched her grin with a glint of adoration in his eyes...

(End of flashback)

Watching the quiet street, and warming her hands around the mug she was holding, Y/N's heart dropped. Bucky was walking quickly towards their apartment, but his demeanor was carved with panic, maybe a sort of desperation, an acceptance almost. As she set down her mug, the man came barreling through through the door, headed straight for the cabinet under the sink.

"Bucky? What's going on?" She asked frantically.

"I'm being followed. I should have enough time. Threw them off my trail so they won't follow you here. You'll be safe. I already called Steve and asked him to pick you up." This was all said as he grabbed a backpack under the sink, as well as a gun hidden above the cabinets.

"Hold on, hold on. Who's following you- where are you going'"

"I think its Hydra okay? Steve will come get you. You'll be fine-" He tried to reason.

"No! NO! You don't get to just walk out the door- after everything we've been through together, you can't just leave-"

Bucky looked at her, his heart clenching, impulse traveling through his blood. One look at her was all it took for him to break just a little.

"Please don't make this harder than it already is. Please-" Desperation and brokenness from his mouth shifted the tide.

"I love you." She cut in, right after Bucky had grabbed the door handle.

That stopped him dead on his feet, his face to the ground. Every possible emotion capsized his original plan. Anguish, pain, guilt... disbelief at her confession.

She walked towards him, setting a hand on his shoulder. "James-"

Y/N was cut off by his lips against her own, where flowers bloomed upon the ground as the two met in loves embrace. It was over all too soon.

"That's why I have to leave- I can't let you get hurt." Bucky said, his eyes closed. He didn't want to see the tears he knew would be in Y/N's eyes.

"You're hurting me more than anyone ever could by leaving." That statement made him stop again, instead of walking out the door like his plan was half a second before.

"Ask me to come. Ask me to stay with you. If we can't stay here, I'll follow you. I'll stay with you anywhere."

His breaths came out in short waves, fighting a battle to keep her safe, but following his own selfish ambitions for love, and to give into her requests. Bucky would fold a thousand times over for the person who knew how he liked his coffee, and would try to make a plum pie on his birthday, who held him on his darkest nights, and ultimately, held his heart too.

Pulling the other backpack off the coat hanger by the door, Bucky took a moment, eyes shutting before the blue's sparkled with spoken love.

"Stay. Stay with me."

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x y/n

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teeheemarie · 2 years

Text

“All I Want For Christmas Is You”

König Christmas Edition 🎄🎅🏼

What he would get you?!!

-First lets start with what you are getting him. You both have crazy schedules and bc of COVID, traveling to Germany is out of the question, however, there’s a little town abt 3 hrs from where you guys live thats called Germantown. Neither have you been there and you heard they are doing a Christmas Market (these are huge in Germany). So you decide to book a 2 day stay at a mom and pop inn and tour their Christmas Market as his gift. You let him know in advanced so he can take a couple of days of leave (non military folk, thats days off). He is so excited. The man was packed a week ago and started to pack your suitcase as well. He likes things to be ready. While you are waiting for him to pick you up you feel a sudden urge to bring a dress. Idk, call it woman intuition. So you quickly run up stairs and grab that pretty red dress he likes and you grab a little something extra 😉. He pulls into the drive way honking his horn. The man showered at work and has his suitcase in the back seat of the truck. “Hello beautiful” and he leans in for a kiss which leaves you wanting more but you can wait.

The drive is decently fast bc you two are talking abt how work has been, that crazy chick you hate, family traditions, etc. When you pull into Germantown, you are stunned. It looks so similar to Germany and the snow makes it breathtaking. You see kids laughing, smell of Glühwein hits your nostrils and you see the mom and pop at the entrance of the inn waiting for you guys with a basket full of different German chocolates, knick-knacks and a bottle of wine. König starts speaking German, you understand some of it but you still need practice. He takes the basket and room key and says “Cheers.” You both head to the room.

The room is big and beautiful. Gives a very antique feel which König adores. The bed looks comfy and the view of the town is outside your balcony. “Shall we freshen up and head to get some food & Glühwein?” he says, whilst licking his lips. “Yes babe..its going to take me min though. Can you grab us coffee first?” you ask. He knows your love coffee runs deep within your viens bc he too loves coffee. “Of course, love” he says and with that he is out the door.

You took longer than you’d said, mainly bc you had a feeling tonight was going to be the night. You made sure to have your sexiest lingerie on under your dress and you did your makeup light in case he makes you cry. When you exited out of the bathroom you were surprised to see that this man had dinner, candles lite, rose petals everywhere and was in a nice suite. You began to blush…he is a romantic but you were always taken aback considering his job. Its like being with two different people. He pulls a chair out, motioning you to sit. You head over and place a kiss on his cheek and then sit. The kiss leaves him semi flustered but you can tell he is anxious abt something different, seeing how his eyes keep darting. “Babe, whats up?” you ask, “are you having an an anxiety attack, do you need me to get you something?” you ask concerned. “No. My love. I just..I can’t wait any longer. I want you to be in my life forever and I’m ready for the next step, if you are?” and with that he gets down on one knee (even at this position he is still taller than you), pulls a little black box out and opens it. There it was. The beautiful Alex Russell ring you had on your pinterest board. “Y/n, will you please marry me and spend the rest of your life by my side as my beautiful wife?” he asked. “Yes König” you say.

“Can we skip dinner? Because I really want to rip that dress off you and make love to my fiancé!” König asks. God you love it when he gets all slutty around you. And without you answering, he brings you to your feet and with with both of his veiny hands rips your dress off you, exposing the sexy santa lingerie you have underneath. The crotch part is open and the nipples are covered with two cute bows. König is instantly hard at the sight of you. “Well big guy, what do you want?” you raise your eye brow. “I want to fuck you slow and hard” he says and starts kissing you everywhere. You pull away to take his clothes off, but he stops you. “My clothes stay on. Each time you beg and cum, a piece of clothing comes off” he says. Your eyes grow wide. The man is going to have you cumming at the palm of his hands. His dominant side is by far his sexiest. He picks you up and gently tosses you on the bed. He doesn’t skip a beat and goes straight for in between. You feel his rough hands squeezing your thighs, “your thighs are so thick I just want to..” and he bites and kisses them. He spreads you open, and kisses your inner thighs until he gets to your lips. You feel his tongue licking your lips and slowly make their way to the slit. He uses his thumb on your clit and his tongue every where else. Moans escape from your mouth. “König please…pleasee I want you”. He ignores you, and starts moving his tongue to your clit and moving it fast…you moan louder and you feel your first cum escape. He smiles and lifts his shirt off. You protest. “I want your pants off” you whine. He raises an eyebrow, “are you going to beg or cum?” “I’ll beg” you say. A devilish smirk spreads across his lips. “On your knees”, he says. You get up, shakily, and get on your knees. “Well?!” he says. You raise your eyebrow and say “Daddy please take your pants off. I promise to be a good girl.” you say. You see him get flustered. You never called him Daddy before. “König, Daddy, please. I want to please you.” The man is like jelly with the word “daddy” and you can see how hard he has gotten since you said it. He takes his pants off and you can see a bit of precum. You look up at him, you can see the fire burning in his eyes. He wants you. Normally you’d start to suck his thick cock but in this moment something was different. He lifted you up and set you on the bed. “Lets cum together” he moans. With that he sits you on his face and eats you out while he jacks himself off. The man has talent. You both cum quicker than you’d like to admit. You get off his face and he pins you down on the bed. Him on top of you. He leans down to kiss you but you say “please fuck my pussy with you cock”, he smirks, “with pleasure, my love.” You guys ended up doing 5 rounds and then cuddled for a min and cleaned up. After you cleaned up you guys headed to the market and you noticed that people were staring at you and saying “atta boy” to König…you look up at your balcony and see that the doors were open this whole time and when you look at König, the devilish smile is back on his face 😈

