#Lisbon earthquake

[rabbitcruiser]

The 6.4–7.1 Mw Lisbon earthquake killed about thirty thousand people on January 26, 1531.

[josephkravis]

XXX3 November 1

xxx3 November 1 November is a month of transformation and reflection, where the world around us undergoes significant change as we prepare for the winter months ahead. The days grow shorter, the air becomes crisp, and the trees shed their leaves, reminding us of the beauty of impermanence and the value of staying grounded in the present moment. In November, we gather together with family and…

[setaflow]

People in the comments of the Assassin's Creed: Shadows trailer becoming armchair historians trying to explain why Yasuke shouldn't be a protagonist actually are hilarious. Like besties this is a franchise where people can control eagles with their minds and a good 5% of the population are descended from evil psychic aliens. I THINK we can expand on a story of Japan's only-recorded African koshō without it jumping the shark.

[momo-de-avis]

Guess who is going to the Quake Museum tomorrow FOR FREE

[chaotic-history]

Anyway while I was writing the last post and the 'theres no point trying to reason why bad things happen because there is no reason' it made me think of Wootton's article and how he said V got better after writing Candide because it was his way of getting out emotions that he couldn't express otherwise and. fuck.

[trentxaa]

finally something to lower rent prices in lisbon (earthquake)

[liberty1776]

The earthquake that changed history – BBC REEL

[ibnnlahad]

when your card declines at therapy so they bring out the 1755 lisbon earthquake incident

[diqabun]

The reason why we have AC3 and Rogue

There was only one person who caused it. Can you imagine? And no, it wasn't Connor, and it wasn't Haytham, and it certainly wasn't Achilles. No. No one who appears in the main game is the reason we have AC3 and all the sad events there (not counting Washington and his bullshit).

The reason is Reginald Birch. Yes. He only appeared in the prologue of AC3 and the epilogue of AC4, but this man, despite his appearance for less than a minute, made the fandom suffer a lot. Haytham is a man broken by life, betrayed, and he sided with the enemy, but everything could have been different. To some extent, Ed is also to blame for letting Birch get close to him without checking him out properly.

If Edward had survived, then Haytham would have become an Assassin, and therefore there would have been no Rogue. Haytham would also have gone to the Colonies, joined the American Brotherhood, met all the Assassins from Rogue, and would have been able to convince Shay after the earthquake in Lisbon that he was not to blame for it. Haytham is a very persuasive and eloquent man, and he could have calmly talked to Cormac. And then he would not have become a Templar.

But what's done is done.

The Kenway family is the one I feel the most sorry for in the franchise, they are truly miserable.

[rabbitcruiser]

The 1761 Lisbon earthquake stroke off the Iberian Peninsula with an estimated magnitude of 8.5 on March 31, 1761.

[ishanijasmin]

alive alive

contemplating the living forces of nature, thinking about life beyond biology (the layperson's perspective)

i have been thinking a lot about how the earth is alive. maybe even how the world is alive. like, alive alive. the all-singing, all-dancing, moving, caressing, feeling, vibing atmosphere that we have all found ourselves in. the twinkle of the stars, the erosion of a cliff face, the coming and going of the seasons, the whip of the wind, the rise and fall of the sea, the trickle of a stream. so much of the earth is not what we regard as being alive, and i find it fundamentally unusual that we reserve the idea of life for things that manifest in a specific way. i’m not a biologist, and the science of the universe baffles me. but i don’t know how to stand at the edge of an ocean, my feet slowly being consumed by the waves, wet silt building slowly around my ankles to stabilise me, without thinking, ‘what is this, if not alive?’ what does the ocean do if not soothe? what do the cliffs do if not hold?

last week i took a boat trip to berlenga island, just off the coast of lisbon. i am always humbled by the ocean—by its vastness, and as someone for whom the titanic is always in mind, by its mercy. on the journey back to the hotel, i sat on the floating front of the prow of our little boat for a while and let my legs dangle, watching the waves, and it was as close as you can probably be to riding the sea.