#cod mw2 #konig x you #konig mw2 #konig #konig smut #konig x reader #cod mw2 smut #cod mw2 fanfic #könig x reader #könig cod #könig #könig call of duty

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marketdevelopment · 6 months

Text

Germany Coffee Market Outlook for Forecast Period (2023 to 2030)

Germany’s Coffee Market is Expected to Grow at a Significant Growth Rate, and the Forecast Period is 2023-2030, Considering the Base Year as 2022.

The German coffee market is a booming business, propelled by a combination of well-known global coffee brands and an increasing number of regional roasters and coffee shops. This assortment of choices meets the growing need for premium coffee that comes from ethical sources. German consumers have been more interested in specialty coffee, particularly in organic and fair-trade types. This trend might be attributed to their growing emphasis on sustainability and ethical issues.

In Germany, cafés and coffee shops are essential to the country's coffee culture since they act as meeting places and social centers. Coffee is a staple of the nation's daily diet, with a particular fondness for creamy cappuccinos and filter coffee. But customers are starting to experiment with different brewing techniques, such as espresso-based drinks and cool brews, which is encouraging innovation and variety in the industry.

The market is durable and flexible in spite of obstacles like supply chain interruptions and shifting coffee prices. Major companies consistently launch new goods and promotional plans in an effort to hold onto and grow their market share. The future of the coffee market looks vibrant and bright for both domestic and foreign coffee producers, as Germany continues to value sustainability, innovation, and premium coffee experiences. Recent sources and market reports are advised for the most up-to-date insights.

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Research framework (structure of the report)

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Moreover, the report includes significant chapters such as Patent Analysis, Regulatory Framework, Technology Roadmap, BCG Matrix, Heat Map Analysis, Price Trend Analysis, and Investment Analysis which help to understand the market direction and movement in the current and upcoming years.

Leading players involved in the Germany Coffee Market include:

"Nestlé Deutschland AG (Switzerland), illycaffè S.p.A. (Italy), Starbucks Coffee Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG (US), Franke Coffee Systems GmbH (Switzerland), WITTENBORG (Netherlands), Tchibo GmbH (Germany), Melitta Group (Germany), J.J. Darboven GmbH & Co. KG (Germany), WMF Group GmbH (Germany), Kaffee Partner GmbH (Germany), Neumann Gruppe GmbH (Germany), Dr. Oetker Tiefkühlprodukte (Germany), Arko GmbH (Germany), Bonamat GmbH (Netherland), Julius Meinl Deutschland GmbH (Austria), Lavazza Deutschland GmbH (Italy), Segafredo Zanetti Deutschland GmbH (Italy), Caffè Nero Deutschland GmbH (UK), Costa Coffee Germany GmbH (UK), Peet's Coffee Deutschland GmbH (US) and Other Major Players"

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Segmentation of Germany Coffee Market:

By Forms

Whole Coffee Beans

Ground Coffee

Instant Coffee

Coffee Pods & Capsules

Espresso

Others

By Source

Arabica

Robusta

By Speciality Coffee

Single-Origin Coffee

Micro-Lot Coffee

Organic Coffee

Direct Trade Coffee

Cold Brew & Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Others

By Process

Caffeinated

Decaffeinated

By Flavors

Vanilla

Caramel

Hazelnut

Mocha

Cinnamon

Others

By Distribution Channel

On-trade

Off-trade

By End-Users

Individual Coffee Drinkers

Coffee Shop Patrons

Office & Workplace Consumers

Catering & Hospitality Industry

Bakeries & Dessert Shops

Others

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opera-ghosts · 2 months

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Ernestine Schumann-Heink as Waltraute; Bayreuth, 1899

Madame Shumann-Heink, the diva of Grossmont

Last of the Titans

Author: Richard W. Amero

Publish Date: Nov. 7, 1991

Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink's life had the before-and-after quality of a fairy tale. She was born in poverty and achieved riches. She was plain in appearance yet had a regal and impressive bearing on the concert stage. She began her opera career modestly in Austria at age 15, but by the time she moved her family to San Diego, at 48, she was one of the most famous and revered women of her time, revered women of her time.

She was called "Tini" by her parents, "Topsy" by friends in Germany, "the Heink" by composer Gustav Mahler, "Heinke" by impresario Maurice Grau, and "Nona" by her children. Those who did not know her personally called her "Mother" or “Madame," reflecting the gratitude, tenderness, admiration, and respect she inspired.

She was born Ernestine Röessler at Lieben, near Prague (then part of Austria), June 15, 1861. Her mother was Italian-born Charlotte (Goldman) Röessler and her father Hans Röessler, a cavalry lieutenant in the Austrian army. She would later say she inherited her willfulness and "fighting qualities" from her father, whom she once referred to as “a real old roughneck," but it was her mother who inspired her to sing. Schumann-Heink would recall for a biographer, "When I was three years old, I already sang. I sang what my mother sang.... I’d put my mother’s apron around me and start to act and sing — singing all the different arias and dancing — always dancing."

The Röesslers confronted a life of continual want. An army salary could barely support a family of six. But the resourceful young Ernestine used her talents to supplement the family’s table. The diva told stories of charming a dour grocer into giving her some Swiss cheese and an apple in exchange for performing a traditional folk dance. If Ernestine had no music for a performance, she would whistle the tune herself.

When her father was posted at Krakow, Ernestine’s mother sent her off to convent school each day “with a big bottle of black coffee and a piece of dry black bread —butter was unheard of. That was all she could give me." But one day at lunchtime, Ernestine left the school grounds to explore the town’s marketplace. "I was only 11 years old then and delighted to run the streets — I did not fear anything — and perhaps it was all well and good, because it was the beginning of my independence."

At the market, Ernestine discovered an Italian circus:

They were just having the mid-day meal when I came along. Oh, how it smelled, so good! And I was so hungry — I was always hungry, you know. “Ach, what must I do to get some of that good food?” So I asked them, please, please could they give me something to eat — and I would work for it. They were astonished and roared at me with laughter and said, "Si, si! If you want to work, little one, clean the monkey cages first, then you can eat!” I suppose they didn’t think I’d really do it — they were just joking — but I did it. And what a meal they gave me! I was stuffed like a Strassbourg goose! And they began right away to like me.

Ernestine spent her afternoons working with the circus until her father was reassigned to Prague later that year.

Still only 11, Ernestine was sent to the Ursuline convent near Prague, where, though she could not read music, she sang the tenor parts in the Mass, which she had memorized by ear. Her impressive performance attracted notice, and she began taking formal music lessons. When she was 13, the family moved to Graz, where again Ernestine’s deep contralto voice impressed a retired diva, who gave her lessons at no charge.

At 15 Ernestine sang the contralto part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in her first public performance. On the strength of that performance, the chorus’s soprano soloist suggested that Ernestine apply for a position with the Vienna Imperial Opera. But her hopes were dashed when the opera director, after her audition, sneered, "Why with such a face — no personality at all — how can you expect to succeed? My dear girl, you better give up the idea of singing and let the people who brought you buy you a sewing machine and set you to work. You will never be a singer."

Not long after the rebuff in Vienna, Ernestine was invited to try out for the Dresden Opera. After hearing her sing the demanding ‘‘O mon fils" from Myerbeer’s Le Prophète and "Brindisi" from Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, the director engaged her at 3600 marks (about $900) a year.

In 1878 the 17-year-old contralto made her debut as Azucena in II Trovatore. Imbued with the high spirits and irreverence of youth, Ernestine said she had difficulty maintaining a straight face as she sang of throwing her child into the flames. It was at the Dresden Cathedral, where she sang to enhance her meager income, that Ernestine finally learned to read music.

In 1882 at 21, Fraulein Röessler married Ernst Heink, secretary of the Dresden Opera, though they did not first obtain the consent of management. As a consequence, she and her husband were dismissed.

In the fall of 1883, at the urging of a Dresden critic, the director of the Hamburg Opera awarded Frau Heink a contract to sing utility roles with the company for a few hundred marks a season. In the first four years at Hamburg, she sang only bit parts. During that time, she gave birth to August, Charlotte, and Henry. The expected arrival of a fourth child (Hans) proved too much for Herr Heink, who left mother and children to fend for themselves.

Frau Heink’s situation was desperate. When the sheriff took her furniture to satisfy her husband’s debts, she felt she had reached the end of her resistance. She resolved to throw herself and her children in front of a locomotive. She later said it was the voice of her little girl Charlotte saying, "Mamma! Mamma! I love you! Take me home!" that brought her to her senses.

Throughout this time, Ernestine continued to study and observe the work of the lead singers. At home, while nursing her babies, she diligently studied the major operatic roles.

A fellow performer soon asked her to sing at a benefit in Berlin. Still pregnant with Hans but desperate for money, she left her three children in a neighbor’s care and traveled all night by train. Arriving in Berlin early in the morning and unable to afford a hotel, she sat in a park until rehearsals began. Her performance as Azucena that evening made her a sensation.

Back in Hamburg, Ernestine’s director realized (if he had not known before) that he had a superstar in his opera company. When his leading contralto refused to perform one evening, he asked Ernestine to sing the role of Carmen. Though she had not studied the role, Frau Heink triumphed. It was true, as conductor Gustav Mahler pointed out, that she had memorized the faults as well as the singing of the many Carmens who had preceded her at Hamburg. Successes as Fidès in Le Propheète and Ortrud in Lohengrin followed. Before the season was over, 22-year-old Ernestine Heink was Hamburg’s leading contralto.

The singer later admitted that her relationship with Gustav Mahler was not cordial. Because Mahler did not pay attention to her as a woman, she spread the rumor that he was homosexual. In these salad years, Frau Heink’s impish impulses and headstrong temperament kept her from taking art or herself too seriously.

From 1887 to 1898, the ambitious Ernestine sang in festivals and concerts in Berlin, London, Sweden, Norway, and, beginning in 1896, at the famous Bayreuth Festival, training that broadened her vocal style. The singer’s increasing successes, her three-octave vocal range from low D to high B, and her self-assurance on the stage brought her dozens of feature roles in quick succession, including Amneris in Aida, Brängane in Tristan und Isolde, Katisha in The Mikado, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger, and Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia.

In 1892, at the age of 31, Ernestine divorced Herr Heink and married Paul Schumann, an actor and director of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Schumann taught his wife to interpret songs by speaking the words before she sang them. Her lifelong reputation for deft phrasing, pure diction, and thoughtful understanding of the content of lyrics owed much to her husband’s guidance.

Bruno Walter, assistant conductor to Gustav Mahler at the Hamburg opera during this era, recalled Schumann-Heink as a singer who combined remarkable talent with willful disposition. In spite of a tendency to resist, “She could be depended upon to use her gifts in a thoroughly artistic manner.” Critic George Bernard Shaw was captivated by her fine contralto voice and the power and passion of her delivery at the Bayreuth Festival in 1896 but was less taken by the summer gown and fashionable sleeves she wore under her blue-black Valkyrie armor as she sang Waltraute in Die Götterdaämmerung.

Schumann-Heink’s American debut took place in Chicago in November of 1898 in the role of Ortrud in Lohengrin. She was at the time a member of the Maurice Grau Opera Company, predecessor of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company, and was on leave of absence from the Royal Opera House Company in Berlin. Four weeks after the première, she gave birth to a boy in the Belvedere Hotel in New York City. At the suggestion of the doctor who assisted in the birth, she named her newest son George Washington Schumann. Her children eventually would number eight, including four by Heink (August, Charlotte, Hans, and Henry); George, Ferdinand, and Marie, her children by Schumann; and Walter, Schumann’s son from a former marriage.

Her Metropolitan Opera debut as Ortrud took place just one month later, in January of 1899. The critic for the New York Tribune said that though her high register was not as beautiful as her low, she won admiration for her thrilling use of tonal color and her ability to depict a character who was “half woman, half witch and all wickedness personified.”

In London that summer, she appeared before Queen Victoria in a condensed version of Lohengrin at Windsor Castle. Afterward, the Queen told her in German how much she liked her voice. In a bluffer manner, Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) asked her how she could have so many children and still find time to sing. Schumann-Heink was piqued but made no reply.

In 1904, Schumann-Heink left the Metropolitan and the world of opera to tour in a musical comedy, Love's Lottery. Her new manager promised her an income at the improbable figure of $240,000 for 40 weeks’ work plus a share of the gross receipts. Because her English was stilted and her accent heavy, her role as a German washerwoman in love with an English sergeant elicited much amusement from audiences.

Most critics were restrained in their comments, but Leslie's Weekly scored the singer’s presentation. “Madame Schumann-Heink is not an unalloyed joy. Her comedy is pathetically heavy and her one idea of humor (?) is to mock her own broken English by saying repeatedly, ‘Ist mein English goot?’ ”

In answer to those critics who deplored her desertion of grand opera, Schumann-Heink said she did it to get enough money to bring her ailing husband and her children to the United States. But Paul Schumann died in Germany in November of 1904.