as i got progressively more queasy, i followed the patterns for a long time, and i couldn’t really figure out which direction anything moved in, including myself. lost at sea, immeasurably. so later, i looked it up. did you know waves move in circles? you probably did. i didn’t. i have absolutely no idea how these natural processes work. if i were in an ancient civilisation, i would get hit by wind exactly one time before being like, ‘wow, this is witchcraft, i’m doomed.’ wind: caused by the varying pressures in the atmosphere? hot air rises and cold air rushes in? a mystery! feels plenty alive to me! why does it hit my face the way it does—why some days the gentle stroke of a breeze on my sweaty back in the summer, and others a force big enough to move oceans? why at the same time? lisbon is a particularly significant place to be thinking about this: a city plighted by earthquake, great fire, and tsunami in a matter of hours, and left to rebuild from the wreckage.

i’ve had this in over my head experience with windsurfing and paragliding, as well. the wind, never tamed, but understood by people who’ve been observing it for a lifetime and who still prefer to use modern technology to double check their voyages are safe. a respect and a fear instilled by regarding these changes around us as almost alive. almost.

it’s not that i don’t trust scientists when they explain simple geological concepts to me—i suppose it’s like intellectually knowing something rather than intrinsically knowing it deep, deep in your bones. how can you demystify that? how can the winds—the oceans, the lakes, the tectonic plates, the rock formations and volcanoes—how can they not be alive? they are growing, shrinking, subsisting and existing like all of us, not just to hold life as an ecosystem, but as motion in themselves—erosion, weathering, death and becoming.

i have been reading braiding sweetgrass of late, which is where a good deal of thinking about this comes from. in the book (at least the half of it i’ve read so far), kimmerer talks a lot about the reciprocity between people and land, and the idea that we are all alive and that the earth, the sky, the land and its processes are not a dead ‘it’ while we are an alive ‘they’. the earth is being all the time and so am i and so are we all, and it’s kind of hard to think about and also to not think about.

where am i with all this? breathing through the crushing feeling in my chest that has kept me company every day since i can remember; thinking about doing laundry, about growing a flower trail up the side of my apartment that the kids next door won’t prick themselves on, on getting rid of the fungus gnats that are plaguing a couple of my plants, about my husband who has a headache and is squinting, about recharging. the ecology and community of self is as alive as anything else. dwelling on the world and where we all fit into it and how to preserve ourselves and each other—the human each other, the animal each other, the plant each other, the tectonic plate rock formation beach gravestone church road brick wall limestone cliff fossilised shell firewood smelted and mined ring earthquake each other.

[momo-de-avis]

Bro we had an earthquake today and the news are all coming out with REMEMBER WHEN LISBON WAS FUCKING DESTROYED BY AN EARTHQUAKE? jesus

[chaotic-history]

I will die on this hill

[teecupangel]

Is it just me or would the Shay situation end very differently if it happened under a mentor that wasn't, well... Achilles? How do you think other leaders of the Brotherhood/Hidden Ones would have handled him? (Also: what would the Templars do because I can't see Shay getting flipped by, say, Garnier)

Don’t worry, it’s not just you. The very premise of Shay’s defection hinged on one important thing: miscommunication.

They handled this by making:

Shay be so traumatized by what happened in Lisbon that he had mistakenly concluded that the Brotherhood (Achilles) knew what the POE could do

Achilles being too indignant by all of Shay’s accusations that he didn’t bother to try and hear Shay out

Everyone (especially Liam who is meant to be Shay’s best friend and Hope who is meant to be close to him) sided with Achilles with unflinching loyalty instead of trying to get Shay’s side of the story

Perhaps it was meant to show how far the Brotherhood had fallen, that they had grown arrogant, but there is also the fact that, one of the voice lines when Shay is in the Morrigan with Liam, Shay and Liam talk about how Achilles had not been the same since the death of his wife and son. That was meant to hint that Achilles was not in the proper headspace to continue being their mentor. This does not excuse Achilles’ actions but it is an indication that the other Assassins (who are all meant to be observant) should have been more cautious of his orders.

Anyway, Imma end that rant there and focus on your question concerning how the other known mentors would have done in Achilles’ position.

Honestly? Any other mentor would have done better in Achilles’ place.