The following February, Schumann-Heink took out United States naturalization papers in Cincinnati, and in May, at 43, she married William Rapp, Jr., a Chicago lawyer. He was her business manager and 13 years younger than she.

An attack of tonsillitis forced the diva to close her season with Love’s Lottery in November of 1905. Physicians had told her that she would lose her voice permanently if she continued to sing in that role.

Early in 1906, the diva returned to Germany, where she succeeded in getting six of her eight children out of the country. According to German law, Schumann-Heink, by marrying a foreigner, had forfeited her property in Germany. Also, her boys were required to serve in the army before they could leave the country. The German courts finally decided the boys could accompany her to America and that she could retain one-third of the money in Germany since she, not her deceased husband, had earned it. Her home in Germany was confiscated, and she had to buy it back. Her two oldest children, Charlotte and August, remained in Germany. For the next five years, Ernestine, her husband, and six children lived in northern New Jersey.

After getting her children settled, Schumann-Heink left for Bayreuth in July 1906. Concerts followed in Munich and Paris. Returning to the United States in October, she began a concert tour that ended on March of 1907 with appearances in Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. A review in the New York Sun implied that nothing had changed:

She has all her old merits, all her old faults. She still indulges occasionally in bad attack, in spasmodic and ejaculatory phrasing in cantabile passages, and in failures to take certain intervals faultlessly. But, on the other hand, she has still the splendor of tone, the magnificent sweep of utterance and the stimulating appearance of reserve power which made her singing a constant joy in days now well remembered.

Schumann-Heink was then enticed by Oscar Hammerstein I to join his Manhattan Opera Company for its second season. Eventually, the mercurial Oscar decided that the three prima donnas he had engaged, including Ernestine, were costing him too much money, and he maneuvered to get rid of them. Schumann-Heink sang only one performance, that of Azucena in Il Trovatore in January of 1908. She was idle for the rest of the season and appears to have made up her losses by an extended European tour.

In a 1909 performance as Klytemnestra at the Dresden première of Richard Strauss’s Elektra, Schumann-Heink complained that the vocal parts were “a thunderous medley of groans, moans, and sighs” and feared she had harmed her voice. Strauss, on his side, was disappointed with her wooden acting and Wagnerian style of declamation. A short while later, she sang a much less demanding program of songs in a performance before Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Schumann-Heink was now a wealthy woman. Money coming in from recitals, opera appearances, and recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company went out in investments in stocks, bonds, and real estate.

In January 1910, while on a tour of the Pacific coast, the diva decided to live part-time in Grossmont, then an undeveloped tract of land north of Mt. Helix in eastern La Mesa. Local businessman Ed Fletcher and William B. Gross, a former actor and producer, owned this land, but Fletcher managed its development. He sold Schumann-Heink 500 acres of choice land for $20,000. Besides a lot near the top of Grossmont, the purchase included a 14-acre orange and lemon grove and several acres in El Cajon on which a stand of eucalyptus trees was to be planted.

This 1910 visit was a turning point in the diva’s life. With the land purchase, she could now provide homes for herself and her adult children, and, though she did not state this publicly, she could control their destinies.

William Rapp, the singer’s husband, opposed her plan to perpetuate her children’s dependency, but Schumann-Heink put the matter bluntly. “I do not see why my children should work hard when I have plenty to provide for all of them. I do not want them scattered. I want all of them near me all the time.” In December 1911, Rapp left the New Jersey home, and the next month his wife announced her intention to sue for divorce. Before their divorce became final, there was a bitter trial at which each accused the other of adultery.

“Casa Ernestina,” the Grossmont home, was designed by architect Dell W. Harris of San Diego. It cost about $7000 to build and was ready for occupancy in 1913. It consisted of a basement foundation of granite rubble, a plaster-walled main floor, and a roof of red cement tile. On the north side of the living room, French doors opened onto a terrace commanding a view of El Cajon Valley and the mountains.

Son Hans Schumann-Heink moved onto a 15-acre ranch on the slopes of Grossmont where he planted orange, lemon, and olive trees. He eventually took over a 40-acre ranch near Lakeside, used to raise hogs and grow fruits and vegetables. Ferdinand assumed the management of a cattle ranch in Imperial Valley and a butchering business in El Cajon. Daughter Marie, who had accompanied her mother on visits to Grossmont, married Hubert Guy of San Diego in 1915.

With the coming of Schumann-Heink to Grossmont, local reporters played up her image as a devoted mother. This tribute is one of many paid to the diva:

Madame Schuman-Heink is above all things else the mother, the great-hearted woman, who has risen above the petty struggles, above the heart-aches and reverses and at the prime of her life is surrounded by loving children, eight in all, whose adoration for the "little mother” is the strongest thing of their lives.

Along with her image as loving mother, the singer fostered an image as patriotic American by flying a large American flag over her various homes and by proclaiming her love for America at every opportunity: “I love America and I love Americans. I cannot tell you how much I love them, the great-hearted people, and they love me. I want my children to be Americans, to marry Americans and to live in America.”

The Schumann-Heink without whom the others would not exist was Schumann-Heink the artist. She knew her talent required care and exercise. By the time she came to Grossmont, she had developed her repertoire and style and did not change them thereafter except to include patriotic and sentimental songs in English that appealed to ordinary people. She wanted to sing before large audiences and insisted the price of admission to her recitals be as low as possible.

She did not employ a press agent because she was a master of the art of public relations. Upon her well-publicized arrival in any new town, she would wait for a large body of citizens to gather round. Then, spreading her arms wide, she would proclaim: “Dis is my town. Here I am at home!”

During a Midwestern tour on the Chautauqua circuit, a manager wanted to cancel one of the diva’s performances because a rainstorm had kept crowds at the tent shows very small. His gate receipts would not cover his costs. Schumann-Heink declared she would make up the loss out of her own pocket. Her reason was very practical. ‘‘If you stay in this business, is one thing to learn. Never let them lose money on you. If Schumann-Heink go out now and sing like the angel and that man, he lose money, then Schumann-Heink, she no good! Her voice, it is kaput. But If Schumann-Heink go out and sing off key and the management make money, then he tell everybody, Schumann-Heink, she sing like the angel.”

As soon as she was settled in Grossmont, civic leaders asked her for endorsements. Did she favor bonds for the upcoming Panama-California Exposition? Her first answer was wary. “Is it a check you want?” Then she gave the hoped-for response. “If the exposition will bring people to San Diego and the bonds are necessary to the exposition, I am for the bonds.”

Following a bout of pneumonia in late 1914, the singer resolved to spend 1915 in San Diego resting. But such interludes were rare. While she was relaxing, the Panama-California Exposition declared March 22, 1915, “Madame Schumann-Heink Day.” Some 6000 schoolchildren sang “America” before the diva at the organ pavilion in Balboa Park, and Mayor Charles O’Neall presented her with an honorary citizenship. In return, she promised to give a free concert at the exposition in June. For the nearly 27,000 people who gathered at the pavilion on June 27, it was the event of the year. As the San Diego Sun remarked, “The greatest organ, the greatest voice, the greatest chorus, the greatest outdoors on earth ... she’s golrious [sic].”

San Diego’s honorary citizen gave a concert as good as any she might present in New York. She sang 11 songs — German lieder, art songs, and popular tunes — and ended the concert with the audience joining her in “The Star Spangled Banner.” Since Schumann-Heink didn’t know the words to this song at the time, she sang the notes of the scale instead, mystifying listeners, who wondered what language she was singing.

In October, son Henry, who was a city recorder at Paterson, New Jersey, was charged with embezzling funds. His mother made good the missing money, and the matter was dropped. The following year, stepson Walter Schumann would be arrested in New York City on a charge of burglary. The New York Times would not mention Schumann-Heink in connection with the case or report subsequently how it was resolved.

In December of 1915, Madame Schumann-Heink learned that her son Hans was ill with lobar pneumonia. She rushed from San Diego to Chicago to be with him. When it seemed he might recover, she returned to sing at the reopening ceremonies for the second year of the Panama-California International Exposition on the afternoon of January 1, 1916. The respite ended on January 5, when Hans died. His ashes were placed in a columbarium in Greenwood Cemetery in San Diego.

At midnight, January 1, 1917, the diva sang “A Perfect Day” by Carrie Jacobs Bond and “Auld Lang Syne” at the closing of San Diego’s exposition. She was presented with a jewel made of stones found in San Diego County, which had been engraved, “To our beloved Schumann-Heink from the San Diego Exposition, 1915-1916.”

Later in January, the singer announced a plan to make the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park the setting for a summer festival rivaling Bayreuth’s. To get things moving, she donated $10,000. The San Diego Union went into ecstasies:

The establishment of this ‘American Bayreuth’ will bring in its train a host of the collateral arts, all drawn after their sister muse to a city preeminently fitted by climate, scenery and the temperament of its inhabitants to stand as a monument to the things that make life worthwhile.

It is doubtful the diva’s plan could have been realized because of the inadequacy of the pavilion for the purpose intended and because of the remoteness of San Diego from the population centers of the United States. In any case, the United States’ declaration of war against Germany in April of 1917 brought plans for cultural improvement to a halt.

As an American of Austrian origin with a brother in command of an Austrian warship, a son in the German Navy, and two sisters living in Germany, Schumann-Heink found her love for her new country to be at variance with her love for her old. Anti-Germans spread the calumny that the singer had concealed gold on the grounds of her New Jersey estate to pay for espionage. Others claimed her gardener, William Besthorn, a former reserve officer in the German Navy and a naturalized CJ.S. citizen, was operating an outlaw radio station at Grossmont. This led the CJ.S. Department of Justice to post a guard outside her Grossmont home. The infuriated singer responded by posting a guard inside the grounds to watch the one outside. Eventually, both guards were called off.

Henry Schumann-Heink and George Washington Schumann joined the U..S. Navy. Ferdinand Schumann was a member of the U.S. Army 242nd Artillery at Camp Funston, Arizona; and Walter Schumann, Schumann-Heink’s stepson, was a cook in the New Jersey State Militia. Ferdinand was discharged from the Army after his lungs had been weakened by pneumonia. The transport George was on was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of France, but he survived. August, on submarine duty in the German Navy, was lost in 1918 when an American destroyer rammed his vessel in the English Channel.

In spite of her divided sympathies, Schumann-Heink became a champion of American defense, though she did not condone anti-German jingoism and continued to sing German songs during her recitals. When asked about her attitude toward the war, she responded, “Hatred is a horrible thing. I have read about all those awful things Billy Sunday has been saying. But he will not make American boys hate. They just don’t know how. It isn’t in them.” She counseled mothers, “Don’t write the boys anything but cheerful letters. They are going to face something worse than anything that is happening to them at home. Forget those little troubles and tell them you are proud of them and that you are happy because they are your boys.”

For the duration of American involvement, Schumann-Heink gave herself wholeheartedly to fundraising for Liberty Bonds, the Red Cross, the Knights of Columbus, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and Jewish War Relief and to entertaining soldiers and sailors.

Her visits to San Diego were no longer rest stops. She spent her time singing, reviewing troops, and dining with servicemen in Balboa Park, Camp Kearny, and North Island. She sang frequently at military events; 10,000 people attended her charity concert in Balboa Park; 15,000 heard her sing at a Red Cross fundraiser. And each Christmas, she sang in the program at San Diego’s municipal Christmas tree in Horton Plaza, followed by midnight Mass at Camp Kearny. She even said she intended to go to France to sing in the trenches and to work in canteens. Though some people still assert she made such trip, the U.S. Department of State would not let her go because she had sons in the service.

Madame Schumann-Heink was decorated with regimental colors and named an honorary colonel of the 21st Infantry Regiment. She responded, “These boys of the 21st are now my boys. I love them all and will be a mother to them.” Unscrupulous servicemen wrote letters to their self-proclaimed “mother,” asking her for money to tide them over imaginary emergencies.

San Diego was only one of many cities that benefited from the singer’s largesse. Her home in Chicago was converted into a canteen for servicemen. On one day in October of 1918, she sold $200,000 in Victory Bonds at five rallies in New York City.

When the war was finally over, her son George became a bookkeeper in San Diego, and Henry sold stocks and bonds. Ferdinand left ranching to seek work in the packing business or in newspapers (the indecisiveness was characteristic). Walter stayed in the East. An accommodating Schumann-Heink purchased the former home of William B. Gross at Grossmont for Henry and homes for George and Kaethe, widow of August, in San Diego.

During the first of 1919, the singer spearheaded a campaign for a memorial to be built by popular subscription for San Diego servicemen. This plan would involve lining Pershing Drive in Balboa Park with shade trees and monuments containing the names of those who died during the European war. There was much talk but little action. After a recital at the organ pavilion for the memorial fund, the exasperated promoter lectured her audience, “If you in San Diego who have conceived this great memorial would stop your scrapping among yourselves and advance in one body for the good of your beautiful city, what could you do! You have been first to recognize the honor due to our sainted dead. Let us continue in this spirit.”

In 1921, Schumann-Heink performed in the Far East — Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Batavia, Manila, and Honolulu. One outdoor concert was noteworthy because of thousands of bats flying about, some close to the singer’s head, all busily eating mosquitoes. “It’s fine,” the bemused singer remarked, “as long as they don’t mistake me for a mosquito.” Wherever she went, she was applauded wildly, dined, feted, and showered with gifts.

Wishing to live closer to San Diego, the diva, in 1922, purchased a three-story gray stucco mansion in Coronado from John D. Spreckels. During a visit to San Diego the same year, she began giving concerts to benefit the Rest Haven Home for children. The following year, 30,000 San Diegans heard her sing in the city’s memorial concert on the death of President Harding.