Altaïr is, well, Altaïr. He’s well-versed in the Apple so, if he didn’t have any idea of what the POE in Lisbon (and Haiti) could do, he would have believed Shay if he told him how the POE caused Lisbon’s earthquake. Not to mention, by the time he was the mentor, he would be thick-skinned enough that he wouldn’t be provoked by Shay’s shouting.

Ezio would know the danger of the POEs and would actually try to calm Shay down first. He wouldn’t have dismissed his claims and Ezio would have been observing all his ‘students’ enough that he knew something was wrong with Shay first and focus on calming him down first (sidebar: Ezio would definitely not have made Gaultier an Assassin as he would have seen how dangerously arrogant he is, his connections to the French be damn)

Ratonhnhaké:ton (technically he would have taken the mentor title the day Achilles died) would have not lost his cool with all of Shay’s accusations. He’d let Shay say his piece then order him to sit down and get Hope and Liam to calm him down, believing that Shay would have a hard time calming down if he was the one to do it since Shay believed that he knew what the POE could do and blame him for the earthquake. Once Shay is calmer, he would talk to him once more.

We have no confirmation that Arno, Evie and Jacob ever became the mentor of their specific Brotherhoods so I’m going to skip them, especially Arno as the Parisian Brotherhood did have a council instead of a mentor during his time.

Bayek would have tried to understand Shay since he had seen just how frightening the POEs could be. He does have a bit of a temper on him but that was mostly contained to when he was grieving Khemu’s death. By the time he was a mentor, he had moved passed Khemu’s death so he would be more level-headed at that point.

Aya would be similar to Bayek as well. Although we do not have any actual scenes where Aya had to be the one to deal with all the Isu BS, she does respect the gods so she wouldn’t dismiss Shay’s claims that a POE caused the earthquake.

Also, you know I believed a character has fucked up so badly when I say this: William Miles would have done a better job in keeping Shay from defecting. Sure, he failed with Lucy but that’s because Lucy had little interactions with the Assassins so her emotional and mental state couldn't be observed properly. Bill would have most definitely let Liam and Hope take care of Shay while he’s in that state, either because he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere if he was the one to talk to Shay or because he can’t be bothered to deal with Shay’s ‘tantrums’. Bill is cold and distant, making it easy for him to be logical. The only actual time he loses his cool is when Desmond calls him the same as a Templar but that has like... 25 years of unresolved familial issues and discontent all rolled up into one short fused bomb so yeah, Bill would have done a better job than Achilles because he’s a cold bastard.

Now, for the Templar side: let’s be clear, Shay wasn’t flipped by Haytham Kenway, he was flipped by George Monro. Haytham just finished the job when Monro died. Whether Monro’s kindness was an act to get Shay to the Templar’s side or not is irrelevant in this situation, what mattered was Monro’s actions towards Shay is the reason why it was ‘easy’ for Shay to change side. (Of course, being hunted down by people he trusted and the trauma of Lisbon definitely helped Monroe’s case)

So, if any Templar was to try and flip Shay, the one with the highest possibility of making him flip would actually be someone who has shown kindness, which is kinda hard to find since a lot of the Templars we’ve seen had been, well… aggressive douchebags. Someone like Monsieur de la Serre who has been characterized as both kind and more on the side of ‘we can find peace with the Assassins’ would work. If you want Shay to flip to the Templar side, you need someone kind or someone who would make Shay feel like he hasn’t done anything wrong, that the Templars just want to help.

In other words, either go for the kindness route like Monro or go for the ‘Project Siren’ route with someone like Lucy.

[geeneelee]

I feel like the Lisbon Earthquake should be taught more widely. It kneecapped the Portuguese empire and its colonial ambitions, it was so horrifying that it created a rift in Christian theology, it started seismology as a serious study in Europe, it razed an entire capital city to the ground killing 1/5 of its population.

It was a combination earthquake-tsunami-fire that took place on a major holiday. Cmon we should talk about this more it’s fucking wild

[rogaire]

I wrote a short Drabble set after Shay is shot at the homestead and before Monro and his troops find him. Why, you may ask? Because I like pain apparently jdn no but I wanted to incorporate in his story and make Shay lowkey meet the Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of war, death and rebirth because 1) his ship is named after her 2) there are just too many similarities between them that it is nearly as impossible to just ignore it!!!