During 1926, Schumann-Heink, then 65, began a series of national radio broadcasts and, remarkably, returned to the Metropolitan Opera in New York after a nine-year absence. She sang Erda in Das Rheingold, and, according to a critic writing in The Nation, “Her voice, though impaired in the heights, still rolled out, rich and controlled. And her art worked its old magic.”

In an interview for the San Diego Union in August of 1926, the aging singer announced she would retire from the opera and concert stages in 1928 and start teaching so she could pass on her art to others. She began her retirement tour that December in New York with her “Golden Jubilee” celebration, the 50th anniversary of her first appearance on the concert stage. She sang Erda’s warning from Das Rheingold and Waltraute’s narrative from Götterdämmerung with the New York Symphony under the baton of Walter Damrosch.

Good Housekeeping magazine, in January 1927, ran a series on the singer’s life, as told to Mary Lawton, which in the following year was published by the Macmillan Company as Schumann-Heink: The Last of the Titans. The remainder of 1927 and the greater part of 1928 were taken up with nationwide farewell concerts. In honor of what she said would be her final appearance at San Diego, a pilot from Rockwell Field flew over her Coronado home and dropped flowers.

No sooner were her farewell concerts over than Schumann-Heink reappeared on the stage. In June of 1928, the diva sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Republican National Convention, which led Will Rogers to remark he wished she could have sung Senator Fess’s keynote speech. (Schumann-Heink, incidentally, was a Democrat who campaigned actively for the election of Alfred Smith as President.) That same month, she appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles; in August she sang in two appearances in San Diego.

Also in 1928, the singer deeded her estate at Grossmont to Mayor George E. Leach of Minneapolis, to be administered as a haven for disabled veterans of the world war. The gift was a way of saying thank you to the veterans who had drunk a toast to August, her “son who went down in the U-boat,” during a Schumann-Heink appearance in Minneapolis in 1923. The veterans never occupied the site, and in 1932 Schumann-Heink’s daughter Marie acquired the estate by paying back taxes and accrued expenses.

In the fall of 1928, a San Diego jury convicted Henry of using $3000 in securities deposited with his stock and bond firm as security for a personal loan. Henry’s theft of corporation funds led to the collapse of the firm and losses to customers of approximately $21,000. He was placed on probation on condition that he repay the stockholders the full amount of their losses. As she had done before, Schumann-Heink made good her children’s mistakes by paying Henry’s debt.

Letters from Schumann-Heink to Alfred Wuest, her realtor and friend, indicate that the diva was under no illusions about her son’s character. (About his womanizing, she once wrote, “What he is I know.... God will punish him and this rotten woman in time.... Elsie shall divorce him — not lament — he laughs at her, lowers her in the eyes of the world. All laughs.”) She rescued him from his financial predicament primarily to spare his wife and two children.

In January of 1929, at age 67, Schumann-Heink again appeared with the Metropolitan Opera as Erda in Das Rheingold. The New York Times wrote that by recognizing the limitations of her voice and by emphasizing tonality, sonority, and inflection, she was able to deliver the warning to Wotan in a masterly fashion.

To dispel any doubts, the contralto announced in February that 1929 would definitely be her last concert year. For the rest of the year, she performed, conducted master classes, appeared in radio broadcasts, and acted as opera counsel for the National Broadcasting Company. She also spent considerable time advising women, in magazine articles and speeches, to forgo politics, bobbed hair, smoking, unchaperoned dancing, lipstick, jazz, and bridge and to devote themselves to bringing up children.

The stock market crash of October 1929 wiped out the singer’s investments. To support her sons and daughters and their progeny and her several retainers, Schumann-Heink put aside whatever wishes she had to lead a relaxed life. At age 69, she joined a touring vaudeville company, Roxy and His Gang. In attempting to describe the attraction of a woman of 69 singing in vaudeville, a writer for the Boston Transcript asked ambiguously, “Is it not the chief glory of her final years that she can persuade us to take the full singing will for the diminished vocal deed?”

Her son Ferdinand had become addicted to morphine, presumably while being treated for pneumonia in the U..S. Army. Like Henry, he was inept at handling his finances and subject to temperamental outbursts. Ferdinand sent whining letters to Schumann-Heink, begging her to send him more money. (“We miss you we love you we adore you Mammy mine, and how we miss you, you can’t conceive it possible,” he once wrote to her.) To keep an eye on him, she began spending much of her free time in Hollywood, where Ferdinand worked as a writer and actor for the motion pictures.

In February 1931, Good Housekeeping magazine listed the singer as second in its list of outstanding contemporary American women (Jane Adams was the first). One reason for this selection was demonstrated shortly afterward, when Schumann-Heink publicly rebuked members of her audience for protesting the appearance of Chinese and Negro children in the dedication ceremonies of the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento. Turning her back on the audience, she sang a lullaby for the children. Then she told the audience, “It is up to the war mothers to teach their children the love of law and not make a difference between black or yellow or brown or white skins. You make war among yourselves through your children.”

For the next two years, Schumann-Heink continued to sing in concerts and on the vaudeville circuit. A writer for the Long Beach Morning Star wrote of one performance, “It isn’t singing as much as talking to the people across the footlights in the most beautiful of tones. And between songs she stops to hold a conversation. And the crowd catches on and talks back.” Schumann-Heink told a reporter for the San Diego Union that she was making between $4000 and $6000 a month through appearances, instruction, and radio broadcasts. She gave this money, she said, to her children and grandchildren. She kept a chauffeur but had given up her secretary, maid, and house servants.

In 1935, at age 74, Schumann-Heink embarked on a new career as a motion picture actress, appearing as a music teacher in Here’s to Romance, produced by Fox Studios, in which she sang Brahms’s “Wiegenlied.” Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presented her with a three-year contract, and when the two studios filed suits against one another, the delighted actress exclaimed, “It’s very comic, this quarreling among the motion picture men who call me terrific, colossal, and gigantic — I think I don’t like that gigantic very much, hah?”

In a joking mood, Hollywood’s newest and oldest discovery confessed to a San Diego Union reporter that actor Wallace Beery was the love of her life, and although she did not wear makeup, for Wallace Beery she would put on lipstick.

Schumann-Heink eventually sold her home in Coronado and moved to Hollywood. She said she was not giving up San Diego and that she intended to buy a cottage near the Grossmont home of her daughter Marie Fox.

A Reader’s Digest article in April of 1936 described Schumann-Heink as eagerly anticipating her role as a poor grandmother in a film being made of Kathleen Norris’s story Gram. The grandmother in the story finds out after a fling at luxury that “money isn’t everything.” The article added that the former opera star had stopped giving away her earnings and that her youngest son George was managing her affairs.

But Schumann-Heink’s expectations never came to fruition. She was suffering from leukemia, and on November 17, 1936, at the age of 75 Madame Schumann-Heink died in her Hollywood home.

The passing of Schumann-Heink was mourned in newspapers in almost every nation in the world except Germany. Schumann-Heink had been outspoken against the Nazis and had credited her own success to her heritage from “her little Jewish grandmother.”

On November 20, Los Angeles paid its respects to Schumann-Heink with a funeral held in the clubhouse of Hollywood Post No. 23 of the American Legion. The American Legion and Disabled American Veterans stood watch over the body. In his brief remarks, the rabbi who assisted with the service said, “She was a grand old darling. That’s the word, Darling. There’s no use being highfalutin’ in this moment of our grief.” He went on, “She loved them all, white and black, American and European, Jew and Gentile. In this she showed herself a master in the greatest of all arts — the art of living.” At the conclusion of the services, her body was taken to Union Station and placed on an observation car. As the train rolled down to Santa Ana and San Clemente, American Legion honor guards stood silent and solemn facing the train.

At San Diego, a police motorcycle escort, a Marine band, and members of the American Legion and Disabled War Veterans escorted the casket from the Santa Fe Station to the funeral chapel. Seats in front of the casket were occupied by Gold Star Mothers, World War Mothers, and members of the auxiliaries of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Disabled War Veterans. National Guardsmen from San Diego’s 251st Coast Artillery Company stood watch while a harpist and pianist played Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” Brahms’s “Wiegenlied,” and Bohm’s “Silent as Night.”

On November 21, the San Diego chapter of the Disabled American Veterans conducted a brief service then placed the casket in a hearse, and members of the family and representatives of the service groups followed it to Greenwood Cemetery. Here a military squad fired a volley and a bugler sounded taps as the body was taken to the crematory. The ashes were later placed in a niche, though not in the same columbarium with those of her son Hans.

In her will, Madame Schumann-Heink left her $34,000 estate to four of her six surviving children. Henry Schumann-Heink and Walter Schumann, having cost her emotional stress and exorbitant sums during her life, were left nothing.

On Memorial Day, 1938, Barbara Heink, granddaughter of the diva, unveiled a bronze, five-foot-square tablet honoring Madame Schumann-Heink at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. The tablet had been purchased through popular subscription. Superimposed upon the tablet is a huge star upon which is a lyre and an open book with the inscription “In loving memory of Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink. A Gold Star Mother. A Star of the World.”

Critics regarded Schumann-Heink as one of a cluster of extraordinary singers, among whom are Jean and Edouard de Reszke, Pol Plangon, Enrico Caruso, Luisa Tetrazzini, Lilli Lehmann, Lillian Nordica, and Nellie Melba. These singers had long and hard apprenticeships. They welcomed opportunities to do bit roles. They nurtured their voices carefully and took pains never to force their voices beyond their limits. They learned their techniques from one another and deepened their understanding of their parts through their association with the great composers of their time. They were not one-day wonders.

As a woman, Schumann-Heink was a contradiction. She represented an independent, self-made person eager to be known and to lead, yet she advised other women to stay at home and look after their husbands and children. She did not think women should vote or take part in politics, but, when the time came, she did both. As an artist she claimed to be indifferent to politics, yet as her years in the United States lengthened she became a proponent of national recovery and national defense and an opponent of prohibition. She admired Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the antithesis of homebody.

As a writer for Commonweal put it, “The American people liked her because she was natural.” It did not matter to those who heard Schumann-Heink’s made-up stories, vernacular jokes, and sentimental songs if she was sincere or truthful because her joy and vitality were contagious. A reporter in the San Diego Union in 1933 was overcome by Schumann-Heink’s charisma. “An hour with Madame Schumann-Heink is like bathing in the stream of life. One comes out refreshed, one’s mental cobwebs blown away with her rich humor; one’s faith in God and the essential fitness and worthwhileness of life renewed; one’s courage shamed into new being.”

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historia-vitae-magistras · 1 year

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I don't know who else to ask about this, sorry, but I'd like to ask about Gilbert in Berlin, I know the history (ussr, west vs east), but personality-wise, does Gilbert "fit" in Berlin?

OH, don't apologize! I love this ask. Gilbert is my OG blorbaux lol. Anyone can ask me anything about him! My thought Is very much yes. It's not a natural inherent fit the way I write Matt in the woods, Arthur at sea, or Alfred in the sky or space, but he does fit.

Gilbert was born the Teutonic Knights, a military order with a very strong sense of what we might call unit-based identities in a modern military context. He exchanged that for the Duchy of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, and maybe East Germany? The memory of a last generation of East Prussians who, until recently, would have remembered what his Königsberg looked like, who might remember that pre-war world he no longer recognizes when the Wall falls? The Teutonic Knights? Who is he supposed to be, still breathing in this world where everything he once was, is a relic of a bygone and disavowed age? Who makes us what we are as people? I think Gilbert did what he's always done. He looked at the world around him and found his place.

Gilbert has Ludwig, his life's work. The rest he can find in Berlin if he looks, if he wants to live. And in my version, he very much wants to live. He has been boxed up over a long post-war winter like the statues in the Volkspark Friedrichshain, but when spring comes and he’s in his city again, it's just another transition.

The Vietnamese restaurant in an odd little corner of a warehouse. The children laughing in the Mauerpark. The two young lovers fucking their brains out in the apartment next door, finding a new joy in each other's bodies. The annoying tourists. The dead places of Cold War voids bursting with greenery. The Brandenburg gate flooded with light. Marjellchen, after dark, three glasses of honey schnaps past drunk. The 24-hour clubs, bodies grinding on each other, lights flashing, sweat, and lousy house electro music. Orgies in glow paint, he's not quite sure he pulls off. Freedom past the point of reason. The visiting young historian was drinking coffee overlooking the cemetery on Greifswalder Strasse, trying to come to terms with what the place was supposed to mean. The idiot tourists at Checkpoint Charlie and the Fernseturm. Haggling with the Polish babcia at the markets over antiques. Art students smoking and bemoaning the state of the world. Stiff federal government workers. The whackos ball out at the train first thing in the morning. Every little facet reflects who he’s been and could be now. Berlin might not fit him like a glove, but he can be himself in its excess of freedom. Especially for him, being born in an actual religious institution so repressed even a thousand years of hetero pining for Erzsé was taboo, he finds some real peace in a post-war, post-war Berlin. If there was ever a city for a thousand-year-old military machine to remake itself into an actual person, it is Berlin.

He just has to convince NATO‌ to get the ankle monitor off him first lol.

#gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #the ask box || probis pateo #my berlin years were easily the happiest of my life so eiorjgeoirjijg #hws prussia #aph prussia

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chussyracing · 6 months

Text

what is happening in the world of motorsports?

send all of hatred toward Red Bull because apparently they suspended the woman who dared to speak up against innapropriate behaviour from the side of her boss (there were rumours that Horner would leave the team by Australia because of boycotts coming from the US market which they wanna focus on, but it was denied a few hours after by Red Bull spokesman, worth noting that Emely de Heus running Red Bull livery in F1 Academy has Ford logos on the car which seems to be a nod towards proceeding with their deal for 2026, then also rumours of Max leaving for Mercedes, Horner contradicting by saying that no individual is bigger than the whole team etc.)