If you know her myth then you know what this is about, but if you don’t, in some myths the Morrigan has taken the appearance of a crone and she appears in visions where she predicts the death of someone. In these visions she is seen washing by a river the clothes of the person that is soon destined to die. In Shay’s case, he doesn’t die physically, only symbolically, that’s why she is washing his Assassin’s clothes. 👀

Also, one of her many forms of manifestation is a red wolf, which also happens to the design of Shay’s ship sails. 😏

Anyways I am placing this under a read more because this is kinda long asdwk

Trigger Warning for Blood, PTSD, drowning, parent death mention.

All those souls lost…one more hardly matters.

A never-ending darkness surrounded him.

There was no sound, no light, no pain. His whole body felt numb. The only rumor was the insistent throbbing in his ears.

But the sweet embrace of death wouldn't yet come for him. Perhaps that was God's punishment for a Traitor. That was what he was, someone that had turned his back on his friends, and hell was the only place for people like him. But there was no light or flames around him, only the void.

He did not know how long it took him to regain consciousness, but when he did, all that numbness suddenly turned into unbearable pain. He felt as if his entire body was being stabbed with millions of knives.

He tried to move, but his limbs felt detached from him, and he felt himself being dragged even more deeper in the depths of the ocean.

But, even weakened as he was, he had no intention of giving up so easily. It was too late for his father, but it wasn’t for him. Adrenaline kicked in and he flailed, screamed even, this until he eventually managed to reach the surface of the water.

However, the fight for his life had just started.

Waves came crashing from all directions, taking the breath out of him and nearly making him drown. But he held on, kept moving his arms, and tried his best to fight the dizziness that threatened to overcome him. Suddenly he hit a rock, hard, and gasped, water invading his lungs. The last thing he saw was the manuscript floating in front of him.

—

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a meadow.

He recalls having been here before, during one of his voyages with his father. He always used to tell him about Ireland's green fields, but this place was everything but heavenly. It looked like a battle had just occurred here.

Men lay dead everywhere, their blood soaking the soil, their bodies feast for crows and wolves.

Shay walked though them, not looking back. Death was a natural part of life, and he knew those soldiers had given their lives to protect the cause they believed in.

He arrived by a river where there was an old woman busy washing clothes. He approached her, hoping that she would tell him where he was, but once closer he realized, quite shockingly, whose clothes she was cleaning. Those were his Assassin's robes. But that wasn’t the detail that shocked him the most. His clothes were drenched in blood, the river’s water turning crimson as the woman kept soaking his robes.

Instinctively, Shay glanced at his hands, and he found these too covered in blood. He knew whose blood it was. All those people in Lisbon had died because of him, their lives broken for human greed, the Assassins greed, but he was the murderer, the person that had triggered the earthquake, and he knew that their souls will torment him for eternity.

Realization hit him then, making his stomach drop.

‘’ I’m dead, aren’t I? ‘’ The words that left his lips weren't meant as a question, they were more a statement.

The woman's eyes turned to him, and if there was anything he was certain of at the moment, was that her gaze will remain imprinted in his soul forever. Her voice echoed in his mind.

‘’ Rebirth is coming, but the storm’s not over yet. ‘’

__

The sound of waves crashing ashore was the first thing he heard when he opened his eyes. He was laying on a hard surface now, face down and soaked to his bones.

He couldn’t make sense of his surroundings, but all he knew was that he had somehow managed to grab the manuscript before it could get lost in the Atlantic, and that he was now holding it in a vice-like grip as if his life depended on it. It did–and not only his life.

He moved his head, and far in the distance he noticed a wolf looking at him. Its fur was red, and Shay could not help but think how that was such a beautiful contrast among the snow. Its stare, however, sent chills down his spine, much like it did the woman in his dream, or perhaps could just be the cold’s doing…

But he had no more fight left in him, so if his body was destined to be a feast for wolves, then so be it.

He let his eyes drift closed and let the darkness embrace him.