Fred Vasseur and his full wallet are still hungry for more for their all star team and they are now apparently looking into getting engineers from Red Bull (among the names most mentioned online are: head of aero Enrico Balbo, the legend himself Adrian Newey, David Morgan, Ben Waterhouse or Alessandro Germani)

what he already achieved is get Jerome d'Ambrossio who was preparing to take over the team principal duties in Mercedes when Toto Wolff's contract expires, Jerome will join Ferrari and be linked to FDA which should allow Jock Clear to focus more on F1

Red Bull Racing have a planned upgrade for Imola that is meant to be the reworked no-pod concept Mercedes tried out at the start of current regulations and Ferrari will react with their own big upgrade package featuring new floor, bodywork and sidepod scales (McLaren also teased upgrades for their car around this time in the season)

there are so many silly season rumours including Kimi Antonelli to Mercedes (Toto and Kimi were on track for a team who Marco Antonelli drives for in Imola), Fernando Alonso to Mercedes (Toto had another coffee date with his manager Flavio Briatore), Carlos Sainz to Red Bull Racing (his father met up with some Red Bull figures in the paddock), Carlos Sainz to Mercedes (again they visited their facilities and Corriere dello Sport claims that they started the negotiations for a 2025 seat), Ollie Bearman to Haas (he was already linked to the seat and according to our comms it was one of the worst kept secrets he had that seat reserved before the start of the season already, but after his amazing debut in Jeddah, he may have gotten the attention of some other - better - teams as well), Max Verstappen to Mercedes (Marko Helmut has been running his mouth to media - name ORL - about how he may be suspended for leaking internal information and Max followed by with saying he is linked to Marko so basically if he goes, he will follow him + Toto and Lewis spoke about how anyone would love to have him) and Guenther Steiner told Sky that Toto Wolff should consider Nico Hulkenberg for the Mercedes seat......

drivers have been shown the new track in Saudi - Qiddiya - that could appear in the calendar from 2027 by Alex Wurz himself (who co-designed it with Tilke) and they posted about it one after another as an ad for the gp (so there is no way you could have avoided it)

Mercedes may have more problems in the near future because their track data doesn't corelate well with sim data, so neither the engineers nor the drivers are sure how to evolve the package they have on their hands (they were 2nd slowest in high speeds after Alpine according to data) meaning that it is probably not a problem of their setup but rather the whole design

Felipe Massa sued FIA, F1 management and also Bernie Ecclestone over 2008 crashgate which cost him the title, he is asking for around 80 mil for the Singapore race not being nullified like it should (and Bernie because he said last year that he and Moss knew about the breach at the time but decided not to act on it in fear of it damaging F1 as a brand)

Jody Schecker is auctioning off some of his cars if you have a few millions to spare

we don't have an official update on Carlos, but according to Fred Vasseur he could even be ready to jump in the car by Australia (the decision will be made in accordance to the doctors and to how Carlos himself feels soon, probably next week)

Alessandro Bruni explained that Sauber is working on a fix for their pit stop issue, so it wouldn't repeat in the future

Alan Permane from RB team wants to talk to the FIA about Kevin Magnussen's unsportman like behaviour (mate he got 20s of penalties i think they are were aware he didn't race by the rules)

Ollie Bearman sat behind the wheel of Ferrari again as he tested F1-75 in Fiorano today

after the head of Bahrain mentioned they would want the gp on Saturday to be a permanent thing, the head of Saudi Arabian gp is now considering the same thing

Jack Doohan will participate in a special event during Australian GP to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his father's 1st Motorcycling World Championship win (Mick will also driver MotoGP Honda, so they will share a track)

after Otmar Szafnauer was fired from Alpine, he appeared at a Honda event and has also been linked to Andretti

lil summary of Jeddah 2024:

after the brake issues Charles experienced in Bahrain, the team started to investigate it, because they didn't experience this before and Jock Clear said they didn't get to the bottom of it yet with Brembo (the braking system manufacturer)

the sovereign wealth fund of Bahrain is apparently considering the sale of its share in McLaren

Andretti showed off their new HQ whoch features a hint towards F1 journey so it seems like they will try again to get into the sport

in F1, FP2 session was delayed for a drain cover in pit lane which had to be re-screwed to stay safe

Carlos felt sick all weekend and it was because of appenditic, he had to get his appendix taken out and Ollie Bearman from FDA jumped in his seat for the weekend - after already scoring a pole for the feature race in F2 (the rules prevent him to start in both, so he chose to take the chance in f1 and lose a chance to score points from the sprint and feature race in f2)

Lando jump started the gp but didn't get a penalty (because he stopped and didn't gain anything from it and was still inside the starting box, so the sensor for jump starting the race didn't qualify it as such)

Checo Perez scored his 8th penalty point in Jeddah (after he left the pit box while the red light was still on and was therefor unsafely released in front of Fernando) and is near a possible race ban if he gets to 12 before some of them expire

F1 Academy championship started and Doriane Pin absolutely dominated (she got double pole and double victory - although she got demoted to p9 after the second win for taking checkered flag twice) and not even this was a smooth ride, because they had to take two formation laps in the first race after the race control had a problem with the starting lights

fun facts and fan's point of view:

Ollie is the first driver in history to be on the grid with a driver - Fernando Alonso - who scored a championship when he was born

also important note i see nobody else speaking about, Ollie mentioned a point that is contradicting what Logan has been saying, which is that feeder series - namely F2 - prepares drivers well for stepping up into F1

Ollie also mentioned that before the race, he got a message from Seb as a good luck and it made him happy, because it's a driver he admires a lot

fun fact about Ollie's 2024 season so far: he has more points in F1 than he has in F2 currently

oh and since Lewis was there first to congratulate Ollie, he has been helping him out of the car after the demanding gp

Charles got himself a new Ferrari (and yes i thought it is his Pista because he got a similar customisation for this one)

Alex posted a photodump where he photoshopped Yuki (you need to see it)

Australian gp will have The Pride Hub ready for fans (in partnership with Racing Pride)

there was this long essay written on F1 and the way the rich world works called "Behind F1's velvet curtain" and the piece from Kate Wagner was taken down without a word although the writer was commisioned to write it and it looks like the highest figures and structures were included in the decision to take it down due to criticism of the sport (or more like the world of it)

Nico Rosberg made a new ad where he sings karaoke (he is never escaping the Britney allegations)

last note: Ollie has gotten so much support from other drivers and fans, it's beautiful to see (also his father David Bearman has been an absolute icon in the Ferrari garage the whole two days)

Charles met with an Italian singer Ultimo and signed his T-shirt

Oscar showed off his new helmet for his home gp and it's very pretty!!

#f1 #gossip night #e

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